Of all the Hookers on your block, Charlene is your favorite. The others are too busy looking for Johns or worrying about the cops to pay attention to you, but Charlene always takes notice of you when you come home at night. Unless she’s leaning inside a stranger’s car trying to make a sale, she’ll be sure to give you a snappy remark or quip that is infused with the wisdom of the streets. You’ll never forget all the clever truisms she’s given you over the years:
“If you get hit by a car, try to find someone who’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Hey sugar. Don’t eat uncooked chicken. It’ll make you sick.”
“What’s up stud? If you have a lot of money, keep it in the bank. They’ll give you interest.”
You always nod and reply with a “You got it Charlene, have a good night!” Then you head upstairs and put your head on your pillow to think about what Charlene said to you.
Tonight you’ll come walking home and you’ll be excited to see Charlene unoccupied. You’ve been feeling a little lost lately and you could use some good advice. When Charlene sees you, she spreads her smile wide and shows you those beautiful white teeth of hers.
“Hey Charlene,” you say.
“Hey handsome,” Charlene says back. “You know what they say don’t you?”
“What’s that Charlene?”
“No matter how much you want to drive a car, you need to get a license first. It’s illegal otherwise. You can still do it without a license, but if you got pulled over, you could get into a lot of trouble. Unless you could convince the policeman that you were on your way to an emergency or something, but that’d be pretty hard to pull off.”
You stay right where you are and you let those words of Charlene’s sink in. Your head is swimming and you can’t help it. As embarrassing as it is in front of all those hookers and all those Johns, Charlene’s words make you just drop to your knees and sob. Charlene rubs your shoulder gently with one hand while you cry before her. Then she tells you to “Get up and do what you gotta do.”
You wipe your tears away and you nod. Then you go upstairs. You turn on that television. And you watch a rerun of “King of Queens.” As you watch, you think to yourself, “Charlene was right. You really can’t drive a car unless you get a license first because it’s illegal otherwise. You can still do it without a license, but if you get pulled over you could get into a lot of trouble. You could try to convince the policeman you had an emergency, but that’s hard.”
You keep watching “King of Queens,” all the while thinking to yourself, “Thank you Charlene. Thank you.”
PS: Take a break from pre-ordering my book to pre-order Rebecca Barry's LATER, AT THE BAR, a fantastic book of fiction about upstate New York drunks, out next week in paperback. It's Girls Are Pretty Approved!
