I saw her and couldn't help put think, "Statistic." She was young. I'm not good with age, but I put her at 16. Meth and who-knows-what abuse had been unkind to her face. She had those lovely sores that you see meth addicts get. She was dressed as to be expected for someone selling sex. Her body was unsteady on the high heels that didn't fit her feet quite right.
Statistic.
She looked at me when I drove by. Searching eyes. Pleading eyes. A twenty and I take your stress away. Fifty and you can use the car lighter on my nipples. That's what I pictured her terms to be.
She was a prostitute in Eureka, and I pictured she'd soon be dead.
Sometimes hookers end up dead here. This one looked just inexperienced enough to make one of those beginner mistakes where everything begins all smiles and ends with hands around her throat. I wanted to pull over and give her some money just to get the hell off the streets, but I could picture having a cop pull up at just that moment. It wasn't worth it.
I've watched the news. Waiting to see if a body has been dragged out of the woods or found by someone walking their dog on the dunes. There would be no reports of her missing. KIEM, our NBC affiliate, doesn't report on missing street walking panthers. It reports on arrested ones, dead ones.
I don't travel on the street I saw her on much. One more time since then. I didn't see her, though, but I didn't expect to. My hope is that she got in some guy's pick-up truck, gave her rates, saw the tip of a knife under his seat and got scared and took off. Now, with the aid of family and her previous school, she is in rehab and getting the help she needs to get the crap out of her system. That's my hope. The reality is quite different. If she's lucky, she's still turning tricks and stocking up on free condoms when she can. The reality of it, though, is probably far more sinister.
Statistic.
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