note to self, read threads with Wang-Ka as OP.
Director’s cut? Nah. I was editing as I went along, weighing details, wondering if the humor and interest value of any given detail outweighed the drag value it gave the thrust of the story, if you follow my meaning.
Lots of weird and interesting things happened that night, but you’ve already seen the gist of it.
I’m kind of tempted to post the story that REMINDED me of this story, that ultimately led to my writing THIS one down (a couple of years after the Boys Town incident, while I was in college, a hooker in downtown Houston took a shot at me, due to a friend of mine being an idiot), but that one ran thirty pages, typewritten, so I don’t think I wanna hook up an OP quite that long…
Someday, I have GOT to learn to keep it short.
Wang-Ka, seriously, get an editor. That’s what they do. You just let it all flow out, then get the editor to help you, well, edit it.
Enjoy,
Steven
A hooker took a shot at you? Is that a euphemism for a pass, or did the hooker use a gun? (I won’t say “she” because that would be assuming too much with street hookers.)
I’ll host the story on my webpages if you want to post. Please do tell…
(Excerpted from “Tales From The Doc Side,” self-published)
The year was 1983. Friend of mine, Rocket Boy, was from Houston, and people from Houston have to go back there periodically, to reassure themselves that civilization still exists. The previous weekend, we’d gone to my parents’ place out in the boondocks where I grew up, and poor old Rocket could not believe that people would voluntarily live there. It was so… DARK … at night. And there were BUGS! I don’t think Rocket had ever seen a bug in his life that wasn’t a mosquito or a cockroach. He just wasn’t equipped for the occasional scorpion or the March Of The Tarantulas, which happens whenever it rains and the spiders get washed out of their holes and go hunting for new ones… all at once.
So, the following weekend, he took it upon himself to show me how the other half lived. We went to Houston, and he took me on a driving tour of the city. I learned a lot about the place… mostly where to buy drugs, where to get booze if you were underage, where all the cool people hung out, where all the gay people hung out, where all the junkies hung out, where Vice President George Bush hung out, when he was in town…
…and, in the Fourth Ward, where hookers could be found in herds. I was fascinated. I’d seen hookers before, but not like this. Hookers in Mexico tended to go for the Pollyanna look as much as possible. These, on the other hand, seemed to be trying out for roles in some R-rated version of Starsky And Hutch.
“Wanna stop?” leered Rocket.
“Hell, no,” I said.
“Watch this,” chuckled Rocket. He slowed down briefly. This one hooker on the street corner, in feather boa, spangled tube top, and hot pants, jerked her head up and began to approach. Rocket took his foot off the brake, and drove on. He turned right, then right again, and we went around the block. We checked out the hooker again on the second pass, driving more slowly this time. She smiled and wiggled her various money makers for us. I didn’t know anything about pimps at the time, and I pondered how much money she might make, and whether or not she dressed like that out of a total lack of taste, a desire to show off the merchandise, or a complete lack of funds.
Rocket drove on, turned right again, and we rounded the block again.
“You are NOT going to stop this car, man,” I said.
“Naw, naw,” he chuckled, “but she thinks we might. Let’s see what she does. Maybe she’ll take her top off.”
We cruised past her again. This time, she ran after us – as best she could run on three-inch cork-platform shoes – and cried, “Hey, baby, wanna date?”
I goggled. Did hookers actually TALK like that outside of bad TV and movies?
Rocket about choked to death, laughing. He turned right, and right again, and we left the hooker behind. “Bet you five she flashes us on the next rotation.”
“Man, this is not a good idea. We’re gonna piss her off.” I had little experience with hookers, you see… but I had some knowledge of what a pissed-off hooker is capable of.
“And she’ll do what?” laughed Rocket, as we turned right again, back onto the street with her on it. This time, he took it slow and easy…
She was still where she’d been when we turned the corner. She smiled big. Rocket slowed almost to a stop. “Goddamnit,” I said, locking my door, “if she jumps in the fuckin’ window, dude, I’m–”
–and just as we passed her, he leaned on the gas, and we sped away. Rocket laughed harder. “Bet you she shows her tits on the NEXT go-round–”
–and WHACK, that was when the back window exploded.
I didn’t hear the first gunshot, but I heard the second, clearly enough. “DRIVE, YOU STUPID–”
–WHACK, again.
I hadn’t needed to tell him. He floored it, and we were gone. He took a corner going WAY too fast, so as to get us out of her line of fire, and I don’t think he slowed below forty until we were in the best part of town he could find. And then, he parked the car and sat there, vibrating and jabbering, “Man, I can’t believe this shit, I can’t believe this shit,” over and over again.
When my heart slowed down to subsonic speeds, I got out of the car and checked the back window. Intact, oddly enough, although the shot had starred the glass pretty badly. Small caliber handgun, obviously. Made me wonder if she actually used the thing on johns, or just on stupid college kids to teach 'em a lesson.
“Jesus!” shouted Rocket. “How can you just sit there and talk about that shit! Crazy bitch tried to KILL US!!!”
“She wasn’t trying to kill us,” I said. “Gun couldn’t have been bigger’n a .38, more likely a .22, and you can’t stop a car with that. She was tired of bein’ jerked around, that’s all.” It occurred to me that we’d probably looked pretty comical, peeling out, tearing out of there and taking that corner on two wheels. She’d probably had a good laugh. And the thought made me chuckle, too.
Rocket just looked at me like I’d grown another pair of eyes all of a sudden. “Man,” he said, “how the hell can you just sit there like nothin’ happened?”
“Well,” I said, “for one, I was scared shitless, but she’s miles away by now. Secondly, she wasn’t really tryin’ to kill us, and I know that now. Thirdly… well… it just doesn’t scare you as bad, after the first time.”
Rocket looked at me as if I’d grown a pair of antennae to go with the extra eyes. “You sayin’ this isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill you?”
“Um,” I said. “Well… she wasn’t really tryin’ to kill us, man. And… um… well… therein hangs a tale…”
March of … the … tarantulas?
I couldn’t read the rest of that story. I was too horrified by the idea of waves of tarantulas pouring across open fields whenever it rains.
Sweet zombie jesus, if I lived there, I’d never leave the house without a flamethrower.
Oh, it’s all right.
It only happens in the open chaparral, really. Almost never in town.
And it only rains about four inches a year, anyway, and usually all at the same time. Plenty of time to close all the windows and pull on your hip waders, and find the golf clubs… 
Fore! No, sorry! EIGHT!
Enjoy,
Steven
Great story! If I may sugget alternate titles:
“Attack Hooker in Boys Town”
“Attack of the Vintage Vixen”
“Now, Rocket - don’t go teasing the hookers!”
Tell me this character eventually got killed doing something profoundly stupid, and his last facial expression was one of astonishment…
Um… no.
The rest of the story actually doesn’t revolve around hookers at all. It’s the story of how Loopy’s girlfriend’s father tried to shoot Weeble and I, due to a rather convoluted chain of events.
The events involving Rocket Boy, an old college chum, occur as a wraparound. They are NOT the main story.
But they do involve an armed attack hooker, and folks seemed to want to hear it, so I stuck it in here…
Oh, and aside from that one event, I don’t think anyone ever tried to kill Rocket Boy.
Except maybe for his ex-wife, some decade or so later, but I wasn’t there for that one…
Wang-Ka, you have the makings of great book there…