city life in retrospection.

she was a ten dollar hooker. a girl without a name, sitting on the curb of a strip mall, blazing with flickering red neon lights. the electric drone of the chemical light mixed with the dead air, and stagnated somewhere with the sound of cars on the busy street, stained with oil and dirt. a cacophony of sleazy city instruments. the light played on her hair and was suggestive of Walmart dye jobs. a box set marked half off sticker price because it was discontinued. but she didn't care. cover up the past and wash it down the drain. that's what her life was. she wished she could be half as happy as the girls on those boxes. she pulled at the thin jean jacket she had on. her shoes were untied, and her shirt was a size too small. but the air was warm enough not to sting. and that's all that mattered to her. an old woman walked down the sidewalk. she carried a brown paper bag of groceries, with a slight tear on one side. she wasn't in a hurry, but it was 9:45 and she didn't like to be in this part of town after dark. her lips were a thin line of drugstore red lipstick, bright and unnatural, it was slightly smeared on one side. you could see the wrinkles that graced her mouth from smiling so often in her youth, and they kissed at the sides of her eyes softly. she held cigarettes in her left hand, and a book of matches was visible from the lid of the carton. she wore a bright flower print that was almost obnoxious against this setting. she deserves to be somewhere other than here. somewhere else. she handed the hooker a generous amount of cash with a kind smile and a "Jesus saves." the hooker gladly took the money, but muttered under her breath that God didn't exist. "where was He last night then?" the old woman dropped her keys, but the hooker did not offer any help as she left her place on the curb and walked on. there was a man in the alleyway, his face would lighten and darken simultaneously with the sign in the dry cleaner's window. he was smoking a cigarette and watching a young woman in the laundromat across the street as she folded her clothes. she seemed to be deep in thought as she folded her perfectly white shirt into a clean square under the bright florescent lights. her face seemed pensive, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips slightly pursed, though otherwise she was quite beautiful and gentle in countenance. he smoked slowly and admired her youthful shape. she was just worrying over her college exams while her blue jeans dried. the man was fingering a dime in his pocket, wondering if he should offer it to her because her machine ran out of coin but her clothes were left still damp. the hooker walked down the alleyway, hoping that her luck would change soon or she would be left out of an apartment with no where to go. work was slow, but the man who wanted the rent wasn't so languid. she wished she didn't waste all of her time on men who only pretended to care, and left her for dead. at least for a few minutes each night she could pretend one of them actually cared about her. she asked the man for some money to buy some groceries. she told him she hadn't eaten in days. but she knew that she had enough money in her pocket to feed herself. food was not what she really wanted. he told her he didn't have any cash, but instead offered her a small package. more drugs. she excepted and told him with a cheap smile she would repay him, but he wasn't looking for her kind of currency. the old woman listened to a gospel radio station as she drove home. the man walked to the laundromat, but realized later that the young woman had gone. she went home with her clean clothes smelling of mint chewing gum and fabric softener. the hooker returned to her perch on the curb of the strip mall, on the dusty sidewalk where many have walked day after day. where she sits night after night, hoping someone will care enough to take her home, scanning the expanse of the littered parking lot for an honest escape. she looked like at one time she might have been someone. and wrinkles softly kissed her eyes.