39

“Are you a prostitute?” A beautiful, Latina with long straight hair in a single ponytail asked me. Her brown eyes glowed in the dull, cramped holding cell. She reminded me of girls I stripped with back in SF when I was a bald, lesbian, feminist with a pierced septum, ready to take down the patriarchy with my boring, self-righteous anger. This girl was barely eighteen.

“Do I look like a prostitute?” I was sitting on a metal bench, squished between two women, knee to knee.

“There are five black women, a Hispanic woman, and you. You’re a prostitute,” she said. She turned around, hopped up on a ledge, and looked out the tiny window, then back to me. I nodded.

“Why are you a prostitute?” she asked. Her voice just above a whisper. I chewed my lip. Looked up at her.

“That’s a good question,” I said. If she were Andrea Dworkin, she would accuse me of being a brainwashed drone of the patriarchy, succumbing to the violence against women. But I’d never thought of myself as a prostitute. Until now.

I’d never been a streetwalker or even a call girl; never worked for an agency or Madame. I’d made a choice in my early twenties. Unlike many young women, I wasn’t forced by a pimp. I hadn’t been sold into sex slavery by my family. I had chosen to fuck once or twice for money—but had also chosen to stop. I’d scaled back to handjobs only. So I didn’t feel deserving of that label. Sex worker, yes. Prostitute, no.

Was there a difference? I remember thinking, If I smoked crack a couple times, does that make me a crackhead? But crackheads are helpless. I was not helpless.

Until now.

The girl looked sorry for me, or disgusted. She shrugged and looked away.

There was a loud buzz. The door was released. A muscular butch with one very long braid walked in and hugged my gorgeous Latina cellmate. They kissed and the cell began to heat up. The lovers had been in a bar fight and were covered in pepper spray.

My throat itched. The rest of the women coughed and put their heads between their knees for air. One drunk girl squatted on the toilet and threw a used Maxi pad across the cell. She laughed as it hit the wall and slid down.

The black girls who were busted for prostitution told me to request O.R. This meant I’d never been arrested before and could perhaps be released without bail. They settled in, knew the ropes, and followed procedure. One made a call for me to ask about my release.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “They may keep you all weekend.” She rested her head on my lap and feel asleep.

Hours later, we were escorted upstairs and told to stand against a wall. The light was a dead yellow. We were handed scratchy blankets, which were more like tarps. The jailers snatched my black tights and stuck them in a Ziploc bag, to prevent me from strangling myself with them. I was buzzed into another cell where a woman was asleep in the lower bunk. Her clear stripper shoes—exactly like ones I owned and danced in—were on the floor below her.

I climbed onto the top bunk where, on the wall, someone had scribbled the words “I love you, Mom.”

Fuck. Of course I get the bunk where someone scratched “I love you, Mom” in glitter nail polish. Why couldn’t I have gotten dad? Or just a pimp’s name like “I love Rico My Baby Daddy Forever.” No, it said Mom, and now I had no choice but to sit here and think about her. I wanted my mother. She had been dead for a year.

The only light was through a mail-like slot that looked into the center of a room. All I could see was a pay phone and women in line for showers. Over a loudspeaker, names were called for court, but not mine. I heard other sounds: the yelling, buzzing, coughing, and lights snapping on and off. No way could I sleep here. I bolted up and went to the door. Pounded against it. I found a buzzer above the toilet. I held my fist on it. My breaths were shallow.

“Guess you’re staying all weekend too,” my cellmate said from her bunk.

“No,” I said. I sunk down near her dirty stripper shoes, ashamed at what I had become. Helpless.