Taming a Sea Horse

7

We were in a place on Seventh Avenue called Freddy's, sitting at the bar. Ginger was drinking a Tequila Sunrise.

"Robert doesn't check me during the day," Ginger said. "He has an idea how much I should average, I don't come up with it and he gets sort of nasty."

I had a draft beer. I took a small sip. It was only two in the afternoon. I had a long day ahead.

"So he don't care. I'll give him a nice take for today. He don't care if I earn it fucking or talking."

"Except about him," I said.

Ginger's eyes got rounder and she stared at me. "He won't know that," she said.

"Not from me," I said.

She drank some more of her drink, and looked at the bartender. He nodded and brought her another one.

"He can be awful mean," Ginger said.

"Musicians are sensitive," I said. "They're easily upset."

"Shit," Ginger said. There was a big purple bruise on her upper right arm. But she had that kind of pale northern European skin that bruises easily and she may have earned the bruise in plying her trade.

"You like this work, Ginger?"

She laughed silently. "You from Social Services?"

"So it's a corny question. I still want to know. You like the work?"

Ginger examined the surface tension on her Tequila Sunrise. She took a deep breath, and let it out. "I used to," she said. "I'd turn maybe ten tricks a day. Okay guys. Clean. Wives out in the suburbs. No trouble."

"Good money?"

"Yeah, great. Fifty to a hundred thousand a year. A lot of the tricks were party stuff. Guy wanted to get it on with two of us. Guy wanted to do some coke, drink some booze." She motioned to the bartender for another Sunrise. "Sometimes they'd get so blown away they couldn't even get it up." The bartender brought the drink. I stayed with my beer, a sip at a time. "Lot of them couldn't get it up even sober. Want to watch a couple of girls french each other. So okay, fine with me. Dough's the same whatever I'm eating, you know?" Ginger finished her drink and picked up the new one. The bar was quiet in the midafternoon, dark and cool and full of the dull gleam of bottles and mahogany and brass and Naugahyde.

"You got a cigarette?" Ginger said.

"No, but I can buy some."

"Yeah. Marlboros in a box."

The bartender gave us the cigarettes. Ginger took one out. The bartender lit it for her and left the matches. Ginger took a long drag. "I only smoke when I'm drinking," she said.

"It might be nice with something cool," I said.

She nodded, looking past me toward the window where the light from Seventh Avenue filtered through the tinted glass.

"A lot of them like to be chained," she said. "They'd crawl around and bark like a dog and get off in their pants." Ginger snorted a humorless kind of snort. "Assholes," she said. "They'd want you to spank them." She shook her head, listening to herself talk. Not paying me much attention. "Not many good bodies. Mostly fat, white, lot of them had hairy backs." She looked at me. "You probably got a good body," she said.

"Schwarzenegger," I said. "Think Arnold Schwarzenegger."

"You scared hell out of those two spick kids," she said.

"You still like the work?" I said.

"It's work," she said. "What the hell else can I do?"

"Tend bar," I said.

"Big deal. Slopping drinks to a bunch of fucking lushes. At least I got someone looking out for me. Who looks out for you when you tend bar?"

I shook my head. "Robert's looking out for you?"

She laughed again. "He's looking out for him."

"So how much is he looking out for you?"

"He needs me. He takes care of business."

"If you tended bar," I said, "I suppose you'd have to look out for yourself. You and the union."

"That shit's okay if you're a man," Ginger said.

I nodded. A middle-aged man came into the bar wearing brand-new cowboy boots, and Sergio Valente jeans, with his hair blow-dried and his shirt collar carefully smoothed out over the lapels of his suede sport coat. His wife's jeans were tucked into her boots. The jeans were too tight and plainly revealed the spandex undergarment that compressed her butt. The mass of black hair piled on her head seemed to dwarf her face. Visitors in the big city. Up from Orlando, maybe. Or in from Wilkes-Barre, or Worcester.

"What did you do before you started hooking?" I said.

"Nothing." Ginger made a kind of shivery motion. "How come you want to know all this shit?"

"I don't know much about whores and this kid I'm interested in is one. I thought I'd better inform myself."

"Why don't you ask her?"

"She doesn't know what you know," I said.

"She will."

"Maybe not," I said.

"You gonna save her?"

"Maybe," I said.

Ginger laughed her joyless laugh. "Why?" she said.

"Why not?"

"You gonna save me?"

"Maybe," I said.

Ginger was still for a moment. Then she said, "Shit," and drank her Tequila Sunrise.