Photos by John HoffIt was early May, a few days before Navy SEALS killed Osama Bin Laden, and the prostitutes were getting annoyingly common on Penn Avenue.
It wasn't even the heat of summer, yet, but the hookers were as thick as Nutella...
I was driving somewhere with Megan when we spotted one, and we pulled up to call police. We've learned that street walkers will mostly ignore a car facing AWAY from them, but you can watch them just fine in the rear view mirror. In fact, I've actually managed to snap their pictures in the mirror, creating an imperfect but highly malleable image that can be edited with my MacBook.
We called in her description to the cops: light skinned, thin build, dark jacket and distinctive aqua blue sweats. I was a bit worried this (suspected) hooker might actually be a police decoy: she wasn't as old, fat and cracked out as most of the Penn Avenue hookers. While we waited for the cops to show up, the (suspected) hooker got in a silver Acura, license plate SEK 289.
We followed.
It was only a couple years ago when, if I was following a john with a hooker in the car, the police dispatcher would tell me to break off the chase. They don't do that any more. Now we call in the location of the car, street by street. It's hard to keep our laughter to a dull roar as we speculate what kind of verbal freak out must be taking place inside the vehicle.
On this day, the Acura took a long, indirect route and pulled up in front of St. Anne's, where the ('spected) working girl exited the vehicle and began walking away, rapidly, but paused to cast a long sour look in Megan's direction. Megan--who doesn't even blink at tornadoes, let alone hookers--rolled down her window and said, "Tell your little street walker friends we're watching and taking pictures and putting everything on the internet."
"I wasn't prostituting myself!" the young woman replied, without a trace of moral outrage at the accusation.
Megan stepped on the gas and followed the Acura all the way to Robbinsdale, where it tried to lose us in side streets so, rather than let things get hairy, we broke off the chase.
A good time was had by all...except the suspected john and his date for the evening, though it was a VERY short date.
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ReplyDeleteJohn, remember this is the gal that we spotted on our way home because she was doing freaking JUMPING JACKS to get her customers attention on the next street over. Jumping around and waving her arms like she was trying to flag down a rescue plane on a deserted island or something.
ReplyDeleteSubtle. Real subtle this gal was. /sarcasm font
"Signaling that the LZ was clear for medevac" was the way we phrased it at the time, I believe...
ReplyDeleteWhat's amazing is that she saw us but waved the driver over ANYWAY. Plenty of trouble she made for HIM and his license plate, that's for sure.