Whoring on the Cheap

I've been riding the 15 and 15L east Colfax buses in Denver pretty much every day for almost three months now, and I've seen a lot of things. In the back of the bus, it's not unusual for people to pass around bottles of beer or whiskey. One sad SoB gets on the bus every day with a big can of Milwaukee's Best in a brown paper bag. He drinks the beer over about the first half of the ride, then passes out from the alcohol. Kissing, fondling, fighting, it's all pretty standard fare, and almost none of it gets you kicked off.

Nor, apparently, does picking up a prostitute. Actually, the guy had picked her up before they got on the bus together to ride to the motel or whatever. How do I know she was a working girl? Well, I don't know, but she wore the uniform: short, stretchy, red skirt (slightly worn), big hoop earrings, heavy face makeup, runny black tights, and very high heels. I've seen her around before, and this seems to be her normal outfit. She also hangs around a lot outside of Kitty's East.

But this is the first time I've seen her with a john. He was a big guy, call him John Candy. The two of them got on the bus, and John sits down in the last available seat, letting this little girl, who looked like she was barely legal at best and lived on a diet of meth and menthols, stand. Then a gentleman offered her a seat next to John, which she took. The two of them rode together in absolute silence, not making eye contact, like a weird parallel dimension version of The Graduate, for about 15 minutes. Then she stood, told him the next stop was theirs, and they got off.

Weird.