RELATIONSHIPS

I Guess He Didn’t Just Have to Pee

What do you say when you see your friend’s hubby bookin’ it into a porno establishment?

I worked in D.C.’s Dirty Dancing District for a few years.

No, I didn’t strip, nor did I know anyone who was familiar with “pole” work. And as far as solicitation of any kind was concerned, I wasn’t interested.

I did walk by some fairly sketchy establishments on my way to and from the nearby subway stop, though, and became pretty familiar with the landscape of 14th Street NW, running from near the White House several blocks north to Thomas Circle.

When I was on the late shift at The Washington Post, Moker would pick me up. I got off around midnight, and when I walked out to his car, it was always a sure bet that two or three Ladies of the Night would be hanging off his wheels, trying to engage him in a “good time”.

It was a pretty pro forma deal. I’d get in the passenger side. Moker would wave goodbye to the gals who wanted to entice him, and I’d ride shotgun the 20 minutes or so it took to get home to our Victorian row house on Capitol Hill.

When I first started working near the heart of 14th Street, I turned a few heads at backyard barbecues.

“Are you scared?”

“What do they look like up close?”

“You don’t carry any valuables with you when you’re walking from the Metro, do you?”

“Remember — if someone tries to jump you, just scream bloody murder. There are tons of undercover cops down there!”

The best advice, though, came from the wife of one of Moker’s business associates. We’d been invited to dinner out in the suburbs, and I was helping in the kitchen before the hostess brought out dessert.

“There’s really nothing to be worried about,” she said, as she stacked small china plates on the counter. “They’re people, just like us. Plus, they’re not gonna want anything from you.” I liked that attitude immensely.

Judge not, that ye not be judged. There’s something in the Bible for everyone, I reckon.

She was right. I wasn’t interested in buying what they were selling.

I’d walk up 14th Street from the Metro on the way to work, and the “Working Girls” — as they were known — just walked on by. I’d get an occasional smile from an overdressed — and sadly, entirely too young — woman as she hitched up her ultra-short mini-skirt and tugged at her pink patent leather boots. Every so often someone passing me on the sidewalk would flip a feather boa over a scantily clad shoulder and holler, “hey”.

But those were just friendly greetings. They knew I was a Working Girl, too — just a girl, for sure, involved in a different kind of labor.

I learned the lay of the land pretty quickly. The territory was divvied up according to interest.

The girls who liked guys congregated on one street corner, pretty early in the day, sometimes 4 or 5 p.m. just as office buildings emptied onto the street. The transvestites, cross-dressers, and others who just wanted a different kind of thrill took the other corner.

The onlookers — businessmen and women, and more than a few tourists — often lined the route to ogle. And if one had to make an emergency pit stop when Mother Nature called? The Californian Steak House — a hybrid business featuring dinner, go-go dancers and often strippers — was happy to oblige. Their bathrooms were clean, and nobody hassled a Working Girl — me or those with more flamboyant adornments — who needed to use the loo.

The hurly burly of what once was a pretty active D.C. porno circuit died out about 30 years ago.

I heard the Californian Steak House changed ownership a few times, and one guy tried to make an honest living by running a legit dining establishment. But D.C.’s real estate landscape changed. A lot of those businesses that kept 14th Street humming 24/7 and the Metropolitan Police Department’s Vice Squad hopping in the ’70s and ’80s went online in the ’90s.

Outfits like Ashley Madison replaced the Working Girls who cruised for Johns. I guess you can still find folks who strip in the D.C. area, but they’ve long moved out of high-priced downtown. Porno flicks stream online. And heck, you can buy dirty books on Amazon from my bestie, Jeff Bezos — who even owns The Washington Post now — so why take up valuable space with a seedy bookstore?

When Moker left town on a business trip, he’d miss the late-night visits of the 14th Street streetwalkers brigade.

One day I drove myself to work, and looked forward to cruising home after running the gauntlet of D.C.’s underground nightlife.

I got off a tad early that night. Wheeled out of the parking garage and into the scrum of humanity looking for a good time. I stopped at a light, right out front of one of those establishments that Jeff Bezos would eventually subsume into his burgeoning empire.

I looked left, and almost lost my you-know-what.

Remember the tolerant suburban hostess — the one who wanted us all just to get along? Well, that night I got an eyeful that she might not have wanted to see.

Her husband — the one who did business with mine, and who hosted backyard barbecues and bragged on his kids’ accomplishments while wearing a “Don’t Blame Me — Dad’s the Chef” apron, was at that very moment leaving the Californian Steak House.

I guess I could have given him a break — maybe he had to pee? But it was midnight, and he was far from his backyard in the D.C. burbs.

He made a right, and stopped on 14th Street for a quick sec — before walking into a dirty bookstore. One whose shelves, I wagered, hadn’t been cleaned since…well, you get the picture.

I never told his wife. But bet he procures his reading material on Amazon now.