Damaged Goods
I used to drive a van around New York City picking up hookers.
Um, that doesn’t sound right…let me clarify. Senior year in college (1989), a fellow student hooked me up as the paid driver of van for a study that monitored the prevalence of HIV among street prostitutes in New York City (these were the days before the PC term 'sex worker'). Essentially, an HIV counselor, phlebotomist (both women), and I would cruise some of the nastier neighborhoods in the Big Apple for fresh blood: Hunts Point in the Bronx; projects near Coney Island Hospital (we’d always stop by the original Nathan’s afterwards); a no man’s land on 3rd Avenue between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge under the BQE; Park Avenue in Harlem under the New Haven line elevated tracks; 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth, and the meat market in the West Village. We’d pay the women $10 or $15 bucks (whatever the going rate was for oral sex) for a vial of their blood, ask them some questions about their condom use and sexual practices, provide them with referrals for shelter, health care, drug rehab, etc., and send them back out into the mean night with a fistfull of rubbers.
On the flip side, we were no hassle, easy money for drugs (crack, really), and a bit of warmth from the van's heater on some cold winter nights. And god knows that all of these women needed some relief from their circumstances. These ladies were on the lowest rung of prostitution –- all headed for early deaths from AIDS, drugs, or violence. (I’d be really shocked if many of the women we encountered were still alive today.) Needless to say, these were not expensive call girls, or the cartoonish pimp-ruled hookers done up in thigh-high stiletto boots, g-strings and fluorescent-neon spandex tube-tops. More like grungy, gaunt, junkie shadows of their former lives.
Eventually, we all came to realize that the numbers for this study were going to be flawed. At least one other team besides ours went out to collect samples, and we only relied on an ever-growing computer generated list of participants to keep us from including the same women over and over. Yet, it was so easy to get around this: women just gave us fictitious names, or their street names…and towards the end, we were under so much pressure from the doctor running the study to maintain/increase the number of samples brought back that our crew ended up taking blood from the same women over and over (and there was a limited pool of street prostitutes that were willing to give us a blood).
Many months went by without incident. In fact, it was settling into a dull routine, but I needed the cash. Then, and you knew this was coming, one night we pulled over on a side street between Broadway and West End Avenue in the low Nineties. A grimy Twin Donut shop was on the corner, but the street was lined with mature trees and blank-faced townhouses. The HIV counselor (a thin, white, Jewish woman in her 50s) and the phlebotomist (a butch black woman who had been in the Army) were going about their business with one of the prostitutes, while I stared out the front window of the van. Then glass vials (empty, thankfully) began to fly. I turned to find both women trying to calm/subdue the prostitute, who still had a butterfly needle stuck in her arm. While the van was violently rocking, I got out and ran around to open the double doors on the other side, to release this fury back to the night.
Now, our safety policy was to NEVER man-handle anyone if trouble broke out in the van –- just get out of the vehicle and call the cops on our primitive cell phone.
I wrenched open the side doors of the van, and turned to find myself facing the chest of someone well over six-feet: the pissed-off pimp of our whirling dervish hooker. With one hand around my neck (one its way to crushing my larynx, really), he threatened to stab me in my gut if I gave him any trouble (I couldn’t see his other hand, but the blade was very real in my mind). So, I went completely limp in his grip, while I wondered what it would feel like to have a knife penetrate my soft belly. The pimp asked me if I was going to give him any trouble (not exactly how he phrased it), and I managed to squeak out enough air to say no. I was tossed aside just as the prostitute was thrown out of the van. The pimp and the phlebotomist traded threats and expletives, while I scrambled back around the van to get out of harm's way. Fortunately, nothing else happened, as the pimp and his lady ended up walking off into the warm summer night.
After jumping in the driver's side door and locking everything up, we called 911...but a squad car never came, so we drove back to the office. I was quiet on the ride down to the Village. I had never felt less manly (I had failed to protect my co-workers), but I was pretty damn happy not to have been knifed and on the way to the ER. Back at HQ, we took a Polaroid of the bruises on my neck (which I still have somewhere in all of my accumulated junk), and I steeled myself to call my girlfriend (now my wife) to tell her what happened ("I'm fine, but something happened tonight that I need to tell you about..."). Needless to say, that was my last night in the van...
Um, that doesn’t sound right…let me clarify. Senior year in college (1989), a fellow student hooked me up as the paid driver of van for a study that monitored the prevalence of HIV among street prostitutes in New York City (these were the days before the PC term 'sex worker'). Essentially, an HIV counselor, phlebotomist (both women), and I would cruise some of the nastier neighborhoods in the Big Apple for fresh blood: Hunts Point in the Bronx; projects near Coney Island Hospital (we’d always stop by the original Nathan’s afterwards); a no man’s land on 3rd Avenue between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge under the BQE; Park Avenue in Harlem under the New Haven line elevated tracks; 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth, and the meat market in the West Village. We’d pay the women $10 or $15 bucks (whatever the going rate was for oral sex) for a vial of their blood, ask them some questions about their condom use and sexual practices, provide them with referrals for shelter, health care, drug rehab, etc., and send them back out into the mean night with a fistfull of rubbers.
On the flip side, we were no hassle, easy money for drugs (crack, really), and a bit of warmth from the van's heater on some cold winter nights. And god knows that all of these women needed some relief from their circumstances. These ladies were on the lowest rung of prostitution –- all headed for early deaths from AIDS, drugs, or violence. (I’d be really shocked if many of the women we encountered were still alive today.) Needless to say, these were not expensive call girls, or the cartoonish pimp-ruled hookers done up in thigh-high stiletto boots, g-strings and fluorescent-neon spandex tube-tops. More like grungy, gaunt, junkie shadows of their former lives.
Eventually, we all came to realize that the numbers for this study were going to be flawed. At least one other team besides ours went out to collect samples, and we only relied on an ever-growing computer generated list of participants to keep us from including the same women over and over. Yet, it was so easy to get around this: women just gave us fictitious names, or their street names…and towards the end, we were under so much pressure from the doctor running the study to maintain/increase the number of samples brought back that our crew ended up taking blood from the same women over and over (and there was a limited pool of street prostitutes that were willing to give us a blood).
Many months went by without incident. In fact, it was settling into a dull routine, but I needed the cash. Then, and you knew this was coming, one night we pulled over on a side street between Broadway and West End Avenue in the low Nineties. A grimy Twin Donut shop was on the corner, but the street was lined with mature trees and blank-faced townhouses. The HIV counselor (a thin, white, Jewish woman in her 50s) and the phlebotomist (a butch black woman who had been in the Army) were going about their business with one of the prostitutes, while I stared out the front window of the van. Then glass vials (empty, thankfully) began to fly. I turned to find both women trying to calm/subdue the prostitute, who still had a butterfly needle stuck in her arm. While the van was violently rocking, I got out and ran around to open the double doors on the other side, to release this fury back to the night.
Now, our safety policy was to NEVER man-handle anyone if trouble broke out in the van –- just get out of the vehicle and call the cops on our primitive cell phone.
I wrenched open the side doors of the van, and turned to find myself facing the chest of someone well over six-feet: the pissed-off pimp of our whirling dervish hooker. With one hand around my neck (one its way to crushing my larynx, really), he threatened to stab me in my gut if I gave him any trouble (I couldn’t see his other hand, but the blade was very real in my mind). So, I went completely limp in his grip, while I wondered what it would feel like to have a knife penetrate my soft belly. The pimp asked me if I was going to give him any trouble (not exactly how he phrased it), and I managed to squeak out enough air to say no. I was tossed aside just as the prostitute was thrown out of the van. The pimp and the phlebotomist traded threats and expletives, while I scrambled back around the van to get out of harm's way. Fortunately, nothing else happened, as the pimp and his lady ended up walking off into the warm summer night.
After jumping in the driver's side door and locking everything up, we called 911...but a squad car never came, so we drove back to the office. I was quiet on the ride down to the Village. I had never felt less manly (I had failed to protect my co-workers), but I was pretty damn happy not to have been knifed and on the way to the ER. Back at HQ, we took a Polaroid of the bruises on my neck (which I still have somewhere in all of my accumulated junk), and I steeled myself to call my girlfriend (now my wife) to tell her what happened ("I'm fine, but something happened tonight that I need to tell you about..."). Needless to say, that was my last night in the van...
posted by Steve from Moon | 4:07 PM
3 Comments:
That was YOU?!
omg I can't imagine how you felt. I don't blame you for not going back into the van!! I think I would have quit right then and there. OMG luckily { if that is even how you spell it } In my line of work I haven't encountered anything like that yet but I started working across the state line 35 miles from where I live and the town is very big much bigger than what I am used to and I have heard some of the stories that the ones who have worked there have told and to tell you the truth it scares the crap out of me I mean my first week before I started there full time I was told to get pepper spray and keep it on me at all times because the people around here do not care if your are on the ambulance or not they just see uniform and police automatically comes into their minds. imagine what i was thinking at that point but I have a child to support and needed the job since my company was going under i had no choice but to work for them 6 mo later and still no incidences but I stay on my gaurd!
To Anon: Of all the crazy coincidences!!!
To BlondeBrunette: Best of luck with your job! You never know who you are going to come in contact with, do ya? I've always found that a smile and sense of humor work best in sticky situations (and I used to work at both a shelter and a residence for people with mental illness...). Any way to add something to your uniform that would make it clear you're not a cop?
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