On Easter Sunday
          I sat inside my car
          on 26th and Lexington
          alone
          nineteen years old
          and very bored
          waiting for some guy to
          show up at a camera store
          with some film
          I had promised I'd
          pick up for my friend.
 
          At about a quarter to eight
          I heard a shout
          and looked up to see
          some guy right in front of my car
          screaming at a hooker
          who had turned away from him.
          She was walking away when
          magically four or five more hookers
          materialized from a crack in a wall
          just as a pimp turned the corner
          and walked matter of factly
          towards the assembled group.
 
          He looked right at the guy who was
          reaching for the hooker's purse
          while she shouted her testimony.
          "It's not my fault he won't come.
          He's too drunk to feel a thing.
          Lord knows he's never gonna come."
          Before the guy could answer,
          the pimp lifted up his hand and
          slapped him across the face
          about as hard as he could.
 
          And with a courage seen only
          in Easter morning drunks,
          he took it without flinching,
          paused for a moment,
          and lit full force into the pimp
          without a thought for a deck
          that had been stacked decidedly
          against him.
 
          Sometime between the slap and his first punch,
          it occured to me I might not want to be there.
 
          By this time,
          they were on the sidewalk
          about four cars up from me.
          I began rolling my window up when
          one of the hookers looked at me.
          So I did what I always do when
          I don't know what to do --
          I shrugged.
 
          I guess that was the right response.
          She turned back to the fight
          as I forgot any thoughts I had of leaving.
 
          I sat there transfixed.
 
          The pimp fought like a pimp -- hard and dirty,
          but in affirmation of the hooker's diagnosis,
          the drunk looked like he felt nothing.
          He was bigger than the pimp
          and even in his semi-conscious state
          knew instinctively how to use his
          size.  Before long it was clear
          he had the upper hand.
 
          The pimp tried moving in closer,
          but the drunk smothered him.
          The two fought in a jumble --
          the pimp reaching up, both hands
          scratching at the drunks eyes;
          the drunk pushing off with one hand,
          the other striking body blow
          after body blow.
 
          Then I was struck -- struck by what had to be
          the most fluid movement I have ever seen.
 
          In what seemed like one motion,
          the hooker he had been with
          reached down, removed one of
          her spiked four inch high heeled shoes,
          balanced herself on her other heel,
          and raised her arm above her head.
          She held her arm in the air
          like a hockey ref calling a delayed penalty,
          and then stepped right into the middle
          of the screaming circle of her co-workers,
          slid between the two fighters, and
          with a railsplitter's strength and precision
          hammered her four inch spike right
          between two of the pimps fingers
          into what had once been
          the soft spot of the john's head
          with a force that produced a crack
          so loud it made me jump out of my skin.
 
          It was only when I landed
          hard on my seat that I realized
          just how involved I was.
 
          All I could think about
          (if I was thinking anything)
          was the movement of her body
          as that spike came down hard on his head.
 
          The guy went down in a heap.
          The pimp sidestepped him,
          kicked him a few times, and
          before I even realized that
          the shattering sound I had heard
          was a bottle breaking inside the guy's pocket,
          the pimp and the hookers were
          piling into a cab that had
          double-parked next to my car
          watching and waiting for the easy fare.
 
          The last one to get in the cab
          was the hooker with one shoe. With
          one hand on the door, the other
          clutching her purse, his wallet
          and her shoe, she looked back
          laughing at him lying on the ground
          bleeding.  As she pulled the door shut,
          she caught me looking at her and
          stopped laughing just long enough to
          blow me her best hooker kiss
          almost like nothing had happened.
          She tossed his empty wallet
          through the crack in my window.
 
          The street was quiet again,
          like nothing had happened,
          and when I looked back at the guy,
          lying unconscious between 
          the bloody shards of broken glass,
          I decided to call 911,
          but as I started to get out of my car
          a police car rolled around the corner
          moving in the same matter of fact way
          the pimp had walked earlier,
          stopping in the same place.
 
          I handed the cop the wallet,
          got back in my car and
          pulled out.
 
          I then turned the corner
          and began a systematic search
          of the people heading out
          for early Easter mass
          and the others heading home
          from their all night out Saturday,
          Sunday morning breakfast
          hoping against hope to find
          a whore I knew I'd never find
          without giving much thought
          to the drunk lying on the ground
          who, not content to pay for his sins,
          might also have died for mine.

-d








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