For the most
part, my life is pretty boring. I’m fairly routined and I stay out of trouble,
but you know, sometimes adventure comes to you, and I’m okay with that, spice
of life and such, you know?
I feel like
this adventure needs a name. Like “The Great Hooker Adventure of St. Paul
Street” or “The one where Kate meets a drunk mortician”. Read the story, leave
title suggestions in the comments.
Yesterday morning
at about 5:30am, I woke up to the sound of someone falling down the steps in
our apartment building. I was sound asleep, but the sound was pretty loud, and
the girl who fell was wailing pretty loudly. I immediately heard a little
commotion which consisted of a man’s voice asking if she was alright, and a
quiet exchange. Now, don’t think I’m a monster when I tell you that I
considered staying in bed. Just because someone hurts themselves doesn’t mean
that a thousand people should run to their rescue, and maybe it made sense for
me to just stay out of it. But the man’s voice disappeared and the girl started
screaming for someone to help her, so I grabbed my phone and my glasses and
went out.
At the
bottom of the steps was a girl that looked about 21 and probably about 100
pounds, laying at the bottom of the steps crying. This girl had clearly had a
rough night, but at first glance, I just assumed she was drunk as hell and that
she was upset over the fall. I did a quick survey of the situation, to make
sure she wasn’t injured and to see what she really needed. She claimed she
didn’t need an ambulance, and she didn’t look like she was hurt, so I didn’t
push it.
“Help me.
They don’t care about me. I don’t know where I am. I just want to go home.
Please help me, don’t leave me.”
Holy crap.
What?
When someone
says to you “please help me, don’t leave me”, you’re kind of stuck. You can’t
just walk away from that situation, and I was still trying to figure the
situation out so I just sat down on the floor next to her and hugged her.
Sisterhood and ovaries and shit, right? She was sobbing and repeating the same thing
over and over again. “I don’t know where I am, they don’t care about me, please
don’t leave me.”
This is when
I thought shit, son, this here is a real life sex worker.
“Baby, you
hookin’?” (I have street cred, so I can say that, and yes, I did actually say
that.)
“No, no, I
would never do that, I’m not that kind of person.” More wailing. Sobbing into
my shirt. (Have I mentioned that I was just in my pajamas? An old Planet
Fitness t-shirt and some embarrassingly short booty shorts.)
Okay, okay.
She says she’s not a hooker. Fine. But it would make perfect sense. Man picks
up this hooker, brings her to his fine apartment home (lol) and for whatever
reason, kicks her out on her butt without paying her, maybe because she’s
drunk? I don’t know. At this point one of the neighbors comes out to see if we
need anything. I’m still of the belief that all this girl needs is a friend so
I give him the thumbs up.
“How did you
get here? Who did you come with? Do you live in this building?”
She didn’t
know, she didn’t know, and no. More crying, sobbing and don’t leave me’s.
“What’s your
name?”
“Paris.”
“I’m Kate.
I’m not going to leave you. It’s going to be okay.” This girl is literally
clutching at me. She seemed really scared. Which then made me realize that
maybe I should be scared too.
“Are you
here for drugs?” (Couldn’t remember the “street” way to ask that.)
My life
flashed before my eyes. This girl was here for some kind of drug deal, and it
went bad, she got pushed down the steps, and I was involved now. Someone was
going to come out with a gun and I was going to die and how would my parents
know that I was never involved? Should I write a quick email to them letting
them know that I love them and that I wasn’t involved in any kind of drug deal
because I’m a good girl, and maybe I should leave a note for the police so that
they know how I got into this situation, you know just save them some foot
work….
“No, no, I’d
never do that. I’m scared. Please help me.”
“Are you in
trouble?”
“No, I’ve
never been in trouble with the law. I’m not that kind of person, please don’t
leave me.”
Okay. The
situation is getting to be a bit much. I still don’t know how she got into the
building (you’d need a key) and I am still not convinced she’s not somehow
high. In fact, she’s kind of groping me, the way I’d imagine one does on drugs,
or a lesbian high on life. Either way, this girl was really taking advantage of
me being braless. Her fake eyelashes were coming off, and her makeup was all
over her face and shirt. Paris had had a really rough night.
After a
series of questions, I did find out that she’d come home with a couple of guys
from a club and that she just wanted to go home. Perfect. Paris, I’m going to
call you a cab. Where do you live? She gave me the name of two major streets in
Baltimore that do indeed intersect. Perfect. Let me call her a cab.
Side note: apparently,
in Baltimore, if you need a cab, you have to give them the exact address of
your destination or they will HANG UP ON YOU. So I had to look up the
cross-streets and pick an address as close as possible in that vicinity to get
a cab to come. (You suck, Yellow Cab of Baltimore.)
Right as I’m
calling the cab though, two men come downstairs, and it’s clear that these are
the men that brought Paris into our building. Nice looking well adjusted guys
who clearly don’t need a hooker like this. (Look, I know she said she’s not a
hooker, but dude, she was a hooker.)
Some words
are exchanged, quite peacefully actually, and one guy leaves while the
remaining guy tries to talk some sense into her. He tells me that they tried to
call her a cab but she refused and was ripping up their apartment so he had to
kick her out. He suggests that we go out for a smoke while he tells me the
whole story. Awesome. Let me just put on jeans and a sweatshirt.
I run
inside, grab my nearest jeans and my Ohio State fleece and when I come back
Paris has vomited all over the floor. Oh. Back in for paper towels. Are you
serious? I’m helping to clean up this girl’s puke? Wtf, sisterhood? You suck.
After some
more tense words about us leaving her, my neighbor (who is still kind of drunk)
and I get outside. His name is Charles. Great, thanks Charles, now can you
please tell me what the fuck is going on here?
Charles and
his friend met a rich guy at a bar who invited them back to his penthouse a few
blocks away for a party. At said party, they were told there was an after party
club they should all go to, which means it’s a place that has found a loophole
around state laws prohibiting the service of alcohol after 2:00am. This girl
was supposedly super drunk and kept getting kicked out, but was hanging on both
of them outside and when they got in their car she just got in saying she was
going to fuck both of them, and she was so drunk they just brought her home.
Real
casually I was like “Oh did you guys fuck her?”, hoping that my nonchalant way
of asking would garner the truth.
“No fucking
way. I have standards.”
Fine,
Charles, you didn’t fuck her, gold star, anyway so she trashed your apartment
and so you kicked her out?
Yeah, that
was the story. Fine.
“Oh, are you
from Ohio?” (Referencing OHIO STATE across my chest, yeah, he was looking at my
boobs, so what?)
“Yep.”
“Neat, I’m
from Cincinnati, I just moved here last year.”
“Oh really?
That’s cool. What do you do?”
“I’m a
mortician.”
...what?
Paris
figured out how a door works. She came outside and asked him for a cigarette,
which she then waved in my face and nearly caught me on fire, and then right in
time the cab showed up. The cab driver was pissed and insisted that she paid up
front. What a fucking ordeal.
“I have
cash, I’m not that kind of girl, I just need to go home.” She is crying and
falling all over the car. The cab driver gets out to talk to Charles while I
try to figure out if Paris has any cash, she only needs $15, but I only find $6
in her purse. Paris keeps trying to attack the cab driver and I pull her off.
We all want her to just get home. None of us want any sort of alternative
ending to the story, so we empathize with the cab driver and try to get the
cash from Paris.
I am literally standing barefoot on the streets of Baltimore with two people I've just met and a cab driver trying to physically find cash on the person of this drunk girl, all while promising her that I don't judge her and I know she's not "that kind of girl" but please, Paris, do you have the $15 for the driver?
After a while of this back and forth of Paris feeling judged
and telling the cab driver that she has money but that she didn’t do anything
illegal to get the cash, (The $6? Really??) Charles goes inside and brings out
a ten. (Yeah buddy, I know she’s off her rocker but you got her into this mess,
that’s a small price to pay to get her home.)
After some
quintessential “I love you guys, no really, you guys, you don’t even know, I
love you so much” drunk goodbyes, we get her in the car and it drives away. Great.
Good deed done. Night is over. Bedtime? Oh. No.
Charles and
I stand around talking a little more.
“Do you want
to see pictures of dead people?”
“Sure!”
We went up
to his apartment and looked at his embalming textbooks. None of that phases me
and we discussed different embalming techniques and procedures as well as the
art of being a funeral director. I talked about my work in tobacco control
while he lit another cigarette and we talked a little about Ohio. That’s when I
noticed an urn on his shelf.
“Whose
cremains are in there?” (He was totes impressed with my use of the word
cremains.)
“Oh, I don’t
know.”
“You don’t
know? You have some random person’s ashes on your shelf?”
“Yeah. Wanna
see?”
“….sure.” I
mean I know what ashes look like, but he seemed excited to show me.
So you know
how in TV and movies the perpetual joke is when someone opens the urn and ashes
get everywhere? Well, Charles opens the urn, and the cremains are in a bag. As
he’s opening it, ashes fall all over his shirt, all over the table, and all
onto his futon. I mean, he didn’t empty it out or anything, just a little bit,
probably like a couple fingers worth or whatever, but holy fucking crap. All
like it’s no big freaking deal. No, that’s cool Charles. Just a dead body all
over your apartment, that’s chill. God.
Seriously
though. I can now say I’ve taken my hand and cleaned some dead person’s ashes
off of a futon. As if I’d spilled some Cheeto’s crumbs and brushed them onto
the floor. Something about this is just not normal.
The sun was
coming up, it was basically daylight at this point. We actually ended up
jamming a little bit, he has a band and I messed around on his keyboard while
he played bass, and while we’re not the next big thing, it was fun. I went back
to bed and slept for another hour and a half.
So that was
that. I hope that Paris got home okay. I still think there’s more to the story
of why she ended up in his apartment. (Really? Drunk girl jumps in your car so
you just bring her home? I don’t know about that….) Maybe she was raped and I
was an accomplice. Likely though, they had the intention of fucking her but she
was genuinely too drunk and being belligerent. Who knows. Paris doesn’t even
know.
