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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Standing In The Shadows

Darin Z. Krogh Special To Women & Men

Maybe at an older movie theater you’ve seen the two masks, one smiling and the other crying, hanging next to each other on the wall. Lacking formal drama training, I’ve always supposed they were the symbols of comedy and tragedy, two opposite dramatic genres … (Pretentious? Who me?)

Through the years, movie directors seem to mix the two more often. This probably more accurately reflects real life although they don’t (intentionally) include life’s main component: boredom.

But the fact that a funny episode can turn a mind to a tragedy occurred to me sometime ago when I took my daughter into downtown Spokane to be judged by some out-of-town “adjudicator” in order to determine her progress as a piano student. She is enrolled in the Suzuki method of musical instruction that (I’m guessing here) combines the best of motorcycle riding and keyboard dexterity to produce a pianist like my daughter who has bloody knees, bruised elbows and sometimes a broken leg.

Parents aren’t allowed in the judgment chamber, probably because fathers like me would stomp and whistle for their daughters and boo the judge. So I sat in my car at the front of the building reading my newspaper.

It was a summer day and my windows were down as a young lady seemed to materialize from the side of the building next to me.

She chirped, “What’s goin’ on, big guy?” to me, a stranger and nearly 30 years her senior. I have become accustomed to the impertinence of some high school kids nowadays but not so accustomed to her appearance which was that much sought after “look” so popular among a lot of teenage girls (you’ve seen it, the medium-priced-hooker look - lots of skin, tons of paint and jewelry).

“Nothing,” I answered trying to end the conversation without getting solicited for a financial contribution. Looking back down at my newspaper, I tried to remember if girls looked like that back in my high school days. The only look that I could remember was my own image in the mirror, a pencil neck with pimples.

Then she came right up to the car door and bent down to look in. “Ya wanna’ good time?”

Still not realizing the nature of her inquiry, I fixed a gaze on her and began a speech on the failings of American youth and her in particular. Then I remembered where I was, just down the street from the old bus depot at First and Jefferson. The paint covered some hard lines on her face and though she may have been in the last teen year, what we had here was a medium-priced prostitute trying to look like a high school girl.

“No, I’m waiting for my daughter. She’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” I pulled the paper up to my face. My subtlety was wasted on her.

“It doesn’t take long for a good time.”

“It sometimes takes me four or five hours,” I answered without looking up.

She spun around on one heel spike and pranced down the street to work her unregulated commerce on another corner.

My daughter came out shortly and we headed for home. As she recounted her performance, I looked at her and felt a twinge of pain for the parents who had lost their daughter to the streets, of Spokane or anywhere. This occupation sometimes leaves 13-year-olds dead, but it kills their souls before it kills their bodies.

The terrible truth about raising children is that a lot of it is luck. Most parents endeavor to reduce the amount of bad luck in rearing their children. But bad things can happen to good families, too. Whatever produced a streetwalker, one common factor for everyone involved is sorrow.

But this sorrow had been crowded out of my mind until a few days ago after I had picked up some bagels at Fitzbillies and was eating and driving through that same area to get back downtown. Two of them were standing on the corner. Painted faces and fake smiles. The unluckier of the two was grabbed by her pimp and hustled into a doorway for some discipline.

The residents are working to improve the area and the hookers are moving somewhere else but probably not out of the business.

No woman can be forced from that life and there are probably dangers in leaving the business as well as remaining (this insight from a guy whose greatest hazard in life is snapping the tassels off his loafers with the Weed-eater). Somebody needs to help give somebody else’s daughter a chance to escape if and when she makes the choice to get out. I’m going to give a month’s bagel outlay (not as trifling a sum as you might think) to Crosswalk or a women’s shelter. Driving by those young women stuck in that predicament, and the pimps who keep them there, ruins my appetite anyway. I can’t finish my bagel.

xxxx