None of her streetnames are even vaguely polite, so I’ll call her Sally.
I saw her the other day, talking to herself as she debated crossing a five-lane street from the middle of the block. She was overdressed for the temperature, which is a big change from when I first saw her, maybe 15 years ago, when her outfit was more appropriate for a nightclub than a city street in the middle of the day. But then again, in those days she was still pretty, and was selling herself for the drugs that always kept her either euphoric or shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm.
I am not sure if Sally has ever actually been arrested for prostitution, but I do know she has been arrested. Her file includes larceny, shoplifting, simple affray, simple assault, simple and felony possession of drugs, carrying a concealed weapon, and trespassing. She has a very distinctive reminder of a poorly-healed injury – to further explain would be to further identify her in a couple towns – that she now tries to conceal. I do feel sorry for her, but she made a personal choice years ago. I cannot say she deserves what she has gone and is going through, because I am not that callous. But I do know she made a choice that led her down this road, and further choices, influenced by others, kept her on that downward path.
Just because I talk to everybody, I’ve spoken with her several times through the years. Before she lost her looks, she used to frequent the parking lot of a restaurant where I regularly grabbed a meal before meetings or coffee afterward. She was even so brazen as to be leaning against my truck one night, wondering if I was “lonely.” I just smiled and said no, I needed to get home to my wife, who was lonely, somewhat jealous and very well-armed.
The monkey on her back grew stronger, however, and the party clothes were replaced by whatever she could scavenge.
A couple years ago, Sally came around the corner as I exited a store one evening. She wore a pink bedroom slipper and a green flipflop, red sweat pants cut off at the knees, and a t-shirt of indeterminate color. Her hands were shaking as she asked if I would give her some money for something to eat. She was now missing a tooth. She didn’t try to cover her scar, but she was sensitive about the prickmarks on her arms, a scattering that looked like badly infected mosquito bites.
I questioned her rather sharply, but as nicely as I could, to be sure she wanted food, not drugs, beer or cigarettes. She promised me that she was hungry, and would only buy food. She didn’t give me a sad story about being robbed, or her benefits being tied up, or any of the other excuses panhandlers usually offer. She simply said she was hungry.
I had five bucks and some change; I gave it to her, and she thanked me profusely, hands still shaking. I watched as she went into the store. The next day, I related the story to the cashier, who assured me that Sally had indeed bought a loaf of bread, some bologna and a little something else.
Sally disappeared for a couple years. I think she was in prison, but when I saw her again, I would not have recognized her except for that distinctive scar. She was healthy looking; she wasn’t shaking. She was dressed like a normal young woman. Sally actually looked happy. I nodded and smiled, and she smiled back, a pretty, shy little girl smile. I have no idea if she recognized me, but I doubt it.
A couple months later, when I saw her again, she still looked healthy — and she was obviously pregnant. She still looked happy. I hoped that maybe she had turned her life around.
It wasn’t long after she had her baby that I saw her again, and she had changed.
She was in the company of a fellow who was deserving of being profiled by law enforcement. They pulled up in front of a store, and he sat there with the music thumping while she ran inside and made a purchase. She still looked mostly healthy, but she was shaking again. I was getting in my vehicle as she ran back to the car, and Prince Charming demanded to know what the (expletive) had taken her so long.
Not long after that she turned up on my arrest reports again, and I started seeing her around her old haunts. She even asked me for a cigarette one day, and seemed genuinely surprised when I gave her two and smiled. It had apparently been some time since she had heard a kind word.
I am hesitant to use this comparison lest someone take it out of context, but I was reminded of a starved, abused animal whose hunger overwhelms a fear so ingrained it has become normal, a fear so strong that cringing and fawning are more natural than a smile or laughter.
Sally must be eating now, but she has the appearance of someone who isn’t eating well. Her scar still makes her stand out when you see her on the street. I pray her child ended up with a loving relative, or even as a ward of the state.
My libertarian friends call drug use a victimless crime, and say many of the problems could be solved through legalization and regulation. Some of my liberal friends share that opinion, and assign blame to everyone and everything except the user, whom they call the victim. Some of my conservative friends want to avoid the topic entirely.
Personally? While I am a free market proponent, and believe folks should be allowed to make their own decisions, I am also of the opinion that fining the pharmaceutical companies did little if anything to really solve the drug problem. Nor does arresting dealers and putting them in jail for a few months. Punishing the doctors who freely prescribed addictive medications might have done some good, but we’re past that now.
Every time I see Sally, I think about how a couple decades on a chain gang might help change the minds of the over-achievers in my permanent crime files, the ones who smile in their booking photos. Since it’s inhumane to force inmates to work, let those who call themselves political prisoners enjoy meals of Nutraloaf and water, while listening to nothing but classical music, until they want to work. An exhausted inmate hasn’t got the energy to engage in mischief, and working for $10 a day for 20 years might make a would-be drug dealer reconsider his or her career choices.
For others — say, perhaps anyone possessing a kilogram or more – it might be appropriate to give them a maximum of five years of appeals on Death Row before strapping them into the electric chair.
For those who truly need help, that help should be available, but the citizenry should only fund the programs that work, not the ones that do little more than line the pockets of highly profitable non-profits that don’t even put a bureaucratic Bandaid on a gushing artery.
Once upon a time, if a foreign power pumped poison into America, we would have responded in kind. While the cartels aren’t technically a nation, they are indeed a militarized enemy harming our country and killing Americans, both those who use narcotics and those who just happen to be in the way.
A few Predator drones, A-10 attack aircraft and perhaps a cruise missile or two to target the plants manufacturing the drugs would definitely give the bad guys reason to think. If they decided to openly wage war, then at least the politicians would be forced to call it such, and actually do something about it.
I thought about all these things and more as Sally stood there balancing on the curb, one foot (in matching tennis shoes) in the gutter, the other on the curb, as she watched the traffic, muttering to herself and planning her next steps.
I wondered, briefly, would things have changed had someone done something worthwhile years ago, rather than handwring and create a photo op and take more money from the taxpayers, while hamstringing law enforcement. Had someone done something that mattered, I wonder if Sally would still have had to bear her scar as she stands in the gutter, waiting to cross the street.
