The eye of the storm is more difficult to bear than the storm itself; obstacles serve a purpose and I know this one by name: I am undeterred.

06/16/09

T took our her dentures and told us her speciality was deep-throat. "I sing opera," she said. Butter reclined on the adjacent bed; her breath became belabored as we delved into the hard questions.

"If someone was ready to help you, what would you ask for?"
"Three hundred," replied T.

Three hundred.

Butter fell asleep, snoring softly. Her face looked peaceful.

She introduced me to her baby's daddy, tucked under the covers of the dimly lit motel room.

06/15/09

While Maverick and Kenny debated about the morality or lack thereof of solicitation, a rotund working girl waltzed right past us. Maverick took us into his truck and told us all about his wife and kids.

Butter was sweating profusely when we picked her up. She wore a red blouse and mini-skirt; in one hand was a massive plastic cup full of something or other and ice that clinked. Intermittent streetlights washed over her childish features as she told us about her friend: Snowbunny's pimp sent her to the hospital for refusing to work the streets while menstruating. Butterfly sutures and a mild concussion.

When Butter was done, we took her back home. Her breathing was heavy in the hot car.

06/14/09

"The truth is," said Rabbit, pointing to his chest, "almost every trucker has a void right here. Most of us have no family and a lot of us lost our family because of it. This," he said, sweeping his arm across the gaggle of beer-wielding truckers gathered around a grill, "this is how we fill that void."

The girl. Inside the truck. Nineteen, twenty maybe. Watching the CB antenna wave obscenely we know without words that we were different people now.

06/11/09

A thick fog hung over the pavement, suspended in the headlights of 18-wheelers. Parked back to back on a two-way side street, the trucks formed bumpers for the dozen girls that rolled up and down the street. They were young--early twenties for the most part; and half weren't wearing any pants. Traveling in groups for protection, they joked with truckers as they stumbled from the "top" to the "bottom," their elongated shadows draped over the pavement; words slipped through the crackle of the CB; high heels clicked over the hum of idling trucks. Every now and then, a black impala would drive by, but no arrests were made. "The cops don't care," said Errol, an amiable truck driver, "they know these girls by name." A drunk hooker in a tank-top and lace panties hopped onto the side of our cab and offered to demonstrate her tornado-tongue.

With nothing but a back light in the sleeper illuminating her graceful contour, Missy told us about her two children and showed us the bullet-wound on her leg. "We're just people," she said, "trying to make ends meet. I have six pimps: electricity, gas, cable, internet, phone, and rent."

06/05/09

This Sunday, we set out for Breezewood, Pennsylvania, a quiet town nestled in verdant hills five hours west of New York City. Like much of America, franchises dominate the main thoroughfare, which is aglow with the light of competing billboards.

Two truck stops vie for visitors on either side of the broad street, but its the darker, quieter one that draws us out here.

It was there that we met J., a young man who works at Mcdonalds, trains horses, and tends to his sick mother.

J.--a lot lizard.