"That's all the money
I have,” she sighs,
"and it'll be gone in three days.
I'll never get a place."
Her friend suggests,
"Be a hooker."
"What?"
"Be a hooker."
"Crazy. You can't
stand on a corner without
protection and
I'll never give money
to a man,
took care of one
too long. I did
that too long
to do it now."
They laugh.
"When I was a kid
on my first job,
a man came into the office
dressed beautifully, so nice,
elegant and polite.
I asked my boss
'What does he do?'
'A pimp,' he says.
'What?' I asked
being Catholic and seventeen.
'He runs a string of heifers.'
'Cows in a city?' I said.
They all, the whole office,
fell off their chairs laughing
at what I didn't know."
Published in Bayou