Every one of us girls came to Rose M. Singer in the same way.

It was just wrong place wrong time that brought us here after a long morning/afternoon/evening of hot shots, cold showers, and empty pockets. We had no malice in our souls. We’re all just as sweet as the day we were born.

It’s just in those broken moments,
in those moments,
You realize not just what you are capable of, but what we are all capable of, as individuals, and as this collective human failing. And don’t think you’re any different, not for a moment, cause you’re not. I mean, read a fucking history book. Anyway, I got picked up out by the park, across from Jones Alley. I swear, I know of no other alley in Manhattan with a name, and I always silently wondered if there ever was a Jones, and if he was pissed that he just got an alley.

It was just a dumb loitering charge, the cops were just so hurt cause they couldn’t find any dope on me, so my not actually being a hooker was a moot point. But when they found out id lived in Neptune, New Jersey, and ran my shit there, well… I just chalked this one up to the gods.
And prayed,
ok, ok, OK, just cover me on the next one, I’ll take this, just let this be all they get.

They brought me to the 9th precinct, overcrowding I guess, I don’t know. The put me in a cell with a South African girl/man named Ruthie and an over privileged Stuyvesant student named Shari who got caught shoplifting from Urban Outfitters. Shari’s mantra:

“My mom’s gonna kill me
There goes my scholarship
My mom’s gonna kill me
There goes my scholarship…”

So I bullshitted with Ruthie for a while. She told me she left him when he forgot how to worship her. She told me how the cost stopped being worth the price. She told me how she always kinda liked them better in the gutter anyway, “That’s the only place they really ever pray anyway”. So she stabbed him five times in the belly with a penknife.

“He’ll be fine, ya know? Whadda they call that shit, lovers quarrel? Crime of passion?”

“A penknife?”

“Yeah, you know, just put the fear of Ruthie in em, bleed the gut a little, no real thing-A-yo, shut the fuck up!”

Some dude in the cell next to ours wouldn’t stop crying, “officer, I’m hungry, I’m so huuuungry.”

“So what happened?’

“Some yuppie dick neighbor called the cops”

“No, I mean, why tonight, why stab him with a pen knife tonight?”

“I didn’t like the way he was talking to my dog”

A petite dykie Puerto Rican cop came up to our cell, “you ladies hungry?” Ruthie winked, “yeah mama, haven’t eaten in weeks.” The cop winked back. “Alright baby, just don’t call me mama.”
Ruthie reeked of feminine sex, even with the large cock clearly stuffed into skinny jeans.

“So whadda bout you?”

“Wrong place wrong time, that’s all, ya know, wrong place, wrong time” The cop came back with a box of pizza from Strombolis and made sure to open it right as she walked passed the whiner in other cell. “Here ya go ladies,” She turned and looked at the cell next to ours and said, “Enjoy.”

Me and Ruthie took the trip to bookings together. My public defender said it was just a minor warrant in Jersey, shouldn’t be a problem.

Shouldn’t be a problem.

We slept on the floor that night. We ate bologna and cheese that morning. We flirted with the young cute cop reading the New York Post. We watched while all the girls got their names called to go to court, and we wished them all luck. And we gave our empathy when they came slowly walking back, shoulders slumped, heads down.

Ruthie left the lawyer booth.

“That nigga ain’t pressing no charges. I knew he wouldn’t, he ain’t gonna talk to my baby like that again though, that’s fo’ sure”

Ruthies name got called. She didn’t come back.