Black Street Novel-- How Ruby Got There

All material copyrighted by Red Jordan Arobateau. 2007.

Excerpts from his Black Street Novella, How Ruby Got There, found in his
collection Stories From The Dance Of Life Vol. 3. Copyright 1977. This book in
its entirety may be found on Lulu.com, Amazon.com. & in Kindle Electronic Books.

How Ruby Got There

People always talking about the whore problem. Or tricks talking about how
they doing to do this & that and blop de blip with a ‘ho.

But never think about the fact that a ‘ho is a woman too. A person who has
feelings, chances, aspirations, dreams. --The only difference between her & a
square woman is that she sharing her body with many others. Trading each orifice
in order to get money, just as a worker gives up the muscles of their arms or the
braincells in their skull on a job. Both work up a sweat. I do not encourage
prostitution. I support my sisters not to become whores, but I love you whoever
you are, despite this obstacle. ‘Hoin’ is an economic sickness of a nation as
well as a decayed moral value of the tricks, johns, vice cops, pimps, madams,
misdemeanor court judges-- and hos! The two are hand in hand Ugly Twins, wearing
the same tired dress.--- Siamese twins. In fact they are Quadruplets. Siamese
Quadruplets. Do not try to separate them. They cannot be pulled apart. Each is
interdependent upon the other.-- But only one catches the blame! It cannot be
said that ‘Aw, Ruby she wuz just no good from the day she dropped out the wound;
she grew up and become a ‘ho.” Or shrug her off as having a basic corrupt nature
because it just isn’t true anymore for her then for any of us. Her honger both
for material goods, for physical contact and out of emotional dependency; and her
lack of access to a well-paying legitimate job was strong motives in putting her
out in the street corner. Although she is partially to blame for her own
downfall. The decaying moral value actually was AmeriKKKa which does not feed
it’s poorest children, while continuing to tantalize them with images of THE GOOD
LIFE on TV; and, Ruby, poor Ruby, swallowed the lie of material goods like a
gullible fish, hook, line, and sinker. Tonight she was out there amid the red &
green party lights. San Francisco’s whore stroll beneath blinking bar ads. At 15
she had sold herself into prostitution to get a more delicious food to eat then
simple grits with no butter, and some nice clothes--store bought fancy-- and not
used shit from the free box inside the charity church, or somebody else’s tired
rags from the Second Hand Thrift. And to get out from under her Bossy Momma and
Berating Father. It was either this or get pregnant and get on welfare. Ruby had
thus chose to be self supporting.-- A ‘Sporten’ Lady.’ It was either of these
choices--or, to remain at home enduring her parents, while diligently studying her
schoolbooks, apply herself to a job, and slowly climb up rungs of the legitimate
social order-- like Betty, a girl of similar status did. The idea of attempting to
enter the labor market as a legal worker did not cross her mind. She had no job
skills anyway and could barely read. There are low economic jobs for such
people-- but Ruby had a lazy streak as well, sadly, which you will see.

Tonight Ruby stood in a cluster of girls. Beside her, Valerie, a young white
woman of 17 surveyed the streets with a cold stare. Purple eyeshadow under her
eye lids. Squad cars of the police lurked in the shadows. On Turk street was no
crime, but mostly cars speeding & ‘hos. Ruby chomped gum. Wore a 3/4 length
leather coat and a purse slung over her shoulder. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. She spoke
to another hooker, a black girl her own age; “Shit, ain’t nothin’ out tonight-- ‘n
tomorrow’s a holiday.”

“‘Dey all out of town for the weekend.” The other hooker replied.

Mentally Ruby reached into the bottom of her purse--no money was there to
find. Her feet were sore from standing, but she was patient. This was the
opportunity of her lifetime. At least Jones--her pimp-- had so promised. Red
traffic lights blinked on & flooded them in a pool of pink.

“They ought to put up a detour sign on Geary Boulevard and steer the suckers
down here.” The white girl said, using her imagination. It was the smartest
thing she’d said allnight.

Disgusted, Ruby jerked her head towards a theater marquee indicating it’s
yellow bulb advertisement for a pornographic movie HOT WHORE! Which depicted on
screen a prostitute nymphomaniac who gave pussy away free. Ruby grumbled; “They
always showin’ a ‘ho’s ass free fuckin’ as if we didn’t have nothin’ betta’ to
do.” What followed was the most intelligent statement she’d made all week: “We
ought to git us a ‘ho union.” Too bad these girls never followed thru with that
flash of an idea.

“I think I been hoo-dooed.” Lamented another black sister. “I ain’t made

‘nare a dime and Ah been standen’ on Turk street fo fo’ hours.”

When Ruby sauntered in at dawn this following morning, there was Jones
sitting back on the bed looking at her from under his wide brimmed suede hat; a
snarl on his face. He’d let himself into the tiny motel room with his key, tho he
didn’t live there. The room was 10 by 20 feet. A bathroom adjoining. Radiator
sizzed against the wall. The double bed had housed only one occupant for the last
8 months-- Ruby. This was her hideaway.

Sir Marshall Jones glowered at her, a lean brown man in a pink satin suit
and boots with 5 inch thick soles.

“YO’ DID A GOOD JOB OF DRANKIN’ WHISKEY DOWN ON THE STROLL BITCH!”

“Ohhh Marshall, dem girls lies! Dem girls lies ‘bout me! I wasn’t off
lollagagin’ I been worken’ steady all nite!”

“HOW MUCH DID YO’ BRANG ME!”

“$120.”

“$120! Huh.”

Sir Marshall growled, rising up quickly off the bed, with the uncoiling jerk
of a taunt spring. One lean brown hand extended, snatched the moist roll of
greenbacks Ruby was producing from under her ebony armpit--where she’d kept it hid
for the journey home.

‘So, he know everythang’ Ah done las’ night!-- Damn! Right down to that
cap of Coke!’ Like all pimps Marshall had his drug-paid spies checking up on his
women since he couldn’t be there in person.

As he counted the greenbacks the black girl stood by the closet kicking her
shoes off. She was so tired. Her gaze rested in her man’s crotch, that bulge in
the pink fabric--his dick-- quite apparent. Marshall was hung like a horse. How
she longed to rest her head there in it’s soft, meaty nest, while he massaged her
scalp, her feet, then his big hands drifting to her big ebony titties feeling them
and squeezing, as he casually unbuttoned her blouse, where they were stuffed into
her brassiere and slowly bent to put his full lips upon her nipples and suck,
feeling the tickle of his mustache, and drift into a Cocaine high--surely he’d
give her some from that drug dealing he did on the side-- treating her ears to
the sounds of hit songs on her music box, while feeling his big dick harden in his
crotch, ready to use her pussy, to please himself, in due time.

But her man had no time to lay his pretty self down on the satin sheets. He
was finer then they were! And had important stuff to do!

Sir Marshall was appeased as he thumbed thru the roll. Carefully separating
out the Twenties, ten’s, five’s, placing them in descending order, putting them
right side up all faced the same direction then stuffing them into his already
overstuffed optimistically oversized wallet.

He did a good job of brainwashing her.

“Yo’ so stupid! STUPID! If it wasn’t fo’ me you’d be NOTHIN’! If it

wasn’t fo’ me and my people checking up on yo’ you been done drank it up and
snorted up the few fonky dollars you got!” He glared evily.

He began to cue her in.

“YO’ SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT ME $220 ‘STEAD OF JUS’ A BILL TWENTY!

YO’ BE HAPPY TO TURN ONE FONKY TRICK FO’ TWENTY, LET THE HARD JONESEN’ JOHN
TALK YOU DOWN FROM FIFTY WHICH YO’ SHOULD BE GETTEN’, DEN’ GO BLASÉ UP THAT
TWENTY DOWN TO $2 FONKY DOLLAS AND SIT ON YO’ FAT ASS ALLNIGHT IN DOWN TO PEEWEES!

YO’ SHOULD BE HAPPY I’S YO’ MAN! I’S MAKEN’ YO’ WORK BITCH! WORK FO’ BOTH
OF US!-- YO’ LAZY TIRED BITCH, YO’ JEST’ LIK’ YO’ MAMMY! HAPPY WIF’ WELFARE CHUMP
CHANGE! WANT TURN A $20 DATE ‘DEN LAY UP BLASÉIN’ OFF IN THE COFFEE SHOP DE WHOLE
REST OF DE NIGHT!”

When Ruby left her first man, she crossed over the bridge and went to work
in Oakland, for another pimp.

At that time, the early 1970’s, all the dregs-- the hypes, the dawgs, the
uglies worked lower San Pablo Avenue. The Stars worked MacArthur Blvd. And the
best Hollywood Stars worked MacArthur and Broadway. Her near-sighted pimp made
the first mistake. He put Ruby out down on the gutter, when she had Star
Quality.--The brains and style to make it with the Stars.

She figured it was ‘cause she was dark in color and had nappy hair under her
wig. But in reality it was because she was underage. And he knew she was wild
enough to cause too much of a commotion up on the nicer blocks.

The young lady was discontent. She went in the S.O.C.I.A.L. C.L.U.B. for
a smoke and coffee. Jittering music rocked to the rafters of the rickety rackety
shack. A lower-class dive owned by poor folks eking out their livelihood from
pennies & nickels pushed across the counter by brown & black fingers for sodas,
coffee, nick-nacks of food and ‘setch. The music had a nervous rhythm. Ruby’s
stomach jumped to the beat. ‘I need me a blow.’ Thought she. Plain cigarettes
wouldn’t do the job.-- Craved high powered drugs to patch together the threads of
her self-esteem.

Stood staring down at the littered street. Wind whipped around her. The
brick building behind her had no voice. The bar trade had spilled out of tavern
doors, raced past over the black asphalt road, left in red taillights and was
gone. Just standin’ on her two feet.

A stray dog nosed up to keep the woman company, a friend. But a car whizzed
by and honked, and scared the mongrel which ran away with it’s tail between its
legs.

It was hot with body heat inside the shack, street hangers-on both women and
men. Hos, retired hos, hypes, thieves, boosters, a few in-secret fags, out & out
bulldaggers & gangstas, the usual lot all crammed inside bullshitten’ when they
should be outside prowling the avenues up to their no-good work. Ruby was an
industrious and energetic young woman. Forfeiting the cozy warmth & good times,
she toughened up-- like the pioneer women of old-- straightened her backbone,
turned on those high heeled Emerald pumps and walked straight back out that door
into the night! Determined to work! Cash money she was sure to find!

The next morning when the bedraggled peacock fell thru the front entrance,
exhausted, a size 16 shoe helped her on thru the doorway by giving her a swift
kick to her round satin covered butt. The shoe was connected to a green trouser
leg, and that to a green jacket; a scowling face mustached, fleshy, and brown was
framed by it’s collar.

“WHAT BLACK BITCH WAS GIVING THE POLICE JITTERBUG LESSONS OUT ON THE STROLL
LAST NIGHT?”

W H A M !!!

“Soft Shoe.” Ruby moaned. Her limbs collapsed in a pile on the rug. Arms
& legs spasm, a moment in pain, disconnected from her brain.

Now she was in even more trouble.

The next pimp Ruby met didn’t even share a car, but come walking up the
street--- albeit with a mean strut and a pimp cane.

This was after a brief respite from the fast track in which Ruby went home
to stay with her mother who drove her crazy.

She wanted to save that hard earned pile of green dollars. But about one
and a half months of rest, soon saw her itching for the fast life, and hungry for
the excitement of earning big bucks for big fucks.
 ‘Ah seen a white boy come amblin’ down the stroll, but oncet’ he got up
close Ah could tell it was a nigga. I couldn’t have told, but fo’ that little nap
to his hair and them two-toned shoes. Now he could have been a Jew with the
hair-- or one of dem honkies gone to curlin’ they hair like a nigga with
permanents and hair rollers and setch; but them shoes was the dead give-away.This
niggah had too much style for a honkey. ‘Dey was brown ‘n tan & white two-toned
wing-tipped shoes wit’ gold laces. Dem shoes sang ‘n danced-- with out sayin’ a
word. Dem shoes stood out.’

Now this nigger was a clever Creole. Like Mexicans claim they can’t go get
a job ‘cause they can’t speak English, and honkies tend to come down with
psychosomatic diseases when they want to lay up and kick back and be lazy, and
many black folks protest they can’t work because the white man won’t hire them--
or, ‘cause they got ‘sugar’ or high blood pressure-- this nigger claimed he, one:
couldn’t work for the White Man because at first they mistook him to be white,
but then when they realized they had a Colored man in their employment, he was
quickly REMOVED. From the front desk, to the rear loading dock. From head of the
department, to the mail room. From visible, to invisible. Plus, two: the white
nigger couldn’t work the street because of his health problems. He had LOW blood
pressure & because of the mental strain, couldn’t even hustle pooltables or peddle
narcotics. Couldn’t even run a gambling game. Low blood pressure! --Anything to
be different, while being the same thing; refused to work and just as greedy as
anybody. His total ambition was to rest, dress & impress. & stay high all day
long.

“The honky system has worried me to death. Whitey has pushed me into a
corner, sugar, I’m a doomed dude... My back is against the wall.” Reginald
claimed.

He was a worried man.

At first Ruby thought they looked good together.-- Dark meat & light. It
gave her a thrill when he mounted her in bed, after nightfall under the cool
sheets.

Reggie was FINE!

The young man was 25. A lot of women wanted to get his babies he was so
fine, and in fact he had sired 3-- after being approached by the women-- not the
other way around-- subsequently he had nothing to do with his children, having
been used only as a baby making sperm factory.

Reginald was to the world of men’s wear, as Pablo Picasso is to the world of
Art, and no lie.

This Knee-Grow would DRESS. Even if he had no woman to support him, he’d
find a way! He’d miserly save each penny, spend nothing, eat at free food
kitchens, meanwhile go window-shopping all day from one thrift store to another,
even walking clear cross town to save busfare! --Often one can find very
expensive articles of clothing from fine shops there, dirt cheep, and if you haunt
these second hand places eventually you’ll find some quality goods, and among
these few, a precious article, exactly your size. That’s what Reggie did, and any
extra moneys he came by he visited the Cleaners putting wrinkled stuff in,
claiming sharp pressed suits out.
 Women took care of Reginald, just where his own momma had left off.

He was so fine he didn’t have to mack. All he had to do was walk into a
room and stay long enough for the shy girls to get up their nerve to approach him.
He was like a housecat taken in out the alley. Women took him home with them and
set him up on pillows at his ease, so they could enjoy him, and take him around
town and show him off!

He said: “I can go down to the gutter baby, but not loose my glitter. I
got class. Once you got it, you never loose it. It just gets rusty sometimes.
It’s like learning how to ride a bike, you never forget how. You never loose
class.-- Even when you fall. You can be in the gutter folks look at you and see
that class shining thru. Niggas are dying to get what I got. I’m bourgeoisie and
don’t forget it! Class never turns. A nigga pretending to have class will turn
on you like naps on a rainy day. But this what I got is built into me by birth.
I’m not a greedy nigga. I wish niggas WOULD get them some class! I ain’t tryen’
to keep it no secret fo’ myself-- I give ‘em lessons! The mo’ class niggas is
got, the better! Ruby, girl, we will elevate our situation.” And the young man
extended a pale white hand offering her a stick of marijuana, which gratefully,
she took.

Now this white nigger was from a good home. His mamma & poppa both had
labored in the U$A job market and given him and his sisters & brothers the best;
but somehow somewhere along the line he had fallen to the gutter & there depended
on women to care for him.

“I kain’t deal with no white man, they runnin’ this nigga loco. I kain’t
punch no time clock baby, I’m too good for that! Look at me! LOOK AT ME! LOOK
AT ALL THIS FINENESS!!! Now yo’ know I’m too good to be no fool in whities
school! Kain’t be no monkey fo’ de honkey!”

Reginald sat, chin in the air, head held high, his full lips moist, plied to
softness by lip balm, his white cheeks and slender nostrils carved like an
Alabaster statue, his wavy hair set perfectly in rollers--- hers. It was early,
he would comb his hair do out that afternoon. He had such good hair! Wavy! Not
nappy. She worshipped this rare gem she had discovered! Ruby fell upon her knees
as he spread his wiry legs, licked his hairy lemon thighs with flicks of her pink
tongue tip, gently pulled out his nature thru the slit in his silk shorts and gave
him a blow job to full erection. Then , triumphant, strutted, nude, and ever the
lady, on dainty highheel gold pumps to the bed-- lay her full ebony body down on
the satin sheets, spread her legs, opening her full pungent pussy to his use. He
screwed her royally-- far better then a truly white man would-- for he had black
African blood! He talked much shit. Too much! Ruby soon discovered her pretty
man was slightly crazy, which was the reason he had descended to ruin instead of
prospering like his brothers and sisters. She brang him much money for awhiles.
She didn’t want to loose her crazy white nigger for nothing! She though in the
future she might get a baby by him, but wasn’t ready to settle down & exit from
the fast track quite yet.

Young Ruby had accumulated ho’ cases, citations, misdemeanors. Done petty
time. Served 30 and 60 day sentences. But finally she was put away in jail for
perjury. Spent 2 years behind bars.

When Ruby got out she stayed clean and away from the streets, living with
her sister Pookie, and a younger sister off and on for another year, but, no
skills, no money, a jail record; got sick of being broke and eventually found her
way back down to the sin strip to ply the only trade she knew.

“Ain’t none of these girls out here the same girls! Ain’t nobody out here
Ah knows!-- But you Valerie!”

The two old pros --25 and 27-- which is old, for the street, ambled down
the stroll together. The white woman showed the toll of time on her face-- skin
pockmarked from a bad diet. Her teeth rotted out. She wasn’t turning $60 and
$100 tricks no more. But now her price was $15. $10 in a pinch. The breeze
carried their conversation which still had not lost the fire of life that pounded
strong in their hearts. They pointed at the new generation of girls out workin’
along the curb, yelling; “YOO HOO HONEY!” In sassy voices.

“She look kind of young, don’t she?”

“A purity child.”

“Runaway I bet.”

“Dem girls up at Frosty Freeze is just childrun, Ah swear. They mommas must
drop ‘em out here and leave ‘em.”

“Don’t nobody care ‘bout ‘em noways.”

Ruby still looked sharp. Maturing into a healthy woman-- on the surface that
is. For her drug abuse, akahol, and long nights; under stress with little sleep
had not yet begun to show thru, with those ravages they were making, silently.
Killing within her internal organs.

Shortly after her release, Ruby got more bad news. That light complexioned,
petty pimp, Reggie had died in gunfire too; at the hands of much more vicious
player.--Human unpredictability. The pretty nigger Ruby had left, tired of his
drain on their finances & his No-Plan For The Future. Reggie’s sole goal had been
to rest, dress & IM-press. A man you would have thought didn’t hustle enough to
be a threat to anybody, but for one deadly aspect; he crossed paths with an
insanely jealous player who’s woman developed a passion for the fabulous handsome
dude.--And had the nerve to go get herself a baby by him!

“OH MA’ GOD! OH MA’ G O D!!!”

Under indigo lights Ruby sat in a nightclub: and cried and cried over her
list of lost lovers. Dark hands covered her face, bawling, tears streaming.
Alternately blowing her nose into bar napkins, or the sleeve of her coat--- while
tossing back another Brandy. 3 emptied Brandy snifters already sat before her.

“DEY JUS’ KEEP ON DYIN’! EVERY MAN AH DONE HAD IS GONE! DEY ALL TAKEN AWAY
FROM ME! ALL OF DEM’! AH DON’T HAVE A MAN! AH KAIN’T KEEP GOIN’ ON THIS-A-WAYS!
OH MY GAWD! OH MY GAWD! WHUT’S HAPPENIN’ T0 US!”

Ruby was getting older.

The hurt didn’t remain centerstage on her mind-- but broke down slowly over
the days, transforming itself into a gray mass--like oil-- which sat in deep dank
pool at the base of her soul.--Added to the load of shit, garbage, aches & pains
she carried already. Just like her momma had. Hurt wasn’t truly gone. And upon
special occasions when the woman felt especially bad, this hurt would reassemble
phantasmagoiraly, by each molecule, like a science fiction occurrence until there
it was---fully restored-- & so she could remember each hurt clearly, and ruminate
over what she had lost.

The black hooker was soon to meet her final love. -- While she could still
believe in love.

There was a bulldagger named LaMar who frequented a quasi-gay bar in

downtown San Francisco. She was 32 years of age, black, short-- 5’1” tall,
slender, and not the earnest kind of gay woman, nor the loving type, nor
protective of her ladies by being hard working-- but was calculating.

Some of the ‘hoods biggest players are bitches. They may be buldaggers one
minute, bitches the next. Drop their babies, then go back to being bulldaggers.
Run guns, deal drugs, drive getaway cars, boost, steal, hoist, fence, lie,
strongarm, and everythang else.

There’s another kind of bulldagger don’t like to be in The Life--the gay

life.-- Are scornful of it. But prefer to hang around the edges of the Fast Life,
amidst it’s player of the con game. And that was the pint-size LaMar’s
lifestyle.-- Maybe it was because s/he was not truly a lesbian, but part-man
hissef’.

This stud was a hope-to-die gay female. Nobody was going to stop him from
his sexual preference. Not threat of murder, or rape-- the latter of which had
been done to him-her. No veiled innuendoes of society hissing into his ears with
their false voices: ‘don’t you think you’ve lost your self-respect as a woman?’
Not even the bigot, godless Anita Bryant with her do-right fucked up version of
The Bible. Knock this lezban down, whip her, call her a BITCH and forcibly put a
skirt, high heels & hose on her-- the next day LaMar would be right back on the
street in trousers again, sporten’ a tie and men’s shoes; doing his thang;
standen’ on the corner staren’ at the ladies from hard cold eyes... So
subsequently she was Out There.

Being a stud.

LaMar would rather be dead then not be able to be, think, and fuck like she
wanted.

We might want, in our sympathy, to end her story in a fit: Ruby picks up a
shotgun! Blasts the No Good muthafucka’s away gangland style! -- Commits Bloody
Murder! And then the sorry bitch, will NEVAH be free. Spends the remainder of
her life captive behind bars in an ill-fitting orange prison uniform.

But Ruby used her head. Yes. She used her brains one time:

It was about a quarter of a century thru her life of crime-- just around the
time she went to work in the Massage Parlor as a last resort.
 In a low down hotel, cheapest that she could find. 10 by 12 feet;
containing a closet with a few of her snazzy outfits hung up, (She had just a few
working clothes at this address, and a lot more in her storage locker for safe
keeping, and a few boxes of stuff at her sisters who had mercy on her out of
respect for their childhood’s where she’d come over some Sundays for a decent
meal.) Two grimy windows-- which faced the street, of course. A rusty sink whose
porcelain was chipped, over which hung some pantyhose and underthings, drip
drying. No toilet; it, and the shower, were down the hall. One per floor. &
she had to piss. Ruby put her weary legs over the side of the saggy mattress and
slips her feet into a pair of pink mules with a pink fluff puff on each, throws on
a pink housecoat--trailing strings at the hem.

The hotel had mildew odor. And from hotplates cooking food on many floors.
Body odors and the perennial stench of liquor & cigarette smoke. Where 5 and 6
person families in one room, or single individuals; Senior Citizens, veterans,
winos, hypes, and crazies, all struggle to hang onto to the barest rung of
staying-alive. She made her way down the ragged carpet hall, past dusty walls
which were peeling and needed paint, to the toilet near the end of the corridor.
As she passed by a door midway down she heard a noisy commotion. Typical. Some
couple fussin’ n’ fighting no doubt, crammed into a too small a space with no
money and no exit.

The toilet was in a tiny cubical, cruddy. An ancient contraption that

roared when it’s handle was pushed. Ruby brought her own paper roll.....

Inside the closed space she sighed. She could still hear that fuss! A loud
man, and a screaming woman.-- Even over the sound of the flushing water.

Later, when she returned, lay down again, after about ten minutes had
passed, the noise had grown into a fierce commotion and was much louder--as if it
was out in the hall! The woman screaming for her life! And a ferocious male
voice bellowing! Fearful, yet wanting to find out where what was going on,
tierdly, Ruby got back up. Silently went to the door. Wisely, she didn’t tip her
hand, but opened the door just an eye’s width on it’s flimsy metal chain and
peeked into the long carpeted hall.

And there he stood; Sir Marshall Jones, The pretty tan nigger who’d turnt
her out!

‘My GOD! IT AIN”T!’

Lean & mean as ever, graying hair, his brown face cut deeply with lines of
worry, ill-living; his powerful iron-hard biceps bulging in a satin shirt as he
administered a pimp whupping--barehanded.

Whipping and whipping one of his new young girls right out in the hallway--
where she’d managed to escape-- oblivious of the other tenants, he was so furious.
Something about his money..... And this girl..... Underneath the fine clothes
he’d bought her to work for him which were now torn and in disarray; despite
cosmetics running over her face, the girl looked a lot younger then what the
tricks saw--if they cared to see.-- Beneath all the showy finery and allure, the
fact apparent, that she was a kid. Really young... Young like Ruby had been....
Maybe 15, or worse.

The older woman stared in disgust mixed with disbelief. ‘JONES! Thet
lowdown dirty bastaid!’
 Thru the slit in the door of her room a mature Ruby; coarse face, hard, &
which bore the signs of abuse. Gazes, not 15 feet away, at the face of a young
girl, unlined, smooth. In seconds she evaluates the situation. Ruby knew she
was old enough to be the girls mother--even grandmother. The child-woman had a
purity.-- And it was obvious she was tremendously unhappy.-- She was crawling now!
Over the worn out scrap of a hallway carpet-- trying to get away from him!

Marshall Jones rained fisticuffs down at her head, and kicked her some more
for good measure-- then dragged her back inside the room. The door slammed and
they were gone from view. But inside the screams of pain and terror continued!

Without a sound, Ruby silently pulled her door closed. And stood there,
pressed against it, breathless. Suddenly her eyes began to flash! A strange wild
look which showed the whites of her eyeballs, came over her! Eyes all big rolling
in her head like a Voodoo Priestess!

In disbelief she stood there a moment. Fear filled. And then...

And what did Ruby do? -- She did the worst thing a con could do! A thing
that a snatches the laugh right out of a Players mouth. This street-hated, most
dawgish, most unheard of, audacious deed!

Ruby crept silently back into the hall on stocking feet, carrying her pumps
in her hand, and; wanting to avoid passing by their hotel room door at any costs,
stealthy tiptoed back to the rear, to the fire escape stairs, and descended one
floor then came back inside, put her shoes on and ran down the front steps, into
the old hotel lobby breathless, and determined! Sweat beaded on her broad black
nose, breath came in harsh rasps. Went outside onto the deserted boulevard. Made
it down 5 blocks to a pay telephone booth which sat adjacent to a hamburger
establishment. There, trying to appear nonchalant, she dropped a dime.

Ruby snitched.

She called down The Man.

And in the Marshall Jones case it was as good as killing him.

The police arrived in under 3 minutes, and found the girl, along with a
flabbergasted Jones, in that cheap crib he’d gotten for her. Saw purple bruises
over her body. A blackened eye and bloodied face. And she was 14. They took
the girl into Protective Services. The professionals there, took their support of
minor kids serious, got her out of harms way, plus gave her legal protection not
to be returned to the terrifically abusive home from which she’d fled. --And from
this safe vantage position she turned States Evidence against her pimp.

Sir Marshall Jones went to jail for 13 years. He lost his house, his
apartment building, his cars; and his fleet of whores bucked and ran carrying all
their furs, satins, silks and jewelry’s; and he would never see his kids again.

That’s what the bold sistah’ did.

The city.
 It has the allusion of having everything. Technology. Silver highways
winding; modernistic buildings that reach to the sky.-- All of it is a blessing to
make our lives easier, but it is not the final answer.

Streets at the foot of the skyscrapers are flooded with dropouts from the
AmeriKKKan dream. Hippies like the Hobos of yesterday. Black clad, and pierced
Punks of today. Beside freeways rushing along are the left-behind in ramshackle
edifices. The growing poverty class.

***

At the foot of the city stood a young girl. ‘I bes doing it.’ Thinks she.

Determined to live high on whities hog instead of eating the grunts &
pigtails. The pork chops. The fillet de pig.

Seagulls swoop in the air. Jazz plays over silver highways and gray
government buildings. Saxophone blows chords.

Love is the food of heaven & we will eat it all day long... But for now we
content ourselves with drops of love-- far and few between....

Women walking in the streets in dark coats & shawls. Women were everywhere
in shrouds. Mourning.

Wailing to be saved!

Eyes listless. Hands in empty pockets, hongry for cash. Society had so
reduced us, begging for money, that it had become the sole light of our obsession.
Finding a single coin made our eyes gleam!

Police hiding around the corner. 1,2, 3 squad cars, then the fleet! They
peruse, that is their job. And seldom save the souls of the lost and damned. The
grim world marches on.

Why are people the way they are?

This is the intellectual property of the author, Red Jordan Arobateau