Prostitution should be legal...

[April 13th, 2005] Prostitution should be legal. It has always been here; it's never going to go away. It allows a women to sell herself explicitly if she chooses, rather than settle for all the more implicit ways that are acceptable, and legalizing it helps protect her. I'm totally fine with it.

Except when it's going on in the back of my cab.

I pick this couple up on Northeast Sandy Boulevard, and they want to go to a motel on 82nd. No problem. She could be any age between 18 and 35-it's hard to tell sometimes. The young girl who works seven nights a week to feed a crank habit can look older than her mother back home in whatever town she left.

Him, though-him I don't like. He looks like someone who might hit her a little bit; he's definitely in this for the power thing as much as for the sex. And he's exercising that power right now, murmuring something in her ear. I keep a wary eye on the rearview mirror. She's shaking her head slightly. I can tell he's giving her another bill.

Sure enough, her head disappears from view. I am not happy. I hear the zipper going down. I see him close his eyes in the rear view; he opens them again and gives me a "what are you gonna do about it?" look.

What I'm gonna do about it is hit that pothole I spotted up ahead at about 45 mph. The car lurches; he yelps in pain. I stifle a laugh.

And after she's come back into view herself, I swear she looks like she wants to laugh, too.