Pork Chop.

     I’ve learned that in this cold world sometimes you’re a pimp, and sometimes you’re a whore.  And then there’s Pork Chop. 

 

     When I lived in Costa Rica in ’99 I rented an apartment in San Pedro, a sleepy suburb of the main city San Jose.  For a couple months my travel compadre Shane and I called the Apartmentos Williams home.  The AW looked more like a militarized bunker than an apartment building, and like I’ve described before the décor in the place was Liberace on a bad acid trip – everything was covered with plastic and lace.  The only sign of authority that was ever visible, the head maintenance worker, was a window-licking pervert named Sergio who always wore a goofy fisherman hat and walked around with his fly unzipped. 

     Part of the reason that we moved in was to get a glimpse of local life for a typical Costa Rican.  Before I moved in I envisioned smiling families befriending us and inviting us to their dinner table every night, their kids high-fiving their new Gringo friends on their way to school.  We would help the old lady in 4B, Senorita Theresa, carry her groceries up the stairs, which would of course endear us to the local community.  “What amazing gentlemen and scholars,” they would proclaim to each other as they saw us playing soccer with Little Jesus in his wheelchair in the courtyard. Of course I wouldn’t do it for the accolades, just because it’s the right thing to do.  But I wouldn’t be mad that they were trying to marry me to their smolderingly exotic daughter who was being groomed to take over the family liquor store and desperately in need of a breast reduction.  

     “No, we cannot stay – there’s a whole world out there waiting for us” we’d explain half-heartedly when they begged us to stay.  The daughter would run and throw herself in my arms, distraught that I was leaving.  I would dry her tears with the back of my hand and promise to come back for her.  We could get married in the little Cathedral in San Pedro with Little Jesus wheeling his little rig right up the aisle as the ring bearer.  The Apartmento Williams would still be our happy home; she could work at the liquor store 14 hours a day while I supervised (a very important job) and with my encouragement she would realize that she didn’t need the breast reduction surgery – I would accept her the way she was.  What a guy.  For this she vowed to wait for me in virginal anticipation, even if it took 99 years.  I was worth it.

     As we turned to leave and looked back one more time Little Jesus emerged from the crowd in his wheelchair (which, note to self, was rusting and needed a brake replaced) and presented us with medals he made out of tin foil and Chicle boxes he wove together by hand, hanging them around our necks like Olympic athletes.  Every single resident of Apartmentos Williams, including Senorita Theresa, would break out into applause and the spontaneously start singing Stairway to Heaven in Spanish.  As we hit the street and jumped in a taxi I could swear I saw Perverted Sergio stand at attention, zip up his fly, and salute.       

    

It didn’t go down like that.  Not even close. 

     Our apartment was on the end of the building.  For our first week we didn’t hear a peep out of the unit next to us, nor any signs of life, until one morning we happened to be at the place around noon, instead of playing basketball at Parka Carolina as usual.  Shane and I were on the couch out front of our place chilling when we saw their door open.  Out walked girl after girl like a clown car unloading, coal black skin, hair wrapped, and looking sleepy.  They kept coming, seven in all, and looked at us curiously and then smiled.  We finally had a chance to meet our neighbors. 

     Our neighbors were all in their late teens or early twenties and from the Dominican Republic, an extremely poor island nation that shares it’s land mass with Haiti.  There was Helena, a cherubic lighter skin gal with a pretty face, two giggly sisters with corn rows in their hair, and Noelle, their ringleader.  Noelle was tall and thin with stunning features and eyes that showed the intelligence of a wounded animal.  She was the defacto leader of the group not because someone voted her in but because she had the sharpest business sense, was extremely clever, and a very tough cookie.  And then there was Pork Chop.  The first time we met Pork Chop we both had to look up – she easily stood about 6’2”.    Though not fat she was definitely a Cadillac – built for comfort, not for speed.  All of the other girls  introduced themselves and we caught their names, but Pork Chop was busy gnawing on a meat bone viciously, so hence she got her nickname.  Every single time we saw her she was eating something – scraping last night’s pot of rice and beans, deep-throating an ice cream bar, or attacking a whole roasted chicken with furry.  She lounged around the apartment half naked, her jean shorts unbuttoned on top to relieve the pressure on her gut, sucking her teeth, but I don’t think I ever heard her speak.  She only communicated with grunts in between picking beef kabobs out of her grill with her finger.  I believe her one and only love was carne (meat), though she was a prostitute like the rest of them.  I’m sure every night she made a meal out of some freaky 5’4” tall Japanese business man who paid by the minute for Pork Chop to play sexual Godzilla to his downtown Tokyo. 

Pork Chop was so fat that she measured 34-24-36….and that was just her left arm!  Stop it! 

Pork Chop was so big that she wore an Asteroid Belt.  Ok cut it out Norm, that’s not nice.

 Ok just one more!  Pork Chop was so big and fat that when she hauls ass she has to make two trips!  Hahahahah!  Ok quit it – you guys are messed up.    

     In reality the entire Apartment Williams was home to a wolf-pack of ho’s; almost every unit was filled with prostitutes.  We hadn’t unknowingly moved into a whore house (which would have made for a much more entertaining story) but happened to be the secluded living quarters of choice for these working girls.  I guess it was a cheap, safe place where they all felt comfortable living together and could share taxis to work.  These girls fucked guys in exchange for money.  The reason I say that is not to sensationalize but that’s exactly what it was – an exchange of commodity and service for currency, a career choice, but it wasn’t who they were as people.  It was an unfortunate economic necessity that they had to come to Costa Rica to have access to foreigners with money.  The cash that they made for letting a drunk tourist climb on top of them would probably feed their whole family back home for a week.  I imagine that’s what they thought of every time they closed their eyes, clenched their teeth, and went numb.  It’s easy for us in the US to sit on our high horses and judge “prostitution.”  Even that word elicits visions of a woman dragging along the shadows of the street, trying to outrun her bad choices, disease riddled and addicted to crack.  But in the rest of the world, the real world where people can’t afford hypocrisy, prostitution is a social vice that’s never going away.  At its best, in places like the Netherlands and Costa Rica, prostitution has been legalized and women enjoy unions, membership cards, police protection, and health screenings and benefits.  In many countries there are “good girls” who have loving families and jobs, like secretaries or school teachers, and are even college educated, but have to go make extra money on the weekends or the off season.  They chose to go to the local clubs or hotspots and are paid to “party” with tourists to supplement their income.  At its worst there is the seedy market of under-aged girls and boys who were sold into servitude to pimps and gangs by starving parents.  But prostitution exists and it’s everywhere, most of it driven by conscious choices and economics, not lack of self esteem because their daddy didn’t give them enough hugs or because they are strung out on crack.   

     The girls next door became our good friends.  I have to be honest - at first I found it hard to trust them because of their vocation.  I couldn’t even shake Pork Chop’s hand without thinking about where it had been the night before; probably Donkey Punching a Canadian tourist who wore a leather mask with a zipper for a mouth.  But my shallow judgment couldn’t have been further off the mark.  I came to find that they didn’t drink, they didn’t smoke, and Noelle would chastise anyone who cursed within the confines of their apartment, in English or Spanish.  There was a leather-bound bible on the coffee table of their spotless apartment, opened to a new page every day.  Though young themselves, they had families and children in the Dominican Republic that they had to support, so they did what they did in Costa Rica and sent every dollar home.  It was amazing the pressure they were under – literally selling their bodies and risking their safety every night – but still had amazing attitudes and smiling dispositions.  They thought we were crazy – going out drinking and smoking every night, and Noelle would watch out for us by instructing us which streets or clubs were unsafe.  We never dared mention their nocturnal vocation, and they certainly didn’t volunteer the details.

     All seven of them were living in their little two bedroom apartment together, sleeping on couches and two to a twin bed.  Pork Chop slept on a full-sized mattress but her Patrick Chewing-sized feet hung off the end of the bed.    During the day they would lounge around after a few hours sleep.  Someone would cook a big pot of rice with fish and plantains and Pork Chop would eat half of it and then down a bag of Doritos for desert before spreading out on the couch and snoring like a lumberjack.  Every night around seven o’clock they emerged from the apartment dressed to the nines and caked with makeup and jump in a taxi van, heading to the Hotel Del Ray.  The Del Ray, and the Blue Marlin Bar inside, is infamous on the international sexual tourism scene.  It’s a hotel and casino in downtown San Jose that brings in all the tourists, and their money, to partake in scores of prostitutes and a mountain of cocaine.  That is where the girls operated every night, seven days a week without exception.  I couldn’t really say how much the girls made, or if they paid Pork Chop in pizza coupons, but it was probably around 5am when they rolled back home every morning. 

 

     I didn’t speak much Spanish at the time but Shane conversed with them as I did the usual – just smiled and nodded my head.  I had no idea what they were talking about but it seemed better than just being straight-faced.  It backfired, because they assumed I understood everything and thereafter spoke to me in rapid-fire Espanol.  The gals would come to me to talk about their problems and unburden their deepest fears and dreams, and assumed that I was the best listener on the planet. I tilted my head slightly sideways like a puppy dog, offered grunts and sighs of acknowledgement, smiled when they smiled, frowned when they frowned, and kept nodding my head like a bobble head doll as they talked, but never interrupted or made the conversation about me.  I’m not sure what important life advice I was dispensing through my silence, but they never seemed to catch on that I was in fact incommunicado because of the language barrier, or didn’t care, and that is how I became the personal therapist to a pack of Dominican prostitutes: the Ho Whisperer, if you will.  

     It was the rainy season and every afternoon, as the heat became almost unbearable, the clouds rolled in from the mountains and broke, dousing the city of San Jose in a tropical monsoon.   It rained so hard that there was nothing to do but run for the nearest store or movie theater for refuge and laugh as you got soaked to the bone.  That is where you would spend your time until the rains stopped and the dazzling clean sun reemerged.  It may be 5 minutes later, it may be hours.  Often times we’d be coming home from playing basketball with our homie Luis “El Torro”, and spend the rainy afternoons in our apartment with Noelle, Helena, Pork Chop, and the girls playing cards.  We taught them Gin Rummy and we had grand card tournaments betting with M & M’s, Radio Dos playing American soft pop form the 70’s while we laughed and the gringos tried to cheat our way to victory.  The girls were always respectful, and really appreciated our friendship.  It came to the point that we didn’t even lock our front door and they came and went from our apartment as they pleased, like it was the clubhouse for our gang.  I would leave my wallet and all my possessions out in the open and not give it a second thought.  The girls would even sweep up our place with a homemade broom and tidy up the dishes.  Helena showed me pictures of her daughter that she received in a rare letter from back home, folding it up and putting it away in the envelope like it was a copy of the original Magna Charta.    

     A couple of days before we left Costa Rica Noelle mentioned to us that it was going to be Pork Chop’s 21st birthday.  Shane and I brought home a birthday cake we found at the local grocery store chain, Mas Por Menos, that spelled “Feliz Compleanos” in blue icing.  We invited the girls over for our last dinner, dimmed the lights, and lit a handful of candles and stuck them in the cake.  When the girls walked in, enticing Pork Chop from her hybernative state on the couch by dangling a hamburger patty in front of her, their jaws dropped.  They froze, not sure if it was ok to move or break the silence.  Seven Dominican prostitutes, one of which was named Pork Chop, stared in awe at a simple birthday cake.     

     The girl’s faces glowed in the candlelight in our dark apartment, showing honest eyes and childlike smiles as if we had set off fireworks.  After we sang happy birthday in Spanish, mumbling the part when we said her name, we turned on the lights and cut pieces for everyone, served on the few plates, bowls, and saucers we had.  But Pork Chop wasn’t eating.  I’d seen her brush her teeth with spaghetti and meatballs, so why the hell wasn’t she hungry for the cake we bought for her?  Was everything OK, we asked?  Why wasn’t she eating?  Noelle and Pork Chop whispered back and forth for a moment before she reported back to us:

It was the first time in her whole life Pork Chop had ever gotten a real store-bought birthday cake, and she didn’t want to ruin it.    

     Damn that hit me.  I realized that I had come to care about these women as sisters, as flesh and blood human beings, and I was genuinely concerned about the journey they were facing.  I wish I could tell you there we did something to help them, that there was some miraculous salvation that occurred to bring their lives from darkness to light.  But that’s not how it works in the real world.  Maybe it wasn’t them at all who needed salvation.  Perhaps it was something in me that changed for knowing them, something that softened in my heart, my judgment swept away.

     Six weeks had come and gone and it was time for us crazy gringos to pack up our stuff and head to Venezuela.  I hate goodbyes with those I care about because there is really nothing you can say to make it better.  There is nothing but the empty crystal air dancing with sunlight, so beautiful it hurts your soul, and the smell of fresh rain on the streets of San Pedro.  In this dream we're all living there no one lines up to applaud, but all we have is silence and an open Bible on a hooker’s nightstand.  If nothing else I’d like to think I helped them turn to the next page.  In the real world salvation isn’t a birthday cake, but sometimes it can come pretty damn close. Feliz compleanos Pork Chop.