The Hooker with a Heart of Gold

I opened up this place called The Hooker with a Heart of Gold. It was a little shack somewhat near a lake. My shed was almost hidden by overgrown reeds – to come into my shop, you had to part them like when you go through a beaded curtain. The effect was very dramatic.

It was a fishing shop – bait ‘n’ such – and one of my services was that I would put a worm on a hook for you. There’s a knack to it, believe it or not. I hook ‘em right between where I imagine their eyes would be. I prefer not to think about them actually having eyes, because if I were to look down and see a tiny pair of worm eyes pleading with me, maybe even crying little worm-tears, I probably couldn’t be a hooker.

So it’s a joke, the name. I figured that would be obvious, since this area is known for being a fishing locale. Like when you go to the beach and there’s some place called the Salty Dog – you don’t go in expecting to literally find a dog that’s salty, then get all pissed and demand reparations when you’re wrong.

As usual, I underestimated the stupidity of humankind.

First came the earnest seekers. I put an ad in the back of the local phone book (remember those?!). I had to pay per line, so I only put the name, the address, and the phone number. These men would come, these alert-looking bumpkin loners. I felt sorry for them; they were so apprehensive, like at any moment someone was going to say “Gotcha!” and pop out with a TV-camera crew.

They came to my shed hoping to find, I don’t know, the perfect female specimen, although my ad wasn’t gender-specific, and in fact, some of the men might have been hoping to find a male hooker there, what do I know? A soul who was good in the sack but would listen for hours about how your mama never really loved you. They came to find the impossible, or the improbable. Or at least the marketing-savvy.

“Can I help you?” I would say, standing behind my wooden counter, reading “the funnies.”
The men would wrinkle up their faces in bewilderment. “Is this… [address of my store]?”
“You’ve come to the right place!”
“Are you…?” Incredulity now, reddening to anger.
“The manager? You got it, buddy! What’ll it be? Feather lures, worms? We’ve got cold beer, too. Have you come for my famous hooking services?”
“This is… a fishing store?”
“The best in all the land!”
(Mumblings about false advertising, fraudulent claims, “bullshit,” etc., all the way out the door. One time: “I ought to kick your punk ass.” I bought a gun after that one.)

Once in a while one of them would play it off, pretend he’d known it all along, maybe buy a case of beer and some random feather lure. One poor schmuck even tried to fake some fisher talk. “They bitin’ much out there today?”

I decided to have some fun with it. I had T-shirts and trucker caps made up. Somehow the hipsters found out (they have their ways, their little ‘zines and their Lonely Planets). They started coming to my store, not to have their worms hooked but to take selfies of themselves in the hats. Sometimes they’d even buy one.

But neither demographic bought enough stuff to make it worth my while to stay out there. It’s not like I was in a high-rent area out there in the reeds, but I have a house and a car and bills and grandkids in the will whom I don’t want to disappoint when I die.

I’d had hopes of my business thriving, of its becoming a beloved local establishment and not just a novelty one. It was a nice dream, but impossible to attain. Like a you-know-what.

–The Shinnin’