For a sixteen-year-old boy he made for a pretty sixteen-year-old girl.

There is a street kid on the block who I have seen, off and on, for at least four or five years. A few others remain from that period, but the churn rate is usually faster than that. And maybe there are others that have never really registered in my memory: dirty hair, dirty clothes, haphazard tattoos, piercings, dead eyes -- the individual can be hard to distinguish. I am a little more familiar with the ones who constantly ask for a cigarette.

This kid, though: he has his look. When he started he was a slender boy, maybe sixteen. Long blonde hair, usually dyed blue and fading to seasick green, occasionally with a cheap barrette, often in pigtails. Short cut-off jeans, regardless of the weather. Girls' flirty sandals. Blue eye shadow. Sometimes a t-shirt, sometimes a discarded blouse. For a sixteen-year-old boy he made for a pretty sixteen-year-old girl.

He would be on the street for a few weeks, then disappear. Maybe to a different neighborhood: Capitol Hill would be a likely place to ply his trade. Maybe he picked up an older benefactor where he then stayed, until kicked out for behavior, or theft, or just because the benefactor was tired of him and wanted a new boy.

The benefactors probably almost believed they were doing a Good Thing. Sure, they were using him for sex, but he was off the streets, warm, fed. Perhaps drugs shared occasionally. They probably preferred calling it an arrangement, I imagine. As the bumper sticker from the Seventies said: Ass, Gas or Grass: No One Rides For Free. Pretty sure which of the three he is.

Then: back to the Ave. Like I said, I have seen him now run through this cycle for at least four or five years. He pretty much looks the same, but he doesn't smile as much. Eyes a little harder, etc etc. He still makes for a fairly pretty sixteen-year-old girl, or at least enough for some men. He can probably do this for a couple more years.

- james james

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