I had just retired at seventy after a very successful career in real estate and had bought a nice beach house to live out my golden years in. I rode out a real estate boom in Florida and had worked longer than I had anticipated because of a hot market and decided to retire when the market went south. Truthfully, I wasn’t feeling all that golden about life from here on out, but I suppose it beat the alternative. In many ways old age slowly paints one into a corner as the body degenerates and you become invisible to younger generations. Like the old stand-up joke went, “First you get old, then you get sick, and then you die. If you’re lucky.” And I was lucky. I was in excellent health, kept fit and active, was financially comfortable, and looked way younger than my age would suggest.

I had been married four times and was now single and happy. Being a good husband was obviously not in my skill set. Luckily, I never had any children nor did I want too. Actually, luck had very little to do with it. I planned to never have offspring. I was too much a child myself for that to have turned out very well. In retrospect that was a wise decision too. I for sure would have raised a school shooter. I had my share of girlfriends through the years, but at 70 that was getting harder to keep up with too. Quite honestly, I didn’t feel very sexy lately. Gone were the days of asking the twenty something checkout girl at the grocery store for a date. It was easier being alone than becoming a dirty old man.

Like everywhere else in the country, I noticed the homeless population had increased dramatically after the COVID Pandemic in my neck of the woods. There was one freeway exit I used a lot that always had a contingent of homeless begging for money. Often there was this woman on that corner that fascinated me for some reason. Actually, the reason was pretty obvious, as she was very attractive and it aroused my curiosity as to how she ended up in this situation. It didn’t add up. She must have been in her twenties, was very petite with a tight little body, and a very cute face. I could see her sex appeal even through the street grime She was often in shorts and a halter top, and I am sure she made pretty good change at that intersection. I was also pretty sure looking like that would invite a special kind of hell on the street too. I for sure always gave her a few bucks for her perky personality and winning ways. She had a whole performance vibe and earned her handouts. I never saw any evidence of her turning tricks, but she could have been.

One time I was at that intersection and saw her being harassed by a homeless guy. I gave her a whistle and opened my passenger door, and she ran to get in. I just drove around for a while so I could hear her story. Her name was Wendy, she was twenty-six, originally from Tampa, had come from an abusive home environment with a drug addicted mother and a stepfather who had raped her in high school. She ran away at 18 and got involved with some other bad choices in men and life. Wendy had been on the street about 3 months, and it had been a struggle being a single woman surviving. She was surprisingly articulate, and I could tell she was pretty smart. Turns out Wendy was the granddaughter of a New York State senator. Her mom had been the wild child hippie chick that flew the coop. And Wendy was even hotter close up and I guessed would clean up really good. I decided to take a huge risk. At 70 I really didn’t give a fuck, and I always had a pretty good gut for sniffing out situations.