BY PATRICIA FIELDSTEEL | I first discovered McDonald’s in the 1980s, when I needed to use the ladies room. Occasionally, I also went there to write, fortified by coffee, diet soda and fries. At the time, I was working nights as an outreach worker to street prostitutes on the most degraded strolls in all five boroughs of New York City.
It was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, as well as the height of the crack scourge, which turned thousands of women into streetwalkers to support their habits. We went out in a medical van donated by a condom manufacturer, drawing blood as part of a research project to see if women could get and transmit H.I.V.
We tested for the virus, offered counseling, safe-sex education and free rubbers. We also needed to compensate the women for their time so their pimps didn’t beat them up for lost income. We paid $15 cash, the equivalent of what they’d get for a blow job. Then one Saturday night on a deserted strip in East Harlem, we were surrounded and mobbed by junkies. Word was out: We had cash. A safer payment method had to be found.
Ultimately, we decided on $15 worth of McDonald’s coupon books as payment. During the years I worked for the project, we tested more than 3,000 women, seeing many of them multiple times in follow-ups for test results, referrals and counseling. Each time, we gave out coupons. It’s probably safe to say we may have altered the clientele demographics of New York City’s McDonald’s outlets. Was anyone the wiser? I doubt it. Not unlike a certain profession, purchasing fast food affords anonymity. It is also impersonal — you know what you want beforehand, you order, you pay your money upfront, you instantly get your goods, you eat and you leave. And if you do it too often, you’ll most likely suffer long-term medical consequences.
Even here in Provence, France, where I now live, I confess to occasionally frequenting the nearby “McDo” (pronounced “MacDough”) in Valréas. In times of stress, I bribe myself with a “Happy Meal.” Four euros buys a cute little red pocketbook box, diet cola, fries, two sauces, a fruit or yogurt dessert, a cheeseburger and a gender-designated toy. Recently I got a plastic Arab Barbie in a pink miniskirt. There is also free Wi-Fi (“wee-fee” in French) and air conditioning.
Prostitution fulfills someone else’s desire for sex. The seller’s need is singular: money. At the worst of the crack epidemic, we met girls who sold themselves for as little as 50 cents. Many were underage. Others were single mothers with children to support. As one homeless, addicted teenager explained to me, she wasn’t “really a prostitute” because she wasn’t “in it for the sex,” she was “in it for the money.”
Giving out coupons guaranteed “our” money would not be used for drugs. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I’d like to believe eating at McDonald’s gave the women a small modicum of normality and self-respect. The poorer, more strung-out among them stole from bodegas or scrounged through garbage in neighborhoods that were isolated, cut off from the rest of the city and commercial centers. Fast-food outlets are about location; they are frequently found, lined up, one right after the other, in heavily trafficked strips with a fast turnover of potential clientele, who often arrive and eat in cars.
During this period, out of curiosity, I visited a few porn establishments in Times Square, back in the days before it became Disneylanded. A few of the girls (they preferred “girls” to “women”) had started out as exotic dancers, masseuses or in porn shops before they hit the streets. West 42nd Street was lined with nearly identical-looking peep shows flashing blinking lights: “HOT!! XXX GIRLS!! XXX!!” One, however, caught my eye: “XXX HOT!!! COLLEGE GIRLS!!! XXX.” I went inside.
What we call here in France, jetons, had to be purchased. For 50 cents apiece, you got a golden coin with a sexy lady on the front and another one on the back. Throwing caution to the wind, I bought two, one of which I still have here in my house in Provence. It was an off-hour — I had just been to a Sunday afternoon concert conducted by a friend in Carnegie Hall — and was headed Downtown to an after-concert party.
Very few perverts were inside. There was a long corridor with several tightly shut opaque windows. You inserted the jeton in a slot and the window went up. Suddenly, I was face to face with “college girls” sitting around eating Big Macs and fries out of several large shopping bags. I stared at them; they stared at me. One got up, her plaid miniskirt jiggling, as she approached the open window, holding a French fry dripping ketchup in her long faux curly nails.
“What do you want?”
This was not a question for which I was prepared.
“I don’t know,” I stammered, as the window slammed shut.
I approached the manager and explained to the best of my ability, the “situation.” I had deposited my jeton. (“Heh, lady???”) O.K., I put in my coin, the window opened, women were eating Big Macs and then the window slammed shut.
“I don’t understand this,” I said.
He gave me several more jetons “on the house.” He had another name for them, which I’ve forgotten. I put one in the slot and the same little tableau was repeated. I tried again. More of the same, only now they were digging into the bags for seconds on the Big Macs. I complained to the management. He went behind the scenes and gave me more jetons. The window went up and a college girl approached.
“Do you want to touch?”
“Touch! Touch what?” I stammered, “I’m not interested in touching anything. I just want to see what it is you do.”
I was beginning to suspect the situation was deteriorating. Perhaps subliminally the odor of the fries and Big Macs reminded me I was soon due Downtown at a dinner party in the East Village.
The manager approached. He wanted to know if I’d liked what I’d seen. I explained I hadn’t seen much, to be honest, and that I had thought his establishment had better things on offer. He told me he would show me the best he had and he would give it to me for free. (He also muttered something about my presence not encouraging his regular clientele to feel at ease.)
He escorted me to a red wooden pedestal with a yellow viewing machine on top that reminded me of the stereoscopic View-Master toys from the early 1960s. I was instructed to watch. A grainy black-and-white video began. It was hard to make out, but there appeared to be a black torso and a white torso — no heads or limbs — and a lot of bumping, thrusting and grinding, accompanied by moans and grunts and what I imagined was supposed to be a sexy musical film score. Unlike the quick-peek windows, this show was endless and a tad repetitive. It finally came to an abrupt halt as the reel spun out of control, spraying the screen with squiggles and loops.
“Well, what did you think?” he asked excitedly.
I attempted to give the most precise and incisive cinematographic analysis I could. He stared at me blankly, a tinge of incredulity to his face.
“What do you want, lady, what do you want?!”
I politely thanked him, made a quick exit and took the subway Downtown. The party at the composer’s house was in full swing. Luminaries from the music, literary, film, dance and theater world were animatedly conversing and sipping wine and fruit juice. The atmosphere was informal, friendly and laid-back.
After a while, the guests departed and around 12 of us who’d been asked stayed on for dinner. While we sat around the large kitchen table, the composer, a vegan of many decades, prepared pizzas from scratch, starting with a whole-wheat crust. The conversation was heady, fascinating, intimate and just plain fun, the mood relaxed and homey.
That night I slept well and late into the following day, when I returned to work on the condom van in the evening. We drove to Brighton Beach and then Coney Island, both of which had significant prostitute strolls. Always, when we finished, in the early-morning hours, we wrapped for the night at Nathan’s Famous for sizzling franks and hot greasy fries.
The shape of the hot dogs and their association to hookers hardly needs elaboration. What mattered to us was their instant availability, straight off the grill and ready to eat.
Another stroll I regularly worked was Manhattan’s West 14th Street in the Meat Market, which back then was still a meatpacking district, with whole carcasses arriving during the night to be cut up, packaged, sold and distributed. This was also the domain of transvestite and transgendered prostitutes who plied their trade during the hours the market was in swing.
Among the most notorious was a 7-foot black woman named Porsche. Porsche was probably the oldest, longest-working hooker there and so fierce, she didn’t have or need a pimp, or “manager,” as they preferred to be called.
By the 1990s, most of the meat dealers had moved up to Hunts Point Market in the Bronx, site of another large stroll. The 14th Street Meat Market had begun to be gentrified, with high-class restaurants, fancy boutiques and glitzy nightclubs. Many of the transgendered hookers had moved on, died or been murdered. Only a few from the old days remained.
One night, on my way home from dinner at Pastis, the French bistro/brasserie owned by the British restauranteur Keith McNally, I bumped into one of the working girls I’d known from the ’80s. We embraced and she proudly told me she was negative. We chatted and I asked after the other girls. Then I mentioned I hadn’t seen Porsche in several years.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, “Porsche left the life. She got clean and is living at her mom’s out in Brooklyn. She’s working at a Burger King.”
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.
