The Magical Hooker of Swishpit

Walking out of Lindsey’s was never an easy endeavor. If you made it past Whalin’ Jack and his pool-stick-leg of a thousand-and-one origin stories you had to deal with Big Hurt’s grabby hands, and she didn’t earn the name Big Hurt for her gentleness; she was Swishpit’s tri-county, bare-knuckle, walnut smashing champion.

Tonight, however, I was prepared. I had Leslie poor Whalin’ Jack a shot of his favorite rum and serve it to him just as we were about to cross paths, and I distracted Big Hurt by pointing to the television and yelling LUMBERJACK TOURNAMENT. I felt slightly disingenuous for about three seconds but rejoiced when I opened the bar door and walked out with pain-free-soon-to-be-numb testicles.

With a sigh of relief and a cheerful buzz I travelled homeward down the pavement. Shortly thereafter I stumbled past a prostitute. Typically, I offer no interest in these women. While holding no qualms against their profession, being the mayor’s speech writer I didn’t care to be incidentally caught on a camera phone somewhere and splayed on a social website. I wasn’t one of the people in the spotlight but I was responsible in part for the upkeep of the mayor’s image, and me being caught pain-free-testicles-deep inside a streetwalker wasn’t the best way of honoring my duties. Especially if I wasn’t even shit-pants-hammered or wigging out on a bad batch of LSD; if I were to be caught sober or just slightly buzzed (as I was that evening) – not only was I going to be seen as a deviant, but a sociopathic deviant as well. No thank you.

After a couple of hours of rough sex and good weed behind closed curtains and depowered cell phones, I paid her and sent her away from my apartment, and then showered.

I wasn’t sure what had famished me more, the sex or the weed, but my stomach growled. The weed’s effects reminded me to get a blood test within the next few days. The fridge was nearly barren as I’d been avoiding the market during its pique busy hours. I preferred to shop early in the morning or late after hours to avoid crowds.

My stomach gargled again – blood test – and rejoiced I was to find a batch of apples in the crisper. I grabbed the peanut butter jar and proceeded to spread its contents on to the apple. I took a bight, embracing the crunchy, cold, creamy goodness of it all and as I was about to spread more peanut butter on to the ripe red fruit the ripe red bitten fruit turned to gold.

Timidly curious, but still hungry – blood test - I grabbed another apple from the bag, but after about a minute of passing it from hand to hand there was no transformation. I even spread peanut butter on it, but I wound up with only sticky hands and a stomach demanding more food – blood test. I bit into this latest apple, and that was the key. Instantly the partially consumed apple turned into gold. I bit into another new apple and the same reaction occurred, although momentarily I was disheartened because this most likely meant that I could no longer eat apples, and I enjoyed them quite a bit – sweet ones, sour ones, bitter ones, the ones we made into bongs at office parties, staff meetings, and speech writing sessions.

Sure enough, after a few days of testing out this bizarre gift of turning used apples into gold I discovered I was cut off from consuming a full apple as the gift didn’t apply to any other fruits or foods that I ate, but I was unsure if this gift was a permanent one. At night I walked past the block where I met the Magic Bearing Hooker, but I never saw her again and there were dozens of sleepless nights that were filled with questions, questions about why I was granted this unusual ability: What happened to that hooker? And did all hookers grant magic powers? Should I pick up the next one I happened upon? Although I didn’t want to be barred from eating any other food that I liked, so I decided to allow that last one to play out on its own.

What I did do, I amassed a small fortune quickly and quietly. I began selling these golden specimens as art pieces to the filthiest of the rich; even sold some of the bong-fashioned-apples to several empire established musicians and well known authors.

Despite having all of this money, I continued working for the mayor’s office. Life without purpose was far too boring for someone like me, but I was looking forward to disappearing from society. I never cared for any kind of spotlight, positive or negative, and thanks to a generous, magical hooker, my dream of anonymity was to come true. Thank you, Magical Hooker.  Thank you, hookers everywhere.