Reports from the Dead Museum: Networks

Networks

I was walking down Decatur around one in the morning; it was pleasantly warm out and the bars were overflowing. As I paused to peep into one while I passed, I overheard two prostitutes. "I only made fifty bucks tonight and I've got a run in my stockings," she said with a surly sneer. "I think a blowjob should be worth at least a hundred."
Even so, she's walking the street in stuff that cost more than a few chaps. Cut-offs and a navel-exhibitionist shirt that threatens to fly off at the slightest hint of a five. "The blond hanging in Thailand could do better than you," her friend said. "You always prepare yourself for it extra careful. Each touch calculated with fanatical prestidigitation. So extra smooth you might trip yourself up if you don't watch it just a little."
Some cops nearby were searching a car with a hound sniffing for dope. Frisky, and the hound is popped along with the trunk. Baying in the heat, the fuzz paw excitedly through the contents while pooch whimpers and natters soft and tenderly through the nervous owner's effects. Threats of a search warrant and a judge slow to get out of bed have yielded the Fourth to the dirty dope fiends, who will secrete the stash within their stiffly starched blue.
"First, we have to shoot all the poseurs," her friend whined. She was all decked out in black leather and tight leggings. "I can always tell when I'm working the phones. You can tell a lot about someone by the sound of their voice. When I'm meeting someone over the phone for the first time, I picture them in my mind, building up their appearance from their little slips of inflection."
The bars, every square inch of them, are mapped out to precise coordinates. Every spot is measured and watched over by constant electronic surveillance. As I walk further, the scenario remains oppressively quiet. Only the languid pulse of the river as it sweeps the occasional rubber downstream.