Scot Sothern
On Decks and Doors
It’s 1982 and I’ve got a gig on a Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger. I climb aboard at Coronado Island across the San Diego Bay and get off seven days later in Honolulu, Hawaii. Three or four layers below deck I set up a portable portrait...
Danger Lurks Everywhere
The street lamp is burned out, or maybe it’s just not there. A friendly face, gaunt with brown starlit eyes breaks the surface of shadows and smiles at me. I toggle down my window and pull to a stop. A tall Aztec shemale on long pointy heels. “Mister...
You Know What
A girl in black stretchy pants and a translucent undershirt holds her thumb in the air. She’s a curly headed blonde, sinewy and angular. I pull to the curb and buzz down the window. She bends at the waist, hands on her knees, and checks me out...
Too Many Motherfuckin' Ugly People
She’s tall and solid with a Halloween afro and a leopard print mini-dress. Her name is Supreme and she climbs into my Camaro and asks if I’m looking to party. I tell her as a matter of fact I’m looking to party hearty and what’s it gonna cost me for a...
The Whore On the Floor
In a brothel in the back of a Tijuana bar I find a room with a checkerboard floor and dead-center double-bed that looks like it was designed by Stanley Kubrick. The whore standing outside of it smiles at me. “You want pussy?”
Sunset and Vine
I see a streetwalker on the southwest corner in front of the Bank of America. She’s between 30 and 60 and looks at me like I’m just another creep. It’s late and there’s not much traffic. I pull to the curb and zip down the window but she keeps her...
Nowhere All Night Long
She has a sand and cast-iron voice. Last night, she tells me, a big mean son of a b almost raped her. She knew she shouldn’t get into his car, she could feel his bad vibrations like she could smell his bad breath.
East of the Promised Land
I’m on Sunset coming from downtown, Skid Row. Across Vermont Avenue through a corridor of hospitals I stop for a red light at L. Ron Hubbard Street. The blue Scientology compound sits back a half-block from the street and the world is full of morons...
Fuckin' Nothing
I'm unlocking my car door when a hooker materializes like a broken fairy princess, looking like she’s been kicked to all corners of the kingdom. I smile at her but she doesn’t smile back. She has a loud voice. "You lookin’ for something, White Bread?"
The Royal Portrait
When I spot the strumpet I think she’s a he-she but then I see she has the kind of large overripe breasts shemales would die for. She’s older than most Hollywood whores and she walks like she’s wearing Versace on the red carpet. I pull to a stop and...
Batman with a Wistful Boner
I take Western from it’s uppermost point at Los Feliz down to Melrose then back up to Santa Monica going west to La Brea up to Sunset and back to Western where I start over. I see a girl over by the do-it-yourself car wash and I make a U-turn and ask...
Another Dumpy Motel Room
1988. I’m alone in the night, driving slowly, when a whore materializes from a thick puff of fog. I brake and flip on my wipers and park the Camaro under a streetlamp. The whore appears at my passenger-side door and fumbles with the handle. I unlock it...