It’s best to be honest. I like dens of iniquity. I always have. I’ve been to many. Often on multiple occasions! If Conner is involved we immediately become the most popular people there while deteriorating the property value at the same time (no small feat!). Just to be clear, a den of iniquity is “a place of immoral behavior, usually of a sexual type.”
The first time that I recall visiting one was in Washington D.C. where there are more whores concentrated in one place than anywhere in the world. I was in Congress. Talk about a den of iniquity!
Anyway I was on a bus full of Southern Baptists, I myself was a professional Christian at the time, and there was this big fat Baptist named Ed who was sitting beside me. The bus was in traffic on M Street and Ed and I could see down this alley that was full of hookers.
“Oh my,” he said in a soft tenor voice.
“What?” I asked staring at the abundant cleavages that I suppose was marketing, though I didn’t realize it then. (I have to ask my friend Jodi about this.)
“I could never,” Ed said.
“Never what” I asked? “Have sex?”
“No,” he answered still admiring the marketing tactics of hookers. “Go to a place like that,” he finished.
“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa,” I shot back holding my hand up in the air. “Doesn’t the Bible say that we’re supposed along the highways and byways and all that stuff …meaning everywhere to deliver the Good News?”
“Well, I could never be with ‘THOSE KINDS OF PEOPE.”
“Really?” I asked in Southern drawl English.
I stopped being Ed’s friend that day. Though in honesty we really weren’t friends anyway! He was a condescending prick. I never liked him.
So later that same day, I walked back to M Street and found the alley and made my way in. She was blond, wore a fur coat and these yellow rubber boots.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Coffee,” I answered.
“I could use some,” she replied.
“Come on,” I motioned.
“No this way,” she corrected my direction and led me to this coffee shop and we ordered. When we sat at the table I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t wearing anything under the fur coat. It was really good coffee!
We spent about half an hour talking. She had a son who was five who she loved more than anything. She was from Virginia and was doing her best to get by. She’d gotten pregnant in college and I told her that I knew all about that. She asked me what I did and I told her that I was a Southern Baptist Minister.
“Yeah,” she said rolling her eyes, “we see a lot of those.”
“Are we nice?” I asked.
“Not really,” she answered taking a sip of coffee.
Then she told me that she had to get back to work. “A girl’s gotta make a living,” she sighed. “And I got my boy to take care of.”
So I walked her back to the alley and she asked me if I needed anything else. I told her no and thanked her for the coffee and gave her $20 telling her it was for her son. She smiled and squeezed my hand then positioned herself for marketing. It got my attention. But I walked away on the cold windy day.
That was the first time. Since then, I’ve learned that “these are my people.” Back home in Louisville I took to visiting the porn shops and met all of the dancers. Most were just like the girl in Washington. They had kids that they loved and were doing their best to support them and themselves.
They took to calling me “The Rev.”
Then homeless guys picked it up. Then it moved south to Tybee Island and I’m still “the Rev.”
I grew to love “Those kind of people.” Passionately! Deeply! They are honest and they are kind and if I asked to kill for me, they would.
I know worst people like bankers, clergy and elected officials but “MY kind of people” are just doing the best that they can.
Just like me.
And just like you.
