My Husband and a Hooker in Grosse Pointe

She was looking for work on Detroit’s east side one night last week and not finding it as she walked in front of the empty church, the darkened apartment building and the shuttered party store.

So she did what anyone with a basic understanding of economics would do. She strolled right into Grosse Pointe Park where employment rates, household income and population density are higher than in the adjacent Detroit neighborhood.

Clearly that creates a better potential customer base of clients with disposable income. Her business plan, while lacking capital investment, had some merit.
She identified a potential customer, it’s safe to assume, by his behavior that was similar to those she’s had successful transactions with in the past. As he drove by her, he slowed down and then turned on the first side street he could and parked in the driveway. She walked over and made an energetic sales pitch. She feared no failure.

Her entrepreneurial efforts are laudable.

But given that she was a hooker and her would-be john was my husband arriving home after a 12-hour work day...well, does anyone want that kind of economic development in their driveway?

“Got any change?” she started. “Do you live here? … Are you married? …Oh, you are, well, is your wife home?”

In hookerspeak, that’s foreplay.

My husband responded: "Yes she's home and I'm not interested."

I had more questions for my husband as he described her approach and I called the police dispatcher. Yes, I reported her, figuring if she’s desperate enough to be peddling a blow job to my husband at our garage door, she might steal the lawnmower from inside.

“What did she look like? Was she wearing?” I demanded.

“Men’s leather jacket. Tennis shoes,” he answered. “Straight hair and curly teeth.”

“Don’t be funny.”

“This is real life,” he reminded me. “It’s not Julia Roberts in `Pretty Woman.’”

Life on the Inner Ring

Such is life on Detroit’s divide, the geographic line of demarcation between the city and its inner-ring suburbs. There are about 620,000 people who live in those burbs that border the city, according to the U.S. Census.

What we think – right or wrong – should be “Detroit’s” problems sometimes stretch into our better landscaped yards. And we don’t always admit that makes them OUR problems, let alone insist on the political will or public and personal commitment and investment to solve them.

Most of the time, living here on the inner ring, we all benefit from our proximity to Detroit’s downtown, reached in as little as 10 minutes. We often have access to both DDOT and SMART bus lines, and we can live in older (read: charming) neighborhoods.

A few of us have waterfronts along the Detroit River or Lake St. Clair.

Some of these suburbs have downtowns of their own or at least concentrated business districts within walking distance for a good number of residents. Our trash gets picked up, we have curbside recycling and our mayors, while perhaps not perfect, aren’t considered like ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, to be part of criminal enterprises.

The last decade has made these suburbs more diverse – a good thing. While these communities are not immune to the mortgage crisis and housing value freefall, their schools are without emergency managers. As for police response… well, let’s just say they’ve always shown up within minutes when I’ve called. Even for hookers.

Close but no Detroit

Right or wrong, life here in the suburbs comes with the expectation to not be Detroit.

But as I mull over last week’s hooker episode – did I mention it’s the second time he’s been approached in our driveway in recent months? – I hate being so offended that something that we may accept or expect in Detroit ends up happening here in the suburbs.

It’s hypocritical.

See, I know Detroiters have reason to complain about invading suburbanites. Throngs of them head to the city for manufactured holidays like Cinco de Mayo, St. Patty’s and Opening Day and leave behind their trash, drunken vomit and other bodily waste.

Some discard empty bottles and cans, figuring the homeless folks should be grateful to claim the deposits. They figure that no one in the neighborhood cares. Some carry on with a lawlessness, figuring Detroit cops have more pressing things to do than arrest them.

When you really examine it, those actions can be far more harmful to the community's social fabric than the hooker in my driverway.

Yes, there are at least two sides to the story, and in this case, two sides to the border. Suburbanites shouldn't own the exclusive franchise on complaining about immoral intruders or caring more about their community.

Maybe I need to re-examine why concern about community does not always extend beyond the Grosse Pointe Park border. Why have I never called Detroit police when I’ve seen the two regular hookers who “work” just a half dozen blocks into the city? Why do I only feel like taking some action when the “problem” lands nearly literally on my front porch?

And how can such different living conditions exist with only streets as the borders between them?

These questions are so much more complicated than what the woman asked of my husband.