Another symptom of the advanced societal rot of California really smacked me in the face (figuratively, thankfully) while I was in Fresno, after I returned from my trip along the North Coast, after I checked into the Rodeway Inn in the cluster of discount motels along Route 99.
Within a few minutes of checking in, I noticed the parade along the dark sidewalk along the frontage road beside the highway---young women in short skirts, walking by themselves alone or usually in pairs. Later that evening I walked down to the convenience store for a burrito and passed several clumps of them along the way.
In all of my travels I've rarely been in situations where I've witnessed the classic "streetwalkers" like you see in movies. But this was certainly the case. I left my motel room door open for a while just to watch the sporadic parade.
Then a few days later when I decamped and motel hopped to another cluster of discount motels near the corner of Ashlan and Blackstone, I saw even more of them.
In the week or so that I was there, whenever I would go out past a certain hour of the afternoon, I would see them, often hanging out in the dark areas in front of the shuttered Mervyn's next to where I was staying.
They were quite aggressive. It's an inversion of the classic "male cat-calling the female" scenario. They demanded my attention as I walked by them, in an obnoxious an forceful manner (there was an even a classic pimp once, who screamed at me "YOU FOLLOWING MY WOMAN?").
It wasn't even a "bad" neighborhood by appearances, nor was the stretch along Highway 99. It had the appearance of being a normal commercial thoroughfare.
At the otherwise decent Motel 6 where I spent five days, there was an enormous parking lot, rarely filled with cars, that abutted a quiet side street leading from Blackstone to a nearby neighborhood of apartment buildings. The young women came up and down the dark street and night almost constantly.
One evening I was restless and went out to pace around the parking lot while looking at the brilliant full moon over the palm trees. It was a clear chilly November evening. Several times I was solicited by women walking along the side street on the other side of the fence. They made noises as if calling a little dog.
I ignored them for a while, but then finally decided I would chat with them just for fun. So when the next pair came by, and when I was about twenty feet from the fence, I turned to answer their bidding, in the manner that I would respond to anyone in an innocent manner. I knew it wouldn't matter because there was a chain link fence between us, and the only gate was padlocked.
"Brrr-rrrr-rrrr," one of them said, in a rather theatrical way. "Wish I was inside right now."
I remained silent and waited for her to go on. "You gotta room here?" she asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders, playing coy.
"Well DO YOU?" she said, getting impatient.
I immediately changed tone, and looked at her with a stern frown. "Of course I do," I said, in a cold businesslike manner.
"What you doing out here?" she asked me. "You looking for ME?"
I waited a second before responding. "Naw, I'm just here looking the moon," I said, as if telling the punch line of joke.
"Gaaaahhh!!!" she replied, recoiling away from me as I were a vampire. I'd grabbed a few moments of her time for "free" and she detested me for it. Within seconds they were fifty feet from me, heading towards an apartment complex down the street.
The prostitutes were so numerous in this area along Blackstone that I came to the opinion that every young woman below a certain age was a part-time hooker, that soliciting clients was something they did whenever they were walking to and from the bus stop, that it was just something they all did a sideline to whatever other ways they earned money.
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