In the spirit of civic good-mindedness, I decided to help Knoxville in its efforts to rid itself of vice. I figured my best way of helping was to try and sniff out vice, as it were. After all, I had 9 years of extensive training in the Navy for just such a pursuit. Now my highly experienced vice detector told me I was probably wasting my time, but I decided to follow the lead of the Titty Council, and check out some of the adult businesses. (By the way, you can get into a topless bar at 18, but you have to be 21 to get into a bar; doesn't that make all bars adult businesses?)
First, I headed out around midnight to Th' Katch to meet with a dancer friend of mine. (She's writing a children's book that I'm going to help her publish. No, seriously. Why else would I know a topless dancer?) I figured that since the city didn't want them operating after midnight, that the real fun stuff must start about then. I pictured slinky dancers leading men off into quiet back rooms where they performed wild acts of forbidden sex for $20 and a can of Coca Cola.
Nope.
I was the only guy there who wasn't an undercover cop, and since I don't have the budget the City of Knoxville does, I couldn't get near a dancer. Of course, due to too many late night donut runs, neither could most of the police officers. It's hard to get a lap dance when you don't have an actual lap. And the only "back room" was a toilet with a trough urinal, no TP, and a cracked mirror. Nothing slinky about that.
So I moved on.
Still searching for some signs of the vice that the Titty Council is saving us from, I headed over to one of the adult book stores. Now that was a happening kind of place. Othe than myself and the s/he behind the counter, there was only one other person in the store and while seeing a guy checking out a disembodied fist the size of Lennox Lewis's is a bit offputting, it's hardly criminal. Or exciting.
I made a quick exit, and deciding that the nose always knows, followed my baser instincts, which lead me to the east side of town. I cruised up and down the street at about 1AM, and within just a few blocks I saw several drug deals, a stabbing, one guy running naked down the middle of the street for no apparent reason, and countless women of questionable virtue plying their trade from the street, cars, and in one case, a motel balcony.
For those of you who have never seen an actual prostitute, let me just state for the record that they don't look anything like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. They look more like Julia Roberts in a blender.
What I didn't see on my travels up and down the street were any police officers.
They were all still getting undercover lap dances on the city's dime at Th' Katch.
Posted by Rich at June 21, 2005 1:37 AM | TrackBack