Hughie’s Incredible Adventure

I asked a prostitute once why she did what she did and she looked me straight in the eye and said why do you do what you do?

Her name was Ginger. She had an annoying habit of answering a question with a question, the way Jerry Brown did when he was running for President.

I told her I was doing what I did because I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do, and she said, “Me too, so what?”

Ginger was working Hollywood Boulevard in the rain just down the street from Musso and Frank’s, which is where I go sometimes to get out of the wet weather and, to paraphrase Robert Benchley, into a dry martini.

I was not availing myself of Ginger’s professional services but accompanying a man I’ll call Hugo on his crusade to convince hookers that what they were doing was degrading and dangerous and they should stop.

That was about 10 years ago. Hugo is in his mid-40s now and busy making money and being a good father, so he has no time for prostitutes anymore and does not want his name attached to them.

He got started trying to save street girls when he discovered that the woman he was in love with at the time had been one herself. Her name was Jill. He found out about her when she disappeared back onto the street and left him a note that said, “Save yourself.”

He went looking for her and in the process talked to dozens of prostitutes over an 18-month period, convincing many of them to give up the life. They still thank him for that. He never did find Jill.

*

I thought about Hugo the other day due to the incredible adventure of actor Hugh Grant who proved that his portrayal of an inept bumbler in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” wasn’t an act.

I mean, anyone whose face is on billboards and the sides of buses and who propositions a hooker on one of the busiest streets in America that is endlessly patrolled by vice cops has got to be as stupid as he appears.

You know the story. Grant rolls up in his inconspicuous shiny, new, white BMW, picks up a hooker named Divine Marie Brown and they go off together, not into the sunset but onto a quiet side street near Sunset.

Thereupon, according to the cops, they engage in a “lewd act.” I apologize for the ambiguity of the quote, because in Hollywood, that could mean anything from changing agents to wearing the same dress twice.

The vice cops who saw Divine get into Grant’s car, followed them and then peeked in the window of the BMW were referring, I am relatively certain, to none of the above, but to an act of illicit sexual gratification.

I don’t know specifically what the two were doing, but it was probably something you’re not supposed to be doing in a BMW with a woman to whom you have paid money. You can’t even do that in a Pontiac.

The result of Grant’s arrest and the resultant publicity have made Divine more popular than an O. J. juror, and she is being offered thousands of dollars to write a book or pose nude or run for the U.S. Senate or something.

Grant, who is known as “Britain’s nice guy,” has gone home to try to explain to his girlfriend exactly what happened. I’d love to see him bumble his way through that.

*

Hugo was appalled at Grant’s stupidity. “The guy was not only risking getting AIDS,” he said, “but also the possibility of getting his throat cut for either drug money or for a little something extra for the girl’s pimp.”

Hugo knows whereof he speaks. In his search for Jill and his subsequent effort to save prostitutes, he went to places that even cops avoided. He would kick in doors, confront pimps and rescue women from vicious customers.

The hookers came to recognize him and sometimes telephoned him at home to ask for help. He’d give them bus money and get them out of town. I talked with a few of them who had returned to places like Omaha and Allentown, Pa., and they said they owed Hugo their lives.

He has always seen prostitutes as victims and their customers as users, but now he sees the Johns as potential victims too.

“It’s more dangerous out there now than it ever was,” Hugo said. “I wouldn’t do today what I did 10 years ago. It’s a different world.”

I’m not going to condemn Hugh Grant. He’s an actor, and actors don’t have a lot of smarts to begin with. He is also young, famous and probably dazed from the lack of oxygen in the rarefied atmosphere of his new heights.

When I asked Hugo if he had any advice for Grant, he said simply, “Go home. Stay home.”

I don’t know what happened to Ginger. I suppose she’s still out there somewhere, trying to make a living at what she does best. Aren’t we all?