The sign said no soliciting. But there he was. Standing on the corner, talking to a blonde with seven inch heels on, and a skirt that was about just a long as the high heels. I was ten, and he was my neighbor in college. I followed in his footsteps, since I had no other brothers or sisters to look up to. He did not like the fact that he was my idol, and thought that I was a young and vexatious girl.

After I saw that horrible sight at the street corner, I ran home. Faster than I have ever ran before. I went straight to his house. His mother scrutinized me, and saw the distressed look in my eye and asked me what was wrong.
“I saw Jeff by the corner with a really big girl, and he was kissing her and touching her! Why is he doing that Mrs. Shaw,” I said.

Being her amicable self, she got me three chocolate chip cookies, and a glass of cold milk and sat me down. She called Mr. Shaw immediately.
“Mike,” she said. “Your astute son has committed a nefarious crime, again. I feel like an ineffectual mother. I can’t keep doing this all by myself, would you please come home…now?”

I had no idea what was going on, and decided to leave their house and walk home. Years went by, and still the sight at the corner replayed in my mind over and over again. I never thought to bring it up. Until I was sixteen. I realized what he was doing. Oh my god, were the words running through my mind again and again. Loathing him seemed to be the thing necessary to do, so I called Jeff (who was living in Illinois) and yelled at him.
“Jeff! I saw you at the corner six years ago. I Know what you were up to. How could you take part of that malady ? I am ashamed in myself for looking up to you.”
“Haley,” he said with his familiar calming voice, “I was working as an under cover cop. I went to the corner that night to get that lady locked up in jail. If you hear me say anything hear this…I am an advocate for the right to lock up any girl that is willing to sell her body for money.”
“You were a cop in college? How? And why didn’t your parents know, they seemed pretty mad that night I told them.”
“The night you told them…that’s when they found out I had decided to become a cop. They thought I was sleeping with these women too, just like you. I would never think of such a thing, and want you to know that.”
I believed him. We didn’t keep in touch like we used to once I went to college. But years later at a neighborhood picnic I saw him. We engaged in small talk, and when I told him I had become a cop, I saw a look in his eye that words cannot describe. He had influenced me more than my own parents. To this day I still strive to be like him…even if he doesn’t know it.