Ant Farm Book, available now: Columns: Doris Johnson
Former prostitute Doris Johnson, 42, right, tries to persuade an 18-year-old girl to come with her instead of with a man she was with at a bus stop in St. Paul. Johnson works for Breaking Free, a social service agency in St. Paul that provides services and education to women and girls involved in prostitution.
"So I told her, I said, 'Well, you want to go with me right now? Go with me right now and you ain't never got to see him again.'
"There's a part of her that wanted to go but, mind you, she's high right now. So she's figurin' in her mind, 'I'm gonna do this last one and that's it, I'm gonna go out with a bang.'
If I can get a hold of her, he can forget it. When you got somebody like me that's goin' to help you get out of there, that's goin' to make you feel safe and you feel that — that's a moment of clarity, and you want to stay in that moment.
Comin' from where I come from, I know that you don't have to stay out there, and if I can give somebody a hope shot, then that's what I'm going to do. Because it was given to me, and I'm giving it away —hope. Hope. That's what it's about. It's my job. My godly duty."