by J. L. Abramo
Call them what you like: blue films, smokers, stag reels, pleasure primers, fuck flickers, Tijuana teasers, how-to movies...they were pure sin-sational cinematic scintillation, gems for gentlemen of discriminating tastes who usually wanted their discriminating tastes kept under wraps.
You see, most guys have a catch; a hidden addendum to their desires, something that falls outside the lines of white-picket, granny-panty America, often falling in the cracks all together. It’s a kink, a predilection, a proclivity, a preference, a hang-up, a hang-down. Whether he’s obsessed with busty babes and wants to see their generous attributes sway pendulously, or has a thing for a gal’s feet, or likes his women trussed up in a state of distress and undress, he doesn’t necessarily want to advertise or dare approach the little wife with these post-“I do” addendums. To honor, cherish, obey, and beat with a paddle wasn’t what most brides had in mind. Imagine their surprise.
But these guys had to get it somewhere, the poor slobs.
Enter Mickey Miller. Shame was high, so was demand and Mickey was shamelessly raking in the pocket salad, making a comfortable living filling this market and scratching its itch.
Despite the potential cash windfall, Mickey’s work was considered pornographic, deemed immoral, indecent, and consequently illegal—in some cases on a federal level. Law enforcement lumped it all in the vice swill along with rape, pedophilia, prostitution, and the leading cause of juvenile delinquency in America, comic books.
Now murder? Americans could justify that. We’d all been stuck behind a slow poke in traffic, or been forced to listen to a drunk upstairs neighbor wear the grooves off their Harry Belafonte records at all hours and had the urge to strangle them. But sex and anything leading up to it? God forbid; that was a grand offense.
Mickey added to this list of no-no’s further by making shorts with black actors and actresses—even mixing the two—black and white—in the same production. This was considered crossing the line and extra-taboo. It was even looked down upon by those in the flesh racket. Even some of the negroes didn’t approve of his trucking with negroes.
Mickey couldn’t give a good goddamn.
“I don’t give a good goddamn,” he would say. “All money’s green, we’re all pink on the inside, and everybody’s black when the lights go out.”
Teaming up with the Captain not only kept Mickey on budget and in demand but insulated as well. The Captain was connected. From sniveling junky snitches with junky itches and the pliable beat cop on the street with his hand out to mobsters and congressmen with a lot of pull, he had friends everywhere who were into all kinds of everything.
The Captain had his bases covered and for the most part it was smooth sailing. Things were wired tight. He covered his ass legitimately as well.
He invested in a wide variety of ventures from real estate, several Napa Valley wineries, a funeral home, and a small chain of restaurants that specialized in Southern home cooking—The Captain’s Southern Fried Chicken and Biscuits, “Home of the Man Eating Chicken,” a tip of the hat to his carny days when rubes lined up to see what they thought was going to be a man-eating chicken only to be led into a tent where another carny sat at a table eating chicken.
He also was involved in the import and export of goods that generally were just referred to as “import/export”...like Mickey’s product.
Mickey had it made. All he had to do was kick up a taste of the green to the Captain and kill a few spiders every now and then.
I was out in the land of sunsets and starlets on Mickey’s invite for an extended visit to help him out, add some photos of curvaceous California gorgeousity to my portfolio, and get some sun.
Mickey lived at the Captain’s. When he and his landlord had a little misunderstanding—the landlord had walked in to find his wife under and Mickey standing—Mickey found himself outdoors with two black eyes. The Captain offered to put him up in his palatial pad. The Captain probably figured this would protect his investment while increasing the flow of eye candy around the place. He figured right. Several shapely little pieces of feminine confection had effectively moved in soon after Mickey did. The Captain was already sugar daddy to a lot of aspiring actresses, models, songbirds, B-girls, and wayward daughters in general, but always had room for more. They strutted around the place like a buxom buffet, meals on heels, a feast for the eyes. It was Shangri-oo-la-la.
I was luxuriating in the afterglow of my nameless mattress dance and amidst the remnants of the weekend’s decadence in the late morning sun when the phone rang from inside followed by Marisol’s sing-song voice.
“Oh, Mr. Frankie,” she said in her cheerful Mexican warble. “It is the phone call for you.” Marisol was the Captain’s housekeeper and the happiest person I knew. She was a sturdy little thing, barely five feet tall. Despite being a devout Catholic, Marisol rolled with whatever shenanigans and lo-jinx went on in the house. She knew what we did. She cooked, she cleaned, she ran interference, she cashed her paycheck, she judged not.
Marisol loved music, especially all the big crooners like Frank and Dean and Bobby and sang constantly throughout her day taking lyrical liberties along the way. Butchered versions of tunes like “Fly Me Through the Moon” and “That’s A Morte” were two of my favorites. I paused to give her a little peck on the forehead before picking up the phone.
“Valentine here,” I said. “You’re getting swanky with Frankie.”
CHAPTER FOUR
There was a pause at the other end of the line and the sound of someone yawning along with the snap, crackle, hiss, and unmistakable echo that goes with a long distance phone call.
“Hello?” More pop, crackle and hiss.
“Frankie, my boy,” Mickey shouted as if he were on the other side of the country. “You there? What’s the haps, sap?”
It was Mickey calling from the other side of the country, Rochester to be exact, where he had flown earlier this week to attend to interests he held out there. Besides Rochester, Mickey had business brewing in other east coast stops, as well like Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and select portions of New York City, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
“You missed a big one this weekend,” I said waving my arm like a game show host over the remnants of chaos as if he could see. “Hoo boy, it was raucous, Dad. It was the rage. We’re still pulling underwear out of the trees.”
“Did you get some?”
“Did I get some? Pull-eeeze. I even got in a fight.”
“Really? Right on, Frankie my boy!” Out of the two of us, Mickey was the scrapper. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Mickey was both. He loved to mix it up and seemed rather proud I had descended into the bar fighting ranks.
“Yeah, I had to clear up some cat’s misperceptions and give him the news.”
Mickey cleared his throat and shifted gears rather abruptly. It was obvious he really wasn’t listening.
“I need your help, Frankie,” he said. “I’m in trouble.”
It was always something with Mickey: a jealous husband, a vengeful father, a stacked deck, a slow horse...
“What now?” I asked with a sigh. “No, lemme guess. ‘She said she was single’ or no, better yet, ‘Good morning, Judge. She looked over eighteen.’”
“Frankie, it ain’t like that.” I could tell in his tone he wasn’t clowning around. “They found them.”
I played the words over in my head for a moment. I mouthed them silently. I knew, but asked anyway.
“Them? Them who?”
“Well, they found one of them, anyway.”
I knew exactly who he meant. It had haunted me—haunted all of us—for ten years—since that fateful summer in 1950.
Lucky Louis and Lucky Lenny Sullivan—two of our friends—one day, they just up and vanished.
“They found one of the Luckies?” I asked, followed by an avalanche of more questions. “Who’d they find? Who found him? Where? What happened to him? Where’s the other one?”
Back to TOC
Her
e’s a sample from Tom Pitts’ Hustle.
Chapter 1
It seemed like it would be fun. Everyone referred to it as a party. Hey, you wanna party? Do you like to party? The drugs—the things he really loved—were called party favors. It made it all seem that much more normal, like they were flappers from the roaring twenties asking who was going to bring the champagne. You got party favors?
Donny’s first time was for the party favors—just went to some shitty hotel with two guys. Donny only had to be with one of them. The big guy said the little guy couldn’t get it up, that he was too high. But he was wrong; the little guy got it up. The little guy only watched, but came three times. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of someone else touching his dick. Donny couldn’t blame him. Should have seen his friend.
It was easy, or at least it got easier, so Donny returned to the corner. Down on that corner, everybody knew each other. Everybody was into each other’s business. The boys depended on each other for information. Information was survival. They all knew the regulars, the older men who would cruise the corner in their luxury cars. They got to know who was married, who liked to party, who liked it freaky, and who was HIV-positive. Some of the tricks didn’t care who knew, but some liked to keep it a secret.
The HIV-positive thing never really bothered Donny much. A trick was a trick; that’s what rubbers were for. They all used condoms—or said they did. Some of those freaks gave up extra money to go without, but not with Donny. He wasn’t there ’cause he liked the sex, he liked the party—more specifically, the party favors. Some of those older johns, they would carry a sack of the shit just for the pick-ups. They never used it, probably drop dead of a heart attack if they did. But they all knew, down on Polk Street, speed was like candy at the schoolyard.
After a few more tricks, it seemed silly to keep doing it just to smoke a little crank; might as well walk out of there with a few bucks. At least then you could buy some downtown, help you forget all the bullshit you just went through. This is how Donny met Big Rich. Big Rich could get that cheap brown Mexican dope no matter what time of the night it was.
Big Rich had been down there longer than any of them. He was bigger, tougher, and more street-worn than the rest of them, but he was still handsome enough to be desirable. His few years on the corner added up to eons of experience. He was a seasoned pro. Rich could smell vice before they ever hit the block. He’d give a high whistle whenever he heard them coming and the boys would all start moving, walking, lighting cigarettes and talking on cell phones. It’s not like they were fooling anybody. Everybody in the city knew what went on down there.
Big Rich’s appetite to party was insatiable. So was his need for cash. He needed speed to work and heroin to live. He’d already burned through the regulars. He knew how to size up the fresh meat. He could tell by the make and model of the car—even just the headlights—if the guy inside was real money or just flash. It was Big Rich who showed Donny how to steal from the tricks. He taught all of them the finer arts of being a hustler.
“In the car, that’s easy,” Big Rich said. He was on the corner proselytizing the new boys. “Then you just tell ’em you want to see it, all of it, get ’em to pull their pants down all the way. After you start, just go through their pockets while their pants are sittin’ around their ankles.”
“Multi-tasking,” someone joked.
“Exactly,” said Rich, serious. “But if they wanna do you, then it ain’t so easy. Better to tell ’em that you don’t feel safe on the street, tell ’em you got busted in a car just last week, it’d be better if you go to a room.”
“That way you know if they have any more than what they’re willing to spend on you, if they’re serious,” said one of the boys, eager to be part of Rich’s sermon.
Donny just listened, took it all in. To him, Rich seemed like one of the good guys, like he had their best interests at heart. They didn’t have pimps down there; Rich was the closest thing they did have—someone who was looking out.
“Once you’re in the room, it’s easy,” continued Rich. “If they got party favors, y’all know how to palm ’em, or just get greedy and suck ’em up. Start smoking and blow it straight up into the air. Shit, once they’ve paid for a room, they got their name on the register downstairs and they don’t want any trouble. Believe that.”
“What about the money?” asked Donny.
“Oh, c’mon. You know, you tell ’em you like it clean, get ’em to go into the bathroom, wash it off. When they do, you grab what you can. You know this shit.”
It was true; Big Rich had been schooling Donny from the first week he was on the corner. He looked out for Donny. The first time the two of them met, they went together to do a show for some old fucker who just wanted to see them get hard. They did their thing. The old guy did his. All by himself. Then he left the room. Maybe he had some shame issues. Guilt, regret, whatever. Big Rich and Donny stayed in that room for two days, even ordered room service. Finally, the drugs ran out, and so did they.
The cops rolled on the corner and broke up their little pep talk. Just a black and white, probably didn’t even notice them. But even the sight of a police car got them nervous. Everybody walking, talking, acting like they belonged somewhere else. Of course, none of them did.
After the crew had scattered like frightened pigeons, Big Rich and Donny stood alone on the corner.
“Got any smokes?” Big Rich asked.
“Nah, none.”
“Hungry?”
“Always,” Donny said. It wasn’t always true, but he’d be a fool to pass up any offer of a free meal.
“Let’s go get a slice from the Arab. I wanna talk to you about somethin’.”
The two walked down Polk Street and Rich bought them both a slice from the Arab. The Arab was the owner of Alzer’s Pizza on Polk. Even though his name was emblazoned above the door, the boys referred to him only as the Arab.
“For here,” Rich told the Arab.
“To go,” replied the Arab. Alzer hated these boys in his place. They were bad for business. He knew they shot up in the bathroom; he was the one who had to clean the blood off the walls.
Donny and Rich took their slices, packaged in white cardboard to go containers, and sat down anyway. They picked a spot near the front window. There, they could watch the street and not be easily heard.
“I been thinking,” said Big Rich, “about the long haul. Y’know, ripping these assholes off for drug money ain’t too satisfying. We get maybe two days well out of it and we’re back to sucking dicks.”
Donny nodded and chewed his pizza. It wasn’t too warm and it wasn’t too good. Alzer had probably given them the stalest slices in the shop. He’d had better pizza out of trashcans.
“Thing is, we go to these guys’ houses all the time. Steal a few nick-knacks, shit we can pawn before they know it’s gone. It ain’t nothin’ really. These are million dollar houses we’re sittin’ in. Sick fucking perverts who make more money than God. They don’t know how lucky they are.”
“And...,” Donny said with his mouth still full of pizza.
“And we can help ’em appreciate how lucky they are.”
Donny still didn’t see what he was getting at.
“We pick one of these old fuckers, someone with a wife, a family, you know. Shit, he don’t want to turn his world upside down. Someone who’s got so much dough that it won’t hurt to pay us off. And keep paying us off. Like a weekly paycheck, so we can stop this bullshit we’re doing out here.” Big Rich pointed to the traffic outside the window.
Donny had heard his friend go down this path before. There was nothing new about blackmailing johns. It was the second oldest profession in the world.
“I thought you said it was a bad idea. That it never worked out.”
“Aaah,” Big Rich held up his finger, “this time we do it right. We get inconvertible evidence. So it’s not just my word against theirs.”
“Incontrovertible,” said Donny.
&nbs
p; “What?”
“Incontrovertible. That’s the word.”
“Bullshit, that’s not how you say it.”
“It is. Convertibles are cars.”
“Shut the fuck up, Donny. You don’t know. This is my plan and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. We just find the right guy, in the right circumstance, and then we get it on film. That’s it. We tell him we’re gonna expose him, put it on YouTube or some shit and let the money roll in.”
“You got it all figured out, why don’t you do it?”
“Because, Donny, I need someone to hold the camera.”
Rain had started to fall when the boys left the pizza shop. It was only a spit, but enough to make them not want to go back to the corner.
“Let’s call the man,” Big Rich said.
“I only have eleven dollars,” said Donny.
“I thought you said you didn’t have any money?”
“Not food money,” Donny said.
“That’s okay. I can get a front from Hector. I don’t owe him anything.”
Donny was relieved. The habit that he’d acquired from daily use of heroin had shown no signs of slowing down. Nowadays it seemed he only had a few hours before he was going to feel sick. He could already feel the irrepressible yawns coming on and the rain was not helping with the chills.
“Let’s go back to my hotel room. I got a bag of fresh works,” Big Rich said. He pulled his cell from his jacket and stepped under an awning while he scrolled down to Hector’s number. He spoke into the phone with a serious look on his face. After he finished, he turned to Donny and said, “Twenty minutes.”
