Low Road

by Eddie B. Allen, Jr.

  Donnie began exploring talents and potential that he had neglected for maybe as long as it had been since he attended school as a child. First, he toyed around with artwork. Then, at one point, he got into essay writing; prison was an obvious place where the men inside had lots of time to reflect and consider their opinions about the world beyond. One of Donnie’s proudest moments was when a piece he had written about the civil-rights work of Martin Luther King was printed in the prison paper. During one visiting day, Myrtle gave Donnie a typewriter she had hauled out to Jackson as a gift she thought to be a practical one. Through it all, he was still her boy. In the meantime, Donnie had gotten turned on to a particular author. The writer had traveled a path that Donnie could well relate to. They shared a connection to the city of Chicago, though they’d lived there at different times and had vastly different experiences. The writer grabbed Donnie’s attention. Robert Beck became known as Iceberg Slim during his time in the underground. Older than Donnie, he had made a career of pimping and had also spent time in the joint. It was about 1969, the year that Beck’s first autobiographical writings were printed, when Donnie developed an interest in his stories. Beck brought a raw reality about the codes of hustling and street survival to the reading public. This reality was largely unknown to brothers and sisters who had not witnessed and participated in the illegitimacies that folks like Donnie had. To the uninitiated, a pimp was often just a punk nigger who didn’t want to get a real job and behave like a real man. A stable was a group of dirty, loose women who didn’t have the good sense to keep in their own pocketbooks the money they earned while lying on their backs. For plenty of men in the joint, however, these were the people whose lives they had grown up trying to emulate. In fact, the particular series of events that had led a number of them to prison might have even had something to do with an episode that began as a simple business matter between a pimp and his woman. Donnie, for example, probably never considered the federal violations he was committing when he took his ladies to work out of state. A piece of ass was a piece of ass, whether in Michigan or Alaska. Others who’d gotten into the habit of handling women might find themselves dealing with less directly related charges pertaining to money, violence, or even corruption of children, who might lie about their ages to get away from malevolent homes.

  Iceberg Slim’s writing brought a lot of this into focus. His following was primarily in the circles of those who could relate or of those folks, black or white, who wanted to keep up with popular culture. Beck’s books carried simple and self-explanatory titles like Pimp and Trick Baby. Both eloquent and worldly, by the time Donnie would leave the joint for his final time, Beck would be widely recognized as a celebrity. He was invited to lecture about his past life, present observations, and thoughts on current events at college campuses, and he was interviewed in such prestigious publications as the Washington Post. He became a fascinating figure, whose very presence was intriguing. He earned the respect of many who were open-minded enough to try to understand the perspective of a different kind of man who maintained a measure of credibility in the types of neighborhoods that produced him. An interview Beck would give to the Los Angeles Free Press offered a glimpse of what those who paid him any serious attention might find fascinating. Beck told the reporter of a question-and-answer session: “The best pimps that I have known, that is the career pimps, the ones who could do twenty, maybe thirty years as a pimp, were utterly ruthless and brutal, without compassion. They certainly had a basic hatred for women. My theory is, and I can’t prove it, if we are to use the criteria of utter ruthlessness as a guide, that all of them hated their mothers. Perhaps more accurately, I would say that they’ve never known love and affection, maternal love and affection. I’ve known several dozen, in fact, that were dumped into the trash bins when they were what? Only four or five days old.”

  While he was quick to say that he loved his own mother, he acknowledged that he must have resented her on some level because of the neglect he had demonstrated toward her through the years that led up to her death. He further elaborated on the events and disappointments that ultimately led him to retire from the dubious profession: “… I remember when I was a young pimp—and that’s where the thrill is—when one is young enough and … ill enough to want to be a pimp. That’s where all the glory is, when one is playing Jehovah, so to speak, and learning his craft. Then, oddly enough and disappointingly enough, when one learns to control eight or nine or ten women, then all the luster, all the glory is gone. It’s much like learning to ski. One just does it automatically. Then, of course, all the clothes and diamonds and the cocaine and the girls, it isn’t really important. There is a vacuum that is filled by the joy of learning the intricacies of being a pimp. But it was the greatest letdown because I was reaching always.”

  Donnie grew to respect Iceberg Slim’s words. He had become familiar with the conquests and defeats that came along with living in the underground. It was a realm in which only a few people were genuinely suited to thrive. Where—as Beck pointed out—the thrill and exhilaration were all in the pursuit. Where betrayal in the midst of camaraderie was nothing unusual. Where death could be the price of one mistake. It was, in all reality, a lonely place in the end, even for the most successful and prosperous hustler. What Beck was doing, though, was a new kind of hustle. He’d been in the life, made it out of the joint. Now he was simply telling about it. Seemed like a good, legal way to get paid. And Donnie had plenty of stories in him, authentic tales of moral corruption and judicial repercussions. He decided to try his own writer’s touch. From inside the walls of Jackson, though it was far from the most creative of surroundings, he began putting words on paper. Employing Beck’s style, he wrote in the first person, filling both sides of hundreds of sheets of lined, loose-leaf paper with variations on details he had lived and witnessed:

  One of the older pimps staying at the hotel I moved into pulled one of my girls. In spite, I shot at, and [copped] a 24-year-old white girl from his stable. This proved to be my undoing. Not really having any connections for a white girl, I allowed her to lay around my pad for about a week, before having Boots take her down to one of my whorehouses on Hastings. The nigger tricks went crazy over her. It lasted exactly five days before the police caved the door in, taking my whores to jail. I knew that my cathouse was busted before the police came out the door with the girls … The judge gave me a 7½ to 15-year sentence. I looked at that white bastard in a state of shock. I had come to court looking to get probation, but instead [I was] sentenced to prison. I hadn’t known the white girl two weeks!

  My lawyer had promised me probation because of my age. How could a seventeen-year-old kid [possibly] corrupt a 24-year-old woman? If anything, he had told me jokingly, while standing in the hallway before walking into the courtroom, the judge would give her [ninety] days for teaching a young boy my age bad habits.

  With no experience as a published author and no professional guidance, however, getting his work into the right hands was a shot in the dark. He thought maybe the newspaper would be a good place to begin in finding the feedback he sought. Donnie thought he’d send a sample to the Michigan Gazette back at home. Staff member Mildred Pruett responded. She addressed the letter, including Donnie’s inmate number, 104882:

  Dear Sir,

  I am very sorry to be so late in writing to you. First of all, I would like to let you know that I did receive your material and found it to be very, very interesting. The second [thing] that you should know is that I am no longer with the Michigan Gazette. In fact, there will no longer be a Gazette published here in Michigan. Do not let this upset you because within a few weeks, or even less, I will be editor of a much better paper and a much larger paper. The paper will come out once a month, and by it being a larger paper, there will be room for much, much more of the type of things that you are writing about. You can look to hear from me in about two weeks from now. I will give you the new office address and all the information that you will need. I will say a
gain that I am sorry about being so long [in] writing, but I am sure that you know how it is when there are legal ends to be tied.

  Donnie might have taken offense to the “legal ends” reference, but it was probably just a poor choice of words on Pruett’s part. She seemed genuinely receptive to the possibility of publishing his contributions and genuinely impressed by his efforts. But whatever the level of her interest had been, the journalist was apparently able to provide little beyond her cordial letter. Donnie wouldn’t be released for another year, and it wouldn’t be his last attempt at starting a new, legitimate profession. As the end of his term drew near, he grew more resourceful in his research. Eventually, he got the idea to look up the company that published his new inspiration, Iceberg Slim. If they could put Beck’s name out there, surely they could do the same for Donnie. And poking around among the familiar resources back in Detroit produced few results. A prophet was said not to be without honor except in his own country; a prophet in prison couldn’t realistically expect to do much better. Donnie put another one of his queries together and mailed it off from Jackson. Then he waited. After going to the joint more than once, the ability to pass time became routine. Without any question, freedom was still desired and missed, but in its absence, a sort of numbness inevitably set in. And inmates who had already done a bid or two for any length of time tended to learn to use that numbness to their advantage. Days would begin to resemble one another, often to the point that they seemed not to matter. The less a man kept track of days, the more quickly they seemed to accumulate. It could get tougher to maintain mental conditioning, though, when the end of a term was in sight.

  Donnie was discharged from the Michigan Department of Corrections on December 1, 1970. Just two weeks before his thirty-fourth birthday. He left the penitentiary, this time never to return. Heroin use on the streets and in the neighborhoods of his hometown had increased while Donnie was locked up. The city now operated four clinics where dope fiends could go to be treated with methadone, a smack substitute. Yet, after regaining easy access to sources who could help him score the drug, Donnie would not sign himself in at any of them. Like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang on the radio, wasn’t “nothing like the real thing.”

  Publisher

  One chapter for me to remember is the one dealing with young people nodding … Again, try and reveal the sickening, the madness, the horror of drug addiction in the ghettoes … It’s a fact that whitey has no idea of just how many young, black men are getting dependent on heroin.

  —Typewritten memo, titled “Black Rage of Hatred,” by Donald Goines

  Holloway House Publishing Company was located in a rather inconspicuous, gray building at 8060 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, not far from the rocky hills where some of the most extravagant homes in California were tucked away. A person would have to really know the city or be involved in the book business to make an association upon hearing no more than the business’s name. Holloway House went about its work rather quietly in the commercial district that served as its neighborhood. Not even too many of the taxi drivers who cruised the area could identify the building from recollection in the way they could identify nearby bars, restaurants, or shopping outlets. Actually, there was no real reason for employees to attract attention with their comings and goings. It was a relatively small operation, especially in light of how the best-known publishing companies ran their business in the 1970s. Most of them were set up a full coast away in New York City. They drew upon the history of the area as a diverse and creative community, along with its status as a destination for artists, musicians, and literary types. California, on the other hand, was more driven by the entertainment industry as a professional component. Hollywood beckoned countless numbers of aspiring actors, screenwriters, directors, and models. Film and television had become increasingly lucrative business with the likes of Warner Bros., Universal Studios, MGM and 20th Century Fox maintaining a significant presence in the region. Dozens of features were produced annually and distributed to movie theaters nationwide, while everything from Bugs Bunny cartoons to Coca-Cola commercials and episodes of Columbo were regularly broadcast into America’s living rooms. Of particular interest was the new genre of movies and TV shows generated in Hollywood that reflected a different stage of black attitude and thought emerging in the real world. Shiftless, shameless, and embarrassing characters were replaced with proud and defiant heroes and antiheroes. Even the complexions of those who made it to the screen became darker as actors like Sidney Poitier broke into the mainstream. A Bahamas native, Poitier learned his way around the stage, originating the role of proud but stubborn Walter Lee Younger in the Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s acclaimed play. Later, he costarred opposite white actors and actresses in the films In the Heat of the Night, To Sir with Love, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

  Poitier represented a sort of quiet, reserved, and dignified black man. When his police officer character in In the Heat of the Night was asked by racist southern cops how he was addressed among more liberal colleagues, he kept his cool, but replied: “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” In contrast, another darker-skinned crime-fighting character MGM brought to the screen preferred lines like “Don’t let your mouth get your ass in trouble.” Director Gordon Parks’s second feature-length film, Shaft, actually netted enough profits to help deliver MGM from financial ruin. John Shaft, the movie’s title character, was a take-no-shit private detective. Operating against the backdrop of rough Harlem streets, Shaft took on an assignment to search for the kidnapped daughter of a gangster who wanted her safely returned to him, no matter the cost. Ultimately, Shaft enlisted the support of an old friend and a militant group to rescue the girl from mobsters. His character was well-received by young, Afro- and dashiki-wearing audiences, many of whom had no real concept of what it was like to see themselves as anything besides black and proud. The detective embodied a sense of confidence that had come to characterize the generation. Richard Roundtree, the handsome actor who portrayed Shaft, brought forth the image of a brother who was very different from what had previously been projected onto the screen. With a composed and laid-back approach to his work, an ability to move comfortably across social boundaries, and a fearless manner of handling his enemies, he represented the first black action hero. Shaft was a consummate professional. His style of speech and dress and his relevance to the times found a connection with the urban public. Boys throughout the country wanted to wear leather jackets and refer to one another as “baby” in place of their actual names. Adding appeal to the film was a soundtrack that featured the contribution of soul composer Isaac Hayes. When his baritone vocals roared in, inquiring “Who’s the man that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?” those in the theater were all too happy to give the song’s response: “Shaft!” The movie also garnered positive critical reviews, despite a few others that dismissed it as tacky and sexually clichéed. The Motion Picture Guide praised Parks for his concentration on Shaft’s “humanistic elements,” which brought “depth to the super-slick detective, showing other sides to his personality.”

  With so much cinematic excitement in the town, it was understandable that a little book company might not be the top competitor for the public’s attention. Holloway House was more inclined to press others toward the forefront. Nothing was more valuable to aspiring storytellers than an outlet that would be dedicated in getting their words out to a readership. Equipped with the resources the company had available and a sense of what would draw attention to bookshelves, the folks at 8060 Melrose had the primary objective of cranking out paperbacks. The company did its own editorial production, distribution, and promotion of materials. If book enthusiasts had never heard of Holloway House, they worked to make certain that names like Louis Lomax, Robert H. deCoy, and Iceberg Slim—as if it weren’t already distinct enough—were familiar. Loads and loads of books by black authors had been purchased in towns where segregation was still law. In fact, Holloway Hous
e made a point of marketing its products in urban communities and unconventional places that might be better suited to unconventional stories. Paperbacks were made available at airports, on newsstands, and in liquor stores. Would-be customers who went looking for Holloway House titles at big, commercial bookstores would often be out of luck. Beck alone would sell millions. His first work, Pimp: The Story of My Life, became a legend in print, which highlighted the reflections and ruminations of the career Beck had embarked upon at the tender age of eighteen. The young woman handler had briefly attended Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute at the same time that Ralph Ellison, who would become a more widely respected author with his book Invisible Man, had been a scholarship student there. Iceberg Slim was self-taught as a writer, and he combined whatever legitimate skills he acquired with the compelling personal observations and encounters that he documented on paper. With Holloway’s publication of Pimp, he went as far as including a glossary of terms to assist those who would have been regarded as “square” in following the hip and quick language of his text. “Breaking luck” was a phrase defined as the first “trick,” or client, that a whore received during her work day. A “mitt man” was “a hustler who uses religion and prophecy to con his victims,” usually women. “Yeasting” was defined as a form of exaggeration. And “circus love”: “to run the gamut of the sexual perversions.” Then there were more universal terms: “horns,” for example, were ears.