Low Road

by Eddie B. Allen, Jr.

  Though his publisher worked to give the book support, there was resistance. The New York Times didn’t even have to consider Pimp’s content. When Holloway House tried to place an ad, the paper declined to accept it because of the title. Removing the one word that the Times advertising department found objectionable, however, would have changed the entire tone of the pronouncement. It was a sign of the times that Holloway House was giving something different from what much of the general public was accustomed to getting from a book producer. Revealing the story of a pimp’s life turned out to be more than a notion. Yet, the company rose to the occasion. They continued a publicity effort to get Pimp a little play. Iceberg was booked as a guest on a popular L.A. talk show hosted by Joe Pyne. This was the move that created the buzz Holloway House had been listening out for. Phones began to ring at 8060 Melrose. The television appearance had generated a good amount of response. Enough, at least, to stir interest in the publisher’s starring player. Suddenly, every bookstore in the city was contacting Holloway House.

  As word-of-mouth spread, interest in the Beck chronicle followed suit. Holloway House was on the map, at least in a small way. In literary circles, on the other hand, any acknowledgment earned for the company by virtue of Pimp’s success might have been regarded as tentative at best. There were relatively few critical reviews given to paperback releases by the book and features editors at major newspapers and media outlets. Stories were printed in the Washington Post and the Detroit Free Press, but they focused on the fact that Beck’s work discussed a culture entirely unfamiliar to the American mainstream rather than on the merits of his word usage or his story content. The fascination, such as it was, essentially resulted from the very nerve that a legitimate company—and white-controlled, no less—would be bold enough to front this sort of storytelling. It was compelling stuff, but of the variety that members of the general public, outside the black community, might force themselves to be just as comfortable ignoring. It was the kind of tale that, at least subconsciously, they longed to not only read but understand. The black man. The stranger. The alien. The feared one. What the fuck could he actually have to say that was so completely unsanctioned by the established standards that dictated how he could and couldn’t publicly express himself? And what if it actually had relevance? A thinking, articulate black man, particularly one with the capacity to commit criminal acts, could be a goddamned dangerous thing. If hundreds of years of conditioning hadn’t been enough to breed into him a self-activated censorship switch, he could quickly become troublesome. He could be freely critical of the society that had helped produce him. The society that had nurtured his ancestors with fine food and free room and board on spacious, bountiful plantation land.

  Beck’s writing was largely symbolic of this back talk. Pimp was a form of literary insubordination. Not only that, but it directly challenged notions, stereotypical and otherwise, about the American image of black men and sexuality. The preferred racist belief was that they were helplessly sexual creatures who would fuck a hole in the ground in the absence of better options. They were controlled by animal instincts and loins that blazed with overwhelming, violent passion. Iceberg Slim was the big, black buck with a book contract. Pimp: The Story of My Powerful, Menacing, and, Mostly, Large Dick might as well have been his publication’s title as far as sheltered Caucasians were concerned. The trouble with that image was that Beck had total poise and composure. He was in no way ruled by a lack of self-control. His ability to take command, as a matter of record, was a major asset. He worked with his brain more so than his body. After all, no pimp who got too caught up in the sexuality of a woman could successfully manipulate her. Beck had the qualities of a leader: charm, charisma, and determination. Furthermore, there could be no proper way to label a man with an IQ not far from 200 as a savage nigger. When he was an inmate, Beck could have probably been running the prison. Not only was he naturally bright, his presence was imposing. At six feet two, he had finesse, dressed immaculately, and beamed confidence. The author might have become Iceberg Slim, attorney-at-law, or maybe Alderman Ice in his native Chicago, had he chosen a political career. Crime had become, for Beck, a form of rebellion against the order set by that very class of people who would one day fear what he had to say. Indeed, the historical parallels would have likely been lost on his critics, but America was built by men like Iceberg, who essentially violated laws and reconstructed society according to their own needs and standards. Payback was a bitch. Especially when nobody saw it coming.

  Probably without knowing, Holloway House managed to toy with a psychosexual dynamic as well. Through Beck’s work, and the promotion thereof, a long-time taboo trembled in anticipation of breaking. Iceberg Slim was not shy in discussing his exploits with white women. How they became enchanted with him. Adored him. Eventually followed his orders and did his bidding just like any other bitch in his stable. It could be more than unsettling. It could bring about rage. But if Beck’s publisher had been aware that it handled such combustible goods, there were no signs of discomfort. Holloway House was dealing in the type of merchandise of which other book companies wanted no part. While the white commercial publishers on the East Coast released perhaps one work of black fiction in a given year, Holloway was cranking out various writings by authors of color. They had books that examined the legacy of social activism and works that would have been regarded as less sensational, but Iceberg’s tomes were the ones that cultivated a devoted following. Holloway House had found a niche and attracted a readership that attached itself to the company’s literature. Still, not everyone approved. Even as he professed a genuine love and admiration for black freedom fighters, like Huey Newton and the Panthers, there were observers and cultural critics who felt Beck was doing the race a disservice. Primping and looking pretty on television while discussing in fancy language how he had snorted coke or turned out however many women was no form of behavior that could be seen as a source of pride, they argued. Panther member Eldridge Cleaver, whose award-winning book of prison essays, Soul on Ice, was published a year before Pimp, wrote on the topic of what Beck was arguably becoming, “The Negro Celebrity”:

  By crushing black leaders, while inflating the images of Uncle Toms and celebrities from the apolitical world of sport and play, the mass media were able to channel and control the aspirations and goals of the black masses. The effect was to take the “problem” out of a political and economic and philosophical context and place it on the misty level of “goodwill,” “charitable and harmonious race relations” and “good sportsmanlike conduct.” This technique of “Negro control” has been so effective that the best-known Negroes in America have always been—and still are—the entertainers and athletes (this is true also of white America).

  No one would have seriously argued that Beck was a legitimate contender for the “Negro control” seat white folks created for the select few establishment-approved individuals they might find occasionally useful. For one thing, the man known as Iceberg Slim had never been a member of the establishment. These were the figures who generally received the most attention from newspapers and television. Who were occasionally recruited by elected officials to deliver messages of solace or to beg for restraint, particularly during that turbulent ’60s season of civil unrest. It was not necessarily an indication of their political bent but more a sign of their perceived appeal. Although Beck’s notoriety paled in comparison to theirs, in some corners he was perceived as sort of a pretender to the throne, vying for attention from the very population he had rejected by way of his previous lifestyle. To these detractors, his books and public appearances were the equivalent of cooning—grinning and shuffling like an early-century minstrel performer. His impact on the culture, they felt, was to affirm racial stereotypes and legitimize them, which he undoubtedly did in the minds of at least a few dedicated racists, his intelligence notwithstanding. Critics among his brethren saw Iceberg Slim as an embarrassment, despite his impressive vocabulary and prideful semblance. B
eck was capable of expounding on social theories, probably more effectively than most college professors. His testimony was more literally eye-opening than spiritually awakening, more raw than textbook or clinical, as when he wrote passages like: “My five whores were chattering like drunk magpies. I smelled the stink that only a street whore has after a long, busy night. The inside of my nose was raw. It happens when you’re a pig for snorting cocaine.”

  In one sense, his critics might have reasoned, it was Beck who was now being pimped. Put out on the street to make money for a white-owned publishing company. His tricks were the folks who paid cash for his thinking-man’s pornography and underground exposés. Those who attended his lectures were like the eager, horny customers found creeping in and out of the West Side Chicago apartment where his whores had worked lower-level units. The difference in this metaphor was that the adulation and fascination expressed by Iceberg Slim fans translated into profits for his big daddy: the company at 8060 Melrose. The evolution of Holloway House into what it would eventually declare itself, “World’s Largest Publisher of Black Experience Paperback Books,” began about ten years before Beck’s literary debut. Ad men Ralph Weinstock and Bentley Morriss had become business collaborators by the late 1950s. They made their entrée into publishing with a couple of skin mags, which weren’t so revealing at all compared with the girlie glossies that would line the racks of party stores in later days. Adam and Knight featured photos of teasing ladies, but Adam snuck in a bit of short fiction here and there to keep the pages engaging. Morriss, who hailed from Chicago, like Beck, had journeyed out to Los Angeles and done work for Warner Bros. studios. Weinstock was a Detroit native. Once he and Morriss decided they’d go the book route, they set up offices on Holloway Drive, right off of Sunset Strip, in 1960.

  Against the entertainment-driven backdrop of pricey studios, spotlights, and celebrities, it made sense to put together a series of publications that would appeal to the community. Holloway would reflect Hollywood through the material it promoted. The lives of the nation’s most fascinating personalities would be explored in print. As a result, the initial books published under the Holloway House imprint had little or nothing to do with black culture, street-influenced, consciousness-lifting, or otherwise. One of the first publications Morriss and Weinstock put out was The Trial of Adolph Eichmann. Others included biographies of the American literary icon Ernest Hemingway and screen contemporaries Jayne Mansfield and Daryl Zanuck. Holloway relocated to the Melrose address, a few stories of unremarkable, ’50s-style brick architecture that slightly resembled a bus or train station at its entrance, in 1965. Morriss purchased the building, along with a warehouse not far from there, in preparation for the success he and his partner envisioned. At the time, they had never really even considered how the black experience might figure into that equation. Success for a publisher, quite simply, meant selling books, and the collective story of Negroes in America was still largely limited to one-sided, outdated encyclopedia entries and school textbooks. Apart from the literary voices of authors such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Margaret Walker, and James Baldwin, there was not much boldness or militancy to be spoken of in contemporary black writing. When Weinstock and Morriss witnessed the development of writers’ workshops in Watts and at the University of California at Los Angeles, however, it was a whole new ball game. Holloway House recognized the opportunity to bring a raw and untapped element of creative expression to book buyers. An artistic revolution that reflected the attitudes of black men and women who were more influenced by Malcolm X and the Panthers than by the NAACP was underway. In the words of their poetry, essays, and manuscripts, a fiery energy could be read. It was an energy that could hardly be fueled by commercial exposure, which was the equivalent of selling out to the masses as far as those who generated it were concerned. Yet, with some effort, Holloway House was able to attract a roster of serious black writers, who desired, maybe more than anything else, to see their words in published form.

  The submissions arrived at 8060 by the load. They put out journalist Lou Lomax’s To Kill a Black Man in 1968. As what was apparently intended to be a serious critical work of nonfiction, it put forth an analysis of the lives and work of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated that same year. It did well sales-wise, but the book actually hurt its publisher’s credibility. Lomax had been in the thick of civil rights movement coverage, becoming well acquainted with both of To Kill a Black Man’s subjects. He conducted interviews, wrote news articles, and got to be a familiar face in circles of men and women who dedicated themselves to making racial progress. It was Lomax who had previously written When the Word Is Given, one of the early books about the Nation of Islam, the religious organization that brought Malcolm X to prominence. But oddly, Lomax shed no light on his personal understanding or impressions of the Nation’s one-time spokesman for his 1968 Holloway House release. In fact, he made no mention of the relationship. He had become an ally to the cause of the organization, which promoted black separation from Caucasian government, churches, and everyday life, in favor of building a new, independent society. Lomax had advised Malcolm X on how to put together the first oracle of the Nation of Islam, a newspaper called Mr. Muhammad Speaks. He had also made public appearances with Malcolm, debating with him the merits of the Nation’s program. Lomax served, willingly, as a foil to help the organization present its ideas, which stood in stark contrast to what the mainstream civil rights groups generally supported. Despite this, To Kill a Black Man overlooked what those familiar with his role might have regarded as valuable insights.

  What was worse for the company, though, was that the book landed Holloway House in court. A writer and editor by the name of George Breitman had first assembled the book Malcolm X Speaks in 1965, the year that the political activist and organizer was gunned down as he prepared to deliver a talk in the Audubon Ballroom of Washington Heights, near Harlem. Breitman’s collection of “selected speeches and statements” included what became regarded as two of Malcolm X’s most powerful and relevant addresses: “Message to the Grass Roots” and “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Both orations mentioned the need for a greater level of courage and commitment to the struggle for racial advancement, rejecting the most commonly promoted beliefs about how people of color could rise in America as outdated or simply unfounded. Panthers had studied and quoted from Malcolm X Speaks like Sunday-school students reading the Bible. Breitman charged that Lomax had simply ripped off his editing for a good deal of To Kill a Black Man’s content. He was furious, claiming that the reporter had done little original work for the book. The complaint was brought to court. Holloway House handled the matter and pressed forward, but to those in the black community who knew, the damage was lasting.

  When Robert Beck showed up at the offices, he was like a ray of black sunshine. He was the personification of hip, but he carried himself in a way that commanded respect. No agent or representative spoke on his behalf. Beck was fully capable of representing himself; he was as comfortable in the boardroom as he had been discussing philosophy with Big Al on the front steps of the building where his ladies turned their tricks. Nothing about him suggested he had spent more time incarcerated than studying at Tuskegee. The unsuspecting white guys at 8060 had never encountered anyone like him. “This man could be a senator,” Bentley Morris thought. He would become quite fond of the retired street player, eventually referring to him as “Bob.” Like high-school cheerleaders spotting the football team captain in the cafeteria, Holloway’s female support staffers would rush to the reception area to listen to Beck talk during his later visits. The editorial employees were impressed. After perusing ten to twelve pages of Beck’s writing sample, they agreed that his work was of interest. Times in black America were changing, and the sentiments about leadership and social status reflected a heightened self-awareness. It wasn’t seen as such a terrible thing for a brother to find his way through this fucked up world Caucasians had created in the best way he knew h
ow. Holloway House believed there was an audience that could be tapped for response. Iceberg Slim was chosen to lead the company into a new genre of realism that wouldn’t catch on with other publishers for years to come.

  Having become a follower of Beck’s stories while he was in prison, Donnie remained a fan after his release. As with other inmates, books in general had become more of a companion to him during confinement. More than they had ever been in Catholic or public school. When he left Jackson, Donnie decided he would put it all on the line and bare his creative soul. He informed the family that he had done more than reading while he was locked up. To prove it, he had in his possession a contract from Holloway House, dated October 19, 1970, almost two months before he had been released. The agreement was for the publication of Whoreson, the novel Donnie assembled while he was an inmate.

  “You? A writer?” Joanie mocked in that incredulous tone that only a younger sister could achieve. Upon witnessing the hefty stack of handwritten manuscript pages Donnie had scribbled out in his cell, she looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. If Donnie had put the typewriter his mother gave him to use at all, it wasn’t with this project. Now he was requesting Joanie’s professional services as a transcriber.