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I grew up in Levittown where home ownership meant you’d agreed your home wouldn’t “be used or occupied” by anyone who wasn’t white. But, in my house, no one’d ever used the word.
“Jus’ give ‘em their drinks, take their money and walk. Ya spendin’ way too much time talkin’. I didn’t hire ya to talk to n******.” Ralphie’s jowls vibrate as he yells at me, again.
2025
It hadn’t taken me long for me to lose the job at Robbie’s1. A pimp procession had quickly settled in to my six-barstool kingdom.
I have to research my own life to find out what really happened. Going through old calendars and journals, I realize I’d only worked at Robbies Mardi Gras for two weeks, from 10.20.75 - 11.4.75. Fifteen days. I’d have said a few months. I’d have sworn that. It didn’t take much time to hop on stage; to start hanging with pimps.
What else was I doing that I don’t remember? I’m working with memories that look like Polaroids. Single shot. Faded. Out of focus.
A smart pimp doesn’t drink much, he wants to stay clear-headed and in charge. I’ve never meet a stupid pimp, just young ones still perfecting the game. To be good, he’s got to be smooth and cool as ice, have a strong sexual mind game, and be able to spot need and weakness from a block away. That last part, that’s their super-power.
Pimps tipped—a five or ten dollar bill slid slowly over the bar for a two-dollar club soda, the offer of change waved away, frequently without even bothering to make eye contact. I pulled in five times my shift pay from them.
The money said: You’re beautiful, you’re worth more than you’re making here.
The wave said: I don’t need to look to know you’re waiting there, girl; You’re insignificant; You better work harder if you want my attention; You don’t matter as much as she does.
A little give, a little take; a small move that made you feel good about yourself and less than. Loved and Needy, at the same time without even being sure why.
Like a grifter setting up a mark, or a gypsy reading tea leaves, a good pimp is always reading signs, spotting weaknesses, and subtly manipulating those weaknesses and fears. When anyone discovers your weakness, sooner or later they’ll use it against you. I knew that like I knew the world was round, like I knew I was safest in the dark, like I knew I’d die if I stopped breathing.
Lesson Number Nine: Never, ever show weakness.
For some women stripping can be the first toe they stick in to test the waters and see what it’s like to feel really, really sexy. Others want to make a living. Or have some fun. Or are just passing through. Every choice grows out of something: I would eventually dance topless when I got bored working behind the bar. Turn the occasional trick when I got bored dancing.Some folks think stripping is a gateway drug to prostitution. The pimps sitting at my bar were counting on it.
“They’re my only customers. I got no one else at my bar. Who’m I supposed to talk to? I gotta talk to someone. I can’t be here all day and...”
“Look,” Ralph ran a meaty hand through his thick hair, across his mustache, both beginning to gray. “I don’t pay you...to talk to n******. I don’t need ya ta talk at all. Ya make a drink, take the money, smile and let ‘em enjoy looking at your ass. Why am I explainin’ this? Is it so fuckin’ hard ta unnerstand?”
“Ralph, stop. You barely pay anything. Fifteen bucks a shift? No one’s gonna tip me just for opening a bottle of beer and walking away. I can make a hundred in tips, easy. I’m here to make money, Ralph, same’s you.”
Chubby white girls from the suburbs? We were everywhere, like cockroaches. The Mardi Gras would not feel the loss of me, I knew that, and yet, still my mouth just kept on running.
“Why is that so hard for you to understand? It’s math. Just do the math, Ralphie.” He stared me down, adjusting his pants and belt around his paunch. I might’ve overplayed my hand. It feels like we’re this close to him walloping me with that belt. I never know when to shut up—it just doesn’t come naturally—but I do know when to duck and run.
“Ya got a smart mouth, but ya not a smart kid. Ya like spending time these muthafuckas; spend every g’ddamn day’n night wit’em. Getcha crap’n get outta here—take ya pimp friend wit’cha.”
I pushed my way past him, out of the office and back to my station behind the bar.
Like a magpie, I was attracted to anything that glittered or sparkled, snatching it up to eat it, wear it, or have sex with it. I could certainly see the charm of a rainbow ‘gator, or a three-piece pistachio polyester suit and open shirt out of which peeked a gold chain or two, and some curly chest hairs. I knew they were waiting to turn me out—put me to work. You can’t fault a predator for stalking his prey.
A coyote will hunt whatever chance throws his way, instinctively taking down an injured prairie dog, or working in pairs and packs to run a fawn until she drops from exhaustion, it’s in the predatory nature of a pimp to see every woman as a potential source of income. He knows deep in his bones that he’s better than, smarter than, in charge of, and deserves money from every woman he meets—and that he is doing her a favor by making her decisions for her, because without his direction, guidance, and discipline, she’d be lost.
I’d dreamed of dying exactly the same way, on the same day for two years—over seven hundred times—by the time I got to the Mardi Gras. It’d become the truth. I saw the future, and the truth was I had no future self, just a little less than five years to do whatever I wanted, with no consequences because no matter what I did, I was always going end up dead on the tracks of the Long Island Railroad.
JJ was a pimp, and a pimp has a singular goal, but how that’s achieved is the difference between being an egg-laying hen raised in a factory farm—where you’re drugged, trapped in a space too small for you to stretch your wings, cut, clipped and forced to produce around the clock and when you can’t produce anymore and you’re no longer profitable, you’re left to die—or a hen, hand-raised on a small family farm. Either way you’re a captive and’ll end your days as chicken soup, but one way it’s a much sweeter journey to the stewpot.
What I wanted with the five years I had left was to be one of Jasus J. Huntsberry’s hand-raised chickens.
He saw something in me I couldn’t—that potential I was never living up to. I thought if I really applied myself I could work for him. I couldn’t imagine it would be much of a transition, but everything had to be done in his time.
Like a kid on a long car trip, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
I wanted everything he had and settled for whatever part of him I could get. I’d needed a work name and took his. Like a branded cow, I thought carrying his name let everyone know JJ was looking out for me. I knew I wasn’t the baddest ass in the bar, but I was carrying the name of the coolest cat on the street. It made me feel safe from the reach of gorilla pimps—the ones who relied on violence and intimidation.
Years later, a sweet-hearted pimp friend would explain that as a rule pimps don’t fuck for free and I hadn’t been earning anything for JJ.
“What’s happenin’ Little J?” JJ’s whisper slipped through the blaring dance music. The music felt louder, pounding the inside my head, pushing everything out of the way except my anger. I grabbed my clothes and my tips. I turned and bumped into Ralph cashing out my register.
JJ reached for my hand, and I handed him my bag, my clothes, the wad of dollars from my tip jar. “I’ve been fired,” I cut my eyes at Ralph, “for talkin’ to N******.” I was loud. I wanted everyone to hear.
“Get the fuck outta here.” Ralph shoved me. The dancers kept dancing. The Two-Dollar Ties kept drinking. The other barmaids stopped or slowed down and watched.
“Shift pay?” I held out my hand, cocked a hip, and smiled.
“You don’t work a full shift, you don’t get paid. How’dya like it when I do the math?” He smiled back and puffed his chest out
Ralph, throwing me out
“Fuck you, just…fuck you. I don’t need your goddamned fifteen bucks.”
JJ carried my bag and we walked out of the darkness into the glaring afternoon sun on Broadway, both wearing our work clothes. JJ, quiet in his three-piece bankers’ grey pinstripe and me, all smart mouth & big ass bobbing along in nothing but a leotard shiny and red as a fire truck, a pair of heels, and a very bad attitude. Struggling to pull my jeans over my leotard as we walked, I thought, I’m okay. With JJ at my side nothing really bad could happen.
Times Square roared around us. It’d been a long day. I was too tired to roar back.
Do you know when to shut up? I’m still working on that…
Historical footnotes: Facts as presented by my archived calendars & journals: Ten days later, I’m in the Mardi Gras getting drunk. Was I taking a break from the topless bar interviews I had: with Sid at Adam & Eve (41/Lex) and at the Arthur Jay Agency (54/7th) for topless dancers? I danced one night at a topless bar called Hungry Hilda's, then apparently went home and told my parents which I have no recollection of, at all. I trust the evidence, things I wrote more than what I remember.
Wow these stories are so compelling and disturbing at the same time. Again, the way you write is so filmic- I see all these scenes so vividly the way you write them. Always appreciate your honesty, vulnerability and humor❤️
I love how well you write your “characters”. Even if they’re real people, they’re definitely characters. Just fascinating. Then I think of how young you were in all of this and all the predatory behavior of all these characters and it’s such a harsh look at what we can be and do for money. Not sure why, but some of the most interesting facets of humanity lie in the darkest parts of us, imo.
Wow these stories are so compelling and disturbing at the same time. Again, the way you write is so filmic- I see all these scenes so vividly the way you write them. Always appreciate your honesty, vulnerability and humor❤️
I love how well you write your “characters”. Even if they’re real people, they’re definitely characters. Just fascinating. Then I think of how young you were in all of this and all the predatory behavior of all these characters and it’s such a harsh look at what we can be and do for money. Not sure why, but some of the most interesting facets of humanity lie in the darkest parts of us, imo.