The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (8 page)

LATER THAT SAME YEAR
Shirley and I decided to get a divorce. We had long since moved into another rental, a roomy three-bedroom house, and I told her that she and the girls could stay there, that I would take care of them financially, and I went off to look for a place of my own. I was going to rent an apartment since I didn’t need much space, but thanks to the gas crisis I was still pretty flush, and one afternoon I stumbled across a 2,500-square-foot house in a gated community, on the market for $40,000, and I bought it.

I had been there less than a week, without much more than a mattress on the floor, when one night, after work, instead of going back to my big empty house, a few of my buddies dragged me to the Band Box, a strip club in downtown Phoenix. Only minutes after we’d settled in, a gorgeous, red-lipped blonde took the stage and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “I think I’m in love,” I told my friends. “I’m going to fuck that girl.” They didn’t think it would happen — “Fat chance!” “In your dreams!” — but I did fuck her, and more.

Within a week, Shirley was living with me. (Yes, another Shirley.) And she brought her two kids. She was a real sweet girl, not particularly sophisticated, and she’d recently left her abusive marriage
and had turned to stripping to support the kids. In no time flat, however, she went from Reluctant Stripper to Suburban Housewife, and she was loving it. So was I, in fact. I loved coming back to a home-cooked meal every night and I especially loved the sex. I had learned a few things from working girls and she had tricks of her own. The combination was like trading in an old Volkswagen for a new Ferrari.

Looking back on it, I can’t help but think that most people don’t really know what great sex is all about. Maybe they do
now
, if they’re lucky, but in my day nobody talked about sex, and the average guy couldn’t have found his way to a clitoris without a map and written directions. Honestly, back then married people didn’t even talk about sex with each other. They just did it. Badly. And most guys were too scared to look a vagina in the eye. And I get that: Until you really know a vagina, it can be pretty intimidating. Get to know it, though, it’s a gift.

Anyway, there I was, living in the suburbs with my new wife (yes, I married her), her two children, and — on weekends — my own two kids. I had become a typical suburban dad, throwing barbecues for the neighbors, getting to know their children by name, being both Dad and Stepdad to our brood. Come Monday, however, after I took the girls back to Shirley’s place and went back to work, we had a routine and my new wife had certain expectations. She wanted me home at six sharp, for example, every night, and there were no excuses for tardiness. I had a half-dozen gas stations to run and I was often late, so this time around there was plenty of shouting and slammed doors.

“Come on, honey. I said I was sorry. Can’t we just please sit down and enjoy this great dinner you made?”

“I wouldn’t eat with you if you were the last man on the planet!”

One night, boom! She picked up a full plate and threw it right at
me. Mashed potatoes, gravy, roast — all over me, the floors, and the walls.

“Get the fuck out of here,” she screamed. “Pack your fucking things and leave because I fucking hate you!”

I was ten minutes late.
Ten
minutes. I was standing there, wiping food off my face, seeing red, and I lost control. I began moving toward her, both fists clenched, ready to strike, and suddenly I saw myself behind prison walls. It was a terrifying moment. I had never raised my hand to a woman, had never even thought about it, and the
possibility
alone scared me half to death.

So I left the house, got in my car, and drove around Phoenix for the next three hours, trying to calm down. I should have never married her, I told myself. I’d only just met her. She’d been a virtual stranger, wrong for me on so many levels. And I hadn’t even been faithful. She didn’t know that, of course, but the constant arguing and recriminations had worn me down. I’m not saying it was right, because I know it wasn’t, but from time to time I enjoyed being with a woman who actually seemed to like me, even if she was only pretending. I began to wonder why
anyone
got married. With all the wonderful women in the world, why be foolish enough to settle for just one? I think in my heart I wanted to be monogamous, I wanted to be faithful, I wanted to be a good husband and a good father and try to build a life with someone . . . But my penis was powerful, and my penis had its own plans.

When I got home, it was the same old story. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry I got mad. I didn’t mean it. I love you, baby.” That night was different, though. That night I didn’t want to fuck her. That time even the idea of volcanic make-up sex wasn’t enough to do the trick.

The next night, I didn’t bother coming home. I called my buddies and we went back to that same strip club, and there was another hot blonde doing her thing on the pole, and I told them, “I’m
going to fuck her.” And I did. I waited for her shift to end and bought her a drink and then we had a second and third drink at a downtown hotel, and my marriage ended.

I was generous with the settlement, partly because I wanted to be fair, and partly because I didn’t want to give my hard-earned money to those sleazy divorce lawyers.

Then I plunged back into work. I bought a towing business, went into a partnership on a garage, poured my energy into new gas stations. And when I wasn’t working, I chased women. I couldn’t stop thinking about women. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but if there was, it was worth the price.

There’s nothing like burying yourself inside a woman. Nothing.

ONE AFTERNOON, I GOT A
call at work. My mother had gone to the hospital for an angiogram and apparently something had gone wrong. I drove over and met my father there, and the doctor was waiting with bad news. “I’m afraid there was nothing we could do.” I felt like killing the guy. My father had to stop me from jumping him.
Nothing we could do
. It was an angiogram, for fuck’s sake! You put a little dye into a vein and check the flow of blood. People didn’t die from angiograms. And she probably hadn’t even needed it. My mother was a terrible hypochondriac, and those crazy doctors were always humoring her. Blood tests, EEGs, X-rays — if she wanted something to be wrong with her, they would find it. But there was nothing wrong with her. She was overweight and unhappy, sure, but she wasn’t sick.

I was depressed for days. I missed work, which had never happened. I hadn’t always liked my mother — she’d been the tough one, the eternal disciplinarian, humorless, grim — but I still loved her. I never told her so, but I’d like to think she knew it.

BY THIS TIME I HAD
a new woman in my life: Barbara. It hadn’t taken long, but that’s because I can’t be alone. I’ve always known that about myself and it’s never going to change. I need a woman next to me at night. What’s the point of getting into bed alone? What’s the point of
living
?

Barbara had been married once before, and she and her ex had made good money in the health club business. We had met in an upscale bar in Phoenix — a hot blonde with red lipstick, imagine that — and from our first night together I was practically living in her house. One day she told me to move in, and I did, and not long after, to celebrate, we took a road trip to Lake Tahoe. I fell in love with the area, and we kept going back, and before long I realized I was done with Phoenix. I decided to sell my interest in all my businesses. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I knew what I wanted, and — thanks to Dale Carnegie — I wasn’t overly worried about the road ahead. In the space of a few weeks, I got rid of everything and moved to Nevada with part of my team. A month later, I bought a gas station in Reno, the first of five.

Barbara still had business interests in Phoenix, so she shuttled back and forth, but I wanted her to move to Tahoe with me permanently, so I went looking for a place to buy. I found a beautiful house by Frank Lloyd Wright, with a wide-open living area on the ground floor, three bedrooms on the top floor, and a separate apartment. Almost all the rooms had 180-degree views of Reno and the surrounding mountains. I snatched it up for a song, moved my father into the apartment, then married Barbara and had her move in, too. A week into it, she said, “I don’t like the people here.” I said, “You don’t know anybody.” I made her walk around the neighborhood with me and we knocked on doors and introduced ourselves to everyone, but a week later she was singing the same song: “I still don’t like it here.”

She moved back to Phoenix. I was alone in the main house, with my father in the apartment next door. My daughters came to visit, older now, fourteen and ten. They liked Tahoe, but they missed their friends, and before long they went home to mom.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t function alone. To me, a woman is a goddess, and I can’t live in a godless world. There were plenty of brothels within easy distance, of course, and it was always great fun, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted a girl of my own. I hated coming home to an empty room. And I still do.

O
NE AFTERNOON, AS I WAS
leaving my local bank, I saw a redhead getting out of her car. She was very attractive, with a lot of attitude, and I couldn’t help but stare. She stared right back and said, “Why don’t you take me to dinner tonight?”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Excuse me?” I said.

And she said, “If you can’t afford it, I’ll pay.”

“I can afford it,” I said.

Her name was Charlene. Turned out her father and mine had worked at the post office together in Phoenix, practically back to back, and that she and I had gone to the same high school, but she was four or five years behind me so we hadn’t known each other. But we got to know each other that first night, after dinner, and got to know each other even better on the three nights that followed, until Sunday when I asked her to move in.

I was pretty crazy about her, but I had a problem: She was a buyer for Macy’s and she was gone three weeks a month. I hated my empty bed; I hated missing her. Then she admitted that the story about Macy’s was a lie. She wasn’t a buyer for them or anybody else. She was actually a
seller
; three weeks a month she was holed up at the Moonlite Ranch, selling herself.

I was very upset. “Fuck this,” I said. “Get away from me. I’m not going to be with a girl who’s fucking other guys.” I was a square in those days. Straight as hell. I had a lot to learn.

About a month later, I ran into her in town and she talked me into coming up to see her at the Moonlite Ranch. She was working three weeks straight, as always, in virtual lockdown, but boyfriends were allowed to visit on Sundays. “For twenty dollars, you can have a drink or two and get laid, and you’ll be home by midnight,” she said. I’d always had fun at the Moonlite, so I went.

This time I wasn’t treated like a customer, though; I was Charlene’s
guest
, a member of the family. In those days, most of the brothels were run by black women, many of them on the large side, who cooked and cleaned and handled the cash. They’d been running the brothels forever, going back to when brothels were still illegal, so they were a pretty tough bunch. One of them, Mary, bigger and blacker than the others, took a real liking to me. “Oh, Charlene! You got you a good one there. He’d make a good P.I.”

Charlene replied, “Not happening. He’s a square.” I
was
square. P.I. meant
pimp
, and I didn’t even know that much. Plus I wasn’t interested in the business end of the ho business. I was doing fine on my own.

Mary laughed and turned to look at Charlene. “Girl,” she said. “Man’s good looking, but you’re right. He as square as they come.”

I came up the following Sunday and I guess they wanted to
teach the square guy a lesson. A customer came in, this rough cowboy type, about forty years old, with the Stetson and the bowed legs and the square-toed boots and the weathered skin from riding around the range or something. One of the girls took him to a back room and Mary told Charlene to let me watch the show. Charlene led me down the corridor and into a closet, put a finger to her lips to shush me, and raised a curtain on the wall. Turned out to be a one-way mirror. The cowboy had taken off his pants, but not his boots, and he was wearing frilly little girl’s underwear, pulled partway down his hairy thighs. The girl had some kind of leash tied to his dick, and she was leading him around the room, telling him he’d been a naughty little cowpoke. “I think I’ve seen enough,” I said.