CHAPTER 43 -PORK PIE HAT

What is the world comin' to

So many are used and abused

There's over ten million girls

Who are lost in this world

-The Whispers

Walking up Broadway, I slipped my hand under Johnny's sleeve. I felt a tingle in my heart when he allowed me to do so. His arm felt like my only connection to planet Earth. Without it, I might have floated up into the New York skyline.

Once again, I had violated what was right by most legal and moral standards ... by turning a trick, but nothing changed. No lightning struck me. The only striking thing was the blazé nature of the Universe, a remarkable 'unremarkability' and a diminishing awareness of the man's presence in my body.

As we approached the bar, I realized this was directly across from Circle in the Square Theater, where I had played Mary Magdalene.

"Hey, this is wild! I was onstage at that theater!"

"Thas nice, baby." I wanted more from Johnny. "I was Mary Magdalene!"

Johnny greeted a man named 'Stubs' a short, freckled pimp. He had a Queen of Spades playing card in his gangster hat. Under the Pork Pie Hat awning, the two men executed a complex handshake. 'My man's' flew back and forth.

"Ba-rutha Johnny and mmm mmm!" Stubs looked me over. "Ain't you just a pretty, big girl. Johnny turned out a movie staah!"

I knew what 'turned out' meant because The Whisper's 'Lost and Turned out,' a song about predatory pimps, had curiously become a badge of honor in the subculture.

"You can speak to Stubs," Johnny told me. You won't be 'outta pocket' He's a brutha."  

Girls were trained to speak only to their pimps in 'the life.' Johnny was a little looser with me, though. Gentling, not taming. That Johnny controlled who I spoke to was my gift of submission to him.

Stubs pulled his lips back to display gold teeth. He bowed to me, exaggeratedly low, making me giggle.

Then he opened the door and made a big funny show of announcing us to the room like royalty.

"Lady movie star and Johnny Slim ... Everybody, please stay seated."  

I laughed.

"Don't get too charmed or I'll tell you how he got the nickname 'Stubs.'" Johnny liked scaring me. "It ain't from using an ashtray for his cigar."

I had trouble imagining Stubs putting a cigar out on a woman. They all wanted to be as cold as Iceberg Slim who wrote Pimp: The Story of My Life in 1967.