Not Safe for Work

by Michael Estrin

  A trace of sympathy crosses her face for a moment, as if she understands how today, and getting roughed up by Johnny Toxic, and writing obituaries of titty-fucking legends feels like some sort of hazy daydream, a fleeting trip to a bizarre kingdom. Or maybe I’ve just fallen for her a little and meaningless expressions demand undue meditation.

  “Heywood Jablowme,” I say, a little embarrassed by my new name.

  “No,” she says, then after an excruciating moment, “but I’ll put you on the guest list.”

  “What about him?” I ask, looking at my competition. “Is he on the guest list?”

  There’s no answer because Rachel is walking away.

  I study my competition. I’m not sure what his editors expect of him, but apparently it’s OK to sit on a story, because he’s just hanging out reading a book and smoking a cigarette, probably a Clove.

  Hearing that this lazy hipster owns my story irks me. As absurd as it sounds, it makes me angry that my competitor doesn’t exhibit any professional pride whatsoever.

  “Asshole,” I say to nobody at all.

  Immediately, I decide to scoop the fucker. It’s not exactly Watergate, or even gate-worthy for that matter, but so what? A scoop is still a scoop, even if your competitor chooses to sit on his ass and give himself lung cancer.

  Chapter 9: Scoop, there it is

  I call the office and Dean picks up.

  “Newsroom.”

  I tell Dean what I know, reading him my lede and my nut graph. I give him the financial details, and Dean whistles when he hears that Legit Productions had dug itself into a half-million-dollar hole.

  “That’s killer, dude.”

  I explain that the employees got shortchanged and that the only bid came from a company called Unlimited Holdings.

  “Have you heard of them?” I ask Dean.

  “Dude, all these companies have a million DBAs,” he says. “What about a quote?”

  I hesitate for a second, then read him the statement I got from Fishback.

  “What the fuck does that mean, dude?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “And after he told me, he said I couldn’t attribute it to him. Is that normal?”

  “We’ll go without a quote for now. Come back to the office and we’ll see about updating it.”

  “OK,” I say. “Oh, there’s one more thing.”

  I tell Dean that a Porn News Daily reporter is on the story too. Sort of.

  “Everyone is saying they own it,” I tell Dean. “How is that even possible?”

  I hear typing and Dean assures me that there’s nothing on their website, which isn’t a surprise. The Clove cigarettes aren’t going to smoke themselves.

  “It’s a scoop,” Dean says. “Nice work, dude.”

  “But what’s this business about owning a story?”

  I press for an answer because the idea seems so alien to me. One news source might have an edge over the competition, but I’m not sure how they can truly own a story.

  “Yeah, they buy stories, dude. It happens.”

  “How do you buy a news story?”

  “Cash, check, I don’t know. Listen, Oz likes scoops, so I want to get this online ASAP.”

  Chapter 10: Little people, big problem

  When I get back to the office, I find Booty arguing with a midget. The woman comes up to Booty’s waist and she’s got more tattoos than teeth, but she shows no sign of letting up. Quickly, I gather that the purpose of her visit is to reprimand Booty for a series of stories he wrote about the appeal of midget porn.

  “We prefer the term little person,” she says.

  But Booty sticks to his midget guns for several reasons.

  “You really don’t want to see the word little anywhere in porn,” Booty says. “Also, midget is in the title, so right there I have to use it.”

  “Midget is like the n-word,” she says. “They wouldn’t put that word in a movie.”

  “Sure they would,” Booty says. “I’ve got drawers full of that racist shit.”

  Booty gets up from his desk and stands in front of a pair of filing cabinets. One by one, he opens the drawers, revealing enough porn DVDs to make a credible start at a mom-and-pop video store for anyone foolish enough to go tilting at the windmills of bygone media formats. After only a moment of searching, Booty produces four DVDs. The titles are all different, but the basic idea is that black men are fucking white women—except, of course, the box art and titles make it clear that racism, not race, is the main thrust of the erotic appeal.

  “Porn isn’t always pretty, and it’s never PC,” Booty says. “But I call it how I see it.”

  The midget stands silent. She’s got a hell-raising look about her, but I can’t tell if she’s thinking about taking a crowbar to Booty’s knees, or sucking his dick. Honestly, she might try both as some sort of combo move.

  “People really buy those movies?” I ask.

  “Of course they do,” Booty says. “What do you think those Tea Party douchebags jerk off to?”

  The midget looks slightly confused and so I say, “Booty reads Matt Taibbi, so he knows what’s up.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” the midget asks. “I’m not showing this limp-dick motherfucker my cooch.”

  “You show everyone else your cooch,” Booty says. “Now, can we get back to the interview?”

  The midget folds her tiny arms across her tiny chest. Evidently, there’s less pressure for female talent under five feet to get breast enhancements.

  “Sunny and Dean want to see you,” Booty says.

  “About what?”

  Booty shrugs and says, “Don’t know, but with those two, it’s never good, so watch your ass, Heywood.”

  I drop my stuff on my chair, lingering just long enough to catch a glimpse of Booty’s interviewing technique.

  “Do you think guys like midget porn because it makes an average dick look like a giant dick, or because everyone has a freak flag and little people, so-called midgets, are a fairly predictable—some would say culturally safe—niche for those seeking to get weird?”

  I’m jarred by Booty’s question. He may not look it, but I’m beginning to think he’s the Bob Woodward of porn journalism.

  ***

  Entering Sunny and Dean’s office is like walking into a sucker punch.

  In the time it took me to drive back to the office, check in with Booty and the midget, and walk to the editors’ office, my bankruptcy story has blown up in my face.

  The phone is ringing nonstop, but nobody answers. Sunny wants to know why I don’t have any quotes in my story, but I make the tactical decision not to blame it on Dean, even though he told me not to worry about it for now.

  “Without quotes, it’s just some dipshit talking—that’s not journalism,” Sunny says.

  I think back to those philosophical college debates on the nature of journalism. Nobody used the word dipshit.

  “There are court documents,” I say. “That’s the basis for the story. I can work on a quote. Maybe a bankruptcy lawyer, and I’ve got a call into Little Juggs.”

  “That’s him calling now,” Sunny says, pointing to her phone. “He’s furious. He’s been calling all morning.”

  “I tried to get a quote from him,” I say, neglecting to mention that I aborted the attempt upon seeing Rachel. At the time, no quote seemed better than one manufactured by a publicist to subvert whatever truth there is to discover. But that calculus is a cop-out. I fucked up, and I know it.

  “He says you weren’t there.”

  “I was there.”

  “Then why don’t I have a quote? Hold that!”

  Sunny points a bony finger in my face and picks up the phone.

  “Sunny,” she says into the phone’s receiver. “No, he’s here now. We’re getting to the bottom of this.”

  Sunny grabs a pen and a legal pad. She takes down a clunky, long-winded quote and then reads it back.

  “‘This is a very, very sad day for the Legit Productions
family,’ says a sullen and grief-stricken Little Juggs, son of the titty-fucking legend and pioneer, Big Juggs. ‘But with every ending comes a new beginning. Which is why today is also a happy day for fans of titty-fucking, because soon the entire Legit Productions library, along with many, many new videos will be available on BoobTube, where all of the titty-licious content will be one hundred percent, totally, absolutely, positively free!’”

  Sunny promises to include the exclamation mark in the quote along with the word titty-licious. The she hangs up, rips the top sheet of paper off the pad, and hands it to me.

  “Add this quote to the story,” she says. “But first take the story down.”

  “Take it down, then add the quote,” I say, my voice a mix of confusion and protest.

  “The story belongs to PND, dude,” Dean says. “They bought an exclusive.”

  I don’t even pretend to understand. Sunny gets up and says she’s taking lunch. Dean says it’s time for me to learn how to use our content management system, so I can post stories on my own. My first lesson is how to unpublish my story.

  “Find the story in drafts and add the quote,” Dean says.

  “Then what?”

  “Then wait for PND to post their story, dude. Give them an hour or so to run with it exclusive, then re-post your story, but make sure you link to their story so it’s clear they got the exclusive.”

  I kill my story and walk back to my office. I am as dejected as I am puzzled. But I do know this much: if I don’t clean out my desk, I am officially a hack.

  But I stay, if only because there’s nowhere else to go. That’s the thing about doom; it paralyzes you with a dearth of options. Knowing that journalistic integrity isn’t something you can write in the payment section of your rent check, I offer to help Booty proof his copy on the midget story, which he’s titled “Little Fuckers,” despite Oz’s constant pleading for professionalism.

  Chapter 11: Burgers with a side of porn star

  I pass on the fries because In-N-Out is definitely out of its element in the salted spud department. Booty, however, isn’t as discriminating. He devours the subpar fries as he explains how PND buys stories.

  Essentially, our competition purchases a set amount of exclusive stories each month from the various studios in the Valley. Lately, they’ve been buying stories from online players like TubeWorks as well. The idea behind the strategy is to perpetuate the illusion that PND, and not The Daily Pornographer, is the only trade publication that matters.

  “Their tagline used to be, ‘The only industry news source that matters,’” Booty says.

  “Why’d they change it?”

  “People asked about the other sources, the ones that don’t matter, so they shortened it to, ‘The only industry news source.’”

  I still don’t quite understand why PND would buy stories from the same companies it sells advertising to. Actually, I don’t understand why our competition is buying stories at all. The practice is sleazy and unethical, neither of which would be a problem in porn, but it’s also stupid. And while I’ve seen plenty of stupid in my brief time on the job, this arrangement doesn’t go down as easily as the anonymous “stars” who fuck and suck their way to internet immortality.

  “It makes about as much sense as a circle jerk,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with a circle jerk?” Booty asks between bites of his Double-Double.

  “Well, it’s just a big jerk-off session,” I say. “Nothing actually gets...accomplished.”

  “Who says anything is supposed to get accomplished?” Booty asks. “You know, besides everybody getting jerked off.”

  My metaphor isn’t exactly on point, and we both know it. But Booty is an understanding mentor, and he’s not one to call out the new guy for throwing around porno jargon in an obvious attempt to fit in. Instead, he insists that it makes perfect sense if you understand pornification—his shorthand for a strange and twisted paradigm through which porn can be understood.

  “Porn News Daily is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of porn trades,” Booty says. “It’s their world, we just live in it. For now.”

  “I guess that makes us Fay Wray,” I say.

  But Booty doesn’t catch the reference, perhaps because a familiar blonde woman stops at our table and plants a kiss on Booty’s cheek. She’s got my attention, as well as that of my colleague. But it takes me a moment to place her; it doesn’t help that my eyes linger on her curves, which are wrapped in tight pink Juicy Couture.

  “You’ll get it, eventually,” Booty says as he invites the woman to join us.

  “Get what?” she asks.

  “It,” Booty says.

  And somehow that makes sense to her.

  “Oh yeah, it,” she says. “Totally.”

  The woman slides into our booth next to Booty. I catch a strong perfume smell that partially masks an even stronger weed smell. She wears a big smile that glows a little too bright below eyes as shallow as the LA River. Or maybe that’s just her chronic condition.

  “This is Mary Jane,” Booty says.

  Mary Jane is a porn star, but like most porn stars, only Booty recognizes her. And after a moment, I recognize her too. She’s Bored Blonde, the fuck-whore from Johnny Toxic’s set. I introduce myself.

  “Heywood Jablowme.”

  “Maybe,” Mary Jane says.

  Somehow I think my name might be the least offensive thing Mary Jane has heard in a while. She doubles down on two protein-style Double-Doubles, explaining the need to refuel after hiking Runyon Canyon in the morning.

  “That hike pounds my ass,” she says. “But if I didn’t do it, who would want to pound my ass?”

  Booty grins at her, which seems to be the answer Mary Jane wanted to her rhetorical question.

  “So you’re not working today?” I ask.

  “Only coke-whores book two days in a row,” Mary Jane says.

  “Oh,” I say, for a moment feeling bad because I may have insulted her.

  “I used to be a coke-whore,” she says. “But all the money I made my first three years in the biz went up my nose, so you know...”

  I don’t know, but I nod like I do. I look over at Booty. He’s nodding too. I suspect he understands. It’s pornification, I guess.

  Mary Jane tells Booty that she’s almost done with her website and that as soon as she builds a brand for herself, she’s done booking assignments with Johnny Toxic.

  “His spunk tastes like meth and Mountain Dew,” she says. “I mean whatever...the main thing is I need to monetize my moneymaker while it’s still making money.”

  She pronounces money like the name of the famous French impressionist. Booty smiles again. He’s smitten, and it dawns on me that the first time I saw Mary Jane wasn’t on the set of Fuck-Whores 8. That was the first time I saw her in the flesh, so to speak. The first time I saw her face was on the wall above Booty’s desk. It’s her poster that hangs among his shrine to Porn Valley’s best boobs.

  “Let me know when the site is up,” Booty says. “I’ll hit that story hard.”

  “You’re the best, Booty baby!”

  She kisses him on the cheek, and he smiles. Sure, she’s promoting herself, but I get the sense that she genuinely likes Booty. I like her too. She’s friendly and easy to talk to, qualities that seem to be in short supply in the porn business.

  We talk about Pilates and what they can do for your ass. We talk about the pros and cons of paying for Spotify. We talk about the latest YouTube videos, like the guy who took it in the nuts and that cat who is crazy. Struggling to contain her burger in its lettuce wrap, Mary Jane switches the topic to sugar, specifically how bad it is for you.

  “Worse than heroin,” she says. “You try eating carbs and looking fuckable. It’s impossible.”

  She finishes her burgers, refills her diet soda, and says she’s late for a tanning appointment. As soon as she’s gone, I ask Booty how a woman like that got into porn. On the one hand, she seems normal, at least by LA standard
s, meaning that she’s pretty, vapid, and obsessed with her body. On the other hand, she fucks strangers for money and lets them film it, so normal probably isn’t the right word to describe Mary Jane.

  “The usual reason,” Booty answers. “Her boyfriend cheated on her, so she got revenge by doing porn.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “I know,” Booty says with a disgusted look on his face. “Don’t any of these girls know they can just fuck a dude’s best friend to get revenge?”

  I’m not sure revenge-fucking your boyfriend’s best friend is the best strategy in the game of hearts, but looking out the window and seeing Mary Jane get into a black BMW, I can’t help but doubt my own judgment. I went to college, and I can barely afford to put gas in my piece of shit car. So there’s that.

  “Sweet ride, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess that Mountain Dew and meth cocktail pays well.”

  Booty stops eating and looks at me with disgust.

  “Please, I’m eating here.”

  “I thought that was pornification.”

  “No, that’s just crass,” he says. “One day it’ll all just make sense, or maybe it won’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No big deal,” he says.

  We return to our burgers. As we chew, I think about what I have to do when we get back to the office. I don’t want to go back. I shouldn’t go back, not if I have an ounce of integrity. I have been telling myself that I am a journalist, but the truth is I don’t know how much more life that lie has in it.

  “You want to quit, don’t you?” Booty asks.

  I can’t respond. I want to. I want tell Booty that I am a fraud, a hack masquerading as a journalist. But if I am a hack, what is my colleague? I don’t know if I can go back to the office, but either way, I don’t think I can tell Booty the truth, even if he sees it on my face.

  “This isn’t your kind of gig,” he says. “But you can’t quit.”

  “No?”

  “Trust me,” he says. “There are two kinds of people in porn. There are the lifers. Some love it and some hate it, but porn becomes who they are. Mary Jane is a lifer, same with Big Juggs. They’re famous in this world, just maybe not as famous as they want to be.”