Not Safe for Work

by Michael Estrin

  Sunny sits at the edge of her seat, ready to pop up and throw one of us under the bus, or run for the door and a smut-free weekend, whichever she needs to do to keep her paycheck and what remains of her sanity. She never did come up with an editor’s note for this issue, and Dean told me that she stitched together a few graphs from previous issues before signing off with a “thank you and best wishes” for the industry in the coming year. Naturally, it was all bullshit back then, just as it’s all bullshit now. But with each passing month it gets harder for Sunny to write her editor’s note because she’s “porned out”—a charge Dean levels whenever he’s due for another dope break.

  Booty slouches in his seat, which is his custom. He’s tired, but it’s also Friday, and Booty has tentative plans with Mary Jane. He’s texting her to confirm and to see if I can tag along.

  I’m the only one watching Oz as he picks his way through the book while covertly working on a troublesome booger. As soon as Oz signs off on the book, Dean will call the messenger from the printer and we can all go home. But for now, we’re stuck in the office, waiting.

  The ringer on Sunny’s phone breaks the silence. She doesn’t want to answer it, but when the boss pulls his finger out of his nose and looks at you, it’s probably a good idea to pick up the phone.

  “Newsroom.”

  Oz goes back to the book. Dean rubs his chest and tells me that he’s going to El Cholo for brunch tomorrow to watch USC get its ass handed to them in some second-tier bowl game against some Podunk bidirectional school that isn’t Northwestern.

  Dean went to CSUN, and like any LA native who didn’t attend USC, he takes rooting against the Trojans as seriously as he takes his Mexican food.

  “Not the bullshit El Cholo in Santa Monica,” he says looking at me for Angeleno solidarity. “The real-deal El Cholo on Western. Strong margaritas and green corn tamales, dude.”

  I nod, even though I haven’t been to either one since I was a kid. I’m more of a burger and fries guy these days because I like to keep the dining experience as close as possible to my hourly wage.

  “Well, we’ve already put the magazine to bed,” Sunny says into the phone.

  Oz closes the magazine and looks at Sunny.

  “Let me call you back,” she says.

  Sunny hangs up the phone. Dean stands up to put on his coat—an empty gesture he hopes will move the day to a conclusion.

  “What do we have in the magazine about Johnny Toxic?”

  Dean answers without looking at the book.

  “We cut the stories the guys wrote the other day,” Dean says. “The murder story is up on the Web, but it’s not fleshed out enough for print, so all we really have is an item on...uh...”

  “Fuck-Whores 8,” I say.

  “Try not use that kind of language, Heywood,” Sunny says, admonishing me for Oz’s benefit.

  “It’s just title, stars, studio, and release date,” Dean says.

  “They want a memorial spread,” she says. “They’re sending over a press release, something about the legendary Johnny Toxic’s last film—yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  “Now?” Dean asks. “Can’t happen. It’s too late. Next month, next month.”

  Sunny taps her fingers on her desk. It’s one of those moves that give the illusion that she’s thinking. But the tapping doesn’t end, which makes me think that Sunny isn’t thinking at all.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  I look at Dean, who shifts his weight from left to right and back again, refusing to sit back down and risk unpaid overtime. If he were a kid, it would look like a pee-pee dance, but Dean is a layout editor who smokes dope at work, which makes me wonder if he isn’t jonesing for something harder right about now.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Booty leans forward, elbows on knees. Apparently, his next text is a two-hander.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Oz looks around the room at each of us. He strokes his chin. I hope this is a nervous tick that comes on when he’s debating weighty issues like the problem of maintaining a timely print product in the digital age. Print can’t keep up with the speed of digital, but if you’re going to do both, you have to figure out where to draw the line without undermining either product.

  Technically, there’s nothing wrong with what we have regarding Johnny Toxic or Fuck-Whores 8 in the magazine, but in light of the murder investigation story I posted on the website, our print product is lacking, to say the least.

  “Maybe we should add my story into the legal section, then do a cover story on the life, career, and murder of Johnny Toxic for the next issue,” I say, angling for a larger prize.

  My comment stops Sunny’s tapping.

  Dean looks around the room.

  “I could drop Heywood’s story in pretty quick,” Dean offers.

  “That’s not what they want,” Sunny says, failing to smear them with her usual dirt ball insult, or otherwise malign the people who want to dress up the Toxic mess.

  Everyone in the office gets it without being told. A straight murder story is bad news for whoever owns the rights to Fuck-Whores 8, but a retrospective on a well-known performer-director is the perfect launching pad for promoting the last film of his life. The fact that he is dead can be spun either way, and typical of porn, we’re looking for the happy ending.

  Oz switches hands, but continues to stroke his chin.

  “If we hold until the next issue, we’ll have the time to get his obit right, and I’m pretty sure there will be a few more legal developments by then,” I say, hoping to sweeten the pot.

  “Police find Toxic’s killer, or police continue to search for Toxic’s killer,” Dean says. “That kind of thing.”

  “It’s a murder,” I say. “Even if they catch the killer tomorrow, there will likely be a trial. I could cover this for months.”

  “Hell yes!” Booty says, before sheepishly looking up from his phone. “Sorry. We’re on for tonight, Heywood.”

  We all look at Booty, who apparently just joined the conversation.

  “What’s going on? Are we good with the book?”

  Sunny starts to recap the debate for Booty, but an email alert interrupts her.

  “They sent over a press release and art.”

  All of us except for Oz crowd around Sunny’s monitor.

  It’s not hard to spot Rachel’s handiwork. The release date for Fuck-Whores 8 is jammed into every quote. Evidently, a murder is a fantastic media opportunity, and Rachel clearly has no intention of wasting it. I’d loathe her if I weren’t doing the same thing. Such is the symbiotic nature of hacks and flacks.

  Sunny has other ideas. The press release is “unsubstantiated hyperbole,” she says, neglecting to point out that all press releases are unsubstantiated hyperbole. Naturally, she’s posturing. What really galls Sunny is the fact that every quote identifies Toxic as either a “legend,” or a “genius,” or a “legendary genius.” Or maybe she just hates all pornographers equally. In the brief time that I’ve been here, she’s made a snide comment about the subject of every single one of my stories.

  “We can’t use this crap,” she says. “It’s fluff.”

  I look at Dean, wondering if he’s going to tell our editor in chief that this isn’t the Times. But instead, Dean backs her up. Such is the nature of coexistence in a dysfunctional space.

  “It’s a puff piece,” he says. “They waited until the last minute because they knew we wouldn’t have time to do our own story.”

  Sunny continues shitting on the Toxic story, but she walks her criticism right up to the line. She’s not going to be the one to make the call because she’s a survivor. And while she wants out in the worst way, Sunny knows that being fired from porn’s second-best trade publication is a one-way ticket to a telemarketing career in the Inland Empire.

  “You know, this could blow up on us,” I say. “Right now Toxic is the victim, but it�
�s still early in the investigation. Maybe he wasn’t such an angel.”

  I wait for Sunny to remind me that all pornographers are dirt balls, but she doesn’t. I look at Oz, who has stopped stroking his chin. Instead, he’s holding the tip of his thumb against the roof of his left nostril. He’s like a statue—porn’s answer to Rodin’s Thinker.

  There are serious journalistic questions at play, and we’re on a deadline no less. This is the stuff that drives English majors to switch to journalism—the stakes. That’s what hooked me on journalism, the fact that my work would have real consequences. And even though this is porn, if I’m being honest, I feel the slightest bit giddy knowing that we’re about to make a decision that matters. It’s a rush, the kind that stokes a fire in your belly and sends you charging into the unknown.

  Oz rises like he’s Ben Bradlee, the legendary Washington Post editor. For a moment I feel like a real journalist.

  “Check with ad sales,” he says. “It’s their call.”

  Chapter 17: What ad sales says

  Ad sales is actually one person, a woman named Kat. I’ve never spoken to her, let alone seen her.

  We’ve been waiting forty minutes for Kat to return any one of the dozen calls we’ve placed to her home and cell. Booty, fearing that our rendezvous with Mary Jane may be in jeopardy, has even resorted to tweeting and Facebooking Kat, anything to get her on the line. Meanwhile Dean is on a tirade, insisting that next time will be different.

  “All hands on deck on publishing days,” he says, hurling his stapler at the wall.

  Dean’s outburst takes out a chunk of drywall, but nobody cares. We’re over it, some of us more than others.

  “That’s the only way to do it,” he says. “She needs to be here, same for the art department. Otherwise, this is just amateur hour.”

  Sunny clears her throat, and this time Pavlov’s pothead fires up his one-hitter in the office.

  According to Booty, Kat only comes into the office after each issue comes out so she can complain about editorial fuck-ups that result in a lost sale or a make-good. She works on commission and each fuck-up hurts her bottom line, but Booty jokes that it actually hurts her bottom, which is his way of implying that Kat isn’t above using sex to sell sex ads to sex merchants.

  Kat, one advertiser told me, is a hustler in the best sense of the word. “She wouldn’t sell her own mother,” he had said, “because she could rent that bitch out and make ten times as much.”

  It was a compliment, and it makes perfect sense to me when Sunny finally gets Kat on the phone.

  “Just run the press release in the magazine,” Kat says. “I’ll sell them on a cover story for the next issue.”

  Sunny leans in, blocking a red-faced Dean from seeing the phone.

  “We have some serious editorial concerns about running an unsubstantiated, hyperbolic press release. It’s a question of journalistic integrity.”

  “Then fix the typos before you run it,” Kat says. “Listen, I gotta run. This Vietnamese bitch is fucking up my mani-pedi.”

  It takes about twenty minutes to cope with defeat and another twenty for Dean to drop the press release into the magazine. To make room for the story, we lose the two-page spread I wrote on Big Juggs and the financial collapse of his production company. Money talks, I guess.

  Dean chuckles, saying the bankruptcy story was “kind of a bummer” anyway.

  Either way, there’s only so much death and bad news a porn mag can take in one issue. And if it bleeds, it leads. Of course, the bankruptcy is an especially relevant business story for a trade publication, so I offer a mild protest.

  “The company is a casualty of the digital revolution,” I say, hoping to win my editor over. If I’m being honest, it’s not just about impressing Sunny. With a story like that in print, I have a decent shot at pitching a mainstream business publication a surprising story about an industry that was supposed to be recession-proof.

  “The downfall of Legit Productions could be a harbinger of the industry’s new normal.”

  I’m gilding the lily, I know. But I worked hard on the bankruptcy story and ate shit for my effort. I want it to mean something. I want the clip for what it represents—an opportunity to impress an editor at a publication that isn’t The Daily Pornographer. But all Sunny can say is that harbinger is a great word.

  Chapter 18: Porn star karaoke

  Booty and I take separate cars because nobody carpools in LA. We arrive at Sardo’s within a minute of each other because we both took the same route to Burbank, bypassing the traffic jams around NBC and Warner Bros.

  “You’re going to love this,” Booty says as he opens the door to Sardo’s, a dimly lit bar with cheap wood paneling that looks like it was installed during Reagan’s first term.

  Sardo’s is crowded, but Booty navigates the place like he’s Magellan, weaving around patrons and waitresses toward a cluster of tables cordoned off with red velvet ropes. I spot Mary Jane at one table and Rachel at another.

  A bouncer with a thick leather jacket and an even thicker neck opens the rope for Booty, but holds me back with a firm forearm that’s big enough to serve as a canvas for a rather elaborate sex scene involving a couple and a snake, probably a python.

  “Tony, he’s with me,” Booty says. “This is our new reporter.”

  Tony gives me a hard stare. I study Tony’s tattoo and notice that the woman is swallowing the man while the python swallows her. Obviously, Tony has relationship issues.

  “Heywood Jablowme,” I say, instantly regretting it because Tony looks like a guy who is too violent for the UFC and too dense for puns.

  “That’s a good fucking name,” he says with a wide smile. “Whatever you need, come see me.”

  I thank Tony and step past him into what appears to be the porn industry section of Sardo’s.

  Booty squeezes between Mary Jane and a guy rocking frosted tips and an Ed Hardy shirt. I spot an empty seat next to Rachel.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  “Is that your best opening?” Rachel asks.

  “Funny thing: this guy I know, he hates it when you answer questions with questions.”

  “If it’s funny, why aren’t you laughing?”

  “I meant funny coincidental, not funny ha-ha.”

  “So maybe you should’ve said coincidental thing.”

  “Maybe,” I say, taking a seat that wasn’t offered.

  “He’s coming back,” Rachel says, nodding to a guy on stage.

  My eyes shift to the stage, then back to Rachel.

  “He looks like the poor man’s William H. Macy,” I say. “From Fargo, not Boogie Nights.”

  “Thanks for being so specific.”

  The crowd quiets down. After a few piano notes, William H. Macy confirms my worst fear.

  “Journey,” I say.

  A porn star singing a Journey song about holding onto your dreams, no matter what. All I can do is shape my finger like a gun and point it at my head.

  “Civilians love it,” Rachel says.

  “Civilians?”

  “People who don’t work in the industry,” Rachel says, nodding to a crowd of young hipsters who came out to gawk at the sight of their favorite masturbatory aids singing karaoke.

  “So you’re working tonight?”

  “I’m always working,” she says. “You either work your way up, or you party down.”

  “Profound.”

  Suddenly, William H. Macy hits the chorus. Two porn stars with big hair and even bigger boobs envelope him, singing along as the crowd joins in. The civilians do love it, especially the hard-core hipsters who show their support by raising their PBR cans. Journey is karaoke’s answer to porn’s pizza delivery guy accepting sex as payment.

  “There’s something almost perfect about porn stars singing karaoke just a stone’s throw from a Hollywood movie studio—movie wannabes by day, rock ’n’ roll wannabes by night.”

  Rachel rolls her eyes at me.

  “Maybe I
should sing some Alanis Morissette,” I say.

  “A little too ironic,” Rachel says. “Don’t you think?”

  “Or meta. I get them confused.”

  I catch a smile from Rachel, but a moment later I realize it’s for the waitress delivering a fresh gin and tonic.

  “It’s a shame about Johnny,” I say.

  “No, it’s a shame about Ray.”

  “The Lemonheads?”

  “No. Ray as in Ray Kunkel—Johnny’s real name.”

  I know that Johnny’s real name is Ray Kunkel, but after a week in the business, it’s hard to think of a nom de porn as anything other than a person’s real identity. After all, Ray Kunkel died years ago; Johnny Toxic was murdered on Thursday.

  “I guess the industry is really broken up about Johnny—Ray.”

  Rachel stirs her drink before resting the narrow straw on her tongue and closing her lips.

  “Thanks for waiting until deadline to send the press release, you really jammed us up,” I say.

  Rachel puts her drink down and leans in close. She smells like cinnamon lip gloss and gin. Her breath is hot on my ear, and for a moment I know what it would be like to kiss her.

  “My pleasure,” she whispers, before pulling away.

  “I was being facetious.”

  Rachel bats her eyelashes and mounts a smile that’s one size too big.

  “I know,” she says. “It’s adorable.”

  Rachel shifts in her chair, coiling her torso. My eyes linger on her beauty, uncertain of her angle.

  “You got yourself into this mess,” she says. “If you hadn’t run the murder story...”

  William H. Macy finishes with a rock star scream before dropping the mic and sending the room into feedback hell, punctuated by lackluster applause. I plug my ears.

  An aging porn star in high heels clip-clops her way onto the stage. With a raspy menthol voice, she says something about losing her virginity to “Son of a Preacher Man.” Then she begins to sway her hardened body to the sultry notes of a song we all would’ve forgotten had it not been for Quentin Tarantino.