Leaving Breezy Street

by Brenda Myers-Powell

  Chapter 11

  The Tricks of the Trade

  After working the hotels, the bars, the streets, the brothels, the escort services, and the strip clubs, I noticed there was certain types of tricks. And I got them down to like six or so. There’s the average drive-around-on-the-street trick, and that’s one category. He has three or four subcategories of him, the street trick. There is the trick who rides around looking for girls for hours, maybe two, three hours, from destination to destination, from one area of prostitution to another, until he finds what he wants, and once he sees what he wants to pick up, he’s got to play a game with her of riding around the block, unless he’s already dated her and he knows her. He’s doing that because he wants to make sure she’s not a cop or he’s trying to get a safe moment when he thinks she can jump in the car without anyone seeing her. And guess what? We play the game with him. We don’t want nobody to see us either.

  Then there’s the second street trick, who becomes like the boyfriend, who puts you up, and you start to say, “He’s my regular.” We know on a Wednesday or a Thursday what time he’s going to come around. It’s like clockwork, it’s unbelievable. You can depend on him more than you can depend on your own damn man. He’s gonna show up.

  And then there’s the dangerous street trick who picks up girls to have sex with them and then wants to take his money back or beat the girl up. Whatever anger is on his back, he takes it out on you. Those are the dangerous ones. Those are the ones who come out for blood, and we try not to get in the car with them. We warn each other about those guys. Usually, when a girl gets hurt like that and she lives through it, even if she won’t tell the police, she’ll tell the other girls. “He was in a green Chevy; this is what he looked like. Look out for him; don’t get in a car like that.” If he’s white or he’s Black or he’s Mexican, we are going to hear from the girls. I don’t care what’s going on out in the streets, we don’t want another sister getting hurt.

  Those are the street tricks.

  Then there is a category on the escort side, from the strip club side, the type of trick who spends more money. They come in respectable and like gentlemen, trying to make jokes. Like I care. Trying to make light conversation and trying to be funny, but you don’t care. You don’t like him. In your heart, you’re like, You make me sick because I have to laugh with you and I don’t want to. But you have to be charming and shit like that.

  Then there’s that sugar-daddy trick who comes to see you, or you catch a taxi to go see him, and this man spends the night and you have to listen to his rhetoric. I mean, they are paying for it, but you have to listen to that shit all night. You usually dislike him the most, because it’s not a quick wham-bam. I’m suffering listening to this bullshit all night, and I hate him right now, and I can’t do anything about it because maybe he’s given me half my money and I get the rest of it when I get ready to leave. If girls could get their money upfront, there would be a lot of tricks in trouble. We keep those tricks because when nothing is going on outside or there’s a crisis, that’s the trick you can call and who will drop off money to you without the sex. It’s like a down payment on a pussy. And you hate that because you know when he calls you again, you’ve got to pay up.

  Some tricks actually think you like them. They want you to tell them what great lovers they are, how good the sex was, and you have to sit there lying your ass off. You really want them to shut up and get out your face, but this is a part of your job and he thinks he is doing you a favor. I used to think to myself, Is he really serious? I’m on my knees and the whole thing is making me want to throw up.

  Then there is the superior trick who talked to you like you are shit from the beginning. They stay on that flow, but they come and see you often, and they pay you very well. So you accept the grandiose look on their faces. Those types of tricks will look at you and say, “Get out. Leave. I’m done.” And the same time, you are thinking to yourself, He ain’t shit either. Most of them play a role with you and it gets deep. They get into the role until the orgasm is over, and then they turn into another person. You’ve got to be careful. See, because everything he did with you came from lust, he did everything to get taken care of, and once he releases himself, I promise you, he turns into a whole other person. Reality sets back in. Now, one or two things can happen. He might want his money back; he might want to hurt you because he feels so guilty about it. But at the end he’s not the same nice person. Now I’m a disease that he needs to get away from. He’s looking at you that way and you feel it. It gets uncomfortable. That’s why girls are always on their p’s and q’s and try to get away from a trick as soon as it’s over. Not that they are so scary, but things can turn into something very wrong in a matter of seconds.

  I learned how to act tough and sexy at the same time, and I developed a sense of humor. When I was with a trick, I’m trying to make them laugh through this. I do something nutty or quirky. If he’s still looking at me with blank eyes and he’s not responding, then I know this might not end well and I know I might have to fight my way out of this. So I’m ready. If we are in a hotel room, I’m on the side next to the door. I’m going to stay next to the lamp because I might have to pick it up and crash this trick in the head. I’m going to stay next to something I can grab. I remember one time, I hit this dude with this big-ass ashtray. That was all I could get to protect myself. It’s not just a sex thing, it’s a live-or-die thing. You can die out there just as easily as you can go out there and get your money. You get into the wrong car and that’s the last car. You check into the wrong hotel and you don’t check out.

  Most of the time, girls are trying to figure out, Who am I getting into the car with today? Who am I walking into the room with now? Knowing that can save your life. If you can’t figure that out, you can get punched in the face, strangled, or murdered. And after a while, if you go through that stuff enough, you take a little swig of a drink or a pill or a joint to give yourself some courage. You take a little bit of this or that to throw off the heebie-jeebies. I’ve had tricks who have offered me extra money to do stuff I don’t do. “Oh, come on, you girls do everything.” And before I know it, I’m being forced to do something I didn’t want to do. Or he’s penetrating me anally or whatever without my permission. He thinks that’s fine because he’s going to throw you an extra hundred. He’ll throw money at you and walk away without feeling any responsibility. “I paid her, so I get what I want.” And I’m feeling like garbage on the floor. You know you can’t fight back because if you fight, that will make it worse. I remember once being anally raped by three Black guys; they were trying to hold me still in the car and I kicked the windshield out. I didn’t know at that time how hard it was to kick a windshield out of a car. I was just trying to get away from the brutal rape they were putting on me.

  * * *

  I’ve been caught a time or two with a customer and his wife catches us. She figured he was having an affair, and that can be dangerous because jealousy can have an ugly head. I learned something from another girl. She said, “Girl, when one of them married bitches roll up on you and you with her man, let her know right quick, ‘I’m a prostitute; he paid me to do this. This ain’t personal.’” And I learned to say that right away. “Wait a minute, ma’am. He paid me. I’m a prostitute. This ain’t no affair; this ain’t personal. Ain’t none of that happening.” Most women when they hear that, they look at you. “You a prostitute?” And they’ll look at him and say something messed up about you. “You with this ho? You with this bitch?” Trust me, those ladies give you a pass. I’ve had some women turn to me and say, “Okay, sweetie, did he pay you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, he did.” And then I say, “I ain’t in this,” and I walk away. That was some marriage shit; I’m a ho. Women are afraid of their men being intimately involved with another woman. I’m sure because I was just a prostitute, they went home and she forgave him. When you are out there and you are working with these types of guys, there’s one thing you should n
ever forget: he’s a trick, and at the end of this thing, he’s going his way and you are going your way.

  Folks tell me, ain’t all that happen to you. But I’m sorry, it did. I wish it hadn’t. I wish to God I was lying my head off.

  Chapter 12

  Keep It Moving

  I left Philly. I thought I would go to Canada, get my thoughts and shit together there. I didn’t make it, though. I got turned around and made it to New York.

  I thought I was fast, but New York was faster. I was just in the atmosphere of what was going on. I hung out with Black entertainers, too, especially at that club, Leviticus. I was a social butterfly, and after we hit the clubs, we would move on to the social clubs, there in Queens, and cocaine at the bars. I met interesting people. Arthur Prysock: “Here’s to good friends, we onto something special.” He was a jazz singer and a good person. We weren’t having sex or nothing like that. He just wanted girls around. I used to hang out in this place called the Tennis Club, up in Queens, and that was where I saw Johnny Mathis. I found out he was gay. He was totally not interested in my ass. I had on this nice little tight spaghetti-strap dress, no panties on, he didn’t even turn his head at me. I remember meeting Diana Ross in this upscale beauty parlor; it was that year she was doing The Wiz. Everybody always talked about how much of a diva she was, but actually she was very refreshing, very nice. I was sitting up there, staring at her with my mouth open. I mean: Diana Ross.

  And I had this guy named Hymie. I had met Hymie’s ass on my first lone stay in New York when Coolie had first come and got me. Hymie had taken me out to dinner and shit like that. So when I came back to New York, I looked Hymie up. Hymie was my enabler, my go-to man. He made everything right if it was going wrong. He was an older guy, black as the ace of spades, and he really liked me. Just a regular middle-aged Black man. I was a good piece of ass for him, and I think it might have been a little bit more than that, because once when I went to jail in Jersey, he came and got my ass out of jail. Hymie had been in Vietnam. He used to talk about that all the time. That was where he got his name, Hymie, because his real name was James, but they called him Hymie when he was in Germany. Hymie is “James” in German—actually, I don’t know if that was true, but that was what he told me.

  Hymie thought I was interesting, and so did his middle-aged friends. I would hang out with all those little pot-gut guys. Hung out, had dinner. Made it with them, too. I was living with a friend of Hymie’s. When Hymie introduced us, Annie liked me right off and wanted to have a threesome with us. So Annie came over to Hymie’s, but Hymie had to go, and by the time he had got back, me and Annie had already had our little twosome. We had already got our little freak on, so she said, “Why don’t you come stay with me?” So I started staying with Annie. And that was my life in New York. I was sneaking in a little money here and there, but basically, in New York I was taken care of by people. I would just meet interesting people, and they would take care of me. But as much as I loved being taken care of and looking at everything fresh in New York, I guess I wasn’t done with running away.

  We have the internet now, but back then we had word of mouth. We girls would sit up and talk about places we had been, people we worked for, and a girl might say, “You would do well at so-and-so.” Some places liked light-skinned Black girls, some places liked curvy girls, and if you met a girl who met the criteria, you passed it along.

  “Oh, really? You think so? Give me the number.”

  And they would say, “Tell her red-haired Karen sent you.” And these madams trusted the red-haired Karen enough to know she was sending somebody she could work with. That’s how I found my way to Miami and went to work for a Cuban lady. I never met her; she was just a voice on a telephone. She was basically with Mob Patrol, not Italian, but Cuban, and she had whorehouses. You could get a booking with her, and all you had to do was take care of the business. But I messed that up. She sent her man over to get her money, but I didn’t have it. So they wound up putting me out. Her man was supposed to take me somewhere, rough me up, and drop me off. He didn’t rough me up, though, he just dropped me off, which was a blessing. That was how I knew my angels looked out for me. He looked at me and said, “You just a dumb kid; get on outta here.”

  “Thank you. I learn my lesson.”

  I was standing on the corner with my suitcase, crying. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was in this rough section of town because that was where he dropped me off. I guess he figured I’d probably get roughed up in this neighborhood, and if I didn’t, I was just lucky. Then this guy pulled over, and I hopped in his car.

  “Where you want to go?”

  “I don’t know.” I started crying and told him my boyfriend beat me up and took off with everything I had. I mean, I couldn’t tell him I just got kicked out of a ho house.

  He was shaking his head. “This just so sad.” So he drove me to his house and told me, “You can make some phone calls.” I’m a prostitute; I was thinking, okay, I’m in and he probably wants some sex and stuff like that. But you know what? He never ever asked me to do anything. He was just a good person. He had a room; it was little bigger than a walk-in closet. There was a little toilet, with a curtain over the toilet, and then a sink and a table with a hot plate on it, the bed, and a chair. That was it. Hot as a firecracker in that room, so we had to keep the door open. He was living humbly. He gave me the bed, and he slept on the floor. He told me he was from Cuba. He was a dishwasher, and he had left two daughters in Cuba. He hoped that somebody would show his daughters the love and help he was showing me, if they found themselves in my situation. I stayed there almost a week.

  Somebody gave me Miz Nellie’s number to call. I should have called her from the beginning. She was set up in Natchez, Mississippi. For almost fifty years, Miz Nellie Jackson, who was a Black lady, ran her brothel. White men only. I stayed there for a while, cause I had nowhere else to go. I was there for about a month, a long time for me. Normal hos stay for about two weeks at these places, but Miz Nellie liked my little young ass. I turned twenty-five years old at Nellie’s. They say your brain becomes fully developed at twenty-five. I beg to differ. I didn’t have a damn bit of sense. I think Miz Nellie thought the same. Most times she looked at me with a this little child expression. You know, I think about it now, and these people who I bumped into and dealt with, they were just shaking their heads at me and the situations I got myself into. And I guess I was fun, too. I was bubbly, and people took a real liking to me. I used to watch Miz Nellie’s poodles. She had all these white poodles, and she had one black poodle, and she called that one her nigger and named him Pepper. Pepper was the only one who used to go outside and hang out in the neighborhood. He had a special door he would use to come into the house. All the rest of the puppies slept with Miz Nellie, but Pepper slept with me. I washed all her dogs.

  Miz Nellie used to have guys who cooked for us. They worked on the oil rigs, but when it was off season, they would go to Nellie Jackson’s and cook for us. She had a back house, and they could stay there if they wanted to and then cook for the hos. And man, could they cook. That was some excellent food. Them guys used to have fresh-baked rolls and biscuits and shit, like they were in a bakery or something. Really good-ass food.

  But at the end of the month, I was ready to get moving, so I went to Johnson City, Tennessee. A girlfriend of mine had told me all about it. Her name was Angel. And if Angel told you the bookings were good, they were good. Johnson City is a tri-city area; Kingsport and Bristol are the other two towns right next to it. Three railways came through there, right into downtown, and they had two airports, too. That was how the hotel managed to have the kind of business they had. People came through. Salesmen, all kind of guys who, when they stayed at the hotel, if they wanted some action, they could get it. I was working for myself; I didn’t have a pimp then. My “pimp” was the bellman. Angel was the bellman’s girlfriend, and she gave me some of my clients. She handled all the bookings. They got 40 percent of my
money.

  The bellman had a friend who he introduced me to. He had a liquor store in town. He liked me. So when I got through with my bookings, I stayed with him. But he was cranky. After a month or two, I needed to get away from his cranky ass, so I called my girlfriend Candy. She was down in New Orleans, and she was telling me how good the money was there. She was making money hand over fist. She had an apartment. It’s popping down here, she told me. The cranky dude got me a ticket. He thought I was just going down there to work and then I would come home to him. I mean, I can’t believe that fool thought I was coming back. He was cranky. Besides, I was thinking to myself that New Orleans was my chance to get my act together, get myself a straight job or something, make some money. I had been wandering around all over, getting into this, getting into that, trying to run away from all this grief that sat on top of me. I was still grieving Coolie and Ma’Dea. I needed to put all that down. New Orleans felt like the right place to get that all done.

  Chapter 13

  The Unforgivable Things We Do

  Candy had an apartment already set up in New Orleans, and I moved in with her, and she was working in a strip club on Bourbon Street, and I got a job there, too. Candy was a good stabilizer for me, and I was doing well with the money. I had been in New Orleans for almost a year when I made a big decision. I went and got the kids again.