by Nuel Emmons
I went back to being bitter and hating everyone. I had been bitter when my mom turned me over to the court when I was twelve years old. I hated her when she refused to let me stay with her after my first escape from Gibault. The bitterness I had learned at Plainfield never left me. And though I don’t blame her or feel bitter toward her now, my wife had the full brunt of my hate then.
Even if she had stuck by me and had been waiting when I got out of Terminal Island, I don’t know what the results would have been, because it’s obvious there is something lacking in my make up. It could have started with being a bastard son and my life with and without my mother. Maybe it was the years at Plainfield, or maybe the insanity of my uncle Jess and grandfather. I do know that until my wife left me I was filled with honest thoughts for our future together. I also know that the letdown I experienced when I realized I had lost her was a turning point in my life. I figured, screw all that honest-john bullshit, I’m a thief, I don’t know anything else. I made up my mind to perfect myself in the life I had been leaning toward since I stole all those toys and burned them when I was seven years old. And what better place to begin the perfection of an outlaw than in a penitentiary, a place that was loaded with every anti-establishment offender imaginable?
I was into learning ways to beat the law besides robbing or stealing. I was already pretty adept in those areas even though I had never made any big scores and I never doubted my ability to pull off a job if I needed to go that route. What interested me now was status. Among criminals in the joint, a thief or a gunman is kind of like a blue-collar worker, whereas a pimp or a top-grade con man is comparable to a bank president on the outside, kind of a high-roller, envied by other convicts. Pretty girls and sex provide the most interesting conversation for a guy doing time, and girls and their bodies are also big business in the free world. As long as I had decided to continue a life of crime, why not pursue what appealed to me most? What could be better than having all the girls you want and letting them supply the money and lifestyle an ex-convict dreams of on the outside?
To simplify my quest to become a pimp, right there in Terminal Island was one of the nation’s best known procurers—I’ll call him Vic. At one time Vic had his fingers in every whorehouse in Nevada and controlled call girls in numerous other states. He was a regular godfather of prostitution. The Feds hadn’t been able to bust him on any illegal activities other than income-tax evasion so I figured he really knew the score. Another thing that drew me to him was the fact that he wasn’t a big guy. Though I was never consciously insecure about being small, at times I did give up on pursuing roles in life I might have challenged if I were a bigger person. Here was a guy who, like myself, would really have to stretch to reach five-foot-six in height. He was older and uglier than me, and definitely not the person one might imagine as a king-pin in a state full of whorehouses. I figured if he could make it big through broads, so could I.
Without being too obvious, I began to seek out Vic’s company. I would hang around and rap to him and the guys he lined up with, the majority of them also pretty successful pimps. In most cases I didn’t have to initiate any conversations; they all talked about their ups and downs as well as the procedures they applied to different girls and situations. The stories I heard about big cars, pretty girls, luxurious apartments, fine clothes and plenty of money had me thoroughly convinced: there wasn’t anything better in life than having control over several women and letting them provide your every need.
One day I asked Vic point blank how he went about turning a girl out. He laughed at me and said, “Charlie, it’s been over twenty years since I’ve had to work on a girl for her to hustle for me. All the girls that come my way are already hustlers. But Charlie, there really isn’t anything to it. Almost every broad alive, at one time or other in her life, has had the desire to be a whore. A lot of girls are wrapped up in moral ethics and would never turn out, but any woman would be lying to you if she were to deny that she didn’t often wonder what a whore’s life was like. For those who are reluctant, a good pimp knows how to eliminate the barriers and convince the girl that his love will be deeper than ever for her if she is willing to go all the way for him.”
On my release from Terminal Island in September 1958 after serving two years of the three-year sentence, I immediately began trying to put together the life that so infatuated me while in prison. The area of my conditional release put me in the very best location possible to carry out my dreams—Hollywood, California.
What can I say about Hollywood that hasn’t already been said? I saw it as the most artificial, most pretentious city in existence. I suppose that line of thinking can be attributed to the movie and TV industry since everyone in it is looking for recognition and stardom. To me it seemed as if everyone I came in contact with was greedy, narcissistic and lacking in morals. They all existed in a dog-eat-dog, no-holds-barred world. I was in my element! I was twenty-three years old and my jail-house tutoring was going to go to work for me. All I had to do was come up with that string of pretty girls and I could begin living my dream. Life should be so simple! It was all bogus bullshit, another jail-house fantasy that isn’t real on the streets—but I tried to make it real.
My first problem was that I had trouble scoring with the kind of broad whose moral ethics I was capable of “eliminating.” The ones who were already hustlers were with guys who had been in operation for a long time. Those guys had the class and the connections that Vic had forgotten to tell me were so important. When I finally found a girl who would go the whole route for me, I was so much in love with her that I couldn’t stand the thought of some trick sticking his dick in the girl I loved. Some pimp I was.
She and I had set up housekeeping together in an apartment in Hollywood, and every day I went out hustling and stealing to bring the bread home to her. One day one of my joint partners who was now on the streets and enjoying pretty good success as a pimp along Sunset Strip, told me, “Charlie, you’re that broad’s trick! What the fuck is your story? Turn that girl out!” I gave him some feeble answer like, “Yeah, I’m working on it,” but knew in my mind the guy was right. The girl had me wrapped around her finger. So I fought my jealousy and possessiveness, saying to myself, “Didn’t I plan on being the big-time hustler and pimp? Never mind all that love shit—Do it! Put that girl on the streets!”
That evening as my girl and I sat in our apartment, too broke to go anywhere, I made my move, telling her, “Sandy, baby, it’s time for us to sit down and do some talking.” “Sure, Charlie,” she replied, “what’s on your mind?” I went on, “We been together for weeks. You know I’m out stealing and breaking my ass to keep us in this apartment and some food in our mouths. Here we are living in an area that is loaded with all the finer things in life. Those things are passing us by. We both dig making the scene down on Sunset. You like nice things and I enjoy seeing you with nice things. Why don’t the two of us really put our heads together and make us a good life in this town? It’s a player’s town and players only stay in an area where there is a lot of money and action. You are one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, and I’m not the only one that thinks so. Every time you walk down the street, guys start undressing you with their eyes. Now, why don’t we start taking advantage of all those rich, hungry bastards? You know I love you and want the best for you. Question is, how much do you love me? And how far are you willing to go for both of us to get on top?”
“Charlie, I’ll do anything in the world for you!”
“You mean it?”
“Certainly I mean it. Tell me your plans and you can count on me.”
“Would you fuck for me? Will you turn tricks and hustle your ass for me?”
“If that’s what you want me to do, Charlie!”
Hell, I was geared to spend days trying to convince her to turn out. Twenty minutes after we started our conversation, Sandy was willing—almost eager.
The first trick she turned just about broke my heart. I remember waiting i
n the parking lot of the apartment house where it was happening. I was going through all kinds of head trips—telling myself what a dirty bastard I was. I wanted to charge into the apartment, break the door down and beat the hell of the guy whose money she was taking. I wanted to apologize to Sandy and tell her I loved her too much to ever think of her having sex with someone else. I wanted to tell her I’d keep bringing home the money for us to live on, that she was mine and mine alone. I hated myself, and most of all I hated all the guys I had ever been in jail with. I didn’t blame myself as much as I blamed all those guys I had listened to while doing time in reform schools and prisons.
When Sandy came hurrying back to the car, I couldn’t look at her. I could tell she was in a big hurry and I thought it was a desire to get away from the place where she had just performed—for me. When she got in the car I finally looked into her face, expecting to see tears and perhaps some of the shame I had been experiencing. Instead, she was flushed with excitement, all smiles and proud as she thrust three twenty-dollar bills in my hand. “All right, Charlie,” she said, “we’re on our way! It was fun—there ain’t nothing to it. The john wants to see me again next week, same time, same place.” I didn’t tell Sandy what had been going through my mind and to this day, I don’t believe she understands why I didn’t enjoy her handing me the money.
That night as we had sex together, I found myself wondering if I was making it as good for her as the john had. I was a victim of the same feeling every time she turned a trick, and it was a long time before that feeling left me. But what the hell, wasn’t it my choice? And after all, isn’t feeling sorry, ashamed or inadequate just a frame of mind?
So okay, now I’ve got a girl working for me. A young inexperienced broad that don’t know any more about milking a trick than a choir girl. Yet I’m on Sunset Strip playing the part with all the other pimps. Though I’m acting like I know it all, I’m listening to everything said. I learn that just the bed money isn’t anything. I mean, the mark knows he’s paying to get his nuts off and has agreed on the price. If the girl just screws him, the price mentioned is all she is going to get. Listening to the seasoned pimps, I found the girl has to have more talent than just fucking or sucking. She has to learn her trick and know how to reach him emotionally, get him involved so that he feels he isn’t just a trick, but a special person. It’s also important that the girl isn’t into the business because she wants to be. The john can be made to feel like the girl is forced into prostitution by obligations, like an emergency operation for one of her children, a dying mother, or other things to make him sympathetic. Pretty soon the trick isn’t fucking the girl but feeling sorry for her. Out of a sympathetic heart and a desire to show what a wonderful fellow he is, he pays more.
Sandy was not only pretty, she was smart and quick to learn. Her looks made her a desirable girl to go to bed with, but her knowledge of how to play on the weaknesses of her johns made her a real money maker.
I was caught up in wanting to be big time and to impress others. There was also the thrill of beating the law, and the chance to experience in real life all the stories that I had listened to so intensely while in jail. But just one girl in Hollywood isn’t going to make you a ton of money or gain you a reputation among the pimps and hustlers, and for me, that was what it was all about. So I looked for more girls. I found a few. Mostly young, not too pretty and without a lot of smarts. Some were ready and willing to sell their asses but most were just looking for someone to be in love with. Not wanting to pass up a piece of ass or an opportunity, I would play those girls for whatever I could score from them. None were as talented as Sandy, who had really developed into a first-class prostitute. I had all kinds of problems with girls who, though willing to go through the motions of being my broads, were mostly into that life for their own thrills. About the time one was pretty well trained and starting to bring home some money, she’d fall in love with one of the johns, or some classier pimp would lure her away from me, or worse yet, she’d do some crazy thing that would bring down the heat on both of us. Aside from the problems with the police, the girl’s family—if she was still in contact with them—would somehow create more problems for me. It wasn’t the life I’d envisioned in my jail-house fantasies. And I can’t blame all the ups and down on the girls because in my own half-assed way I was too eager to be Mr. Big. I was spinning my wheels, trying to catch up on everything I had ever missed in life. I wanted the big bucks, the flashy clothes, the new cars; I wanted to be noticed and accepted. I’d do anything to turn a dollar, and most of the time I wasn’t too cool about who I took advantage of or the chances I was taking as far as staying out of the eyes of the law.
Though I was to stay out of prison for a year and nine months, I was in and out of jail several times on a variety of charges, none of which were big money scores. Then in May of 1959 I was arrested for attempting to cash a stolen government check. The check was worth $37.50. I pleaded guilty to the charge and was given a ten-year sentence which the judge suspended, placing me on probation. A ten-year suspended sentence is pretty stiff for a thirty-seven-dollar check, but considering my background and all the shit I was doing, it was a real break and I should have cleaned up my act. I didn’t, even though I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be back in prison. The idea of going back to prison didn’t frighten me, and I found the life of a thief and hustler a challenge. For me being an outlaw was as natural as an attorney’s son pursuing a career in law, or a doctor’s child going into medicine. Most futures are established through parents and my family was made up of hobos, winos and outlaws. My homes were the reformatories and prisons. And after surviving the Indiana School for Boys, the other places of confinement were like rest homes.
So though I had a ten-year sentence hanging over my head for the slightest infraction, I didn’t change my ways. It might even be said I went at things with an added zest. I began transporting the girls to conventions in other cities and states. Conventions meant a lot of lonely guys on the prowl for a pretty girl, a companion either for the night or the duration of the convention. It was fast easy money for the girls—and me. In early 1960, a pimp friend mentioned a big convention about to take place in Laredo, Texas, so I packed up Sandy and another girl and drove them to Texas. While the convention lasted, the girls worked the bars, hotels and streets. The dollars surpassed the bucks we’d been making in Hollywood for the last few weeks, so when the convention johns left town, I put Sandy and the other broad to work in one of Laredo’s whorehouses. The bucks kept coming in, and I was thinking of staying in Texas for a while. But that thought came to a sudden halt when Sandy’s partner got nailed for hustling. To gain her freedom, she wasted no time in telling the vice squad, “Charlie’s my old man, and yes, he brought me here to work as a prostitute.” Regardless of age, taking a girl across a state line to hustle her body is a no-no with the Feds so they came looking for me. I headed south and ended up in Mexico City. A gringo in Mexico isn’t a novelty, but some of the routes I was forced to take were pretty much of a novelty to some of the people I met.
When I first hit Mexico City, I had some dollars in my pocket so I partied and mingled with the bull fighters. I met a couplq of the lesser-known matadors and spent a few days learning to use the cape and sword. Of course the bulls were only half-grown and the sword was never thrust into the animal, but even half-grown, those suckers weigh four- or five-hundred pounds and can send a guy flying. After picking my ass up off the ground a few times, I learned how to handle the cape and could stay as close to the bull without getting touched as some of those matadors. “You good, gringo,” they told me. “You got all the moves, but you never be matador. You no tall enough.”
When my money started running out, some of the things in the homes I was invited to also started disappearing. No one called the federales, but invitations stopped coming my way. I found myself in the adobe huts and alleyways on the outskirts of town. But a hustler and a thief manages to find his own kind wherever he
goes, and Mexico City has some areas that would make the events on Miami Vice look like choir practice. I ran into some game, chilly dudes down there. Guys and broads who would cut a throat for a dime, or bury a person in an ant hill just to prove they didn’t care about anyone’s life but their own.
I earned some respect from that group of people by being so ignorant I didn’t know where to stop. I had stolen a .357 Magnum from one of the haciendas I had visited. With the Magnum stuck in my pants and hidden from view by my coat, I was talking to a couple of thugs trying to score some mushrooms. “No, no got. Only Yaqui Indian got mushroom. They kill gringo. You loco to go to Yaqui village.” I didn’t believe my life would be in danger if I just showed up at their village, so I hiked out to one of them. Seeing the way they lived was like watching a Geronimo flick. With some jail-house Spanish and the kind of hand signals I’d seen the scouts use in the movies, I walked into the Yaqui camp like I belonged there. The Indians looked at me like I was from another planet.
Before I got too close to any of the huts, four bad-looking dudes stopped me, asking, “Why you come? What want? You lost?” No, I’m not lost I told them. “I want to meet Yaqui. Be Yaqui’s friend. Smoke pipe with Yaqui. Maybe get some mushroom from Indian friend.” “Why we smoke pipe with little gringo?” they asked. “We no know you! You go now.” As they spoke, they turned me around and pointed toward the way I had come. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I got pesos, I buy mushrooms. I give you gift.” I took a ring off my finger and handed it to the guy who was doing most of the talking. He looked at the ring and handed it back, saying, “Mushroom spiritual. Only for Yaqui.” Intending to trade the Magnum for mushrooms I pulled the gun from my pants, pointing it at the guy who was talking. I said, “This buy mushroom?” The four of them backed up a step as though they expected me to pull the trigger. “Okay” one said, “you no shoot, we give mushroom.” The gun looked threatening, but that wasn’t the way I meant it to be, so I handed the gun to the one who said he’d give me some mushrooms. As soon as the gun was in his hands, he pointed it at me and said, “You loco, now I kill.” He stuck the gun in my stomach. I just smiled at him. He shoved the gun harder and pulled the trigger. When he snapped that there weren’t any shells in it, the four of them started laughing and said, “Gringo not loco. He brave man. Be Yaqui friend.” I spent the night in their village and a whole group of us did mushrooms. And as their brother, I was invited back anytime I wanted to join them. When I returned to my hoodlum friends in the city with a pouch full of mushrooms, they opened their eyes a little wider and started telling everyone what a macho gringo I was.