I left Reed’s place with no idea of what to do with my loops. Then I found that Robby had been leaving message after message on Ace’s answering machine. I called him back.
“Dave, I got a deal for you,” he said. “Do this one thing for me, and I’ll turn you on to a job. With the biggest distributor in town.”
The Showchron in Reed’s apartment had been Robby’s. He’d sold it to “Will” whom Reed shot for. When Will stopped making payments, Robby wanted to repossess the machine but didn’t know where it was. Until now. I saw no reason to feel any loyalty to Reed.
It was past 3 AM when I pointed out his apartment. In return, Robby put me in touch with S and L Distributors. He had been their shooter before quitting to go partners with Larry. S and L had the reverse of my problem: I couldn’t look up porn distributors in the Studio Directory and they couldn’t place help wanted ads in American Cinematographer. Applicants might be cops or informers. S and L had to wait for a shooter to come through their network of associates.
“You can’t get in the door without my recommendation,” Robby said, “and whatever you do, don’t ever try to screw these people. Don’t even think about it.”
x x x x x x
I’d never seen one like it. The glass door looked two inches thick. The silver coating on the inside reflected a blur of me clutching my film can. Was this the place? No sign identified the business within this grey building in North Hollywood’s industrial section. Four Cadillacs filled its front parking lot. I pushed the button, hearing no ring through the thick glass. I waited.
A big lock clacked. The door opened a few inches, as chains jangled. The small face of a bearded gnome peered out. “Yeah? What can I do for ya?”
I drew a breath. “I have an appointment with Tony. I was referred by Robby.”
The door closed. The lock clacked shut. Had I said it wrong? Should I find a phone, call in, and explain myself?
The lock clacked again. Fingers unhooked chains. The gnome pushed the door open. “Follow me.” He led me through a hallway partitioned into three sections. The reason for the three doors, I’d learn later, was to slow down cops during a raid.
We entered a warehouse and passed racks of boxes stacked almost to the ceiling fans. I followed the gnome through a doorway into a large office, where I couldn’t help but stare.
Filling the center of the room was a rectangular table, piled high with rubber love dolls, film boxes, magazines featuring page-filling genitals, dildos, lotions, and contraptions that sucked, squeezed, pulled, prodded or trussed sensations out of human flesh. Around the display, men hunched over phones and order pads. In a corner beyond the central table, one of the ugliest men I’d ever seen rose from his desk. His border of stringy hair made his head look like some kind of root vegetable.
“Da cocksuckah!” the man exclaimed. “His fuckin’ check bounced.” “Whose check, Marv?” the gnome asked.
“Whatchamacallim… yer buddy, da guy from Philadelphia.” “Oh, him.”
“Yeah. Dat guy.”
I’d find that Marv’s East Coast street accent (which I dubbed “3 D”—“dese,” “dem,” and “dose”) prevailed among pornographers. It was contagious; I’d later find myself lapsing into it.
The gnome turned to the other back corner. “Tony…” He gestured at me. “This guy here–” He halted when Tony raised a hand then punched a button on his phone. The gnome scurried off to a battered desk, leaving me standing with my film can.
Tony was almost good-looking but hard creases in his face made him seem like a cross between Al Pacino and a bloodhound. A grin pushed the creases up into his cheeks. Tony exclaimed into his phone, “Luca Brasi! Mah man! What’s happenin’, pal?”
Luca Brasi was a hit man in The Godfather. Was life imitating art?
Tony caught my glance. He hunkered down into his phone and lowered his voice. I looked away and saw a poster above his head. It was a well-drawn caricature of Tony behind bars, wearing stripes and waving a two-finger peace gesture. The sagging eyes fit the man below but the cheeks were full, as if someone had since then let the air out. Headlining the poster were the words, “Free Romano.”
Feeling out of place, I tried to memorize the names of items on the table so I could jot them into my journal later. There were phallic devices: The Avenger, Mule Crank, Wired Destroyer with Balls ,
Mr. Wonderful , Big Al, Twisty-Erecto, and a misshapen thing called Rasputin. There were Pocket Pussies and Pocket Assholes. Electro-Vibro Butt Plugs . European magazines that were “Ganz in
Farben (printed in full color).” Vibrators and other “marital aids,” marketed under the pseudo- medical brand name Doc Johnson. Potions and lotions: Anal-Vaginal Glide in peach, grape, lemon and tutti-frutti. Bottles of Locker Room contained “the odors of a gymnasium after a hard workout.”
What kind of weirdos buy this stuff? Or sell it?
I reminded myself that I was no better than this crew. After all, I’d double-crossed Reed Michaels, a man who’d given me work, to get here.
Tony hung up the phone, rose and slouched past me without a greeting. Had he beckoned me to follow him? I did. We crossed the warehouse to a rectangular structure that filled a corner. About fifty feet by fifteen, it was constructed of two-by-fours and chicken wire, with cardboard for inside walls. I’d later call it “The Bullpen,” when it became my listening post on the world of porn.
Tony unlocked the door. I followed him in. On crude shelves were dusty film cans with titles scrawled on stained masking tape: Head Plunger, The Milkmaid, Teenage Fantasies. An Alpha Beta shopping cart held a Kodak Pageant projector aimed at a poster-board “screen” wedged between a pipe and a cinderblock wall. Quite a contrast to my chrome, leather and walnut studio in Grand Rapids. S and L Distributors didn’t have to impress clients.
Tony clicked on the lightwell of a standard editing table and said his first word to me. He was a man of few of them. “’Chromes.”
I pulled the 2-and-1/2-inch Ektachrome transparencies out of a manila envelope. Tony spread them over the frosted glass of the lightwell and peered at them through an Agvalupe magnifier. I braced myself for a bad review. Reed’s still photography was on par with his filmmaking skill. Blurred feet filled foregrounds. Elbows hid penetration. Bodies were decapitated. At least he got the come-shots, among them a “kisser” Robby would have been proud of.
Without comment, Tony pushed the ’chromes aside and pulled a Moviscop viewer between the table’s rewind arms. “Numbers.” I wished I’d been able to edit the loops but both Reed and Robby had said that if I did, distributors would assume they’d already been on the market.
Tony cranked through the loops so fast that pelvises were just a blur. He slowed for the faked DP, grunted, and cranked on. He finished and turned to me. “Whatcha want fer ’em?”
“Five-fifty each. But I’ll take five if I get the job too.”
Tony’s pale eyes narrowed. “Why do you want this job, Davey?”
I gave my spiel about burnout with industrial films and my need for a change. It sounded rehearsed. Did I seem like a cop?
Tony thought I had a different motive. “You’ll get tired of staring at pussy, Davey. Everybody does.”
He wanted to confer with his partner Marv. “Duke!” he called out, “Hey, Duke! … Anybody seen the Wizard?”
“He went out, Tony,” somebody shouted. “Cinderella called.”
Tony made a sound of disgust and said loudly, “Aww, that pussy-whipped, bald-headed chicken- fucker…” Laughs came from the warehouse. “Call me tomorrow, Davey,” he said.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Tony stalled me for a week. Finally, he called me in. “Marv was supposed to give me some money for the numbers before he left for New York,” Tony explained. “But he didn’t.” He handed me fifteen hundred-dollar bills. “This is comin’ out of my own pocket.”
With relief, I took the money. “I’m sure Marv has many things to think about. The detail probably got lost in the back of his mind.”
Tony made a sardonic little cupids-bow smile and murmured, as if to himself, “Lots of things get lost in that mind.”
I called Robby to tell him I got the job and to thank him.
“You’re gonna get an education, Davey,” he said, “like nothing you ever got at UCLA.” x x x x x x
The word “mafia” means “refuge.” That’s exactly what S and L Distributors was for its rag-tag crew of refugees from social and legal problems. They laughed about the FBI calling S and L “the biggest Mafia porno outfit on the West Coast.” I was handed a “Mafia Application Form” (“For whatza wazza u inna de bigga ’ouse?” “U seeza de Godfather? Or justa de movie?”) to be signed “inna u blood.”
This “family” was an indulgent one. Employees stumbled in late, complained of hangovers, and fell asleep at their desks. Nailed for drunken driving? So what? So was Tony. Collection agencies dunning you? We’ll help you scam them.
All got in through friends or relatives (that fear of police informants). They had an “us versus them” attitude toward outsiders. I had just left the parking lot when a cop pulled me over and asked for my I.D. “So you work at S and L, Mr. Jennings,” he said. “What are you shooting these days?”
I said what Robby had instructed. “I’m not a shooter, Officer, I just work in the warehouse.”
These outlaws were egalitarian. At 5 o’clock, the whole crew—including Tony (but not Marv)— would lounge at the desks around the display table to drink beer, pass joints and trade jokes. If a floor were dirty, Tony himself would grab a broom. Marv had once been on a ladder, painting a ceiling, when police burst in. One looked up and demanded, “Who’re you?” “I’m— I’m the painter,” Marv
stammered. The cop jerked a thumb toward the door. “Get outta here!” Marv gladly obeyed.
Most of my fellow employees had one thing in common: failure. Phone salesman Ziggy, a short, strutting pouter-pigeon of a man, was an aspiring character actor. He constantly bemoaned the roles he “almost landed.” At the next desk, Jimmy tested his stand-up comedy jokes on customers: “Why do Mexicans have the lowest suicide rate? … Because it’s hard to kill yourself jumping out of basement windows.” “Did you hear about the Polack who was reported missing? … He put Odor-Eaters in his shoes and disappeared.”
Tall and handsome at 23, Jimmy wondered why his comic career wasn’t taking off. I could’ve told him his humor was too sophomoric but I didn’t want to alienate him—I did anyway: He had cornered Ziggy, jabbing him with a cattle prod. The battery-powered shaft, a hot seller on the gay S and M scene, gave a shock that felt lethal. Seeing me watching, Jimmy took an Errol Flynn stance in my direction. “Davey, you’re next.”
“Come at me with that thing,” I said, “and I’ll kick your balls off.” From then on, Jimmy kept his distance.
A florid, beefy fellow named Sandy laughed at all of Jimmy’s bad jokes. Though jovial and easy- going, Sandy had gotten his nickname, “The Sandman” because “I used to put people to sleep wit’ dis!” He’d hold up a solid fist. Sandy had owned massage parlors before being busted out of business. He was now a road rep for east coast accounts.
S and L’s general manager, Morry, was an unlikely ladies’ man. He was thickset and jowly, with grey-white hair like steel wool. His speech was dead-end Bronx. Yet he’d date up to a half-dozen women in a single weekend. He liked to orate his fantasized epitaph: “When I’m dead and in my grave, no more fucking will I crave, but on my tombstone can be seen: ‘Here lies a fucking machine.’” Tony explained Morry’s success: “He’s a professional cunt-sucker. He’s good. The word gets around.”
Morry was S and L’s most valuable employee. In a duplicitous business, he took pride in being scrupulously honest with his employers. Tony had nicknamed him “Dombrowski” and used him as a “straight man:” When Tony was long in the bathroom, Morry called out, “Whatcha doin’ in there, Tony? Havin’ lunch?” Tony retorted, “I’m makin’ yours, Dombrowse.”
Two of the crew were atypical: they had college degrees. Roger—the “gnome”—didn’t tell us why a man with a Masters and a taste for Vivaldi was selling Butt Plugs. And Phil the bookkeeper could never practice law again after his conviction for “attempting to defraud the city of Chicago.” (He avoided the details with “That’s history.”)
Most appreciative of his refuge was Jacky, the warehouse chief who floated on his toes, his dark eyes moving, as if perpetually sneaking up on someone. Working for a Florida massage parlor string, he’d stalled cops long enough for others to escape. Threatened with felonies, he’d refused to reveal who backed the operation. Soon, he’d been bailed out and was flying first class to L.A. and a new job at S and L. “That’s how this organization takes care of you,” Jacky said, his eyes shining.
But there were hints that this refuge was in trouble. x x x x x x
Phil the bookkeeper acted more like a boss than an employee. In front of customers, he’d harangue Marv about unpaid bills. He had the only private office—and its only key. While the others drove last year’s Cadillacs, Phil arrived in a Bentley, Excalibur or Aston Martin. They dressed slob casual; Phil wore tailored suits. His silvering hair was expensively styled. Yet he made only $50 more a week
than my three hundred.
Another puzzle: why were the partners together? They hated each other. Tony was waiting for Marv to die. Typical exchange: Tony, hurrying out the door with Marv exclaiming, “Romano, we gotta talk about dis!”
“Later, Duke. I’ll see ya later.” “When?”
“I’ll probably see you at Forest Lawn!”
Time and again, Marv would grimace and sink into an available chair. People would tell me, “You know, Marv is a very sick man.” A boxing career had ravaged his face and alcohol his brain. Tony recalled their booze binges. “I’d get home at 3 in the morning, and a half-hour later Marv would call and want to discuss the evening, ’cuz he don’t remember a fuckin’ thing.”
Marv’s new sobriety hadn’t helped his memory. Employees tired of explaining things to him over and over. He’d want top dollar for a film he thought was a new hit; it was two years old. “Marv lets people run up big bills, then forgets to collect,” Ziggy complained. “Then they get busted and we can’t get a cent out of them.”
The brains of the company was Tony. He dickered with suppliers, determined mark-ups, tabbed inventories, and even designed the artwork of best-selling magazine series. I saw him put phones to each ear and close two deals at once. Everyone who dealt with S and L respected “The Italian Prince.”
The problem was that each partner cut his own deals without consulting the other. “If the company was all mine,” Tony said, “that bald-headed chicken-fucker wouldn’t get within ten miles of this place.”
I asked Tony why he didn’t split from Marv. His furrows fell further and he explained as much as he dared. “Davey, this ain’t like most businesses; most businesses are autonomous.”
“’Autominous?’” the Sandman interjected. “Listen to dis guy, usin’ words nobody knows. What’s ‘autominous’ mean, Tony?”
“Sandy, let’s say me and you start a company. It’s all ours, and it’s nobody’s business what we do. We’re autonomous. But say there’s a third party involved. Now we’re not autonomous, we’re connected.”
“Ah!” Sandy understood. The key word was “connected.” I knew better than to pry further.
Tony’s weapon against Marv was sarcasm. He’d hook a finger through a belt loop of the rumpled slacks hanging beneath Marv’s belly. “Hey, Duke, yer wearin’ yer shiny wino pants. What’s the occasion?” Marv’s ongoing dental surgery left his gums bleeding, so he walked around with a paper cup hanging from his lip. Tony got laughs by parading with his coffee mug clenched between his teeth. Resigned to ridicule, Marv padded about the office in bedroom slippers and shirts missing buttons. Someone observed that he had no shame. “If you looked like Marv,” said Jimmy, “you wouldn’t have no shame either.”
“Not if ya wanted to be seen in public,” Tony cracked.
Marv’s revenge was to keep on breathing. Many blamed his fiancée for helping him do so. Anna was 24, blonde, and pretty in a big-boned way. The ex-hooker from Hawaii was the company’s titular president (for legal reasons). It seemed fitting at S and L that its highest-paid employee was also its least productive. When being polite, Tony called Anna “Cinderella.” Otherwise, he called her “The Douche-bag.”
Marv’s support came from the east coast. One day, a 3D visitor Marv was huddling with sneered and rasped, “How ya gettin’ along wit’ Tony Blue-Ice dese days?” The way he said “Blue Eyes”
stuck in my mind.
That day I stayed late, editing my loops, so Tony could resell them later that night. We were the only ones in the building. Returning from the bathroom, I spied Tony in the sales office with his back turned. I crept up to the doorway and, in my best guttural imitation of Marv’s crony, I muttered, “Tony Blue-Ice…”
Tony whirled around with terror in his eyes. Taken aback, I could only stammer, “I’m— I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to… startle you.”
Tony’s jaw clenched. But all he said was “Davey, just finish them fuckin’ numbers, willya?” x x x x x x
“Screen every movie in the place,” Tony ordered. He was “educatin’ Davey.” What seemed a pornophile’s fantasy soon became tedious—even with the shopping cart projector cranked up so bodies humped in double-time. In a week of watching 300-plus films, I saw Veri Knotty tie her elongated labia in a bow, Terri Hall and Jean Jennings (then 16) “fence” with a serpentine double- dong in Dueling Dildos, and chubby anal queen Candida Royalle—later a svelte “feminist sexvid” magnate—with her “backdoor open like the Holland Tunnel” (trailer narration) in The Analist.
I saw enough John Holmes to know the legendary stud had lied about being in only one boy-boy film. Roger the gnome wanted to know if a new loop had Holmes in it. We couldn’t tell whether one of the men fondling each other was Holmes until one sucked the other to a foot-long erection. “That’s Johnny Holmes alright,” Roger chirped, and hurried back to his phone.
I saw loops supposedly starring Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand, both just blurry enough to create uncertainty. Adult film historian Jim Holliday later identified “Barbra” as C.J. Laing, whose similar schnozz made her a dead-ringer in grainy 8s.
I saw the underground stag “classics”—poorly-shot and untitled—starring Jayne Mansfield and a