off to shakedown the ghetto catacombs.
Phil’s main ’ho, dwarfish Bitsy Red, and several ’hos of his stable came in to set up the joint for the after hours action and my birthday party. You know, stringing bunting and glitter crap around the mirrored joint.
I said, ‘Phil, how long has that ’ho been down in this burg?’
He said, ‘A week or so . . . why?’
I said, ‘A ’ho with her voltage is about due to hit the wind any time . . . you know, with the heat and all . . . I better get in the streets now to make some kinda contact with the ’ho. How about laying some more fast run-down on me . . . like has her old man got any chump shortcomings . . . craps, hard shit or what not?’
Phil grinned, ‘Like every nigger mack fresh outta big foot country, he’s sizzling for young white ’ho pussy . . . he’s sported his dick twice at Aunt Lula’s joint out at the lip of town . . . he’s a half a “C” note trick . . . cons himself he can steal one with his jib and dick. You ain’t got to hit the stem to take your shot at that ’ho . . . every pimp and ’ho in town will ease in here before day-break. Please Pally! . . . be cool and don’t make Jabbo Ross, that’s the gorilla’s moniker, waste you in here and sour my roller fix for my joint.’
I said, ‘I’ll be cool, Brother . . . does Bitsy know the ’ho?’
Phil’s Persian Cat eyes ballooned with righteous indignation. Bubbles, the Dane, jerked her two hundred pounds to an ominous crouch.
Phil’s contralto rap box quavered. ‘Slim, darling, you my main man, and I love ya. Ain’t no doubt, you hip, I’d cut off my right wing and my swipe for you. But I ain’t gonna let you throw my bottom ’ho, Bitsy, in no cross with that crazy Nigger Jabbo and that girl. Nigger, you got a chump yen for the morgue! You ain’t taking Bitsy on that trip!’
I leaned to pat his shoulder. Bubbles issued a doomsday snarl.
He whispered harshly, ‘’Ho, everything is cool. Lay your bad ass down somewhere.’
Bubbles sighed. She crashed down behind his chair and stared at me with malevolent eyes.
I said, ‘Baby, you read me wrong. I don’t want Bitsy to cut into the ’ho with no messenger cupid bit. Maybe Bitsy is got some inside info on the ’ho. You know, personal scam that only a ’ho would be hip to.’
Phil turned toward the bar and snapped his fingers. Bitsy looked up from dumping silver into the cash register. Phil’s head waggled her to our table. She sat down. I had met her in Cleveland. She smiled.
Phil said, ‘Give my homeboy a rundown on Black Sue.’
Bitsy said in a squeaky voice, ‘We did a lot of rapping ’fore Ross cut us loose . . . she’s twenty-two or three . . . I think. Got a crumbcrusher, a daughter, in a state foster home back in New Orleans. Her old man, Ross, ain’t had Sue but a year. The crumbcrusher’s daddy was wasted inna card game . . . cotch, I think. Ross ain’t got Sue really tight. He’s too strict. Don’t see why he ain’t blowed her ’fore now . . . ’cept maybe she done got freakish to his foot in her ass. She’s been an orphan since twelve . . . saw her daddy waste her mama with a butcher knife. That’s it, Slim. Oh yeah . . . happy birthday!’
Bitsy got to her feet. She laughed scornfully. ‘That dizzy ’ho is aching to be a lady ’ho . . . wants to cop lots of book learning . . . cop nice proper speech and all that phony shit. Ain’t that a bitch?’
I said, ‘Ain’t it! Thanks, L’il Sis.’
She scurried back to the cash register.
Phil said, ‘You ain’t gonna get the chance to play for Sue, the airtight way Ross bird dogs her. He’ll shoot or stomp a mud-hole in your ass.’
I said, ‘Phil, I gotta figure an angle to make her hit on me. You know, give me the first lick. How about laying a rod on me . . . to back me up?’
Phil shrugged. ‘Not now, Pally. I got to think about it nigger, it’s gonna take more than my flash and your bedroom eyes to make that ’ho give you that lick. Guest of Honor, you better just handle the licks you gonna get here in the joint before daybreak . . . lots of qualified black and white ’hos gonna be here letting their hair down.’
The joint’s band drifted in and started tootling and blowing a few practice riffs on a bandstand beside the bar.
Single mud-kickers, black players and their interracial stables started to park far out pimpmobiles up and down the block. They peacocked into Pretty Phil’s all decked out in psychedelic threads.
Phil introduced me to the strangers. Many of the players I knew. The inside of my mitts were flaming from the palms I slapped. It was phantasmogoria. They wantonly danced to the funky band’s erotic pound. In the red-lit murk, there was the counterpoint bedlam of profane ribaldry as they loaded their skulls with cocaine and the bubbly. The mirrored globes revolving in the ceiling speckled their faces with flashing light. The meld of their perfumes was a near suffocating cloud. It was like Dante’s Inferno updated.
By four a.m. the joint was claustrophobic. I had gotten several ’ho licks and birthday wishes galore. But I felt lonely and blue, like a joker in a haunted house. I was in the basement of a pit. The superfox ’ho target hadn’t shown and I was still just a welfare case of Phil’s.
I retreated into a booth in the absolute rear of the joint next to the ’ho crapper. I eyeballed the front door with the radiant zeal of a weasel.
Bubbles, the Dane, had taken station near the front slammer. She was coldly sweeping her eyes over the crowd like the stompdown security guard Phil had cracked she was.
Phil threaded his way to my booth. He leaned into my ear and whispered harshly, ‘You blind or something, Pally? That redhead white ’ho at the bar is pinning you and about to come on herself. Latch on to the ’ho’s eye! Honor the lick! It’s catching time, nigger! Flow and glow, Pally.’ He shook his head and moved away.
I was turning my head to yank the package he’d fingered, when Miss Superfox herself pranced through the front slammer. Alone! Appropriately, a drumroll of summer thunder announced her entrance. A shard of lightning flashed like a klieg light behind her.
My ticker rioted. A delicious stealing lust electrified my genitals. She was dap and down in a black chiffon chemise vine. A white mink stole was draped casually across her shoulders. She smiled frostily as she side stepped through a gauntlet of cracking and hitting players to a stool at the bar.
I had to string together a stealing tune based on Bitsy’s rundown. Like I said, I was just a welfare case. You know, with no stable and power like Phil. With a powerbase I would’ve blitzed her. You know, dazzled her witless. At least I’d have to fake a bankroll. I wrapped Phil’s welfare handout of ‘C’ notes around a wad of play money.
I was forced to take my shot at the Superfox’s soft underbelly. I’d have to be like a mirror reflecting her secret needs and dreams. She’d have to see me as the means to these gratifications. It was a long shot and dangerous all right since Ross, the gorilla, was her boss.
The dynamite package had seated herself beside the redhead Phil had fingered. I sipped rum and spied the bar through my booth’s wall mirror.
Phil stood near Bubbles at the door. He hawk-eyed me and Miss Superfox with a salty
