Pimp. By Robert Beck aka Iceberg Slim. Adnotated without permission. Introduction.

My original intent was to publish the whole book in one single article. Nevertheless, as I had barely reached halfway with the adnotations the item balooned towards 120k words, rendering it too large for Trilema to handle.ⁱ So I guess you're stuck with the fauilleton format, like used for all the other novel-length items here.ⁱⁱ A pity, too, because I was really enjoying spitting out footnote lcxxxiv sorta thing.

A pimp is happy when his whores giggle. He knows they are still asleepⁱⁱⁱ... all whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss. It thrills 'em when the pimps makes mistakes. They watch and wait for his downfall.^iv

"A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He's gotta know his whores. He can't let them know him. He's gotta be God all the way."^v

FOREWORD

Dawn was breaking as the big Hog scooted through the streets.^vi My five whores were chattering like drunk magpies. I smelled the stink that only a street whore has after a long, busy night. The inside of my nose was raw. It happens when you're a pig for snorting cocaine.

My nose was on fire and the stink of those whores and the gangster they were smoking seemed like invisible knives scraping to the root of my brain. I was in an evil, dangerous mood despite that pile of scratch^vii crammed into the glove compartment.

"Goddamnit, has one of you bitches shit on herself or something?" I bellowed as I flipped the long window^viii toward me. For a long moment there was silence.

Then Rachel^ix, my bottom whore, cracked in a pleasing ass-kissing voice. "Daddy Baby, that ain't no shit you smell. We been turning all night and ain't no bathrooms in those tricks' cars we been flipping out of. Daddy, we sure been humping for you, and what you smell is our nasty whore asses."^x

I grinned widely, inside of course. The best pimps keep a steel lid on their emotions and I was one of the iciest. The whores went into fits of giggles at Rachel's shaky witticism. A pimp is happy when his whores giggle. He knows they are still asleep.

I coasted the Hog^xi into the curb outside the hotel where Kim, my newest, prettiest girl, was cribbing. Jesus! I would be glad to drop the last whore off so I could get to my own hotel to nurse my nose with cocaine and be alone. Any good pimp is his own best company. His inner life is so rich with cunning and scheming to out-think his whores.^xii

As Kim got out I said, "Goodnight Baby, today is Saturday so I want everybody in the street at noon instead of seven tonight. I said noon, not five minutes after or two minutes after, but at twelve noon sharp I want you down, got it, Baby?"

She didn't answer, but she did a strange thing. She walked into the street around the Hog to the window on my side. She stood looking at me for a long moment, her beautiful face tense in the dim dawn.

Then in her crisp New England accent she said, "Are you coming back to my pad this morning? You haven't spent a night with me in a month. So come back, okay?"

A good pimp doesn't get paid for screwing^xiii, he gets his pay off for always having the right thing to say to a whore right on lightning tap^xiv. I knew my four whores were flapping their ears to get my reaction to this beautiful bitch. A pimp with an overly fine bitch in his stable has to keep his game tight. Whores constantly probe for weakness in a pimp.^xv

I fitted a scary mask on my face and said, in a low deadly voice, "Bitch, are you insane? No bitch in this family calls any shots or muscles me to do anything. Now take your stinking yellow^xvi ass upstairs to a bath and some shut eye, and get in the street at noon like I told you."^xvii

The bitch just stood there, her eyes slitted in anger^xviii. I could sense she was game to play the string out right there in the street before my whores. If I had been ten years dumber^xix I would have leaned out of that Hog and broken her jaw^xx, and put my foot in her ass, but the joint was too fresh in my mind.^xxi

I knew the bitch was trying to booby trap me when she spat out her invitation. "Come on kick my ass. What the hell do I need with a man I only see when he comes to get his money? I am sick of it all. I don't dig stables and never will.^xxii I know I'm the new bitch who has to prove herself. Well Goddamnit, I am sick of this shit. I'm cutting out."

She stopped for air and lit a cigarette.^xxiii I was going to blast her ass off when she finished. So, I just sat there staring at her.

Then she went on, "I have turned more tricks in the three months I have been with you than in the whole two years with Paul. My pussy stays sore and swollen.^xxiv Do I get my ass kicked before I split? If so, kick it now because I am going back to Providence on the next thing smoking."

She was young, fast, with trick appeal galore. She was a pimp's dream and she knew it. She had tested me with her beef^xxv and now she was lying back for a sucker response.

I disappointed her with my cold overlay. I could see her wilt as I said in an icy voice. "Listen square-ass Bitch, I have never had a whore I couldn't do without. I celebrate, Bitch, when a whore leaves me. It gives some worthy bitch a chance to take her place and be a star. You scurvy Bitch, if I shit in your face, you gotta love it and open your mouth wide."

The rollers cruised by in a squad car so I flashed a sucker smile on my face and cooled it until they passed.^xxvi Kim was rooted there wincing under the blizzard.

I went on ruthlessly, "Bitch, you are nothing but a funky zero. Before me you had one chili chump with no rep. Nobody except his mother ever heard of the bastard. Yes Bitch, I'll be back this morning to put your phony ass on the train."^xxvii

I rocketed away from the curb. In the rear-view mirror I saw Kim^xxviii walk slowly into the hotel, her shoulders slumped.^xxix In the Hog, until I dropped the last whore off^xxx you could have heard a mosquito crapping on the moon.^xxxi I had tested out for them, "solid ice."^xxxii

I went back for Kim. She was packed and silent. On the way to the station, I riffled the pages in that pimp's book in my head for an angle to hold her without kissing her ass.

I couldn't find a line in it for an out like that.^xxxiii As it turned out the bitch was testing and bluffing right down the line.

We had pulled into the station parking lot when the bitch fell to pieces. Her eyes were misty when she yelped, "Daddy, are you really going to let me split? Daddy, I love you!"^xxxiv

I started the prat action to cinch her when I said, "Bitch, I don't want a whore with rabbit in her. I want a bitch who wants me for life.^xxxv You have got to go after that bullshit earlier this morning, you are not that bitch."

That prat butchered her and she collapsed into my lap crying and begging to stay. I had a theory about splitting whores. I think they seldom split without a bankroll.^xxxvi

So, I cracked on her, "Give me that scratch you held out and maybe I will give you another chance."

Sure enough she reached into her bosom and drew out close to five bills and handed it to me.^xxxvii No pimp with a brain in his head cuts loose a young beautiful whore with lots of mileage left in her. I let her come back.

When at long last I was driving toward my hotel I remembered what Baby Jones^xxxviii, the master pimp who turned me out, had said about whores like Kim.

"Slim," he had said, "A pretty nigger bitch and a white whore are just alike. They both will get in a stable to wreck it and leave the pimp on his ass with no whore. You gotta make 'em hump hard and fast to stick 'em for long scratch quick. Slim, pimping ain't no game of love^xxxix, so prat 'em and keep your swipe outta 'em. Any sucker who believe a whore loves him shouldn't a fell outta his mammy's ass."

My mind went back to Pepper. Then back even further and I remembered what he had said about The Georgia^xl.

"Slim, a pimp is really a whore who has reversed the game on whores. So Slim, be as sweet as the scratch, no sweeter, and always stick a whore for a bundle before you sex her. A whore ain't nothing but a trick to a pimp. Don't let 'em Georgia you. Always get your money in front just like a whore.

On the elevator riding to my pad I thought about the first bitch who had Georgied me and how she had flim-flammed me out of my head. She would be old and gray now, but if I could find her^xli I would sure get the bitch's unpaid account off my conscience.

PREFACE

In this book I will take you, the reader, with me into the secret inner world of the pimp. I will lay bare my life and thoughts as a pimp. The account of my brutality and cunning as a pimp will fill many of you with revulsion^xlii, however, if one intelligent, valuable^xliii young man or woman can be saved from the destructive slime ; then the displeasure I have given will have been outweighed by that individual's use of his potential in a socially constructive manner.^xliv

I regret that it is impossible to recount to you all of my experiences as a pimp. Unfortunately, it would require the combined pages of a half-dozen books. Perhaps my remorse for my ghastly life will diminish to the degree that within this one book I have been allowed to purge myself. Perhaps one day I can win respect as a constructive human being.^xlv Most of all I wish to become a decent example for my children and for that wonderful woman in the grave, my mother.^xlvi

1. Not even fucking kidding, piece of shit spits out an empty edit box, attempts to force it produce "Are you sure you really want to do this" inane warnings, the 'compare revisions' functionality still works sorta half-way... a sad mess.

   I'm not about to debug it, either. Let whoever the fuck is responsible for the shit that computers have turned into hang his head in shame -- this "you can always fix it later" delusion has to come to an end. Preferably, with the physical, (and violent! and painful!) end of everyone responsible -- which means everyone involved ; which means everyone alive then. [↩]

2. I had been vaguely contemplating the notion of reassembling all such pieces into single-article items, and maybe adding a special page listing them, as I doubt anyone has a clue just how many books Trilema contains. But the fact of the matter is... [↩]
3. I expect he very much means this thing. [↩]
4. Holy shit the sad life of this guy.

   Certainly, all whores are scrying the skies, consisting for them of the eyes of their god, for signs on the end. It... thrills them, sure, after a fashion ; like cold water goes in one place so goes cold water throughout, it... thrills. This is very much not the same as desire, nor even expectation.

   Unless, of course, one's very lonely indeed. In that case distances melt, cities merge, an informous dust invades the continents... [↩]

5. If this were so... how would it be possible for them to ever come home ? [↩]
6. I'm by now satisfied this character's speaking from experience. [↩]
7. Aren't you curious how much, by the way ? I ask because yesterday I said "da fuck, we have no fucking money" right before opening a drawer to drop the stack in my hand into, and that square-foot drawer happened to be crammed, two-three layers thick, with assorted currency bricks. Everyone laughed, my notion's unchanged, what the fuck, not even a pallet.

   So... what's a pile of scratch ? [↩]

8. For the newer audience, the "long windows" would be those shitty triangular portions of glass fitted between either the windshield and the actual side window or otherwise between the rear window and the back side windows. They were a technological necessity before the 80s machining revolution and the advent of plastics, because handling curved surfaces was back then outside of the commercially accessible. Before electric motor craned windows, it was actually easier to flip the thing than to hand-crank the window down, and so they generally came with a seal that yielded to hand pressure, meaning you could generally take a leak into anyone's "locked" car if you felt like it. [↩]
9. Yeah, right, Rachel. That was her name. They had a whole lotta bottom bitches named Rachel back before the 80s machining revolution and the advent of plastics, in fact they had so many bottom bitches named Rachel they were almost putting the Jeniffers outta da biz! And they themselves sung!

   I suspect he might've changed the names. Actually, scratch that, I looked it up and yes he did, s'as to resolve the conflict between "no snitchin'" and "tellin' it true". [↩]

10. Ouch. [↩]
11. Oh, it's the car name!

    Do you suppose he changed that also, or do you think like I do, that indeed cars are so much more estimable than mere women, ol' Hog here got to keep his name ? Think of it, if you will : merely a heap of metal, disturbed from its underground slumber one day to be made into a shiny automobile. Just like you were. And well... it was kinda fun at times, this new life, like say sparkling happily in the sun, half-curiously, "what's all this about then ?!" and sometimes there'd be a shining, with wax and all, and delicious gasoline... It was a great life, here and there, a great life that eventually ended, like all great life ever ends, on a scrap heap. Somewhere. Who even knows where, anymore ?

    Yet the name is remembered. "Rachel" isn't. [↩]

12. What sort of deranged ownership is this, where you don't even hang out with them! Pshaw.

    Sounds more like bus driving. [↩]

13. Rather, the erect penis is the only element in short supply. [↩]
14. Apparently the call is a familiar concept to pimps. Who knew! [↩]
15. Aaactually, it's women generally, and it's for support not for fucking weakness, whence all this adversarial positioning and hostility all the damn time! Not everything gotta be painted in the darkest color available, what the hell's this emo bullshit. [↩]
16. The term's plurisemic, but here it says she's mulatto, part-white. [↩]
17. Much too fucking verbose.

    I don't know what notions of "game tightness" he entertains, but "Bitch, are you insane ?" was absolutely sufficient (though fucking insane is probably better form). Let her do the exposition, it's her fucking job, after all. [↩]

18. Nobody likes a dork who talks too much.

    I'd know, I mean Trilema's what, a trillion words long, rite. [↩]

19. Ahahaha that's a great way to put it. [↩]
20. Yep, fucking dumb. Breaking your own whore's jaw is a lot like scratching your own car. [↩]
21. Bwahahaha, what the fuck! I do this alllll the time, what fucking joint ?!

    Insanity. Speaking of which -- very polite (and intellectually lively, knew the sprawling town better than most) young gent driving his cab downtown, asked us after settling on a direction, how we're doing. First me, you know, and upon gladening himself that I'm fine (that's what they say here, "me alegro" ; there's actualy an even more elaborate a-word in usage for the same purpose, but I don't recall it right off), turning to Hannah (I mean Rachel) further inquired how the lady is doing ; to which I cut off with "oh, she's doing better than all of us", which, while not necessarily true, was very much superlative in the vein of his expectation, producing a flurry of oh, that's exactly how it should be, for what are we, mere hombres etcetera.

    Fucking bizzare, I'll tell you that. BOTH OF THEM. [↩]

22. This is very much nonsense in the "being a lesbian" vein. Nobody ever said it and meant it, though plenty are too fucking clueless to know what they mean from what they don't. [↩]
23. She's not leaving. [↩]
24. Fancy that complaint. You didn't even know such wonder existed, huh. [↩]
25. Cunt. [↩]
26. A scraped life, huh, a 2nd hand sorta cool. So far this dood's getting it from all sides, to the point one wonders where's enough room to even sit. So much for that whole casa quantu stai e tirrinu quantu viri, huh. [↩]
27. I've actually done this myself (though I belted the chick's ass one more time before taking her to the station -- "But... I'm leaving." "You've not left yet".) ; something tells me he's not gonna carry through (the same thing, really, that told me she's not leaving). They're... entangled, so to speak. [↩]
28. Who the fuck even wants to fuck azns ?! I confess the continued fertility of Asia is an enduring mystery to me. [↩]
29. Somehow doesn't sound like that much of an achievement, does it. The narrative evidently pulls towards casting it as such, but... Well ? [↩]
30. Why the fuck would you house them apart ? Is it... could it be fear, perhaps ? [↩]
31. The moon...has...no atmosphere. [↩]
32. But don't you ever want to... talk to your women ?! I mean seriously now, if silence's such a preferable alternative, why not just drive the Goh empty ? Sure, no argument, silence's way the fuck better than dumb bitch bullshit -- but I mean you are supposed to educate them such as you can live with them, neh ? If that ain't the standard, what is ?

    Then again, I suppose if that actually were the standard you'd necessarily have to be smart and rich, meaning neither need to nor inclined to actually whore them out. [↩]

33. Oh god, the amateurishness. Here : "You ~actually~ want a ticket to Providence ? Or should I splurge and >ship you out to Florida< instead ? [Because the further you go the better]" Bait and switch, the oldest entry in that damned "book" every dicktom&chuckie keep on "writing" without ever having read ; and besides -- the impossibility of choice, pantsuitistan's first line paralytic, and foremost by usage. Suppose she stays until she decides if it's gonna be Jersey or Florida ? Or in any case until she gets over the high of having thought she's got it in only to discover she had been deluding herself ? Hm ?

    Fucking noobs. [↩]

34. So far, I can't imagine why.

    I don't think the dood's lieing, by the way, bitches be weird. But that's a different discuntion. Or whatever, I suppose you call it discussion, though really you shouldn't permit the cuss to take over the cunt like that. [↩]

35. Makes you wonder what he does with the old ones. Doesn't it ? [↩]
36. Duh.

    Actually, women don't split without someone else to go to, either, and so following -- it's after all what the pantsuit state's been doing to ruin the family : give them a surogate "someone else" to go to. [↩]

37. It's not even about the money, either. Now of course he has to check whether she held out on tips or rather he needs a new bottom. [↩]
38. Probably Albert Bell, of Omaha, Nebraska, 1899. [↩]
39. And poker's no game of fun, and so on. [↩]
40. The Georgia - Langley's most exquisite new condominium development. [↩]
41. I'm so fucking unused to this marginal, desperate, barely hanging on, living day by day sort of underworld view -- what the fuck does he mean "if". Insanity. [↩]
42. Specifically, the spurious simps that shouldn't a fell outta their mammy's ass. [↩]
43. Valuable to whom the fuck ? [↩]
44. Herp. [↩]
45. Karen's not any more constructive, forget about it. [↩]
46. This insufferably obsequious preface ain't helping anything. [↩]