فصل 06

6

The Pimp Gets Pimped

The day after the Charlie’s Angels Christmas, Bertha called my house, looking for Titus.

Bertha: “Hi. My name is Bertha, and I’m looking for Titus.”

Tiffany: “Titus don’t live here.”

Bertha: “Well, he calls me from this number sometimes. I can’t find him. He’s been missing for a couple of days.”

Tiffany: “He’s been missing? Oh, you that bitch, ain’t you?”

Bertha: “Are you Tiffany? Oh, it’s so nice to hear your voice. I hear so much about you. He’s always talking about you. You’re such a nice person.”

Tiffany: “Oh no, bitch. I’m not nice. Just ask Titus how nice I am.”

Bertha: “I don’t know why you’re so angry at me. I just work for him.”

Can you believe this? I kept talking to her, and I started realizing this bitch is dumb as fuck.

Tiffany: “Oh, what kind of work do you do for him?”

Bertha: “Well, you know, like customer service–type work.”

Tiffany: “Customer service–type work? Girl, keep it one hundred, because I remember him saying he wanted to be a pimp. So you a ho?”

Bertha: “I’m not a ho. I’m an entertainer.”

She told me about how she met Titus through his homeboy or whatever, and that she wanted to be in movies. She wanted to make money, and they told her that she could make money being in movies having sex with people, so that’s what she’d do.

Tiffany: “So how much money are you making doing entertainment?”

Bertha: “None, because he keeps all the money. But he gets my hair done, my nails done. He buys me clothes. He feeds me.”

I know, right? To be honest, though, I didn’t have no place calling her a dumb bitch. I let that motherfucker lie to me too, just about different shit.

I told her Titus wasn’t ever coming back to my place, so she didn’t need to call me again. Then the next day, she called me.

Bertha: “Oh, you a nasty, dirty bitch! You shit in his shoes? You nasty, dirty bitch!”

I guess she found Titus.

Tiffany: “No, you the nasty, dirty bitch. You’re the one that’s out here fucking random motherfuckers on camera. And you don’t got money to show for it!! You giving your pussy up for nothing.”

We was going back and forth arguing with each other over who was the nastiest, dirtiest bitch. Eventually, it came down to what all black women arguments come down to:

Bertha: “I should come beat your ass!”

Tiffany: “I wish you would come try to beat my ass.”

Then she told me my address. That nigga told her where I live?

Bertha: “I’ve been in your house before. I’ve been in your car. I’ve been in your bed.”

Boy, I was fucking HOT. I hung up the phone and went to go see my girl Anna. She flipped it on me.

Anna: “Stop arguing with that bitch and start fucking working that bitch. She’s stupid, so use it to work that bitch.”

Tiffany: “I don’t even know what that means, Anna.”

Anna: “You just as dumb as her! Listen, be nice. Turn her against him. Take his ho from him. Without no ho, he ain’t no pimp.”

I thought about that shit all night. The next day, I called Bertha.

Tiffany: “Hey, I’m not calling to argue with you or anything. I totally get what I did was kind of out of order or whatever, but really, I don’t want no beef or no problems.”

Bertha: “That’s nice to hear, thank you, Tiffany.”

Tiffany: “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I just want to know. How are you out here giving up your body and not making any money off of it? It just don’t make no sense to me.”

We started talking, and I asked her a bunch of questions.

Tiffany: “You doing these pornos. How much are you getting?”

Bertha: “I don’t know what I’m getting paid, because he takes the money.”

Tiffany: “Girl, I could probably hook you up with some gigs, and I would just take 10 percent.”

Bertha: “Really?”

Tiffany: “Yeah. If you made $1000, I would only want $100. If you made $1500, I would just want $150.”

Bertha: “Hmm. This sounds like it would be a good thing.”

We started talking on the phone every day, and I kept working her. So now I was on the phone with her for about a week and a half, two weeks. She done became my friend. Right? I was like, I hate her though. I fucking hate her.

Tiffany: “I’m telling you. You could make a lot more money, if you just work with me. You could even still be with him. He could be your man or whatever y’all got going on, but you should work with me.”

She agreed, so I started looking in the LA Weekly, and I found her a gig to do like three porns. I got her $1500 for one, $700 for another, and the other one, she had to get fucked in the ass and her pussy by two dudes, so I got her $1800 for that. I took her to the sets, she fucked, I got my cut, and I gave her the rest.

Bertha: “This the most money I ever had. Oh my God. Thank you so much, Tiffany. Thank you so much!”

Then I had another friend who was a stripper, and I had her show Bertha some moves. I helped her go from $70 a night to $300 or more. And I got my cut from that, too.

One day, Titus made her mad, and she dropped it on him:

Bertha: “You’re a fucking horrible pimp. Tiffany is a way better pimp than you’ll ever be.”

Titus: “What?”

Bertha: “Tiffany is a way better pimp than you’ll ever be. She’s a great person.”

Titus: “What the FUCK are you talking about?”

Bertha: “Tiffany’s been taking me to do pornos. See all this money I got?”

Even better—she did this in front of his homeboys, who were actual pimps.

Pimp Friend 1: “Damn, Titus! Yo bitch took yo bitch?”

Pimp Friend 2: “Maybe Tiff should hang with us. She sound like the true pimp.”

He called me, all hysterical, voice trembling.

Titus: “You take my bitch?”

Tiffany: “Yeah, I took your bitch, BITCH, and I’ll do it again. I’ll take all your bitches, you little dirty-ass motherfucker.”

Titus: “I fucking hate you. You’re a horrible person.”

I just felt so good. I felt like I really accomplished a lot.

• • •

Eventually, I started pimping Titus’s male friends. One of his boys—we called him Goliath because he was so huge—heard what I had been doing for Bertha. He asked me if I could set him up, too. I started off getting him some pornos, and those went well. Then something else came up.

I was still doing Bar Mitzvahs on the weekends, and of course, if you’re doing Bar Mitzvahs, you’re going to meet old Jewish ladies. I met a lot of lonely ones, and I got to be friends with them. Then they started telling me how lonely they were and saying things like, “My husband’s not satisfying me.”

I remember the first conversation that started it. I had just finished a Bar Mitzvah practice, and was about to leave.

Jewish Lady: “No, Tiff. Stay. Have a glass of wine with me. I don’t really have a lot of friends. My husband has all the friends. I don’t really have anybody to hang out with. It’s kind of lonely in this big old house.”

I thought this was kind of weird, but this was a rich lady, so whatever. I’d talk to her. She did seem lonely. She was telling me about how her husband’s never at home, how her sex life was down the drain.

Jewish Lady: “I feel like I’m a virgin again. He doesn’t touch me or anything.”

Tiffany: “Oh, wow.”

Jewish Lady: “So who are you dating? I bet you date hot guys.”

Tiffany: “I do okay.”

We had this same conversation, like, three times, until I finally got fed up.

Tiffany: “Girl, why don’t you just buy some dick? You should come with me to the strip club and just check it out.”

Jewish Lady: “Oh, no. I couldn’t be seen in a place where men are dancing.”

Tiffany: “Well, just buy some. They won’t tell nobody. Just keep it on the down low.”

Jewish Lady: “On the down low?”

I straight up had to play some R. Kelly, “Down Low” for her, to explain what that meant.

She gave me this crazy look, like a kid that stole candy.

Jewish Lady: “I’ve never been with a black guy. I would love a strong black man. What’s it like doing a black guy?”

Tiffany: “Well . . . they be smelling like cocoa butter. That’s nice. They be all strong, and they dicks are so powerful. If you find a man with an ass, oh my God. It’s just so good. They pick you up. It’s just good. It just depends on who you get with, though. But they can be good.”

Jewish Lady: “That’s what I need.”

Tiffany: “But you know, any guy could be really great, if you guys have a connection and stuff.”

Jewish Lady: “I don’t need the connection. I’m married. I just need to have an orgasm. I just want to feel ravaged.”

She started showing me these romance novels she had. All her romance novels were like, I don’t know. She had one that was like a slave thing or whatever. It was a big, strapping black guy on the cover, holding this passed-out white woman.

Tiffany: “Well, I don’t know any slaves, but I could probably hook you up with somebody big and strong.”

So I hooked her up with Titus’s boy, Goliath. She’d give me $200, I’d take $50, give the rest to Goliath, and then set up the meeting.

Then she introduced me to another lady. I linked her up with another guy that was a friend of Goliath. It was kind of like word of mouth, and I started having a lot of clients.

One lady wanted a strong white man. I didn’t know any huge white guys, but I used to be in Venice Beach a lot, and I met this dude on the boardwalk.

Tiffany: “Hey, would you ever fuck for money?”

Big White Dude: “Yeah. Of course.”

Just like that. Pimping dudes was easy.

The problem was that I wasn’t really necessary. A lot of these guys, once I introduced them and got my $50, they started hooking up with these chicks on their own, doing their own thing. Which makes sense, to be honest. Aside from the intro, they didn’t need me.

So I ended up getting out of pimping, because I didn’t make much money. It’s just not a lucrative business, selling dick. Dick ain’t really all that hard to come by.