The Hustler and I

When you live in a brothel you're not just meeting customers from all over the world, you're living with a variety of people as well. Down my hall my closest friend here is Filipino/Mexican, our two neighbors are Iranian and a Kenyan, on the other halls we have girls from Missouri and California. All of these girls are different body types, different skin tones, some are bilingual.

Together we call our house the IHOP, short for the International House of Pussy. It's a clever marketing tactic to those men who seem taken aback at the veritable buffet before them in a line up.

When I arrived here in August there was even more variety, having been the end of summer it meant that there were more girls in the house. Yet, it wasn't just the vast variety of the girls that impressed me in those first few weeks, but also the staff. The working girls are only part of the house, the staff are those that come in and out daily in rotating eight hour shifts, they truly allow us to function for twenty-four hours a day.

Along with our five cashier/bartenders, we have a live in maintenance man, and a maid who comes five days a week, also a book keeper that comes in the early mornings, and a runner that will take you to the store or to and from the airport. From what I understand back in its glory days our little brothel had many more people on staff, and even more men that flooded through the doors to keep everyone so busy that it was hard to keep up with the demanding customers.

I could write about the drama that takes place between the girls, but if I did that I could easily have to write for six hours a day non-stop to chronicle all the nuances of smack talk that are created within these walls. Though I find that if you look even harder the true drama and even more entertaining facets of smack talk are created by the staff.

If anyone has ever seen a play, and even more specifically the play Noises Off, you may better understand the defining line between the girls and the staff. In this scenario we can surely say that the girls are the performers, but behind every good performer is an even more dysfunctional and ever so diligent crew. I know, I got a degree in theatre and if there is one thing that my eight years behind the scenes has ever taught me it is that you can relate most every situation, group of people or world scenario to the theatre. So I'll do just that.

When I think about who in both the brothel and a theatre has the most power over each moment I know it would be the director in theatre and the house manager here in the brothel.

When I walked through our doors the first time I was greeted by our manager. He had a phone pressed against one ear, but he still took the time to smile and shake my hand. He wore white track pants with white shoes and a plain t-shirt, atop his head sat a baseball cap with a single "W" stitched into it.

In my first two months working at the ranch I saw a flood of cashiers get fired, it became evident at this point that there is not job stability in a brothel. Our manager fired a slough for shady deeds, one girl said she had to go out to her truck to get something during the middle of her shift but she never came back. Another only lasted a day before claiming she was pregnant and never returned.

Whether the pressure of running the back cashier duties and bar tending had gotten to them, or that they couldn't handle listening to negotiations, there are many things about working here that can and will make you uncomfortable if you're just the innocent bartender.

Our manager as well would frequently tell us that he had no idea what to expect when he had started the job, and by the time I got there a month after he had, he was still shaking his head from time to time in silence while he surveyed the floor on busy nights. It's one thing to be orchestrating the big show, it's another to participate. When he had to do line ups he would escort the customer to the line and then quickly look away, in embarrassment. I could only guess that the fact of the matter was he had a daughter sitting at home, and to watch so many young women in this way tugged a little at his heart strings. What disturbed him even more was probably the fact that we all took to it like ducks to water and often reveled in our bawdy nature.

It takes a certain kind of person to be able to chaperon a large group of hustlers and I couldn't think of a better person than our manager.

He was a tall and handsome black man, who boasted more often than not about his side career as an MMA fighter. He rarely slept, if ever, late at night he would come from one side of the house where he lived in the presidential suite and make grilled cheese sandwiches before pouring himself a double shot of Grey Goose and then would wander back to his lair.

His demeanor was boastfully confident, and he would often point out to people that he was an "asshole" but always managed to apologize if he felt he crossed the line. He wasn't afraid to sit at the jukebox for hours mixing Biggie with Ice Cube, then Bon Jovi

Most of the girls despised him for his up front and often argumentative nature, he was always the winner in a debate, he never bowed down to their unreasonable demands. This is what made him a good manager in my eyes his ability to bullshit his way our of the other girls own benign bullshit.

He was smooth in speech and more often than not when someone tried to tell their perception of him he would quickly remind them that, yes he did like rap music, but he was country at heart, pointing to the "W" on his cap he would say, "That's where I'm from...Wisconsin." He would then tangent about the hardships of running a major nightclub in the heart of Los Angeles, and the many business ventures he had supported over the years. He's the kind of person that even though you knew there was something about him, he wasn't going to let you peg him.

When I had come back from my vacation in late October I had come to find out that, he too, had been fired. Rumors swirled that he had slept with one of the girls, another was that he had too many complaints against him. What I knew though in that moment was that people had finally gotten to his core, and found out that he was not just our manager, but the biggest hustler of us all.

I remember the last time I saw him, I had taken the ride to the Reno airport with him. In those early morning hours we rode in the dark, him talking to his grandmother on the phone, in a very cordial tone, he's easily one of the most likable people you could meet.  He was dropped off first and as he got out of the car he told me that I should enjoy my time away, and that he expected me to come back so that we could have at least one sane person in the house at all times.

Our runner drove me around Reno for a bit and then I too took the long walk through the airport, expecting to see tired faces and wore out children. As I strolled down B terminal I saw a familiar figure, lean back in his chair in front of a slot machine, one leg extended  as he shoveled bills and tokens into the machine, he languidly tapped the spin button and the numbers whirled and dinged, he lost again.

As I approached our manger he looked up and said, "here comes trouble". He slide another five into the slot and tapped the button, he lost again.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked as the number on the screen blanked out to zero, and he prepared another five in his hand, straightening all the corners.

"I think... you should quit while you're ahead." I smiled.

"Is that your advice."

"Yep, always quit while you're ahead."

He pressed the button...nothing. He laughed and slide another bill into the machine.

I sauntered away, only in eye shot, and watched him work his way up and down the rows of machines, sometimes winning but mostly loosing. His flight began to board but he waited until the very last moment, the flight attendant called for late boarding. I stared down the row, saw him collect his jacket, he peered down at me and with a respectful glance, we both waved a hand in almost pseudo-salute with a  final passing nod, he pivoted and was the last to board his flight. He handed off his ticket and walked onto the plane with the swagger of a master hustler.

In later weeks, a friend who also is a staff member would tell me about the real nature of our ex-mangers business, about how he had fabricated most of his stories and actually how many bottles of Grey Goose were found under his bed. Despite these facts I still liked him, he was a good person, and knew how to handle a house full of estrogen better than most.

It just proves that just like in theatre it takes an overly confident director to work with the most difficult of casts, and just like that, it takes and even greater hustler to hustle a house full of them.