At one point, after moving out of the legitimate workforce into the subculture I write about, while manning the phones in a bookmaking office, I began writing scenes to plays. Although they would never be produced, the dialogue I was engaged in while taking bets was a constant reminder of the world Higgins and Leonard had portrayed so masterfully. It was also a reminder to maybe take another shot at writing a novel.
Before I could put something together worth reading (never mind selling), I stayed with theatre and wrote a few plays about things I was most familiar with: gambling, street finance and irreverence. Three plays of mine were produced off-off Broadway, but I found the theatre required and depended on a lot more than one man’s effort. I quickly gave it up to pursue the riches a street life offered to those willing to take risks and hustle.
Fast forward a few more years and a few dozen more detours, including a few divorces, arrests and countless jobs, and the writing bug returned with a vengeance. It was when I first met my wife, Ann Marie. My attempt to impress her as something more than a street smart wannabe resulted in my first published novel, Eddie’s World. Shortly thereafter Ann Marie and I moved in together. I left the street and the money that went with it behind. The financial transition was a tough one. I had to survive earning a word processing salary, an annual income I had sometimes made inside a few months on the street, but playing it square also meant a peace of mind money can’t buy.
It took some time, but eventually I came to realize the fazools (money) wasn’t worth the hassle or the risk, and that eating local take-out instead of steaks at The Palm wasn’t such a bad tradeoff. I had attained a lifelong goal of getting published and I had found the love of my life.
In October of 2008, Gerard Damiano, the director of Deep Throat died of complications from a stroke he’d suffered a few months earlier. He was 80 years old. The less fortunate story of Linda (Lovelace) Boreman ended in April of 2002. After suffering massive internal injuries in a car crash a few weeks earlier, she was removed from life support and died at the age of 53.
Recently Ann Marie and I were discussing how much of a role luck (good or bad) plays in any given life; whether people make their own or it just falls from the sky randomly landing on this or that person; does divine design dictate who gets lucky (or unlucky) at exactly the right time they might need (or deserve) it? It was one of our early morning dialogues that usually starts with a cup of coffee and ends several cups later, somewhere around noon. Although we never came up with a definitive conclusion regarding luck, we agreed we’ve been the beneficiary of whatever it is and/or however it happens; we’ve been blessed with good fortune unobtainable on the open market.
Seven novels down the road, all of them originally edited by Peter Skutches (talk about being blessed), I’ve lucked out again. Ed Gorman, to whom this book is dedicated, recommended Johnny Porno to Greg Shepard at Stark House Press and here we are. Greg’s enthusiasm, encouragement and support has been more than invigorating for us. Johnny Porno has the honor of being Stark House’s first venture into publishing original novels.
How lucky can one guy get? It never ceases to amaze me.
Chapter 1
John Albano used his right thumb to count through a thick wad of five-dollar bills while George Berg listed the reasons weekend receipts were off.
“Friday was supposed to piss down rain, it didn’t,” Berg said. “Shoulda been good, it wasn’t. Maybe they went the regular movies instead, who knows. I had five guys the afternoon I told come back later, two of them didn’t bother. I had nineteen end of day. Then yesterday, cloudy all day, a little chilly, that shoulda helped, but there was the Mets-Pirates at Shea and the Giants-Jets up to Connecticut, that preseason fiasco, the Yale bowl. What that cost me, I shoulda went the trotters. I show it three times for a fifty-five count. And today, this rain it looked like again, I showed it six times, the theater, from nine until half an hour ago, I still couldn’t bust a hundred. Total’s one seventy-two for the weekend, ninety-eight today. That lunatic the bar there in Brooklyn, he’s making threats I don’t clear two hundred, but what the hell’m I supposed to do they don’t come? God help me it’s sunny next weekend. They’ll all be out the beaches while I’m sweating I don’t catch a beating here for not meeting an impossible quota. That happens, we get beach weather next week, I’m thinking I shouldn’t even show it. What’s the point?”
John looked up from his count, one hundred thirty five-dollar bills so far, and said, “That’s your call, George. Just make sure you let them know in Brooklyn if you’re not gonna show it. It’ll save me time I don’t have making the trip out here.”
They were standing in front of the Knights of Columbus on East Gate Road in Massapequa, Long Island. It was a cloudy, humid afternoon. A film case holding the porn film rested against John’s left leg. He stopped his count to wipe sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“I’m just saying is all,” Berg said. “I mean, I was filling the place with fifty, sixty guys a showing there almost nonstop I first got the thing. Now guys are on vacation, it being summer and all, football season around the corner, I’m lucky I’m puttin’ gas in my tank for all the work I’m doing.”
John was close to finished with his count. Berg was right, the total was low. They wouldn’t be happy in Brooklyn when he dropped the money off later. If he ever got there, he was thinking. He had two more stops to make.
“Most guys already seen it,” Berg continued. “Last week they asked me skip the opening scene, go straight to the sex.”
“I hope you did it for them,” John said.
“Yeah, I did, but only because it got them out sooner rather than later. Some a them use the toilet there, I know they’re beating themselves off. I have the old lady clean it with Lysol soon’s they’re gone, but sometimes she brings the kids and they gotta use it. It’s disgusting.”
John couldn’t imagine it, letting your wife clean toilets where a group of sweaty men had watched pornos. He shook the thought off.
“I don’t know you remember the crowds when you were just counting heads,” Berg said. “It’s thinned out considerably. We need an angle, something new to generate interest.”
John finished the count. “Eight-sixty,” he said, then counted off twenty-four fives and stashed them in Berg’s shirt pocket. “Minus one-twenty is seven-forty.”
“Peanuts, I know,” Berg said. “We need that new angle.”
One of the men who’d paid to see the movie approached them. He was a heavyset bald man with thick black glasses. He looked at George first, then John. “Whatever happened the other guy?” he asked.
“What other guy?” John said.
“Tommy Porno,” the bald man said. “Guy used to bring the films. He was supposed to get me something. I left him a fifty-dollar deposit last month and he never came back.”
“Sorry, pal,” John said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“And you are?”
John had dropped down to retie his sneaker laces. Annoyed at the question, he gave the bald man a hard stare. “Excuse me?”
“Just asking.”
“Okay,” Berg said. “You asked. Now leave the man alone.”