HIGH TECH MADAM MEMOIRS

I'm writing my memoirs.  In 1984, I was arrested and dubbed the "High Tech Madam" by the major media.  www.hightechmadam.com (my news clips are there).   By 1987, I created Prostitutes Anonymous, now called www.sexworkersanonymous.net  We are responsible for the modern day domestic sex trafficking, as well as sex workers' rights, movement.   It's time consuming to get my memoir written, and obviously it's going to have to be self-published.  Some chapters are very difficult for me to write, and I spent days recovering from reliving these memories.  But rent and bills go on.  If I had a publisher, I would get an advance so I could get the book written.  Since I"m self-publishing, I need support.  I'm also converting the book as I write into a movie series.  You may think it's been told before in series like "The Deuce", but there's a REASON why those stories in the 80's are focused on NY - not LA.  My story explains why.  Here are the first four chapters so you can decide if you want to read the rest of the whole story of this journey (copyright J.Williams - all rights reserved):

CHAPTER ONE

I think when we reach a certain age, or even a certain point in life – we ask ourselves the same question.  How did we get here?  Despite our best laid plans, our strongest desires, and even using our deepest will power – we wind up in a life that isn’t at all what we imagined.  I’m asking myself that question now in writing this memoir, “How did I wind up right here?”

Growing up I’ve heard the phrase over and over again that “No little girl wants to grow up to be a prostitute.”  However, I really kind of did.  A madam anyway.  Certainly these women were my idols.  While other girls in school were wanting to be like Linda Ronstadt or Marie Osmond – I was devouring books on Gypsy Rose Lee, Mae West, and stories of infamous madams and courtesans throughout history.  Them and famous witches like Sybil Leek anyway. 

One thing the history books fail to point out however is that to become one of these famous women, you either have to get yourself arrested in some high profile case, or murdered (burned at the stake even).  As I’m finding myself sitting in the Van Nuys jail in 1984 with a parade of law enforcement coming to gloat over finally getting me in custody, I laugh and realize I’ve now truly “made it”.  How I got there I’m about to tell you. 

I never really did anything growing up like “other kids” certainly.  For me it all started when I found myself no longer able to continue on with regular school.  Back in 1975, schools weren’t online.  To attend school, you had to be in the classroom every morning by 8:00 a.m.  Very hard to do when you have insomnia keeping you up until sunrise. 

I learned that if I attended community college, I could get the credits I needed to go on to the university to pursue my goal of becoming a psychologist while taking afternoon, or even evening classes.  Problem was I was only about 15 years old by this time.  The last car accident I was in had made it absolutely impossible for me to either sleep at night, or even sit on those hard classroom chairs.  So something had to give. 

Seeing I no longer was able to even attend regular high school anymore since the last car crack-up I’d been in, my mom moved us to a house in Tarzana from Whittier, California.  She’d heard the “best people lived south of the boulevard”, so she had rented a three bedroom house about two blocks south of Ventura Boulevard. 

 I was still being taken down to UCLA for tests they were running on me at the Paranormal Research Dept. that Dr. Thelma Moss had set up at UCLA.  One of their researchers had referred me to a spiritualist church that was headquartered in the San Fernando Valley for ongoing emotional support. 

The church was providing me with classes that helped me to understand what all the paranormal stuff that was happening to me meant in the larger scale of things.  It also gave me a pool of people to talk to who had a better understanding of the kinds of things I was seeing and feeling back then.  They also gave me a great list of books to read that you couldn’t find down at the local regular bookstore. 

But I hadn’t finished high school.  By taking this special equivalency test, it allowed me to enroll in the community college so I could eventually go on to the university once I had enough credits.  I figured by the time I got done with all of this stuff I was dealing with on the paranormal side of things, then I went on to get my degree – I figured I could model myself more after Dr. Moss.  You have to realize our government was putting a lot of money into paranormal research back in the 1970’s.   

My plans however had been delayed a year because of yet another car accident.  Wanting to celebrate recovering from the last car accident, I had decided to go skiing at Big Bear.  Only we lost control of the car on some black ice, hit a ditch, and then flipped over a few times until we landed upside down on the roof. 

The accident had knocked me out so I had a really big bump on my head I still have in fact.  The right side of my head had banged the arm rest over the window, knocking me out.  Actually it knocked me into an out-of-body experience where I watched the whole thing from outside the car. 

So when I woke up, and came back into my body, my knees were over my head.  I saw nothing but black at first, and honestly thought I was dead.  Until the driver kicked me out of the window that is.  The Cal Trans driver who was behind us said he’d never seen anyone survive such an accident before.  This was when I began to suspect I was living up to my Leo sun sign of having 9 lives.  Honestly, the brain damage I suffered from this accident might also explain the next five years of my life.  I later learned head trauma can cause all kinds of bizarre changes in people for a period of time up to five years anyway. 

When the car landed upside down, I had also torn a lot of my neck and shoulder muscles in the impact.  Medical science didn’t even have things like MRI’s back then, so all the doctors could really tell me to do was to rest and let myself heal.  I figured a year off school wouldn’t hurt, along with more visits to our chiropractor we’d nicknamed Dr. Bombay (after the show Bewitched because he was the doctor to many psychics in town), so that’s just what I’d did. 

But as a teenager, spending all your time in bed watching TV isn’t going to last long.  By the time I was about 17 years old, and this was now the third major car accident I had recovered from - I was ready to get back to school. 

But to get to school took gas money and money for new clothes.  Mom was sinking every penny she had into the rent on this big new house, not leaving me any money for my personal expenses.  Like most young girls, I also wanted clothes, record albums – all that stuff teenage girls want to buy. 

Meaning it was time for me to find a job.  Sure I could keep working as a psychic reader, but what kind of life is that going to be I asked myself?  As I’m surveying everyone in this field, they’re either gay, ancient or both. 

No offense to them, but I also wanted to have that “normal” life where I would get married, have some kids, buy a house, and all that comes with this.  I really didn’t see how on earth any guy was going to want to marry me, have kids, and do all this kind of life building stuff if I’m still working at UFO Conventions, psychic fairs, or holding seances up at the house on weekends.  I mean most of these people were very nice – but not exactly top of the dating list on a Friday night. 

So when I was starting to get myself back to life, I decided I needed to put all of that life away from me.  I needed to get a job like “other” young women going through school would get.  When new people I’d meet would ask me what I did for a living, I wanted to answer something “normal” like I was a waitress, or a cashier or something. 

Besides, I had to think about what I was going to put down on my college applications as a career as well.  Professional psychic was not what I wanted to list on my permanent school records.  

But my plans got interrupted, as our plans always do, when I got a call from my best friend, Donna.  When I moved out of Whittier, this meant I no longer lived next door to her and her house full of brothers.  Donna had always ran over to my house to protect herself from whatever madness was going on in her house.  I could tell there was something wrong with her brothers the minute I walked into her house, and by the way she was always staying glued to me every minute. We walked to and from school every day when I lived in Whittier.  She came to my house after school and stayed until bedtime.   

Things must have escalated when she no longer had a safe place to run to hide in when we moved out of the house next door to her because she had called me crying shortly after the move.  She wouldn’t tell me what happened, but it must have been something serious. 

She asked if she could come stay a few days with me at the new Tarzana house. I went and picked her up and we hit some clubs for a few days.  It was fun, but when she didn’t want to go back home - my mom asked to speak to her alone.  The next thing I knew Donna was moving into the third bedroom. I didn’t find out that she was being sexually molested at home by someone in her family until years later down the road.   

Which made making money even more of a priority now.  Not only did I want money for my own personal things I wanted to buy, but now we had a third mouth to feed, clothe and buy make-up for.  Donna had just turned 18 years of age, and while she might have graduated high school, she wasn’t really very smart. 

Not that she had to be with her looks and body either.  Donna was the kind of striking beauty where men would literally just stop and stare when she’d walk into the room.  It wasn’t her eyes they were looking at either.  What she lacked in the three R’s, she made up for with her measurements. 

Which was another reason why I was thinking the time for me to stop working in the psychic arena was over.  Donna, while polite, didn’t really understand any of these older people talking about encounters with aliens, haunted houses, past lives, astrology, etc.  She was truly more like any typical teenager and generally thought they were all kind of goofy in fact.  This was a time period when we had three major channels on TV, and the only time ghost stories came on them was in the middle of the night. 

I felt like Donna was someone who showed me how to connect to the “real world”.  The world where people did get careers, marry, have kids, etc.  A life where things were simple.  A life where people like this I was hanging with were “crazy” also.  To say she didn’t share an interest in the same things I did with this world was an understatement.  But I liked having Donna around because I felt she grounded me to the “real” world in some way. 

So the question stopped becoming what kind of job was I going to get now, and more like what kind of job were “we” going to get.  Back before the internet, this was a confusing question for us.  The newspaper classified ads for jobs didn’t really list jobs in the San Fernando Valley.  Helped wanted ads seemed to only be for areas like Culver City or downtown LA – which was “over the hill” and at least an hour’s drive for us from the valley. 

Back in the late 70’s, the valley where Tarzana was located in was just a bedroom community.  We were surrounded by nothing but houses really.  There was only the one car that I drove as mom didn’t really leave the house anymore.  By this time my mother’s depression, dependence on pain medication and tranquilizers, as well as her junk food habit – meant she pretty much spent her days on the couch, popping pills, smoking cigarettes, and eating Oreo cookies for sustenance.  She only traveled from the couch to the bathroom by that time. 

Once in a while mom would come out of this self-induced coma of hers and say something.  The rest of the time Donna and I took care of ourselves like feral cats really.  Mom would basically hand me her check on the 1st of each month, and then I would run the house.  She had me buying the groceries, doing the cooking, paying the bills, and basically I was the mother figure in the house.  I had been raising myself virtually since 13 years old when my dad left.  As long as I kept my mom fed, and cleaned her ashtrays every now and then = she really didn’t say much to either Donna and I. 

Except the day she said that Donna needed to get a job because we couldn’t afford to support her on my mom’s disability check once we realized she was moved in with us to stay.  Mom got a set amount every month now she’d got her disability awarded, and that just covered our basis expenses.  Now she had two teenage girls in the house, something had to change financially and it wasn’t going to be mom.  Besides, she said if she got a job she’d lose her disability check. Plus she had to stay “clean” since the attorney got her off the hook on all those welfare fraud charges.   

I remember my mom sitting down with Donna and asking her if she had any type of job she thought she could do.  Donna couldn’t even type, and combined with her lack of reading and writing skills – this left us with the knowledge she’d have to get some kind of entry level job.  But she also had no car, and we were quite far south of the Boulevard from the bus line. 

So after talking to Donna a bit, and then going through the want ads and not seeing anything someone like Donna could do  – my mom just got into the car and went out for a while. 

When she got back, she told Donna that she had an audition the next day at a bikini bar down the street and handed her the matchbook from the place.  Not far down Ventura Boulevard from our house was a little tiny hole in the wall called the Kit Kat club.  The club consisted of a tiny bar on one side, with a stage on the other.  In the corner was a juke box.  The back of the club was set aside for a dressing room. 

For a bar, it really was kind of a friendly local place.  There were maybe only about 12 seats at the bar.  The stage maybe had another six seats for those who wanted to get closer to the dancer doing a set.  All the dancers wore bikini’s because it was a whole other nightmare to get a liquor license if you had any nudity in the establishment. 

This club bypassed all of that stuff with the liquor licensing board by making sure the dancers were all clothed really.  Granted, they were “teeny bikini’s” but they were still clothing.  The customers were guys who were getting off of work, wanted to decompress a little, have a few beers and then trot on home to the wife.  The dancers were so the owner could charge a higher rate for the beers than any of the local bars.  A wife was also more understanding of their husbands going to the club because the women were all dressed. 

It seemed innocent enough when you walked into the place because they only served beer and wine also. You didn’t see gang bangers at the bar, but instead working men wearing overalls.  Usually the patrons would have one or two beers after work and then go on home.  It seemed like a pretty safe place in other words for Donna to get a job.  One that paid more than minimum wage, and also paid her in cash. 

I just remember that my mom came home from her outing, and told Donna that she had an audition the next day to work as a dancer at this club.  Donna started to freak out thinking it was a strip club, but my mom explained to her that she would be wearing the same thing she wore on a beach.  Years later I wondered why my mom didn’t tell Donna and I to go out posting flyers on doors asking for house keeping or dog walking jobs – but that’s how it went down. 

Donna had spent years training to do hulu dancing, and it was frankly about the only thing she did know how to do anyway.  My mom pointed out to her that there weren’t any clubs hiring hulu dancers – so unless she had another idea – this job would allow her to start making money immediately.  Looking to my mom as the parental figure back then, we figured she knew what she was doing. 

We spent that night working out an audition for Donna. I was excited to get to live out some of my Gypsy Rose Lee fantasies through this.   Where my mom got the knowledge from about what strip clubs were like, or what a routine looked like - I can only guess, but she started showing Donna things like how to enter a stage, some typical routines, and basically prepared her for the audition. 

I helped Donna pick out some clothes, and did her stage make-up.  After all, my mom had sent me to modelling school so here was a chance for me to apply my make-up skills to prepare her for the stage.  With my mom leading the way, I thought this was all okay as did Donna. 

I was carrying about 50 extra pounds at this time I’d gained from being in bed after my car accident, so I knew that me putting on a bikini and joining her on the stage was out of the question.  At the same time, Donna seemed paralyzed with fear.  She couldn’t drive herself anywhere either because she never really learned how to. 

So I kind of adopted myself as her “manager”.  The next day I did her make-up, styled her for some routines, and then drove her to the audition. 

When we arrived at the club, the first thing the bartender did was give her a shot of something.  I think it was Vodka.  I could tell by the smile on his face when he did this that all auditioning dancers were nervous.  He took her back to the dressing room and introduced her to the “house mother”.  This was a older woman who helped the dancers with their costumes, their make-up, and basically managed the back room where the men couldn’t go. 

All I knew was this woman was sitting in the back dressing room darning someone’s costume.  The first thing she did was ask Donna what she wanted to wear.  She pulled out her bikini, and the woman nodded approvingly.  Then she reached into a locker and pulled out a g-string, some pasties, and some nude colored hose. 

As she’s giving these items to Donna, she’s showing her how to put them on while explaining the laws to her.  No flashing of the nipples or vagina.  In case a nipple falls out, that’s why the pasties are in place.  The g-string under the costume is to prevent any flashing of the vagina as well. She even showed her how to wear hose so the lines didn’t show under her costume.  All the tricks of the trade so to speak. 

After the speech about the laws, and Donna is now dressed properly – the time comes for her audition.  I had been Donna’s shadow up to now, but word had spread there was “fresh meat” auditioning and the club was packed to capacity.  Not seeing a seat anywhere in the club, I just stayed behind the door separating the dressing room from the bar area to keep an eye on my friend.  Of course I’m curious as well. 

The bartender was also the owner of the club.  When Donna stepped out into the club, he takes her by the hand to show her how to operate the juke box.  Dancers were to pick a song or two they wanted to dance to before hitting the stage.  I could tell part of the whole routine was to watch the dancer walk across the club, bend over the juke box to make her selection, and then strut her stuff onto the tiny stage.  All part of the teaser to the show.  This of course was the time all the patrons ordered another beer so they could watch the dancer - with respect of course also. 

All eyes were on her as she took the stage.  Donna was a natural.  All those hulu lessons had paid off because her stomach was as hard as an ironing board.  Not that you really noticed her stomach because of how big her breasts were.  She’d watched some of the other dancers before going on, and adapting her hulu moves to the stripper moves – she wowed the audience in her K-mart bikini.  Once she was on the stage, all of her nerves and fear seemed to disappear.  She was home.

Of course they tipped her well being this was her virgin dance.  Once she came off the stage and ran back to the dressing room, she had money literally dripping from every part of her body.  One of the other dancers showed her ways to collect the money better for the next set, and I could see that Donna had now found her place in life.  From her brief audition, she’d made about $60 in cash.  To her, that was the same as a million dollars.  I think it was the first cash she’d ever earned from a job in fact. 

The bartender/owner could tell I was acting as her manager as he pulls me over to work out her work schedule.  There was no question she was hired once he saw her dance.  For a place Donna and I had never been before, the place had felt natural.  Little did I know then, like any hunters’ trap, it was meant to feel comfortable to lure in first timers like us.  I got her hours set up and we went home to celebrate Donna’s first job as a dancer, and mine as her manager. 

CHAPTER TWO

The short time that Donna stayed with us seemed like one big pajama party.  I was still recovering mentally and emotionally from everything I’d gone through in Whittier, including the loss of the baby I had wanted to carry.

Having Donna there seemed to be a way to throw myself into a totally different life vicariously through her now.  This job at the Kit Kat club seemed to actually make our days predictable, even fun.  I mean how fun is it to get to dress up, go hang out at a club for a few hours, make some friends, have a great time and then get paid for that on top of everything else?

Which was what our days became for a time.  Donna and I were waking up in the late afternoons.  Then we’d play “dress up” trying on different costumes, make-up styles, hair pieces, and thinking up new routines.  The whole thing reminded me of that part in the Natalie Wood version of the film, “Gypsy” where the dancers are singing the song, “Got to Have a Gimmick”.

Linda Ronstadt had been doing concerts in a Boy Scout uniform, so we were making plays on Girl Scout costumes for Donna.  The more thought she put into her routines, the more money she’d make.  Donna became like a Barbie doll I could dress up in clothes I didn’t feel right wearing.  I was about a size 12 then.  We would go do some shopping to find just the right shoes to match her outfit, or to find just the right shade of eye shadow.  So our days became consumed with playing dress-up.  It was kind of an escape into fantasy and creativity which was healing for me at that time. 

I’m having to drive her everywhere, so I’m feeling like we’re best friends.  After I would take her to work her shift, there really wasn’t much point in going home for a few hours just to come back – so I’d find myself a booth in the back of the club to hang out with my Pepsi (I never drank or used anything at all back then) to wait for her.

I had just enrolled at the local community college, so waiting on her was a good excuse for me to do my homework.  I found I had to separate myself from the other girls, even the patrons of the club because everyone was trying to encourage me to become one of the dancers.  I didn’t feel comfortable carrying around the weight I was, but that didn’t stop the others in the club from insisting that I could join Donna if I would “embrace my own kind of Rubenesque beauty”.

I was coming out of a major depression honestly, so the last thing I felt like doing was playing dress up.  I would put on my blue jeans, some army boots, a massively oversized t-shirt of some kind which I’d then layer on another oversized plaid shirt – put my hair into pig tails, don my eye glasses that were like Coke bottles, and without a stitch of make-up I became Donna’s manager.  I not only felt all eyes were on Donna anyway, that was really how I wanted it to be.  By everyone staring at her, it gave me the sense of being invisible I really wanted then. 

Since Donna was now living with us, and working, my mom felt it was only fair that she foot some of her own bills.  That’s why she got her working in the first place.  So after letting her have a night or two to pocket her tips, my mom started charging her for rent, food, the phone, etc. 

Only that’s when Donna decided it wasn’t so much fun anymore I think.  The minute she started having to fork over half of her money to my mom for her bills at the house, was when it seemed like the party time was over. You could see on Donna’s face when she’d hand money over to my mom, she was feeling like she was “giving” the money to her, not that she was supporting her way.

My mom noticed that Donna was withdrawing from us emotionally once she started paying rent - and one night said she needed to talk to me alone.  Donna had gone on to bed. I stayed up to find out what mom wanted to talk to me about.  She rightfully so pointed out that Donna wasn’t going to stay young and cute forever.  Then what was she going to do to support herself was the question.  My mom started asking me what kind of work did I think we could get Donna prepared to do to support herself once she could no longer dance was the question.  So we had kind of an honest meeting of the minds about what we thought we could do to steer Donna into another career to support herself other than bikini dancing her whole life.   

 Little did I know until years later, but Donna was listening in on our conversation.  She took our concerns over her lack of any real education, or vocational training – as an indication she was stupid.  Taking real offense to what we were saying, and her feelings hurt - she decided to move out from our house as soon as she could pull her plan together. 

 So behind our backs, she started accepting offers from some of the guys at the club, as well as the owner, who graciously offered to help her find her own apartment away from our protection.  This was the difference of perception.  Because Donna would come back home to us at night, she wasn’t hanging out after hours partying with the patrons and getting high or into trouble.  Since she didn’t live alone, she couldn’t be pressured into taking anyone home, or turning tricks outside the club like many of the dancers did. 

 So the predators at the club were turning her head inside out by claiming WE were the ones “exploiting her” and “using her for money” when the few dollars she would give us didn’t even begin to cover the actual expenses we had to support her.  I remember the rent was about $1000 a month for the three bedroom house.  Split three ways, that would be about $325 in rent alone.  Not counting food, electric, beauty supplies, phone, clothing, etc.  Donna maybe was kicking in about $100 a week.  Meaning in reality she wasn’t even carrying her own weight, let alone contributing towards our care. 

But the sharks who wanted to get her off away from us, alone and vulnerable – were the ones convincing her we were just ‘using her” and “preying upon her”.  Of course not even recognizing we had been asked to save her from an abusive home situation, and despite the fact she wasn’t blood – we took her in.  I guess it was fine with Donna as long as she thought we were caring for her, but the minute we asked her to carry her weight – suddenly we changed from the saviors to the monsters and she started plotting her “escape”. 

 One night I came to the club to pick her up, and she was just gone.  I didn’t get a note, and she didn’t even bother to pack her things or say goodbye.  When I walked in, the owner took me over to my regular corner, brought me a Pepsi, and told me Donna had moved out into her own place and that I could go home.  She was over 18 years of age, so she had every right to move out into her own place.  No one was stopping her, but she seemed to have got herself into the head space we were somehow her jailers even.   

I was just stunned.  As I’m sitting in the booth speechless, trying to comprehend how someone I’ve spent years of my life living with, hanging out with, thinking was my best friend, going to school with, and even sharing our deepest, darkest secrets with could just up and leave like I was shit on her shoe – this guy comes over and sits next to me.  

He looked surprisingly like a twin of a young Eddie Murphy.  His “uniform” always seemed to be designer jeans that had a seam pressed into them.  A Members’ Only jacket, and an oversized Hawaiian shirt.  He was tall, and always wore Italian leather boots.  I’d seen him a few time coming over to the bar to get change.  He worked as a bouncer at the nightclub that was about two doors down from the Kit Kat.  So I’d kind of seen him around before, and therefore didn’t feel threatened when he sat down to talk to me that night. 

As he starts talking to me like we were old friends, he asked what we were going to do for money now that Donna wasn’t going to be paying rent anymore.  I told him how I was in school, and with my bad back, I didn’t really know what kind of job I could get. 

He tells me that the nightclub next door where he works, the Valley West, is always looking for cocktail waitresses.  You couldn’t miss the place because it always had two Rolls Royce vintage cars parked in front.  One was a black Rolls Corniche, while the partner was a white Rolls Royce Silver Shadow.  They really gave you a sense of not only people of class frequented the club, but also some pretty important people must own the place. 

Now, I’m not 21 years of age yet, but I know I can pass for older when I put on a lot of make-up.  I level with the guy and say I don’t have an ID to get such a job.  He tells me to just show up the next afternoon, and ask to speak to the bartender.  He didn’t seem to care that I was underage and hiring me to serve alcohol could get them shut down.  That disregard for the law should have been a red flag to me, but I didn’t look at it that way.  I had become quite used to breaking the law by then for years because even being a “fortune teller” was illegal back then.  Certainly the scams my parents had involved me in were illegal – so I wasn’t really thinking in terms of “legal” or “illegal” back then. 

The Valley West was the only nightclub in the San Fernando Valley then.  All the other clubs were either in Hollywood, maybe Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, etc.  I’d driven by the place every day for a while now, and the marquee always seemed to be some jazz or blues band playing like B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Motown acts like Sam & Dave, and that sort of vibe. 

I’d seen Rock come over a few times a week to get change for the club, so I knew Rock and the owner of the Kit Kat evidently knew each other.  I’m still not seeing myself as a cocktail waitress in a night club, but Rock assures me that it would be a perfect way to keep my hours with school, and to make enough money to not have to drop out.  I’m carrying a full load of credits, so I couldn’t swing a full-time job elsewhere too and keep up - so he is offering what appears to be a solution to Donna’s recent abandonment. 

I’d hadn’t got my settlement yet for the car accident, so I’m still trying an old beat up gold station wagon.  With Donna gone, and the bills still coming in – his offer seemed to be an act of God to the rescue.  I don’t think I would have walked into this club asking for a job otherwise.  Not like I saw any Help Wanted sign outside either.  I not only had never worked as a cocktail waitress before. but in my jeans and t-shirt I didn’t exactly look the part.  Rock made it very easy to go interview by telling me to meet him over at the club the next afternoon, and he would make sure I got a job. 

I didn’t even own a pair of high heels back then myself, so I had no idea how to even dress for a job interview at a nightclub myself.  I remember I showed up in a blue velvet jumpsuit my grandmother had sewed for me.  Finding clothes in my plus size wasn’t easy back in the late 1970’s, so she used to make me all kinds of clothes to fit.  The only place to find anything in a size bigger than a 9 back then was to go to a Lane Bryant at the mall. Even when I would find something that would fit me around the hips, it would be too tight in the bust.  My measurements were about 42D-38-40 about then, so it was just easier to have my grandmother make some any clothes I needed other than the mandatory blue jeans and t-shirts many girls wore back then along with the requisite Farrah Fawcett hairstyle.  

Only I didn’t feel like spending two hours to perfect my Farrah Fawcett hair-do, so I usually just wore a pony tail, or even pig tails.  I did have a pair of contact lens at least to put on, but no make-up.  I looked a lot like Valerie Bertinelli in fact on “One Day at a Time” when I walked into the Valley West the next day.  Valerie in army boots anyway. 

The club was an interesting and confusing contrast I thought.  The attractions were blues, jazz and Motown bands.  I learned the owners, and their relatives they employed at the club, were all African-American.  But when you walked into this club, it appeared you were walking into a country-western bar more like the Palamino.  There were these two big wooden doors in the front reminiscent of a saloon bar.

When you got to the inside of the club, the walls were covered with rustic wood shavings.  The tables were wood, as were the chairs.  There were booths in the back of the club, separated from the stage and bar.  The stage was huge at one end of the club running along the east wall, with the bar running across the north side of the club.  If you peeked behind the front entrance doors, you saw a video hook-up that was also connected up to a closed circuit TV.  The video was to record the bands to give them demo tapes as a means of payment for appearing, while at the same time the camera was taping – it also was projecting everything happening in the club into the back office onto a big screen TV.  It was the first time I’d seen this type of internal security surveillance actually. I later learned why the club had this kind of built-in security.  

Nick, the bartender, looked like a twin of Smokey Robinson.  He was an extraordinarily handsome, green-eyed biracial man with a very good build.  He was wearing the typical fashion for men back then which was Jordache jeans, a shirt open to show a bunch of gold chains, an expensive gold watch, and a lot of rings on his fingers.  His green eyes were like bright crystals and they shined practically across the very dark club.  

There was a band on stage doing a sound check.  Nick seemed to be setting up the bar for the opening in a few hours, and like he promised, Rock was there to introduce me to Nick as someone looking to work there as a cocktail waitress.  

Nick took one look at me and it was like a pit bull meeting a wet cat.  You could tell he hated me upon first sight.  Not that I blamed him because I looked more like an overweight bookworm than I did a cocktail waitress.  I truly expected him to throw me out on my ear after the way he looked at me. 

To my shock, he just motioned to Rock to take me out of there.  I thought at first he was throwing me out, but instead Rock took me back into the kitchen.  Now that I passed inspection, I had to be dressed and trained.   In the kitchen was a young girl named Sharon.  Sharon looked a lot like a very young Goldie Hawn.  She was also wearing Jordache jeans, some Candies heels, and a red tube top.  She had bird like features like Goldie, and a cute little blond shag hair-cut.  Now she looked like a cocktail waitress in a night club to me.  

She took one look at me and gave me a “tisk tisk” response.  The first thing she did was tell me that I needed to get a complete make-over before I reported to work that night.  Acting like she’d known me for 100 years, she just drug me into my car and told me to go back to my house where where she went through my closet to help me find something to wear that was more “appropriate” for the job.  Meaning something that showed off my breasts and looked more “kool”.    

She played with my hair and make-up and got me as decked out as she could working with my closet.  Then told me to come back to the club at 7:00 p.m. to start my first shift.  When I asked if I should drop her back at the club, she just giggled.  When I asked what was so funny, she took me outside and pointed up the street from my house.  Seems Sharon, and everyone else who worked at the club, lived literally right up the street.  She told me to drive her home so she could loan me some heels to work in.  

When we got to her driveway, you couldn’t even tell a house was there behind the long, tall hedges that went across the front of the property.  It shielded the inside of the house from the street so you couldn’t see what was going on inside.  To get in the property, we had to get past a gate that was also covered with hedges.  I pulled into a long circular driveway in front of a huge, two story house.  I saw another Mercedes in front of the house, along with a row of Harley’s off to the side of the driveway.  

Sharon took me inside, and the sunken living room had a wall of glass which gave you a view of LA at night that was breath taking.  The kitchen was bigger than most apartments, so I sat down there to wait for her to return with some heels for me to borrow.  The bedrooms all seemed to be upstairs.  I saw a few women walking around the house in PJ’s of various types, but none of them looked me in the eye, or spoke to me.  It appeared a lot of people lived in that house, and no one seemed interested in acknowledging I was there.  

When I got back to the club later that night, Sharon was waiting for me again.  She asked me if I knew how to identify drinks.  Since I didn’t drink, I had no clue how to tell one drink from another.  Sharon patiently showed me a system the bar had with the garnishes that identify what type of drink it was.   

Limes were one drink, while a cherry was another kind of system.  She showed me all kinds of cocktail waitress tricks like how to hold my money in one hand in between my fingers, while serving drinks with another.  How to give change back while holding a tray full of drinks.  Even how to do the “bunny dip” so the guest could get an eye of cleavage as I bent over them.  Sharon told me the more I flashed the tits, the more cash I’d get in tips.  

The one thing I envied in Sharon was how she could hold a tray full of drinks over her head while wading through a packed nightclub of people drinking and dancing without spilling a drop.  I of course was not so graceful.  I spilled more than one tray my first night.  Easy to do when people are also bumping into you while drunken dancing in a dark club.  

I just remember going home my first night with my wrists swollen from carrying the weight on those trays for hours, and my feet were bruised from the high heels I had to wear.  Not just to look sexy, but to also get myself a bit higher than the crowd so I could see where I was going.  I also found the heels allowed me to step on someone who was giving me a hard time.  

After my first shift, I didn’t stay long.  I couldn’t wait to get home and get off those heels.  The second they told me I could go home, I settled up with the bar for my money and I ran home to crash.  I fully expected them to call and tell me not to come back, but the next night they seemed glad to see me.  Whatever I didn’t know, which was a lot, Sharon would patiently step in to tutor me like a house mother.  

While mom was happy I had a job, and was giving her money at the end of the night – she wasn’t a bit happy with the idea of me leaving her alone now for so long.  Here I’d gone from being home most of the time to wait on her hand and foot – to now being gone all day with school, and now all night with work.  She was refusing to eat dinner until I would get home, so I stocked up on microwave meals for her to feed herself.  But it didn’t matter what time I’d get home, she would then demand I cooked her dinner. If I didn’t cook, she wouldn’t eat.  

But I had a regular job now and as I’m working my shifts, I couldn’t help but notice that every few hours a very strikingly beautiful woman would enter the club.  They’d go straight over to Nick, hand him what appeared to be a wad of money, and then they’d leave again.  They were in and out so quickly I never had a chance to offer them a drink is why I was noticing.  When Nick would catch my eyes noticing these money drop-offs, he would just kind of growl at me.  

It was clear it was none of my business, and he didn’t want to talk about it either.  In fact, Nick tried not to talk to me at all.  Sharon seemed to be my liaison.  Rock had kind of disappeared back into the front door as bouncer for the club.  This meant he would stand outside by the front doors at night which was his post.  Nick certainly hated me, so why I was being kept on there I didn’t know for some time.  

After a few nights working there, I felt comfortable enough to hang out a bit after the club had finally closed.  Once the doors were shut behind the patrons who had all left, and it was just the employees remaining inside the club = that’s when it seemed like everyone relaxed and breathed.  It was like an act where everyone held their breath in front of the public, and then would finally breathe once they were gone.  

These women who were coming and going during the night to drop off money, came into the club at closing time and that’s when I saw them pairing up with their man.  This was the first time I started hearing their street slang like introducing their boyfriend to me as their “man”.  When they’re introduce another woman, she was so and so’s “bitch”.  I learned Nick was living with Sharon, who he called his “bottom bitch”.  Larry was the guy handling the video cameras, and two women showed up to be with him for an after hours drink. 

Bebe and Charles seemed to work there, but at what I didn’t know.  Rock kept to himself, but the night that I stayed he came over asking me if he could get me a nightcap.  I told him I only drank Pepsi, and without arguing with me, he brought me a Pepsi. When he sat down with me, he could tell I was bristling at how the women were being called “bitches”, along with other slang terms I was hearing.  He explained to me that as members of an African American community, I needed to understand that this was “their language”.  

At closing time, the routine seemed to be to get a nightcap in the booths in the back of the club, and then everyone would go up to the house by me for breakfast.  I would just go home at first – refusing the offers to go have breakfast at the house.  It seemed clear to me there was an “after party” at the house every night, and since I didn’t drink, use or screw around then – I just wasn’t interested.  Besides, I had to cook mom’s dinner, do homework and hit the sack for school in the morning.   

After I’ve been there a few weeks, we were doing our after hours decompressing when a man I’d hadn’t seen before comes out of the office that always had a locked door before.  His name was Weldon, and he was introduced to me as the owner of the club.  Weldon looked like he was a twin of Richard Pryor I felt, even down to his hair and clothing being the same style as Richard’s back then.  I don’t know who copied who, but he still was very much a carbon copy of Pryor.  In the dark club, you couldn’t really tell them apart.  I later learned that this family, and Weldon, were related to Pryor.  

A man of few words, Weldon got a drink that night, and then went back into the office rather than mingle with us peons.  But as he made his entrance, he also made a point of introducing himself to me.  The way he did this gave me the impression there was a caste system involved in the family with him as the head honcho.  I didn’t know then that Weldon wasn’t saying much to me then because he had been watching me every night through the closed circuit cameras in the club.  Between Rock getting a drink for me, and Weldon actually coming out of the office to meet me finally – I felt somehow I’d been welcomed into some kind of “family” that night.  

I later learned the only reason Nick tolerated me was because Weldon had seen me that first day and decided he had a purpose for me.  In fact, years later I learned that Rock had seen me at the Kit Kat and talked about me to Weldon.  It was Weldon who told him to offer me the job, and that he’d been watching me the whole time on the closed circuit TV while locked up in the office.  Once he decided I was worth a closer look, and evidently, “cool”, that’s when he had come out that night to get a closer look at me.  Weldon had big plans for me in fact I was soon to learn about.   

This night, when I got ready to go home, I asked Rock if he wanted me to give him a ride back to the house.  I learned that everyone, even Weldon, all lived that big house at the end of my street.  So to get to their house, we had to pass by my house.  That’s when Rock told me that he didn’t live at the house.  

When I asked where he did live, he pointed to the stage.  I asked what that meant, and he told me he lived his bedroom behind the stage and he lived in the club itself.  When I looked confused, he told me that someone had to watch over the club at night to deter thieve sand vandals.  He took me back to the dressing room to show me an air mattress and a blanket.  That was his bedroom.  I couldn’t help but notice how cold it was back there, and couldn’t imagine how anyone could live that way. 

I didn’t really understand that this was an African American owned club in the San Fernando Valley, and some racists weren’t too happy about that idea.  Nor about the idea of what the club represented was now based in their neighborhood either.  So Rock was staying in the club 24/7 to also make sure it didn’t get burned down by people who weren’t too happy about their presence at all in the valley.  Of course Rock just played it off as a purely racial basis for the dancer that night.  

I had no idea what pot of boiling water this frog had fallen into yet that night even as more and more was being revealed to me about what was going on with this club.  I was just grateful to have a job that meant I didn’t have to drop out of college.  

That was the plan anyway. 

CHAPTER THREE

I never have been able to stay in much of a routine long.  That’s just what happens when you’re born with Uranus conjunct your midheaven in your natal chart!   Just as I started developing a real rhythm for my week of going to school, hitting work, back home to care for mom and then rinse, repeat – the car breaks down.  Not a minor repair either, but it was basically totaled.  We needed a new car, or money for repairs, and fast.  

I called Rock at the club to say I couldn’t make it into work that night because of the wagon breaking down.  He gives me an address to have AAA tow the car to.  I didn’t know then this was a chop shop used by the family.  I was just told he knew a guy who owned the gas station/garage right across the street from the club.  

I also later learned he sold him drugs and prostitutes in return for these shady dealings with cars, (I later learned both of the Rolls Royce’s in the owners of the club drove had come from cars that had been salvaged, and then rebuilt so they were basically counterfeits), so he was more than willing to help out with a favor.  Rock told me that he’d get the car repaired “on the house” since I was an employee of the club.  It was a $1000 repair job, so I felt grateful, but beholding. 

I took a cab for a few days back and forth until the wagon was repaired, but it was clear I’d need a new car soon  The attorney was telling me the lawsuit over my last car accident was getting ready to settle up.  The money I’d get would buy me a new car, but I couldn’t count on that until I had the check in hand.  I needed more money, and faster, than I could get at the club serving drinks.  

I knew how to make a lot of money fast as a psychic reader, but I hadn’t worked in the field for a few months by then.  I had no idea where any UFO conventions, psychic fairs, or other events were going on that I could set up a booth and do readings at for cash.  I was kind of out of the loop by then.  Robert Lysen, the owner of the Psychic Eye Bookstore chain, had made it clear no one worked at bookstores without him getting a piece of the action.   

So I called up Matthew at the House of Hermetic.  That was a shop in Hollywood where you could buy ritual candles, incense, oils, herbs, crystals, and other supplies for ritual magic.  Matthew himself was a warlock who owned the shop.  He would even cast spells for you using the supplies you bought, as well as instruct you how to use the items he sold.  It was like a “one stop shop” for wiccans, pagans, even a few Satanists.  Matthew was always in touch with what was going on in the field, so I thought maybe he might have an idea where I could get a gig to make some fast cash.  

He asked me if I had heard of Kenny Kingston.  I had in fact seen him on TV a few times.  He used to hold a yearly séance on Halloween to summon Marilyn Monroe, and had a book out called “Sweet Spirit” about his life as a medium.  He was a Liberace kind of character who had appeared on TV shows like Merv Griffin. His trademark was going out into the audience to tell people what their dead relatives were trying to say to them.  He was actually quite good at it.  At least he was back then anyway.  

Matthew told me that Kenny would hold a big meeting at the Veterans Hall once a month in Studio City.  He would book other psychics to help him read the audience while he served as kind of the ring master.  I liked watching how he could walk into an audience of strangers – and do the most amazing “cold readings”.  It sounded interesting, so I got Kenny’s number.  

When I called Kenny, he told me I had to come audition for him at the house if I wanted to help him at this event.  He had a small apartment in North Hollywood where he lived alone.  The apartment looked kind of like a pimp lived there because he had these gold framed velvet thrones in his house, along with very decorative furnishings that were really over the top.  Kenny met me wearing in fact a gold lame’ robe with all kinds of crystals hanging off his neck. He was definitely a showman.

After I knocked his socks off giving him a reading, he invited me to join his event.  In fact, he said he wanted to mentor me because of how young I was.  I felt honored and accepted his offer.  I’d take mentoring anywhere I could get it with respect to being a professional psychic. 

At this VA hall event, he would do his stage show where he would read people from the stage, and then he would have the audience break into smaller groups.  Then we’d read the people in the smaller groups for free while Kenny pounded the flesh, signed autographs, and sold his books and tapes.    

I wasn’t sure about the for free part, but he assured me that once I’d read for these people – they would be booking a private session where I’d more than make my money then.  Plus I’d be learning from him while doing this type of gig – so it was valuable training too. Not like they had really “medium schools” back then.  So this was an opportunity to be mentored by a very famous medium and psychic.  

This monthly event was how he brought in new clients, but also managed to see to it the 100’s of people who showed up all got a reading.  In fact, it made them pay more for his readings.  By pushing new people off onto us for readings, it made his value as a reader higher. Quite a clever system actually so I was learning from him already.  It also was teaching me how to do readings in a crowded, noisy, room which was another valuable skill to learn.  

When I arrived at the Veterans Hall that next Friday night to perform, there wasn’t any parking in the front of the hall on Ventura Boulevard.  So I went to the alley behind the hall to look for parking, and to see if I could find a book door into the place.  I didn’t see anyone anywhere except for a tiny camper that was parked in the back.  

It appeared that maybe this was a caretaker or handyman who was living at the hall in this tiny camper.  So I went to the door of the camper to ask whoever was inside if they knew where I was supposed to park, and what door was I supposed to try to get in.  The camper couldn’t have been more than maybe 18’ long.  

A tall, stocky, man with jet black hair answered the door.  I was dressed up in some gypsy garb to appear kind of like people expected psychics to look like.  He had on jeans and a t-shirt.  When I asked if he knew where I was supposed to go, he invited me to have a seat while he looked for the keys to the place.  

He seemed harmless so I sat down while he started to look for something.  Turns out this man was one of the readers working with Kenny also.  In exchange for opening and closing the hall for Kenny, Peter was allowed to keep his camper in the back.  So he was kind of a caretaker after all.  

Then he asks me what my birthdate was.  This was the late 1970’s, and computers were not household appliances yet.  He had a huge computer in this camper, and when I told him my birthdate, he starts typing in my answers.  I didn’t know he was casting my chart because I had only cast charts by hand before then.  I’d never even seen a computer cast a chart before in fact.  In those days you had to have about five different books with things like longitude and latitude, along with ephemeris books telling you where the planets were – and then you had to calculate them by hand.  

Next thing I know, this man is reading my life out to me from the computer screen like someone had given him my diary.  He tells me how my father left us when I was 13 years old, and about the sexual abuse.  Next he starts telling me about my crazy, drug addicted mother with anger issues, and he knows about my car accidents. He even knew the year things happened to me! Talking to me like he was reading it out of a book, he starts talking about how I was raped at 15 by a neighbor boy with blond hair.  What?

I’m literally struck dumb as this man was reciting my life out to me like he was reading it off a script.  I’d never seen anything like this out of some of the most famous psychics I’d seen on TV, or even read about.  This was just blowing my mind.  I kept wondering if I was on Candid Camera in fact.  

When I was able to speak again, all I could do was stutter and ask him, “How do you know all of this about me?”  I mean it was so specific, all I could think of was my mother was pulling a practical joke on me.  I wanted to know how this man could know these things about me, and whatever and however he was doing to be able to know this specific of events about my life without having ever met me before - not even knowing my name before I walked into that camper.  One thing was sure though, I wanted to be able to do what he’d just done.  I was sold – hook, line and sinker.  

He shows me how this computer was casting the astrological chart.  I was amazed because up until then, I had to use my books and a calculator to cast astrological charts by hand.  To cast one chart that way usually took me about two hours.  But here he was just typing in my birthday and voila! I was blown away even by the computer, as well as his readings.  

Turned out he had been an IBM programmer for five years when he started getting interested in astrology.  He’d programmed the computer himself to be able to cast charts.  There were no astrology programs on the market, so he would have had to program it himself.  Then he proceeds to tell me how he was able to tell me everything he’d just told me from looking at my astrological natal chart.  

Before that, I’d only really read books like Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, or maybe some Sydney Omarr books.  I hadn’t taken much stock really in astrology because I didn’t believe that 1/12th of a population could be identical.  Horoscopes certainly never impressed me as they were so vague.  In fact, I’d never seen ANYTHING like what this man did tonight – astrology or otherwise.  He explained to me that the system he was using was the same one that Wise Men used to know when and where Jesus was born.  Now I’m really intrigued.  

But my butt was glued to that chair.  I wasn’t going to leave his camper until he revealed to me how he could tell these events, even to the date they happened, as well as how he could even describe people that specifically.  Like two wine buffs discovering a new wine they both like – we had clicked.  

He starts showing me how he was able to tell these things.  How my Saturn being retrograde revealed my father left my life just as I entered high school, with the opposition to mercury in my 9th house revealing he’d gone far away when he left.  

Peter even knew he’d become a lawyer because this opposition, along with my sun, were in my 9th house.  My chart had revealed I considered my father an “enemy” because of the sun, representing the father, squaring Neptune, sorrow, in the 12th house of enemies.  So Peter wasn’t just telling me these things, but he was also showing me where in my chart he was seeing the things that were able to tell him that much about my life.  

I felt like I had discovered the goose that laid the golden egg, and I wasn’t going to let go of this man until I found out how I could learn to do what he’d just done to me.  I asked him for his phone number.  He told me he was living in the camper so he didn’t have a phone.  He didn’t even have a mailing address because he was literally camped out in an alley.  I later learned he was a veteran also, and this was why they had allowed him to park behind the VA hall.  

When I asked why he was in the camper, he explained that to have the time and money to program his computer with this new astrology program, it was just what he had to do.  I couldn’t believe a genius like this was living in a camper.  I told him I had to work this gig tonight, and invited him to come join me.  I also asked if he would let me buy him dinner after the Kingston show, and he agreed.  

I promptly found a pay phone and confronted my mom.  I asked her point blank if this was some prank she’d pulled on me.  Having no idea what I was talking about, but curious, she said she wanted to come down to see my show, but also meet this new wonder.  His name was Peter Stapleton, and he looked a lot like the actor Stuart Whitman.  

I read about 100 people that night at Kenny’s gig, and then we all went out to dinner at Dupar’s.  Dupar’s was a coffee shop that was not only next to the Veteran’s Hall, but also next to CBS studios in N. Hollywood.  We liked eating there because you could usually celebrity watch while you ate. 

But my eyes and ears were all on Peter that night fascinated with how he could see such specific things about a person with that computer.  My mom was just as smitten as I was with Peter, but for different reasons.  You could see she was looking at him like a pit bull looks at a pork chop.  Peter seemed as equally intrigued by my mom, so we all really clicked over dinner in our own ways.  

Peter offered to teach me this form of astrology, but he warned me that to really learn it I would need to come see him daily for at least an hour a day for months to really get the work down.  With me having to put the money I’d just earned into buying a car, and also with my schedule the way it was with school and work – I didn’t know how I could get from Tarzana to North Hollywood daily for at least an hour to take advantage of his offer to tutor me.  

Next thing I know my mom is telling Peter that we have a recently vacated third bedroom now Donna’s gone.  She’s asking him if he would want to rent the bedroom from us, and pay for his supper by giving me daily astrology lessons.  I mean we’d literally just met this man who was living in a camper just hours before, and now mom’s inviting him to move in.  The guy could have been a serial killer for all we knew.  

But mom liked him, and she hadn’t had a boyfriend in years since the divorce – so maybe this was fate.  Besides, I really wanted to learn this kind of astrology he offered, and since I’d never even seen or heard of anything like this anywhere else before – I wasn’t ready to let him out of my sight either until I could do what he’d just done to me.  That became my new goal in life that night in fact – I wanted to be able to do what Peter was doing.  

So we went and packed up all of Peter’s stuff, and moved him into the house that night.  The deal was it was his room to come and go as he pleased with us providing room and board.  He would then pay for the room and board by giving me astrology lessons five days a week for about an hour right before I’d go to school. 

Since Peter ate, breathed and slept astrology – teaching me seemed to be a normal part of his routine.  It was just strange the way it all clicked because it seemed that Peter had been living with us our whole lives from the first day he moved in.  

Of course, mom you could tell had her sights set on Peter.  I just wanted to get inside Peter’s head, and he needed a stable safe place to work on his programming – so this seemed like a “win win” for everyone.  I kind of figured that while I was out of the house, maybe mom had found a new love in her life.  I also had some high hopes that maybe Peter would even become my step dad.  He seemed to be quite brilliant, if obsessional, but aren’t most talented people really?  

I call the time Peter lived with us, and tutored me in astrology my “astrology boot camp” period of time.  Every day Peter would have new lessons for me that were just mind blowing.  I’m working on a whole other book about what I learned during my boot camp because it really was an intensive experience.  

Like the day he took me to the horse track along with a bunch of his chart read-outs for the day telling us where all of the planets were for every minute of that day.  Peter said that we should be able to predict the winner of the race by looking to see what planets were on the horizon when the gates were opened to start the race.  

That the planet on the horizon would tell us the colors of the winning horse.  Back then, horses had pretty much solid colors so if the winning color was blue, then it was easy to identify what horse had blue for their colors. 

He also taught me it was important to bet along with my predictions – that just being right isn’t the same as “winning”.  You see it’s one thing to “predict” who will win a race.  It becomes a whole other thing astrologically to see if you’re going to win any money betting on that race at that exact moment in time.  

So to predict who was going to win at the track – we had to not only predict the horse that would come in first, but we also had to calculate whether we’d win or not if we bet.  How could these two things be different?  Imagine if you bet on the winning horse, but then lost your ticket.  That or maybe the cashier printed out the wrong numbers.  So yes, just knowing who the winner will be doesn’t tell you if you can win off betting.  They are two separate events.  

So we got there for the first race of the day.  Then we’d calculate not only who we predicted would win, but also if we bet on that winner, would we win any money.  What blew my mind even more than learning astrology this way, was how we walked out of the track that day with our pockets just packed with our winnings.  

This was amazing to me.  I wanted to become a professional gambler that day, but sadly Peter warned me about how Neptune could prevent us from making money no matter how good of a prediction we could make.  Sure enough, I bet on a Neptune cycle, and my tickets fell into a puddle and were ruined.  Even though I won, I didn’t make any money so the system seemed to be highly accurate.  

After mastering the track, we tackled some gambling.  We arranged to make a field trip to Vegas where we could go try our hand at actual gambling using the astrological system Peter was perfecting with his computer.  So while he was teaching me astrology, he was also perfecting an astrological computer program that was the first one of it’s kind.  Mom and Peter had started sleeping together by then, as expected, so we had kind of a family vacation slash working trip slash study weekend by going up to Vegas that weekend.  

We found a penny slot machine so Peter and I could test the system literally minute by minute to perfect our timing.  It was a great way to “rectify” our natal charts also (identify what our exact rising sign is).   We found the winning cycles would last only about two to four minutes tops.  Then if we didn’t walk away with our winnings, once the planets shifted we’d lose everything we’d just won.  

The key to winning also seemed to be that we had to also stop when the planets shifted again.  When Neptune hit the angles, we’d lose everything if we weren’t careful.  Peter used to joke that this was why the casino’s always sent the waitresses around with free alcoholic drinks.  

It was uncanny, because the second Neptune would hit the angles was when the waitress would come by pushing the booze, and the winning cycle ceased.  In fact, on these research outings it became pretty clear to me that the owners of these places could see how we were using astrology against them, and the measures we’d see them take to thwart our systems.  Now that casino’s have cocktail waitresses pushing drinks at every turn, it’s just not as easy to win using astrology as it was back in the late 70’s.  

After a few really profitable days at the track, and word started spreading to other astrologers who were also making killings at the track using the colors of the horse to predict who was going to win – this is when we started seeing the  colors being all mixed up with four and five colors.  We could see that way the horse owners, and the track – were aware we were using astrology to win and now using it against us! 

So there really wasn’t a way to tell by colors any longer.  We switched up to checking on the horses’ birthdates to see who would win, but we also learned that birthdate of the jockey had a bearing.  If the jockey was having bad planets, while put on a horse with good planets – that’s when they might come in second or third.  Finally I started noticing the stables were refusing to give us any information on the horses, the jockeys, or the trainers – so we hung that hat up.  

So yes you can tell who is going to win, and still not make millions.  Unless your personal chart reflected huge winnings, something would always get in the way even though you had the right predictions.  Which again meant we also had to check our personal planets to see if we would make money at that time or not.  This allowed us to see if our predictions were correct or not.  If we were right, we’d make money.  So when our charts showed the money coming in, then we knew we’d pick the right horse, or even the right cards at the table.  

I didn’t know how long Peter was going to stay with us, but I knew this arrangement wasn’t going to last forever.  Wanting to soak up every minute with Peter that I could as his student, I decided to take a semester off of school.  I was spending all day with him at the track, or on these various experiments – so there really wasn’t time for school right now anyway.  

The experiments were really exciting.  One day Peter said he was going to go out somewhere, and not tell me where he’d gone.  Then he would call me on the phone, and that using the methods he’d taught me – he wanted me to tell him where he was when he called.  

For example, one time he called me I said he was at a hospital – which he was.  The next time he called, I said he was at a cemetery.  When he called me that time, Saturn was on the ascendant which indicated he was on land where the dead were buried, thus a cemetery.  Then he called me from a school, and a bar.  Each time I was able to tell him where he was from the chart of the call.  The fact I could do this kind of prediction was just beyond mind blowing to me, and I couldn’t get enough of this kind of training.

Another day he told me to place an ad in the paper.  The ad said that I would tell the caller their question, and if I was wrong, I would give them a free reading.  Then what he did was show me that when someone calls on the phone, the position of the moon tells you what’s on their mind.  

So if someone called me with the transiting moon in the 5th house – then they wanted to know about their love life.  If they called with the moon in the 8th house, they wanted to know about sex, death or taxes.  This is kind of a generalization – but to write out everything he was teaching me is why I’m putting that in another book.  

When Peter wasn’t teaching me, he was programming into his computer the position of all of the planets dating back 100 years forward and backward.  On top of that, he was then programming in information from the stock market for all kinds of things from commodities, to specific corporations so that he could start making stock market predictions.  If you knew what computers were like in the late 70’s, you’d know this a very time consuming task he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish unless he was living with us.  I kind of enjoyed having a father figure around too while Peter stayed with us.  

To test out what he was teaching me, I started taking jobs at some of the local psychic fairs.  I went ahead and booked myself at the Renaissance Fair so I could test out my new astrological skills on people. Using what Peter was teaching me was getting me quite a word of mouth reputation as I’d expected.  People were now booking private appointments with me at $100 a shot for weeks in advance.  

Because of booking so many readings and events, I soon found I was only working at the club on the weekends, or maybe going in if someone called in sick.  So I was spending less and less time at the club, and with Rock. 

This was when I started feeling very conflicted about what I was going to do “when I grew up”.  I had started going to school, and working as a waitress so I could have a “normal” life.  One where I could reasonably expect to marry, have some kids, and fit into normal society.  

On the other hand, Peter was bringing me back into the whole psychic world.  While fascinating, it didn’t exactly fill up my dance card with dates.  In fact, there weren’t even any cute guys usually anywhere near these places.  Kenny Kingston’s VA Hall event was filled with older men and mostly women.  Not one young, cute guy in the bunch – who was heterosexual anyway. 

Peter could see I was having a lot on my mind as I started booking more and more readings, and finding myself being more involved in this whole new age, metaphysical kind of field.  

One day I leveled with him and said while all of this astrology and psychic stuff was fascinating to me, I didn’t know if it was really a way of life I wanted to lead.  I was getting at an age where I had to start deciding what I was going to do with my life – so these two paths were weighing on my mind heavily.  

Peter hadn’t really given me a personal reading since that first night, but seeing I’m confused he pulls out my personal chart.  He starts pointing out that my chart is showing that this year in fact, I’m going to be completely breaking away from this whole new age field.  

He frankly kind of blew me away as he starts predicting that I’m going to start finding myself in a very “underground criminal world”.  One that’s very dominated with sex in fact he told me.  He asked me about the African Americans around me, and I told him that was the owners of the club.  

To my complete shock he starts talking about how I’m going to become very “sexually adventurous” and “sexually experimental” and that I’m actually going to become “quite famous for sex”.  Then he starts talking about how I’m going to “enter a criminal world” and all kinds of stuff that at the time, was making me think he must be drunk or losing his mind.  I don’t even drink or smoke, and I sit around learning astrology from me in my mother’s house and he’s seeing me become some kind of famous criminal?  What?

I had no idea what he was talking about as he’s going over my chart and showing me what he sees in my planets as to my soon to be destiny.  I remembered his words kind of turned into that Charlie Brown cartoon where adults sound like “blah blah blah” because it was just too shocking for me to even grasp what he was saying. He then told me a lot of other things I won’t go into now.

But looking at all of this sex in my chart must have got him aroused because out of a clear left field – he made a pass at me. It was like he got a look at something he wanted to get a taste of.  That just was not only crossing boundaries for me,  but it frankly felt like incest because he really had become a father figure for me.  That and he had been sleeping with my mom for a few months by this time.  Eww.

All I could do was say I needed to excuse myself and leave his bedroom.  Up to then, we spent hours a day in his bedroom working on astrology studies and experiments.  Not once did I feel there was any sexual tension between us, or that he was any different than a father or uncle for me. 

He’d never acted sexually towards me either.  Especially not when I was about 19 years old by then, and he was well over 50 years old.  That and my mom in the next room he was having an affair with.  This pass just changed our whole relationship.  

I now couldn’t risk being alone with him again.  Not only because I didn’t want to risk another pass being made, but also because I wanted to make clear to him that I wasn’t interested in him that way.  

If anything, Rock had been flirting with me more and more at the club when I’d come to work.  Since Rock was my age, I was seeing this as more appropriate for me.  But if Peter was going to look at me like a sexual being, then I needed to stop sitting up on his bed all night while we talked astrology.  

Peter on the other hand started trying to get closer to me because of this new sexual interest that had been sparked in him.  So a tension started developing between us that my mom could feel.   

I started making excuses to go work at the club more so I was home less so I could stay clear of Peter.  I started booking more private readings so I had less time to study with Peter like I’d been doing.  By trying to create boundaries between Peter and I, my mother felt I was now pushing Peter away.  My trying to set a plutonic boundary with Peter, had my mom feeling I was now being cold to him.  

So my mom starts harping on me to stop being so “cold” to Peter.  She starts telling me that I’m “making him feel uncomfortable” and if I keep making him feel that way, he’ll leave.  To add insult to injury, she starts even accusing me of being a “bitch” to him and that I’m “driving him away”.  She wants me to be “nicer” to him she says, while I’m thinking that’s the last thing I should be doing.  

I didn’t know how to tell mom that he was sleeping with her less, and trying to spend more time with me, because he was now wanting to get into my pants.  I couldn’t tell her this without hurting her feelings, and straining her relationship with Peter – so I just started trying to spend more and more time at the club instead to keep away from both of them. 

The whole thing just started pushing me to spend more time back down at the club.  When the club would close, and everyone was going up to the house for breakfast, Rock and I started hanging out at the club until sunrise.  By sunrise I figured mom and Peter were asleep, and then I’d go home and sneak into bed.  

One day I come home to find my mom waiting up for me on the couch.  She was clearly so angry at me that smoke was coming out of her ears.  I see that Peter’s camper had been moved out of our driveway, and that his bedroom is empty.  

Peter had left, and my mom was blaming me for “chasing him away”.  I swear it felt like she would have rather I’d slept with him to keep him from leaving.  Peter’s leaving had devastated my mom, and she blamed me for crushing her chance at happiness.  I had no idea how to tell her that there was no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.  Not when the guy is trying to sleep with the daughter of the women whose house he’s living in.  I felt if Peter had really been interested in my mom, he would have moved into her bedroom once they started sleeping together.  Instead, I always felt him sleeping in his room had been his way of telling mom he was only a rolling stone.  

When I walked into the house that night, I could feel that my mom blamed me for my dad leaving her and now she was blaming me for Peter leaving her.  These were both men that she was accusing me of pushing them away because I didn’t want to have sex with them.  The whole thing was so twisted and sick that I knew the day had come for me to move out into my own apartment. I could not go on taking care of my mother, and being to blame for all of her problems any longer.  

I was so hurt by the things my mother was accusing me of that I turned around and went back to the club.  I knocked on the doors of the Valley West club at 6:00 a.m.  I needed to be held by someone right now, and Rock was the first person who came to mind to run to.  The pain I was in must have been all over my face.  Rock didn’t say a word when he let me into the club, and led me back to his bedroom behind the stage.  I slept with him, and at the club that day.  It was not only the first time I’d slept with Rock, but it was the first time I’d spent the night with a man and didn’t come back home.  

The Tarzana house didn’t feel like home to me any longer.  I don’t know if it ever did.  That night I realized I hadn’t felt like I had a home in many years now.  Home is supposed to be where you run to for safety – and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt truly safe anywhere.

That’s why I went to Rock that night, and things changed forever.  

CHAPTER FOUR

Up to now, Rock had acted more like my big brother than a love interest.  Which is why went I went to see him that day after closing, I wasn’t really looking for sex as much as I just felt like I needed to escape.  I needed to get out of that house, and I needed someone to show me some love.  That much I knew.  

By then, the insurance company had paid me for the injuries I’d sustained in the last car accident.  The first thing I’d done with the money was to buy myself a 1979 Burgundy MGB convertible.  Driving that car with the top down truly made me feel I could conquer the world.  I jumped in that car and drove down to Valley West knowing Rock never left the property.  

When I knocked on the door of the club, I didn’t know if he could even hear me because it was a big place.  I didn’t know if he was asleep or not even.  Luckily he heard me and opened the doors.  

When he looked in my eyes, I swear it was like he’d been expecting me.  He asked me if I wanted a drink.  Whenever he did that for me before, I’d always ask him for a Pepsi.  Tonight I asked him to make me a drink.  I don’t know one drink from the other, so he made me a Pina Colada.  He said it should be sweet enough for me to get it down.  

We sat in the back booths and didn’t really say a word to each other.  Didn’t have to.  Once I had the drink in me, he just took off my shoes and started massaging my feet.  It felt incredible to have someone trying to make me feel good.  It wasn’t long before he just took my hand and led me to where he slept behind the stage.  We made love a couple of times before falling sleep on his make-shift bed made out of sleeping bags.  

In a dark club like that, you lose all sense of time.  There’s no windows anywhere, so I had no idea if it was even daylight when I heard Nick coming in to get the bar ready for service.  Nick was Rock’s uncle, as was Larry, BeBe, Charles and Weldon supposedly.  

When Nick saw I’d spent the night with Rock, he just shook his head like he really didn’t approve.  As the rest of his uncles marched into the club, then saw me there getting dressed, Rock started getting congratulated like we’d just had a baby or something.  Seems they approved.  

When Weldon arrived and went into the office like he always did, he calls me to join him.  It was the first time I’d been invited into the inner sanctum of the club.  That’s when I could see that the video cameras were also hooked up so you could see every corner of the club from the office on the big screen TV.  This was security central.  

Weldon just shook my hand and said, “Welcome to the family.”  No questions about whether or not we were in a relationship, did we mean anything to each other – it was just acknowledged I was in the inner circle now of this family.  

This was when he told me that it was time for me to get promoted also.  He said that I’d been a waitress long enough to have an idea how the club ran, and asked me if I’d like to start helping him manage the club.  

When I asked what that meant, he said that they needed “someone like me” to help with the business end of the club.  Things like booking the acts, promoting the club to bring in customers, designing advertising campaigns, and also help elevate the club.  Many important people in the music industry lived in the valley.  They might work down in LA, but they lived right down the street.  In fact, the Jackson family house was right up the street from their house.  The church Michael attended was just down Ventura Boulevard – a rock’s throw really from the club.  

Weldon told me he wanted to start getting a higher class of clientele in the club for one thing.  This meant not only did they want to start booking better acts, but they also wanted to start turning the club into a hangout for record company executives, radio station owners, producers, celebrities, even the many local actors who also lived in the valley.  

As the only nightclub in the valley, he felt it was a natural to turn the club into that kind of place.  The only thing he said holding him back before was the racism that existed in the valley.  

I asked what he meant by that, and he just point blank asked me if I knew of any other African American’s who lived, or worked, in the immediate area.  Frankly I didn’t, so he had a point.  This is when he told me that he’d had his eye on me since he’d seen me managing Donna at the Kit Kat.  He needed to find someone like me with a “head on her shoulders”, as well as an “innocent sweet looking white face”.  He had a point.  I’ve been told many times I have a very innocent looking face – one I’d used to my advantage many times.  Now that I was sleeping with Rock, he felt it was time to get me more involved in the business side of the club.  

He told me I’d get paid more of a base pay for each night I worked as a manager, and a percentage of the ticket sales if I took on the added responsibilities.  If I wanted to make some quick cash, or they were short handed one night, I could also keep on waitressing also, but he mostly wanted me to help him now as an assistant manager.  This is when he smiled at me and let me know he knew I wasn’t over 21 years old.  

“Besides, I can’t have you keep on selling liquor here or I’d going to get our club shut down” he joked with me.  

I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew I was lying about my age, why I was let to work serving alcohol to begin with.  Plus, if he didn’t mind breaking the law by hiring me, what other laws might he be breaking?  He didn’t seem to be concerned about it though.  

“Actually, it’s one of the reasons I did hire you.  You clearly got some game on you girl.  I just wanted to see how much,” he said to me with a big smile.  

It was clear to me that Weldon had been sizing me up for this for some time, but he had wanted to get to know me better first.  That or he was waiting to see if Rock and I would connect or not.  

When I came out of the office, Rock had been sitting by the door like a puppy waiting for his master.  Anxiety was all over his face.  “What did he say to you?” he demanded.  

He looked really scared of what I was going to say, but when I told him about the promotion, he seemed to get angry.  I couldn’t understand why my being promoted would anger him unless maybe he didn’t want me around the club more.  My self-esteem of course thinking that right off that now we’d slept together, now he just wanted an excuse to get rid of me.  

I told Rock I needed to go home, take a shower, and I’d be back to work in a few hours.  My mom was most likely besides herself wondering where I’d gone.  I hadn’t told her where I’d gone, and I hadn’t even called her to say I was okay.  I never stayed out like this, so I knew she’d be like a cat on a hot tin roof until I got home.  I also knew there’d be a scene, so I told him it might take me a while to get her off that ceiling.  

In a million years I hadn’t expected what I found when I opened the door to my house.  Newspapers had been crumpled up into balls and were strewn all through the house.  Mom was in the kitchen with a can of gasoline she’d taken out of the garage.  She was hunting for matches.  

“What in the hell are you doing?” I demanded.  

“Since you don’t give a damn about this house, I’m just going to burn it down,” she announced like a matter of fact.  

She found the matches, so I had to wrestle them away from her.  I didn’t know if she was bluffing me, staging this just for effect, or if she was deadly serious.  With mom, you just never knew what she was going to do, and anything was possible with her.  She jumped for the gas can, so I had to get it away from her.  I took the gasoline outside and dumped it in the yard.  The matches I threw over the fence so she couldn’t get at them.  She was so angry, she kicked me in the kidneys – knocking the wind entirely out of me. 

This was what coming home to her had been like for some time – I never knew what I’d find on the other side of that front door.  Her violence was also escalating – against me and the house.  With mom, she could be in a coma, or talking on the phone for hours in a manic cycle.  She could be as sweet as pie, or come at you with knives threatening to slice you open.  

Years later I learned that the doctors had given her diet pills (speed) to keep her weight down, so she’d been mixing them with her pain killers and tranquilizers – so no wonder she was so erratic.  Seems mom felt if I wasn’t going to be home much, she didn’t see the point in all the money she was putting into the house so she might as well burn it down seemed to be her solution.

I talked to her until she seemed calm.  Made sure she had taken some of her trusty valium (tranquilizers).  I even made her a Bailey’s & Cream, her favorite alcoholic beverage.  

That combination seemed to zonk her out.  Once she was calm, I started getting ready to go back to work.  As I was getting ready, I noticed the portable heater we had in the third bedroom.  The club was freezing at night. After spending the night with him on that cold floor, I didn’t know why he hadn’t got pneumonia.  So I packed up the heater to take with me as a gift.  

I threw the heater in the convertible and headed back to work.  Mom seemed like she was at least calm for the next 24 hours.  I couldn’t just move out without apartment hunting, and I wasn’t going to move in with Rock at the club.  But I had decided it was time for me to move out after finding her trying to burn down the house.  

Even if she wasn’t serious, the fact she’d even threaten it just made up my mind I couldn’t live in the snake pit with her any longer.  I had wanted to live with her until I finished college, but I could see now I might not make it alive that long if I stayed.  I had turned 18 years old now, and it was time for me to get my own place.  I just couldn’t take the fear of wondering if she was going to burn the house down, or even stab me in my sleep any longer.  I needed to find some corner of sanctuary.  I was tired of putting bells on my bedroom door to alert me if she tried to come at me while I was asleep as I’ve done for years now.  

I threw the heater in the car, and went to work.  I had to get out of the house.  When I pulled up to the club, the top was down so Rock could see I had the portable heater in the car.  He asked me what that was about, and I presented him with it.  I joked that it was too cold backstage, and I didn’t want to see him freeze as I gave it to him.  Instead of saying thank you, or even smiling – he just kind of snapped.  

“I’m a grown man and if I wanted a heater, I’d get my own damn heater.” He snarled at me.  He slapped the heater out of my hands, and stormed off.  I had gone from one loony tune to another it seemed.  What on earth had I done wrong?  I put the heater back in the kitchen, and we spent the night not speaking to each other.  He went up to work the front door and I just focused on waiting tables on the inside of the club.  

When the club shut down, I went to sit at the bar and had a Pepsi.  Rock came over and sat next to me.  He apologized for snapping and started to explain his behavior.  

“Jody, there’s something you don’t know about my family.  Every one of my uncles are pimps.  It’s kind of a ‘family business’ in fact.  In our family, the men either grow up to be a pimp or a drug dealer or both.  The women are prostitutes, until they get older and then they madam.  I don’t want to be a pimp.  Never wanted to be a pimp.  So I started dealing when I was 13 years old.  That’s why I work the front door – I’m selling drugs out in that parking lot every night.  That’s why all those cars just drive up, talk to me and then leave – they’re just scoring.  Prostitution is a culture for us  not a job, but our way of life.  We’ve been doing it for generations in fact.”

“Okay, but what has that got to do with why me bringing you a heater upset you so much?” I asked. 

“This club isn’t just a club Jody.  It’s a front.  This is where we look for women to turn out to join the family business. Why do you think those women come in the club every night and hand Nick money?  He’s their pimp Jody.  Larry’s a pimp.  Bebe is a pimp.  Charles is a pimp and so is Weldom.  This whole club is nothing more than a cover for our drug sales and prostitution.  We have to explain the money some kind of way to the IRS, and a club is one of the best ways to explain all this cash.  

Look, you know how in poker, there’s a thing called ‘tells’?  It’s a way people reveal to you how their mind works in other words.  Well in my family, we have a ‘tell” that lets us know if a woman is someone I could pimp out.  Let me show you something. . . “  

He motions for me to go to the bar storeroom.  When he opened the door, there was a huge space heater.  I’m not sure why the heater was in the storeroom, not backstage, or what he’s trying to tell me even.  Seeing my confusion, he says, “I don’t keep the heater back there for a reason.  When a girl is someone I can play, she will bring me a heater to keep me warm WITHOUT ME ASKING her for it.”  

I’m still unclear what he’s trying to say.  He goes on, “You bringing me that heater isn’t something a woman is supposed to do.  I’m a grown man.  I’m supposed to take care of my own self.  Women aren’t supposed to take care of men.  Not in regular society anyway.  Only a woman with very low self-esteem, someone who could be turned out, will go and bring a heater to a man that she’s not married to.  You’re not letting me be a man Jody – you’re saying that you want to take care of me with that heater – and that’s the pimp/whore relationship.  I don’t want that with you.  

That’s why I got angry when I saw it.  Didn’t you see the way my uncles were all smiling their asses off when they saw you bring me that heater?”  

I still didn’t understand.  Yeah they seemed really happy I’d brought him a heater, but wasn’t that because they thought I was being nice to their nephew?  

“No Jody.  They don’t look at you as being ‘nice’ for that.  They looked at you like you’re ripe for being turned out, and since they’ve been wanting me to become a pimp – they’re looking at you like you might be my first bottom bitch.”  

“Bottom bitch?  Rock I don’t understand most of these words.  What’s that?”  

“As blacks, we’ve had to develop our own language Jody.  We have to be able to talk right in front of white folks without them knowing what we’re saying.  It’s the only way to protect ourselves from getting lynched or shot or something.  

So that language as you call it, is our language we’ve had to develop to survive.  Now, ‘bottom bitch” is a woman who takes care of us, will go to jail for us, die for us, and who we can always depend upon no matter what”, he explained.  

“But isn’t that a good thing?”  I asked.

“No, it’s not.  Jody, I don’t want that kind of relationship with you.  I don’t want you to get turned out.  I don’t want you taking care of me.  I actually wanted a real relationship with you.  Maybe one where I even take care of you.  I’ve seen what being a pimp does to a man, and the woman.  I don’t want anything to do with that kind of life.  

That’s why I freeze my ass off standing in front of the club every night dealing instead of being inside the warm club with the other pimps.  Take the heater back.  If I need something, you let ME get it for myself. 

I’m sorry I got angry because I know you meant well.  But you need to let a man be a man, and not be his mother or you’re going to get yourself really used up.  I like you and I want to be with you, but not like my uncles want us to be together.  Is that okay with you?”  

I couldn’t help but this this was the most Rock had ever said to me.  I felt really close to him and honored he’d let me know what was really going on with him and this family.  Which means I wasn’t ready at all for what he was going to say to me next.  

“Jody, I want you to get out of here.  Quit.  Leave.  Don’t look back.  Save yourself.  My uncle has had his sights set on sucking you into our family business since he laid eyes on you.  Not as a prostitute, but as someone to work with them on the management side of things.  He says you have just the right face to get them into Beverly Hills.  

My uncles have been trying to put us together because they think you’ll be my first bitch I’ll turn out, and then I’ll be like them.  This place isn’t at all what it seems.  We’ve got drugs, guns, and prostitutes coming through this club on a nightly basis.  We’re already being watched by the cops and the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms).  

If you stick around here now that we’ve slept together, they aren’t going to just let you remain on the outside any longer.  If I don’t turn you out, one of my uncles will and I won’t be able to protect you.  

You have no idea what monsters men like Nick really are and what they’ll do to you.  Again, I like you and I’d like nothing more than for you and I to have some kind of normal relationship like boyfriend and girlfriends do.  But I can’t.  Not with my family and this club the way things are.  So I want you to just quit, leave the club, and I don’t want you to come back.  It’s the only way I know how to protect you.  That’s why I was so angry when I saw the heater, and why I was scared when you were in the office alone with Weldon.” 

Before I can even respond, let alone process what I’m hearing – Rock picks up my coat and purse, grabs me by the arm, and starts walking me by force out to my car.  He opens the door and pushes me into the car.  It’s very clear he wants me to leave.  He slams my car door, but since the top is down on the convertible, we’re still able to talk to each other.  

He stands there for a moment like he’s not sure if he really wants me to leave.  Then he leans over to give me a kiss.  A kiss that I can tell is meant to be our goodbye kiss.  At the same time, it was hello.  The first time he’d really dropped his walls to me.  

“Jody, I love you.  Now please, get the hell out of here and don’t come back.” 

I didn’t want to go home.  I clearly wasn’t welcome at the club.  I didn’t even understand what just happened to me.  But I was all dressed up, the top was down on my little red convertible car, and the night was young.  I decided to go take a drive through the canyon, and to go drive down Pacific Coast Highway and look at the full moon on the ocean.  

I spent the rest of the evening taking a drive along the beach and trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Now was the time for me to start making some big girl decisions.  

I didn’t have a father or mother to help me figure out my life clearly.  I had lost my best friend and my mentor now Donna and Peter were gone.  Taking care of my mother had consumed my every thought up to now.  I felt like a lost child.  I guess I was.  

Maybe Rock was right.  Maybe I needed to stop taking care of others, and start taking care of myself.  Thinking back, I had always taken care of my parents.  I couldn’t remember a time when anyone took care of me.   

I picked up an apartment guide on my way home, and smuggled it into the house under my coat.  I understood why people just left – there was no way I was going to tell my mom I was moving out.  Who knows what her reaction would be.  

But the time had come for me to move out and find my own life.  What that was going to be was the question. I might not know what moving forward looked like, but it was time to not stay where I’d been. 

CHAPTER FIVE

I got up the next morning to get to the bank.  When my dad had me doing all that construction work with him, I finally wised up and realized I wasn’t being paid.  It only took me until I was 11 years old to realize I was helping him not because he wanted to spend time with me, but because I represented free labor.  

I went on strike until he agreed to give me the mortgage on the next project.  This mortgage was supposedly being paid monthly into a bank account until it added up to $50,000.  This was the money I figured I’d go to the university on to get my degree once I finished up my high school credits.  

Deciding to move out as I did, getting an apartment takes money.  I figured I’d withdraw a couple of hundred to get myself a place to live.  After all, part of my finishing my degree would now entail me living on my own.  But when I went to the bank, I got quite a surprise handed to me.  

“You came down here last month and closed this account” said the bank teller.  Having no idea what she was talking about, I asked to see the bank manager.  They showed me an account card revealing the account had been opened under the name of J.L. Williams.  

There, plain as day, was the signature of J.L. Williams – my father.  Seems my father had come back to California for a visit, signed his name to my bank account, and strolled out of the bank with my money.  

It was bad enough my father used me to steal money, but a whole other to have him steal my money.  The depth of his depravity to me was bottomless.  I knew to make a police report, I’d need a witness.  So before calling the police, I went home to tell mom and asked her to witness that this was my money in my bank account that he had just robbed.  

Mom refused. Not surprised.  She wouldn’t press charges against him for anything, not even the sexual abuse, so why would this be different.  My mother was still protecting this monster.  

Which to me was just the last straw.  I needed to get out of that house, and fast.  Something I couldn’t do without a job.  Which I had just been promoted to a higher paying job as manager of the club. 

While I could see Rock was clearly going through something with his family, I didn’t see how this was my problem.  I hadn’t seen any drugs or prostitution in the club.  What they did behind closed doors wasn’t my problem.  What was my problem was that I needed to make money fast to move out of my house.  

So I started getting ready to go to work.  Rock and I had not made any confessions of love.  He hadn’t even asked me to be his girlfriend.  So if he didn’t want me in his life, no problem was the way I looked at it.  I decided to just go to work, get paid, and give him what he wanted – which was us not in a relationship.  

When I got to the club, Rock just glared at me like “I told you not to come back here.”.   I just stuck my nose in the air, and asked if Weldon was in.  I needed to find out more from him about my new duties as manager.  If I couldn’t pay for school, well then work was even more important to me now so that I could.  Because of my mom’s income, and my living with her, I didn’t qualify for financial aid.  To me it seemed like this promotion was right on time.  

Weldon told me to wait for him in the office, and then went to the kitchen to get something to eat.  It was the first time I had been left in the office alone.  Of course I can’t sit still so I started snooping around.  Right out on the table was a tax return for the club along with a copy of the bank statements.  I started reading them over, but kept saying to myself they couldn’t be right.  They said for example that we were making something like $3000 a night in bar sales.  I knew what our bar sales were nightly and they were lucky to break $600 a night.  The more I went over these figures, the more I could see they weren’t right. The place really was being used to launder money.   

When Weldon returned to the office he could tell by the look on my face I’d read the report.  

“It’s okay Jody.  I left them there to test you.  If you were half as smart as I think you are, I knew you’d read those reports, and you’d know what they mean.”

I played stupid, but it was clear Weldon knew what Rock had confessed to me.  I guess this was going to be Weldon telling me his side of the story now before we continued with my working there.  He sat down in his chair and opened up one of the desk drawers.  In it was a gun.  At first I didn’t know if he meant this as a threat to me or what.  

“Do you know why I have a gun in this club?”  

Again I played stupid because I really didn’t.  

“I have a gun here because I engage in business where I often can’t call the cops for help.  So I have to protect myself.  Sometimes even from the cops themselves.”  

I still had no idea what he was talking about and I’m sure the confusion was obvious on my face.  

“Jody, you see that each one of the women here have a man.  Everyone but Rock that is. These aren’t marriages.  These are a different type of relationship.  Let me ask you this – do you know how the role of the pimp was born?  I don’t mean the stereotype you see on TV like Huggy Bear – I mean real pimps?”  

Now I’d seen Roots like most of America back then, but pimps isn’t something that was covered.  So I nodded that I had no idea back to him.  

He continued, “When the coloreds were set free Jody, not everyone got 40 acres and a mule.  Even for those who did, it didn’t mean you could do anything with them.  We were set free, but we were set free in a world where our roles had already been established, and the white man didn’t feel the need to change those roles.”  

I asked him what he meant by that.  

“On those plantations, many of the slave owners used the women for their sexual needs.  They had pussy on tap that would do whatever the owner wanted, and without complaint for fear she’d be murdered, or sold to someone else.  They didn’t have to worry about child support or alimony either.  

This is where the taste for prostitutes were born – not at the Playboy Mansion.  In fact strippers were even created because of the white men seeing us dance in our native lands.  White women didn’t dance nude like that – so even stripping came from the white mans use of the colored female for his pleasure without consequences.  

The men were used for labor, and if they weren’t able to provide labor they were useless.  But the one thing the slave owners needed, and needed regularly was sex.  Because there was no birth control back then, many of the wives would refuse to have sex once child bearing was done.  With no divorces, this meant their job was done.  It’s not talked about much in history books, nor did they even touch the subject in Roots, but the truth is that the female slaves were the goto sexual outlet for the slave owners. 

Now, once these women were freed, do you think that changed?  They weren’t able to read or write, it had been illegal to even know how to read and write.  So what kind of work did the women get now she was freed?  What kind of work was she even ALLOWED to have?  Think about it – do you think she could work in diners where she wasn’t even allowed to walk in the door?  

I’ll tell you what happened is that the second those women left the plantation, they set up houses in the poor end of town.  And that’s right where the slave owners went at night to sniff around for their sexual needs.   They’d come prowling to our end of town after dark like wolves.  

So the women saw there was a need for their services, and that this would be a way for her to feed her children, many who were created by these white men even - but many of the slave owners couldn’t exactly pay her in cash without the wife catching on.  So many times the white men would barter with the colored women for sex with food.  Something his wife wouldn’t miss.  

The story goes that when the first colored woman was asked to provide sex for food, she was offered a pork chop.  The slave owner had saved a pork chop for her off his table.  That was all he had.  

Now the woman saw there was something she could do for food, but what about her husband?  Now they’re free, what’s he supposed to do about this?  If he objects to his wife going off to have sex with this slave owner, he’s the one who will be lynched, his house burned down and his family probably murdered.  He knows this.  

So how is he supposed to sit there and take this assault upon his wife?  And an assault it is because she can’t say no either without being strung up, murdered, etc.  He also knows if she says no to this white man, then they’re all good as dead.  This couple knows she needs to appease this man, accept his pork chop, and be happy they’ve been left alive another day.

He also knows his wife is going to be ashamed.  Dirty. Used.  How can he let her know he’s not only in love with her, but behind her no matter what?  So what he does is he tells his wife to bring him “half”.  That while she’s doing this act of saving their lives, she’s to save him half of the pork chop.  This way it’s like they’re both doing this for the sake of the family.  By doing this, what she’s doing becomes a noble unselfless act she’s doing for their benefit.  It reframes the whole experience to one where she can maintain her dignity in the face of this oppression. 

Now that’s how the game of pimping was born.  The black man had to find a way to adapt to so called “freedom”.  It was our way of surviving in this white world, while staying a family unit.  

We had to adapt Jody because soon enough when the sun went down, all the white men would come to our end of town looking for sex, and it wasn’t like we could say no.  

This was how the first red light districts and whore houses were created.  At the same time, what are these men supposed to be doing while their wives work as prostitutes, not only to provide the family with food and shelter, but also to keep them alive and together?  

Well he realizes the white man has other needs.  He’s got needs for moonshine, even drugs too.  He finds he can also be useful to the white man by catering to his other vices and becomes a drug dealer. 

Some turn to entertainment, like playing the piano, singing, dancing, and whatever else will entertain the white man while at these whore houses waiting his turn.  At the same time the woman learns to give her “half” to her man to show him that whatever she’s doing sexually with this white men, she’s doing it for them.  The pimp/whore relationship was created as a way to keep the black family together in other words Jody.  

This is why some of the early clubs even were started by us.  We had to find a way to survive in a world that didn’t want to hire us to work at jobs side by side with the white man.  Remember, we couldn’t even vote like the white man, so business and commerce wasn’t exactly set up for us back then either.  

If we got into a business dispute, we couldn’t go into the white man’s court to settle it.  So we learned to settle our disputes our way, and to protect ourselves our way.  You have to understand Jody you will never understand our culture because you look and pass for white.  And yes we’ve done things generationally because we’re a family, and that’s how we’ve stayed together. 

Now, the government knows we have been making money this way and becoming powerful.  In some towns we now have more money than the white folks.  This doesn’t set too well with them either.  So now we’re seeing these money laundering laws come to be.  It’s no different than when the native Americans start casinos and start making money on the dust patches they were left, now the white man wants them back.  

So now we’re being asked to prove where we get this money from, or we go back to jail to provide free labor for the white man in the prisons.  All prisons are today are a way to get that slave labor once again the white man needs and used to have.  Only instead of the owners having to care for their slaves, they now get the state to pay for their care in the prisons.   

So behind all of this is the need to keep us down Jody.  They don’t want us living in their neighborhoods, our children going to school with their children, sitting in their churches with them – because they got a lot of dirty laundry with us they don’t want aired.  

So they want us to be kept separate from them to protect themselves from what they do to us when the sun goes down.”

“Why are you telling me this Weldon?”  Not that I didn’t totally relate.  I mean here I am living with a crazy, abusive woman.  I would love to move out, but moving out takes money.  I put myself mentally in the place of what he’s describing, imagining if I was to be suddenly put out of the house without money, no job, no housing – what would I do in that situation?  Then to imagine I can’t even set foot in buildings where I’d need to go look for work, that I can’t read or write, I haven’t been able to go to school – I actually am beginning to see how prostitution for this group of people became a way of making something out of nothing. 

He had a point, even the native Americans were put on a reservation – but the blacks were literally just “freed”.  I began to understand why even the major media was degrading the idea of the pimp – because I had NEVER heard the story of what happened to the slaves before the way Weldon is describing it. 

Weldon continued, “Because I want to grow this family to be equal with the white man. Sure as a race we’re gaining ground in sports sand entertainment – but not the business world.  That world they’re keeping us out of so far.  

So we pooled our money and got this club.  We opened the club in Tarzana, not Compton, for a reason.  I have a lot of plans Jody.  I put this club in a white part of town because I don’t just want the club, Jody, I want to have this club in their white faces.  That’s why I park that Rolls outside every night – to show them this ‘nigger’ is doing well.  In fact, better than he is.  

I want to use this club to help us launch a record label.  Once we have the record label, we can open a movie studio.  Once we have all those millions rolling in, we want to own houses in Beverly Hills.  The problem is Jody the white man isn’t going to let us achieve these things easily.  They won’t lease us buildings.  They won’t open us the right accounts.  We can’t get the right licenses.  

So for us to get from here to there, we need white partners.  I need to have someone I can depend upon to help me do things like help me open that record label.  That means leasing buildings for the studio which they won’t even let me in the door. 

But they would lease to you.  You’ve got the kind of face and carriage that the Beverly Hills bankers will turn the keys to the kingdom over to you.  That’s why I’ve had my eye on you for so long.  I believe you’re the person who can help us achieve these goals, and why I’ve been grooming you to make you a partner of ours.  Not a prostitute, but a business partner.   

Now I know you and Rock have developed a close relationship.  I don’t know what all he told you, but I have no intention of trying to turn you into a prostitute.  Whores are a dime a dozen kiddo, and common.  I got more whores around then I know what to do with, and more come through the doors of this club every night.  

What I need is someone I can build a business with, and to take this family into Beverly Hills.  I’ve been waiting a long time to have someone smart enough, and white enough, with a good enough head on her shoulders who has some game to come through those doors – and that person is you.  

So whatever goes on with you and Rock, I want you to know that my intentions for you here are strictly business.  If you don’t want to be a part of what the rest of the family is doing, that’s completely up to you.  You don’t have to.  In fact, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do in this family.   

You just work with me as manager of this club, and eventually maybe even partners with me, and I’ll make sure you get a psychology education about how the mind of man works better than any college can give you.”

I knew he was referring to my goal to become a psychologist, so he had my attention there.  Weldon then goes over to the wall of the office where some diplomas were framed.  The office was always dark, and I never really went over to inspect them before.  But now Weldon takes one off the wall and hands it to me.  It’s a Masters degree in Psychology with his name.  

“You want to go to college, and that’s fine by me.  I will help you get there.  I believe in college obviously, but because I’ve been through the white man’s school I can tell you that what I’ll teach you about the mind can’t be taught in these schools.  

Just work with me now, and I’ll make sure you get your degree, and an education to boot.  In fact, if you do right by me, I’ll make sure you get your college paid for.  I want you to know I believe in education.  I’m not some street hoodlum either.  I want you to know I’m an educated man.  Even Larry has a Bachelors’ degree in music.  We want to get ahead and education is one way to do it.  

So don’t worry about me making sure you can attend your classes.  I want you to return to school in fact because I heard you’d pulled out a short time ago.  But don’t worry if you’re thinking we’re some kind of evil street pimps looking to turn you out into some kind of whore.  That’s not what my plans are with you is that clear?”  

I nodded I understood.  “Now what?” I asked.  

“You just stay out of the relationships here at the club.  Yes we have some business relationships with these young women, but that’s not your concern.  You know who Richard Pryor is correct?”

Of course I did.  

“Richard is related to us.  Like Rock, he didn’t want to become a pimp or drug dealer either, so he got into the entertainment field.  That’s one of the reasons we got this club.  He’s building up a lot of connections in the field for us.  So the time has come for us to start using some of these relationships to take this family business to the next level.  

We need to start booking up and coming acts that will attract in the radio and record label people to the club.  The white executives with enough money to help us start that label I want to start.  

So I want you to find me the next up and coming bands, and help me get them booked into this club.  I’m finding I can’t even get into some of the other clubs to find these new acts, and many managers and producers won’t work with me because of my color.  You however can get the job done with a face and a brain like yours  – so go do it.  I’ll pay you $250 a week so you can go ahead and get that apartment you want also.  In fact, here’s $500 for your first two weeks so you can go find you that apartment you need also.”  

Boy, Weldon didn’t miss a thing watching us on those security cameras all day and night did he?  I had just graduated from cocktail waitress, to club manager and booking agent, and I couldn’t wait to get started on my new life.  With the salary that Weldon was promising me, and this advance, I could afford to pay for an apartment.  

“One thing Weldon.  Why would I help you with this?  Frankly, you sound like you hate white people.  I’m white.  You’re talking about “shoving it” to the race I belong to.  Why would I help you get revenge on my own people?” I asked.

“Are you?  Are you ‘white’ Jody?  I at least know I’m not white.  But you’re worse.  You’ve been completely brainwashed by your oppressors.  I’ve heard you talk about your native American background.  I can trace my family back all the way to Africa?  Where’s your family?  How far back can you go?  

Do you even know?  No.  Your kind were taken away and put in schools where they cut your hair, taught you English, dressed you like them – and convinced you that you’re white.  No, I think you want to get yourself the ultimate revenge just as much as I do – to get back what they took from you and more.  

I think you want a house in Beverly Hills just as much as I do, and I think you’ll find they’re just as much against you having it as they are me once you try.  So let’s help each other get ahead shall we?”  He reached over to shake my hand to seal the partnership.  

I told Weldon I needed to get cracking on my new job, but first I needed to get a place of my own.  I knew it was a matter of time before mom had enough of me staying all night at the club and demanded I quit.  That or tried to set fire to the house again.  So I went out and started putting in applications for an apartment with the money Weldon had given me.  

I listed on my applications that I was the new assistant manager of the Valley West nightclub. 
 
CHAPTER SIX

Like I said before, my life never goes as planned. Every night I go home, I have to cook mom her dinner.  I tried packing the freezer with microwave food, even showing her how to use the microwave.  

But mom just won’t eat unless I make it for her.  She will instead sit on her couch eating Oreo’s until I come home – no matter what hour that is or how long I’ve been gone.  She wont take a shower unless I’m home because she’s scared she’ll fall.  She won’t do laundry, so the only thing she’ll wear is what I’ve washed.  

Which means if I’m staying out late after work, it’s at the back of my mind she’s not eating.  What a way to make me feel guilty if I want to stay out late or push people away because I have to tell them I can’t go out, or stay out, because I have to “go home and feed my mother”.   What a great way to keep me tied to her apron strings as well.  

I come home that night to feed her after this meeting with Weldon, and she asks me to sit down.  She says she’s got to tell me something. Oh the fun never ends.   

“I know I’ve been difficult to live with lately, and I apologize for that.  But you need to know that my checks have stopped coming.  I don’t know why or when I’m getting them back.  The county says they’re ‘re-evaluating” my disability, and they still haven’t decided on my pension.  Which means I don’t have any money for rent, electric, nothing.  I’m going to need you to step up and take care of this until I can get my checks straightened out.”

Good move mom.  Just as I’m ready to get the fuck out of Dodge, you find another way to keep me sunk into your web taking care of you.  Now if I leave, she’s going to be homeless and starve again.  So if I move out and save myself, then I’m going to be responsible for her starving.  

Great.  

But it goes deeper than this.  I should be leaving this club/job.  I know now I’m surrounded by pimps, drug dealers, prostitutes and criminals.  I’m not just “around” them, but I’m working for them.  I’m making friends with them.  I’ve even slept with one of them.  I should be walking away.  I should be focusing on school.  My “mother” should be asking me about work and who I’m hanging out with or who I work for.  

My “mother’ should be making sure I’m back in school.  But instead of the slightest bit of concern for me, the ONLY thing I’m seeing is that my mother just wants to make sure I keep feeding her, and now paying the bills for her.  In other words, I now can’t leave this job even if I decided it was safer for me to do so because now my mother has laid at my feet being the breadwinner for both of us.  The question of what SHE’S going to do about it wasn’t even coming up.  It’s just “expected” of me that I’m going to do this for us.  

I can’t deal with this anymore.  I decide I need professional help.  A few years ago we had met this guy we nicknamed “Dr. Bombay”.  He was a chiropractor, a homeopathic practitioner, an acupuncturist, a hypnotist, and well you name it and if was any type of alternative medicine, he studied and practiced it. Most of the psychics in Los Angeles went to see him because we were always picking up weird ailments regular doctors didn’t have a clue how to treat.  Hence the nickname we got from the series, “Bewitched”.  Dr. Bombay being the witches’ doctor.    

I had started seeing him after the first accident for chiropractic adjustments when we’d left Whittier.  Seeing him was more interesting than seeing any other chiropractor because his house, which was his mother’s house actually, was like a library of alternative medicine books.  He had one room just filled with book shelves jammed with books on subjects you couldn’t find in a normal bookstore.  I couldn’t borrow his books, but he let me read them when I was there.  So when I would go see him, it meant I’d usually stay for hours.  

We also had an informal arrangement where he would give me lessons in things if I took him out to eat.  He loved to go out to eat at authentic ethnic places.  Since he didn’t drive, this meant I’d take him to China Town, or Little Korea, or wherever he could get some truly exotic foods on my dime.  I didn’t mind because the whole time I spent with him was my schooling in all things alternative.  

He didn’t drive because he had a horrible motorcycle accident when he was younger.  You could see the scars on his head from where he’d cracked it open in the accident.  He said that because of the brain damage, he couldn’t drive legally – so we’d drive him wherever we went together.  Einstein had major brain damage as a child also.  Kind of made me wonder if maybe the brain damage might make some people more of a genius.  

He was the closest thing to a therapist I really had.  Since he did know my mother, he was aware of the dynamic I was dealing with.  I’d met him back when I was about 14 years old also, so he really was the only person I knew also who really did understand everything I was dealing with on all levels.  I’ve seen him so often over the years, and with my mom driving me most of those years to see him – so he really did know what I was dealing with when it came to my mom.  

Since I did consider our relationship kind of student/teacher, I felt like I needed to go see him to help me find a way to get my mother to take care of herself.  It was clear I was reaching the point where I needed to leave.  But I couldn’t leave if she wasn’t going to be able to feed herself, or even clean up after herself.  

So when mom dropped this bomb on my head about her check stopping, I knew I needed to go spend the day with Dr. Bombay.  Maybe he could show me how I could teach mom to stop leaning on me, or I’d never be able to get on with my own life.  I couldn’t just walk away either without feeling like a heel.  I mean who walks away from taking care of their sick mother?

I also wanted to talk to him about everything else, the club included.  On top of all the health things that Greg was an expert in, he also was a psychic himself.  He was the only person I knew who had a radionics box.  This is a science that was originally developed by a veterinarian actually.  It’s based on the idea that all illness has a vibrational level, as well as all medicines do as well.  Since animals couldn’t talk, the inventor used vibrations to be able to diagnose.  That’s a very shortened explanation of it anyway.   

The theory was using this box, or the system behind radionics, you could pair the right medicine to the right illness and find healing.  But at the very core of radionics was the fact the practitioner was picking up on “vibes”, or psychic.  That and Greg also would read tarot cards.  My mom did too, but I sure couldn’t get a reading from her.  Peter was gone.  I really needed to get a reading from him as well as some advice, so I decided to go spend the day over the hill with Dr. Bombay.  

I’d always liked Greg also.  The man was covered in hair literally like a bear so I actually found him kind of sexy.  We met by him hitting on me in the Bodhi Tree bookstore.  When he realized my age, of course he backed off me that way. 

But I’m over 18 now, and anything was possible.  But after all these years, he really was more in the friend/father zone.  Besides, if I slept with him and it didn’t work out, then I couldn’t use him as a doctor/friend/therapist anymore.  

I guess he was the closest to a father figure I had.  Visiting him wasn’t like seeing a regular doctor though.  For one thing, he lived with his mother, so when you went to see him, you were in this “old lady” type of house.  I mean doilies were even on the red velvet antique couch kind of old lady house.  Painted ceramic lamps.  Oriental rugs.  It even had a Victrola in the living room.   

He always greeted you with a pair of shorts on, no shirt, and his Birkenstock sandals.  That was his uniform.  When we’d go out, he’d put on a bowling shirt.  When you’d come tell him why you were there, he would play his guitar.  Why I don’t know.  Maybe it allowed him to focus.  Maybe it allowed you to open up.  I just know he’d play while you talked until he’d heard enough.  Then he’d do an adjustment, and if needed, take you over to use the radionics box.  

I had him give me an adjustment which is like being crushed by a bear.  But the pain relief was worth it.  After the adjustment, I had him give me a physical.  Wasn’t shocked when he gave me a homeopathic remedy for grief and anger.  

They seemed like opposite emotions for me – not something dealt with by one remedy.  Greg explained to me that women tend to express their grief with anger, and especially will turn their anger inward.  He gave me some suggestions on some books I could buy on the subject.  Then he gave me a card reading where he basically said he felt the people at the club were “evil” and that I should “run”.  I didn’t see it, but I filed away his warning.  What was I going to do now?  Quit?  I’m technically a high school drop out whose only two jobs have been professional psychic and cocktail waitress.   

The big thing on my mind was how to help my mother.  Greg told me to just stop feeding her.  She’d go eat when she got hungry enough he said.  His words reminded me of what Rock had tried to tell me.  I’m beginning to hear I’m just programmed to take care of people – programmed by my mom.  

Greg said that I was not responsible for when my mother ate, and it wasn’t my job to fix her problem even though she’d convinced me I was.  That my even asking him to help me with her problem was a sign that I wasn’t keeping my eyes on taking care of myself.  Not like anyone else was either he pointed out.  

He also pointed out that because no one had really looked out for me before, that’s why I didn’t know how to do it.  I got the lecture that people learn how to take care of themselves by how their parents take care of them.  In my case, I wasn’t ever “taken care of” and therefore I really needed to start learning how to take care of myself.  

He gave me a hypnosis session where I was supposed to internalize that my life was my focus – not to focus on other people’s lives, visions, desires, or problems.  Then we grabbed some dinner.  When I brought him home, he made another pass.  He laughed he was going to keep making passes at me and my mother until he’d bedded both of us.  That was his fantasy.  Greg was a genius for sure, but he was also a sexual pervert.  

But I figured no one was perfect, and decided he was right.  I was going to just stop feeding my mom.  When she’d get hungry enough – she’d eat.  I told myself I would help her out financially until she got her check back, and then I would move out.  So for now, my plans to move out were on hold.  

Just as I think I’ve now got a handle on things, life showed me again I wasn’t.  I went home to get ready for work, and then showed up like it was a normal day at the club.  It was a Friday night, so they needed my help waiting tables.  Now I understood their “waitresses” were really “prostitutes”, that explained why really Sharon was the only one who seemed to know anything about actually providing service.  

So when I would work, I usually wound up actually servicing most of the patrons in the club.  Again, not easy to serve food and drinks in a club full of people packed wall to wall with music blaring so loud you had to use sign language to get your orders.  I didn’t mind because I needed the cash now more than ever what with mom’s check disappeared.  In fact, I was grateful I had a job right now so we could keep eating.  

About midnight, a guy comes in that looks like he’s the high school football ball captain complete with varsity jacket.  He comes marching in with about three of his buddies with him.  They’re each are carrying baseball bats.  I don’t know how they got past Rock, but they just come storming into the club, and right for the bar.  Before you could blink, the captain guy leading the charge sees Nick.  He charges right at him, jumping right over the Bar at Nick. Nick threw him right back over the bar, and it was on now.  I’d seen mad guys asking for Nick before, but this had never happened before.   

I see Rock coming from behind the stage at the guy.  Seems they’d waited until Rock was gone to storm the door.  Larry comes out from behind the camera, and BeBe and Charles come charging out from the kitchen – and between them they literally pick up these white boys and drag them out into the parking lot. 

As I’m watching what’s happening, I see Weldon coming from out of the office carrying that gun he’d showed me.  I follow everyone into the parking lot to see what’s going on, and before you can even mentally register what’s going on – Weldon shoots the captain kid right in the leg.  His friends pick him up, put him in their car and they drive off.  

I start hyperventilating from the violence I’ve just seen.  I rushed into the office to tell Weldon to give me the gun to hide.  I’m sure the police will be there any minute, and he’s going to be arrested for shooting this guy in front of all of those witnesses.  What I can’t get over is how matter of fact he was about the whole thing.  That is freaking me out more than him shooting someone.  

Weldon tells me to sit down.  He snaps at Sharon to go get me a shot of something to calm my nerves.  After insisting I have this drink, Weldon then says, “No cops are coming so calm down.”  

“How can you tell me the cops aren’t going to be here any minute when you just shot this guy right in front of all of these witnesses?”  

“Look, Jody, I shot him in the leg so it’s not fatal. I shot him in the leg to stop him from coming at me.  If they were going to call the cops, they would have.  His friends wouldn’t have loaded him up in the car and left.  They left because they don’t want the cops involved in this anymore than we do.  The witnesses aren’t going to call the cops because they don’t want to get involved.  This is what I told you about how we ‘handle our own disputes’.  That’s what you just witnessed.  This is an issue that the police and the courts can’t solve.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy is the boyfriend of a woman that Nick just turned out.  He’s trying to prove his manhood by coming here to try and kick Nick’s ass for what he did to ‘his woman’.  

Only if she really was ‘his woman’, then Nick wouldn’t have been able to turn her out.  He did this thinking it will bring his girlfriend back.  

But what’s he going to do?  Call the cops and say, ‘hey this man just turned my girlfriend into a prostitute?’  No, he’s not.  Which means he’s not going to call the cops either and say he’s been shot because he went to attack the guy who just turned his girlfriend into a prostitute either.  

He also isn’t going to want to risk facing charges of his own for coming in here with his buddies and their baseball bats to attack Nick on our private property either.  So this is going to be a draw where white boy goes home and licks his wounds.  This is over now.  We won’t see him again, nor are we going to have any cops up in here either.”  Weldon seemed pretty confident this was the end of it.  

But it wasn’t.  Turned out “white boy” was the son of a local cop.  Shortly after this incident, you could tell we were now on law enforcements radar.  Weldon asked me to start driving everyone home at night.  Why?  Because the police keep pulling everyone over and jacking them up, especially when one of the white girls are in the car with them.  He thought it would be safer for me to drive them home until things calmed down.  

The same went for the door.  Weldon asked me to start coming in earlier to sell tickets and check identifications.  

We started stamping hands to show who was of legal age to drink and who wasn’t.  The waitresses had to be trained not to serve anyone who didn’t have the right hand-stamp.  We had to get special inks because the kids could duplicate the stamps otherwise.  

We even started having these ‘raids”.  I don’t know what to call them.  The cops started coming into the club, shutting the doors, turning off the music – and making everyone produce identification.  The club was SCOURED for drugs.  They would check the drinks to make sure no one underage had been served alcohol.  This meant that Rock had to start searching customers before they came into the club so we could keep out anyone smuggling in alcohol that could be put in someone’s drink who was underage.  

Weldon put in more cameras, and started recording, to make sure we had some kind of proof we weren’t serving minors in the club because we were clearly being targeted now by not only the cops, but the ATF also.  They wanted the license revoked to force the club to shut down.  Weldon might say it was because they were black, while I say it was because he’d just shot a guy in the leg in the parking lot. 

Rock and I are acting like we don’t even know each other.  He’s just avoiding me, won’t look me in the eyes, refusing to talk to me, etc.  Which frankly was fine with me right then.  I felt like if he couldn’t even try to see where I was coming from, who needed him.  The ONLY thing on my mind right now was to get myself back on track with school, and to get these bills paid so I could move out into my own place.

As I started getting into the rhythm of working at the club, I also started being aware more of what was really going on there.  The “undertones” if you will.  I got to watch the pimps in action nightly now.  It reminded me of watching lions hunting their prey.  I’d see them pick out the girls they knew were “ripe”.  Laying bets with each other on how fast it would take them to “turn these girls out”.  As I’d see them hanging out until closing so they could go up to the house for the “after party”, I felt like warning them.  On the other hand, what would I say? 

I didn’t really know what was going on up at the house yet, but I knew what I’d see the next evening.  I’d see the same girl as the night before, wearing the same clothes even – but yet they weren’t the same.  Something had been “broken” in them.  

I couldn’t begin to explain how their eyes looked like something had died.  Shamans talk sometimes about “soul retrieval”.  About how you can actually lose parts of your soul to another person who takes it from you.  I began to get an idea what that meant by watching these girls.  

The girls the pimps would target weren’t the pretty girls either.  You’d think that wouldn’t you?  Instead it would be the “pretty girls friend”.  The one who felt “less than” for some reason.  They weren’t hard to spot as they were always the ones who tried too hard to be noticed.  Maybe too much make-up.  Too short of a skirt.  Too low of a neckline.  You could tell they were “trying” to be sexy – not having an inmate knowledge they were.  The ones who weren’t sure they were attractive were the ones these pimps would hone in on like a wounded buffalo in the wild.  

I instead tried to focus on doing my job and making my money my way.  Too look for bands to book, I had to start going to the other clubs.  I started a cycle where one night I’d go to the Whisky, the next Gazzari’s, and the next the Palomino.  I’d look for concerts in the park, or other events where I might hear an up and coming performer or band.  

I gave up pretty fast because I wasn’t really hearing anything good.  Even if I did, they couldn’t seem to get their act together well enough to actually book with us.  

I decided that we would be better off trying to book acts that maybe had stopped touring for a while.  Acts that used to be huge, but maybe they took some time off to have kids.  Now they were looking for a way to get exposure again.  

I actually had some old music magazines from when I was heavy into music myself, so I started going through them for ideas.  I could get the number of their managers through the musicians union.  The union told me they had a directory I could buy that would even give me a whole list of bands, along with their contact information. 
 
Remember, this was before the internet.  I was shocked to learn that Ray Charles for example, or even David Bowie, were actually listed in the phone book.  I soon learned it was faster and more effective to use the phone than to cruise clubs.  I also learned fast why many of these bands, or performers, had started to get big and then seemed to disappear.  Many of them had been falling prey to a new drug that had just started appearing on the scene.

Cocaine. 


(If you want to read the rest of the story, please support this book by either donating, or preordering the book with my autograph.  Everything in this book is true, except the names may be changed to protect the living and me from lawsuits.  I also have a script already done for this to be a series on TV.  You can also reach us about the book at www.anatomyofamovement.com)