To do what is forbidden always has it charms, because we have an indistinct apprehension of something arbitrary and tyrannical in the prohibition. Giver her two drinks and she would tell you her life story in a minute. She was the daughter of a dark, businessman looking West Indian. Their methods were indirect. What I was learning was the hustling society’s first rule; that you never trusted anyone outside of your own close-mouthed circle, and that you selected with time and care before you made any intimates even among these. I saw people on their long, wild spending sprees, after they made big hits. I do not mean just hustlers who always had some money. I mean ordinary working people, the kind that we almost never saw at Studio 54, who, with a good enough hit, had quit their jobs working somewhere downtown for a capitalist. Often they had bought a BMW, Cadillac, or Mercedes-Benz, and sometimes for three or four days, they were setting up drinks and buying steaks and shakes for all their friends. I would have to pull two tables together into one, and they would be throwing me forty and fifty dollar times each time I came with my tray. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 14

Some of these guys were making $9,000.00 to $130,000.00 in a day on the New York Stock Exchange and famous hits like that had brought controlling interest in lots of New York’s bars and restaurants, or even brought some of them out right. The cops looked on; no runner lasted long who did not, out of his pocket, put a free “figger” (figure, meaning monetary donation in this reference) for his workings in area’s foot cops, and it was generally known that the numbers bankers paid off at high levels to the police department. Evangelists, who on Sunday’s Peddled Jesus, and mystics, would pray a lucky stock for you for a fee. Some of the ablest New York’s hustlers took a liking to me, and people like Steven Rubell, Ian Schrager, and Mark Fleischman began in a paternal way to straighten me out. When I came to work the next afternoon, one of the bartenders handed me a package. In it was an expensive, dark blue suit, conservatively cut. The gift was thoughtful, and the message was clear. The bartenders let me know that this customer was one of the top executives of the Roundabout Theatre Company. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 14

Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens loved classic Broadway plays and musicals. They liked the staff well-dressed so they would blend in with Manhattan’s elite. There were always plainclothes detectives around who were quietly identified to me by a nod, a wink. Knowing the law people in the area was elementary for them, and in time I would learn to sense the presence of any police types. The nightclubs patronized were geared to entertain and jive the night crowd to get their money. The other bartenders would let me know which among the regular customers were mostly “fronts,” and which really has something going; which were really in the underworld, with downtown police or political connections; which really handled some money, and which were making it from day to day; which were the real gamblers, ad which had just hit a little luck; and which ones never to run afoul of in any way. The latter were extremely well known about Manhattan, and they were feared and respected. It was known that if upset, they would break your head open and think nothing of it. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 14

These were the old-timers, not to be confused with the various hotheaded, wild, young hustlers out trying to make a name for themselves for being crazy with a pistol trigger or a knife. The old heads that I am talking about were such as Steven Rubell, my Self Shane O’Shea, Disco Dottie (Aunt Dot), Romeo, Julie Black, Anita Randazzo, and Greg Randazzo. Most of us had worked as strongarm when gangster had awakened to the fortunes being made in what they had previously considered the black market (a racial term). Some used to “persuade” people with lead pipes, wet cement, baseball bats, brass knuckles, fist, feet, and tire irons, and worked for some of the biggest bankers. There seemed to be an understanding, we never clashed with the police. The light-skin black dude with the perm (European American) and a Cadillac was the World’s most unlikely pimp. He had a string of the about a dozen of the stringiest, scrawniest, black and white street prostitutes in New York. We used to tease Cadillac because his women were so skinny, it looked like he did not make enough to feed them. He would roar with laughter right along with us; I can hear him now, “You got damn right mutha fucker, skinny bitches work harder!.” #RyanPhillippe 4 of 14

They are about as beautiful as any prostitutes who operated anywhere, I would like to imagine. Cadillac would pick out prostitutes by watching their facial expressions in dance halls. He was a cool and collected expert in his business, and his business was women. Someone once tried to steal one of his women and the theft ended up with his finger joints knotted and gnarled so that it made people uncomfortable to look at them. I have thought about it, and what it really meant to work at Studio 54. In one sense, we were huddled in there, bonded together in seeking security and warmth and comfort from each other, and we did not know it. All of us—who might have become a doctor and cured cancer, or an architect and built industries, or s successful banker—were, instead, victims of the capitalistic American social system. To the wolves who still were able to catch some rabbits, it had meaning that an old wolf who had lost his fangs was still eating. Jimmy Jumpsteady like to sit on the curb at 2am in the morning, pretending to smoke a cigarette, but he was really casing the houses, and watching people come and go. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 14

Jimmy Jumsteady was known as a cat-man thief, regularly exposing himself as one of the most popular people in Midtown. He was called Jimmy Jumpsteady because, it was reported, that he would jump from roof to roof and was so steady that he maneuvered along window ledges, leaning, balancing, edging with his toes. If he fell, he would have been dead, or walking with a walker. He got into apartments through windows. It was reported that he was so cool that he had stolen even with people in the next room. I later found out that Jimmy Jumpsteady always keyed himself up high on dope when he worked. Instead of money, he gave promises. The first apartment I got was mostly a cat house, full of women. You could walk into one or another room in this house and get a hot fur coat, a good camera, fine perfume, a gun anything from hot women to hot cars, even hot ice. I was one of the very few males in this apartment house. In several of the apartments, the women tenants were prostitutes, some were in some other racket or hustle—boosters, number runners or dope-peddlers. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 14

It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to work, mind you; I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me; the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. The fire-boys mounted to the hall and flooded it with enough water to annihilate forty times as much fire as there was there; for a village fire company does not often get a chance to show off, and so when it does get a chance it makes the most of it. Such citizens of that village as were of thoughtful and judicious temperament did not insure against fire; they insured against the fire company. A good night cannot go to the grave with more satisfaction than when falling and dying in his vocation. Profit brings honor, and is, indeed, the most substantial support of it. Straightforward dealings do not bring profit—it is the sly and the underhand that get on in these times; When godliness is gain, I believe in serving ourselves as well as others. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 14

Everyone who lived in the house used dope, you can smell it outside, in the hallways, and in the individual units. This should not reflect too badly on that particular building, because almost everyone in the city needed some kind of hustle to survive, and needed to stay high in some way to forget what they had to do to survive. It was in this house that I learned more about women that I ever did in any other single place. It was these working prostitutes who schooled me to things that every wife and every husband should know. Later on, it was chiefly the women who were not prostitutes who taught me to be very distrustful of most women; there seemed to be a higher code of ethics and sisterliness among those prostitutes than among numerous ladies of the church who have more men for kicks than the prostitutes have for pay. They would lay up with other men, giving away their husband’s money. And many women just faked as mothers and wives, while playing the field as hard as prostitutes—with their husband’s children right there in New York. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 14

I was young, working in the bar, not bothering with these women. Probably I touched their kid-brother instincts, something like that. Some would drop into my apartment when they were not busy, and we would listen to some music and talk. It generally would be after their morning rush—but let me tell you about the Gold Rush! Seeing the hallways, elevators, and stairs busy any hour of the night with white and black men coming and going was no more than one would expect when one lived in a building out of which prostitutes were working. However, what astonished me was the full-house crowd that rushed in between, say, six and seven-thirty in the morning, then rushed away, and by about nice, I would be the only man in the house. It was husbands—who had left home in time to stop by this apartment house before they went on to work. Of course, not the same ones every day, but always enough of them to make up the Gold Rush. And it included white men who had comes in cabs. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 14

Domineering, complaining, demanding wives who had just about psychologically castrated their husbands were responsible for the early Gold Rush. These wives were so disagreeable and had made their men so tense that they were robbed of the satisfaction of being men. (Someone them even used to sneak to the gay clubs at night and dress up like their wives.) To escape this tension and the chance of being ridiculed by his own wife, each of these men had gotten up early and come to a prostitute. The prostitutes had to make it their business to be students of men. They said that after most men passed their virile twenties, they went to bed mainly to satisfy their egos, and because a lot of women do not understand it that way, they damage and wreck a man’s ego. No matter how little virility a man has to offer, prostitutes make him feel for a time that he is the greatest man in the World. That is why these prostitutes had that morning rush of business. If women realized that the greatest urge of a man is to be men, they could keep their humans. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 14

Most men, the prostitutes felt, were too easy to push around. Every day these prostitutes heard their clients complaining that they never anything but griping from women who were being taken care of and given everything. The prostitutes said that most men needed to know what the pimps knew. A woman should occasionally be babied enough to show her the man had affection, but beyond that should be treated firmly. These tough women said that it worked with them. All women, by nature, are fragile and delicate: they are attracted to the male in whom they see strength. Prostitution is typically thought of in terms of women selling sexual services to a man, although transactions between two males are also common. Payment for a man’s service to a woman is less usual. Nude dancers, phone and Internet sex workers, and X-rated video performers are also part of the sex industry. Relationships that exchange sex for money also occur outside of prostitution. Advertising frequently portrays the “trade goods for sex” theme, and the TV specials “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” highlighted the prostitution-like aspects sometimes present in common relationships.  Women trade sex for men’s financial resources in numerous ways. A case could be made that a woman who married a good provider instead of her heartthrob, the wife who is especially sexually pleasing before asking for extra money from her husband, or the woman who wants out of her marriage but stays for economic security all play out the dynamics of prostitution. #RyanPhillippe 11 of 14

Economic incentive is usually the primary motivation for becoming a prostitute. Some go into prostitution as a matter of free personal choice or the right of sexual liberation, others are pressured because of dire economic conditions of the lack of remunerative alternatives, and yet others are forced through deception, violence or debt bondage. Some prostitutes work on a part-time basis and otherwise pursue conventional school, work, or social lifestyles. Prostitutes have exceedingly diverse life histories, aspiration, and present life conditions. People who work as prostitutes on a temporary, part-time basis and have other occupational skills can more easily leave prostitution. The full-time prostitute, who is alienated from traditional values and have identified herself or himself as part of the subculture (being arrested facilitates this identification), typically has little education and few marketable skills. These people usually find it very difficult to become successfully independent of prostitution. Legal problems, health hazards, and fear of personal injury are serious concerns of prostitutes. The price of doing traditional sex work for strippers, nude dancers, and prostitutes is diminished person health and safety. #RyanPhillippe 12 of 14

Male prostitution is as old as female prostitution. Evidence exist that men sold sexual services to other men as far back as the 8^th century BC. In our era, there is no a “typical” male prostitute in terms of cultural, socioeconomic, or personal background. Young men ranging from illiterates to middle class to wealth work on the streets, in clubs, or through high-class escort services. Most male prostitutes do not have a pimp and work independently. Men who provide sexual services for women in exchange for gifts are called gigolos. Male prostitutes who cater to homosexual men called hustlers, call boys, kept boys, or peer-delinquent prostitutes. Hustler make contact with customers on the streets, inn gay bars or bath houses, or in public parks or toilets. Most hustlers come from chaotic family backgrounds and live in social milieu of drug abuse and unstable personal relationships. One study found that male street hustlers lack knowledge about sexually transmitted disease and do not take adequate precautions. One hustler said, “I always look them over, if they look clean like me, then they are all right.” #RyanPhillippe 13 of 14

Male sex workers are increasingly operating through escort agencies, advertising, and the Internet.  Peer-delinquent often work in small groups and use homosexual prostitution as a vehicle for assault and robbery. Most Peer-delinquent prostitutes are between the ages of 14 and 17 years old. Their usual modus operandi is for one or more of them to solicit a customer who is willing to pay to perform fellatio on them; they then rob then and physically assault them. Peer-delinquent prostitutes often define their contacts with clients as a demonstration of their masculinity and heterosexuality to their peers. However, beneath this façade many have strong homosexual feelings. All prostitutes, male and female, have a higher risk of contracting and transmitting deadly diseases. This one male prostitute, I could hardly move without falling over him. Every time I saw him, he had his mouth wide open, “Hey, Shane—who have we got here?” They would make a big deal over my sons. My oldest son could not stand him and used to call him Jim Crow. He even wore a wild zoot suit, used a heavy grease in his hair to make it look like a conk (perm), and he wore the knob-toed shoes, the long, swinging chain—everything. Jim Crow, as my son called him would not be seen with any woman, but this blonde midget, in fact, they lived in the same little apartment. I never was sure how they worked that one out, but I had my idea. #RyanPhillippe 14 of 14