Low Road (16 page)

Donnie might have taken offense to the “legal ends” reference, but it was probably just a poor choice of words on Pruett's part. She seemed genuinely receptive to the possibility of publishing his contributions and genuinely impressed by his efforts. But whatever the level of her interest had been, the journalist was apparently able to provide little beyond her cordial letter. Donnie wouldn't be released for another year, and it wouldn't be his last attempt at starting a new, legitimate profession. As the end of his term drew near, he grew more resourceful in his research. Eventually, he got the idea to look up the company that published his new inspiration, Iceberg Slim. If they could put Beck's name out there, surely they could do the same for Donnie. And poking around among the familiar resources back in Detroit produced few results. A prophet was said not to be without honor except in his own country; a prophet in prison couldn't realistically expect to do much better. Donnie put another one of his queries together and mailed it off from Jackson. Then he waited. After going to the joint more than once, the ability to pass time became routine. Without any question, freedom was still desired and missed, but in its absence, a sort of numbness inevitably set in. And inmates who had already done a bid or two for any length of time tended to learn to use that numbness to their advantage. Days would begin to resemble one another, often to the point that they seemed not to matter. The less a man kept track of days, the more quickly they seemed to accumulate. It could get tougher to maintain mental conditioning, though, when the end of a term was in sight.

Donnie was discharged from the Michigan Department of Corrections on December 1, 1970. Just two weeks before his thirty-fourth birthday. He left the penitentiary, this time never to return. Heroin use on the streets and in the neighborhoods of his hometown had increased while Donnie was locked up. The city now operated four clinics where dope fiends could go to be treated with methadone, a smack substitute. Yet, after regaining easy access to sources who could help him score the drug, Donnie would not sign himself in at any of them. Like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang on the radio, wasn't “nothing like the real thing.”

Publisher

One chapter for me to remember is the one dealing with young people nodding … Again, try and reveal the sickening, the madness, the horror of drug addiction in the ghettoes … It's a fact that whitey has no idea of just how many young, black men are getting dependent on heroin.

—Typewritten memo, titled “Black Rage of Hatred,” by Donald Goines

 

Holloway House Publishing Company was located in a rather inconspicuous, gray building at 8060 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, not far from the rocky hills where some of the most extravagant homes in California were tucked away. A person would have to really know the city or be involved in the book business to make an association upon hearing no more than the business's name. Holloway House went about its work rather quietly in the commercial district that served as its neighborhood. Not even too many of the taxi drivers who cruised the area could identify the building from recollection in the way they could identify nearby bars, restaurants, or shopping outlets. Actually, there was no real reason for employees to attract attention with their comings and goings. It was a relatively small operation, especially in light of how the best-known publishing companies ran their business in the 1970s. Most of them were set up a full coast away in New York City. They drew upon the history of the area as a diverse and creative community, along with its status as a destination for artists, musicians, and literary types. California, on the other hand, was more driven by the entertainment industry as a professional component. Hollywood beckoned countless numbers of aspiring actors, screenwriters, directors, and models. Film and television had become increasingly lucrative business with the likes of Warner Bros., Universal Studios, MGM and 20th Century Fox maintaining a significant presence in the region. Dozens of features were produced annually and distributed to movie theaters nationwide, while everything from Bugs Bunny cartoons to Coca-Cola commercials and episodes of
Columbo
were regularly broadcast into America's living rooms. Of particular interest was the new genre of movies and TV shows generated in Hollywood that reflected a different stage of black attitude and thought emerging in the real world. Shiftless, shameless, and embarrassing characters were replaced with proud and defiant heroes and antiheroes. Even the complexions of those who made it to the screen became darker as actors like Sidney Poitier broke into the mainstream. A Bahamas native, Poitier learned his way around the stage, originating the role of proud but stubborn Walter Lee Younger in the Broadway production of
A Raisin in the Sun,
Lorraine Hansberry's acclaimed play. Later, he costarred opposite white actors and actresses in the films
In the Heat of the Night, To Sir with Love,
and
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Poitier represented a sort of quiet, reserved, and dignified black man. When his police officer character in
In the Heat of the Night
was asked by racist southern cops how he was addressed among more liberal colleagues, he kept his cool, but replied: “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” In contrast, another darker-skinned crime-fighting character MGM brought to the screen preferred lines like “Don't let your mouth get your ass in trouble.” Director Gordon Parks's second feature-length film,
Shaft,
actually netted enough profits to help deliver MGM from financial ruin. John Shaft, the movie's title character, was a take-no-shit private detective. Operating against the backdrop of rough Harlem streets, Shaft took on an assignment to search for the kidnapped daughter of a gangster who wanted her safely returned to him, no matter the cost. Ultimately, Shaft enlisted the support of an old friend and a militant group to rescue the girl from mobsters. His character was well-received by young, Afro- and dashiki-wearing audiences, many of whom had no real concept of what it was like to see themselves as anything besides black and proud. The detective embodied a sense of confidence that had come to characterize the generation. Richard Roundtree, the handsome actor who portrayed Shaft, brought forth the image of a brother who was very different from what had previously been projected onto the screen. With a composed and laid-back approach to his work, an ability to move comfortably across social boundaries, and a fearless manner of handling his enemies, he represented the first black action hero. Shaft was a consummate professional. His style of speech and dress and his relevance to the times found a connection with the urban public. Boys throughout the country wanted to wear leather jackets and refer to one another as “baby” in place of their actual names. Adding appeal to the film was a soundtrack that featured the contribution of soul composer Isaac Hayes. When his baritone vocals roared in, inquiring “Who's the man that won't cop out when there's danger all about?” those in the theater were all too happy to give the song's response: “Shaft!” The movie also garnered positive critical reviews, despite a few others that dismissed it as tacky and sexually clichéed. The Motion Picture Guide praised Parks for his concentration on Shaft's “humanistic elements,” which brought “depth to the super-slick detective, showing other sides to his personality.”

With so much cinematic excitement in the town, it was understandable that a little book company might not be the top competitor for the public's attention. Holloway House was more inclined to press others toward the forefront. Nothing was more valuable to aspiring storytellers than an outlet that would be dedicated in getting their words out to a readership. Equipped with the resources the company had available and a sense of what would draw attention to bookshelves, the folks at 8060 Melrose had the primary objective of cranking out paperbacks. The company did its own editorial production, distribution, and promotion of materials. If book enthusiasts had never heard of Holloway House, they worked to make certain that names like Louis Lomax, Robert H. deCoy, and Iceberg Slim—as if it weren't already distinct enough—were familiar. Loads and loads of books by black authors had been purchased in towns where segregation was still law. In fact, Holloway House made a point of marketing its products in urban communities and unconventional places that might be better suited to unconventional stories. Paperbacks were made available at airports, on newsstands, and in liquor stores. Would-be customers who went looking for Holloway House titles at big, commercial bookstores would often be out of luck. Beck alone would sell millions. His first work,
Pimp: The Story of My Life,
became a legend in print, which highlighted the reflections and ruminations of the career Beck had embarked upon at the tender age of eighteen. The young woman handler had briefly attended Alabama's Tuskegee Institute at the same time that Ralph Ellison, who would become a more widely respected author with his book
Invisible Man,
had been a scholarship student there. Iceberg Slim was self-taught as a writer, and he combined whatever legitimate skills he acquired with the compelling personal observations and encounters that he documented on paper. With Holloway's publication of
Pimp,
he went as far as including a glossary of terms to assist those who would have been regarded as “square” in following the hip and quick language of his text. “Breaking luck” was a phrase defined as the first “trick,” or client, that a whore received during her work day. A “mitt man” was “a hustler who uses religion and prophecy to con his victims,” usually women. “Yeasting” was defined as a form of exaggeration. And “circus love”: “to run the gamut of the sexual perversions.” Then there were more universal terms: “horns,” for example, were ears.

Though his publisher worked to give the book support, there was resistance. The
New York Times
didn't even have to consider
Pimp
's content. When Holloway House tried to place an ad, the paper declined to accept it because of the title. Removing the one word that the
Times
advertising department found objectionable, however, would have changed the entire tone of the pronouncement. It was a sign of the times that Holloway House was giving something different from what much of the general public was accustomed to getting from a book producer. Revealing the story of a pimp's life turned out to be more than a notion. Yet, the company rose to the occasion. They continued a publicity effort to get
Pimp
a little play. Iceberg was booked as a guest on a popular L.A. talk show hosted by Joe Pyne. This was the move that created the buzz Holloway House had been listening out for. Phones began to ring at 8060 Melrose. The television appearance had generated a good amount of response. Enough, at least, to stir interest in the publisher's starring player. Suddenly, every bookstore in the city was contacting Holloway House.

As word-of-mouth spread, interest in the Beck chronicle followed suit. Holloway House was on the map, at least in a small way. In literary circles, on the other hand, any acknowledgment earned for the company by virtue of
Pimp's
success might have been regarded as tentative at best. There were relatively few critical reviews given to paperback releases by the book and features editors at major newspapers and media outlets. Stories were printed in the
Washington Post
and the
Detroit Free Press,
but they focused on the fact that Beck's work discussed a culture entirely unfamiliar to the American mainstream rather than on the merits of his word usage or his story content. The fascination, such as it was, essentially resulted from the very nerve that a legitimate company—and white-controlled, no less—would be bold enough to front this sort of storytelling. It was compelling stuff, but of the variety that members of the general public, outside the black community, might force themselves to be just as comfortable ignoring. It was the kind of tale that, at least subconsciously, they longed to not only read but understand. The black man. The stranger. The alien. The feared one. What the fuck could he actually have to say that was so completely unsanctioned by the established standards that dictated how he could and couldn't publicly express himself? And what if it actually had relevance? A thinking, articulate black man, particularly one with the capacity to commit criminal acts, could be a goddamned dangerous thing. If hundreds of years of conditioning hadn't been enough to breed into him a self-activated censorship switch, he could quickly become troublesome. He could be freely critical of the society that had helped produce him. The society that had nurtured his ancestors with fine food and free room and board on spacious, bountiful plantation land.

Beck's writing was largely symbolic of this back talk.
Pimp
was a form of literary insubordination. Not only that, but it directly challenged notions, stereotypical and otherwise, about the American image of black men and sexuality. The preferred racist belief was that they were helplessly sexual creatures who would fuck a hole in the ground in the absence of better options. They were controlled by animal instincts and loins that blazed with overwhelming, violent passion. Iceberg Slim was the big, black buck with a book contract.
Pimp: The Story of My Powerful, Menacing, and, Mostly, Large Dick
might as well have been his publication's title as far as sheltered Caucasians were concerned. The trouble with that image was that Beck had total poise and composure. He was in no way ruled by a lack of self-control. His ability to take command, as a matter of record, was a major asset. He worked with his brain more so than his body. After all, no pimp who got too caught up in the sexuality of a woman could successfully manipulate her. Beck had the qualities of a leader: charm, charisma, and determination. Furthermore, there could be no proper way to label a man with an IQ not far from 200 as a savage nigger. When he was an inmate, Beck could have probably been running the prison. Not only was he naturally bright, his presence was imposing. At six feet two, he had finesse, dressed immaculately, and beamed confidence. The author might have become Iceberg Slim, attorney-at-law, or maybe Alderman Ice in his native Chicago, had he chosen a political career. Crime had become, for Beck, a form of rebellion against the order set by that very class of people who would one day fear what he had to say. Indeed, the historical parallels would have likely been lost on his critics, but America was built by men like Iceberg, who essentially violated laws and reconstructed society according to their own needs and standards. Payback was a bitch. Especially when nobody saw it coming.