The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (6 page)

Bob Zmuda,

Writer/Producer

M
Y FATHER’S NAME WAS OTTO
Gustave; my mother was Laverne Cecilia. Both of them were immigrants, and both reached Chicago through Ellis Island. He was a full-blooded German, she was a full-blooded Italian. Before I came along, my father served in World War II. He ran a tank troop and saw lots of action, much of it in the Philippines. My mother was in the Navy, with the WAVES, though she never went overseas. Still, as you can see, I come from a family that serves: Army, Navy, Brothels.

In 1945 my mother was suffering from arthritis and the doctor advised her to move to Arizona. My father knew she was a hypochondriac, but he agreed to go, unhappily. Years later he told me it was the second-biggest mistake of his life. I don’t know what the first was, but I suspect it was marrying my mother. I know what you’re thinking now:
Dennis has problems. Dennis didn’t like his
mother. That explains everything
. Well, you’re right on a couple of counts: I do have problems, and I didn’t like my mother. (Or at least I didn’t think I liked her, until she died and I fell apart and wept like a baby.) But my relationship with my mother doesn’t explain
everything
. Some things, certainly; just not everything.

I was born in Phoenix on October 14, 1946. (Feel free to post birthday wishes on the message board at
BunnyRanch.com
.) At the time, my father was running a little bicycle rental business in downtown Phoenix, next to the Hotel Westward Ho, renting mostly to tourists. He was mechanically inclined and he loved people, and he was thinking about opening a motorcycle shop, maybe even a car dealership down the line. But shortly after I was born my mother talked him out of it. She reminded him that they had gone hungry during the depression, and that the only people who had eaten regularly were civil servants and the rich. Since they weren’t rich, and since she didn’t think my father would ever make them rich, she insisted that he look for a job as a civil servant. My father became a mailman, a position he held for the next thirty years, until he retired.

He was a hard worker and I got my work ethic from him. I had a paper route by the time I was nine, and sometimes my German shepherd, Pat, would come with me. At age ten, I started working at the local Dairy Queen, sweeping the parking lot, and the manager told me I was the best parking lot sweeper he’d ever seen. I put most of my money into pinball machines and that’s when I first became aware of the connection between money and pleasure: If you had money, you had a good time. If not, you didn’t.

My mother was a Catholic, but she only went to church once a year, on Christmas. I had to go every Sunday, though, until a local priest molested one of my friends. I shared that information
with my father and he went absolutely ballistic. He screamed at my mother that I would never again set foot inside a church, cursing a blue streak in the process. I had never seen that angry side of him. He had always been a quiet, unassuming man, almost cold, and had never once raised his voice, at least not in my presence. But there he was, putting his foot down for the first time in his life, apoplectic. I think part of that rage came from a very deep place of resentment; if not for my mother, he wouldn’t have been forced to move to Phoenix or to become a mailman. He would have been in Chicago, near his father, whom he loved and missed, and maybe by that time he would have had an auto repair shop of his own.

By the time I was twelve, and clearly destined to remain an only child, I had lost my interest in pinball and began to save my money. I can’t tell you what I was saving for exactly, but I remained fixated on doing well, on having more. On my route, I saw how other people lived — some of them had garages bigger than our whole house — and I wanted a garage like that someday. But I wasn’t covetous or jealous or resentful. If they had a nice house, maybe they deserved it. And I didn’t want
their
house; I wanted a house of my own. And the funny thing is, I knew I would have it someday. I didn’t know
how
I knew, but I was convinced it would happen. I was a very positive kid. If by chance I had found myself in a shed full of manure, I’d have been excited, knowing that somewhere nearby there was a pony.

At fifteen, I found myself being bused to West High, which was in a rural part of Phoenix, near the nicer suburbs. Most of the students were from well-to-do families, and plenty of them had cars. And you couldn’t get laid without a car, so I got motivated and went to work at a local gas station. Within a year, scouring the local junkyards, I cobbled together a hot rod and used my new wheels
to get a girlfriend, Shirley, and to get laid, of course. We didn’t know what we were doing in bed — we were like two monkeys fucking a football — but I loved sex from the start, and I could never get enough of it. I still can’t.

I worked all through high school, mostly at gas stations, but I had a weekend job that foreshadowed my future in the world of adult entertainment. Back then I was a strapping youth with blond hair, blue eyes, and a polite, respectful manner. So Saturday nights would find me showing up at a girl’s house, fresh from the shower, my hair neatly combed, and for a few minutes I’d make pleasant conversation with the parents. “Linda and I are going to see
A Hard Day’s Night
, the new Beatles movie. We’re really excited.” When it came time to leave, they would always ask me to have Linda back by eleven, and I would politely negotiate for more time. “We were hoping to go to Bill Johnson’s Big Apple after the movie with a bunch of kids from school. It’s a real nice group, sir. Trust me. Would it be okay if I kept her out until one?” Then we’d get in my car and drive down to Jack in the Box and I’d hand her over to the dirtbag she was actually dating, a guy Linda’s parents didn’t approve of, and I’d get ten bucks for my efforts. Sometimes I did this three and four times a night, and looking back, I can see that was where I first started developing the negotiating skills that later turned me into a master salesman.

Thanks to that extra money, I didn’t have to work at the gas station on weekends, and I would take Shirley to movies and to live shows and to restaurants. I liked fancy restaurants, not diners. I remember taking her to Trader Vic’s one time, in Scottsdale, which was above my pay grade, but I guess I wanted all the nice things my parents never had, and I was willing to work for them.

Then we got careless and Shirley got pregnant, but I did the
right thing and married her. We could have had an abortion, sure, but in those days it was real back-alley stuff, shady doctors with coat hangers, and I didn’t want to take any chances. More importantly, I couldn’t imagine taking the life of our unborn child.

My parents weren’t exactly thrilled, especially my mother. From the moment Shirley and I started dating, she had said the same thing, over and over again: “Mark my words, Dennis, that girl is going to get pregnant and trap you.”

I would say, “Ma, leave it alone, please. Nothing’s going to happen.” What’s the lesson here? You should listen to your mother, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing.

Shirley and I drove to Tucson to get married. My hot rod wasn’t built for distance, so I borrowed my father’s Volkswagen and we spent one night at the Thunderbird Lodge, which set us back eight dollars. The next day we went to see a justice of the peace and he married us for ten dollars, cash. Then we drove home and started our life together.

First thing I had to do was find a place for us to live, for me and my pregnant wife, and I came across a perfect little guesthouse in downtown Phoenix. I’ll never forget this: I was eighteen, Shirley was seventeen; both of us were still in school,
kids
, basically. I went to see the lady who owned the guesthouse, a nice-looking gal, thirty-five, maybe forty, and she sized me up. I was wearing slacks from JCPenney and a crisp shirt (my mother’s influence), and I looked her directly in the eye when she talked to me (my mother’s nagging). “You seem too young to be a father.”

“Yes, ma’am, a little.”

“How’d you get yourself into this mess?”

“I’m going to make the best of it, ma’am.”

Finally she told me I could have the place, and the next day,
when I went back with the deposit and the first month’s rent, she took the money and said, “I want you to fuck me.” I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, but she repeated it. “If you want the apartment, you’re going to have to fuck me.” So I fucked her. And every month, when the rent came due, I fucked her again.