Chapter 13

Mildred was a short, plump woman about sixty and she was all sugar and spice when she met me at her door. She knew I had connections with the 'big boys' and she assumed that I was a girl friend of one of them. I didn't bother to tell her any different, but let her think whatever she pleased. She showed me every bedroom she had and told me to take my pick. I didn't want to dislodge any of her girls, so I took the vacant one.

I put what things and clothes that I would need in my room and locked the rest of my things in the trunk of my car. In a few minutes, I was ready for business. Mildred kept three girls, counting me, and whenever she introduced us to a customer, she made it a point to play me up.

I was somebody! I was Wanda. Her other girls looked at me with curious eyes and I wondered what they thought of me. I noticed that they made little or no attempts to get friendly with me. It was just like being at Grace's, except I didn't go home at night. My first night, I had thirty-three customers. Business was picking up.

The next morning, I hustled a couple of dates and then got ready to meet Tom. He was the big interest in my life and I went around dreaming about him. I was to meet him at two p.m. I kept myself in a daze just thinking about him. The way he looked at me, the things he had said, and the way he had kissed me, I kept reliving these things over in my mind.

The men who dated me didn't thrill me, and I didn't enjoy sex. As always, I only pretended. A successful prostitute is just an actress. I had learned the little gestures, the movements to make with my body, and to smile at the proper moments in order to make the customer believe I was enjoying our session. I guess men know that we don't enjoy relations with our customers, but each guy seems to think that he is the exception and that we can't help but like doing it with him. It would be pretty hard to convince a man that going to bed with him was as exciting as washing my face. If a chippy told that to a customer he would get mad, insult her, and make it out that it was her fault because she didn't.

A man can easily understand why a chippy doesn't enjoy it with all or some of her customers. He can understand that, but he can't understand why she doesn't enjoy it with him. Men are just not logical when it comes to sex.

So I got a smug satisfaction out of the little deceit that I played on the men. By nature, I am quiet and mousy. In high school, I was the leading wallflower, although this wasn't entirely my fault. My father's radical ideas about religion often caused me embarrassment and caused the other kids to stay away from me.

But dressed the way that I like to dress and walking naturally, I can pass customers on the street and not be recognized. In a cat-house, I am entirely different. I add make-up, fix my hair differently, and walk with a swing to my hips. There have been nights when my face actually ached from smiling so much. When a man walked through the door, I looked him over as closely as he did me. I tried to judge by his actions what kind of a girl he wanted and I tried to be like that girl. If he wanted a girl who was quiet and shy, I was shy and demure. If he wanted a girl who was red-hot and brassy, I could be that way too. Most of the time it was an easy ten bucks to earn, but occasionally, I had a guy treat me rough. But hustling is so easy, too easy if the truth is known. If it was as bad as some of the people make it out to be, maybe there wouldn't be so many prostitutes.

I felt no shame in taking their money and I felt that I deserved it. I felt it was a fair bargain. He got the thrill he wanted from me, and he left me his mess to clean up. The fact that I didn't know the guy or anything about him made it easier for me to submit to him.

At Mildred's, I tried to live up to my reputation. I was a red-hot chippy who took on plenty of men and enjoyed them. It was silly what men believed about me. I was no different from the other girls on Green street, but my customers believed differently.

The vice syndicate that controlled Green street was strictly a home-made affair, owned and operated by local people. There was no head, no so-called vice lord who controlled everything, but a dozen or so people running the show. First, there were the girls. Most of them were married to or had pimps for boy friends. They hustled in the houses their guys put them in and didn't ask questions. To a prostitute, one whorehouse or one town is about the same as another.

I don't think anyone could ever untangle the graft that went on and discover to whom the money went. The people made money off of the houses in two ways, directly and indirectly. One was the graft and fines. That was the direct. The money the girls paid to Bill to get into the brothels. The pay-off to the vice cops who came around from time to time. The fines we paid each week and the health cards we had to buy.

Indirectly, was the rent. For example, a brothel on this street rented from five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars a month. The rent depended on the number of girls the Madame kept. The private residence along the block rented for from thirty to fifty dollars a month. The towel racket and the juke box concession were operated by two different groups. A jukebox was required in every brothel. Another indirect way is that chippys are notorious spenders and they spend every dime they make. The stores reaped a nice benefit.

On Green street, there are ten houses of prostitution, nine Madames, and sometimes as high as fifty prostitutes. Each girl charges a minimum of ten dollars a date and averages twenty dates a night. It figured out that the graft, rake-off, and fines that the chippies and Madames paid took about six dollars for each date a chippy had. Still no chippy could complain because most of the girls earned twenty to thirty thousand dollars a year.

Who got the loot from the houses? Its probably split up in so many different ways that it would be impossible to teH. Some of the brothels were owned and even financed by some of the city's leading business men. The house that Grace rented was owned by a lady in town who was famous for her charity works. At least some of her income came from prostitution. These people had invested in red light property the same way they invested in stocks and bonds. It was no secret that the Chief of Police bought a new car each year that cost more than his yearly salary.

But the men who gave the orders and controlled things didn't have any traffic with prostitutes. The only thing they cared about was that no local girls were found in the houses.

Jergens and Thomas were small fry who were investing money in me to set me up in business. They were in on the operation some way, but they received only crumbs. So they wanted more. The only way they could make more money was" to put some girl in a whorehouse. Two of the girls on this street were secretly married to cops, but I guess the idea of being a pimp was distasteful to Jergens and Thomas. It amounted to the same thing, but they wanted to think of it as an investment. If the deal went through, it would be a sort of a partnership. They would stake me to a brothel of my own and instead of part of my earnings going to a Madame, it would go to them.

Bill was just a fall guy; hardly more than an errand boy. He collected the rent from the brothels, paid the girls' fines for them, and collected the rake-off. If something went wrong, he would take the rap, but it wasn't likely that anything would. The brothels had been operating for over fifty years without a shut-down.

The next day, I went to the doctor for my examination, got my health card, and then went to the police station to give them my change of address and pay my next week's fine. The cops kidded me for awhile. I tried to find out if they had heard anything about my deal, but apparently they hadn't. When I left the station, it was time to meet Tom.

I forced myself to walk slow and take my time going to the bus station. I wanted him to have to wait for me, perhaps worry a little bit about me. It wouldn't be dark when our date would be over, so we wouldn't be able to go to the football field. As I walked down the hill, I paused to look into the store windows and wondered what Tom would do about our love making. What I would do was more important. I wanted to give in to him, but I didn't want to appear cheap in his eyes.

Tom was waiting in front of the depot, smoking a cigarette, and pacing back and forth. I hurried the last half block and Tom walked towards me, a smile growing on his face. He caught me in his arms.

"I hurried as fast as I could," I laughed.

He held me a moment, looked at me, and I smiled up at him. The way he looked at me sent thrills running through me and no man had ever had that effect on me before.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starved," I answered.

He took my arm and we walked up the street to our little cafe. Tom was still smiling and talking to me, but I was too dizzy with joy to understand what he was saying. Just as we reached the cafe, I noticed some high school boys driving down the street in their hot rod.

"Hey, Wandal How are things on Green street?" one of them yelled.

I froze, my hand on the door. Tom made a funny noise in his throat and turned around. They yelled something else and I heard them laugh. The way men do when they ridicule a prostitute in public.

"What in hell do you care?" a woman answered.

I looked around. There was another Wanda in town. She used to be on Green street, but now she was a drunk and part-time streetwalker. She was leaning against a lamp post in front of the cafe. I ducked into the cafe, Tom right behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at him; his face showed unconcern. I had been lucky. The boys had recognized me, but the other Wanda, standing there, had answered them. Through the window, I saw her stagger across the street, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and she clutched a grimy white purse. She was so drunk she could hardly walk. "Is she your Wanda too?" I smiled.

"Not hardly," Tom grinned and blushed like a school boy. "I just wish they would run those women out of town."

"Why?" I wrinkled up my nose at him.

"There's lot's of reasons," Tom answered bluntly and drummed his spoon against his coffee cup. "To begin with, a woman who is willing to lead that kind of life is mentally sick. Second, it's bad, bad for the town and everybody to have such places running wide open the way they do here. Look at those kids out there, still in high school, but they know about such women."

"Tom, what would you do if you found out I was one of those women?"

"You're not-you couldn't be." A touch of red rose to his face and I wondered if he thought he had betrayed me that night under the bleachers.

"But suppose I was?"

"I'm afraid our friendship would cease," Tom answered evenly. "I want a girl I can be proud of, not ashamed of. Do you think I'd want to marry a girl knowing that she'd done it with every Tom, Dick, and Harry? Or to have men make fun of her, the way those boys did that woman? No man in his right mind would want such a girl," Tom shook his head.

"Suppose you fell in love with a girl and then found out she was like that Wanda out there?"

"I'm afraid I'd fall out of love pretty fast," Tom laughed. He paused and gave me a somber look, "How come all the questions?"

I shrugged my shoulders and held my coffee cup before my face so it would hide my trembling lips. "Can't I be curious about you?"

Tom gave me a pleased look. I didn't say anything more. I touched my face and my fingers were ice cold, yet they were sweating. I wanted to tell him. I tried to tell him, but if I had, he would have walked out on me for good. I couldn't stand that. He would find out or perhaps I would be able to tell him later on. But when he found out, maybe he would love me as much as I loved him and it wouldn't matter to him then. I wasn't being honest with him and I didn't like deceiving him, but I didn't know what else to do. I felt that it was better to deceive him and hold him to me than to be honest and lose him. I had promised to marry him, but I wouldn't until he learned the truth. I felt sure that I could make him understand when I did tell him. We ate dinner and left the cafe.

"Any place you want to go?" Tom asked. He gave me a cigarette and faced me to light it. I couldn't look him in the eye.

"The library," I answered. It was two blocks up the hill. We walked slowly, looking into all the windows.

"There's a suit I'd like to have," Tom said.

"Do you want me to buy it for you?" I asked. "I've got the money."

He gave me an odd look and shook his head. I guess he thought I was joking, but I wanted to buy him a suit or anything else that he wanted. I knew that I wouldn't feel so bad about being a prostitute if I could just give him the money I earned. At the library, he set down beside one of the marble lions that guarded the entrance.

"I want to finish my cigarette," he said. "I'll wait for you here."

I wanted him to come with me, but I said O. K. I hated being away from him for even a moment. I like to have something to read while I watch the streets for dates.. It helps to pass away the time. The movie mags and the confessions that the other girls like, fail to interest me and I prefer poetry and the classics. I picked out a book of poems by Sara Teasdale and a book of I. S. Cobb's short stories. Next to Washington Irving, he is my favorite writer. I took them to the desk. The librarian gave me hard look as if she had seen me before and was trying to place me.

"Your name and address please," she said, stiff-lipped.

"Wanda Lane, 307 Green street."

Her eyes blazed with anger and she tore my card into little bits and flung the pieces into my face.

"You little harlot," she hissed. "Get out of here before I call the cops."

People in the library heard her shrill voice crack against the silence and looked up. I felt their eyes on me. I gasped and almost ran out of the library. Tom was coming up the steps. He turned and flung his cigarette into the street as I came through the door. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing-nothing at all," I was almost crying. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Tom hesitated, peering into the library. I went on down the steps, not waiting for him. I had to get him away from here, somehow. It kept ringing in my mind; I can't let him find out. It was a tiny prayer that I whispered. He came trailing after me and I slowed down when he caught up with me. I didn't look at him, but kept my head turned so he couldn't see my face.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"I didn't say-I mean, it's not me, is it?" he asked anxiously. I shook my head. I was too choked up to try to talk. "It's nothing I've done?"

"It's-It's-I made a phone call," I stammered. "I-I'll tell you later."

He walked beside me, quietly and not speaking, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I'd have to tell him something, but I didn't know what. Finally, I looked at him and managed to smile.

"That's better," Tom grinned. "I'm O. K. now," I said.

We went to the matinee and it was a comedy. Tom held my hand and we both laughed through the picture. Whenever I looked at him, he'd squeeze my hand. I was in a bright mood when we left the show. We had about an hour until his bus left. We just walked up and down the street, holding hands. When we came to the hotel, Tom stopped; his face told me what he was thinking.

"Would-would you want to-to-" Tom started blushing.

I wanted to. But I didn't want to look cheap in his eyes and I was afraid I would if I said yes. Maybe I wouldn't now, but afterwards-He thought I was a nice girl and I wanted him to keep on believing that. He took my arm and started for the door. I stopped and pulled my arm away. He turned and looked at me.

"No, Boy, you're not pulling anything like that," I said.

"I should have known better," he gave me a foolish grin, "You're not mad, are you? You can't blame a guy for trying."

"Of course not," I answered. "I couldn't get mad at you for anything."

"You say that now," he grinned. "But after we're married, I bet you'll find plenty to get mad about."

We had coffee in the cafe and at the station, he kissed me good-by twice before the bus got there.

"How about Friday night?" he suggested.

Friday would be pay night and the Madame would be sore at me if I wasn't on the turf that night.

"Sunday," I promised.

He kissed me again and he was the last one on the bus. Before the bus was out of sight, I was the loneliest woman ia the world.