I turned fifteen shortly before I was graduated from junior high school, which in San Francisco goes through the ninth grade. It was then that I started blowing after-hour gigs in the Tenderloin, the area just north of Market Street, bordered by Geary, Van Ness, and Powell. It was a great place, frequented by bums and winos, addicts, whores, pimps, and homosexuals of all three sexes. The clubs opened at two o'clock in the morning, when the bars closed, and served food and "soft" beverages until sun-up. Most • had been bars that had had their liquor licenses yanked by the State Alcohol Control people, for selling booze to minors. The funny part is, they made more profit as after-hours clubs than they did as bars. For three bucks a breakfast and fifty cents a cup of coffee, you could sit and dig the music all night. Of course, the customers got hustled for another cup of coffee every fifteen minutes.
The Streets of Paris, on Mason Street, now long defunct, was a favorite. It was dark and dirty, nothing at all fancy, but very popular. It was a hangout place for street girls trying to get that last trick of the evening, for pimps who tried to push their girls on Johns that were too bombed to know what was happening, for homosexuals after the gay bars closed, and for male hustlers. I met Bobby there.
He was about six feet tall and accentuated his thinness with cowboy clothes. He wore tight Levi's, a fancy western shirt, and a faded work jacket, with a Stetson set at a daring angle on his carefully tousled blond hair. He was the kind of guy who had a baby face, so you couldn't tell how old he was, but I'm sure he had been in the Navy during the war. Even though he lied a lot, he spoke so knowledgeably about life onboard a ship that I believed him.
A group of us came in to jam one night, but the place was packed. There were no available tables and I happened to stand against the wall, next to Bobby. He leaned down to me. "Cruisin' for trade?"
"Huh?" I said, noticing him for the first time.
"You cruisin' for trade? You know, hustlin'?"
"Nah," I said, still not sure what he meant. "I'm just waiting ray turn at the drums."
We were silent awhile. Finally he bent down again. "You ever hustled?"
"No," I answered, getting slightly annoyed and trying to concentrate on the great jazz.
He put his lips close to my ear, so that I could hear him above the noise, and whispered confidentially, "Jees, man. You're built good for it. You could make a bundle. I seed you had the equipment th' minute you walked in. You could really make a bundle."
"Yeah? How much?" I said, getting a little interested and wondering what he meant by "equipment."
"A hunnert a night."
"How much?" I almost yelled.
He put his finger to his lips and his hand into his Levi pocket, withdrawing a bundle of bills large enough to make my eyes open wide. He must have had seven or eight hundred dollars in his hand. I had never seen so much money all in one place at the same time.
"Course," he continued, "it ain't all from tonight."
"Yeah?" I said, now really interested. "Tell me, just how do you go about hustlin'?"
The room was filled with smoke and the noise from music and conversation was so raucous that I could hardly hear Bobby as he tried to tell me how he made so much money. Finally, in exasperation, we decided to go outside. There, leaning against a building and idly watching the parade of assorted hookers, transvestites, and other-world characters, he told me exactly what it was he did. It was simple. He let homosexuals suck him off for money. They liked young or young-looking boys who wore tight pants to show that they were hung. Most of the homosexuals were closet queens, that is, they appeared to be straight, or heterosexual, and many were even married men, suffering from a compulsion to suck cock. For that reason they were always pretty scared and wanted to get your gun off fast so that they could get out.
I had never thought of anything like that, mainly because I had never heard of it before. I didn't know that there were people who would actually pay a guy just to be allowed to suck him.
"How do you meet these guys?" I asked.
"Aww, it's easy's fallin' off a log," he assured me confidently. "See that there corner?" He pointed to the corner of Mason and Market. "Well, man, all you have to do is stand against the building there and look sexy."
"Look sexy?"
"Yeah, you know, make sure your whang makes a big bulge in your pants."
"Oh," I said.
"Then, as the guys walk by, you just kinda lock eyeballs with 'em. If they're tricks, they'll give you the look and kinda slow down at the corner and start hangin' around, like they're waitin' for something."
"Then what do you do?"
"You walk up near 'em, not to 'em, but near enough, and keep lookin' at their eyeballs while you put your hand in your pocket and kinda stroke your peter a bit, so's they can see it."
"Gosh!" I said, completely awed.
"Then they'll come over to you and say something about the weather, or ask directions, or something like that, 'cause they're kinda bashful. That's when you come on with your pitch. You tell 'em you're tryin' to get back to your little ol' home in Idaho, but the bus fare is twenty bucks and you sure wish you could think of a way to raise it."
"And then they just give you the twenty?"
"Nah. Then they'll ask something like if you like bein' blowed by guys."
"And what do you say?" I was fascinated.
"You say you have a few times and it's okay, but you'd really like to raise that twenty to go home on. Then they'll just offer you the twenty if they can blow you."
"Yeah, but you're standing out there on a public street. Where do you go?"
"The Pics movie house just a few doors up the street. Tell 'em to take you there. They can either blow you in the show, if it's not too crowded, or in the John. Then there's that hot-dog joint next door. They got a dark room in the back with booths that show girlie movies for a quarter. You can watch the movies and get blown at the same time. Then there's glory holes all over the place down here."
When I asked what a glory hole was Bobby looked at me like I was the stupidest thing on earth. "Jeeesus!" he said, shaking his head slowly. "A glory hole is a John where queers hang out. Don't you know nothin'?"
"Not much, I guess," I answered, embarrassed.
"And the two most important things to remember is always get the dough first and never go to a hotel room, or someplace you can't run away from if the guy turns out to be a freak."
We talked awhile more, as Bobby filled me in on his life as a hustler. He said that when he had saved ten thousand he was going to go to Wyoming and buy a ranch. It was something he had always dreamed of. I believed him because he sounded so sincere.
During the next few days I thought about it a lot. After all, I reasoned, it wasn't like being queer yourself. Getting blown was getting blown, and who cared if it was a female or a male mouth. Your cock didn't know the difference; it had no eyes and no brain, and certainly no conscience. And I could make a fortune, even more than by playing jobs. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that I would try it. Not only the money, but also the element of danger involved intrigued me.
The next night I hid behind a light pole across Market Street from the Owl Drugstore and watched Bobby at work. He was leaning against the front of the store, one foot propped against the building. Pretty soon a man in a business suit and a fedora hat came by, and damned if he didn't stop on the comer and pretend that he was looking for something. Bobby sauntered slowly over near him, and they both stood apart for a minute. Then they apparently began talking. In another couple of minutes the man withdrew his wallet and handed something to Bobby, which he stuffed into his pocket. Then he followed Bobby into the hot-dog stand with the girlie movies in back.
Ten minutes later the man walked out, followed at a discreet distance by Bobby, who sat on a stool in front and got a cup of coffee. The whole thing had taken twenty minutes, and Bobby presumably had made twenty dollars. A dollar a minute wasn't bad.
That Friday night I went into business for myself, and learned my first lesson in marketing analysis. I couldn't wait to tell Bobby, but he was nowhere in sight. Well, I figured, I'd just make a few bucks while I was waiting for him. I stood on that goddamn corner for three hours, freezing my ass off, looking my sexiest in tight, faded Levis, but not one John came by. I couldn't seem to catch anyone's eye. All I saw were families and guys with girls, on their way to one of the many theaters then on Market Street. Bobby never showed. Saturday night I got out of a date with some chick to go down there and try again, but all was in vain. It was a repeat of Friday night, families and couples strolling along the street. Again, Bobby never showed up. I just didn't get it. He had made it all look so easy.
Monday night I had a job playing a stag show for a fraternal organization at a hall on Polk Street. It was my first stag. They had hired some girls to perform, and we provided the bumps-and-grinds music. There were four girls, all quite naked, and all mingling and chatting nonchalantly with us backstage before they went on. Of course, we all were trying to act nonchalant, too, like we were used to talking with naked women every day of the week. I concentrated on keeping my eyes on theirs and not looking down, also not standing too straight, since I had a hell of a hard-on. The girls were pretty tough, and talked like sailors who had been at sea for a while. Just before they went on, they put a little glue around their nipples and slapped on pasties with tassels attached, and G-strings. That way, they conformed to what the law said you had to wear as a minimum if you didn't want to end up in the can. Then, if the room proved to be free of cops, they could peel it all off.
I thought I was in for a real erotic experience, but as it turned out, it was pure comedy. It was an Elks group that night, and they all were bombed out of their skulls by the time the girls went on. The girls danced around awhile and sang a few dirty songs with voices that sounded like a congress of alley cats. Then, satisfied that no police were present, they took off the pasties and G-strings, which brought a roar of approval from the Elks.
Spreading their legs, they bent over at the waist and let their tits bounce around a bit for the boys in front. But we were the boys in back, so all we saw was a comical picture of brownish assholes and hairy, backward twats, surrounded by four big, pimplish asses. As we looked at one another it was all we could do to keep from breaking up. Herb had to stop playing for a minute because he couldn't purse his lips on his trumpet mouthpiece. Then the girls went out into the audience and, stopping at each chair on the aisles, spread their legs and held open their cunt lips while the Elks shoved paper money up them. One big blonde with tits that dropped almost to her navel was getting the lion's share. I couldn't believe how much cash that broad had stuffed up her pussy.
From then on, it really started getting raw. The guys in the first row began pulling out their pricks and wrapping money around them. The smell of cash lured the girls back to the front, and they started sucking the guys off. From where I was sitting, all I could see was their crummy assholes and the backs of their heads bobbing up and down. It reminded me of a bunch of suckling calves. The guys made jokes when they came. One said, "Stand back, men! I'm gonna blow her head clear up to the roof!"
The horny ones in the back rows who couldn't get any attention came up to the front. A few of them took out their cocks and started jacking off near the girls' faces, while the girls were blowing the other guys. The Elks in the front row who hadn't been satisfied just sat with their – prongs out, waiting their turn. The girls began straddling the chairs and squatting down onto the men, laughing and joking as they applied just the right amount of pressure and the right movements to their asses to get the guys' nuts off in about ten seconds. These whores knew their business, and they weren't wasting any time as long as there was still a fiver being waved by somebody.
All the while, we kept up this nauseating stripper-type noise that we all hated so much. Orders were orders, and we expected a good tip. Besides, they all were so drunk that they didn't know what we were doing, so we had some fun playing imitations o! Guy Lombardo and that phony, trembling vibrato that he made famous.
Somebody dragged out one of those folding tables that public halls always seem to have in abundance. One girl lay on each end of the table, stuck her knees up, and started to take the tricks that hadn't been serviced yet. Any man who is insecure about his sexual staying power would be reassured if he went to one of these smokers. I must have watched fifty or sixty guys fuck those girls, and not one of them lasted over thirty seconds. Most barely made it to fifteen seconds. The girls got about as excited as nuns at an Easter service, cracking jokes and gabbing as they were being fucked.
This was the first time I had ever seen a bunch of men screwing. It gave me an inkling of a fact that would be proved again and again in the future: most male organs are nothing to be terribly proud of, and most men, even the young ones, are really and truly shitty lovers.
I could just see all of these cats going home to their wives.
"Did you have a nice time at the Elks' party, dear?"
"Oh, yes, fine. It was a real nice evening. We played cards and told dirty jokes, and I'm awful tired, so I think I'll go right to sleep, dear."
After the stag I collected my bonus of ten dollars, loaded my drums into Herb's car, changed to my hustling clothes, and walked over to the Tenderloin. Bobby was back in place, leaning against the Owl Drugstore. He was very happy to see me and quite interested in my account of the Elks' stag party. I told him that I had decided to try hustling, but had missed him Friday and Saturday nights, and of the miserable luck I had in picking up Johns.
Bobby laughed hard, and told me that weekends were tourist and family nights on Market Street, and that he worked the Powell and Geary areas on those nights. Well, after all, I thought, this hustling stuff was new to me, but I figured I'd catch on. Bobby confided that he was glad to have a "straight" stud-hustler like himself around, and that was why he tried so hard to recruit me. Most of the other studs were queer, and hated the straights. He thought we would be able to take care of each other, and look after each other's interests. It was always better, he said, if you worked with somebody you could trust, and he wouldn't trust a fuckin' queer as far as he could throw him.
By now it was very late. Market Street had darkened its many theater marquees and we stood in the only spot of light on the block, made by the all-night drugstore, the Pics Theater, and the hot-dog stand. Bobby had already done three Johns and was ready to go home when I arrived. He said it was hard to get a trick at this hour of the morning, and you had to hope for the compulsives, groping for one more cock to suck before they went home.
He stayed just inside the doorway of the drugstore and I leaned casually against the front of the building, putting my hand into my pocket and pushing my cock around so that it would make the biggest bulge possible against my pants. There were a lot of guys walking by, but none seemed to give me more than a casual glance.
Finally, after about twenty minutes, I got my first real strike. A guy of twenty-five or so wearing a lumberman's jacket walked by. There was something about him, a certain look. He caught my eye, slowed a little, and stopped at the corner. Following the scenario exactly, he began to look aimlessly up and down the street. Bobby nodded at me through the window and smiled. I wandered over close to the John, 'looking preoccupied, and playing with my pecker through my pockets.
"Cold out tonight, isn't it?" he said. It was a statement rather than a question.
"Sure is," I said, buttoning up my Levi jacket.
"Sure is," he repeated.
There was a moment's silence between us.
"Kinda young to be out so late, aren't you?"
I shrugged. "Got no place to go. Tryin' to raise twenty bucks to catch a bus back home to Cheyenne."
"You broke?" He smiled.
"Sure am. Broke and cold." I affected a shiver.
He looked down between my legs, running his tongue slowly over his lips, which Bobby had told me was the way a queer lets you know he wants to suck it.
"Nice-lookin' package you got down there," he said, keeping his glance between my legs.
"Some people think so," I said.
"Ever had it blown?"
"Yeah, a few times."
He raised his eyes to mine. "Could I?" he asked hopefully.
"Sure, I guess so. Only I really need twenty to get home on."
"You a hustler?" he asked, his voice taking on an edge.
"A what?" I said, pretending I didn't know what the word meant.
"Never mind." he said, shifting nervously.
Another silence.
Finally he pulled out his wallet and thumbed through some bills. "Twenty, you say, to get you home?"
"Yeah, twenty."
He gave me two tens. "Where can we go?"
I looked around as though I didn't know where I was going to take him. The Pics was showing a couple of ancient Westerns. "How about in there? Ought to be almost deserted now."
He bought two tickets from a grizzled old counter girl who looked at me knowingly and smiled as we entered. It was very dark inside, but after my eyes got accustomed I could make out a few winos snoring softly, scattered around the theater.
We took seats way down in front where we couldn't be surprised, and for a minute just watched the movie. Then I felt his hand on my leg, moving slowly into my crotch. I hoped he wouldn't be mad, because I couldn't get a hard-on. He put his other arm around my shoulder and my body involuntarily stiffened. He began to kiss my neck and I stiffened still more. I didn't know if I could take it. I felt about ready to puke and cussed Bobby because he had never mentioned anything about this-. The bastard stuck his tongue in my ear and I turned my head away, but just as I was getting ready to run he-moved to my crotch again, mumbling about how he would like to get me in bed and have me fuck him in the ass.
By this time I was holding back a retch. He fumbled with my pants and got out my cock, jerking it slowly with his hand and making low moaning sounds. He got it about half hard and leaned his head over to take it into his mouth, while he got his own out and started jacking it off. From where I sat I could smell the dried urine on it. His mouth continued to work on me and it began feeling really good. I was right, I thought. A male mouth feels just as good as a female mouth. I began pumping up into him as he caressed the inside of my legs and what he could grab of my ass. He reached into his pocket, took out a handkerchief, and put it over the head of his dick as he beat himself faster and sucked me faster. I could feel it coming and pushed myself to make it shoot sooner. Within a few seconds I let him have my load in his mouth, breathing loudly. He continued sucking until I began to hurt, -so I pulled it out and wiped carefully with my handkerchief. He sat up and started cleaning the mess he had made when most of what he'd shot had dribbled out of his handkerchief and onto his pants.
I jerked my zipper and got up. As I slid past him he patted my ass and thanked me. I nodded, not wanting to look at his face again, and hurried up the aisle and out of the theater, drained and shaken. Strangely, I was to discover that even though they paid, most Johns thanked me afterward, especially if I had given them a good load to swallow.
Bobby was still in the drugstore. I motioned for him to wait, then ran up the street to Polo's Restaurant, where I washed my cock with green soap and lots of hot water in the men's room.
I let Bobby have it good, telling him everything that had happened. He told me that I just got a lover, a real queer, and said I should have taken him to the hot-dog stand, where I could have stayed upright and watched the girlie films and he would have had to kneel, so he couldn't kiss me. He said he only took them to the Pics early in the evening, when there were quite a few people there. This forced them to just jack you off until you were ready and then put their heads down quick, just long enough to catch it as it came out.
Well, I thought, I still had a lot to learn, but I had made twenty dollars in less than a half hour, even though it had seemed an eternity.
It wasn't long before I was leading a triple life. By day I went to school, and as a ninth-grade senior in junior high, brought, home respectable, if not great, grades. Considering the fact that I never studied. I couldn't complain. My parents, however, did enough complaining for all of us. They accused me of being a genius gone bad and were sure that I would turn out to be some kind of evil criminal, cunningly snatching international gems and the like, until I would be put away for life on Alcatraz with the rest of the no-goodniks.
Then there was my life as a musician, and my life as a stud hustler. I lived on little or no sleep and often came home just in time to change clothes, shave, and go off to school. When I had been hustling I often stood under the hot shower for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying to wash it all off of me. It felt good to be sucked off, but if it was by a guy, I always felt filthy afterward, and on many evenings there were four or five guys. The shower seemed to help wash it all down the drain and leave me spiritually as well as physically clean again.
I was secretive about my activities and hid my money in a shoe box under the rafters in the garage. I answered all queries as to my whereabouts with, "Out with the guys."
Hustling activities aside, I still dreamed of girls, masturbated plenty to wild fantasies, and got laid a few more times. But I hadn't learned anything. I thought the whole object of fucking was to get it in, pump away, and come. The only refinement I had gained was the use of rubbers, supplied by a friendly comer pharmacist. I tried jacking off into them a few times, just to see what it was like. The band pulled at the hair around the base of my cock and it hurt like hell when I tried to roll off the damn things, wet and goopy. Besides, they smelled funny and it was a pain in the ass to use them with girls.
Herb and I picked up these two chicks at a high-school dance and drove them to Inspiration Point, or IP as we called it, a parking area at Land's End above the Cliff House and then-resplendent Sutro Baths. My girl's name was Faith, and I forgot the name of Herb's girl, but it was obvious that what they liked to do was screw.
Faith and I kissed and fondled awhile. I bent her over so that her elbow was between my legs and started rubbing slowly against it. Playing the "I'd like to feel your cock but I'm going to do it by accident" game, she slid down farther, using her forearm against me, then her wrist, and finally her hand. Before she knew what was happening I had it out and into her hand, while my own hand went up her skirt, over the top of her panties, and down to her cunt. Meanwhile, the car started shaking as Herb either got it into his girl or was humping her. I was too busy to look over the seat.
I always tried to get my cock into a girl's hand before I really started trying anything. I found that if I took it out fast and they grabbed it, the shock gave way to curiosity, and they would start rubbing it and playing with it. Then it was a lot easier for me to do what I wanted, because it was pretty hard for a girl to put on the innocent virgin act when she had your tool in her hand. But Faith was no problem. She had wanted to be screwed from the minute I picked her up and was fairly well potted from orangeade bottles that had been half emptied out and refilled with vodka, so that school chaperons wouldn't see what was going on right under their noses. Faith pulled down her panties and I struggled to get my wallet out of my hip pocket, fumbling for the flattened, wrinkled foil package. Then, because it was hermetically sealed, I couldn't get the fucking thing open with my fingers. Finally, in desperation, I bit it open. When I tried to roll it on I had the wrong side and it got all fouled up. By the time I flipped it over and tried to roll it on again, I was so agitated that I had lost most of my hard-on, and the damn rubber wouldn't roll at all. Faith began to giggle and I began to swear. With our four hands working on my cock she got me up again and I finally got the rubber rolled about halfway down my shaft, where it hung up on a hair and wouldn't go any farther.
I started kissing Faith again while she lay back under me on the seat. During all the fuss with the rubber her passion had ebbed and her cunt had dried up, so she yelled in pain when I tried to get it into her. The lubricant on the rubber had dried after being exposed to the air for a few minutes, and I had to push against her so hard that my cock was bending in the middle. I would have sucked her, but didn't want to with Herb in the car, because I didn't know if he did those things.
Fortunately, Faith had been around a bit. She wet her fingers with spit and began to frig herself, pumping up against her hand. It was the first time I had ever seen a girl masturbate, and it really turned me on. When she was ready she grabbed my cock with one hand, pushed my ass with the other, and I entered her. The only good thing I can think of to say about rubbers is that they dull sensation somewhat, but I didn't know what good that would do anyway, except that I was good for three or four minutes instead of my usual one or two. When I came, Faith got very excited and moaned at me to keep it in her. as she moved her hand between her legs again. I could feel it moving very fast, going like crazy, when suddenly she stopped, arched her belly up against me, and became very rigid for a few seconds, eyes wild and mouth open. Something else I could feel that I had never felt before were the muscles in- her cunt contracting rapidly, and forcing my flaccid cock out of her. Then she relaxed, letting her breath out slowly, as my adolescent mind finally began to add two and two.
Goddamnit, girls could come just like boys! They could jack off and everything! Sonofabitch! I had really learned something.
And so had Herb and his date, who had long since finished whatever it was they did, and were leering over the front seat at us.
Aside from my normal excuse to my parents, I did spend a fair amount of time with the guys. Every Friday night when I didn't have a job or wasn't hustling, we went to hear the San Francisco Symphony, with Monteux conducting. Except for a few star musicians, they were really lousy. Yet we all enjoyed the music, especially Beethoven and Mozart's later works, and the French composers that Monteux loved to work into every concert.
Also, I started taking judo at a local judo studio, or do-jo, as it was called. This created no strain because my lessons were right after dinner, so on nights when I had to play I could go from there to work. I loved it, and have continued with the art for most of my life.
But the street was getting to me, working its way into my blood like a disease. I was on my way down.