Pimp: The Story of My Life

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The first thing Iceberg needs is a whore, and after being made a fool of more than a few times, he finally meets a woman who fits the bill. ”Through the blue mirror I zeroed my eyes in on the target. My ass bone starched on stiff point. Her big peepers were two sexy dancers in the velvet midnight of her cute Pekingese face.” I think it is clear pimps are not nice people. They are cunning, abusive, emotionless creatures and liars. And their street walkers are lost souls, foolish and not too bright. That's why I loved this book. It's blunt, gritty, and organic. Yes, poor Henry’s fears had foundation. Mama had never loved my stepfather. This kind, wonderful man had only been a tool of convenience. She had fallen in love with the snake all right. Henry was religious, ambitious, good and kind. I often wonder what would have happened to my life if I had not been torn from him.

I passed beneath an El-train bridge. A terrified, glowing face loomed toward me in the tunnel’s gloom. It was an elderly white man trapped behind enemy lines. A train furled by overhead. It bombed and strafed the street. The shrapnel fell in gritty clouds. Please note that I say "verisimilitude" not truth. I sincerely doubt this book is a full and reliable accounting of his activities as a pimp. The prose is far too much of a pulp novel "hard-boiled" affectation to be truthful in any meaningful sense of that word. In fact, that style of prose and the particulars that are given would appear in many cases to have lead to a misinterpretation of this book as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale, and the author himself warned against that reading later in his career. (In a scene portrayed in the aforementioned documentary.) A pimp is happy when his whores giggle. He knows they are still asleep...all whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss. It thrills ‘em when the pimp makes mistakes. They watch and wait for his downfall. Mama and I had come to Indianapolis from Chicago, where since the time when she was six months pregnant, my father had begun to show his true colors as an irresponsible, white-spats-wearing bum. That film was interesting enough to get me to seek out the book if for no other reason than I was curious to see how a pimp might turn pulp novelist. What it lead to was a book that has the ring of true crime novels plus the authenticity of the autobiography. Which is not to say much for truth in either crime novels or autobiographies... but more of that in a bit.In this book I will take you, the reader, with me into the secret inner world of the pimp. I will lay bare my life and thoughts as a pimp. The account of my brutality and cunning as a pimp will fill many of you with revulsion, however, if one intelligent, valuable young man or woman can be saved from the destructive slime; then the displeasure I have given will have been outweighed by that individual’s use of his potential in a socially constructive manner. He could have saved himself an early death from a broken heart if instead of falling so madly in love with Mama he had run as fast as he could away from her. For him, she was brown-skin murder in a size-twelve dress. Okay, so I think we don't have to discuss that the exploits that Iceberg describes in his autobiographical novel are, you know, immoral, to say the least (lying to women and gaslighting them, severe physical and mental abuse, hooking them on drugs, taking all their money, throwing them away when they can't work anymore, etc.). What's interesting to consider here are different aspects: Throughout his pimping career, Slim, who was known as Cavanaugh Slim, was noted for being able to effectively conceal his emotions, something he said he learned from Baby Bell: "A pimp has gotta know his whores, but not let them know him; he's gotta be god all the way." [4] Writing [ edit ]

Her pitch was something like this, “Madam, I can make your hair curly and beautiful. Please give me a chance. For fifty cents, that’s all, I will make your hair shine like new money.” Slim is released from his second stint in jail just months from his twentieth birthday. He listens and learns from former pimps in jail and wants to start pimping on his own. He scores his first hooker Runt shortly after leaving jail. Runt eventually sends him to another stint in jail through a betrayal of her own.

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When my father came through the hotel room door reeking of cologne and dressed to kill, all I could think was what Mama had told me about that morning when this tall brown-skin joker had tossed me against the wall. She can do more with a swipe (willie) than a monkey can do with a banana... she’s like a rubber doll!”

Runt, as he calls her, is frequently difficult to control. She has opinions. She has demands. Since she is doing the humping that provides all the money for Young Blood Enterprises, she actually has the audacity to think she has the right to have a say in how the business is to be conducted. She even threatens to leave. The first line of defense for a pimp is to use psychology. The most important rule of pimping is to find out the life story of every whore under his control. He must convince them of the dangers of navigating the streets without his “protection.” He must use everything he knows about her to undermine her confidence in herself. If psychology doesn’t work, he must move to verbal threats, and if that doesn’t work, he grabs the nearest coat hanger and whales the living shit out of her. She’ll be out humping on the streets again before the heat from the stripes he has made on her flesh has had time to cool. There were too many wheels within wheels, too much hurt for me to cry. After a blank time and distance we got to Chicago. Steve had vanished and Mama was telling me in a drab hotel room that my real father was coming over to see us, and to remember that Steve was her cousin. Any good pimp is his own best company. His inner-life is so rich with cunning and scheming to out-think his whores." I clung tightly to him and said, “Don’t worry Daddy, we’ll never leave you, I promise, honest, Daddy.” brutal, ugly, honest, energetic. not a world i know, have ever known, this is written in 1967, set throughout twentieth century. so maybe bad things have happened to me in early years, but i also grew up comfortably, i had good parents, good brother, good travel, good schooling, some friends, some girls, book intelligence if not street, rewarded art inclinations, did not ever much suffer racism, poverty, deceit, stupidity, cruelty, assault, or any of the many ways that the author has suffered.... i hope i never do...In 1961, after serving 10 months of solitary confinement in a Cook County jail, Maupin decided he was too old for a life of pimping (he was 42) and was unable to compete with younger, more ruthless pimps. I had been aware of Iceberg Slim, but had never read him. It was while watching Dave Chappelle's "The Bird Revelation," however, when I decided I NEEDED to read Iceberg Slim sooner rather than later. It was Chappelle who opened my eyes a bit to how understanding Slim's perspective on pimps and whores gave one a larger understanding of capitalism, power, and race in America.* So, I didn't need to enjoy this book to get something from it. Fast, I got to find out the secrets of pimping. I don’t want to be a half-ass gigolo lover like the white pimps. I really want to control the whole whore. I want to be the boss of her life, even her thoughts. I got to con them that Lincoln never freed the slaves.” Dave Chappelle famously turned down 50 million dollars for a project because he had a crisis of consciousness regarding his personal integrity. In his show "The Bird Revelation", he explained his reasons by drawing parallels to Iceberg's book about the inner workings of the male-dominated sex trade and its messages about capitalism in general. Here's the bit in question.

Jesus! It was hot in that little shop, but I loved every minute of it. It was school-vacation time for me and every summer I worked in the shop all day, every day helping my stepfather. He grew up believing that compassion and generosity were signs of weakness, that people would walk all over you if you let them. Respect was earned through fear and intimidation. It was a hard way to live. A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whores. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way.” Then he could have pulled Mama out of there and with a big bankroll he could have done anything with her, even turned her out.In his book Pimp: The Story of My Life, Iceberg Slim recounts his personal autobiography as a intellectually-gifted teenager growing up in the world before desegregation. Through various events in his life, he ultimately becomes a pimp in between jail stints. There was really nothing out of the ordinary that day. Nothing during that day that I heard or saw that prepared me for the swift, confusing events that over the weekend would slam my life away from all that was good to all that was bad. On his first night in Chicago, in the spring of 1938, he sees a man beat an unconscious woman almost to death in front of a huge crowd of onlookers. The man then lifts the woman onto his shoulder, throws her into his car and drives off. Slim turns to another man in the crowd: I don’t know why Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines are not taught in university literature programs. I went through two degrees without ever hearing of either author. Maybe it’s because the professors interested in “literary diversity” only like the kind of diversity that doesn’t offend their sensibilities. Maybe they insist their authors be squarely on the “right” side of every issue, lamenting wrongs instead of portraying them in a way the reader actually feels.