Pimp - Iceberg Slim

Read 2020.11.15

“Why did Justice really always wear a blindfold? I knew now. It was because the cunning bitch and dollar signs for eyeballs.” (57)

“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.” (Preface)

I first heard of Pimp from a video of Dave Chapelle recounting the cold, harrowing details found inside. By the end of his short monologue, the book was already checked out from my Amazon shopping cart.

Intrigued by the conscience, philosophy, and inner workings of the pimp lifestyle, I flipped through these pages with morbid curiosity. I learned many new street lingoes: trick, square, gangster, doss. I learned the types of thoughts that constitute the mentality of a good pimp (by the standards of the author), as well as the surrounding social factors and their respective psychological changes that lead to the attainment of such states. It is the introspective nature of Iceberg Slim that satiates the curiosity of how and why.

“I thought, “I’ll have to keep my mind like a sponge. I’ll use my eyes and ears like suction cups. I have to know everything about crosses and whores. 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.”” (86-87)

There were certain points in the book I found fascinating. I have arranged them in the order as they appear in the book. 

The first is Slim’s reason behind his desire to pimp.

“I said, “Lord, if you’re up there, you know I’m black and you know my thoughts. Lord, if the Bible is really your divine book then I know it’s a sin to pimp. If you’re up there and listening you know I’m not trying to con you. Lord, I’m not asking you to bless my pimping. I ain’t that stupid.

Lord, I know you ain’t black. Surely you know, if you’re up there, what it’s like to be black down here. These white folks are doing all the fine living and sucking up all the gravy. I gotta have some of that living and some of that gravy. I don’t wanta be a stickup man or a dope peddler. I sure as hell won’t be a porter or dishwasher. I just wanta pimp that’s all. It’s not too bad, because whores are rotten. Besides I ain’t going to croak them or drive them crazy. I’m just going to pimp some real white-type living out of them. So Lord, if you’re up there listening, do one thing for me. Please don’t let me croak before I live some and get to be somebody down here in the white man’s world. I don’t care what happens after that.”” (146)

It’s clear that the injustices and inequality of the 20th century served as Slim’s foundational inspiration to pimp. From the young age of eighteen, he was convinced that the only conceivable way for a black person to enjoy life as much as the whites were through the psychological and sexual exploitation of others. There were no “square” jobs that could reward the gravy of life to people of color. In no way does understanding the differences in experience by race justify his decision to be a pimp. It does, however, allow us to empathize with his decision-making process.

Once Slim enters the pimping world, his drive and initial success introduce him to Top. Top is the best pimp in town. Captivated by Top’s luxurious lifestyle, Slim was eager to learn his pimping principles. With time and effort, Slim convinced Top to become his mentor. It is from their conversations that we are to learn the mind of the pimp, the niche solutions to their niche problems, and the mental gymnastics a pimp must perform to control his stable. You can find them in the lengthy quotes I’ve listed at the bottom of the page.

In the end, however, or, as expected by the writing of this book, only regret resides in Slim’s heart. While carrying a cold exterior, he seems to have carried the guilt of neglecting his mother throughout the peaks and troughs of his endeavors. It is only when she informs him of her illness during her penitentiary visitation that Slim’s emotions escape. 

“I was crying. I was squeezing her thin, pale hands in mine between the bars. I said, “Now look Mama, you know we all got Indian blood in us. Mama you ain’t gonna die. Mama, I’ll live to get a hundred like Papa Joe, your father. Come on now Mama, stop it. Ain’t I got enough worry? Mama I love you. Honest Mama. Forgive me not writing regular and stuff like that. I love you Mama, I love you. Please don’t die. I couldn’t take it while I’m locked up. I’ll take care of you when I get out. I swear it Mama. Just don’t die. Please!”” (282)

And with it, came certain realizations.

“I had come to a decision in that awful cell. I was through with pimping and drugs. I got insight that perhaps I could never have hoped to get outside. I couldn’t have awakened if I had been serving a normal bit. After I got the mental game down pat I could see the terrible pattern of my life. Mama’s condition and my guilty conscience had a lot to do with my decision. Perhaps my age and loss of youth played their parts. I had found out that pimping is for young men, the stupid kind. I had spent more than half a lifetime in a worthless, dangerous profession. If I had stayed in school, in eight years of study I could have been a M.D. or lawyer. Now here I was, slick but not smart, in a cell. I was past forty with counterfeit glory in my past, and no marketable training, no future. I had been a bigger sucker than a square mark. All he loses is scratch. I had joined a club that suckered me behind bars five times.” (291)

What are we to learn from these events? Perhaps a cautionary tale against the road already traveled, or a reminder to act in accordance with our priority of values. From another angle, an encouragement to those who struggle fair in the square world, and an invitation to those who believe they are unfit to change for the better. It is with these thoughts that I lay Pimp down, satisfied by my familiarization with the realities of pimping, more-so because it came to me through the medium of text, and not first-hand experience.

“I am lying in the quiet dawn. I am writing this last chapter for the publisher. I am thinking, “How did a character like me, who for most of his life had devoted himself to the vilest career, ever square up? By all the odds, I should have ended a broken, diseased shell, or died in a lonely prison cell.” I guess three of the very important reasons are lying asleep in the bedroom across the hall. I can see their peaceful, happy faces. They don’t know how hard and often discouraging it is for me to earn a living for them in the square world. This square world is a strange place for me. For the last five years I have tried hard, so hard, to solve its riddles, to fit in… The story of my life indicates that my close friends were few. Shortly before I started this book I met a man I respected. I thought he was a true friend. I was bitterly disillusioned to discover he wasn’t. I’m glad in a way it turned out the way it did. I’ve always come back stronger after a good kick in the ass. I have had many interesting and even humorous experiences in this new life. They will have to wait for now. I see my little family is awake. I’ll have to light the heater. I can’t let them get up in the early morning chill. How about it, an Iceberg with a warm heart?” (Epilogue)

How to be a Pimp as taught by Top:

“Now this young bitch you git is shitty all right. She knows you ain’t got no other whore. I want you to go back to that hotel. Make that bitch get outta that bed and get in the street. Put your foot in her ass hard. If that don’t work, take a wire coat hanger and twist it into a whip. Ain’t no bitch, freak or not, can stand up to that hanger… I’m gonna lay some pills on you. Giver her a couple when you get her outta that bed. Don’t give her anymore reefer. It makes some whores lazy. Don’t worry, kid, if you do like I say and blow her, I’ll give you a whore. Kid, don’t hold that whore to one block. Tell that whore all the streets go. Turn her loose. It’s the only way to pimp. If she blows, whatta you lost. She stands up, you got a whore and some real scratch.” (178-179)

“You go back and put the coat-hanger pressure on her. If it don’t blow her and she stands up for a week, you ought to have half a grand in a week. Take that scratch and drive to one of the whore towns close around. Go to Western Union. Send that scratch back to yourself at the hotel. Use some broad’s name as the sender. That lazy bitch you got will think she’s got competition. Watch the sparks fly from her ass. She’ll try to top that bitch that doesn’t exist. Greenie, you listen to Sweet Jones. You’ll be a helluva pimp. Never get friendly and confide in your whores. You got twenty whores, don’t forget your thoughts are secret. A good pimp is always really alone. You gotta always be a puzzle, a mystery to them. That’s how you hold a whore. Don’t get sour. Tell them something new and confusing every day. You can hold ‘em as long as you can do it.” (179)

“Slim, a pretty Nigger bitch and a white whore are just alike. They both will get in a stable to wreck it. They’ll leave the pimp on his ass with no whore. You gotta make ‘em hump hard and fast. Stick ‘em for long scratch quick. Slim, pimping ain’t no game of love. Prat ‘em and keep your swipe outta ‘em. Any sucker who believes a whore loves him shouldn’t a fell outta his mammy’s ass.

Slim, I hope you ain’t sexed that pretty bitch yet. Believe me, Slim, a pimp is really a whore who’s reversed the game on whores. Slim, be as sweet as the scratch. Don’t be no sweeter. Always stick a whore for a bundle before you sex her. A whore ain’t nothing but a trick to a pimp. Don’t let ‘em Georgia you. Always get your money in front just like a whore.

Whores in a stable are like working chumps in the white man’s factory. They know in their sucker tickers they’re chumping. They both gotta have the horns to blow their beefs into. They gotta have someone to listen while they bad mouth that Goddamn boss.

A good pimp is like a slick white boss. He don’t ever pair two of a kind for long. He don’t ever pair two new bitches. He ain’t stuck ‘em for no long scratch. A pair of new bitches got too much in common. They’ll beef to each other and pool their skull, plots, and split to the wind together.

The real glue that holds any bitch to a pimp is the long scratch she’s hip she’s stuck for. A good pimp could cut his swipe off and still pimp his ass off. Pimping ain’t no sex game. It’s a skull game.

A pimp with a shaky-bottom woman is like a sucker with a lit firecracker stuck in his ass. When his boss bitch turns sour and blows, all the other bitches in the stable flee to the wind behind her.

There ain’t more than three or four good bottom women promised a pimp in his lifetime. I don’t care if he cops three hundred whores before he croaks.

A good pimp has gotta have like a farm system for bottom women. He’s gotta know what bitch in the family could be the bottom bitch when mama bitch goes sour.

He’s gotta keep his game tighter on his bottom bitch than on any bitch in the stable. He’s gotta peep around her ass while she’s taking a crap. He’s gotta know if it’s got the same stink and color it had yesterday.

Slim, you’re in trouble until you cop the fourth whore. A stable is sets of teams playing against each other to stuff the pimp’s pockets with scratch. You got a odd bitch. You ain’t got but a team and a hall.

A young pimp like you is gotta learn not to cop blind. Your fourth bitch is gotta be right to pair with the third whore.

She can’t be no ugly bitch unless she likes pussy. She can’t be smarter than the pretty bitch. She can be younger, even prettier, but she’s gotta be dumber.

Slim, all whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss. It thrill ‘em when the pimp makes mistakes. They watch and wait for his downfall.

A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whore. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way.

The poor sonuvabitch has joined a hate club he can’t quit. He can’t do a turn around and be a whore himself in the white boss’s stable unless he was never a pimp in the first place.

So, Kid, rest and dress and pimp till you croak. I ain’t had no rest in a coupla days. I think I’ll try to get some doss. Kid, these skull aches are getting bad. Good luck, Kid. Call me tomorrow, late.

Oh yeah, happy birthday, Kid. That rundown was a birthday present.” (199-200)

“Then I gave her the pitch to tie the knot. She was sitting in a chair. I stood looking down at her. Her eyes never left my face. It was maybe like a rattlesnake charming a robin.

I said, “Jo Ann, I gotta congratulate you. You’re not only lucky, you’re smart. You knew when you saw me that I was going to be your man, I’m hip that you were just waiting to meet me.

You have wanted since you were a little girl to live an exciting, glamorous life. Well, sugar, you’re on Blood’s magic carpet. I’m gonna make your life with me out-shine your flashiest day dreams.

I’m a pimp. You gotta be a whore. I don’t have squares. I’m gonna be your mother, your father, your brother, your friend, and your lover. The most important thing I’m gonna be to you is your man. The manager of scratch you make in the street. Now, sweet bitch, have you followed me so far?”

She whispered, “Yes, Blood, I understand.”

I reach down and took her hand. I took her to the window overlooking the city. I held her against me.

I said, “Look out there, baby angel. Out there is where you work. Those streets are yours because you’re my woman. I’ve got five G’s in fall money. If you get busted for anything, even murder, I can free you. Baby Bitch, this family is like a small army. We got rules and regulations we never break.

I am really two studs. One of them is sweet and kind to his whores when they don’t break the rules. The other one comes out insane and dangerous when the rules are broken. Little baby, I’m sure you’ll never meet him.

Never forget this family is as one against the cold, cruel world. We are strong because we love each other. There’s no problem I can’t solve. There’s no question I can’t answer about this game.

Tomorrow I’m going to start filling your skull with everything about this game and street. I’m going to make a star outta you angel. Don’t ask any outsider anything. Come to Chris or me.

My little baby, I’ll protect you with my last drop of blood. If any mother-fucker in those streets out there, stud or bitch, hurts you, or threatens you, come to me. He will have to cut my throat first, shoot met first. I take an oath to protect your for as long as you are my woman. Baby, I know that’s for always. Now repeat after Daddy, baby.”

She squeezed tightly against me. She was in a trance looking up at me.

She chanted along with me. “From this moment I belong to Blood. I am his whore. I will do everything he tells me. I won’t ever fuck with his scratch. I will hump my heart out every night. I’ve gotta make a bill a night.”” (202-203)

“In a pimp’s life, yesterday means nothing. It’s how you are doing today. A pimp’s fame is as fleeting as an icicle under a blow-torch. The young fine whores are wild to hump for a pimp in the chips. A pimp in bad shape can’t get the time of day from them. A pimp’s wardrobe has to be spectacular. His wheels must be expensive and sparkling new. I had to get the gaudy tools to start pimping again.” (236)