Wonderland and Dead Porn Stars
By: Scott L Anderson
Tags: Pornography, Wonderland, Cocaine, Fiction, Murder

For close to two years after I took off I had lived in Los Angeles on the top loft of this old warehouse. Just a mattress on the floor and fucking pigeons walking around. The guy who I worked for owned it. It sat behind this huge strip joint“The Slippery T*t” which he also owned and was run by by this retired Mexican pro wrestler who went by the name of “El Duche.” He once hit a rowdy customer so hard that it damaged the asshole’s brain. Once the poor bastard got out of the hospital he was a fixture at the end of the bar. He didn’t remember a fucking thing!

Gus was the name of my boss and he was quite the entrepreneur. Beside the bar, he ran a pro wrestling and roller derby school, and shot low budget porno movies in the warehouse. He also was a part owner of several porno and peep show shops in the county. I was a bouncer/bar tender at the bar, assistant wrestling coach (I let guys pick me and body slam me or hit me in the head with a folding chair), and light and camera man for the porno movies. On occasion, several other bouncers and myself earned extra dough by strong arming people who owed Gus money.

The Black Dahlia case seemed to have had a lasting impression on my employer. Do you remember that murder? Way back in the late 40s the cops found this chick cut in half on a vacant lot. No blood or anything. Real fucking creepy. Lots of movies and books were done about it.

That shit probably happens practically on a weekly basis in Los Angeles, so I have no idea why so many people are obsessed over a murder that happened in the 1940’s. But that’s L. A.

Anyway, Gus had his office just decorated from floor to ceiling with photos of this broad, bookcases full of books about her,and he even owned a couple of vintage porno movies that she had starred in. Mostly lesbian crap. Half of Gus’s films that he made always had an “actress” dressed up just like Elizabeth Short. That was the dead broad’s name.

Thing about it is, I have a hunch that Gus was involved in it. When I was in L.A., Gus must have been in his mid 70s, the murder was in the late 40’s. He would have been about the right age. He had a real weird buddy, Wally, that was into this chick, too. Those two were always talking about her and trading shit about the case. Some local news reporter thought that Wally had been the one who did it and Wally loved that. I heard the old loon died in a flophouse fire not too long ago. Drunk and smoking in bed.

I had got the job after a week or so of bumming around L. A. I looked up an old gal that I knew in the navy. She was making ends meet by working for a dentist during the day and exotic dancing at night. She had also given up men and was living with a female biker who looked like Sonny Liston, and who made me feel very unwelcome. Strippers tend to make the sex industry circuit in L. A. and she turned me on to working with Gus. Said that for being a complete slime ball he wasn’t bad to work for. That was a good enough reference for me.

I bought a book on how to change your identity out of this catalog from this weird company up in Washington state called Loompanics. It had all sorts of crazy books in it like “How To Make Meth Amphetamine For Fun And Profit” and “How To Kill People And Then Fake Your Own Death.” Sounds goofy but it sure helped out in my situation. I wound up with a California driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, and a passport.

Appearance wise, I just shaved my head, got my ear pierced and wore a big hoop earring, and grew a goatee. I had access to a gym since I worked and lived in a wrestling school, so I started to pump iron and do steroids. Within the year I had put on roughly forty pounds of muscle. I didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the boney little dude who had left Albert Lea, Minnesota to join the navy so (what seemed like) many years ago

Gus’s porno business didn’t attract what you would call real quality adult film stars. He dealt mainly with heroin addicts who needed some fix money, midwest runaways, a midget husband and wife team, couple of the roller derby clique, and every great once in a while an old burned out formerly famous “star” would stop in to make a quick buck. That’s where my path would cross with John.

John had once been a hugely successful porn star. Bigger than most commercial actors could ever dream to get. Bt now he had zero looks, a scrawny drugged out looking frame, and couldn’t act even by adult movies standards. But he had an enormous tool. The guy had made thousands of short adult “loops” and feature pornos but had pissed it all away on booze and crack cocaine. Rumor had it (John liked to keep this one spreading) that a very famous singer and actress had once paid John big bucks to snort a line of coke off his giant root.

He was no longer welcome on any of the mainstream adult sets due to his erratic behavior, inability to get hard on demand, and known ties to the flourishing crack industry. But on occasion for pin money he would make a gay flick or play the heavy in a hard core S & M movie.

Gus signed him on to mainly make appearances at his club, autograph video boxes at his fuck book stores, and attempt to make a movie with him once in a while if he could get it halfway up.

I don’t know how many nights we all stood around setting up the lights and cameras while John would be laying on a bed on the set with two young ladies straight off the farm in Wisconsin, who would be giving it the old college try and attempt to get John’s massive stinger to get up and go. Nine out ten times, Gus would freak out and start ranting and raving about all the money that was being wasted on this quality feature and it inevitably would turn into basically a lesbian shot with John just kind of rolling around in the middle and getting in the way.

Once Gus tried to make a porno related Black Dahlia murder film with John in the role of the murderer. John had been out partying the night before and was horribly hungover. He couldn’t get it up as usual, but what really pissed Gus off was the grand finale. Since we didn’t have any real bodies to cut up like the real murderer had, we had to settle for a store mannequin. It took every bit of strength that John had to saw half way through the rubbery plastic covered in fake blood and then he ruined the whole shot by barfing all over the dummy.

But people recognized him like he was an academy award winner. He came along with us one night to the fights at the Olympic Auditorium, which is a sleazier joint than some of the places John made his films in, and we practically had to fight people off of the guy. Both men and women were all over him. Wanting his autograph and maybe a shot at his massive johnson.

He wasn’t all bad though. When one of the bouncers got married, John managed to recruit some of the old female stars from his heyday to the bachelor party. It was held at an incredibly filthy adult motel on Sunset Strip. Jumping Jesus, what a night! A punch was made in a fifty gallon garbage can (clean) with cold duck champagne, beer, and a hundred hits of quality speed. The night clerk came up to complain about the noise at four in the morning and wound up screwing the porn star he had once fantasized about as a teenager. It was all great fun.

I was working the door one night at the club when John came out to catch some fresh air. Gus had booked a private ladie’s stag party and John was the main attraction. He had lost a lot of weight from all the crack and he looked bizarre as well as idiotic up on the stage. Shaking his money maker in this g-string that didn’t come close to covering up his once great python of love.

Gus had been concerned that he wouldn’t show up. John had been acting real nervous lately and a week or so ago had shown up with a black eye and a nasty looking gash on his chin.

“Got a proposition for you, my man.” John always tried to talk like a high rolling pimp. Kind of hissing out the words.

“And what would that be John?” Looking out of the corner of my eye at the Los Angeles Laker shorts that he was wearing. No shirt or shoes. Just these shorts that must have been two sizes too big for him. He looked like Bill Walton with an eating disorder.

“I got these assholes up in the hills that owe me some serious jack for some rock that I fronted them. Not a thing really. Their a couple of little dipshits. Shouldn’t be problem for a man of your stature.” As he grinned at me I cringed. His teeth looked like little baked beans and the breath coming out of his maw wasn’t much better than the sight of those teeth.

“If it’s not a thing why do I need to be there?” Sarcasm all over that one.

He didn’t come close to noticing. “Pure precautionary measures, bro. Tell you what. I’ll double your fee that Gus gives you.”

I sure wasn’t making anything that night on tips with this private stag going on. How hard could it be roughing up a couple of crack heads?

“Oh what the hell. When do you want to do it?”

“Tonight. Soon as I get done making these babes cream in their panties.” The dumb shit walked back into the club wiggling his tongue at me like a snake.

It was about enough to make you want to give up sex.