March 26, 2024 • 36 mins
As the sex and money starts to flow at the truck stops, pimps and working girls unexpectedly find the type of love that can only end in heartbreak. Meanwhile, Rodney settles in to his new home and searches for a big story. Frankie Jones gives insight into the character of Danville.
Written and hosted by Lindsay Byron - goodtimesbadgirls.com
Music and sound design by Guy Kelly - guykelly.com
CAST:
Defense Attorney Rosenberg - Sean Rhodes
Prosecutor - Ben Bowlin
Thomas Barker - Chandler Mays
Harold Wayne Dowdy - Joe McCormick
Janet Barker - Anney Reese
Newscaster - Lauren Vogelbaum
SOURCES:
All courtroom scenes come from The United States VS Joseph Whitehead, Landon Wayne Holley, and Aubrey Henderson trial. These transcripts are located in the National Archives in Philadelphia.
The cold open statement that it “takes two people to make a prostitute” comes from William Rosenberger’s opening statements of the 1977 Federal RICO trial of the Big Six.
The first-hand accounts from Rodney Smith come from an interview I conducted with him on January 26th, 2022.
The first-hand accounts from Frankie Jones come from an interview I conducted with him in June 2022.
The courtroom exchange detailing the nature of Tommy and Janet’s relationship comes from the direct examination of Thomas Barker by US Prosecuting Attorney Robert Stubbs on Dec 12th, 1977.
The courtroom exchange preceding the scene of Harold Wayne and Robin’s first meeting comes from the cross examination of Harold Wayne Dowdy by William Rosenberger on Dec 14th, 1977.
The courtroom statement about interstate prostitution was said by US Prosecuting Atty Robert Stubbs in his opening statement of the 1977 Federal RICO trial of the Big Six.
The courtroom exchange discussing whether or not Janet gave massages comes from the direct examination of Janet Barker by US Prosecuting Attorney Stubbs on December 9th, 1977.
The above court transcripts are located in the National Archives in Philadelphia.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You know that it takes two people to make a prostitute.
You can't lay all the blame on the woman. You
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
A young reporter drove his family from the nation's capital
to a small town about four hours south, his wife beside.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Him, his children in the back.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Rodney had a family to support, a woman who believed
in him, who followed him on his wild journeys, sweet
little kids with chubby smiles that pierced his heart with
the reminder, there.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Is more than yourself to think of here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You promised this wife that you can make it as
a writer anywhere. You promised her this move would be
worth it. You owe this family everything. No one owes
you anything, and yet they've given freely their patience, their faith,
cooked dinners kept.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Warm in the oven.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I love you, daddies, even as your mind spun into stories,
copy headlines, be present with these children.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Give a good life to this wife.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
There were imperatives more important than your down career, Rodney thought,
and yet nonetheless he drove on metropolitan streets, spinning into
fields of tobacco. Rodney needed to make this work, after all,
he thought. He also had himself to whom he owed.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Couldn't forget about that guy, hard working kid, a dreamer,
a risk taker. You should be a writer, his high
school English teacher told him once. He never forgot that,
and so over the weeks to come, he'd set up
(02:23):
shop in that small office in that small town.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He let his.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
View of the cows in the field inspire him. Each
one of those bovines had a different set of spots,
a different story. Hell, maybe they even had feelings. Probably did.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
After some time. Rodney even had.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Little names for his favorites, could identify them by a
flip of ear or turn of tail. You could make
a story about almost anything if you only looked at
it in the right way.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
See.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
That was the thing people miss about his line of work,
his field of art.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They think it's.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
All bald reportage, a mere recitation of facts that any
willing party could pen. They don't know that the writer
is a photographer of moments, a seer of meaning in
scenes others find. Mundane Rodney could find a story and
(03:30):
just about anything. When I spoke to him in early
twenty twenty two, he told me about one such occurrence.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
It's flow news week. A couple of people walk in
the office and started telling me this story about one
guy had been a intelligence officer during World War Two.
He was driving from great to Danville, noticed this kind
(04:05):
of emotional in the side of the road, stops walk
over the little hill. There's a flying saucer. So he
goes into great detail about this, and I, of course
thinking meticulous notes after he finished it, I was thinking
very much. I think, wow, out of entything. And you
start calling people, and the number of people that have
(04:28):
heard this story was phenomenal. Wrote the story and we
used to put parts of a flying saucer. We got
a huge reaction to it.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
As yet another lady at church inquired about that, UFO
Rodney thought, well, the types of stories I cover out
here in the country might look a little different than
the high stakes drama I covered in Washington, But well,
I might just like it that way. You wouldn't find
(05:00):
any Greek tragedies or epic intrigue out here in the boondocks,
but if you could, Rodney would be the man to
find it. Truck shot brothels run by a web of
X cons, a Commonwealth attorney wasted on whiskey and power
(05:21):
protection exchanged for cash, flesh, a brash.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Local reporter exposing it all.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
This is hookergate, criminals and libertines in the South, And
I am your hosts, Doctor Lindsey Byron, author, historian, and
lifelong wayward woman. This forgotten scandal happened in my hometown.
Join me as I use crumbling news clippings, interviews, and
(05:49):
dramatic reenactments to bring to life for the first time
in nearly fifty years, this wild ride of hedonistic corruption.
Episode two. This woman was different. In a twenty nineteen
(06:14):
article for The Atlantic entitled The Reinvention of Danville, author
James Fallow describes the region that would play host to
juicier dramas than Rodney could have yet foreseen. Danville is
a major city within Pennsylvania County. Fallow rights. In its day,
it was one of the richest places in the Piedmont
area and a major center of first the tobacco and
(06:36):
then the textile industries. Danville was also, for a one
week period in April eighteen sixty five, the final capital
of the Confederacy, with implications down to the present. By
the mid twentieth century, Danville and the surrounding area clutched
(06:57):
still to its Confederate roots. However, another major source of
identity came from the local textile mill, a global industry leader.
The Great White Mill, with its glowing red letters, looms
over the memories of my childhood home of dan River Mills.
Those letters burned into the night, reflecting on the dark
(07:20):
water below home. The mill's influence was wide ranging and profound.
Fallow rights businesses in the area discouraged higher education and
brought in workers straight out of public schools.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I admit we are backward.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You'll remember local court clerk Samuel Swanson conceded at the
time of the federal indictment in nineteen seventy seven. We've
never had to progress. For those looking from the outside end,
this backwardsness found its source not in issues of class, education,
(08:00):
or labor, but rather in the area's conservatism and religiosity.
Danville's nickname, after all, is the city of Churches. While
researching Hooker Gate, I interviewed lifelong Pennsylvania County citizen Frankie Jones,
whose father, Austin Jones, served on the grand jury that
(08:22):
would ultimately indict the major players of the Hooker Gates scandal.
Frankie told me about a time in which his father
was confronted by a national reporter regarding the character of
the place we all called home.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
He had a Washington Post rapport lady come up to him,
middle Gatherine, when he was stayed vice president of Jin
Association Realtors, and she said, where are you from? He said, Dan, Well,
he should? May I ask you a question? Awfully? She sure?
She said, why y'all so down conservative down there? He said,
you're letting him will tell you something. He said, you
(09:00):
weren't born in a depression, He said, back then we
didn't have wealth out apartment at the church? Was we
have wealth out apartment?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Here in the Bible belt where conservatism and old time
religion retained its hold on the area's sense of self.
The brothels seemed to have functioned as the localities id
the outlet for the repressed desires and needs of a
people otherwise busy with church socials.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
The big shot in dan Will was Barker. I can't
remember his first name, but Tom Barker. He ran to
Danbell operation.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Now, mister Barker, what contact did you have with Herold,
Wayne Downing, Herbert Owen Boyd and Aubrahad Just during the
years nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Wow, Janet worked at those for them, and.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
She was your wife during much of that period. Is
that correct?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:06):
All right?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
What kind of work was she doing? She was a prostitute.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Tommy set up in bed, you and me, Janet, We
could make some damn money, he told the naked woman
next to him.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She was much.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Younger than him, but every bit is wise. Janet pulled
the sheets to her armpits and set up. She lit
a joint before she replied.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, let's make some damn money.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
At nineteen, Janet had only one hard and fast rule,
and that was to live hard and fast. If she
had a second rule, which she didn't, it would be
also be sweet.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's how a woman could get what she wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It wouldn't be so bad, Tommy told her, gingerly, accepting
the joint from her slender fingers. And I I wouldn't mind,
you wouldn't. I want to move hiss out of this
trailer parking into a house, A nice brick house, Janet,
(11:32):
A big one too, imagine it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I promise you that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Tommy had come from a big family with little attention
nor money to spare.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
He tried the straight route.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Hell, he'd served in the military until he shot himself
in the arm trying to kill a snake. Some thugs
claimed he did it on purpose, just because now he
collected a pension from Uncle Sam. The pension wasn't enough, though,
so he sought out other ways to stack cash. A
freedom loving man with a passion for excitement, Tommy want
(12:08):
the type to be pinned down by a square job,
so he'd tried other things. Sure, little robbery here and there,
silver Pilford from the homes of the rich, steaks from
the chop house, heart sweaty secret work. So accustomed was
(12:29):
he to making money the wrong way that it want
nothing to invite another into this way of life.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
And Janet, to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Be fair, was no child. No, she was a woman
with her own mind. The truck stop enterprise was only
the latest opportunity. Hell, there'd be others in the future,
opportunities that wouldn't require so much of her. But to
(12:58):
get there, they had to start here. He traced a
finger along her jaw. You are so smart, He kissed
her temple so strong he stamped out the joint and
(13:23):
climbed on top of her again. He would never get
his fill of this woman. Many women had come his way,
many had laid in this bed. When he first asked
Janet for her number, after weeks of tipping her heavy
for coffee and pie, he figured, well, she'd just be
(13:44):
another notch on the bedpost. But something about her was different,
something about the way she popped her bubblegum while she
busied herself around that diner, head high and unaffected by
the stairs of interested men, and drove him mad with desire.
(14:05):
And he he was different too. Three weeks had passed
since they first kissed, made love, and professed undying devotion,
all in the same night. Her body ached from the
now frequent acceptance of him, a big man in always
(14:28):
mind blowing a primal sign of a king. Janet was
in love. I can do anything, she promised him. Nos
to nose Anything in life worth having, she knew required
some sacrifice. Ain't nothing for free, not this man, not
(14:49):
this love, and certainly not the rent. I know that's right,
he agreed. After they finished their second round, Tommy picked
up the phone.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Hey, herb, I got a girl for y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Do you remember when Robin arrived from Chicago? Mister Dowdy
I don't remember the exact month.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
It was in seventy five.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
No one introduced you at all, did they?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
They did not?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
All?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Right, where did you meet her?
Speaker 8 (15:30):
It is truck stop?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Was she a.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Working girl at that time?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
She was a prostitute who employed her?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I did.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
He'd spent his life loving Southern women, indeed extolling their virtues.
A Southern woman would cook for you, clean for you,
take care of your needs, and do it all with
a slow, sweet drawl. Yet there was something about this
(16:08):
woman's accent, the clipped vowels, the quick harshness of her cadence.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That turned Harold Wayne into Mush.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Into mush A man like him impossible, but this woman.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Was different. Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
He asked, leaning across the counter. He had a rule
about dating working girls, and anyways, he wasn't exactly a
free man. Robin ignored him, staring instead at her nails,
which she filed. Harold Wayne cleared his throat, where you're from?
(17:02):
She didn't look up, and she responded, I'm here in
this truck stop now, So what does it matter where
I'm from?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Ah? A quick witted one.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
An attitude like that might not get you far. The
young woman stopped her filing and met his gaze.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I have gotten quite far, exactly as I am.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
She answered, and returned to her manicure. And by the way,
she added, without looking up, Chicago.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm from Chicago.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Ah, Chicago. That's why she was so disarmingly unmannered. Your
accent is beautiful, he dared. How, why, what the hell
was the reason that this woman made him nervous.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
That's why I don't hear often, she responded.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
These good old boys down south are prejudiced against Northerners.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Folks say they can't understand me.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, the feeling's mutual, honey, some of these gobs can
be stupid or if the heads was cut.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Off At this, the young woman laughed.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Flashed him at last that sligrint that would addict him
for years to come. I'm Robin, she told him. Harold
Wayne was used to lining him up and knocking him down.
A salesman by trade and by heart, the man could
(18:47):
charm the most aloof on available woman. Hell, he seduced
a score of premium chickadees under his employment in just
the short time he'd been running this scheme. But something
about the upward tilt of Robin's chin and the knowing
in her eyes told Harold Wayne that this one was
(19:11):
gonna be a challenge. How long you been working here,
he asked, Well, hell, you ought to know, mister Dowdy.
You run the place, sure, but I don't have no everything.
Phillis takes care of hiring sometimes.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Phillips is she her old lady. H W D cleared
his throat again. Are you a new to this line
of work?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I am not, in fact, mister Dowdy, I've probably been
in this game longer than you. Please call me Harold Wayne,
thing Harold Wayne, and you're too.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Young to have been in any game longer than me.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I might be young, she answered, but only if you
were using the metric of time. By other metrics, I
am quite old. Harold Wayne, of course, was the old one.
At forty, he was fully twice Robin's age. Yet he
(20:32):
too was only his age when using the metric of time,
because otherwise he was as youthful as any young boh.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okay, old soul. Where else have you worked?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I have traveled all over the country.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Well, can you give me a few examples?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois. That's a whole lot
of moving around, Yes, sir, sure is.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Please none of this sir stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
As Harold Wayne leaned over the counter, asking questions one
by one to unravel the mystery of this smart mouthed
young lady, a smile grew beneath that thick black mustache
of his. What music did she lay? What books did
(21:40):
she enjoy? Where was her family? With each inquiry she
opened further. The bus ride from Chicago had been a
long one. Robin hadn't had the funds for a flight
on that bus trip. She'd con at a plan to
(22:01):
make so much money that she'd never have to take
a bus again. People really thought this line of work
consisted simply of lying on one's back, a feat any
willing woman could accomplish. What they didn't know was that
the working girl was a psychologist, storyteller, actress, and living
(22:23):
work of art at the same down time. These men
don't just walk in the back with any old gal.
You got to examine them, understand them, find out what
tempts them. Then, having gathered the data, a working girl
must then become that thing he desires, if only for
(22:47):
an hour, if only for ten minutes, sorcery, magic, artistry,
obscure yourself and become a fantasy. Do not underestimate a
woman like me, thought Robin. The world would never pat
her on the back for her success, snape charming, and.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yet sometimes she longed for a pat on the back.
She was, after all human.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
A customer stumbled into the lobby and tripped over the
leg of a barstool. Robin looked to Hwd. He met
her gaze. Don't worry about him. I'd rather you spend
the time talking right here with me. When she looked
(23:44):
concerned by that suggestion, her mind adding and subtracting the
sum she'd counted on that long bus ride here, Harold
Wayne reassured her, I'll.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Pay you for your time right own pocket. You simply
fascinate me.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Now, what we are trying to prove, and what we
expect to prove, is this that these operators, Now I
am going to call them operators, doubt it. Barker, Henderson,
and Boyd utilized inner state facilities such as airports, bus terminals,
and telephone to further their prostitution activities. In addition, they
actually traveled in the state themselves to promote and manage
(24:34):
the interest of these houses of prostitution.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
The street lights sped by reflected in the lenses of
Buckeye's glasses.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Look for my girlfriend when you land, Tommy had told
her over the phone. Should be the pretty one in
the white tank waving out to car One.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Day, a short flight from Ohio to North Carolina, and
Buckeye was in the back seat of a sedan with
two strangers, crossing the state line into Virginia. The man
had promised to take care of her, but she was
a kid and scared what might be the consequences of
(25:23):
her impulsive recklessness. Why did she convince her friend to
make that call? She leaned her head against the window
and searched the evening landscape as they rattled over Smurf Bridge,
A small waterfall, a great mill hulking over the river,
(25:46):
broken windows black like missing teeth, read letters spelling home
into the night.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So this is a Standville, she.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Said, You won't be working exactly in Danville.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Tommy hollered back from the front seat. Honey, turn the
music down.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Janet chided and lowered the volume on the skinnered you
won't be exactly in Danville. Tommy continued, quieter.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Now there's too much.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Potential trouble to mess with the city proper.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
You just gonna be like a mile or two into
the county.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
See, the folks in charge of the county are a
whole lot friendlier.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Than them in the city.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But anyways, yeah, this is Danville.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
This is kind of the big city around here.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Buckeye counted ten identical millhouses in a row and thought,
this don't want.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Too much like the big city.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But okay, what was she doing here? Sometimes we make
a decision from a distance, We make plans based upon
a terrain we cannot yet see. We decide, yes, I
can do this thing, and we imagine in our hearts
(27:17):
a scenario we cannot predict with our minds. There will
be new opportunity and adventure on the other side of
this decision, we imagine. And then one day we find
ourselves on the actual other side of this decision, to
see instead a muddy river, a mill missing teeth, and
(27:41):
evil read letters burning home into the knife. Buckeye peeled
her cheek off the window, straightened her spine. She'd faced
worser things than a missing toothed mill in her life.
The hardship's been worth if not to harden her to
(28:04):
any challenge, to rub a callous on her spirit, strengthen
her against any trial.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Don't worry, Tommy told her, Oh, I'm not I'm not worried.
You're trying to convince you were me. He laughed.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Janet swatted his arm. She looked over her shoulder at
Buckeye and smiled. It ain't bad at least, that's what
I hear. I'm about to start up to but at
another location than you.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
Missus Barka.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Can you tell me how was your employment at the
Hillcrest Helston raged to your knowledge through.
Speaker 8 (28:52):
My husband, then my boyfriend.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
Okay, now when was this approximately?
Speaker 9 (28:58):
It would be late fall of seventy two, approximately two
or three weeks after the health center was opened.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
All right, what was nature of his operation when it started?
What were your instructions?
Speaker 9 (29:13):
I was instructed by mister Gord that we were owed
to give hand.
Speaker 8 (29:18):
Relief, But the nature of that was really for his
own defense.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
Why do you say that.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
I was told that it was just supposed to be
strictly a massage parlor, right, But during the conversation he
winked and said that I was to give up half
of my money and I asked him why, and he
said that my have of the money went towards things
that needed to be bought for the health.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
Center and for my own protection, and for a lawyer
in case it was to get busted.
Speaker 9 (29:51):
I didn't understand that, because if we were supposed to be
doing something legal, why would need a lawyer.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
When you first worked it, who was already a high
a prostitution.
Speaker 9 (30:04):
I never gave any Messashias, Oh.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
That would be a waste of my time.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You'll work in twelve hour shifts, twelve hours on, twelve
hours off, Aubrey explained as Janet unpacked her overnight bag
in a small room among the hallway of small rooms
in the back of the Hillcrest Health Center. In the lobby,
Herbert organized wads of cash into separate envelopes. When you're on,
(30:46):
Aubrey continued, you'll make yourself available to the gentleman who
entered the lounge. We are, of course open twenty four hours.
You'd be surprised at the strange time we.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Get callers, truck drivers. Of course they awake it all.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
We got one regular who comes in at six thirty
am every Tuesday. Now, who else could say that Our
customers are very loyal. When you treat them right.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
You just look pretty, just same as you do now.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Smile at the boys, make them feel at ease, and
you're gonna do just fine.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Janet had done just fine.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
At least that was the impression she had gotten after
her first customer tricks, the girls called them.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
In that small room.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Alone with that small man, she had moved her body
in ways she'd done with other men, men she loved,
or at least liked, underneath the bleachers at homecoming.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Or in the car drive in. But with the trick,
whom she.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Didn't love nor like, she found her body could move
just the same, as long as her mind was somewhere else,
somewhere other than this twin bed, in this dark room,
and this watt cinder block building on the side of
the highway, Picturing in her head the face of her beloved,
(32:07):
transposing him over every inch of this stranger.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Janet had been able to get the.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Job done quicker and with less distress than she thought possible.
Everyone deserves affection, she told herself.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Everyone ought to feel good.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
This was a job, just like any other job, merely
a meeting of needs. The client needed her touch, and
she needed his cash. If the trade was not legal,
it was nonetheless ethical. She spent longer in the bathroom
washing the man off of her than she spent getting
(32:43):
him on her in.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
The first place. Yeah, she thought she could do this.
She'd been training for this all the days of her life.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
When she'd finished with the first man, she handed half
of the money to Aubrey and he'd it into an envelope.
And then she did it again and again and again
for twelve hours straight.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And then.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
She decided to make an egg sandwich. It was, after all,
breakfast time. Entering the kitchen, Janet came upon a melee
of young women, laughing as they moved around one another
in a concert of cooking.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Indeed, there were so.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Many girls in that small room that it was downright crowded,
a dozen bare feet dancing against feeling linoleum. Yet within
this undulating sea of ladies, cracking eggs and jokes sat
a middle aged man, round bellied and balding, his fists
(33:53):
clutching a drink and his eyes glazed. A cigarette balanced
between his fingers, the ash a mile long, Like a
man waking from a nightmare. He shocked his nodding head
(34:16):
up when one of the girls hollered out, Hey, Joe, how.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Did you say you liked your eggs done? Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
My name is Lindsey Byron, but most people know me
as lux Atl.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Learn more about my work tips out, globe.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Trotting and mansions worldwide at Good Times, Badgirls dot com.
Follow me on the Gram and TikTok at lux underspore
Atl on YouTube at lux Atl, and on substock, where
I blog weekly at Tumultuous True Stories Byron. If you'd
(35:01):
like to hear more about my own experience slang and
companionship across the South, read my memoir Too Pretty to
Be Good by Lindsay Byron. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnoble
dot com and anywhere books.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Are sold online.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Hey, If you'd like to continue to listen to me
tell stories, check out my first podcast, strip Cast True
Stories from a Stripper with a PhD. Listen on Spotify
and iTunes. Follow this podcast on the Gram at hooker Gate.
Underscore podcast theme music and sound design by my long
(35:38):
term partner in artistic crime, Guy Kelly, you the illist GK.
Check out his work at Guy Kelly dot com. While
This podcast is based upon real events. Certain elements have
been fictionalized for dramatic effect. I cannot know for certain
what exactly was said behind closed doors, so I combine
(36:01):
my research and imagination to dramatize scenes described most often
under oath in court, and occasionally secondhand via journalistic or
personal accounts. Find citations in this show notes. The pitch
for this podcast won the twenty twenty one Next Great
Podcast competition hosted by Tongle and iHeartRadio, which is why
(36:25):
I'm here now producing this joint my gratitude for the opportunity.
Hooker Gate is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
This Fucking Dog
You know that it takes two people to make a prostitute.
You can't lay all the blame on the woman. You
can't do it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
A young reporter drove his family from the nation's capital
to a small town about four hours south, his wife beside.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Him, his children in the back.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Rodney had a family to support, a woman who believed
in him, who followed him on his wild journeys, sweet
little kids with chubby smiles that pierced his heart with
the reminder, there.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Is more than yourself to think of here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You promised this wife that you can make it as
a writer anywhere. You promised her this move would be
worth it. You owe this family everything. No one owes
you anything, and yet they've given freely their patience, their faith,
cooked dinners kept.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Warm in the oven.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I love you, daddies, even as your mind spun into stories,
copy headlines, be present with these children.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Give a good life to this wife.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
There were imperatives more important than your down career, Rodney thought,
and yet nonetheless he drove on metropolitan streets, spinning into
fields of tobacco. Rodney needed to make this work, after all,
he thought. He also had himself to whom he owed.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Couldn't forget about that guy, hard working kid, a dreamer,
a risk taker. You should be a writer, his high
school English teacher told him once. He never forgot that,
and so over the weeks to come, he'd set up
(02:23):
shop in that small office in that small town.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He let his.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
View of the cows in the field inspire him. Each
one of those bovines had a different set of spots,
a different story. Hell, maybe they even had feelings. Probably did.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
After some time. Rodney even had.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Little names for his favorites, could identify them by a
flip of ear or turn of tail. You could make
a story about almost anything if you only looked at
it in the right way.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
See.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
That was the thing people miss about his line of work,
his field of art.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
They think it's.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
All bald reportage, a mere recitation of facts that any
willing party could pen. They don't know that the writer
is a photographer of moments, a seer of meaning in
scenes others find. Mundane Rodney could find a story and
(03:30):
just about anything. When I spoke to him in early
twenty twenty two, he told me about one such occurrence.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
It's flow news week. A couple of people walk in
the office and started telling me this story about one
guy had been a intelligence officer during World War Two.
He was driving from great to Danville, noticed this kind
(04:05):
of emotional in the side of the road, stops walk
over the little hill. There's a flying saucer. So he
goes into great detail about this, and I, of course
thinking meticulous notes after he finished it, I was thinking
very much. I think, wow, out of entything. And you
start calling people, and the number of people that have
(04:28):
heard this story was phenomenal. Wrote the story and we
used to put parts of a flying saucer. We got
a huge reaction to it.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
As yet another lady at church inquired about that, UFO
Rodney thought, well, the types of stories I cover out
here in the country might look a little different than
the high stakes drama I covered in Washington, But well,
I might just like it that way. You wouldn't find
(05:00):
any Greek tragedies or epic intrigue out here in the boondocks,
but if you could, Rodney would be the man to
find it. Truck shot brothels run by a web of
X cons, a Commonwealth attorney wasted on whiskey and power
(05:21):
protection exchanged for cash, flesh, a brash.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Local reporter exposing it all.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
This is hookergate, criminals and libertines in the South, And
I am your hosts, Doctor Lindsey Byron, author, historian, and
lifelong wayward woman. This forgotten scandal happened in my hometown.
Join me as I use crumbling news clippings, interviews, and
(05:49):
dramatic reenactments to bring to life for the first time
in nearly fifty years, this wild ride of hedonistic corruption.
Episode two. This woman was different. In a twenty nineteen
(06:14):
article for The Atlantic entitled The Reinvention of Danville, author
James Fallow describes the region that would play host to
juicier dramas than Rodney could have yet foreseen. Danville is
a major city within Pennsylvania County. Fallow rights. In its day,
it was one of the richest places in the Piedmont
area and a major center of first the tobacco and
(06:36):
then the textile industries. Danville was also, for a one
week period in April eighteen sixty five, the final capital
of the Confederacy, with implications down to the present. By
the mid twentieth century, Danville and the surrounding area clutched
(06:57):
still to its Confederate roots. However, another major source of
identity came from the local textile mill, a global industry leader.
The Great White Mill, with its glowing red letters, looms
over the memories of my childhood home of dan River Mills.
Those letters burned into the night, reflecting on the dark
(07:20):
water below home. The mill's influence was wide ranging and profound.
Fallow rights businesses in the area discouraged higher education and
brought in workers straight out of public schools.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I admit we are backward.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You'll remember local court clerk Samuel Swanson conceded at the
time of the federal indictment in nineteen seventy seven. We've
never had to progress. For those looking from the outside end,
this backwardsness found its source not in issues of class, education,
(08:00):
or labor, but rather in the area's conservatism and religiosity.
Danville's nickname, after all, is the city of Churches. While
researching Hooker Gate, I interviewed lifelong Pennsylvania County citizen Frankie Jones,
whose father, Austin Jones, served on the grand jury that
(08:22):
would ultimately indict the major players of the Hooker Gates scandal.
Frankie told me about a time in which his father
was confronted by a national reporter regarding the character of
the place we all called home.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
He had a Washington Post rapport lady come up to him,
middle Gatherine, when he was stayed vice president of Jin
Association Realtors, and she said, where are you from? He said, Dan, Well,
he should? May I ask you a question? Awfully? She sure?
She said, why y'all so down conservative down there? He said,
you're letting him will tell you something. He said, you
(09:00):
weren't born in a depression, He said, back then we
didn't have wealth out apartment at the church? Was we
have wealth out apartment?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Here in the Bible belt where conservatism and old time
religion retained its hold on the area's sense of self.
The brothels seemed to have functioned as the localities id
the outlet for the repressed desires and needs of a
people otherwise busy with church socials.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
The big shot in dan Will was Barker. I can't
remember his first name, but Tom Barker. He ran to
Danbell operation.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Now, mister Barker, what contact did you have with Herold,
Wayne Downing, Herbert Owen Boyd and Aubrahad Just during the
years nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Wow, Janet worked at those for them, and.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
She was your wife during much of that period. Is
that correct?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:06):
All right?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
What kind of work was she doing? She was a prostitute.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Tommy set up in bed, you and me, Janet, We
could make some damn money, he told the naked woman
next to him.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She was much.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Younger than him, but every bit is wise. Janet pulled
the sheets to her armpits and set up. She lit
a joint before she replied.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, let's make some damn money.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
At nineteen, Janet had only one hard and fast rule,
and that was to live hard and fast. If she
had a second rule, which she didn't, it would be
also be sweet.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's how a woman could get what she wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It wouldn't be so bad, Tommy told her, gingerly, accepting
the joint from her slender fingers. And I I wouldn't mind,
you wouldn't. I want to move hiss out of this
trailer parking into a house, A nice brick house, Janet,
(11:32):
A big one too, imagine it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I promise you that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Tommy had come from a big family with little attention
nor money to spare.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
He tried the straight route.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Hell, he'd served in the military until he shot himself
in the arm trying to kill a snake. Some thugs
claimed he did it on purpose, just because now he
collected a pension from Uncle Sam. The pension wasn't enough, though,
so he sought out other ways to stack cash. A
freedom loving man with a passion for excitement, Tommy want
(12:08):
the type to be pinned down by a square job,
so he'd tried other things. Sure, little robbery here and there,
silver Pilford from the homes of the rich, steaks from
the chop house, heart sweaty secret work. So accustomed was
(12:29):
he to making money the wrong way that it want
nothing to invite another into this way of life.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
And Janet, to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Be fair, was no child. No, she was a woman
with her own mind. The truck stop enterprise was only
the latest opportunity. Hell, there'd be others in the future,
opportunities that wouldn't require so much of her. But to
(12:58):
get there, they had to start here. He traced a
finger along her jaw. You are so smart, He kissed
her temple so strong he stamped out the joint and
(13:23):
climbed on top of her again. He would never get
his fill of this woman. Many women had come his way,
many had laid in this bed. When he first asked
Janet for her number, after weeks of tipping her heavy
for coffee and pie, he figured, well, she'd just be
(13:44):
another notch on the bedpost. But something about her was different,
something about the way she popped her bubblegum while she
busied herself around that diner, head high and unaffected by
the stairs of interested men, and drove him mad with desire.
(14:05):
And he he was different too. Three weeks had passed
since they first kissed, made love, and professed undying devotion,
all in the same night. Her body ached from the
now frequent acceptance of him, a big man in always
(14:28):
mind blowing a primal sign of a king. Janet was
in love. I can do anything, she promised him. Nos
to nose Anything in life worth having, she knew required
some sacrifice. Ain't nothing for free, not this man, not
(14:49):
this love, and certainly not the rent. I know that's right,
he agreed. After they finished their second round, Tommy picked
up the phone.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Hey, herb, I got a girl for y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Do you remember when Robin arrived from Chicago? Mister Dowdy
I don't remember the exact month.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
It was in seventy five.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
No one introduced you at all, did they?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
They did not?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
All?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Right, where did you meet her?
Speaker 8 (15:30):
It is truck stop?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Was she a.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Working girl at that time?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
She was a prostitute who employed her?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I did.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
He'd spent his life loving Southern women, indeed extolling their virtues.
A Southern woman would cook for you, clean for you,
take care of your needs, and do it all with
a slow, sweet drawl. Yet there was something about this
(16:08):
woman's accent, the clipped vowels, the quick harshness of her cadence.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That turned Harold Wayne into Mush.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Into mush A man like him impossible, but this woman.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Was different. Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
He asked, leaning across the counter. He had a rule
about dating working girls, and anyways, he wasn't exactly a
free man. Robin ignored him, staring instead at her nails,
which she filed. Harold Wayne cleared his throat, where you're from?
(17:02):
She didn't look up, and she responded, I'm here in
this truck stop now, So what does it matter where
I'm from?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Ah? A quick witted one.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
An attitude like that might not get you far. The
young woman stopped her filing and met his gaze.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I have gotten quite far, exactly as I am.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
She answered, and returned to her manicure. And by the way,
she added, without looking up, Chicago.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm from Chicago.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Ah, Chicago. That's why she was so disarmingly unmannered. Your
accent is beautiful, he dared. How, why, what the hell
was the reason that this woman made him nervous.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
That's why I don't hear often, she responded.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
These good old boys down south are prejudiced against Northerners.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Folks say they can't understand me.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, the feeling's mutual, honey, some of these gobs can
be stupid or if the heads was cut.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Off At this, the young woman laughed.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Flashed him at last that sligrint that would addict him
for years to come. I'm Robin, she told him. Harold
Wayne was used to lining him up and knocking him down.
A salesman by trade and by heart, the man could
(18:47):
charm the most aloof on available woman. Hell, he seduced
a score of premium chickadees under his employment in just
the short time he'd been running this scheme. But something
about the upward tilt of Robin's chin and the knowing
in her eyes told Harold Wayne that this one was
(19:11):
gonna be a challenge. How long you been working here,
he asked, Well, hell, you ought to know, mister Dowdy.
You run the place, sure, but I don't have no everything.
Phillis takes care of hiring sometimes.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Phillips is she her old lady. H W D cleared
his throat again. Are you a new to this line
of work?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I am not, in fact, mister Dowdy, I've probably been
in this game longer than you. Please call me Harold Wayne,
thing Harold Wayne, and you're too.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Young to have been in any game longer than me.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I might be young, she answered, but only if you
were using the metric of time. By other metrics, I
am quite old. Harold Wayne, of course, was the old one.
At forty, he was fully twice Robin's age. Yet he
(20:32):
too was only his age when using the metric of time,
because otherwise he was as youthful as any young boh.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okay, old soul. Where else have you worked?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I have traveled all over the country.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Well, can you give me a few examples?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois. That's a whole lot
of moving around, Yes, sir, sure is.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Please none of this sir stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
As Harold Wayne leaned over the counter, asking questions one
by one to unravel the mystery of this smart mouthed
young lady, a smile grew beneath that thick black mustache
of his. What music did she lay? What books did
(21:40):
she enjoy? Where was her family? With each inquiry she
opened further. The bus ride from Chicago had been a
long one. Robin hadn't had the funds for a flight
on that bus trip. She'd con at a plan to
(22:01):
make so much money that she'd never have to take
a bus again. People really thought this line of work
consisted simply of lying on one's back, a feat any
willing woman could accomplish. What they didn't know was that
the working girl was a psychologist, storyteller, actress, and living
(22:23):
work of art at the same down time. These men
don't just walk in the back with any old gal.
You got to examine them, understand them, find out what
tempts them. Then, having gathered the data, a working girl
must then become that thing he desires, if only for
(22:47):
an hour, if only for ten minutes, sorcery, magic, artistry,
obscure yourself and become a fantasy. Do not underestimate a
woman like me, thought Robin. The world would never pat
her on the back for her success, snape charming, and.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yet sometimes she longed for a pat on the back.
She was, after all human.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
A customer stumbled into the lobby and tripped over the
leg of a barstool. Robin looked to Hwd. He met
her gaze. Don't worry about him. I'd rather you spend
the time talking right here with me. When she looked
(23:44):
concerned by that suggestion, her mind adding and subtracting the
sum she'd counted on that long bus ride here, Harold
Wayne reassured her, I'll.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Pay you for your time right own pocket. You simply
fascinate me.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Now, what we are trying to prove, and what we
expect to prove, is this that these operators, Now I
am going to call them operators, doubt it. Barker, Henderson,
and Boyd utilized inner state facilities such as airports, bus terminals,
and telephone to further their prostitution activities. In addition, they
actually traveled in the state themselves to promote and manage
(24:34):
the interest of these houses of prostitution.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
The street lights sped by reflected in the lenses of
Buckeye's glasses.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Look for my girlfriend when you land, Tommy had told
her over the phone. Should be the pretty one in
the white tank waving out to car One.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Day, a short flight from Ohio to North Carolina, and
Buckeye was in the back seat of a sedan with
two strangers, crossing the state line into Virginia. The man
had promised to take care of her, but she was
a kid and scared what might be the consequences of
(25:23):
her impulsive recklessness. Why did she convince her friend to
make that call? She leaned her head against the window
and searched the evening landscape as they rattled over Smurf Bridge,
A small waterfall, a great mill hulking over the river,
(25:46):
broken windows black like missing teeth, read letters spelling home
into the night.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So this is a Standville, she.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Said, You won't be working exactly in Danville.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Tommy hollered back from the front seat. Honey, turn the
music down.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Janet chided and lowered the volume on the skinnered you
won't be exactly in Danville. Tommy continued, quieter.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Now there's too much.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Potential trouble to mess with the city proper.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
You just gonna be like a mile or two into
the county.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
See, the folks in charge of the county are a
whole lot friendlier.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Than them in the city.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But anyways, yeah, this is Danville.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
This is kind of the big city around here.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Buckeye counted ten identical millhouses in a row and thought,
this don't want.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Too much like the big city.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But okay, what was she doing here? Sometimes we make
a decision from a distance, We make plans based upon
a terrain we cannot yet see. We decide, yes, I
can do this thing, and we imagine in our hearts
(27:17):
a scenario we cannot predict with our minds. There will
be new opportunity and adventure on the other side of
this decision, we imagine. And then one day we find
ourselves on the actual other side of this decision, to
see instead a muddy river, a mill missing teeth, and
(27:41):
evil read letters burning home into the knife. Buckeye peeled
her cheek off the window, straightened her spine. She'd faced
worser things than a missing toothed mill in her life.
The hardship's been worth if not to harden her to
(28:04):
any challenge, to rub a callous on her spirit, strengthen
her against any trial.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Don't worry, Tommy told her, Oh, I'm not I'm not worried.
You're trying to convince you were me. He laughed.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Janet swatted his arm. She looked over her shoulder at
Buckeye and smiled. It ain't bad at least, that's what
I hear. I'm about to start up to but at
another location than you.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
Missus Barka.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Can you tell me how was your employment at the
Hillcrest Helston raged to your knowledge through.
Speaker 8 (28:52):
My husband, then my boyfriend.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
Okay, now when was this approximately?
Speaker 9 (28:58):
It would be late fall of seventy two, approximately two
or three weeks after the health center was opened.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
All right, what was nature of his operation when it started?
What were your instructions?
Speaker 9 (29:13):
I was instructed by mister Gord that we were owed
to give hand.
Speaker 8 (29:18):
Relief, But the nature of that was really for his
own defense.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
Why do you say that.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
I was told that it was just supposed to be
strictly a massage parlor, right, But during the conversation he
winked and said that I was to give up half
of my money and I asked him why, and he
said that my have of the money went towards things
that needed to be bought for the health.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
Center and for my own protection, and for a lawyer
in case it was to get busted.
Speaker 9 (29:51):
I didn't understand that, because if we were supposed to be
doing something legal, why would need a lawyer.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
When you first worked it, who was already a high
a prostitution.
Speaker 9 (30:04):
I never gave any Messashias, Oh.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
That would be a waste of my time.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You'll work in twelve hour shifts, twelve hours on, twelve
hours off, Aubrey explained as Janet unpacked her overnight bag
in a small room among the hallway of small rooms
in the back of the Hillcrest Health Center. In the lobby,
Herbert organized wads of cash into separate envelopes. When you're on,
(30:46):
Aubrey continued, you'll make yourself available to the gentleman who
entered the lounge. We are, of course open twenty four hours.
You'd be surprised at the strange time we.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Get callers, truck drivers. Of course they awake it all.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
We got one regular who comes in at six thirty
am every Tuesday. Now, who else could say that Our
customers are very loyal. When you treat them right.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
You just look pretty, just same as you do now.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Smile at the boys, make them feel at ease, and
you're gonna do just fine.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Janet had done just fine.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
At least that was the impression she had gotten after
her first customer tricks, the girls called them.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
In that small room.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Alone with that small man, she had moved her body
in ways she'd done with other men, men she loved,
or at least liked, underneath the bleachers at homecoming.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Or in the car drive in. But with the trick,
whom she.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Didn't love nor like, she found her body could move
just the same, as long as her mind was somewhere else,
somewhere other than this twin bed, in this dark room,
and this watt cinder block building on the side of
the highway, Picturing in her head the face of her beloved,
(32:07):
transposing him over every inch of this stranger.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Janet had been able to get the.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Job done quicker and with less distress than she thought possible.
Everyone deserves affection, she told herself.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Everyone ought to feel good.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
This was a job, just like any other job, merely
a meeting of needs. The client needed her touch, and
she needed his cash. If the trade was not legal,
it was nonetheless ethical. She spent longer in the bathroom
washing the man off of her than she spent getting
(32:43):
him on her in.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
The first place. Yeah, she thought she could do this.
She'd been training for this all the days of her life.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
When she'd finished with the first man, she handed half
of the money to Aubrey and he'd it into an envelope.
And then she did it again and again and again
for twelve hours straight.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And then.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
She decided to make an egg sandwich. It was, after all,
breakfast time. Entering the kitchen, Janet came upon a melee
of young women, laughing as they moved around one another
in a concert of cooking.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Indeed, there were so.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Many girls in that small room that it was downright crowded,
a dozen bare feet dancing against feeling linoleum. Yet within
this undulating sea of ladies, cracking eggs and jokes sat
a middle aged man, round bellied and balding, his fists
(33:53):
clutching a drink and his eyes glazed. A cigarette balanced
between his fingers, the ash a mile long, Like a
man waking from a nightmare. He shocked his nodding head
(34:16):
up when one of the girls hollered out, Hey, Joe, how.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Did you say you liked your eggs done? Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
My name is Lindsey Byron, but most people know me
as lux Atl.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Learn more about my work tips out, globe.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Trotting and mansions worldwide at Good Times, Badgirls dot com.
Follow me on the Gram and TikTok at lux underspore
Atl on YouTube at lux Atl, and on substock, where
I blog weekly at Tumultuous True Stories Byron. If you'd
(35:01):
like to hear more about my own experience slang and
companionship across the South, read my memoir Too Pretty to
Be Good by Lindsay Byron. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnoble
dot com and anywhere books.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Are sold online.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Hey, If you'd like to continue to listen to me
tell stories, check out my first podcast, strip Cast True
Stories from a Stripper with a PhD. Listen on Spotify
and iTunes. Follow this podcast on the Gram at hooker Gate.
Underscore podcast theme music and sound design by my long
(35:38):
term partner in artistic crime, Guy Kelly, you the illist GK.
Check out his work at Guy Kelly dot com. While
This podcast is based upon real events. Certain elements have
been fictionalized for dramatic effect. I cannot know for certain
what exactly was said behind closed doors, so I combine
(36:01):
my research and imagination to dramatize scenes described most often
under oath in court, and occasionally secondhand via journalistic or
personal accounts. Find citations in this show notes. The pitch
for this podcast won the twenty twenty one Next Great
Podcast competition hosted by Tongle and iHeartRadio, which is why
(36:25):
I'm here now producing this joint my gratitude for the opportunity.
Hooker Gate is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
This Fucking Dog
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