“Sadly, I can,” I said. “A faerie princess doing porn. I’m sure that’s a draw.”
“Well, at least you know she’s still in L.A., and now you know where to start looking for her,” Grinner said.
“Yeah,” I said, “unfortunately, I do.”
FOURTEEN
Most of my connections in the porn industry had faded, gone legit, or died, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Meat abided. “Meat” was born Christian Norlender. He was six foot seven, around two hundred pounds, blond with blue eyes like a Viking surfer, and endowed with one of the most infamous penises in the shadowy history of the industry.
Meat had worked with everyone in the biz. He was just coming up when I had met him in the nineties; by the end of the decade, he was a certified porn legend and one of the most recognized male talents around. Everyone in porn had a Meat story or two to tell, and Meat knew everyone else’s stories too.
Only a select few knew that Meat’s “endowment” was truly divine in more ways than one. He was the offspring of Priapus, a C-list, country-fried, slumming Greek fertility god who had been summoned up in L.A. during the Summer of Love by some hippie wannabe tantric magi. Priapus was the closest thing the Greeks had to a god of pornography, and there are still small, secret cults connected to the adult entertainment industry that practice rites to him in New York, L.A., Mexico City, Eastern Europe, and a few other places. His shrines are the peep-show booths with sticky floors.
We all know how great Greek gods were at keeping it in their pants, right? Well old Priapus literally couldn’t; there weren’t pants stretchy enough. In true Dirk Diggler fashion, the god was cursed with impotence, but the advent of cocaine injections and later, little blue pills from mortal medicine helped him enough with his problem to work in the adult entertainment field for decades under the cunning alias, Dick Knight. Mankind’s chemical magic also provided an opportunity for the god to impregnate Meat’s mom, a corn-fed USC undergrad by way of Kansas who was paying for college by stripping and the occasional porn shoot.
Old Priapus disappeared around the time AIDS started decimating the porn industry, perhaps no longer getting what he needed to stay corporeal. Some say Dickie Knight is still around and is a leather-skinned, dirty-Hawaiian-shirt-wearing old man who produces porn in Florida these days. The skin trade has as much mythology to it as Bullfinch.
Meat grew up in L.A. in as good a middle-class lifestyle as his dear mom could provide. Given his looks, his endowment, and his pedigree, he eventually was pulled into the gravity of the very insular porn world, where things like legacy can give you the keys to the kingdom. Meat did his first movie at sixteen, which was almost as big a secret as his divine blood.
These days, Meat’s income came from being a ’Roid Warrior, a dealer in all manner of anabolic cocktails to the wealthy and vain gym rats of greater Los Angeles. He still dabbled in the adult entertainment industry as a sometimes-producer, and on rare occasions, talent.
Vigil was now my official rock-faced shadow. I drove the Trevita toward the gym where, according to Dwayne and Dragon, he was conducting most of his business these days.
“If I get jumped by a gang of leprechauns dressed like droogs, or something of that ilk,” Vigil said, “I’m shooting you in the face first thing.”
“Then by all means let’s avoid Hollywood and Vine,” I said. “I’m too pretty to die.”
“Clearly,” he said.
We caught up to Meat on his sales route. This stop was at a chain gym on Hollywood Boulevard that I recalled having a really sketchy reputation. Meat was doing dumbbell curls with a gentleman who wore numerous gold chains in spite of having no discernible neck. The walking man-wedge possessed a torso that was the size of a frozen side of beef and a small, pinched, red face under the awning of a salt-and-pepper crew cut.
“Okay, Dutch, give me three more, come on, bro-mato!” Meat bellowed inches from the face of the human tunnel support. The guy’s face was twisted up in struggle and anger. It reminded me of a clenched fist. “Dutch,” or “bro-mato,” if you prefer, roared as he struggled through the last three reps of the set and dropped the dumbbells with a loud crash, making sure everyone else in the gym was made fully aware of his accomplishment. I thought of golf-clapping, but when I saw the slow head-shake of disgust coming from Vigil at the atrocious gym etiquette, I let it go.
“Meat,” I said over the rumble of testosterone thunder, “hey man.” Meat’s eyes widened with recognition and he lumbered over to me, scooping me up off the floor and giving me a big bear hug. The parts of me that were still a little ouchy protested, but I told them to shut the hell up.
“Ballard!” Meat shouted in my ear. “Ho-ly shit, man! How are you?” I patted his back and hugged him back as best I could. For a moment, I felt like Bugs Bunny in that old cartoon with the abominable snowman. Meat sat me down, and I nodded to Vigil.
“Meat, this is Burris; he’s cool. Sorry to barge in on y’all during business hours, but I could use your help.” Meat and Vigil fist-bumped, and Meat gave a thumbs-up to Dutch. Dutch nodded.
“See you next week, bro,” Dutch rumbled. Meat scooped up his gym bag and slid his dark blue Vans hoodie on over his tank top. I saw the flash of a small pistol butt in Meat’s hoodie pocket, and I knew Vigil had too, adding it to the violent equations he had running constantly in his skull.
