The Pimp Appeal

The literary sensation of 2004 has to be "In the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 02-14306," whose prose is as gripping as its title is clumsy. Its opening line — "In November of 2001, police arrested fifteen Atlanta pimps" — is up there with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and "Call me Ishmael," in the canon of phrases that, though their simplicity and audacity, command you to read on.

The story is about the appeal — heck, it is the appeal — of two Atlanta pimps, Charles Floyd Pipkins, aka Sir Charles, and Andrew Moore Jr., aka Batman, trying to overturn convictions and jail sentences related to their activities. With its mix of street language and stentorian legalese, you'd think the author of "No. 02-14306" was some sort of Iceberg Friday. Instead, it is an unknown — 69-year-old Judge Emmett Ripley Cox Jr., born and raised in Cottonwood, Ala. — who packs an enormous amount of gratuitous sex, violence and case citations into just 43 pages. Though Cox reveals the ending early, he builds his story to a satisfying climax.

What Cox does particularly well is lay out how the pimping lifestyle, while celebrated in popular culture, is not all that different from the humdrum workaday world, making his instant classic not only a glimpse into the underworld, but an allegory of office politics with which any reader could identify.

Here are some of the lessons Cox illustrates:

Any corporate entity develops an idiosyncratic nomenclature:

Both pimps and prostitutes generally referred to their activities as "the game." ... "Popcorn pimps," "wanna-bes," and "hustlers" were the least respected, newer pimps. ... A prostitute who frequently moved from pimp to pimp was known as a "Choosey Susie."

A company may promise the moon and stars to a hot young talent:

To persuade underage females to prostitute for them, the Defendants (and other pimps charged in the indictment) presented a vision of ostentatious living, promising fame and fortune.

Bad bosses are more common than good ones:

To the pimps, an important component of the game was domination of their females through endless promises and mentally sapping wordplay, physical violence and financial control.

If you don't have the right look, you'll get the scut work:

And, on another trip to Memphis, Scooby found a female who wanted to return with him to Atlanta to prostitute, but who did not have the looks required to join his stable. Remembering that Pipkins's driver's license was suspended and noting that this female had a car, Scooby contacted Pipkins on his cell phone and coaxed him to accept this female because she would be able to ferry both Pipkins and other prostitutes to and from the track.

Every industry has and needs its own trade shows as a way to celebrate successes and communicate new ideas:

In 1999, Pipkins, Scooby, Herman Hutson, Jr. (known as "Redd"), and Curtis Webb, Pipkins's tailor, along with one of Pipkins's prostitutes, traveled together to the Player's Ball in Detroit, Michigan. The Player's Ball is an annual event, akin to a nationwide pimp trade show, which rotates through major cities.

While the boss is away, there's always some brown-nosing middle manager serving as his eyes and ears:

At the top of each pimp's organization was his "bottom girl," a trusted and experienced prostitute or female associate. Next in the pimp's chain of command was a "wife-in-law," a prostitute with supervisory duties similar to those of the bottom girl. A pimp's bottom girl or wife-in-law often worked the track in his stead, running interference for and collecting money from the pimp's other prostitutes. The bottom girl also looked after the pimp's affairs if the pimp was out of town, incarcerated, or otherwise unavailable.

Big business looks out for its own:

Furthermore, the Defendants argue, even though pimps interacted as necessary to facilitate the 'choosing' and 'serving' of the prostitutes, the pimps were actually direct competitors in a fierce market. About the fact that competing prostitutes often charged identical prices for dates, the Defendants analogize to corner gas stations, explaining that this was due to conscious parallelism.

Every job, no matter what the profession, requires you to sit through a human resources department training video:

The pimping subculture in Atlanta operated under a set of rules, presented in the video called Really Really Pimpin' in Da South. This videotape was made in Atlanta by Pipkins and Carlos Glover, a business associate. Really Really Pimpin' in Da South featured prominent Atlanta pimps, including Pipkins, explaining the rules of the game. This video, along with its companion piece, Pimps Up Hoes Down, outlined the pimp code of conduct, and was repeatedly shown to new pimps and prostitutes alike to concisely explain what was expected of a prostitute.

Like the great works of literature, "No. 02-14306" isn't done justice by these abridged Cliff's Notes. The best way to experience the most telling exposé of life on the streets since "Manchild in the Promised Land" is to dive in headfirst. Even if he never writes anything close to the caliber of "No. 02-14306" again, Judge Emmett Ripley Cox Jr. is a name that will echo through generations.

— Bob Cook (bobc@flakmag.com)