Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore (9780385538398) by Walter Mosley Page B

from my right.
    He would have been shorter than I even standing straight, but Kip was a little hunched over from some natural malady or condition. He wore a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans. He also had on hard-looking light brown cowboy boots.
    â€œHey, Kip.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œDon’t you recognize me?”
    The sixty-year-old’s face was wrinkled and brownish but he was a white guy. When he squinted he aged a decade. The surprise made him younger again.
    â€œDeb? That you?”
    â€œDo I have to put on a wig and contact lenses just to come visit?”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    He rushed over and hugged me.
    Kip was one of the few men I allowed this privilege. Guys tried to grab me so often that I naturally avoided cuddles, clinches, and bear hugs. But with Kip it was always friendly, considerate.
    â€œWhat happened to your hair?” he asked.
    â€œI’m just tired, Kip.”
    The empathy in his eyes reflected some decision that he’d reached long ago, before I was born no doubt.
    â€œYou wanna cup’a java?” he asked.
    Kip’s property ended at a cliff that overlooked the ocean. The tiny bands of waves were far enough away that you could see but not hear them.
    There was a stone dais laid out at the far edge. On this platform sat a pink table and four shabby plastic white chairs. It was there that Kip served me his Spanish coffee and canned evaporated milk.
    I accepted this hospitality not because I wanted or needed it but because he offered. The kindness was like a high-denomination poker chip: valueless as a thing but representing something of significance.
    â€œI’m so sorry about Theon,” he said after we were seated and looking out.
    It was early afternoon. The sun was high and hot.
    â€œHe went out with a beautiful girl on top of him,” I replied.
    â€œHe loved you though.”
    â€œYeah. I guess he did.”
    â€œIt’s hard being an old porn star, Deb,” Kip said. “I mean, it’s harder on women but guys feel it too. There’s no retirement plan and unless they can use a camera there’s no work to speak of.”
    â€œIt’s quiet around here,” I said, because there was no reply to Kip’s pronouncement.
    â€œNot rentin’ out too much. I took in Jolie ’cause Theon asked personally. Place is paid for and I got my government check for the bills.”
    Kip gazed back at the vacant area inside the horseshoe. It was a brick playground turned patio, with grasses and weeds growing up through the cracks. Looking at that space I remembered seeing Kip gazing down from his second-floor window when I was taking one man’s hard-on down my throat while his German friend was fucking my ass.
    â€œI was chokin’ at one end and trying to relax at the other,” I told Theon that night.
    He told me that he’d been in the exact same situation once when a gambler, Coco Manetti, made him do a gay film to pay off a bad debt.
    I remembered feeling sorry for Theon.
    And now he was dead.
    â€œIt’s good that you quittin’ the business,” Kip said. “That’s no kind of life for you.”
    â€œNo kind of life for anyone.”
    â€œBut you’re so smart, Deb,” he argued. “A lotta these people in the life couldn’t be anything else. At least they get paid for bein’ young and flexible. But you read books … you talk like you know somethin’.
    â€œI remember when I first met you, when you were just a kid. You talked like you were straight outta the hood, but now you talk like some kinda coed or somethin’.”
    Theon had paid for my etiquette lessons.
    â€œHow do you know I read?” I asked. I never talked about books to anyone except my therapist and that one arrogant literature professor.
    â€œTheon told me. I asked him did he get jealous with you havin’ sex with all those young men and he said that it was only the books