Iceberg Slim

I'll tell you what happened, but I can’t say it directly. There's a book to me that encapsulates my entire experience. Before I left the show. And the book is called Pimp. It's written by a guy named Iceberg Slim. Yeah, bring it up here. This is Matthew. Matthew’s from France. He's white. And yet, he has an original copy of this book written by a black American who was a pimp in the '40s. Iceberg Slim. His real name was Robert Beck. He got the name Iceberg because he was in a bar in Chicago, and there was a shootout in the bar, and a bullet went through this nigga's hat, and he still finished his drink. Pimps love shit like that. They said, “Man, you're ice cold.” And he said, “I like that.” And it stuck.

This book is so heavy in the front and has a glossary of pimp terms, because the ideas are so foreign to the American ears. For instance, do you know what the phrase “mileage on a ho” means?

Of course you don't. Mileage on a ho is a very wild concept. It means that pimps understand there's a finite amount of bad shit a person can do before they lose their fucking mind. And a good pimp can look at a woman that he's never seen before and call it. She’s good for 500 fucks. That’s her mileage. Anything over that, that bitch is gonna spill. They do it to you. Why the fuck you think most of us work from nine to five? ‘Cause nine to six might kill a bitch.

Iceberg Slim was the one that broke down what a bottom bitch was. Does anyone know what a bottom bitch is? Anyone? What's a bottom bitch, sir? It’s your, uh– it's your prostitute that's the best out of all of 'em, that bring in the most money. That’s right. That's exactly right. Are you black? [laughing] That's right. A bottom bitch is a pimp's number one ho. She's even a bitch that helps him keep the other bitches in line. I will repeat. She's even the bitch that helps him keep the other bitches in line. If the pimp was McDonald's, then the bottom bitch is his French fries.

The rest of them bitches like fish sandwiches and cherry pies and shit like that.

Iceberg Slim breaks down some of the coldest capitalist concepts I've ever heard in my life. He describes in detail how these men break women so that they will give them the money that they make with their own bodies. There's a story in here so cold, it makes me shudder to think about it. Iceberg Slim is trying to control the woman that he finds uncontrollable.

So he asks an older pimp how he can rein her in. And the older pimp says, “Oh, that's easy, Iceberg. All you have to do is beat that bitch with a coat hanger. And then run her a bath. And give her some pills. She'll be so grateful that you fixed her, that she'll forget you were the motherfucker that beat her in the first place.”

That's some cold shit.

Now. At the end of this book, Iceberg Slim tells a story. It's kind of the crescendo of the book. And in the story, Iceberg Slim's bottom bitch is at the end of her mileage. If she was good for 500 fucks, she was at for 498.

She was bubbling, you could see it. She was going crazy. She started saying all kinds of shit. “I always wanted to be in the circus.” Circus? This bitch is losing it.

“I can juggle, too, you know?” Juggle?

He had to let her go. It was hard to let a bottom bitch go, and he wasn't ready to let her go because his organization couldn't handle losing her. But she didn't know that. She didn't know how important she was. So what he did was, he called her to ignite her. He said, “Look, bitch, you and I got to part ways.” She said, “Fine, motherfucker, I don't need you anyway, because I know somebody at Ringling Brothers.” He was like, “All right, whatever.

I got one last trick for you. It's a big money trick. You do this for me, you get paid, I get paid, and we go our separate ways.” She said, “Fine, motherfucker, what do you want me to do?” He said, “Okay, there's a guy in that hotel across the street. He's waiting for you in room number seven. I want you to go over there and fuck him. But before you do, I need to put some of this stuff in his drink. And then he's gonna fall asleep. When he does, his briefcase on his bed, bring the briefcase to me. That's the trick, bitch. Can you handle it?”

She said, “Fuck yeah, I can. I can't wait to get rid of you.”

And then she ran outside, jumped on a unicycle and peddled across the street.

And Iceberg watched her. He's like, “Man, she's pretty good.”

“If I never jerked off in her face, maybe she would've been in the circus now.”

And she runs up the motel steps and disappears in room number seven. She's gone for a real long time. Real long time. So long, in fact, that Iceberg got a little worried. But then, suddenly, she came back.

He says, “Where's the briefcase?” She said, “I didn't get it, Daddy.” “What do you mean you didn't? What's wrong with you?” She said, “I did everything you said, but that man didn't look right. Something wrong, Daddy.”

“What do you mean? Did you put that stuff in his drink?”

“I did everything you said, Daddy. I put all of it in his drink.”

He said, “Wait a minute, bitch, you put all of it in his drink?”

Now he had to see for himself. So the two of them go to the motel, and they go into room number seven. And on the bed laying lifelessly is the white man that she was supposed to fuck. Iceberg said, “You right, bitch. He don't look good. What the fuck?”

So he called a friend of his that was a doctor that was close by. And the doctor came in, gave the guy a thorough examination and told them both what was obvious. “Slim, this motherfucker is dead.”

“Oh, God, Daddy. Oh, no. Oh, no. We killed him!”

He said, “Calm down, bitch. We. didn't do anything. You killed this motherfucker.”

And then he reached on the bed and he grabbed the briefcase. He popped it open. It was filled with money. More than any of them had ever seen. Iceberg took a little bit of the money and gave it to the doctor, and the doctor left discreetly.

“All right, bitch, let me think. [sighs] I can fix this for you. I know somebody I can call. But if I call him, I'm gonna owe these motherfuckers a big favor.”

“Oh, God, Daddy, please. I don't want to go to jail.”

“Neither do I, bitch, so you shut up.”

He picked up the phone. She heard him mumbling in the phone a little bit. He hung up the phone, and then she was pacing the room, and he was just standing there cool, and they were waiting and waiting, and then suddenly, a van pulled up downstairs. Two guys get out with a carpet. They walk upstairs, they roll that carpet out on the floor, they throw the body in the carpet. They roll that motherfucker up like a burrito, they pick that shit up, and they throw it in the back of the van. They come back up and Iceberg opens the briefcase again and gives them a little money.

He says, “I'll get in touch with you guys later.” They say, “You're not going to get in touch with us, we'll find you.” He said, “Whatever, nigga.” And they bounced.

“Oh, God, Daddy. Oh, God.”

He says, “Relax, bitch. Listen. We getting the fuck out of here. You go downstairs and you get the car. We gotta leave separately.”

She went, she got the car. Iceberg grabbed that briefcase, waited a few minutes, looked out the window, and then he went down with her. They both got in the car, and they drove off. She was a blubbering mess.

“Oh! Oh, we did all this shit!”

He said, “I told you bitch. We didn't do anything.” You killed the motherfucker, and I cleaned him up, and now we got us a secret. Okay? I know I'm not going to tell, bitch, is you?”

“Oh, no, I ain't gonna tell.”

He said, “All right, baby, cool. I'm gonna need you to stay with me for a while till this shit cools down.”

She goes, “Okay, okay. Okay.”

That's the game.

That's how the whole shit works, ladies. You understand? This bitch was at the end of her mileage. She was at for 498, she ended up tricking for Iceberg for another six months. She must have turned another 200 tricks for him. Do you understand? That's some cold shit. And the cold shit about it is that the dead guy on the bed wasn't even dead at all. This motherfucker was just a friend of Iceberg's acting like he's asleep. The doctor wasn't a doctor. He was a motherfucking butcher that happened to have a white coat. And the dudes who came in the moving van clothes was dressed like movers because they were movers. Iceberg had gotten a new apartment.

And the bag of money… was Iceberg's money in the first place. The money he got from all those women. That's a cold game. That's the motherfucking capitalist manifesto, and that's why I went to South Africa.

So now we got us a little secret, bitch.

("Revelations" by Yasiin Bey plays)