The Confessions of an Ex-Teen Hustler, Part 3

Hustling is a demoralizing way to earn a living, Dwayne admits. "You sort of lose your morals. The only thing that kept me going is the people who I went with." That was what kept him from being a derelict scavenging in garbage cans for his dinner. But that didn't mean he couldn't
tell them where to get off, if it was necessary. "I used to choose the people I went with. If a person started treating me a certain way, I'd say, 'Look, keep your money and shove it up your ass. Goodbye.' They'd say, 'How can you say that?' I'd say, 'Easy. I just did.'"
Before he left New York to travel around the country, he had, in a safe deposit box, $15,000. On the road "I spent money like it was water," he says with a boyish grin. The money made it possible for him to have three wardrobes (each time his clothes were stolen, he immediately replaced them). For example, he had six or seven pairs of shoes. He wore nothing but custom-made clothes. But all of that is behind him. Although he is unemployed, he does, however, have his high school equivalency diploma. And he does have the desire to better his future.
Despite the hassles of hustling, he feels good about being gay. He believes the gay pride parade, in which he has participated, demonstrates to the world that gays "are somebody. We're not a minority. We're coming out."

Author's Note: Unfortunately, when I did this interview in 1984, I neglected to ask Dwayne if he was concerned about contracting AIDS or his experiences with other sexually transmitted diseases.

The Confessions of an Ex-Teen Hustler, Part 2

At one time he had a girlfriend. Her suicide attempt has since caused him not to want to get involved with any other girls. He claims she tried to kill herself because he wouldn't see her anymore. She was pregnant with his child and when he came back to New York from a trip to California and found out that she had lost the baby in her unsuccessful suicide, he got very upset.
"The average gay person that I hang around with is not a jealous-type person.If you just live your life and go out with this person, this person, and this person, they really don't care, just as long as you come back. And with girls, they want to be with you everywhere, they want to know what you're doing, how you're doing, and all this other stuff."

Dwayne made good money as a hustler. He got his johns through a call service. he would have sex with anywhere from 15 to 20 men a week, charging them $150. (($25 of that would go to the agency.) It didn't didn't pay for a hustler to be too picky about his clients. That could get you blacklisted, says Dwayne, especially by the big agencies, if you turned down three clients in a row. If the client didn't appeal to you, the possible loss of revenue and future clients loomed large in your thoughts and you just went on and did what you had to do. For one hour.
The amount of money Dwayne was bringing in a week came to something like $2000. And unlike his female counterparts, he did not ask for money upfront. That was too tacky. "What guarantee does the guy going to have that you're going to stick around?" Sometimes not getting the money in the beginning can and does present a problem.
Dwayne , being streetwise, knows all the old tricks (no pun intended) that can be played on a hustler. He also knows how to handle those problems. One old scam is to say that their wallet was lost and would he accept a check. Dwayne had a rule to never accept a check from anyone he didn't know. One guy who claimed not to have any money was quickly relieved of his Cartier watch. Dwayne later pawned it. Another guy from Connecticut after engaging in car sex, pulled the no-money routine. Dwayne reached over and took his car keys. The guy became frantic. "How am I going to get back home?" "You can walk," replied Dwayne. The guy came up with the cash in a hurry.
"You get these straight guys who come in, who still think they're straight, I call them half-way straight,they can't make up their minds. They think they can overpower you just because you're gay.Being gay does not mean I do not have the capability of fighting and sticking up for myself. They don't realize I'm still a man. If you want to have a fight, sure, I will fight you. I might not win but you definitely will walk out with some scratches."
(To Be Continued)

The Confessions of an Ex-Teen Hustler, Part 1

We're sitting on metal folding chairs, facing each other. His name is Dwayne. It's Wednesday night. We're in the spacious kitchen, located in the basement of an East Side Manhattan Episcopal church. In the next room, the muffled sound of R 'n' B music and the voices of young men drift in. Every Wednesday night these young men come to the church for counseling, socializing, and friendship. They come seeking refuge from the hostility of their straight peers.
Dwayne is an 18-year-old African-American. I hang on to his every word as he tells me about his days as a teenage street hustler. He emphasizes that he no longer hustles and is looking for a good job. He tells me of his interest in modeling and acting. He might, he says, even go to school to become a registered medical technician. But right now he is out of work and living with four other gay people, one of them a psychologist, in a $1500 a month apartment on Central Park West. He doesn't plan to go back to street life.
He had been arrested twice for prostitution and he just got tired of the hassle of being moved from courtroom to courtroom, cell to cell. At age 14, Dwayne left home and for four years he hustled on 53rd Street, in the block between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Being very attractive, there is no doubt he did well on the street. He has a nut-brown complexion and wears his hair in a processed--or straightened --style;his hair is brushed back. He is wearing his hustler clothes during our conversation: a gray T-shirt (with the lettering "mcq" on the front), a pair of blue jeans cut short above the thighs, white tube socks (with blue and red stripes at the top),and a pair of dirty high top white sneakers.