4AM Graveyard Shift by Tye Doudy

It’s four a.m. at Taboo video on 82^nd and Division in S.E. Portland. Another fucking graveyard shift. This is meth central. This is crack whore hell. This is where the freaks gather. The sick creatures of the night. This is transsexual prostitutes. This is closet gays secretly cruising for cock. This is glory hole Gus with the running sores all around his mouth and eyes. This is grandpa has a dirty little secret. This is thirty small booths, each with one hundred and twenty channels of various pornography. Three minutes for a dollar. This is where the dirtiest dirt goes down. Anonymous exchanges of body fluids and blood born pathogens. Money for sex for drugs. Tricks for tracks if you will. This is where I work.

I’m the clerk. It’s my job to sell these people condoms and lube. It’s my job to distribute dollar bills for the “arcade”. It’s my job to police the arcade. It is a long dark horseshoe shaped hallway with thirty small closet sized rooms along the inner wall.

Each booth contains a chair, a video screen, and a slot to put your money in. The booths smell like stale man sweat and fermented fossilized cum. The booths smell like crack smoke, fermented cum, and unwashed ass. The booths occasionally smell like piss and shit.

Some of the booths have a waist level hole in the wall between two booths. Known as a gloryhole, some men will sit in these booths for hours at a time. Their mission is to suck cock. They will suck any cock that comes through the hole. Often these men are clearly diseased. Open sores cover their faces and hands. They are spun out on meth and crack. They emerge from the booth only to smoke the occasional cigarette and then quickly return lest they miss some “action”. Some have told me they feel they are providing a service.

The men that utilize this dubious service come from all walks of life. Most often these are not “gay” men but simply desperate. There is a nonstop parade of these sexual opportunists. They come into the store, peruse the straight porn and then casually slink back to the arcade. These men are your mail man, your bank teller, your district supervisor, your college professor. These men wear wedding rings. “Honey, Im working a little late tonight” These men are husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and uncles. These men are also the odd balls who have no chance with women. The semi retarded and the elderly. The morbidly obese and the guy with boils all over his face and neck. The potential serial killers and the confirmed sex offenders. The geeks and the losers. Maybe they are not getting sex at home, maybe their wife doesn’t give head, or maybe it’s the elicit thrill of the forbidden act. Maybe it’s the filth itself that is attractive. But mostly it’s just easy, anonymous, and anybody can do it. If these men could see the mouth on the other side of the hole, if they could see the face attached to the mouth and look into those yellowed and bloodshot eyes would they return? I often wonder what diseases these men bring home to their families. Try explaining to your wife why she has syphilis.

Some of the booths have a glass patrician between them with sliding blinds. There is a button you can push if you want to see what is going on in the next booth. If they want to see you too they can push their button and the blind goes down, leaving a clear window between the booths. These are called voyeur booths. When the bars close, drunken couples come in to put on a show. Often it is the woman pulling the man back to the arcade. They take a voyeur booth and put on their exebishonist performance. Often, they invite random men into the booth with them. Sometimes many men form a line outside the booth. Maybe the husband just wants to watch his wife get fucked silly by strangers. Maybe the wife wants to watch her husband suck a dick. Usually it’s a little of both. Rarely are they attractive couples. They are middle aged and older. They are too thin or overweight. They have missing teeth and missing hair. Their faces show the ravages of meth, coke, and booze. They are any and all races. They are an accurate representation of the swinger lifestyle. A true cross section of the polyamorous.

“Would you like to have a crack at the little lady?” “She doesn’t look like much but she can suck a mean dick.” This is what they say to me when purchasing their lube and getting ones for the booths. I tell them I am completely impotent. I tell them this with a straight face and no hint of humor. This is my standard answer to the constant invitations and bizarre come ons for casual sex. To the little old man that asks me if I “wanna get my dick sucked” and to the six foot black man dressed in drag that asks if I want to “try a tranny.” My answer of impotency shuts them down. Its slams the door shut with finality and they are often left speechless. It’s fucking hilarious, and I take pride in not laughing.

I am the graveyard porn clerk and I am not to be fucked with. My cold stare stops tweaker shoplifters in their tracks. In the middle of the night when I walk over and ask “can I help you find any thing” you know what I’m really saying is “I’m onto you scumbag.” I’m watching you watching me. I show no signs of weakness, and I will fuck you up if you test me. I carry an aluminum baseball bat and brass knuckles. I am fueled by black metal, black coffee and the blackest contempt.

Part of my job is to make sure that the people using the booths are paying. There is a red light above the door of each of the booths. When the red light is on, money is being spent. I check the doors of each booth with an unlit red light. If the door is locked I knock and yell through the door. My standard greeting is “If you wanna use the booth you gotta pay”. Then I move on. Often street people and crack heads lurk in the booths as a way to get off the street or a safe place to smoke drugs. I really don’t give a fuck as long as they pay, what they do in the booth is their business. When they are not paying it becomes my business. I continue down the hall checking each unlit booth. I open the door of each unlocked room.

You never know what you will find when you open one of these door, and what is seen cannot be unseen. I have see two men buttfucking with a rain coat draped over them. I have seen people smoking crack and smoking meth. I have seen bums sleeping and surprised a hooker shooting up heroin in her foot. I have seen a man dressed as a woman sucking another mans dick while shoving a huge black dildo deep into his own ass. I have had men flash their penises and I have had men flash their assholes at me. I have seen a well groomed man in a business suit on his hands and knees licking up the old cum on the floor. I have found rooms covered in blood and rooms covered in piss. It’s not my problem, I am not a janitor, I am the clerk. Besides, that’s what Mexicans are for….

Porn clerk humor is not politically correct. Porn clerks are not politically correct, we are the misanthropist elite. We make minimum wage and we hate your fucking guts. We make fun of your stupid questions about sex toys and porn. We smile in your face, take your money, and rip you to shreds as soon as you have left the store. Sometimes before.

Being a porn clerk is retail sales and customer service, but the customer in not always right. We will call you a scumbag to your face and tell you to “get the fuck out NOW.” Try asking a clerk if the store carries bestiality. Try hitting on a female porn clerk or just hang around too long near the counter acting like a douche. You will find out how we “celebrate diversity.”

Porn clerks have the dirt on you. We know your tastes in porn and we can bring up your account to see all the titles you have rented in the last year. We know what lube you jack off with and what flavor of flavored condoms you prefer. We mentally file it away when you buy that tube of anal eze. We tally the number of visits back to the arcade each week, and by the way, we can see what is going on back there. There are cameras. Not in the booths but in the halls. We see you going from booth to booth rattling doorknobs. We see you going first into one booth with a guy then another booth with another guy. WE KNOW YOU ARE SECRETLY GAY. Don’t worry though, your secret is safe with us. We just don’t give a fuck.

Tye Doudy is a veteran of the streets, jails, detoxes, gutters, and
libraries of Portland Oregon. His stories reflect his experiences as
an addict and denizen of the underworld. He is thirty four years old
and continues to struggle with the demons that fuel his prolific
output of short stories, poetry, photography, multimedia art, and
music projects. He can be contacted at wurmstar@gmail.com