I spent most of Monday afternoon getting completely hammered, but this was not my original plan.

I walked into Jerry’s Deli in Woodland Hills because I usually get the Tortilla soup which I discovered one Monday afternoon when I was interviewing one of David Samm’s girls. But you can only get the Tortilla soup on Monday at Jerry’s, so that’s why I’m in there. Samms, by the way, does public relations in the adult business, and is a really good guy because he hustles his ass for his girls. Really hustles. Enough said. Check him out. Samms is also an advertiser.

So Karl the Birdman is also there at Jerry’s, on Monday, with his wife, Mel. And he’s busting my stones. Karl the Birdman is saying something about when was the last time I bought him a drink. And I casually remind Karl, the fuck, that the adult industry is in a major recession, and I can’t afford to buy him a drink. Karl laughs, noting that the same thing is happening in the tree business from whence he retired.

Karl’s got all kinds of stories about Barbra Streisand being a complete jackoff when it comes to buying trees for decorative purposes. I also note that Karl picked Cleveland in the football pool. So I also remind him of this. And that shuts Karl up pretty quick when it comes to any further discussions about who’s buying the next round.

Then I notice this redhead sitting two seats down from me. I know her from somewhere, and redheads- strawberry blonds- are my particular weakness. This one’s got great feet, painted white polished toes, and I want to suck her feet and play with her accomplished arches so bad. The redhead’s wearing white shorts, and her bulging calves and slender ankles are tanned against her casual slip ons. Her legs match the highlights of her autumn afternoon hair.

Ryan, who’s the bar manager at Jerry’s, starts calling me a bum which is what he usually calls me. I call him a bum back. The redhead’s wondering why this is, the calling of bums, and I explain why.

“Burt Lancaster did this movie- his first movie- it was called The Killers. Guys in the movie were calling him bright boy,” I explain to her.

“So I started calling Ryan bright boy, and in the evolution of things, Ryan got known as the bum. This is how language progresses. It starts with a word which gets re-interpreted, so forth and so on.”

The redhead seems quite impressed with this detailed information to her very simple question. Next we get talking about Karl the Birdman who’s now left, probably to attend to his birds. And I mention how he got his name- how he’d come in with tropical birds on his shoulder and how the birds would blow white slimey shit all over his green Hawaiian shirts. The redhead is laughing, blowing snot at the thought and whooping it up at this point in the conversation.

Except I know the redhead from somewhere, and this is bothering me because I don’t know from quite where. Suddenly her cell phone chirps. She’s telling whoever’s on the line – and she’s making a distorted face- that she’s not working until tomorrow.

This happens a second and third time, so I begin putting two and two together that maybe the redhead has got customers. I know women who have customers. Customers come first. The redhead’s also sucking down Bloody Marys. She likes the one’s Ryan’s pouring, and I explain how I’ve always wanted Ryan to make a combination Bloody Mary and shrimp cocktail and put it on the Jerry’s menu.

To her this is rather intriguing, and she’s thinking about this.

Ryan’s explaining to her how this might not work in the Jerry’s scheme of things.

In the course of what becomes a more involved conversation, involving what, I can’t really say, Ryan asks the redhead what she does for a living. I’m dying to hear this answer.

“I do fetish videos,” she confides. And I look at her feet again because these are the kind of feet you might rent for the hour to look at. Now this is all making sense, and I know I know her from somewhere. This is bothering me even more, now. And our chat continues.

“Obviously you have a first name,” I say.

“It’s Julie,” replies the redhead shaking my hand. I explain what I do. She explains what she does. We’re both in agreement that business sucks.

She talks about guys who call her because they dig her feet as well they should. She talks about how she and her girlfriend once stuck both their feet up this guy’s asshole.

I tell her about this girl I interviewed who once fist fucked a 500 pound guy. She winces. We bond because we’re in the same business. The redhead gets sad all of a sudden because this fat man story begins reminding her of some of her former experiences.

“Did you ever work in the adult business?” I ask, changing the topic somewhat.

“Yeah,“ she says. “I did about 100 movies.

“What was your porn name?”

Gina Carrera,” she tells me. “My big movie was Stiff Competition.”

Ryan wants to know what the fuck’s going on, and I explain to him that this redhead is a legend in the industry, like from the Traci Lords era. But when Gina Carrera was in the business, her hair was blond and short.

Ryan wants to know more information, and Gina Carrera, in order to provide it, orders another drink- for me and for her. She explains her current situation. I mention Peter Davy and Bobby Hollander, which has the effect of a cold, wet towel in her face. She worked for these guys.

“The last time I interviewed you,” I tell Gina Carrera is when you decided to take a shot in mainstream music and begin singing.”

Gina Carrera is now reassembling facts in her mind. She remembers the interview and this time she gives me a stronger hug. God, I want to play with her feet so bad.

“And someone stole your name,” I remind her. Which is Asia Carrera. And Gina Carrera’s going positively ape shit, like when King Kong’s tormented in his cage by the paparazzi and has mace sprayed in his face. Gina Carrera wants to hug me even more, and I want to hug her as much. I feel like I walked into a Ross Macdonald detective novel where lost people try to figure things out and get back on the road.

Maybe we do this- hug- three or four times. Ryan’s buddies at Jerry’s who are looking on, want to know the fucking story and what’s with all the hugging. There’s a lot of it going on by now. Gina Carrera’s sad because her 18 year-old daughter wants to follow in her footsteps. But Gina Carrera doesn’t want her to. Her eyes have a sullen restlessness.

“She sees all the kinds of money I was making, and she wants to do this too,” says Gina, a real for honest sake’s MILF, who’d rather buy her daughter a car and just leave it at that. We talk a lot about this. And I ask Gina if she’d like to do an interview.

“Very much,” she says softly. “I’d really like that.”

Maybe we have another drink. Maybe we have a third drink. Maybe a fourth drink, and she gives me her card. We hug some more. Then I walk her out to her car. I’m supposed to call her.