The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas

It was as Nice a little whorehouse as you ever saw. It sat in a green Texas glade, white-shuttered and tidy, surrounded by leafy oak trees and a few slim renegade pines and the kind of pure clean air the menthol-cigarette people advertise.

Way back yonder, during the Hoover Depression, they raised chickens out there. Money was hard to come by; every jack rabbit had three families chasing it with the stewpot in mind. Back then, in rural Texas, people said things like, "You can hear everthang in these woods but meat afryin' and coins aclankin'." No matter where a boy itched and no matter how high his fevers, it wasn't easy to come up with three dollars, even in exchange for a girl's sweetest gift. And so the girls began accepting poultry in trade. That's how the place got its name, and if you grew up most anywhere in Texas, you knew at an early age what the Chicken Farm sold other than pullets. (Generations since mine have called it the Chicken Ranch. I won't argue the point.)

You might have originally thought it a honeymoon cottage. Except that as you came closer on the winding dirt road that skittered into the woods off the Austin-to-Houston highway on the southeastern outskirts of La Grange, near the Bad Curve sign, you would have noticed that it was too sprawling and too jerry-built: running off on odd tangents, owning more sides and nooks and crannies than the Pentagon. Then there were all those casement-window air conditioners--15 or 20 of 'em, Miss Edna wanting her girls to work in comfort.

Since the 1890s, at least, the Chicken Farm had been one of the better pleasure palaces in all Texas. Miss Edna, like Miss Jessie before her, didn't cotton to hard-drinking rowdies. Should you come in bawling profanities or grabbing tits, Miss Edna would employ the telephone. And before you could say double-dip-blankety-blank obscenity, old Sheriff T. J. Flournoy would materialize to suggest a choice between overnight lodgings in Fayette County's crossbar hotel and your rapid cooperative leave-taking. Yes, neighbors, it was as cozy and comfortable as a family reunion, though many times more profitable. Then, one sad day last summer, the professional meddlers and candy-assed politicians closed 'er down.

Man, listen: The Chicken Farm was gooder than grass and better than rain. Registered with the county clerk as Edna's Ranch Boarding House, it paid double its weight in taxes and led the community in charitable gifts. It plowed a goodly percentage of its earnings back into local shops to the glee of hairdressers, car dealers and notions-counter attendants. It was a good citizen, protected and appreciated, its indiscretions winked at. When Miss Jessie died, her obituary identified her as "a local businesswoman." Yeah, they had 'em a real bird's nest on the ground out there. Then along came Marvin Zindler.

Marvin Zindler was a deputy sheriff in Houston, enforcing consumer-protection laws, until they fired him. Not for inefficiency or malfeasance--Lord, no! Marvin wore more guns, handcuffs, buckles and badges than a troop of Texas Rangers; he brought more folks to court than did bankruptcy proceedings. Marvin got fired for being "controversial"--which meant that he couldn't, or wouldn't, make those fine distinctions required of successful politicians. After all, Marvin's boss was dependent on public favor. Nosir, the law was the law to Marvin. Anyhow, they fired Marvin. Who landed on his feet as a television newsman for Houston's channel 13.

Marvin approached news gathering with the same zeal he'd brought to badge toting. So Marvin began telling folks out in TV land how a whorehouse was running wide open down the road at La Grange, which was news to Yankee tourists and to all Texans taking their suppers in high chairs. Even though people yawned, Marvin stayed on the case; you might have thought murder was involved. Soon he repeatedly hinted at "organized-crime" influences at the Chicken Farm.

One day in late July, Marvin Zindler drove to La Grange and accosted Sheriff Flournoy with cameras, microphones and embarrassing questions. The old sheriff made it perfectly clear he was not real proud to see Marvin. Later, the sheriff--a very lean and mean 70-year-old, indeed--would say he hadn't realized the microphone was live when he chewed on Marvin for meddling in Fayette County affairs; perhaps that explains why the old man peppered his lecture with so many hells and goddamns and shits. Marvin Zindler drove home and displayed the cussing sheriff on television.

Then Marvin called on State Attorney General John Hill and Governor Dolph Briscoe: "How come yawl have failed to close the La Grange sin shop down?" Those good politicians harrumphed and declared their official astonishment that Texas had a whorehouse in it. Governor Briscoe issued a solemn statement saying that organized crime was a terrible thing, against the American grain, and since it might possibly be sprouting out at the Chicken Farm, he would call on local authorities to shutter that sinful place. Me, too, said Attorney General Hill. Veteran legislators, many of whom could have driven to the Chicken Farm without headlights even in a midnight rainstorm, expressed concern that Texans might be openly permitted loveless fucks outside the home.

Old Sheriff Flournoy was incensed: "If the governor wants Miss Edna closed, all he's gotta do is make one phone call and I'll do it." The sheriff may be old and country, but his shit detector tells him when grander men are pissing on his feet and telling him it's rain. The governor didn't have to bother with the telephone charade. Soon after the story hit the national news wires, Johnny Carson was cracking simpering jokes about it and every idle journalist with a pen was en route to La Grange. They found the Chicken Farm locked and shuttered, a big Closed sign advertising a new purity. Miss Edna and her girls had fled to parts unknown, leaving behind a town full of riled people.

•

Sheriff Flournoy was extracting his long legs from the patrol car, with maybe nothing more on his mind than a plate of Cottonwood Inn barbecue, when this fat bearded journalist shoved a hand in his face and began singing his credentials. Startled, the old lawman recoiled as if he'd spotted a pink snake; for a moment it seemed he might tuck his legs back in and drive away.

But after a slight hesitation he came out, unwinding in full coil to about six feet, five inches. Given the tall-crowned cowboy hat, he appeared to register nearer to seven feet, three and some-odd. The fat bearded journalist sensed that the old sheriff may have done plumb et his fill of outsiders asking picky questions; he was real real polite and friendly, grinning until his jawbone ached, and careful to let all the old native nasal notes ring, in saying he sure would admire to talk a little bit about the Chicken Farm situation, and would the sheriff give him a few minutes?

The old sheriff's face reddened alarmingly. He said, "Naw! I'm tard a talkin' to you sons a bitches. My town's gettin' a black eye. All the TVs and newspapers--hell, all the mediums--they've flat lied. Been misquotin' our local people. Makin' 'em look bad."

Had the sheriff himself been misquoted?

"You goddamned right."

To what extent?

"About half of it was goddamn lies."

Well, sheriff, which half?

The sheriff put a hard eye on the visitor. The visiting journalist recognized bedrock character and righteous anger, knowing, instinctively, that T. J. Flournoy was the type of man described years ago by his father: "Son, you got to learn that some folks won't do to fart with."

Had the sheriff ... uh, you know ... received any, er--ah--gratuities for services to Miss Edna?

The sheriff put a hand on his gun butt--Oh, Jesus!--and fired twin bursts of pure ol' mad out of his cold blue eyes. "Listen, boy, that place has been open since before I was borned and never hurt a soul. Them girls are clean, they got regular inspections, and we didn't allow rough stuff. Now, after all this notoriety, this little town's gettin' a bad name it don't deserve. The mediums, the shitasses, they been printin' all kinds of crap."

Had the sheriff talked to Governor Briscoe or to the attorney general?

"Naw. No reason to. The place is closed."

Would it stay closed?

"It's closed now, ain't it?"

Yes. Right. And, uh, what was the prevailing community sentiment about the Chicken Farm's future?

"I ain't answering no more questions," the old sheriff said, stomping his cigarette butt with a booted heel. At the door to the restaurant, he turned and paused to stare his tormentor out of sight.

•

Buddy Zapalac, ordering another beer, recalled the Chicken Farm of his youth. He is a gleeful 50ish, of iron-gray hair, a stubby heavyweight's torso and a blue-ribbon grin. You see him and you like him.

"In the Thirties," Buddy said, "they had a big parlor with a jukebox, see, that they used to break the ice. You could ask a girl to dance, or she'd ask you. And pretty soon, why, you could git a little business on. Three dollars' worth." He laughed in memory of those good old days when Roosevelt pussy had been cheaper than Nixon chicken.

"You couldn't get any exotic extras. Miss Jessie--she ran the farm back then--she didn't believe in perversions. They had wall mirrors in the parlor, see, where the girls could sit in chairs and (concluded on page 274)Best Little Whorehouse(continued from page 200) flash their wares. But if Miss Jessie caught 'em flashing a little more than she thought was ladylike, she'd raise nine kinds of hell.

"Miss Edna, who was thirty or forty years younger, was a little more modern. I've heard you could get anything you'd pay for: ten bucks for straight, fifteen for half-and-half, twenty-five, I believe, for pure French. I understand each girl kept half of her earnings and donated the rest to the house. And the house paid room and board."

Buddy Zapalac owns the biweekly La Grange Journal. When the Chicken Farm got busted, he said he intended to lend editorial support to the farm.

Over Cottonwood Inn beer he admitted: "I didn't do it. Lost too many of my supporters. Businessmen, even a couple of preachers, told me in private they'd back me up. But people in a little town can't stand much heat."

•

Lloyd Kolbe. Lean. Well barbered. On the rise. Mid-to-late 30s. Quick to smile even when his eyes retain calculations in judging the moment's worth or risk. The quintessential Young Businessman: no bullshit, what with children to educate and two cars to feed and status to climb.

"I'm a native," Kolbe said, drumming fingers on a polished desktop. "I grew up knowing the Chicken Farm was out there--no, I don't remember how early, it seems I just always knew. As kids, we joked about it, though it didn't preoccupy us; didn't mark us, didn't make any grand impression. You noticed as you grew up that adults didn't joke about it. Outsiders, speakers at the chamber-of-commerce banquet, and so on, they joked about it. Local people, you actually didn't hear them mention it until the big bust.

"My own children, I've watched and listened to see what effect the Chicken Farm might have on them. And I can't see that it's had any. They accept it, as I did--it's just there, it has nothing to do with them or their lives. We talked about it one night right after the bust.

"The thing I hate is that La Grange is now known nationwide as a whore town. And we're better people than that."

After the bust, Kolbe proposed that three each pro- and anti-Chicken Farmers debate on his radio station: "But it fell flat. People who privately favored it simply refused to go public. We settled for two programs where people called in. They could identify themselves or not. Most didn't. And those who did, well, yeah, I've erased their names from the tapes. I don't want to take advantage of people."

Many invoked the Bible. Others awarded brimstone to Marvin Zindler and Governor Briscoe. The majority cited the town's prosperity and cleanliness in objecting to publicity "recognizing us for just one thing." The topper was a salty-sounding young woman: "I'm one hundred percent for the Chicken Farm. And I think we ought to have a studhouse for the women."

Lloyd Kolbe shut off the tape, laughing: "Boy, we sure 'nuff had some phone calls requesting that lady's name."

•

An old friend--a lawyer who daily sees the seamy side in trade--shook his head at the Chicken Farm's fate. "I went over there back in my law school days," he said, "and it was so goddamned proper I felt out of place. It was just too damned wholesome for somebody with a hard pecker hunting raunchy sin and eager to whip up his old Baptist guilts! And right over here"--he jerked a thumb--"just a few blocks from the capitol building, there's a place where fags in drag will take you upstairs and do anything for money that you can get done in Tangier. And even with all the fine amateur stuff floating around--on capitol hill, at the university, all the hippie girls, divorcees and horny wives--you can buy a woman, if you insist on paying, of any color or creed. You've just got to know the right little ol' crummy hotels or motels.

"Probably the girls who tour the regular Texas circuit are owned by some syndicate. Anybody capable of reading knows that organized crime profits down here, but I'll be goddamned if I can see any Godfather tracks around La Grange. A guy who knows Marvin Zindler tells me that Marvin really believes that organized-crime horseshit with respect to the Chicken Farm--but, he says, Marvin's idea of organized crime is two nigger pimps hauling four or five gals from town to town between beating on them with coat hangers. And it looks as if our fearless governor has the same notion of it."

•

I woke up in my Austin motel room to Second Coming headlines: In Houston, an hour's swift drive down the road from the Chicken Farm, had been discovered three monsters who routinely forced young boys into homosexual acts, tortured and abused them until the mind refuses to think anymore of their probable final horrors, and then shot or strangled them to death. Twenty-seven bodies would be discovered; with each new find, people argued in bars over whether the total represented a new national mass-murder record.

The remainder of the newspaper told of Watergate figures who resent investigations, of illegal Cambodian bombings, of five Austin kids busted for pot, of shortages and inflation and many balloons gone pop. I gazed out the motel window, toward the capitol dome taking the morning's sun, and thought of Charles Whitman, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby; soon, softly, I began semisinging the song they taught me in first grade, back in Putnam, all those eons and other lives ago:

"Texas, our Texas! All hail the mightystate!

Texas, our Texas! So wonderful, sogreat!

Boldest and grandest, withstandingev'ry test;

O empire wide and glorious, you standsupremely blest...."

"The topper was a salty-sounding young woman: 'I think we ought to have a studhouse for the women.' "