The Ballad of Cheyenne Silver

In January of 1998, I set out from New York to Las Vegas to meet up with three other colleagues to work on an article for Premiere about the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards, said awards being the putative, especially as far as the AVN itself was concerned, Oscars of porn. The writer of the piece was the novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace, with whom I had enjoyed a generally positive and indeed collegial working relationship as the line editor on the piece entitled “David Lynch Keeps His Head,” which had appeared in the October 1996 issue of Premiere and again in slightly different form in Dave’s much acclaimed essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. It was during the editing process of the former piece wherein Dave had expressed an interest in doing something about porn in general, and something about the AVN awards in particular, and we had had a few conversations about it. In the summer of ’97 Dave was approached by Spin to do a piece, and he mentioned the AVN idea, but also stipulated that he’d made a vow not to do any magazine work for a period of time, and didn’t want certain people to believe him a “douche bag” for going back on his word on this; hence, he would not do the piece under his own name. Shortly thereafter he felt a little bad about pitching to Spin an article that he had developed with an editor for Premiere, and gave me a call; we agreed on the not-using-his-real-name stipulation (it was only when he handed in the manuscript of the piece that I discovered he was going to use a dual pseudonym and write in the first person plural) and we also offered him roughly half of what Spin would have coughed up for the piece.

I’m not going to go into the sad tale of what happened after Dave handed in the manuscript that he had titled “Big Red Son,” as that’s another story. (The piece, in a final form that differs from both Dave's original manuscript and the bowdlerized version that appeared [under the title "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment'] in the September 1998 issue of Premiere, can be found in the collection Consider The Lobster.) I only bring up this minutea because, well, one reads a lot of guff in which people speculate about how David Foster Wallace might be this or that or some other thing that he is completely not. Hence, I cite these peculiar negotiations to point up what a staggeringly stand-up guy Wallace is...and how he makes his equally stand-up agent kind of miserable.

But Dave doesn’t really figure in this particular sad tale too much, as he really needed some rest after the 1998 AVN Awards ceremony had wound up. Our table, all the way in the back of one of the big ballrooms of Caesar’s Palace, featured myself (left), who had been feeding Dave, for research purposes, porn that Premiere and I had purchased straight from the fleapits of 8th Ave. all summer (his Midwest residence at the time had very little comfortable access to adult entertainment); my friend Evan Wright (left again),
who at the time was an editor at Hustler magazine (I was trying to get his work into Premiere, and of course fans of great reporting now know that Evan was able to make quite a name for himself without my intervention); and Nathaniel Welch (guess) , who our photo editor had assigned to shoot the event. It was a happy coincidence that Nat and Evan were in fact old pals and had driven out to Vegas from L.A. together. All day and into the ceremony itself we had a nice kinda Musketeers vibe going, captured by Dave in his subsequent essay in the form of somewhat more curdled banter, courtesy of adult industry “guides and docents” Richard “Dick” Filth and Harold Hecuba, the fictionalized personae Dave had created to represent pretty much Evan and myself, just as his dual pseudonyms Willem deGroot and Matt Rundlet stood in for him.

Dave had spent much of the day with Evan, sitting in on a radio interview with extreme porn performer Chloe Nichole, who credited porn and Alcoholics Anonymous with saving her life; and then in the company of extreme porn purveyor Max Hardcore and a couple of his B-Girls, about whom he writes in deliberately excruciating detail in “Big Red Son.” He was battling the flu, though, so he wasn’t going to make the party that Evan, Nat and I were gonna try to crash—a private affair at the Luxor hosted by porn stud Vince Voyeur. A bit more intime than the big bash that was being held out in the desert, and perhaps to feature an actual porn shoot as well. Dave deputized us as his recon guys and sent us on our way.

Things didn’t go very well at first. It took us a good 20 minutes to find our way out of the Caesar’s parking lot. At one point we pulled up at a loading dock and I said, “You know, we might as well all get out and just apply for jobs here.” But we made it out to the strip, and to the pyramid-shaped Luxor, which struck us as being made entirely out of papier-mache and cheap mirrors. It was also a while before we found Voyeur’s room, as he registered under his real name, John LaForme. (Wallace: “Rhetorical Q; How, if one’s real name was John LaForme, could that person possibly feel the need for a nom de guerre?” During the fact-checking process for Dave’s article, Evan actually managed to get his hands on, and send us, a driver’s license photocopy verifying this fun bit of data.)

Once we got to the room, quite a dud of a party was going on. We were amused to lay out a line of bullshit that got us past the fete’s putative doorman, a tweakerish jerk who had managed to get himself a real-life version of Bart Simpson’s haircut. Once in, Nat and I made haste to get to a couple of chairs at the counter of the small suite’s kitchenette, as on said counter rested gallon bottles of Smirnoff and Jack Daniel’s. Solo Cups in hand and ice nearby, we set about entertaining ourselves. A couple of random passersby made fun of my sweater, a Gap pullover that was about the closest thing to business wear I owned at the time. Whatever. Evan, ever the reporter, combed the room.

Most of the porn starlets therein hewed to the description that Dave gives in his essay: “Heels are uniformly sharp and ultrahigh. Some of [them] are so heavily made up they look embalmed. They tend to have complexly coiffed hair that looks really good from 20 feet away but on close inspection is dry and dead.” Later, he notes that one Jasmin St. Claire is so heavily made-up that “she looks like a crow.” Walking into Voyeur’s party was like happening upon, well, a murder of crows.

Except for one young woman, one very young woman, slim and lithe and un-made-up, not much of a bust at all but gorgeous sandy straight hair, and a genuine, uninflected laugh that, at that moment, was a reaction to some bon mots thrown her way by Evan, who was now indicating myself and Nat.

"Just ask my friend Glenn Kenny over here,” he said. “He works for Premiere magazine and deals with famous actors all the time, and he can tell you for sure that none of them got where they are by going through porn first.”

I know nobody ever really does spit takes, but I nearly did. It was the insouciance of Evan’s delivery, first off—I’ll never forget driving around with him in L.A., listening to the Buena Vista Social Club on his car stereo, and him saying, dry as dust, “It’s very popular with the valet parking guys”—and then of course, the concept.

“This is Cat,” Evan said, presenting the young lady to me. “Is that with a ‘C’ or ‘K’?” he asked her. “I haven’t decided yet,” she giggled. “Cat with a C or K, this is Glenn.”

“So do you know a lot of famous actors?” she asked, rather shyly I thought.

“Well, some here and there…”

Cat with a C or K wanted to know whether it would be a good idea to go to acting school, as she thought that might be a useful place to make connections. She was stage and table dancing at the Cheetah, and wanted to step up, and was wondering about doing some loops, but not sure it would stigmatize her. I sympathized. But I advised her that going to acting school in order to make "connections" was kind of a fallacy. What you want to go to acting school for, I said, was to explore yourself and find your inner instrument…

I wasn’t looking at Nat, but I could actually feel his eyes rolling. At that moment, the porn director Paul Thomas came in, tuxedoed and, frankly, drunk as a skunk. One of the would-be suitcase pimps that made up most of the male contingent of the party brought him to Cat’s side. As she was the only woman in the room who didn’t look like a crow, Thomas was drawn to her. He sidled up to her and began whispering into her clavicle, telling her that her neck needed to be kissed all the time.

I turned to Nat, who was chuckling with Evan. “Come on, guys,” I said, with no doubt a good pint or two of drunken sincerity/indignation. “We have a chance to save this girl’s soul.”

Nat shrugged and looked over at her, as she giggled at Paul Thomas. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind seeing her get a bit corrupted.”

Feh, I thought. Thomas, his inebriated state having brought on some attention-deficit issues, had skittered off somewhere, and I turned again to Cat with a C or K, to tell her about the wonderful world of self-expression and craft that training in the thespic arts could open up for her. This led to her opening up to me a little bit about her background—her Native American heritage, her childhood in the San Clemente region looking after horses. Her best friend had been a horse, who died in her arms, and all she really wanted, she said, was to make enough money to buy a farm and raise horses the rest of her life. I lauded this ambition, and tried to convey the idea that a career in the arts—the “real” arts, not the pornographic ones—would indeed be consonant with such ambitions.

“She was rapt,” Nat averred to Dave at the morning-after breakfast the next day. “Hung on his every word,” Evan verified. Indeed, twice during our conversation, Cat with a C or K had been approached by a particularly insistent male admirer, the exceptionally studly albeit rather short Mr. T. T. Boy, who thought the party was a drag, wanted to leave, and felt that the non-crow Cat with a C or K might herself make a nice nightcap.

“Come on baby, come on, this party sucks, let’s get outta here let’s get it on,” he said on his first approach.

“I’m sorry, but I’m talking to this gentleman here,” she said. He backed down, but only for about ten minutes, after which he came back, with exactly the same line, only more insistently delivered. This time Cat with a C or K exhaled deeply in frustration. “I’m still talking.”

And now I decided to chime in. “Do you mind?” I asked. And Mr. T.T. Boy slunk away.

“He totally FACED DOWN T.T. Boy,” Evan exclaimed to Dave at breakfast.

“It was a moral victory,” Nat added.

“Did you know that T. T. Boy’s been kind of busted on a couple of occasions for bringing a gun on set?” Evan asked me.

Um, no, I hadn’t known.

Back to the conversation…well, Mr. Boy’s second interruption caused it to diffuse a bit, and if I recall correctly, Cat with a C or K ended up leaving with…the quasi-doorman with the Bart Simpson haircut, who had offered her a synthetic Quaalude or something. But I hoped that some of the wisdom I had tried to impart to her would somehow stick…

A couple months later, I get a letter from Evan, who’s still at Hustler; hence the letter’s on Hustler stationary. There’s a slide attached to the letter. The beginning reads:

Dear Glenn, Your method of saving souls clearly lacks.

Below that is the slide, a still from a film called The Mating Game. It is a shot of Cat with a C or K with—there’s no really delicate way of phrasing this—an erect penis in her mouth.

She is now ‘Wildcat,”

Evan’s letter continues, before concluding,

Where is the farm for her horses?

After beginning with The Mating Game—which I actually tracked down and watched, and found depressing beyond my darkest surmises—Wildcat underwent another name change, becoming Cheyenne Silver, to reflect her Native American heritage. She also underwent some plastic surgery, to build up the bust among other things. She became a Vivid Girl, no surprise considering her fresh-faced looks and nicer-than-usual personality. She reverted to her putative real name Cara Fawn in 2006, according to a fairly dispiriting Wikipedia entry on her. Her mainstream breakthroughs largely consisted of appearances on The Man Show and such.

The lesson being, maybe, that only you can save your own soul. For who are we kidding? We have no insight into the state of anyone’s soul but our own, finally, do we?

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

""Do you mind?" I asked, forcefully."

Nobody fucks with The Kenny.

On a serious note, I think this might be one of the best things you've written in quite awhile. Vivid, you-are-there prose that knows not to be too fussy. If you had the time (or inclination) this could easily be expanded into a short story or the makings of a script for a short.

Think about it.

[Kevin Lee]

"Vivid, you-are-there prose that knows not to be too fussy."
- No pun intended, right AA? :)

[Aaron Aradillas]

Everything is intended, whether we know it or not.

[Tony Dayoub]

Excellent piece. I echo Aaron's statement, one of the best things you've written.

[bill]

Yes, Glenn, that was very good. Exceptionally depressing (or maybe "dispiriting", since you like that word), and it even made me a little angry. But very good.

[Paul Calfa]

What is this, a writing workshop?

Cheyenne Silver was on that dating show that took place on a cruise ship, and on the show she appeared to have slept with the guy who she had only met one day earlier, so I would say the career she chose was the logical choice, as it is for almost everyone who works in porn. All they know how to do is have sex. That's what they're good at. Do they do drugs? Yes. Is there psychological and emotional violence? Yes. But that goes on at the law prectice I work at. Half the people here are drunks and coke freaks and all the lawyers do all day is swear at everyone and tell us what a bunch of fucking idiots we are. Last week one of the lawyers threw a pen at me. But this isn't interesting (or tragic) because I'm not a smoking hot 19 year old girl who like to fuck for money. Trying to make Cheyenne Silver sound like some kind of lost soul is as condescending as the people who want to pat you on the head for knowing how to write seven or eight coherent paragraphs. You know what the problem is with girls like Cheyenne Silver? She was lazy, and saw that the easiest and quickest way to make a buck was to let men ejaculate in her mouth for a nominal fee. We're constant fed this pablum about the people in porn being from broken homes, molested by their daddies, and there you go, that explains everything, when it really doesn't, because a lot, A LOT, of the people in porn of from solid families, never been raped, and the reason they get into porn is because, (oh my god, it can't be true): THEY LIKE THE ATTENTION.

[Glenn Kenny]

...as long as you're not bitter or anything, Paul...

[bill]

"But that goes on at the law prectice I work at."

They're lucky to have you.

[Aaron Aradillas]

Well, Paul, if you've seen Mr. Kenny's head you know it is very hard NOT to pat it.

[Paul Calfa]

They are Bill, seeing as how I'm the number one Proof Redder in the whole damn place. I never miss a thing.

[bill]

"Proof Redder"?? But you just...!

Oh, I see. You scamp!

[matt]

Quite an engrossing tale, though ideally (if that's the word) it would've had an O. Henry ending in which the cock in her mouth actually belongs to a horse.

[Glenn Kenny]

Ouch. That's mean. Funny. But still mean. But funny.

[matt]

C'mon, not even a little bit poignant? I think my ending actually makes the story more moving, at the same time that it works as a spiffy punchline. "Where is the farm for her horses?" actually choked me up a tiny bit when I read it. A horse cock is the only detail I could think of that would make the story even sadder.

[Glenn Kenny]

No, you've got a point! An unorthodox one, but a point nonetheless!

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

"All she really wanted, she said, was to make enough money to buy a farm and raise horses the rest of her life. I lauded this ambition, and tried to convey the idea that a career in the arts—the “real” arts, not the pornographic ones—would indeed be consonant with such ambitions."

I dunno about your career advice, man. I'd say if what you really want is to buy a horse farm, becoming a "serious actor" is a very bad plan---you might make it big, but you're more likely to scrape by for a decade and then find yourself trying to find some day job that'll pay a living wage despite your lack of employable skills. On the other hand, do a few years of porn, stay off the drugs, invest, and you've got a pretty decent shot at retiring in your 30s to run that horse farm.

[Gerran]

Well the way I see it is this:

If Ms. Cat chose this path herself in a sober, knowing manner then the story is only mildly depressing. Anytime a young, pretty girl falls to doing that sort of thing is sad to me, but her life is her own and hopefully she'll be successful enough to quit soon.

Now the REAL thing that bugs me is the possibility that, under the influence of that Qaalude and extremely insistent directors, she fell into the gig and it's all she has now. If that's the case, this story takes on a whole new aspect of depression. Each girl turned in this way should earn that director 1000 years rotting in Hell.

I suppose I'm sexist in the sense that I more often figure it was foul play than the woman's choice, but whatever.

[Vidda]

I know that I'm late here, but really, Gerran?
"I suppose I'm sexist, but whatever"?

That's cool...I guess...that you're comfortable with it.

I suppose you want to be patted on the head, you know, for being such a good person?

[Vidda]

I know that I'm late here, but really, Gerran?
"I suppose I'm sexist, but whatever"?

That's cool...I guess...that you're comfortable with it.

I suppose you want to be patted on the head, you know, for being such a good person?

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