Anyone who has watched pornography since the mid 1980s knows who Peter North is.  Excepting his recent hiatus, Peter North has been a mainstay in the adult industry for a generation.  Even the most heterosexual man, after seeing the same guy fuck all of his favorite female porn stars, will eventually take notice.

“Hey, I recognize that hair-cut . . .”

This was first time I punched Willy Pete.

One summer Willy Pete and I were driving delivery trucks.  It was a cowboy operation.  The drivers were grunt workers; underpaid, underequipped and underappreciated.

We had piss-poor trucks and lousy support on the dock.  When you’re working 15 hour stretches and cooking your log book, “fast and loose” is the norm.

I nearly rolled a truck off a hill because there were no center pins in the leaf-springs.  The drive shaft was just about the only thing holding the rear axle in place.  The mechanic couldn’t believe I had actually managed to drive the thing.

Lack of sleep adds up.  I lived on pills, hallucinating phantom lights and cop cars.  By Friday we were torn up, tuned out and ready to go wherever the booze took us.

We sat on the front steps of Willy Pete’s apartment.  His neighbor was an older, balding queer.  The neighbor was hosting friends on the next stoop over.  Neighborly small-talk turned into an early evening pre-game picnic.

This is how we met Fabulously Gay Chaz.

Chaz was a little bald man with family money and a large liquor cabinet.  We were half-drunk, unshaven and used the word ‘faggot’ as a comma.

He liked us immediately.

One Friday,  between pay-checks, Willy Pete called Chaz and got us invited to a party.  We hammered down drinks in the kitchen of Chaz’ overpriced apartment.  The place was full of middle aged homos and ‘fruit-fly’ harpies.

And Chaz’ new upstairs neighbor.

We knew him as the Office Twink from work.  In his spare time he was the accountant for – and childhood friend of – the rich little prick set to inherit the company we worked for.

. . . So when I took the opportunity to file a personal complaint, Willy Pete was more than upset.  However, the Twink was nearly as underpaid as us, and sympathetic to our cause.  I was bitching about the upkeep of the trucks when I introduced the room to a unit of measure called ‘The North’.

When you’re half-asleep it’s easy to miss details like Low Bridge signs.  If you’ve ever scraped one with a moving vehicle – your work vehicle – it’s a bit unnerving.  If you do it at speed, on pills, it’s a fucking heart attack.

One night Willy Pete went screaming underneath a bridge and didn’t realize how low it was until it was too late to hit the brakes.  He called me after he came roaring out the other side, stunned that he hadn’t taken the top of the truck off.

“Less than a foot, man!”  he shouted into the phone.  ”Prob’ly like eight fucking inches!”

“No shit?  That’s less than a foot . . . That’s like . . . Peter North.”

And the term was coined.

“Who the fuck is Peter North?” asked Chaz.

“Uh, porn star.”  I muttered, hammered.

“Hetero porn star . . . ” he said, sneering.  ”Wouldn’t know him.”

Once upon a time I read that Peter North had done a stint of “gay-for-pay” under a different name.  When I mentioned ‘Matt Ramsey’ Chaz’ face lit up.

“Oooh!  Woosh-woosh-woosh!” he said, waving his hand drunkenly to simulate an epic ejaculation.

“That’d be the guy,” said Willy Pete.

The evening went downhill from there.  We finished one bottle and were working on another.  Willy Pete was getting punchy.  His eyes were going cross.  I’d seen this look before.  I knew trouble was imminent.

I poured a round of shots and Willy Pete nudged me.

“Hey . . . hit me.”  he squared himself up and turned his face, pointing at his jaw.

“What!?”

I can’t say the idea hadn’t occurred to me before.  Quite often, in fact.  However, I was skeptical about the etiquette of the gesture.

“Yeah . . . I’m fading fast.  I need a little jolt.”

“So take some Go pills, man.”

“Come on . . . just hit me.”

Chaz and company were looking at us intently now.

“Is this like some weird straight-guy ritual, or something?” Chaz asked.

“Uh, not exactly . . . ” I replied.

“Well, I kinda want to see what happens,” said Chaz’ friend (whose name I don’t recall).

“Fuck off,” I said.  ”I’m not going to hit him.”

‘Come on!  Hit me . . . ” Willy Pete was nudging me again.  He braced himself.

“Fine.”

I finished my drink and looked at Chaz, shaking my head.

“Come ooooonnnnnn . . . ” Pete said again.

So I hit him.

I only tacked him on the jaw, but I heard his neck crack as his head turned, and he wobbled a bit.  Pete righted himself and shook it off.  He slapped me on the shoulder, eyes alert, as if nothing had happened.

Chaz was too fascinated to be mortified.

His friend stepped up to the counter.

“Me next . . . “