BRESLIN -- WHY MY MOM HATED HIM

When Jimmy Breslin had nothing fresh for his columns, he'd sometimes come up with a yarn about fellow journalists he felt were worthy fodder for his pen.

He did me a couple of times during my New York Daily News days. I guess it was sort of an honor.

Of course, Breslin embellished a bit. And he would fashion his journalist colleagues into Damon Runyan-esque characters like the frequent ones who populated his work.

People like Fat Thomas, the 400-pound bookie; Marvin the Torch, who could turn a struggling restaurant into a parking lot with a single match; and Jerry the Booster, who would steal a rack of suits from Bergdorf’s and then go back for a hat.

And me, Gentile, he wrote, "who lived with a prostitute in Brooklyn."

Now, to be fair, Breslin said nice things about me and the way I wrote. But when my mother read the hooker comment, she threatened to castrate the Pulitzer Prize winner.

I told her he was exaggerating. She wasn't a hooker, she was a dancer, I said. And yes, Breslin was exaggerating. But he was not completely wrong.

She wasn't a dancer. Her name was Leah and she’s sort of a sad story. So let me set the record straight.

It was the mid-1980s on a warm evening in Manhattan. I was at an outdoor cafe across the street from Lincoln Center having a drink with Herb John Ade who liked to be called Herb Superb.

Herb enjoyed hanging with journalists. He was fun and witty with an incredible memory, especially about women.

I once watched him stop a lady in midtown Manhattan, say a name, mention an event years and years in the past in another state and she responded, "Herb?" He'd only met her once but that was Herb. You me him once and he left a memorable impression.

Herb was a friend of the cafe manager who came over to say hello.

Then, out of the blue, he asked if one of us could give shelter to a woman he'd met. She was 21 or so, had just arrived from California, and was staying at the Y.

She was flat broke and had to find somebody to put her up. The manager had promised to do it, but changed his mind, adding that the woman was supposed to be meeting him shortly in the Lincoln Center courtyard.

Herb couldn't do it. His apartment was an homage to the Collier Brothers, stacked to the rafters with newspapers. I only glimpsed the sight briefly one night as Herb crept inside. It was frightening.

So I said I'd put the woman up. Hey, there was no girlfriend in my life at this time. This would be a lady in my house, an adventure.

The cafe manager led me over to Lincoln Center and I met Leah -- a dark-eyed, brown-skinned beauty, shapely thin, a Filipino-American.

He told Leah that I'd be the one providing the lodgings. He vouched for me, even though I'd only known him an hour.

Leah didn't seem to mind. I explained to my houseguest that I lived in Brooklyn. We could take a cab.

First, however, Leah needed to pick up luggage she'd stashed in a locker at Penn Station, so we cabbed it to the Eighth Ave. side of the terminal where I watched the hookers plying their trade while she went to get her bag.

At my apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Leah took a bath, put on some night clothes and sat down on the couch next to me.

So what's your story, I said. Why are you here?

It seems she'd left her strict Filipino family and run off to New York without a plan. She explained she'd been raised a devout Catholic. Sex before marriage was frowned on but Leah had been a bad girl, losing her virginity and feeling guilty about it. So she took off.

Her first sexual experience had not been pleasant. It was rough. She said it was with a guy she knew and added that it hurt. . .down there. I thought she might have been raped.

In the coming days, I tried to help her get a job. She had no skills, so I figured she could latch onto a receptionist's job somewhere. I brought her the want ads. Nothing interested her.

One evening she mentioned she had seen the hookers near Penn Station and wanted to know how much they made. She really seemed interested in their profession.

You want to become a street hooker, I asked her, giving blowjobs in cars for $20? I couldn't believe this innocent young woman was serious.

But she was and kept bringing it up day after day.

Finally, I said, hey, if you're really going to sell yourself, you might as well get a job at an escort service in Manhattan. The pay's better.

I brought her a Manhattan phone book and she quickly went to the pages that listed escort services.

In a day or so, she had actually set up an interview with one. Their office was an apartment near Columbus Circle.

When I saw her next, she was excited. She'd been hired. The madam of the venture told Leah she'd get a call, given an address where the customer was staying, perform her duties and make a hefty percentage of the fee -- $200 an hour.

Of course, the calls would be coming to my Brooklyn apartment and I didn't really want to become hooker central. But Leah was a sob story and I felt obliged to help this poor young woman.

"You're going to have to have sex with these men, you know," I told her, knowing she'd expressed fear of having intercourse again.

In fact, the rough sex she'd had back in California had left her vaginal area irritated. I had given her some salve that seemed to ease the inflammation.

Still, she wouldn't give up the idea of becoming a high-priced call girl. I don't know what was going through her head.

So, finally, I suggested she might be able to get by just performing oral sex on the customer. I figured it was the lesser of two evils.

Leah, however, had no experience performing such an act. She said I was her buddy, so she asked if I could help her out.

Yes, I gave her a few lessons. Hey, I was lonely.

When the first call from the escort service came one evening, Leah was told to meet a customer at a hotel in Manhattan. I can't remember which but it was one of the fancy ones.

I contacted the Denise Cab Service which took her from my Sunset Park neighborhood to her first encounter. I was worried about her.

But eventually she made it back to Brooklyn. And to my surprise, she didn't have to perform any sexual acts. The "John" was on the phone with someone so long, he decided to forget the whole thing. He paid her for her time, however, and her cut was $150.

The next day she went out and spent half of it on a pair of leather pants.

The second call a few days later sent her to another hotel.

This time, she came home and said, "I did it." She'd performed oral sex on the fellow. She seemed proud.

After another trip to Manhattan and another customer satisfied with a B.J., I realized this was going to get out hand.

I contacted the escort service and asked to see the woman Leah had met. I told her I was a reporter but I wasn't looking to cause her any trouble. I just wanted to stop by and talk.

She let me visit and we discussed Leah. She agreed that, in her opinion, Leah didn't have what it took to be an escort, something about a complaint from her last customer. She was thinking about ending their association or hiring her to clean her apartment. Still, she said, there are men who ask specifically for Asian women.

I'd had enough. Just three weeks had passed since I'd encountered Leah but I wasn't willing to take this any further. I told her politely that she had to leave. I urged her to contact a relative she knew who lived in Brooklyn. But she wouldn't.

As she left, Leah looked sad. The last thing she said to me was, "Bye, bye buddy."

Weeks later, Herb Superb told me he somehow heard that Leah had gone off with two men on a trip to Atlantic City. I didn't ask how he knew that.

At the Daily News, I told a few colleagues about my encounter with this young woman. One wise-ass dubbed it the tale of the first Gentile-trained blowjob.

Somehow, Breslin heard about it and I became the reporter "who lived with a prostitute in Brooklyn." Thanks Jimmy.

I never heard from Leah again. I should have tried harder to talk her out of the life she wanted to pursue.

And being Catholic, I've since said many an act of contrition about my involvement in her life.

(Author's note: If you comment please don't rip me a new asshole. I've beaten myself up enough about the whole experience.)