Growing up, as we drove down I-35 on the way to visit my extended familia down in Brownsville, my father would always make a crass joke about stopping at the big white building that had “KT Video Sales/Rental” plastered across the roof. I never really got it until much later, thinking at the time it was more of a rustic Kaleidoscope Video.
“Can we stop on the way back?” I would always ask.
Located outside of Sanger, Texas, KT’s – also known as TKs at various times – porno barn was always a sex farm of wanton lust, the kind of sin-spot pit-stop that became a roadside landmark for the scads of cars and trucks that drove by on a daily basis; to spot the massive name in bold white letters from the road meant that you were out of Oklahoma and truly in Texas jurisdiction.
I remember talking about it with friends in middle school when one of my substitute teachers informed me that it’s a place where pornography—still in its innocent Playboy infancy with me—was stored and sold, offering thousands upon thousands of titles for sale, as well as various lubes, toys and other novelties.
Sadly, it would be years before I was able to see deep inside of KTs, having to make due until then with desperately-used copies of Cheri and Club—often mixed in with a bag of panties and heels—that I often found in area dumpsters.
The first time I went to KT’s, it was a rite of passage, in many ways; my good friend B.H. and I loaded into his sweet green Trans Am and pushed the pedal to the metal through the Arbuckles and on past the Oklahoma border. Eighteen-years-old and in need of the purest filth, as I walked in through the glass door, the first thing that shocked me was the sticker price: most of these VHS videos were upwards of forty bucks!
Thankfully, I found the cut-out bargain-bin—not my first, nor my last—of slashed fuck-films for as little as ten bucks; they were usually cut-rate compilation flicks featuring the worst sex-stars Eastern Europe had to offer, but, at that moment, it was far better than the “Cable Versions” that were available here in town.
Funny enough, thinking that we might be breaking an archaic law regarding the transportation of pornography across state lines, we were so scared about driving back to Oklahoma that we hid the bag of skin-flicks under the spare tire in the trunk, thinking we’d be safe from the dong arm of the law.
I went back a moist handful of times after that, discovering informative magazines like Adult Video News as well as various perverse comix, buying the occasional cheap sex-toy with a then-current girlfriend, and even writing a very descriptive article about the place for a 2001 issue of my once-popular zine Damaged.
It’s kind of sad—in a mostly pathetic way—to think that KT’s is gone now, torn down to make way for possibly a QT with a Subway inside. The last time I stopped there was about two years ago, when I pulled into the derelict parking lot, broken glass mixed in with the gravel; locked up oh-so tight, it was now a dumping ground for broken televisions and stained mattresses, a scummy requiem which seemed fitting.
After a few minutes of me sitting there, a Texas State Trooper pulled in and asked what I was doing; I promptly left, never to return to that soiled mons pubis ever again.
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Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler and Instagram at @louisfowler78.
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