-the Striptease Artist-

Route 6 east toward a strip-joint

Called the "Hangars"

With a carload of older neighborhood guys
who play "Buck-Buck" in the park
Across the street from my house.

Soon, we’re sitting at a sticky, rolled

And pleated leather-like booth

Anticipating an adult woman
Who will take her clothes off for us
To the sounds of a swishing snare,
Pizzicato bass and muted trumpet.

She’ll be wonderful
With sequined pasties,

Tassels swinging

Clockwise and counterclockwise
Propelling her tits into the heavy
Atmosphere burning into our eyes.

We’re too young to drink.

We were ushered inside because
Hank Lozon's uncle

Runs the joint on weekends.

This is where it’s dark,
Sweltering and red all over.

It’s like being inside an inflated
Parade balloon

And I don’t think we should eat anything

But our waitress looks good
And the M.C.'s cracking a few jokes
Into his mic whose volume

Is set to Amphitheater.

He introduces the next stripper
As “Trixie Dixon” who flew in from the coast,

Which we later learned was Buzzard's Bay.

After the intro, he slithers backstage to tepid applause

From the scattered in attendance.

Then, like a sign from God, the red-lead atmosphere

Is spotted with a crack of white light,

And there’s Trixie, sitting at the edge of a stool

Confiscated from the near-vacant bar,

Costumed in trench-coat and soft fedora

Whose brim folds softly to cover one eye, sexy,

The standard cigarette prop is tucked between her lips,

Redder and wetter than a Bloody Mary.

Trixie's routine is billed to be that of a Private Eye.

But I'm the only one in the house who sees

An otherworldly impression of the on the road liquor salesman. 

The downbeat to jazzy music cues her performance.

Trixie leads with a leg slipped into

A black nylon stocking pushed out

Across the floor

Down to the toe of her pump

Allowing the trench-coat to peel back

Like the skin of an over-ripened banana.

Our young waitress ignores her, dealing

Out carbonated soft-drinks realizing the booth's

Occupation of potential deadbeats.

She's not too far removed from my age.

I want to get closer to Trixie,

But beginning the routine, the stool

Slides from under her

And she falls on her ass to a thud upon the hard stage,

The embers of ash from the burning cigarette

Drifting like sparklers
In soft landing fall between her legs.

Closer, the striptease artist's face
Is seen to be puckered like the skin of a citrus fruit,

And she rises awkwardly to continue the routine

As the trio picks-up where Trixie left-off.

I’ve seen this before— when the drunks

Tumble out of the Marconi Club on Bedford Street

Behind the billboards in the sharp spotlight of morning,

Mumbling for something better.
The applause is dampened

Soon after, as the Houselights slap a harsh "Last-Call"

And bewildered more than fulfilled, we pay our tab

In cash, leaving the weak, "everybody's-in" tip on the table.

It's a fast ride west on 6 toward home

Far too late at night, and there'll be hell to pay.

But it'll be okay because

I'm probably old enough now.

c.1959