When I came home from college, my mother told me
Marco had called and wanted to go out, but
she wished I wouldn’t because everybody said he’d
gotten involved with the underworld.
I laughed at her. I pictured Pluto, the river Styx,
and a big dog with three heads.
We drove to St. Louis in Marco’s new convertible. He
paid for drinks, he paid for dinner. When
we got to the Grand Burlesque, he nodded at the girl
who sold tickets and we sailed in.
“Sit in the front row,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
I was trying to figure out if Rose de la Rose
was a tautology or a pleonasm when Marco showed
up with cigars and spiked Pepsi. We
watched the strippers and laughed at the comics
until one of them said, “Better than being
in the shower with Ronnie Koertge.”
I was stunned to hear my name sewn into a routine
as old as time. But not as stunned as
afterwards in the Show Bar next door where girls
hung on Marco until he told them to hang
on me. “How long you known him?” asked Rose.
“Since first grade.”
Nothing in any book had prepared me for the gun metal
taste of her mouth. “If you had a good time,”
she said later, “Tell him okay? Don’t forget.”
We drove home late. Crossing the dark Mississippi
I put my head back and named every
constellation—a real accomplishment for somebody
who didn’t know anything at all.
Originally Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 2.
