Boom Boom & Spanks

Boom Boom was a Class ‘A’ stripper

Top shelf and upscale

And would only work

The exclusive circuit.

She was sexy and popular

And made a lot of money.

She also spent a lot of money

On manicures, lingerie, clothes, tanning

And a sports car.

It wasn’t just her well maintained body

That brought in the cash...

It was her ‘with it’ and amusing personality.

She was having fun

No matter where she was...

On the pole dancing with Faster Pussycat playing loudly around her

Or at a party, a club, a gallery opening or a museum soiree.

She would even catch a game now and then.

She was lifted.

Proud and unappologetic.

She was a performance artist

That used her body and personality

To her greatest advantage.

Spanks was my dealer

Who was also my friend.

A taboo in most circumstances.

I met him first in a diner.

He was a creature of habit

So I ended up running into him on a regular basis

And found out what he was about

And soon we were hanging together.

He was a Methadone junkie himself.

He picked up his heroin monkey years before

And he would touch the dirt

On and off

For the couple of years I knew him

But pretty much relied on the Methodone juice.

Spanks ran a tight operation.

He was Jewish and all business and tight books.

You could NEVER come to him.

He had a beeper and a pager.

He came to you when and where he said.

It was a bit of work and took up time

But what job doesn’t.

The thing is

He managed to stay elusive and safe

And cover his tracks

By conducting his business

In such a way.

He wasn’t a street dealer.

His clients were lawyers, doctors

Entrepeneurs and other dealers buying weight.

He didn’t fool with little shit.

He moved coke, heroin, weed and pills

Of which he would get these amazing Quaaludes

Smuggled in from Germany.

I might’ve been one of a hand full of people

That could hit his digs.

He bought two brownstones

With the money he made from selling drugs.

He lived on the first floor of one of them

And rented out the rest of the apartments

To a slew of tenants and characters

For further income.

He would let me fix in his apartment.

I was discreet and didn’t put it in front of him.

He met Boom Boom one night

At the club that she was working

And pressed her

To hang with him.

He gave her no money.

He didn’t want to be a client

And he told her this.

Maybe she sensed his cool

Or maybe she smelled his money

But they did actually start

Rolling around together.

They would spend days in bed

Ordering take out/delivery.

Then they moved it outside

Making Spank’s deliveries

Eating in restaurants and diners

And shopping.

Spanks spoiled Boom Boom.

Spanks told me it was worth it

That she was a wildcat in bed.

Boom Boom was always working nights

So very often I would hardly ever see her

Unless I showed up at the club

Where she was dancing

Or she came to Spank’s place after her shift

And I might still be there

Nodding and acting like a goofball.

We could really make each other laugh.

And if she showed up then

She usually joined the party

And got a ride on whatever was laying around.

She would lie there on the sofa

In front of bad TV

Or on the bed

With candles burning

Telling us stories

About her slimey asshole patrons.

The crazy thing was...

It didn’t matter that it was four in the morning...

Nothing mattered...

We were some sort of a

Rag tag “Oliver” story of sorts...

Self made orphans

That banded together

And supported each other.

Then there were her road trips or “Tours”

As she liked to call them

Like she had a road crew and everything.

She would dance her way up and down the East Coast.

She was popular in the South

Sometimes she was gone for a few weeks.

Spanks would slowly get depressed

As the days passed.

I could hear it over the phone

When I called to check on him.

His laughter was forced and hardly there.

He became reclusive and I wasn’t invited over.

He wouldn’t show at his regular eateries

Or “offices” as he liked to call them.

Business not as usual.

That bitch of a bug

Had bitten Spanks

And really gotten it’s teeth in deep

And took hold of him

Like it had taken hold of so many others...

Others that might write poems

Or labor over a beautifully sad song

Or paint a powerful canvas.

Others that might dream happy thoughts

Or lay the plot for a perfect murder.

Souls of greater men

Good or bad

Have fallen to love.

Spanks fell for a georgeous

Free wheeling stripper

Young and too full of life

To stay in one spot for very long.

And Spanks had no creative outlets.

He didn’t know how to write a poem

Or a song.

So eventually

He did what he could do

What he knew how to do.

He waited alone behind closed doors

Of a first floor apartment.

He waited for her phone calls that never came.