He felt the warm bubbles
Rising up around his chest.
He had the hot tub
Installed center stage
In the decrepit old theater
Several years ago
When the theater shuttered for good.
Normally
There would be others
In the water with him.
They’d be drinking Hennessy
And Olde English 800’s
Smoking Kools and White Owls.
There would be some music and dancing.
There would often be sex
Sometimes friends
Sometimes hired...
But tonight he wanted to be alone.
It was his last night
At the gay Lyric Theater.
It was his illegal home
For the last two-plus decades.
He owned it for a lot longer than that.
Asbury Park fell on hard times
And in turn
Things got rough for him
And he had to move in.
He used to own three theaters.
He had to close the other two...
The Mayfair and the St. James...
Eventually selling the real estate.
He held on to this one
Because he had turned it into a porno-house
But eventually
With VHS and video rental stores
Even that incarnation of the theater slowed and died.
Things got so bad
He couldn’t maintain the building any longer.
He took a drag on his Kool.
He was still wearing his sunglasses.
They rarely left his face.
He tumbled a Hennessy ice cube around in his mouth.
It was years since he had been to the dentist.
Probably since he moved into this dump.
He could feel the ice clatter
Against broken teeth.
This was his last night at the Lyric.
It was set to be demolished
Along with the Palace Amusement building
Attached next door.
The triple XXX
Signage was stoically displayed
On the marquee out front
For twenty-or-more years
At least.
Right now
He couldn’t pin-point it.
But it was an irony
To see THAT
Next to Tillie’s smiling face
And the bumper cars
Painted on the pale green walls
Of the once vibrant building
Next door.
He remembered the motion of the neon
That used to animate
Tillie’s grin and the movement of the bumper cars
And roller coasters.
He recalled the ferris wheel
That projected through the roof
Lighting up the night
And the eastern wall of his building.
Wesley Lake directly behind him
Had the swan boats
That people would pay to peddle around.
He didn’t get that.
That was back when his theater
Was running second run movies.
Before the men were jerking off in the theater’s seats.
The trannies and hookers
Would camp out in the dark of the theater.
They would bring their lunch or dinner
Their vice of choice
And solicit all day long.
They were hungry too.
They paid the ticket price.
He couldn’t complain.
Kept a lot of regulars coming back.
It was safer than the streets.
He reached for the ash tray
But the long ash fell into the rumbling water
Before he made it.
“Fuck it”
He thought easily
And brought the filter back
For another drag.
People thought he was crazy
When he bought the hot tub.
Especially the company
That came and installed it
Directly center stage
In front of the giant dirty movie screen
Under the glow of the pot-lamps.
It was the best money he ever spent
He decided
Right then and there.
It was a wild notion to soak until you were a prune
Within the belly of an empty theater.
It got him a ton of pussy.
And if it was a party
With other people...
He still had a few movies
That he would run
On the large projectors up in the booth.
Those movies turned many a party
Into an orgy.
These memories came back to him
In bits and pieces
While he sipped his cognac
Smoking more Kools
And missing the ashtray.
He did a toast to the hot tub.
“This hot tub was money well spent”
He thought
Chuckling to himself
Glass raised in the air.
But things were final.
It was time to move on.
He thought of the wrecking ball
As he got out of the tub
His flesh wrinkled
And way past
Pruning.
The black skin of his hands and feet
Ghost white
And itching.
He grabbed a towel
And wrapped it around his naked body.
He stood there shivering
For awhile
His silhouette
Before the big screen
Listening to the water bubbling
And the electric hum of the motor.
