Schnuckiputzi

When I called my girlfriend
by the German endearment
I had just learned –
Sweetie pie – she slapped my face,
accused me of being a perv.


She Club

I was in love with Jo Weldon
from the days she first danced
at The Classy Cat in the early 80s. 
New to Atlanta – I grew up in Indianapolis –
I started going to strip clubs
soon after I moved here, a lonely guy, no friends.
Bikers, drug dealers and furtive guys hung out there,
but I always kept to myself.
Jo got me hooked on burlesque,
and when she moved on
to the clubs on Cheshire Bridge Road,
I followed her, a big fan. At the She Club
she’d do robe dances and acrobatics,
cartwheeling across the stage
on four-inch heels, and my God,
there was a reason her nickname was “Boobs.”
I followed her across the street to the Starcastle
when she left the She Club.
But then, a few months later,
somebody fire-bombed the joint!
I remember it well, November 30, 1981,
my 28th birthday. I’d gone to see Jo dance
at the Starcastle. I’d heard  the rumors,
bad blood  between the owners of She and Starcastle,
but I didn’t know Manny Isaacs, the She Club owner,
arranged to have the Starcastle burned down.
All that came out at the trial a couple years later.
By then I’d given up on clubbing,
met my first wife Lucinda at a friend’s party 
had our own little Atlanta social circle.
But I still dream about Jo Boobs Weldon
forty years, two wives, three kids and eight grandchildren later,
nearly every single night.