Engaged

I had to start calling him "Larry" 
like I was an adult.  I kept forgetting
that we were engaged.  
I didn't get a ring until he saw 
if I was going to work out.
 
On the drive up to Pittsburgh, 
he talked about what a little doll I was,
how much beer I was going to sell.
I had no idea how those worked together. 

I was supposed to be a waitress at his club.
"Larry" said I was going to be the entertainment, too.
But he never told my dad that part.
Acid gurgled in my stomach again.

It seemed only a second from when I saw
pink neon lights stuck in the velvet 
shadows of the steel mills,
until I sat stunned on a cot 
in a large closet with a window,
my new room with the hot water heater.

The Mambo Club had what any soon-to-be bride
would have to call charm. 
The high-noon dark of the noisy bar
seemed familiar, ripe, 
almost rotten with magic --
so dark anything was possible.  

My pupils adjusted
and I could see the bandstand 
he was making into a stage 
with mirrors behind it,
just for you, he said
and winked.

I felt giddy, suddenly nauseated, 
the cling bing of pinball machines pelting 
against my head, ricocheting 
back to the stiff, stubby fingers 
of men who stared at me 
from under their eyelashes.

It felt like a room full of daddy.
It smelt like a room full of laps.
*Home.*






copyright 1994 kathy jo kramer