How does a tiny town triple every weekend
as if people were stuffed into it?
It ballooned into riotous noise, laughter
pumped full of sin—Little Las Vegas.
We teen boys stopped our red truck
before the open door of a strip joint,
pretending it stalled to get a glimpse
of the naked flesh until the doorman chased us
around the block to try again later.
We had Uncle Art, big rings on his fingers,
the rich relative, owner of three taverns:
The Circus Tap: Where spinning a wheel of fortune got you a free drink if you were on the right stool, a painting of a scantily clad lady riding a tiger staring at you.
The Little Club: Where my Father cajoled my Step-Mother from country music to his bed.
Art's Dog House: Where oodles of Kewpie dogs were stuck in every crevice, begging for a drink.
Art bought a handgun, twirling it on his fat finger
in our living room, not removing the yellow tag.
“I’m not paying those fucking Dagos
another dime for their damn protection.”
My Father: “You’re crazy Art; they’ll kill you.
You can’t protect yourself.”
The gun, with the yellow tag still on it,
was found by his body, riddled by bullets.
The newspapers called it a robbery.
We teen boys took our friends past his house
where his widow lived to look at the plastered-over bullet holes in the garage,
making us big shots in the neighborhood.
Returned years later to that razed section of town,
taverns resplendent with neon
replaced by ill-painted, sagging warehouses,
bent spears of grass growing between cracks in the sidewalks,
that once had danced,
the only town that gladly lowered the number
on its green population sign.
Originally published in Gold Dust Magazine
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