What’s a Chick Got to do to Get Service in This Joint? Canto 10

What’s a Chick Got to do to Get Service in This Joint?

CANTO 10  September 28, 2011

One significant thing I forgot to mention about the Atlantic City days

I almost cheated on E. with E.O., my manager at the Holiday Inn

He looked like Eddie Fisher and dressed flashy and drove a Dodge Challenger

But he was basically a quiet man and possibly gay. We only necked once,

Late at night after going out drinking. A zaftig blonde, who was 3 inches taller than E.O said that she was going to marry him, but first she was going to kill me.

I said nothing and Gigantor left. I heard later she became pregnant and he had

Never told her that he had had a vasectomy. Good.

But there had been damage to E. and my relationship. He was growing fatter now

Never leaving the couch when he wasn’t at work.

We moved in with friends on the Main Line and stayed far too long.

We rented a house far too far from Center City in the Northeast

Ethan found a job in some store, either recordings or books

We struggle through sex once a month, with no pleasure for me

I remember that the house had no furniture except for a bed and a couch.

And E. never left the couch when he wasn’t at work, so we must have had

A television.

I became a Secretary, not an Administrative Assistant,

At the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, a meaningless title meant

To gather endowments and government money. I know we did some

Anti-redlining activity with the infamous Acorn

We had a convocation of activists in Virginia that was mainly social.

And I flirted with my first Dave there. He had promised another woman

At the meeting that he would spend this one with her and promised to

Flirt more with me if we ever met again, which we didn’t.

But one important thing began in Philadelphia

You can’t see Broadway from Broad Street in Philadelphia

But you know it’s out there. And I found a place that was teaching

Playwriting. The Philadelphia Company. And I returned to my pen.