AFTERHOURS AT THE COCONUT by Puma Perl

There was an afterhours club named The Coconut
Or at least that’s what everyone called it
It leaned up against an abandoned building
You had to knock twice on the red door
Not that they ever turned anyone away
Unless you were eighty-sixed for cheating at cards
or shooting up in the bathroom or cursing out the owner

Every time I went to The Coconut someone sent me a drink
Jameson, straight up, no lime, water chaser
No one would tell me who my admirer was
I finally figured out that it was a guy named Stretch
He looked a little like Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger
In a mean manly multi-racial kind of way
He never talked to me, just sent me my drink

Turned out I reminded him of his dead wife
A couple of people said I looked like her
He was raising their two daughters alone
There was always a girlfriend around to watch them
so he could sit at the bar and solemnly drink
intriguing women with his romantic grief,
his brave fatherhood, his big hands

It was easy to locate his ex-girlfriends
They were all over the Lower East Side
He’d beaten them all, and when they left
he stalked them until he found the next one
Ella, the dancer, told me a story

Stretch was on his way to The Coconut one night
She said she’d like to go out too
He put on his jacket, fixed the hat he always wore
She said she’d like to go out too
It happened so quickly
She didn’t even know how she got to the floor
As his boot came down on her neck
She looked at his kids, watching quietly
She looked in their eyes
Oh, my god, she thought, before she passed out,
They’ve seen this all before

After Ella finished talking I went to The Coconut
Told the bartender to send Stretch a drink
Stretch didn’t like a defiant woman
Even one that reminded him of his dead wife
Mother of his dead-eyed children
Her image concealed in coconut mirrors
Her voice singing to him from the jukebox
Her hand on his shoulder when he played cards

When he left that night, he looked straight at me
Memorized me, then killed me in his head
His wife’s spirit exploded inside me, she screamed
Go with him, you’re the one he’ll love
Save my daughters, take care of my man
You’re the one, that’s what all his girls thought
A whiskey was set before me, some other guy sent it
I nodded thanks, feeling like someone’s pale memory
And Stretch, he was out there, roaming the streets,
chasing ghosts until he found the next one.

Photo by Ellen Berman

Puma Perl is a poet and writer, with five solo collections in print. The most recent is Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books, 2019.) She is the producer/creator of Puma’s  Pandemonium, which brings spoken word together with rock and roll, and she performs regularly with her band Puma Perl and Friends. She’s received three New York Press Association awards in recognition of her journalism, and is the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing.