In the Boom Boom Room

I tell the girls

I can get them jobs

At the theater

I promise

I smile

I sell it to ‘em

I tell them we’re casting

In the Boom Boom Room

Which I thought was funny

That we’d use strippers

Just because the show sounds sexual

The show is dated

And depressing

But Tennessee likes discovering lost classics

So he dug it up

And stapled it to the stage

Every night after rehearsal

I go to the only strip club in town

Left standing

At one point, there were about twenty

But by 2011

Most of them were already shut down

That’s okay, I only needed one place

I sit and drink my drink

And some girl says—

‘You work at the theater, don’t you?’

And I’m expecting this

I say ‘Yes, I’m in the acting company there’

And I even consider

Putting on a fake British accent

And she says—

‘I used to act’

And I say, without missing a beat—

‘I bet you still do’

By the time I’m done talking to them

They think I run the place

They have no concept of how an actual theater is run

They think it’s just me

A few cardboard sets

And a curtain

But they want in on it all the same

They promise me everything

But the teeth out of their mouth

If I can get them onstage

And I say, ‘Sure, sure’

And then I take what they have

Sometimes even the teeth

Because why not, right?

It’s not a game

Maybe at some point it was

But it’s not anymore

Now it’s just a way to pass the time

I’m sitting there

And some girl’s, you know

And I think

They believe it

They really believe

This is the moment

When their luck changes

Buried in some guy’s lap

And in five seconds

I’m going to give them

Exactly what I promised

And ain’t life grand?

It must be nice

I always think that

I always think

It must be nice

To still believe in all that

To still have that much faith

In a promise

And a smile