Boom-Boom Goes to Jail

By Scott Holleran

The nickname emerged after a juvenile talent contest. Priscilla stepped on stage, singing and tap dancing in tails she’d hand-stitched while brandishing a cane and wearing a top hat with silk stockings and jet black pumps. Priscilla’s was the last act of the contest, which the slender senior did not win. As she exited stage right, one of the counterweights cut loose, crashing down with a thud, nearly landing upon Priscilla, who was startled. As a student, Priscilla, who excelled in history, received rave reports from the faculty. Helping the history teacher wipe the chalkboard after class, completing assignments, including an A-plus senior thesis, she proved herself with impeccable timing and skill. Priscilla, focusing on learning new knowledge, decided early in life that beauty often lies in the presentation.

Being intelligent, slim and diligent limited her ability to make friends. Girls thought Priscilla was too bright, plain and bookish. Priscilla, too silly and too serious to be invited to join caustic, popular girl gangs, caught boys’ attention primarily as a peer, rarely giving her an opportunity to shine. Priscilla’s father was a former singer at a downtown jazz club. He made a living working seven days a week at the factory, singing “That’s Amore” while cooking tortellini for dinner.

Priscilla’s mother was practical. “What are you looking at that for?” She asked one day when she spied 12 year-old Priscilla shopping in the girls’ clothing section at the budget store. “No reason, mama,” Priscilla said as she let her fingertips fall from a sale rack dress which had caught her eye. “That’s for girls with a figure,” her mother replied. This sentence stung Priscilla for years to come.

Shutting her eyelids, pre-teen Priscilla swallowed the lump in her throat, drawing a long breath—one of many she drew in the presence of her mother—as tears welled until another lump formed and Priscilla, feeling small, swallowed that one, too. Choosing to remember the soft cotton lining and textured tulle of the dress she’d pulled and held away from the rack while she admired it, Priscilla pictured what she could look like wearing the dress at the dance on Saturday night.

“I’ll get you one that suits you.” Priscilla’s mother said as she pushed the cart toward the food section. Priscilla slightly turned, like a music box ballerina, her knee slightly bent as she opened her eyes and followed her mother across the aisle.

Now, she went by the stage name Boom-Boom. On weekends at a strip mall bar, she entered in the alley, brushing past the bouncer. “Howdy, Pete,” she greeted, carrying her costume, which she had finished fluffing at the laundromat on a hanger. “How’s the joint?” Pete, a quiet fellow the size of a small motorcar, nodded, his square chin bobbing over a thick neck in recognition of Sin-Sin Addie’s most popular act. “It’s hopping,” he answered. “Place is packed.”

When the lights came up, Priscilla stepped on stage as her alter ego. Leotard, scarf, fedora—everything looked swanky under dark, grayish blue lights as she pulled her thumb and forefinger slowly, sensually down along the hat’s brim, drawing the fedora over her eyes as an electric guitar fired up and she straddled a pole with an aura of softness, ease and control. Swooping down to the base with her right leg stretched in a straight line as her left leg wrapped around the pole, Priscilla spun in a circle as the crowd of men and women alike cheered for Boom-Boom to get it on.

Boom-Boom did not disappoint. By the time the house lights came up, her tin bucket had been filled and re-filled with cash. After several sets, Boom-Boom changed, removed makeup and a wig, threw on her husband’s Army coat and exited into the alley with the hanger and a baseball cap pulled low. “‘Night, Pete.” Pete replied: “‘G’night, Prissy.”

She stood for a moment, looking up to the night clouds, which drizzled a light rain. A car pulled up, she opened the door, and took her seat beside the driver, her husband, Frisk—short for Francisco. As she did, a furry little beast with four wet paws pounced into her lap and started barking. Warner, a mixture of Pomeranian, Chihuahua and at least three other breeds, panted with a tongue hanging out while intermittently barking at Priscilla, making her laugh, “stop, stop—” she pleaded while laughing as her husband made the turn onto the main boulevard, which would lead them to the expressway. 

“How’s my baby, Boom?” As Warner wedged himself between her and Frisk, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Fine, Frisky,” she said. “Almost $700.” Frisk nodded without expression, cutting across traffic to merge onto the expressway. “You know you don’t need to do this,” he said without emphasis, “and I know you love it.” As the car accelerated with Warner panting as she held him to keep him from hopping into Frisk’s lap, she leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. Closing her eyes, she smiled in rest and happiness. “My husband,” she said as she sighed.

“Seriously,” he said with a rat-a-tat-tat rhythm she knew, “I held up two liquor stores today, so I’ve got plenty of cash and a stash full of booze.” He added: “We got it made, babe.” She started laughing. This was his favorite sound. Priscilla’s laugh could fill up a ballroom. She couldn’t stop. She kept laughing at the silliness of it all: Frisk, an artist making a living selling his art—with help from the salacious persona she’d adopted—supporting their marriage and the dog. She smiled pressed against him all the way home.

The couple and Warner lived in an apartment on the ground floor. Priscilla used the key and went with Warner to the kitchen to feed him and start making dinner. “I know it’s late, Warnie,” she started to say, turning to look to the floor behind her, hearing his collar jingle toward where Warner hopped on Frisk’s leg, barking by the front door. Priscilla rolled her eyes and smiled. “That dog,” she muttered to herself, smiling as she switched the crockpot on to heat the stew from last night’s dinner. She reached for a wooden spoon and turned her head back. “I need the car next weekend,” she called to Frisk, who was putting his coat away. “We need coffee and greens. I’ll take Warner to the park like last time while you’re at work.”

“Yes, dearest,” Frisk said as he came into the kitchen, taking the wooden spoon, dipping it into the pot and having a taste. 

The week went by. Everything was fine. Better than fine, considering they went at it a few times during the week—twice on Thursday as Warner barked outside the bedroom door while they laughed, rolled around and kept laughing—until Frisk departed on foot for his weekend job on Friday morning. Priscilla blew him a kiss at the door, calling out: “See you Sunday!”

Frisk did an air kick to the side, tipping an imaginary hat as he did before walking toward one of his overnight jobs at a home office a few blocks away, waving to his wife, who smiled as she held Warner back with her leg at the doorway. “It’s me and you,” she said to their dog. That Saturday, Priscilla fed Warner, stuffed her soiled costume and other clothes into a bag to drop at the laundromat and made a list of groceries for after work. Then she remembered to walk the pooch. “Let’s go, Warner,” she said as her dog’s ears perked up and his head tilted. “Wanna go to the park?” In an instant, he was barking in triplicates. Priscilla took the car keys from the hook, put the laundry bag over a shoulder and crouched down to snap Warner’s leash. “C’mere, you little scamp,” she said.

Away they went in the car. “Dog park, laundromat, grocery store,” she said, adjusting the driver’s seat. Warner stood on his back paws with his front paws on the edge as he looked out the window. That’s when she heard the sirens, saw flashing lights, pulled over and sat straight up awaiting the police officer, urging Warner to hush while he barked. “Hello, officer,” she said.

“You know there’s a harness law,” the cop told her after she rolled the window down and he gestured to the barking dog in the passenger seat. Priscilla stammered, trying to remember the latest batch of laws that passed the legislature before Christmas last year. She nodded in the hope it would help her gain a reprieve. It didn’t. The police officer took her info and went back to his car, leaving her wondering what was the punishment for the new mandate about traveling with a dog in a dog seat. By the time the cop came back, he handed her a citation. When Priscilla asked, he explained about the fine and her mouth fell open. “We don’t have the money,” she said. “Tell it to the judge,” the cop replied.

Priscilla went about her business, trying to decide what she would tell Frisk. She wasn’t lying. They didn’t have the money to pay the fine. The alternative was 24 hours in jail. Weeks later, this is exactly what the judge told her in the courtroom during sentencing after Priscilla’s guilty plea. “Bailiff, take the defendant into custody.” Away she went, hands cuffed behind her as Frisk looked on, trying to show his wife strength and resolve. Priscilla was terrified.

“I didn’t know—I forgot—I’m sorry,” she’d pleaded to the judge, a woman with a crew cut and broad shoulders. The gavel had come down. The sentence had been made. The judge had been as lenient as the cop. “Your dog thanks you. Next!”

“Well…if it isn’t Boom-Boom.” 

These were the first words Priscilla heard as she entered the cell at the women’s jail downtown. Her heart raced, her eyes darted and she felt flush with heat. Priscilla felt puny again. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular. That was all they needed. Inmates swarmed around Priscilla, sizing her up and down. She felt a hand grab her buttocks—she felt another hand on her neck—“soft and tender,” a voice said—and she spun around to get them off her. This made the groping worse.

“Here, honey, wrap yourself around me like you do at the bar,” the gravelly voice belonged to Rock, a woman in jailbird orange with the sleeves cut off and a bicep tattooed with a gargoyle. Priscilla started crying. So, she stopped herself. “Please leave me be,” she pleaded. The women howled, pushing, scratching and shoving Priscilla. Finally, she went down hard against a bench, tipping it over as it went boom on the cell floor concrete. This got the guards’ attention and they started walking over. She heard the jangling of keys. Priscilla froze on the floor.

When she looked up, she saw the outstretched arm and hand of a woman with eyes and skin as black as coal. Priscilla’s eyes met hers and her fear subsided. The woman slowly nodded as they heard the keys go into the lock. Priscilla took her hand and felt herself rising up toward the woman who buttressed her to a stop.

“Name’s Foster,” she whispered in a voice like a man’s but with softness. “Stand close by and don’t look at them,” she said. Priscilla heard herself asking the stranger “Why?”—as a child would ask of a savior. The woman Foster turned and looked at Priscilla and the look was like a powerful embrace. “I seen you dance,” Foster whispered lower in a tone of incredulity, as if the answer was at once obvious and something to behold. “I was on my way home and I stopped for a beer to turn a few tricks and pay the rent,” she said. “I’d been ordered by the judge to stay away from my daughter and I wanted a drink before taking the cash. As I was closing the deal, I looked up. That’s when I saw you step out to dance.”

Foster’s eyes darted as the guards slowly walked the cell’s perimeter, swinging batons as they did. “There you were,” Foster said, swallowing the lump in her throat, despite her fear of the guards, daring to sidetalk to Priscilla. Lacing her fingers into Priscilla’s trembling, ice cold hand without turning her head, she said: “The most beautiful woman in the world.” In that moment, Priscilla knew she would be fine—her insecurity about her body withered away—and, as she turned to the decent person who was a prostitute holding her hand, a sense of calm swept over her and she decided to speak. Priscilla asked Foster: “Do you see your daughter?” Foster paused with an expression of shock and said: “Yes. Teresa home now—studying for a scholastic test.” Emboldened, Priscilla gripped her new friend’s hand, leaning in to whisper: “Good for her.” Priscilla thought for several seconds less than a minute—then turned and looked at Foster and asked with a blend of urgency and curiosity: “You dance?” Before Foster could reply, Boom-Boom, like she’d just discovered a new dress, added: “I have an idea. Wait’ll you see what I have in mind. We’re going to look fabulous.”

****

Scott Holleran interviewed the man who saved Salman Rushdie from an assassin, wrote the award-winning “Roberto Clemente in Retrospect” and his poetry and short stories have been published in literary books and magazines. Listen to him read his fiction aloud atShortStoriesByScottHolleran.substack.com and read his non-fiction at ScottHolleran.substack.com. Mr. Holleran, whose father was a decorated sergeant in the U.S. Army, also dances, choreographs and coaches weight loss.