-for Mary Jane
The Wind-Up Club was a really strange place. They had all sorts of acts. Comedians, bands. Magicians. Strippers. I remember this one gal, Fifi LaFitte. Stripper. A pole dancer. Worked to polka tunes. Came out dressed like Marie Antionette.
The strangest one, though, was a ventriloquist act. “Ben and Jerry”. Ben sat on a stool with an ice cream cone. Jerry, the dummy, sat on his knee. Ben ate ice cream and Jerry told jokes.
Don’t let this guy fool ya, Jerry would say. He’s wacko, he’s nuts. Got a screw loose I’m tellin’ ya, and Ben licked away at his double scoop cone. Then Jerry would say, Ben, ya know, he grew up on a farm. Got some matches one day and burned down the barn. His mom saw the flames and boy was she mad. When your father gets home, you’re in trouble, she said.
Ben didn’t care. He just laughed and laughed. He knew his dad was inside that barn.
People came from all over to see that routine and between Ben and Jerry and Fifi LaFitte, The Wind-Up did really well for a time.
That was all back in the day, of course. It’s closed up now. But it was unique, to say the least. They called it the “The Wind-Up” because that’s how you found it. You wound up there.
I hear Ben wound up in a place with soft walls.
I wasn’t there but I’ve been told, when Jerry found out, he just laughed and laughed.