The Pink Pussy Cat
…..
sat under the overpass of North River Drive
and 36th Street, roofless, a pastel pink façade.
A vestige of 1980s Miami, of big hair and
cocaine clouds and ecstasy laced with glitter,
the neon silhouettes of its nude dancing ladies
flickering fast n’ slow, going in n’ out like the
late-night vacancy signs of the motels that
lingered down the street with names like
PRINCESS, El Paraiso, or Starlite Executive
that advertise their Fantasy Showers, mirrored
ceilings, vibrating heart-shaped beds and
multi-jet sensual tubs in fine fluorescent print.
I don’t remember the first time I saw that
enormous, eponymous pink building, but I do
remember sitting in the backseat of my mother’s
white Honda Accord with the crank roll down
windows, thinking it was the most beautiful sight
I’d ever seen. In the early 2000s, with her lustful
eyes painted on the front door, beckoning you
in and on the expressway facing side, a mural
of painted ladies in strange positions like calligraphy
strokes curved this way n’ that, an invitation
to the outside world of what waited in the
dimly lit drug den of illicit pleasures, full of
Miami’s most wanted, n’ the minxes n’ the
foxy ladies who, if I was lucky enough, could see
a hundred feet above about to take their smoke
breaks and I dreamt of what they smelled like
in their tight, tiny clothes and their names and
what they did all day in the fun-house of the
Pink Pussy Cat that offered an all-day buffet.
When I’d ask my mother if it was a playground,
she’d always touch the rosary hanging off the
rearview mirror and say it was a palace of pleasures
for old, sleazy bikers who had nothing better to
fill their time. But now, when I drive past, the
building no longer shimmers like it used to,
the pink peels from its sides, and I can peer
inside like I’ve always wanted, to see old poles
covered in vines, n’ drywall dust, torn-up leather
on stages hit hard n’ faded by the Miami sun
without its top to cover up its sticky secrets.
They’ve painted her black to mourn the big cat,
n’ the cocaine cowboys n’ the cops. Renamed her
KRAVE, gave her inflatable legs with fishnets
and red bottoms for the roof. And now, when
I drive past, I think there should be nothing here
I don’t remember, but she’s grown quiet and dark,
a brooding widow in search of the Old Miami, asking
newcomers what they crave, and all I can do is
remember and say Hasta Luego Gatita Rosada as I
drive down the Dolphin Expressway, searching
for memories in a foreign landscape that I
somehow still know, pretending, for a moment
longer, that I can see the ghosts of Miami’s nightlife
dancing, raising their glasses in the motes of light,
coming in through the cracks, pink n’ pulsing.
….
…
This poem is from the chapbook Ruin Me Before the Party Ends by Chloe Rodriguez (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/ruin-me-before-the-party-ends-by-chloe-rodriguez/
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