Cleveland became our fountain of youth.
For breakfast we ate at Steve’s Lunch, a 24 hour workman’s hole where the specials are named after neighborhood cops and you can get 2 eggs, 2 bacon, hashbrowns, toast, and coffee for $5. Steve himself was very nice and treated us boys well.
Then the boys went to My Mind’s Eye record shop. I got a few choice 45s and the new Who Sell Out deluxe edition reissue. Mike got a John Lee Hooker record because Steve Miller played on it. The man at the record shop was very nice to us boys.
After that Mike and I took a Huck Finn nap in the shadow of a tree, until the shade turned to sun. Then we went to the Lakewood Community Pool and splashed and played in the pool with the other boys and girls.
Alan and Greg met up with us for meatball sandwiches at the pizza parlour. The sandwiches were all really yummy and the lady there was very pretty and treated us like good boys.
Then the clouds got dark and nasty so we went to the bowling alley and played bowling in the basement. It rained very hard, so hard that a wet case of beer flopped past me like a tumbleweed. The man at the bowling alley would have given us free ice cream, but that only happens on Wednesdays. 
At the bowling alley we learned that Michael “Jacko” Jackson died. We felt bad about that because he understood boys like us. And then the power went out. We drove around Cleveland, taking detours around flooded streets. Lots of people were on their porches, some were dancing. The air was spooky.
By the time we got to the club the van had turned back into a pumpkin.
The first act was a girl who was learning guitar. Then there was a guy who played steel guitar shuffle blues. He wore a hat. After that an legitimately young Missouri trio played music you might hear on a radio.
My friend Jessica came to the show. We performed comedy on a cruise ship last summer. She was one of four people who came by choice.
The set was fun, but you could feel the contempt from the other performers that were still there. Early on in the set Mike said that all the youthful skin surgically grafted to Michael Jackson’s face had caused him to die of SIDS.
Nonetheless half the non-performing or working room danced during “Stumper.” This show had one of those patented open endings where we stood on stage watching the audience until someone else’s music faded up from the PA. Somebody said the show was like pissing into the wind.
Greg got us a room with post-show furnace face. In the middle of the night, the air conditioner made an electric burning smell that kept Mike in the hallway for a spell. Alan shook in his sleep and I snored through it all. What started as a fountain of youth had ended like a fountain of death.
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