Marv

The city was a standard Northeastern metropolis, more populous and powerful in bygone generations, heir to the robber baron riches of an American Industrial Revolution, now left aimless and confused, clueless as to what its next greatness could be.

Much of what the veteran citizens could recognize as "Downtown" was already gone. There were no more movie houses, and various old favorite stores and shopping centers were either lost or absorbed by bigger, more generic chains. Any traditional concept of "Downtown" was fading fast --

Except for Ladies and Gentlemen. L&G was by no means the only strip club around -- those had scattered to suburbs near and far -- but it was the one left that bothered to feature headliners, starlets of the American "blue" scene.

The feel of L&G was also quite unique. It existed adjacent to the lobby of the Tesla Hotel, a place that had once been known as a "flop house" and continued to struggle along as a relatively cheap yet dependable place to stay. When the lobby expanded into a little place called the Club Tesla, local connections to America's jazz world proved kind, and Ella Fitztgerald and Sammy Davis Jr. had been known to stop by. Eventually it became a strip joint, and the place's reputation, like much of Downtown, suffered. There were violent crimes associated with the place, and of course some Mob money.

All that passed away with the Seventies. As time went on, those who kept the club and watched over it tried to play things clean and shrewd, and soon the club was no more worrisome than many a college fraternity.

As the 21st Century dawned, a new owner found himself in an interesting time. His name of birth was Marvin Bradway, but to pretty much everyone he was just Marv. Marv turned down a multi-million dollar deal from the local Cultural Trust to buy out the club and further generalize Downtown. Marv would not do it. Strangely enough, for him it was a matter of principle.

Marv renamed the Club Tesla, calling it Ladies and Gentlemen. At first he hoped to attract an elite crowd, but they tended to scurry to the suburbs. Now he got a mixed crowd: the white and the black, the young and the old, but primarily the blue-collar, with a few tentative elder white-collar gentlemen looking in from time to time. It was a place for starlets and regular men -- and keeping them acting as "gentlemen" was sometimes an uphill battle.

In his office, high in the hotel but with closed-circuit monitors looking in on both the main lobby and L&G, Marv stared across his desk at the reporter from a local independent newspaper, and wondered what story to give.