Beulah peel me a grape

First, Beulah has no idea where the damn grape is. She just got her manicure and frankly could care less. She does find the cocky Cockney cute. But, so does that glittery Lil and well--- It’s Lil’s Big Show. Lil has blood on her hands, and rubs in the almond scented lotion, while she waits for that peeled grape. Beulah pours a large portion of gin and recalls the Minstrel shows, Bessie Smith, chicken dinners in a picnic basket, and a guy named Roy. He was no prince, but a king of the bedroom rambles. Elsewhere, boots are beating the ground, leaving bloodied feet and untended harvests as glass breaks across the faces of Polish Jews and the Spanish Republicans fight black clad insurgents. More boots, pretty, shiny, well-made boots. “until the war” says Tom in The Glass Menagerie. When America  sits  in a “dark room” and watches “until the war”.  Death’s stench rolls across the Atlantic, a powerful fog.  Meanwhile, The dapper heroes roam landscapes as fake as their stage names and the heroines roll up their stockings or sweat the chorus line But not Miss Lil and the disobedient Beulah, both swaying large hips and rolling brown eyes, generously Awaiting a man’s tongue sucking For Gertrude Howard (1892-1934)