OBITUARY 

Theodore Thunderclap Thistle, 54, was found dead yesterday in the backroom of a popular gentlemen’s club in Tailspin, Massachusetts. Cause of death: severe humiliation.

Theodore Thunderclap Thistle was for many years the head bouncer at Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge on Tailspin Boulevard. He was built like a go-go lounge bouncer: tall and wide and ugly.

But rarely did Theodore Thunderclap Thistle have to put his beastly bouncer skills into action because the clientele at Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge were prominent men from the Greater Backfish community. Regular customers included selectmen, town managers, building inspectors, insurance salesmen, real estate moguls, gigolos, monsignors, sous chefs, middle-aged trust fund babies and the occasional Machiavellian lawyer.

These men were pretty much well behaved within the confines of Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge out of fear that their reputations might be tarnished. They knew that causing a disturbance of any sort at a place like Hurricane Betty’s would be reported in the papers and on the radio. And in Greater Backfish, Massachusetts, scandalous news, real or imagined, has been known to seal the doom of all types of men among men.  

Hurrican Betty’s Go-Go Lounge employs 15 go-go dancers, imported directly from Holyoke. Dancers are not in the nude, but their clothing looks like dental floss. And doggone it, these young women are talented. The can shimmy and shake, bob and weave, boogaloo and Watusi with the best of them.

Maybe you’ve met some of them along the way. Brandy, Candy, Chastity, Crystal, Dallas, Destiny, Diamond, Finola, Houston, Justice, Lexus, Raven, Roxy, Savannah and Trinity. All good, solid pole dancers, each and every one.

Well, Theodore Thunderclap Thistle, head bouncer at Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge, had for many months been asking Hurricane Betty for a raise in pay. But Hurricane Betty showed him the books, and the hard truth was that Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge was operating in the red.

“But I got alimony payments,” said Theodore Thunderclap Thistle to his boss.

“Well,” said Hurricane Betty, “I warned you not to get involved with Trixie.”

Trixie danced at the lounge long enough to get Theodore Thunderclap Thistle infatuated with her. They married. They divorced. And Trixie went back to her roots in Holyoke at the Misty Moon after hours club. But not before her Machiavellian lawyer fixed up a nice alimony package for her that Theodore Thunderclap Thistle had to support.

So Theodore Thunderclap Thistle came up with an idea. He got permission from Hurricane Betty to set up a shoeshine stand in the foyer of Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Club. He knew that the clientele of selectmen, town managers, building inspectors, insurance salesmen, real estate moguls, gigolos, monsignors, sous chefs, middle-aged trust fund babies and the occasional Machiavellian lawyer always wore high quality leather shoes. And nobody anywhere else in all of Greater Backfish, Massachusetts ran a shoeshine stand.

The innovative enterprise, shining shoes in the go-go club, was an overnight success. Economically, Theodore Thunderclap Thistle was getting very comfortable thanks to his little side job. The go-go club clientele were as generous with their shoeshine tips as they were with tipping their favorite dancers. And that gleam on their fancy footwear put spring in their steps. As for Theodore Thunderclap Thistle, he never lost a step in his bouncer responsibilities, since the shoeshine stand was close to his front door post and these hotshots were fundamentally housebroken.

But Theodore Thunderclap Thistle’s shoeshine success made him too popular. The wives of these go-go lounge patrons took notice of their husbands’ polished loafers and wingtips, and the word on the street was that Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Lounge had a shoeshine stand. Nobody else had one. Not in Backfish or Barbell or Cracklefoot or Slapdash or Tailspin.

When confronted, these husbands, these regulars over at Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Club, tried to lie their way out of it.

“I’ve never heard of the place,” said one busted husband.

“That place is for losers,” said another.

“We’ve got a shoeshine machine at the office,” lied another.

But the wives joined forces and tracked down Theodore Thunderclap Thistle at the go-go club. The wives tied him to one of the dance poles and did unspeakable things to him until he named names.

Eventually, the wives subjected their husbands to various degrees of unspeakable torture, and soon the husbands came calling for Theodore Thunderclap Thistle. The husbands muscled him into the backroom at Hurricane Betty’s Go-Go Club, dressed him in a dancer’s outfit and hung him by his thumbs. Theodore Thunderclap Thistle’s thumbs were mightily strong and he could have survived for a long time. But he was hanging in front of a large, full-length mirror, which showed how pathetic he looked. A beast of a bouncer and part time shoe shine man made up in the skimpy costume of a go-go babe.

The consummate humiliation proved to be fatal.

Theodore Thunderclap Thistle, dead at 54. He was a Red Sox fan.