Special Report: Who’s Holding Donna Now?

By Claudia Stavola

For thirty-five years, people have wondered who’s holding Donna now. Actually, nobody wondered who was holding Donna then or now, but we’re in a pandemic and running out of stories. Madhouse Magazine headed to Grand Rapids, Michigan—birthplace of the soulful slow-jam hit machine DeBarge—to get some answers.

Our first stop was the Rusty Snapper—a 60-year-old bar, and nickname for Donna. I spoke with 126-year-old barkeep, Skully Tawn who was propped up against the bar with a broom handle fused into his spine. I asked him if he could try to recall the year 1985 for me, to which he replied, “Marmalade.”

I decided to skip the minutia and get right to it asking, “Do you know who was holding Donna in 1985?” This seemed to jolt his memory because he looked into his pants and coherently replied, “Why my dick talkin’? Donna? Shiiit, I remember she came in one night dressed all flashy in a skintight purple spandex jumpsuit. Man, you could see everything. You know what I’m saying? She had more lip than Mick Jagger! But yeah, I held her once in ’86. It weren’t no thing but a chicken fling. You feel me?” I tried to press for more info but Skully abruptly went back to being dead.

After speaking with Skully, I met a 42-year old woman named Sarah. She said she never held Donna but, in a strange twist, Donna once held her when she was seven. She said she was in the dressing room at Cooters Gentlemen’s Club where her mom worked. Sarah hurt herself trying to master one of the “hot dogs with batteries” she found backstage. She thought it was a “funny microphone.” It hit her in the eye when she turned it on to try to sing into it. Donna immediately rushed over and held her until she felt better. Donna was backstage knocking around the club owner’s heart when she heard Sarah cry. There have been a few sightings over the years but since then, her trail has run cold. Anybody with any leads can call T.J. Hooker.