Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [11]
“Give me a Chivas Regal, water back,” Dean told the bartender.
What the hell is that, I wondered—a dog? Meanwhile, the bartender was looking at me, waiting. I finally decided . . . here goes nothing. “Give me the same, Coke back,” I said.
Dean watched me as I got the drink. I picked up the Coke first.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asked.
“Done?” I said, sipping my Coke.
“Imbibing. Boozing. Drinking. Ever do it before?”
“Well, not exactly. . . . Well, on Passover. . . .”
Dean smiled and said, “Okay, just take it easy.”
A half hour to showtime. We went outside the showroom, and I showed Dean where we were supposed to dress. He put his hands on his hips. “It is a fuckin’ folding chair!” he said.
I paced back and forth for a few minutes, then walked into the showroom to see what was up. My heart sank. It was worse than it had been the other night, when I’d played to seven people. Now there were six. I decided not to tell Dean. I walked over to the lighting guy and said, “Please keep the brights down—we’d be better off not seeing who we’re playing to!”
I ran back to our folding chair and got my blue suit on. Dean was sitting on the chair, napping. I had to wake him to remind him that once I went on, he had only seventeen minutes to get ready.
I was the opening act. I went out and did my pantomimicry, and came off to polite applause from the audience, which had now swelled to maybe eleven people. (As usual, there were two or three customers doubled over with laughter; the rest smiled now and then.) Dean went on next. He did his four numbers—I remember “Where or When,” “Pennies from Heaven,” “I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning (and the Moon at Night),” and “Oh, Marie.”
I stood in the wings, mesmerized, as he performed. He really was an amazing singer, warm and direct, with a way around a romantic tune that got to women where they lived. But the funny thing was, Dean didn’t seem to understand his own power. Some part of him was always standing back, making fun of what he did. He wasn’t yet at the point where he would stop a number to make a wisecrack (and very often, get lost in the process—that’s where the drunk act eventually came in handy), but occasionally you could see in his eyes, as he sang, that he just couldn’t take the song seriously. And he had a way of making little self-deprecating remarks between songs, almost under his breath, remarks that if you listened—and I sure did—were killer-funny. But they were throwaway, as much of his singing itself was. There was something about how ridiculously handsome Dean was—about the way he could practically get away with just standing there and being admired— that made trying hard seem almost laughable to him.
Impressed by him but slightly confused by his attitude, the small audience gave him a reasonably warm hand. Jayne Manners, our headliner, closed the show in her inimitable fashion. Unlike Dean, she made sure the people understood exactly what her act was about. She spelled it right out for them: Big boobs—funny. A big-breasted blonde singing badly—funny. A big-breasted blonde making off-color remarks—that’s entertainment!
Back at our folding chair, Dean and I were starving—between rehearsing and worrying, neither of us had eaten a bite since that morning. The 500 Club had what they called a runner: a Jewish kid named Morris. So Dean and I slipped Morris a couple of bucks and sent him out to score us some of the food that’s killed more of my people than Hitler: hot pastrami on rye, don’t trim the fat.
But as Morris walked out, Skinny and Wolfie stalked in. A double visit did not seem like a good sign, and the look in both men’s eyes wasn’t promising.
“Where’s the funny shit?” Skinny asked.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“The funny shit you said the two of you were gonna do together— where is it?”
All the while, Wolfie is glaring at us like we’d propositioned his sister. I looked at Skinny. I looked at Dean. (Dean looked puzzled.) I cleared