Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [37]
The phone in our suite at the Palmer House rang promptly at nine the next morning. Since we had turned in at close to six A.M. and told the desk to hold all our calls, I assumed it was an emergency.
Not quite, but close. It was Johnny Ambrosia, telling us we were going to play golf that afternoon with Charlie Fischetti at the Bryn Mawr Country Club, one of Chicago’s premier courses.
Dean told Johnny, “Jerry doesn’t even know how to hold a caddy. He doesn’t play at all!”
Johnny: “If Charlie Fischetti invites him to play, he just learned.”
He said a car would pick us up at noon. We were to go to the club, eat lunch, have a couple of drinks (again with the drinking!), and play a round of golf. Dean was excited about the prospect of playing this famous course, but I could also tell he was nervous about what, exactly, his partner was going to do out there.
We decided to just go and have fun, if possible. Our first show was at eight o’clock that night, and we had to get back to prepare for that, so it would be tight. We figured a noon pickup would get us to the club around one, and, what with meeting and greeting and having a couple of drinks and lunch, we wouldn’t be able to tee off until at least four P.M. It was early April and the sun set around six, but maybe with Charlie Fischetti, it set later! Who knew? We’d go, we’d see....
We did the meeting and greeting in the men’s grill—a magnificent replica of an English golf-club bar, with everything in it imported from Scotland and the English countryside, plus general golf memorabilia collected since the turn of the century.
We order lunch while waiting for the booze. The drinks come. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon and I’m drinking what the big boys are drinking . . . boilermakers: shots of twelve-year-old Haig & Haig whiskey followed by Budweiser chasers.
Oy vey, as my Grandma Sarah used to say.
All I can think about is the eight P.M. showtime that we have to make ... sober!
Dean has a couple and I have a couple, and bit by bit, we’re starting not to care so much about the eight P.M. show. . . . And suddenly Charlie says, “Okay, let’s eat.”
The waiters start to bring platters of food. And more platters of food. And more platters of food. It looks like we’re in ancient Rome, for Christ’s sake! Charlie and his pals dig in, laughing and having a great time. Then come coffee and dessert, and that runs another half hour. Finally, it’s tee time.
Dean is all excited about the game. I don’t know what to think. The foursome is Charlie, Dean, me, and Jake Friedland, a Chicago lawyer. But there are also two extra carts for some very intimate friends of Charlie’s who will be following us on the course—just in case we need to move a tree.
Charlie tees up his ball, saying, “I have the honor.” We hadn’t hit a ball yet, and he has the honor? On the other hand, who was going to tell him he didn’t have it? Not me!
He hits the ball and it makes the fairway, about sixty yards out. Nobody laughs. Charlie decides to take a mulligan, which I later learned meant a second swing. He hits a pretty decent shot this time, then Jake gets up and, without a glance at where he’s aiming, hits a beauty—not so far, but down the middle. Dean’s up next. He blasts that drive at least 240 yards down the fairway, dead center, and he looks terrific doing it.
Then Charlie says, “Okay, kid—let’s see if you really never played before.”
This actually makes me feel a little better, because I literally don’t even know how to hold the driver. (I’m using Dean’s club.) Dean whispers, “Just swing easy, keep your eye on the ball, keep your head down, don’t sway too much, and be sure you follow through.”
“Is that all?!” I scream.
As in life, I proceed to make funny from what I fear. I look like Ray Bolger as The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz... no spine to speak of, and certainly not standing upright. I sway like a weed in the wind, look out at the fairway, sway some more... hold the club too low... then too high