Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [41]
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I said.
Dean looked at me like I was nuts. When, before, had I ever asked if I could ask? Not my style, especially where he was concerned! But on this one, I genuinely felt a little timid. I cleared my throat. “You just got out of one marriage,” I said. “What the fuck are you rushing into another one for?”
He just stared at me, shocked that I had hit the issue on the button. I hurried to explain myself. “Forgive me, Paul,” I said. “Jeannie’s a great girl, and I think she would follow you to the ends of the earth. I know she would wait until you were ready. And there are four kids to think about.”
Dean thought for a moment. “Listen, Jer,” he said. “You know me better than anyone, so what I say is between us. I do worry about my kids. But this feels so right. So strong.”
I nodded, finally understanding that he was really in love, and probably for the first time. “It’s your life, pal,” I told him. “And you have to do what’s best for you. You’ve always taken care of your kids; now it’s your turn to take care of yourself. Everything’ll fall into place.”
He threw his arms around me in a bear hug and whispered into my ear: “Thanks, Jer.”
As it turned out, Jeannie was the best thing that ever happened to Dean. Unfortunately, she and I never really hit it off.
Both of us were jealous of Dean’s deep feelings for the other, both of us wished we could have him all to ourselves. But I repeat: Jeannie was the best thing (next to me) that ever happened to Dean. They had a loving, strong, and enduring relationship. A complicated relationship, yes—it was impossible to have any other kind with Dean. Though he and Jeannie would eventually divorce (twenty years later), I always felt that that was just legal paperwork. They never stopped caring for each other. I guess I loved her, too, in my own way. Someday I may tell her.
In the annals of marriage counseling, I know there is the following sentence: The couple that laughs together, stays together. I’m totally convinced of the wisdom of that, and I’m positive the same holds true for partners of all sorts, because as long as Dean and I were laughing with each other, we stuck like glue.
When two guys perform and travel together ten months out of the year, they form a unique attachment. Staying in the same hotels, sharing a two-bedroom suite at the beginning, Dean and I found out almost everything there was to know about each other—sometimes secrets you wouldn’t want to share with anyone.
There was the time we played a gig at the Presidente Hotel in Acapulco. We’d only been a team for eleven months, and suddenly we were being offered big bucks to do a show in sunny Mexico, including everything else that came with the package: water-skiing, frolicking on the beach, frolicking off the beach.
We went, we played, we rehearsed, we did the show, and then we played some more. All night, in fact: from around 12:30 till 8:30 A.M. We stumbled back to the hotel for a couple hours’ sleep, then staggered to the airport for the flight back to L.A.
After grabbing some rest in our Los Angeles hotel (this was around a year before we both moved to the West Coast), we had to get ready for the evening’s show. Dean came into my bathroom to borrow some toothpaste and saw me examining myself in the mirror, trying to figure out where the itching was coming from.
“Having trouble, Mr. Lucas?” he said. (I don’t think, in ten years, that he said “Lewis” even once. His favorites were: Lucas, Loomis, Lousy, and Looseleaf.)
“Yeah, I’m having trouble,” I answered. “What the hell is happening to me?”
It was apparent that my partner had been there before. (I was only twenty-one, and hadn’t.) He took my arm. “Step up here for a minute,” Dean says, pointing to the toilet-seat cover. I stand up there as he instructs. His head is right in line with my penis.
“I didn’t know about this perk, pal!” I say.
Dean tilts his head ever so slightly and says, “The day that becomes a possibility is the day I go back to doing a single.”
By now I’m getting annoyed with his survey of my pubic