Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [42]
Dean says, “Hold on for just a second.” He leans over to the medicine cabinet and retrieves a small tweezer I had in my toiletries case. He looks like he’s scrubbed in for the operation and ready to begin the incision.
He plucks something off me and opens the tweezer over the white porcelain sink, and I go ballistic. “It’s moving!” I scream. “It’s a moving thing! What do I do, Dean? There’s animals climbing on my bones! What do I do?”
Dean begins to laugh, and I wonder what the hell he thinks is so funny. “What is it?” I say. “Will you please tell me?”
“Jerry,” he says, “you got crabs.”
“What the hell am I doing, ordering seafood?” I yell. “What the hell do you mean? And what the hell do we do?”
“I have to get us some alcohol and sand,” Dean says.
He’s lost it, I think. “Alcohol and sand?” I say. “Then what?”
“We throw the sand on them,” Dean says, casually, “then the alcohol. They get loaded and kill one another throwing rocks!”
(Thank God he knew to send for Campho-Phenique. The morning came and the itching went.)
You might also be interested to hear that my partner loved to read comic books.
Jack Eigen, Al Jolson, Dean, and Jerry: Copa, 1948. No, we were not the King family.
You heard me, comic books! Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman. (Once when we got to meet Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, Dean was more knocked out than I’d ever seen him about meeting anyone— except perhaps Frank.) I don’t remember ever seeing him buying a newspaper; he’d only look at a paper if I bought one. But I had to buy his comic books. Why? Because he was embarrassed, that’s why. He was always sensitive about his lack of education.
He also loved—and I mean loved—to watch Westerns on television. I remember third shows at the Copa where he’d speed up so as not to miss the three A.M. showing of John Wayne in Red River or Stagecoach. In fact, I’ll swear: As much as Dean loved the ladies, when the fun was done, he preferred being left alone to watch his Westerns or read his comic books. Women always seemed to need the kind of attention he wasn’t much interested in giving.
But God, did they pay attention to him. And I have to admit: When I was an impressionable young man, one of the first things that fascinated me about Dean was the way he smelled.
The postwar years were a great era for men’s colognes, especially after Leo Durocher, the tough-guy manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers (who would become a pal of ours) let it slip that he liked to slap on something nice-smelling after he showered and shaved, and he didn’t care who knew it. Dean’s cologne was the provocatively named Woodhue (say it out loud and it sounds like the kind of question Dean might ask a beautiful young woman—or that beautiful young women would ask him), by Fabergé. The minute I first sniffed it, I associated it with the almost incredible voodoo my partner exerted on the opposite sex. I wanted some of that, too!
I began paying close attention to Dean’s postshower ritual: He would take his bottle of Woodhue, pour some into one cupped palm, then put the bottle down and slap his palms together. Then he’d rub the cologne all over his body—as far as I could see, anyway. At this point he was always in the bathroom, the door just slightly ajar to let out the steam. After a couple of minutes, he’d emerge in his robe, smiling with complete satisfaction: He looked, felt, and smelled great!
I’ll never forget what happened one day in Detroit.
We had done six shows at the Fox Theater, were dog-tired, and were back in our suite at the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Dean was lying on his bed, reading a comic and drinking a beer, and I was ready to take a nice, long shower. I sauntered into the elegant bathroom, turned the radio on, and stepped into the shower, ready to spend twenty minutes just letting the warm water hit my body. The music was nice, we had done six terrific shows, and I felt swell.
When I stepped out of the shower, I yelled out to Dean: “Hey, Paul— can I use some of your Woodhue?”