Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [43]
I took the bottle, unscrewed the top, and, just for a moment, admired my twenty-three-year-old body in the full-length mirror. Then I started to splash the cologne on—under my arms, on my chest, on my legs, even down my back....
Then I poured some of the liquid into my hand, put the bottle on the sink, and proceeded to anoint Little Jerry and the entire surrounding region.
It might have been about fifteen seconds before the burning sensation began—and did it ever. I bounced out of the bathroom Indian-style, whooping and dancing in pain. I went through both bedrooms into the kitchenette, then the sitting area, until finally, deciding I needed air, I flung open the door of the suite and dashed down the long hall, hoping I could create a little wind on my crotch.
I passed the elevators—naturally, they opened with women in them, who screamed louder than I did. Down the hallway, doors began to open as people emerged to investigate the noise . . . men laughing . . . women aghast . . . and at our door, there was Dean, leaning against the jamb, laughing hysterically.
I finally ran into a room-service waiter and his cart—rolls, knives, forks, and steaks flew from one wall to the other—and picked up two silver plate covers, using them like Gypsy Rose Lee used her boas. I limped back to the suite, where Dean was still laughing. I crawled off to my bed and lay down with a pillow between my legs, waiting for the pain to quit, and swearing to myself I would never use the smelly stuff again.
I just couldn’t seem to keep away from Dean’s Woodhue, though.
Practical jokes were an important part of our life on the road, and I worked overtime to tease my hero, my big brother: When the devil got into me, I would stop at nothing. Once, back in Atlantic City, I found a duplicate of his pin-striped performing suit (these were the pretux days) in a pawnshop, and made razor cuts along the stripes. The incisions were impossible to see until Dean put the suit on—at which point it fell apart. Another time I took his prized bottle of Woodhue, dumped it out, and put in Coca-Cola that I mixed with water to achieve an identical light-brown shade.
It was a perfect match. I put the bottle back in place, cleaned up my tracks, and couldn’t wait until he got home from golf, showered, and went for his “Woodhue.”
Some hours passed, and I took a nap. When I awoke, I heard Dean in his bathroom, taking a shower. Yeah, I said to myself. The beaver’s in the hopper.
I waited... and waited. Finally, I decided it was time to shower and get ready for our shows. When I was done, we met for a drink in the living room of our suite, and Dean said nothing to me. I didn’t understand. I walked by him. . . . His Woodhue aroma was in place—he smelled like always, and I didn’t get it. I said nothing, we just made some idle chatter, and off to work we went.
We did our two shows, had a ball, and headed back to the suite. But I didn’t have great success with sleeping that night, because when you do a practical joke, it isn’t sweet until you got the mark and it’s done. Well, this one wasn’t done, and I had no mark!
This went on for another two or three nights. Dean would shower, shave, use his “Woodhue.” (I tried sneaking into the bathroom to reexamine the bottle, but Dean was always around, for some reason!)
Soon I was starting to feel an itching in my scalp... and the jumpies. If anyone spoke a little louder than usual, I’d jump. All symptoms of an unfulfilled gag.
After a while, the symptoms wore off and I started to forget the whole thing.
We were doing the second show on our next-to-closing-night performance, and as I began to leave the stage (a planned point in the act when I walked off so Dean could do a song), he stopped me, turned to the audience, and said, “If you’ll excuse me for just a second, I need to confer with my partner about something.”
A little ripple of laughter started up in the audience—I’m sure they thought we were setting them up. And Dean turned to me and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t want you to suffer any longer,