Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [63]
But I was the one who couldn’t stop laughing. Dean explained to me, in between my giggles, that a new pot smoker is very vulnerable and can stay high for days. I remember now that he had a worried look as he said it—he was thinking about our show—but at the time, I couldn’t have cared less about any of it. As Dean and the security guys helped me up to our suite, I was singing my head off through the halls of the sleeping hotel. The guys tried desperately to quiet me, but to no avail. I was still singing as they bundled me into bed.
Finally, the house detective came up to ask what was going on. I jumped out of bed and proceeded to tell him all about smoking pot, informing him that I would be all better in a couple of days. Eventually, Dean got me settled again.
The next morning, he came into my room to see if I was all right. Oddly enough, I felt perfectly fine, but I still had the sillies—I couldn’t stop laughing.
Dick walked in. “For God’s sake,” Dean said. “Is there anything we can give him to settle him down?”
“Hair of the dog,” Dick said.
“What?” Dean said.
Dick assured him that he had done it before—that it balanced the high. He took a joint out of his pocket, lit it, and handed it to me. “Okay, Jer,” he said. “Nice and easy. Just one or two small puffs, and you’ll feel like a new man.”
Well, I took the puffs, and I was anything but a new man. In fact, I was right back to being Errol Flynn. I couldn’t wait (I told Dean and Dick) to get to the rehearsal and let the band know I had tried pot!
Dean looked aghast. “You can’t say that to anyone,” he told me. “It’s against the law.” His expression turned to concern. “Jer, are you going to be all right? I don’t want to let you go on stage and humiliate yourself.”
I bit my lip. “I’ll be okay,” I assured him.
He watched me like a hawk during the rehearsal. Now I had totally lost my bubble—I was dopey and tired, not even sure I could do the show. And we were five hours from curtain.
“Take a walk with me, Jer,” Dean said.
Dean never walked if he could help it (before golf carts, he played gin), so I knew this was serious. We headed out across the campus. The bright sun reflecting off the snow was killing my bloodshot eyes, but the fresh, cold air began to revive me a little. As we walked, Dean explained what pot does to the body, and some of the differences between reefer and alcohol. Even high, I couldn’t help but marvel at his big-brotherly wisdom, and at my good luck in being the recipient of it.
Then he looked me right in the eye. “Look, Jer,” he said. “If you don’t feel like you can make it tonight, I’ll cancel the whole gig.”
“Not on your life!” I said. The auditorium’s 3,000 seats had sold out, and now that we were just across from the theater, I could see hundreds of people waiting for standing-room tickets. “I’ll be fine, Paul,” I told him.
Dean walked me around for quite a while, through the local park and then finally backstage to our dressing rooms. The orchestra played “Blue Nocturne,” then Dick introduced me. As I came out, the crew, the staff, the electricians, the soundmen, prop men, curtain pullers, dressers, and makeup people watched anxiously. They all knew about my pot party of the evening before.
I did the normal welcoming remarks, then went into a pretty funny gag about Dean and me being in college again. . . . Again? Not hardly! I segued into a bit about “I will never go into politics because I do comedy already!” The audience laughed long and hard, while I went on to blast the U.S. government for taxing us so heavily, saying that if they weren’t careful, everybody would wind up on food stamps and they’d wind up having to support us anyway.
This somehow transitioned into a rant about sex and youth versus sex and the elderly. I was aware the audience had quieted down, aside from some nervous coughing. I felt a little like I was working to an audience of Arabs and