Читать книгу How to Talk Dirty and influence people - Lenny Bruce - Страница 8

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The first place I went to when I got out of the Navy was back to the farm. I was anxious to show the Denglers my uniform and battle ribbons. And I wanted to see the Soapers down the road and the Ettletons across the way.

I got off the bus, and there were Mr. and Mrs. Dengler in the front yard, crating tomatoes. I ran over and threw my arms around Mrs. Dengler. She said “Hello” to me as if she had seen me only an hour before and I had just finished cleaning the stables.

I had written to them many times from overseas and had never received any reply, so I assumed they had sold the farm. I hadn’t expected to see them now; I merely wished to find out where they moved. I couldn’t believe they just wouldn’t answer, because I’d thought our relationship had been so close.

“Didn’t you get my letters?” I asked.

“Yes, thank you. We’ve been so busy we haven’t even had time to do any canning.”

I had expected ... I don’t know what the hell I had expected. Maybe some crying, or a big surprise cake; but instead Mr. Dengler simply climbed into the truck and his wife joined him.

“You put on some weight,” she said. “Are you going to be around? Probably see you later.”

And they drove off, leaving me staring at their dust.

Would I be around? I wept out of embarrassment. I felt like a clown in my uniform. The next train didn’t go back to New York until 11 p.m.

I walked the six miles back to the station and just sat around, sort of half-hoping that Mrs. Dengler would come looking for me. She knew there were only three farmhouses in the area and only one train back to the city. She would go to each farm and inquire if I was there. Then she would rush off to the station and say, “Boy, you fell for the oldest trick in the world. You were really feeling sorry for yourself, weren’t you? We were going to let you stay here another two hours just to tease you. I made a big surprise party cake for you, and all your friends can’t wait to see you and hear all about how it was over there.”

But no one came to the station.

I bumped into one kid I had known slightly, and he asked me if I was looking for a job. They wanted some beanpickers at the Ettletons’.

I knew then that this was all it had ever been: a job. Tom Wolfe was right when he said you can’t go home again, but it’s especially true when it was never your home to begin with. Still, you don’t completely dissolve the fantasy ...

Any minute that big black LaSalle would pull up, and my benefactress would make me secure with a sweater and a blow job, and the chauffeur would shake my hand and say, “Good show, son! It’s grand to have the master home!” Then we would drive off to the little theater off Times Square, where Madame Chiang Kai-Shek would confide to me in the lobby that the Generalissimo hadn’t taken off his stinking boy-scout uniform in 25 years; Franklin Delano Roosevelt would be standing up, pushing his wheel chair, screaming, “See the boardwalk in Atlantic City!”; my mother and father would be there—together—because they were never really divorced ... they would kiss each other and say, “It’s all over, Lenny, it was just a joke.” Now everyone is seated, the lights come down, the conductor strikes up the last 32 bars of Pins and Needles, the curtains open, and there is Mema, reading a cereal box that explains what the big red-rubber bulb is for and telling the whole world: “It’s Nobody’s Business But Lenny’s.”

My mother had involved herself with a girl named Mary. In business, that is ... my mother did not profess Will Rogers’ paraphrased philosophy: “I never met a dyke I didn’t like.”

They taught ballroom dancing. My mother’s name is Sally, so they combined names and came up with “The Marsalle School of Dance.”

The school—a loft over Tony Canzoneri’s liquor store—consisted of an office and a big room where their pupils (pensioners and other lonesome men that belonged to The Great Army of the Unlaid, but who were fortunate enough to be reaping the benefits of Mutual of Omaha) waited to learn the tango and the peabody.

The sad thing was that the women these men got to dance with were Mary and my mother.

There were lots of rooms over the dancing school that were condemned. The whole building, in fact, was condemned, except for the lower loft. I loved to hang out in my own special “condemned room.” I would indulge myself in bizarre melodramatic fantasies, the spell usually being broken by my mother’s request to empty the garbage.

If it was Monday I would take the garbage with me to the VA building, because to empty the garbage downstairs you had to separate the cans from the papers. The landlord insisted that you put the cans in one container and the papers in another. He was a real twisted nut in regard to his refuse-filing system.

“Miss Clark, check in the files of May 18, 1950, and bring me the eggshells and the coffee grounds and one orange peel ...”

My reason for going to the Veteran’s Administration (where I would just dump all the garbage, unsegregated, into a big wire basket) was the 52-20 Club. The Government gave all ex-GIs $20 a week for a year or until they could find a job. The accepted smart-thing-to-do was to find an employer who didn’t report your wages or take out withholding tax, and then you could grab the $20 plus your salary.

I would fill out a report form, swearing that I had tried to find work that week. Which was true. I had asked my mother and Mema and two guys that sat next to me in a movie if they knew of any jobs.

When I finished filling out the weekly report, I noticed ink all over my fingers from one of those scratchy post-office pens. The man who invented them is the same guy who invented the wax napkins they give you with hot dogs. It doesn’t wipe the mustard off; it rubs it in—like flavored Man-Tan.

I used a piece of newspaper to wipe the excess ink off my fingers. It contained a glowing account of Father Divine and all the money he was making. I stared at his picture and the amount. Then I went back to my “condemned room,” carrying the work light from the dancing school. There was no electricity above the school floor; you just plugged in downstairs and carried up the extension.

I had my Fred Astaire fantasy, dancing up the steps with the light in my hand.

One day, while my mother was going through her “stuff”—four or five earrings that didn’t match; six pairs of platform shoes in simulated lizard that she never wore; numerous bras with broken straps that she intended to mend some day; and, always, five or six crumpled-up Kleenex with traces of lipstick—she told me that she had decided to study eccentric dancing.

It was called “Legomania” or “Rubber Legs.”

There was a fellow by the name of Joe Clooney who rented the studio to limber up early in the morning, for which he gave my mother a couple of dollars. After a while, he started trading her Legomania lessons for limbering-up space.

Within six months, Joe and my mother were doing an act together.

They started out by working hospitals and benefits, and then progressed to Saturday-night joints in Brooklyn; on Bergen Street, Ocean Parkway, or Coney Island. A short time later, Joe left the act and my mother was doing a single. The shows consisted of a comedian-master of ceremonies, a girl singer, a ballroom team, and my mother.

On one particular night, at the Victory Club on Ocean Parkway, the master of ceremonies didn’t show up. He had trouble with his car ... they found half-a-pound of pot in the trunk.

The owner asked my mother to m.c. She was petrified. She had never spoken a single line on the stage before. Moreover, audiences were not used to seeing a woman m.c. I had seen the master of ceremonies lots of times, so I asked my mother if I could do it—what was so hard about, “Say, how ’bout a nice hand for the so-and-sos, folks?”

What with a quick meeting with the boss, and the law of supply and demand, I was given my entree into show-business.

It was about 15 minutes before showtime. I went into the men’s room to comb my hair. I pushed my pompadour as high as I could get it, and I put a little burnt match on the mustache that I was sporting at the time. I was really dap, with my sharp brown-suede shoes from A.S. Beck and a one-button-roll suit from Buddy Lee’s. It was bar-mizvah blue. I had a Billy Eckstine collar, a black knit tie, and a five-point handkerchief, hand-rolled, made in the Philippines, with the sticker still on it.

Should I wear my discharge button? No, I’ll make it on talent alone.

Then I suddenly realized—I don’t have any make-up! My first show and no make-up. The men’s-room attendant (sign, my salary is your tips, thank you) had a can of white after-shave talc. I put that on, and in the rush I dropped it and spilled it all over my brown-suede shoes. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried getting white talcum off brown-suede shoes, but it’s worse than trying to use leaves in the woods.

The men’s-room attendant started getting nervous and staring at me. I laughed it off and exited with my now brown-and-white-suede shoes.

The bandleader who was going to introduce me was doing a warm-up and getting laughs. Loud laughs. He was using his clarinet in a manner that was beyond mere phallic symbolism; he was swinging it between his legs and singing “He’s My Queer Racketeer ...”

The cashier asked, “You nervous—want a brandy before you go on?”

“No, thanks. I don’t know what the hell everybody is worrying about. I’ve m.c.’d a million shows.”

The ballroom team gave me their cues for applause. “Now, when I drop the one knee, she comes up ...”

Suddenly my feet began to get cold, and I was in the men’s room, throwing up. I was scared to death, and the attendant was flipping. It was five minutes before showtime, all the waiters had been alerted, and a few of the “regular” customers had developed anticipatory neurosis.

My mother looked at me from the opposite side of the room and pantomimed: “Your shoes are dirty!”

I again retreated to the men’s room, but the attendant blocked my entrance this time, and I threw up on a customer who was exiting.

I heard the strains of “Hi, Neighbor”—one of the standard night-club music intros—and I fled to the wings. My mother took one look at my powdered face and took me by the hand. I bolted away from her and into the ladies’ room for one last purge.

I felt a wave of self-pity and identified with Aruzza, Manolete, Belmonte, and every other bullfighter—scared not of the bull but of the crowd. A crowd that waits: to be entertained, to view, to judge.

I heard the bandleader:

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As you may know, our regular master of ceremonies, Tutti Morgan, is ill, due to a service-connected injury. Luckily, folks, show-business has a big heart. A friend of his, Lenny Marsalle, a famous comic in his own right, who was in Guadalcanal with Tutti Morgan, is here in town to do the Ed Sullivan show, and when he heard that Tutti was sick he came right over to fill in—so how about it, folks, let’s hear it for a great comedian and a great guy—Lenny Marsalle!”

I wiped my mouth with the square sheet of toilet paper that came in the container marked Onliwon, and made my grand entrance onto the stage direct from the ladies’ room.

Actually, my function was quite simple. I was going out there and I was merely to say “Good evening,” do a few straight lines and introduce the girl singer. But why did that bandleader have to say I was a “great comedian” and all that dishonest stuff about the Ed Sullivan show? Now they were all waiting for a great comedian.

But he also said I was a “great guy.” Maybe, I hoped, that was more important to the audience, my being a “great guy” stuff. Maybe I could have my mother go out and say, “He’s really a ‘great guy’ ” and everybody would believe her because a mother knows her son better than anyone.

I saw a strange, silver, rather grotesque looking ball in front of my nose. It was a microphone. I was onstage.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen——”

“Bring on the broads!” cut me short. Oh, my God, a heckler! The angry request came from one of two guys standing near the bar; with them were two Lerner-clad ladies with the let-out hems, brown-and-white spectator pumps and whoopee socks, cloth coats with silver-fox collars that were a little too tight, and the final unique touch: lipstick on their teeth.

It shocked me into reality.

I looked at my mother and I saw a helpless smile. Her son, her baby that she nursed through chicken pox, working as a maid to sustain the both of us. Her child was in trouble and she couldn’t help him.

Ma, help me; that boy hit me, Ma; gimme a quarter, Ma; I’m in trouble, Ma; I’m alone, help me, Ma ...

“Bring on the broads!”

This time the request was more positive and energetic. The heckler must have sensed a weak, inexperienced prey. The two girls and the man with him bathed in his reflected glory. His friend joined him and they screamed in unison: “Bring on the broads!” Their lady friends shrieked with ecstasy.

“I’d like to, but then you wouldn’t have any company at the bar.”

My first laugh.

It was like the flash that I have heard morphine addicts describe, a warm sensual blanket that comes after a cold, sick rejection.

I was hooked.

My mother looked at me and really schepped nachis (which is the Jewish equivalent of “That’s my boy!”).

I introduced the first act, and an hour later, at the end of the show, when I was bringing my mother back for an encore, I said, “How about that, folks, Sally Marsalle—isn’t she great?”

How about that for silliness? I’m telling a group of strangers: “Isn’t my mother wonderful?” I had a dangerous desire to extend the tribute: “Yes sir, folks, not only can she dance, but she makes great chicken soup, and sweet lima beans, and when I’m sick she rubs my chest with Vicks.”

When the evening was over, to my surprise the owner did not assume the Eduardo Ciannelli posture with the dialog that I had been conditioned to expect in the movie scene where the novice succeeds. Lyle Talbot always nods to Eugene Pallette: “You’ve done it again, Mr. Florenzo, this kid’s sensational! We’d better sign him up before the Tio Bamba gets him.”

I received no such gratification. As a matter of fact, he charged me for a meat-ball sandwich and ginger ale.

And when I stood on the subway platform and reached into my pocket for a dime, I found that the men’s-room attendant had gotten even. I won’t go into the scatological details; I threw the coat into the trash can.

But I’d had a smell of it and the aroma lingered.

Well, that’s show business.