Rubber Balls and Liquor (2 page)

 

1

Story of My Life

I've done some research. I'm no slouch. Okay, strike that. Maybe I am a slouch. Certainly, my posture could be a bit better. But before I started writing I did go to the library and ask around. Here's what I found out: the best books of all time usually start with a classic opening scene. Also, the classic opening scene is supposed to give readers the full flavor of the book, and to introduce the main character in an exciting, compelling, memorable way.

So that's what I'm going for here.

First, an observation: people seem to assume that comics get a lot of pussy. This may, in fact, be true. Specifically, people assume that comics get a lot of stripper pussy. This, too, might very well be the case—but what the hell do I know?

Now, I suppose the reason for this type of thinking is that comics and strippers tend to work the same types of fleabag clubs, at all hours of the night, and that we keep seeing each other backstage, where the strippers are probably walking around on their knees, giving blow jobs, while us comics regale them with jokes and impressions and honey-scented semen.

Unfortunately, this has not been my experience, although I once managed to get a stripper's phone number. At the time, I counted this as a career highlight, and it's still up there on my list of all-time accomplishments. I wish I could remember what I said to this woman, what line I used, but the entire transaction has been blocked from my memory. It was always such a torturous thing for me, talking to women, trying to get into their pants.

If there is a hell, and if that's where I'm going, there'll probably be an endless gag reel being played on some big-screen television of me trying to talk to women. It would play all the time. It would start out funny, and then it would quickly become frightening—because, really, it was a whole new trauma, each time out. For all my charm and girth and apparent good looks, I was a disaster at this sort of thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'd get shot down. Once in a while, the woman would look back at me through a fog of smoke and alcohol and say something encouraging like, “Wait, I'm sorry, were you talking to
me
?”

And yet on this one occasion, with this one stripper, the stars aligned and the gods smiled and everything seemed to work as well as it could have worked. Better, even. It's possible the stripper gave me her number by mistake, but I didn't care. All I cared about was that she answered the phone when I called the next day like she was happy to hear from me, which I took as a good sign.

I said, “It's me, Gilbert?”

She said, “Do I know you?”

I said, “Yes, we met last night at the club. You gave me your number. You told me to call.”

She said, “And?”

I said, “And this is me, calling.”

You'd think I would have prepared something to say, a piece of witty banter to reinforce the fact that I was a brilliant young comedian, fluent in the art of effortless conversation, but I wasn't smart enough to think things through in just this way.

Somehow, she agreed to meet with me. We arranged the time and place. I was terrifically excited, because I'd already seen this woman naked, which was like half the battle. In my head it meant that our getting together and having sex was basically a sure thing, and even if it didn't work out I could go home afterward and jerk off to what I remembered of her tight stripper body.

All was right in my little corner of the world.

Now, all these years later, I wish I could remember the stripper's name. Candy, I think. Or maybe it was Gum.

Somehow, I ended up taking her back to my apartment. I thought,
This is going well
. We started making out, and the whole time all I could think was,
Oh my God! I'm making out with a stripper!

Over on her side of the couch, all she could think was,
Oh my God! I'm making out with a Jew! I'm so excited! This man killed my Lord!

Somehow, her clothes started coming off. She was wearing this very sexy stripper-type underwear. I was half-expecting a pair of day-of-the-week granny panties, reminding us that it was Tuesday, but there I was in the middle of a Victoria's Secret catalogue.

Somehow, my clothes started coming off and the stripper didn't run from the apartment in horror. This, too, I took as a good sign. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that the stripper was impressed with my physical gifts, but at least she wasn't put off. This was certainly something. Not much, but something. By this point, the young lady was committed, I guess you could say. Or, quite possibly, nearsighted.

Next thing I knew, we were in my bedroom, about to do it doggy-style. These days, when I do it doggy-style with my wife, it's a little different. She plays dead and I beg. But back then, in the full flower and vigor of my youth, this hot, agreeable stripper was on all fours, and it was possible to stand back from the scene and squint and convince myself that she was the one doing the begging. I couldn't believe my luck. My head was ready to explode. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. It was, without question, the single most thrilling moment of my life. It's a wonder I didn't start barking.

And then it was over. Just like that. My stripper friend lifted her butt toward me in a final enticing display, and I congratulated myself yet again for my great good fortune. Then I made my final approach and if I confess here that I managed to hold off for a full second before ejaculating I'd be exaggerating. If you must know, I don't think I made it in past the tip, just an inch or so—which was a shame, really, because I had a whole other inch or so to go in the physical gifts department. I just slipped my cock into her tight little stripper pussy and shot my wad in no time at all. Maybe I managed a meager half-thrust. I was in such a state of bliss and ecstasy I couldn't control myself.

As soon as I came, my stripper friend looked back at me over her naked shoulder with an expression that seemed to be equal parts disgust, disappointment and disregard. Her face was just one big
dis
after another. She said, “You've got to be kidding me, Gilbert. Did you just come?”

(Careful readers will note here that I've chosen the more socially acceptable spelling of the word
come
, as opposed to the more vulgar, more hardcore
cum
. If the subject
cums
up later on in these pages I'll probably do the same, but I can't make any promises. After all, I want this book to be accessible to the widest possible audience. With any luck, it'll be something parents can read to their children, for generations.)

I couldn't think how to answer. I was a little too out of breath and a little too deep into the throes of my short-lived ecstasy to think much of anything, so I just slipped my limp dick from this lovely stripper pussy and slinked off to the bathroom to bask in my own shame. And, to curse myself for not thinking of Ned Beatty in that great ass-raping scene from
Deliverance.
It could have saved me, that scene. If I'd just thought to picture Ned Beatty on all fours in front of me, instead of this hot, young, tight-bodied stripper, I might have lasted a full thrust.

(Or, as an alternative, I could have held on a little bit longer if I was looking at some naked pictures of myself.)

When I returned to the bedroom, I was still walking on air. I approached my new lover, who was still on all fours, only now it was because she was looking for one of her contact lenses. I leaned toward her and whispered hotly into her ear, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

It was at this point she gave me “the look”—the look that said,
Yes, I'm a totally hot piece of stripper ass, for now, but in less than a year they'll find my dead body, which by that point will look like it belongs to an eighty-year-old woman, having died from a drug overdose or from being stabbed in the throat by my biker boyfriend. So, you see, I can easily kill you right now and not give it a thought
.

Well, we've all been on the receiving end of that look … so I backed off and let my lover be. If there's one thing I know about women, it's when to let them be. God knows, I've had an awful lot of practice.

I called the stripper later to see if she'd like to get together again, but there was a silence on the phone that seemed to suggest she was back to giving me that “look.” And so, in a blind panic, I hung up the phone and went about my business.

Okay, so there's my big, sock-o opening. Right out of the gate, you get the full flavor of me and my life so far. It's all right here, in this neat little anecdote. But apparently they want me to write a little bit more, so I'll keep going. Where I'm going, I've got no idea. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along, which people tell me is how most authors go about writing their books, so I'm not too worried. No kidding, they just make this stuff up, or pull it from thin air, or they stick their fingers down their throats and something comes up, and somehow or other everything comes together and starts to look and feel and smell like a book, which is close enough in my book.

(And all this time, I just thought this stuff was written down somewhere.)

Another thing I found out on that ill-advised trip to the library is that a lot of these books start at the beginning. A very good place to start, if you believe Julie Andrews. The writer picks a point in time, and shares a few autobiographical anecdotes, and then things really start moving, so I figure I'll give that a try. (Hey, at this point, I'm up for anything.) I'll reach back a couple generations and start with my grandmother. I called her Bubbie. In Brooklyn, it wasn't the most original name for a grandmother, but in my defense I had no idea that it was Yiddish for grandmother. I just liked the name. I liked my Bubbie, too. She used to visit us every week, and before she came over she always baked some pastries for us. She was well known for her
mandelbrot
, which is like Jewish biscotti. (If you happen to be a ninety-seven-year-old Jew, and someone is reading this book to you at the home, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.)

As soon as I started ripping open all these Jewish delicacies, my Bubbie would go to work on her English. For some reason, she decided that I would be her helper. She was determined to speak perfect English. All week long, she'd collect newspaper articles and remember the one or two words she didn't understand. Or she'd hear something on television that made no sense to her, and make a mental note of it. Then, as I stuffed my face, she would tell me the word she didn't understand and ask me the meaning.

In addition to her pastries, my Bubbie also came prepared with at least one joke she'd heard that week—very often with a word or two missing, because she didn't understand it. The one joke I still remember is the only joke she ever told that was even close to off-color. (Probably that's why I remember it.) The joke turned on the Yiddish expression
tsuris
, which is pronounced
tsoo-ris,
and basically means “troubles” or “difficulties.” The joke went something like this:
An old Jewish man is sitting on a train, shaking his head back and forth and crying. Every once in a while, he puts his face in his hands and says, “Tsuris! Oy, tsuris! Such tsuris!” An Irish man walks by and hears the old man's cries and says, “If you have such a sore ass, why don't you go to a doctor?”

My Bubbie lived to 104, which is probably a little too old to consider a ripe old age, because she had already started to turn. I still say she died young. When I was little, she used to take me by the hand to the neighborhood butcher. She would order brains. This, too, wasn't so original. Lots of Eastern European Jews eat brains, it turns out, but I don't want to scare off my Gentile readers, so let me state for the record that not all Jews eat brains. We do, however, all drink the blood of Christian babies.

Have I mentioned that we were Jewish? Does that come across? A lot of people, they see my act, and the fact that I'm Jewish never enters their minds, which takes me to a true story. On second thought, the story is really more of an aside than a stand-alone anecdote. It's an important distinction, and it's probably in all of our best interests to consider it here, before this book gets away from us. Really, it's more of a space filler than an attempt to advance the story or keep my confused readers turning the pages. As a side note—specifically, as a side note to my aside, which I guess puts us way, way off to the side for the moment—I should mention that most of the stories I plan to share in this book are true, except for the ones that aren't. Even the asides. This one happens to be true. It was 1980. I was a young comic, about to be discovered. I went to a casting call for the new season of
Saturday Night Live.
It was the year the show went from being good and relevant and talked about to when it started to suck. It was also the year that my career went from sucking to being good and relevant, but only for a while. I might write a bit more about
Saturday Night Live
later on, if I need to fill a few pages, but for now I'll tell just enough to set up this story.

(Remember, this is meant to be an aside, and I've read enough book reviews to know that if an aside takes too long to tell it's not really an aside. Then it's more of an
amiddle
, and it gets in the way of the story. That's about the last thing I want to do, get in the way of my story, which is basically how I've tried to live my life as well. I prefer to stay out of the way, off to the side, where I'm less likely to offend.)

Anyway, the show back then was produced by a woman named Jean Doumanian, who happened to be a great friend of Woody Allen. For those of you who aren't familiar with Jean Doumanian's work, she was the type of person who would watch a Marx Brothers movie and say, “Well, Margaret Dumont is good, but why do they need those strange gentlemen running around her?”