I was tempted, but I turned it down. My morals said, Don’t fuck someone else’s wife. Don’t get me wrong; I’d already fucked half the secretaries on Court Street, but none of them were married. Many of them were not only sweet, but they were not shy about showing me the ins and outs of pleasing a woman. Ever since Dolores claimed I never made her come, I’d been paying strict attention to what women wanted and needed. In school, I was one of the worst students. In bed, I was one of the best.
• • •
My professional life was going as good as my sex life. Everything and everyone was coming together. My dad was both my manager and booking agent. He was terrific at it. Other comics my age were making $50 a night at little clubs, but Dad had the smarts to go to the discos. Figuring that my Nutty Professor/Grease act was perfect for those huge venues where everyone was dancing their asses off, he booked me into the Electric Circus and the Funhouse.
The Funhouse was really wild. When I turned into the Travolta character, the owner wanted me to share the stage with naked porn stars, including Mark “Ten Inch” Stevens. Naked girls were rubbing their twats all over me. I was digging it, but the distraction made singing difficult.
“Don’t worry about singing,” said the owner. “Do the whole thing in pantomime.”
So for $800 a night, I did my act silently.
There were two discos in Brooklyn—one right on Nostrand and another on Ralph—where I was also making $800 a night. When I turned into Travolta, the girls got so crazy that Dad and Uncle Ernie had to pull them off me. I felt like Elvis.
• • •
Dad didn’t stop at the Brooklyn discos. One time he booked me three weeks in advance into a disco on Staten Island, his old stomping grounds. The club was inside the Lincoln Motel, known to everyone as a mob-run joint. It was a two-night gig at $1,000 a night, unbelievable money for an unknown like me.
“One thing to keep in mind,” said Dad. “If the guys decide not to pay you at the end of the night, don’t argue.”
“What do you mean don’t argue?” I asked. “The whole point is to get paid.”
“The whole point is to build your reputation. These are guys you do not want to antagonize.”
Fine. I listened to Dad.
Before the gig came up, I was also trying to listen to Mom. It was a Sunday, and she and I were at the pool at the Golden Gate Motor Inn on Shore Parkway. The Golden Gate had been a big part of the Silverstein family for years. It was not exactly the French Riviera, but for Brooklyn, it was nice. There was a restaurant too where we had a thousand family meals. For a brief time when my parents broke up—I never knew why, I never asked why, I never wanted to know why—my dad went to live at the Golden Gate. That happened when I was back in high school. After I got my act together at Pips, the Golden Gate became a regular summer hangout.
“A woman over there is staring at you,” Mom said as I got out of the pool. “An older woman. She’s been looking at you like you’re a piece of meat.”
Naturally I glanced over and saw a lady in her forties. She was wearing a one-piece black bathing suit. Long dirty-blond hair. Good complexion. A pretty, I’m-available smile that reminded me of Dyan Cannon. Strong, long legs. Perky tits. Great ass.
“Don’t look so long, Andrew,” my mother warned me. “She goes with tough guys.”
I stopped looking but kept taking peeks ’cause I felt Dyan peeking at me.
“You’re staring,” said Ma.
“No, I’m not.”
“Ignore her. She’s poison.”
“How do you know that?”
“She’s too old. She’s on the hunt for someone young. Leave her alone, Andrew. Stick with your own age. You wouldn’t know what to do with the aggravation.”
Maybe, I thought to myself, but I sure as hell would know what to do with the pussy.
More than once, Dyan strolled back and forth in front of me and Mom so I could see what I was missing.
“Disgusting,” Mom said under her breath.
I didn’t say nothing. I was just wishing Mom wasn’t there. But I wasn’t gonna disrespect my mother. I left Dyan alone. Didn’t say a word.
Next week I was back at work at Royal Process. It was ten A.M., Thursday morning. I had my head on the desk and I was fast asleep when Dad walked in.
“Hard at work, big shot?” he asked, waking me up. He wasn’t angry, ’cause he knew as soon as he arrived I’d run out and serve whatever subpoenas he needed. But it was a slow morning without much to do. We started talking about my upcoming gig.
“This Lincoln Motel gig is going to be good,” he promised. “These guys know how to promote. You’ll do big business out there, and it’ll help get your asking price even higher.”
I was glad to hear all this, but still didn’t like the prospect of not getting paid. On the other hand, it was my father, not me, who knew how to move into this territory.
While we were talking, the radio was on. In between songs I heard a commercial about “the glamorous Lincoln Motel on Staten Island.”
Dad and I stopped talking and listened.
“This weekend only,” said the announcer, “for one night only—John Travolta, live and in person!”
I was shocked. Dad wasn’t.
“Dad,” I said. “They can’t do that. They can’t say Travolta’s gonna be there.”
“They can say whatever they wanna say.”
“But it ain’t true.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But what’s the audience gonna do when they figure out Travolta ain’t there?”
“You gotta make them believe Travolta is there.”
“It’s an impression—that’s all it is,” I said. “They’re gonna sue. They’re gonna riot when they see they’ve been duped. You gotta call the guys who run the room and tell ’em to stop the commercial.”
“Not a good idea, Andrew. Not good for you, and not good for me.”
With that, Dad walked away.
I worried like hell. What had my father gotten me into?
I talked to Mom, who wasn’t worried at all. “They’re just promoting you, that’s all,” she said.
“They’re not promoting me, they’re promoting Travolta.”
“Same thing.”
Worrying didn’t do me any good, so I stopped. I got myself geared up to go to the gig. I rode over to Staten Island with my father. There was a line outside the door going around the corner. People were clamoring to get in. I was nervous. I’d never been pelted with rotten tomatoes. But I had no choice but to go on.
I came out as the nutty professor. As usual, I got some boos.
“Hey,” screamed one guy, “where’s fuckin’ Travolta?”
I hurried through the Jerry Lewis bit, drank the formula, went to black, and emerged as Travolta. As soon as I started speaking as Travolta, I could see that half the people in there actually believed I was him. The other half didn’t care. I didn’t get one complaint. Dad was right. They loved me.
Afterward, Dad said, “Let’s go to Junior’s to celebrate.”
Junior’s is a big diner in downtown Brooklyn.
“Actually, Dad, some friends of mine came to the show, and I’m gonna hang out with them.”
“Do that, sonny boy. You deserve to have a little fun. You were great tonight. And we even got paid.”
I told Dad good-bye and headed to the bar. During the show I’d seen her sitting there alone. It was the Dyan Cannon lookalike. She’d been crossing and recrossing those long legs of hers all night.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi. You wanna get out of here?”
I loved how she was so direct.
I said, “The only problem is that I don’t have a car.”
She said, “I do.”
We drove to her place in Bay Ridge, where Dyan and I went at it like a couple of porn stars. I never saw her again, but, man, we had ourselves a fuck fest.
You gotta understand: I’m a sex enthusiast. That was my turn-
on, how I got high. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I’d take an occasional hit off a joint because I found out that pot’s a great aphrodisiac. If I was with a girl and she lit up a joint? Beautiful. Because twenty minutes later, she’d be sucking on my joint.
SYLVIA
SYLVIA WAS A blond, blue-eyed Jewish girl with a great body. My pal Neil and I had been watching her wiggle that sweet ass of hers for years all around Brooklyn. One night she was at Pips, calling me over to join her for a drink.
“Why don’t you come over to our apartment and say hello to my mom and dad?” she said. “I’ve been telling them all about you. Everyone in the neighborhood has been talking about you.”
The Cohens reminded me of the Silversteins. They loved show business. They liked to stay up late and watch TV. Her mother was in the kitchen smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Her dad watched Johnny Carson. Her brother did exercises on the floor. I was comfortable with them, and they were comfortable with me. We spent a nice evening together. I kissed Sylvia good-bye and we agreed to get together again real soon.
Next day I called Neil, who was living alone in an apartment on Ocean Parkway. He was still hiding behind his long hippie hair.
“Guess who invited me home to meet her parents?” I asked Neil.
“Who?”
“Sylvia Cohen.”
“Wow. You gonna start dating her?”
“Maybe. She acts like she really likes me.”
She did really like me. She invited me back to have dinner with her family, and I asked her out to have dinner with mine. Unlike Dolores, she was not a princess. She had a good job working behind the pharmacy counter at a drugstore on Nostrand Avenue.
On our third or fourth date Neil asked us over to his place. He had gotten some strong weed and urged us to get stoned. I turned down the joint, but Neil and Sylvia smoked and Neil passed out in his bed. The pot went straight to Sylvia’s pussy. She was so hot she let me bang her on the floor in Neil’s tile bathroom. It was a beautiful fuck that climaxed with my pulling out and spilling my sack syrup all over her thighs.
“You know, Andrew,” she said “you’re the first guy who ever pulled out.”
I thought to myself, That’s an impressive statement; this is an honest broad. And so fucking romantic. Plus the pussy is fantastic.
• • •
Mom was a little less impressed with Sylvia than I was—but then again, when it came to women, Mom was always protective of me. Mom, Dad, Sylvia, and I were at the Golden Gate Motor Inn, watching a great musical duo, Sticks and Fingers, playing in the lounge. They were friends of mine, black guys I knew from my suit-selling job on Church Avenue. When they asked me to sit in on drums, I jumped up there. While I was playing, I saw Sylvia get up from my parents’ table and go to the bar, where she sat and ordered a drink.
After I played a couple of songs with Sticks and Fingers, I came back to the table. Sylvia arrived a minute or two after me. That’s when Mom let her have it.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Mom told Sylvia.
“Don’t do what, Mrs. Silverstein?” asked Sylvia.
“Don’t ever get up when my son is performing. It bothers him. It distracts him. Besides, this place is filled with men looking to pick up women. If you’re sitting at the bar, you’re saying that you wanna be picked up. You either came here to be with Andrew or you came here to get picked up. You can’t have it both ways.”
Sylvia knew better than to argue, so she kept quiet.
Next day when Mom and I were alone, Mom had more to say.
“She’s not a nice girl, Andrew. Be careful of this one.”
I couldn’t say what was on my mind—But, Mom, the pussy is too sweet to pass up—so I also kept quiet.
When we went to comedy clubs Sylvia downed Jack Daniel’s like it was water. She could drink any six men under the table. I didn’t mind, because the more she drank, the more she wanted to ball.
I thought about Mom’s warning when I learned that Sylvia was doing more than working the cash register at the pharmacy. She was stealing and selling prescription drugs behind the pharmacist’s back, making an extra four or five thou a week.
But the sex was so sensational I wasn’t thinking straight. How could I think straight when one time at her apartment—with her parents and brother in the living room—she took me in the bedroom that she shared with her brother and said, “Stand on the bed. I’m gonna suck your dick until your knees buckle.”
“There’s no lock on the door, Sylvia,” I said. “Anyone can walk in.”
“Don’t worry about it. It won’t take long.”
It didn’t. With my pants around my ankles, with my cock in her mouth and her big beautiful blue eyes looking up at me, telling me how sweet I tasted, I blew a load that actually made my knees buckle.
The more I went with Sylvia, the more I got the idea that fucking one guy wasn’t enough for her. I couldn’t prove it, but I felt it.
One winter night, for instance, I asked her and Neil to go with me to Dangerfield’s comedy club in the city. They both declined. This was unusual. But what the hell—I would just go alone. I was about to leave when I saw that it was starting to snow. Besides, I had this gut feeling that told me I should take a walk in the neighborhood. Following the feeling, I put on my parka and started walking over to Sylvia’s building. I was hoping I was wrong, but something told me I wasn’t. I’d been waiting in the stairwell by her lobby for an hour or so when I saw them walking through the front door. I waited till they got close before stepping out of the shadows and saying, “So this is how it is.”
Neil started defending himself. “Nothing happened. We just smoked a little dope and talked. That’s all. I swear.”
“Just go home, Neil,” I said. “Just get outta here.”
I was about to lay into Sylvia when she said, “I gotta go upstairs. Wait here. I’ll be back in a second.”
She came back holding a big container of chocolate Whoppers. Still stoned, she started popping them in her mouth, one after another. She had a bad case of the munchies. As far as my catching her with Neil, she couldn’t have cared less.
“Have a Whopper,” is all she said.
“Fuck you,” is what I said. “I’m building a career, and you got no part of it. You and me, we’re through.”
I walked home in the snow.
In the following weeks a big freeze set in between me and Neil. That hurt me. I’d gone out with Sylvia for months, but I’d been friends with Neil for years. Because he was shy with women, I was the one who set him up with most of his dates. Then this happened.
A month after I caught him with Sylvia, he drove by 3202 Nostrand one evening when I was leaving for Pips. Neil knew my schedule, so it was no accident he was driving by. He asked me if I wanted a lift.
“Sure,” I said. It was hard to stay mad at Neil.
In the car he started asking about Sylvia.
“Andrew,” he said, “did you ever have sex with her?”
I wanted to say, Are you fuckin’ kidding? All we did was have sex. Sylvia uses sex to weave a web like a fuckin’ black widow. She’s poison.
But Neil was so nerdy and innocent I didn’t have the heart to bust his chops. So all I said was, “I never kiss and tell.”
He dropped me off at the club, and that was it. Except it wasn’t. Not many nights later Sylvia showed up at Pips looking for me. Soon we were back to making out and fucking in all the hidden corners of Brooklyn. If she wanted to give up the pussy, I was not turning it down.
This went on until one night when I was up in my bedroom in apartment 4A, alone and fast asleep. I got awoken by screams from the street. I looked out and saw Neil and Sylvia standing toe-to-toe.
“If you want him,” Neil was yelling, “go up there and ring his bell. Go up there and get him.”
I couldn’t help but enjoy the moment. Sylvia didn’t come up, but she did call me a few days later, wanting to get together.
“If you ever call me again
,” I said, “I’ll tell Neil exactly who you are.”
“And who is that?”
“A scumbag,” I said, and hung up.
That was finally the end of me and Sylvia, but not the end of Sylvia and Neil. He started dating her again. This time they got even more serious. Eventually they got married.
The whole thing was devastating and, for the first time, made me wanna get out of Brooklyn.
SONNY BOY IS READY
BEYOND THE MESS with Sylvia and Neil, I had other reasons to get out of Brooklyn. Career-wise, I wanted more than Brooklyn had to offer. I wanted to be written about and featured. I wanted Johnny Carson calling me up. For all Dad’s expertise, he didn’t have great hooks into publicity. No one I knew did. I realized I’d have to make my own contacts.
But how?
One night I was watching this talk show hosted by Joe Franklin, New York’s local answer to Johnny Carson, and it came to me in a flash: I gotta get on there with Joe. It turned out that Joe had begun this whole TV talk show thing back in the early fifties—before Steve Allen or Jack Paar or any of ’em—but had never gone national.
Joe was only five foot three but a giant in New York show business. He always had big stars on his show. Everyone knew Joe Franklin. And soon Joe would know me. If I could get on his show, maybe someone like Stallone would be watching and put me in one of his movies.
I got the address of Franklin’s office on Forty-Second Street, not far from the sleazy whorehouse that had turned me off a few years before. I was surprised that Joe wasn’t located somewhere snazzier, like Park Avenue. I guess he just wanted to be close to the theater district. My idea was to go in there dressed in my nutty prof costume and introduce myself in my Jerry Lewis voice before turning into Travolta and blowing his mind.
The office wasn’t anything like I’d expected. It was in a dilapidated old building. There wasn’t even a receptionist. You just opened the door that said JOE FRANKLIN ENTERPRISES and walked into this room filled with metal file cabinets. It was a mess. Half the drawers were open. Papers and pictures were spilling out and piled up everywhere. The walls were covered with eight-by-ten glossies of every star you can imagine, from old-timers like Martha Raye, Sophie Tucker, and Phil Silvers to current stars like Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, and Christopher Reeve. This was exciting stuff.
Filthy Truth (9781476734750) Page 7
