CHAPTER 17

Until the Last Dog Dies

(March 26, 2015)

It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning of the downhill slide. Perhaps when Danny was thrown in jail. Perhaps when I saw that press conference back in September. Perhaps when Danny freaked out on me for the first time that night at Prospero’s. I don’t know, I don’t know. It all seems a jumble now. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle I can think straight enough to remember any of it, much less minute details. All I can do is to tell it the way it happened and hope it makes sense.

Clubs began closing late in November. At first this didn’t worry me. Older comedians assured me they’d lived through such busts before. When the comedy boom of the ’80s—which gave birth to thousands of clubs with names like Chuckles and The Laffery—finally came to a screeching halt at some point during the first Bush administration most of the alternative comics were relieved. After all, too many clubs could only mean too many bad comics. I had a similar reaction when I first heard The Rumor, which was spreading through the back rooms of comedy clubs all over the city early in December. The Rumor was this: The humor virus had taken its toll. Five major clubs in L.A. were going to be shut down in the same week. All across the country fewer and fewer people were showing up at the clubs. Why should they? Imagine a blind man paying hard-earned money to go to a strip joint. Even the core clientele, who I think had continued to show up for the past couple of months just out of pure force of habit, had ceased coming in. Playing at the clubs, once the high point of my life, had now become a torturous ordeal that I underwent only to pay the bills. I ceased coming up with new material. Why bother? No one was listening. That was my excuse at any rate.

When I first stopped coming up with new material I told myself it was because I was on strike, protesting a God that would hook Danny on narcotics and spread a destructive new disease around the planet in His spare time just for the hell of it. Later I tried to convince myself it was Heather’s fault that the jokes had stopped coming. She was my muse, always had been, even back when we were just friends; she had always been the filter through which my ideas were refined into something worthwhile. Beginning in late January, however, she began to change. She was never quite sure which of my jokes she liked and which worked better confined to the trash heap. “They’re all okay, pick the ones you like,” she’d say. “You’re better at this stuff than I am.” Then she’d wander into her bedroom and watch old television shows. The woman who had once been so egotistical and cocksure was now incapable of picking a variation of a simple one-liner over another. It was like living with Heather’s reflection, a ghostly image who had escaped from a mirror and taken the real Heather’s place. Ever since that Saturday night when we first made love, we had been so happy, overjoyed that we’d found each other at last. Sometimes we spent whole days and nights just improvising new material and laughing at each other’s jokes like little school kids. We laughed a lot then. Though I know it was a very short period of time,— from the beginning of October to the end of January, only about a hundred days really—in retrospect it seemed much longer.

Heather gave her last performance on January 31st at the Uncabaret. She stumbled through it like a ninety-year-old Bob Hope reading off cue cards the size of Mount Rushmore. No one in the audience seemed to notice or care. Immediately after the performance she collapsed into my arms and cried for twenty minutes straight. I took her out to her car where I held her for a long time and stroked her hair, told her not to worry. “Take a little vacation,” I said. “Don’t even worry about paying the bills. I’ll take care of everything for awhile. I’ll move into your place and pick up the slack. I’m there all the time anyway, and I’m tired of that little rathole I live in. Just rest. Forget about being funny for awhile.”

“I’ll never be funny again,” she said. “I’ve lost it.”

“Don’t say that. You’ll get it back. You’ve always been funny, you always will.”

“I don’t think so. I’m just glad I’m still sane enough to know it.”

She lapsed into silence after that. Over and over again I insisted she was wrong, but I knew I was trying to convince myself more than her. Heather had changed. I still loved her, I loved her more than any other person in the entire world, but she had changed. Simple as that. She knew this full well, but I was too sick with love to acknowledge it. Unfortunately, when you’re that sick love can be perverted very easily and transformed into resentment. Yes, I resented her for coming down with the virus; her condition only served to remind me of my own fragility. Every morning when I awoke and saw her face I was reminded of how easily my humor could be stripped from me. No one knew how the virus was transmitted. Was I at risk merely by touching her? This kind of thinking soon led to paranoia. That’s when I began to blame her for my inability to come up with new ideas. I stopped having sex with her altogether and even avoided using the same silverware. I became distant and cold. Early in March I allowed Marsha to book me in a whole string of clubs all across the country. I hoped this time away from Heather would allow me to recover from the disease I believed I had picked up from her, the disease that was blocking my creativity.

I was so crazy at this point I didn’t even want Heather to drive me to the airport for fear of further infection. Instead I took a bus to LAX. On the way there I stared at the familiar L.A. scenery, my depression broken only for a moment when the bus stopped to let off a passenger. Just outside the window was a mural that had been painted on the storefront of an Army Recruiting Center. It was a picture of Uncle Sam being anally raped by what looked like a giant frog-like humanoid wearing a skintight camouflage suit, like something a deep sea diver would wear. The expression on Sam’s face was one of utter ecstasy, while the expression on the frog’s face was one of infinite sadness. Judging from the style, it appeared to be the same artist who had painted the previous crazy murals I’d encountered from one end of L.A. to the other. I glanced around to see if anyone else was staring at the mural, but they weren’t. They didn’t even appear to see it.

At that moment an old man hobbled onto the bus and sat right next to me even though there were plenty of empty seats surrounding us. The man was thin and gaunt with grayish stubble staining his elongated chin. He wore thrift store clothing that included a plaid button-up shirt, black suspenders, and dark brown slacks pulled up to his belly button, and carried a long bamboo cane with a curved head. As he stared at me through thick Coke bottle eyeglasses, I suspected I would have to fend off his feeble advances with a swift left hook to his jaw. His entire body smelled like cigar smoked mixed with cheap liquor.

“Nice day today, isn’t it?” he said.

I shrugged. “S’okay.”

He glanced down at the luggage tucked in between my legs. “Goin’ somewhere?”

“Yep.” I prayed he’d shut the fuck up.

“Nice day for an airplane trip.”

As I’ve already stated, the paranoia quotient in my life was running high at that time. I squinted at him with some suspicion. “How do you know I’m going on an airplane trip?”

“This bus goes to LAX, doesn’t it? Mind if I smoke?” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a large black cigar, the tip of which he held into the high flame of an ornate lighter with the initials M.H. inscribed upon it. Thick clouds of acrid smoke soon blew into my face.

The old woman in front of us turned around and said, “Excuse me, sir, could you please not smoke on the bus? My asthma—”

“Your asthma my ass!” the old man said. “Jesus H. Freakin’ Christ, it’s gettin’ to the point where you can’t even shit where you want to!” He slammed the burning tip of the cigar into the sticky floor. “Smoking cures asthma. Don’t you know that, lady?”

The old lady seemed shocked and confused. She turned around and tried to ignore him.

The old man rolled his eyes. “I can’t stand some people. Can you stand people?”

“No. I can’t.”

He didn’t get the hint. “We’re two of a kind. When I was a kid, I desperately wanted Jesus to come back, but not so’s I could go to Heaven. Fuck that. I just wanted him to take everybody else away and leave me behind so’s I could live a happy life. Alone.”

Since I knew the ride was long, and there was no way of getting out of the conversation, I decided to at least take command of it.

“Uh, what do they stand for?” I said, pointing at the initials on his lighter.

“Wha—? Oh, these?” He chuckled. “Manny Horowitz, that’s me, all right. At least it was the last time I looked.” He held up the lighter, admiring it, turning it from side to side, watching the sunlight glint off its golden surface. “This is the only memento I have from the old days. The owner of the Sunset in Vegas bought it for me after my tenth anniversary. It’s real gold, through and through, at least he told me it was. I’ve never really bothered to check it out. I was always so flattered by the gesture, I didn’t want to chance finding out that it was all just a lie.”

I nodded. Even through those thick portals of glass you could detect the sadness within his eyes. I wondered what his job had been at the hotel. Had he been a night clerk, an elevator operator, a waiter? None of these jobs seemed worthy of such an expensive lighter, not after only ten years. It takes at least twenty to get a necktie.

Manny continued, “I’m not sure I want to know how much it’s worth, because if I did I might try to sell it. I have to admit, I’ve come close plenty of times. Sometimes I’ve been so hungry I think my stomach shrank to the size of a fucking peanut. The world hasn’t exactly been kind to me. Lost my wife, my career, even a kidney, but through it all I held onto this little lighter. When the owner gave it to me, Al was his name, he said, ‘This is for making me laugh my ass off all these years. If it hadn’t been for your jokes I never would’ve gotten through my divorce. Hell, I probably would’ve offed myself a long time ago.’ It’s the kindest thing anybody’s ever said to me. Believe you me, I know how tough a divorce can be. Eats you up inside. Makes you crazy. Can push you right over the edge if you let it. It managed to push me right off the stage and into the gutter. Sometimes I think if Dolores hadn’t left me maybe I’d still be working Vegas, drawin’ down a nice salary, gettin’ some hot young pussy on the side. Those were the days.

“Hell, at this point I’d settle for some lukewarm old pussy if I could get it. Something is better than nothing. That’s what my father used to say.” Manny paused for a moment, as if lost in reverie. “He used to say some strange things. Imagine sit-tin’ at the dinner table when you’re eight years old, mixin’ the lima beans with your mashed potatoes so you could choke that crap down quicker and get right to the strawberry shortcake, when suddenly your dad looks up at you and says, ‘Son, if you only learn one thing in life let it be this: It’s not the face you’re fuckin’.’ I’m not really sure what he intended me to do with that information. I think my dad might’ve been slightly retarded. Who else but a tardo would tell an eight-year-old something like that? I blame my dad’s advice for my three marriages. I mean, hell, it’s true it’s not the face you’re fuckin’, but it is the first thing you gotta see when you wake up in the god damn morning.”

Though I suppose I should’ve been annoyed by the man’s endless monologue, I had become intrigued the second he mentioned his “jokes.” What the hell jokes were those? “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting him before he could continue his tirade against his father, “did you used to be a standup comedian?”

“Sure was.” He sighed, staring at the view through the windshield twelve seats away, watching the brightly colored North Hollywood storefronts whizzing by. “I spent thirty-nine years on the stage. I started out when I was sixteen and built myself up from nothing, less than nothing. I played my first shows at a little club in New Jersey doing fart jokes and impersonations of Hirohito. This was during the war, mind you.” He saw the blank expression on my face. “Hirohito was the emperor of Japan.” He rolled his eyes and mumbled something about kids today not knowing anything about history. “Anyway, I’ve spent the majority of my career living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. Most of the time I was opening for more famous comedians, always the bridesmaid etc. etc. I worked with Milton Berle and Jack Benny and even Bob Hope on radio. I don’t have to tell you who they are, do I? What about radio? You’ve heard of radio, haven’t you?” I laughed and nodded. “Okay, just checkin’. You never know these days. Sheesh. Anyway, the best gig I ever had was at the Sunset, and I blew that one big time.”

“How did you blow it?”

He spread his hands in the air as if the answer was obvious. “By not being funny, of course! I was tapped out at that point. This was back in … oh, let’s see, ’84 I think? My wife had left me, I was stuck with alimony payments, I was popping four different kinds of anti-depressants mixed with alcohol. Need I go on? I’m not exactly describing a recipe for nirvana here. The booking agent had to let me go. He felt bad about it, but what can you do? That’s show business.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I moved down here. Calling Vegas a cesspool would be too kind. I’d had it up to here with that hole. Los Angeles is different. It’s got character … and hot chicks. Heh! Yeah, hot chicks with big hooters!” He cackled up a storm, peering through the window at a trio of scantily clad teenage girls roller skating down the sidewalk.

I laughed and said, “You get a lot of girls down here?”

“From time to time. You’d be surprised at what a young girl likes, as long as you talk to ’em right.”

From the way he said this I almost believed him. “Did you ever do any more standup after Vegas?”

His smile vanished. He grew morose and sighed. Still fondling the golden lighter he said, “No, can’t say that I did. I settled down here and got a job as a PBX operator. I was lucky to get anything at all. I mean, I’d done nothing but tell jokes for thirty-nine years. Such skills aren’t easily transferable from one occupation to another, in case you didn’t know. During the first few weeks I was scared, real scared. I felt like I was … I don’t know, disappearing.” I must have had a strange look on my face. He had no way of knowing he was echoing Heather. He said immediately, “I know it sounds odd, but it’s true. My entire reason for living had been taken away, which isn’t the easiest thing to adjust to, you know. Some people don’t survive a change like that at all, particularly at the age I was then. But as the weeks wore on I got used to it. Pretty soon I was just content to have a roof over my head and some food in my belly and a job to go to every morning. You learn to appreciate things like that when you get to be my age. Not because you grow any wiser; you just don’t have any choice in the matter.”

“Do you still make up jokes, for yourself at least?”

“Oh, you can’t help not to. How about this? Pick-up line for the twenty-first century: ‘So, uh … what medication are you on?’” There was an awkward moment of silence. I chuckled politely. “You can use that one if you like.”

“Use it where?”

“The next time you’re on stage.”

“How … how do you know I—?”

“Just from the way you handle yourself, the way you walk.”

“I’ve been sitting down the entire time!”

Manny smiled and nodded. “Trust me, an old man just knows things.”

I didn’t trust him. I assumed he must have seen me around town, or perhaps on a local cable talk show. I didn’t really care how he knew me. I had more important things on my mind. “Why do you think you ran out of ideas in Vegas? Was it just the stress in your life or … ?”

Manny shrugged. “It was a combination of things. I think a man has only a certain amount of ideas in his life. Some people use up all their good ideas in their first twenty years, then spend the rest of their life coasting. Some people spread their ideas out over a long period of time, coming up with a new one every other year or so. With someone like that, it’s a big occasion when they come up with a new idea. It’s like a holiday. They invite friends over and cater in food just to celebrate it. It’s like giving birth to a baby. Unfortunately, I think most people have all their really good ideas before they’re five. Me, I happened to tap out at fifty-five.” He shrugged. “That’s a good long run, compared to some.”

“That’s a scary thought. That you could just … run dry like that, without warning.”

Manny shrugged again.

Following a moment of silence I said, “You know, there’s been talk going around lately of this humor virus—”

Before I could say anything more the old man erupted into laughter, which soon segued into a horrible coughing fit. For a second there I thought I might have to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on him, but then he began to calm down. Everyone else on the bus was looking at him warily, as if he might have a contagious disease.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“’Course I’m all right. I was just laughing at that humor virus remark. Everyone knows there’s no humor virus. That’s a load of crap.”

“How do you explain what’s happening then?”

“It’s like I told you. When a person’s born he’s only got a certain amount of ideas available to him. The human race only has a fixed supply of ideas and we’re just now hitting the bottom of the well. The first to go is always humor, next it’ll be sex, then cooking, then fashion, then electrical engineering, who knows? Why do you think plagiarism’s almost become its own art form? Why do you think Hollywood can only remake or re-release movies that first came out fifty years ago? Nobody has any ideas. There aren’t any to have.”

“That’s horrifying. It’s like the Apocalypse.”

“It’s not like the Apocalypse, it is the Apocalypse. I’ve always suspected that when the world finally ended no one would notice. Looks like I was right.” While I was still thinking about that line Manny said, “Ah, here’s my stop coming up. Got to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things. I’m gonna buy some of that cream … y’know that cream that numbs your penis so you don’t ejaculate too soon when you’re fuckin’ some young chick wearing roller skates? I’m thinking of rubbing it over my whole body to numb everything, then I’ll stroll into a bank and try to rob the place. If the guards shoot at me it won’t matter ’cause I’ll be impervious to pain. That’s a pretty ingenious plan, right?”

I stared at him.

Manny burst into laughter again. “Aw, I’m just kidding with you. That’s a pretty funny image though, don’t you think? You can use that in your act too if you want. I’ve got a million of ’em, or at least I used to. Well, nice meeting you.” As the bus pulled up to the curb Manny rose from his seat and held out his hand. I shook it. It felt coarse and dry like desert sand. “You know, you never told me your name,” he said.

“Elliot Greeley.”

“Fine, fine name. I’ll look for it. I think you’re going to be very successful.”

“Not if I don’t come up with some new ideas.”

The old man smiled. “There’s more to life than just trying to impress people, on or off stage. You’re going to be successful. Trust me, an old man knows things. Don’t give up. Keep tellin’ them jokes until the last dog dies. You might as well. The Apocalypse is right around the corner.”

With that he hobbled down the aisle at a sprightly pace and descended the stairs. He gave me one last wave before the doors closed behind him. I watched him dwindle into nothing as the bus drove farther and farther away.