How to Talk Dirty and Influence People

by Lenny Bruce

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pittsburgh was all alone, too. Like a tough Polish kid with a homemade haircut, cap, knickers, and a broken tooth.

  Honey and I checked into the Milner Hotel.

  Those Milner Hotel rooms were beautiful, with high ceilings and fake fireplaces and the mirrored pictures with the flamingo bird. “A Dollar a Day and Servicemen Welcome.”

  We always got a special rate for a double. There was no toilet in the room—it was at the end of the hall—but there was a sink in the room. Needless to say, I never washed my face in it.

  The thing I especially liked about Milner Hotels is that they always had real pillows with chicken feathers in them. I hate those foam-rubber pillows. You can’t bend them over. They keep bouncing up. Nothing is more obscene to me than a foam-rubber pillow covered with a clear plastic polyethylene zipper bag, even more so when it starts to turn brown; it looks like the burnt isinglass in a potbellied stove.

  I’m probably the only one who ever really looks at the mattress in hotels. There always seems to be a brown stain around one button. I’ve never stained any of these mattresses, and I’ve asked a lot of people who are very truthful and have no inhibitions, and they’ve told me they never stained any either. There must be some guy who stains these mattresses before they leave the factory.

  I finished examining the mattress and then I double-locked the door. Honey had the dopiest thing about always making sure the door was locked. I used to tell her, “What the hell, I’m in the room, nobody is going to bother you.” But she would go through the whole ritual, going outside the door, having me lock it from the inside and making sure no one could get in.

  I used to really put her on. When she was locked out I’d start screaming and yelling to her as she tried the door. “Get away! Leave me alone, you horny broad! You’re a nymphomaniac! I’m all sore, I can’t do it anymore!”

  Honey gets embarrassed if she coughs in an elevator. She hates anything loud, and although she is a sensitive and delicate lady, she gets me hotter than any woman I have ever known. When I finally let her back in the room, she was angry, so we made up.

  Later we decided to get the rest of our stuff out of the car. To my consternation, the car was gone. Stolen? The audacity! I had a sign on the windshield which clearly read: CLERGY. What a sin—stealing a holy automobile! Should I call the police? No, I would call headquarters. “Hello, operator, give me Rome—IVMLV.”

  Honey, being more earth-bound than I, hustled me off in a cab in the direction of the car pound. She noticed that we had been parked the wrong way on a one-way street on the no-parking side in front of a fireplug during a rush hour.

  As we rode along, the wind blew her long natural-red hair across me so that it caressed my neck and shoulders. I took her in my arms; it was so luxurious, riding in the back seat as if I were Mr. First-Nighter with his own chauffeur. I held Honey tight. Every part of her was warm and sensual. She always dressed crisply and smelled clean. I don’t know how long we had been parked in front of the car pound when the driver finally summoned up an “Ahem” and pointed to the meter, which was still running.

  The officer in charge of the pound treated us to a brief lesson in morality. “What’s the matter with you people—don’t you believe in signs?”

  I never understood what that was supposed to mean. “Don’t you believe in signs?” Suppose you say, “No, I don’t believe in signs.” Will they let you go because in this country we’re guaranteed freedom of belief? No man is to be forced to believe in something that goes against the grain of his conscience. “That’s right, officer, I don’t believe in signs.” “Very well, brother, go in peace.”

  Anyway, we paid the fine and got the car out.

  It was the black 1951 Chevy convertible that we had bought on time. That’s such a cute way to put it, the implication being that you don’t really have to pay money, you just sort of adopt it for a little while, keep it around, and it’s yours.

  I recently found my financial records and looked up the figures. There was no record on the Chevy, but the Cadillac I bought right after it originally cost only $161 a month. I took a loan on it and had it refinanced to payments of $63 a week. It was new when I bought it in 1951, and when I sold it in 1957—still making payments of $254 a month—I still owed $1200 on it. I got only $900 for it and had to scrounge around to make up the difference of $300 in order to stay out of debtors’ prison for the right to ride the bus.

  Honey and I were on a tight budget in 1954—$17 for groceries, $6 for insurance, $4 for the Laundromat, rough-dried and folded. Laundry was always a big problem. Honey figured out that when the baby came, our laundry bill would be doubled and we could save a lot of money by getting a washer-dryer combination which was advertised by the appliance store for only a dollar down “on time.” That’s all she could see: “It’s only costing us a dollar, the Laundromat is paying the rest.” Instead of $20 a month to the Laundromat, we paid $21.06 to the appliance store. We were going to save what would otherwise have been “doubled” when the baby came.

  I knew intuitively that it was a mistake. But Honey always had a way of explaining things to me so that it looked as if the store was taking a big screwing. We took advantage of more stores—it’s a wonder they’re still in business.

  JUST $1 DOWN . . . ONLY $21.06 A MONTH

  NO HIDDEN CHARGES . . . NO GIMMICKS

  And they were telling the truth. Your only investment was a dollar—that is, if you were willing to use your washing machine in their store. They wanted $36 for trucking charges to deliver.

  “Are you kidding—$36? I’ll get a couple of guys, we’ll have it out of here in a minute . . .”

  The first step in exploiting your friends into doing manual labor is to get them to admit they’re not doing anything first.

  “Hi, Manny, what’s happening?”

  “Nothin’—we’re just hanging around the pad here.”

  “Listen, you want to have some kicks? I got a new Kenny Drew Album and Joe Maini is on it and he really sounds good. When will you be over? In about ten minutes? Oh, wait a minute, I got a wild idea. Listen, I’ve got to talk soft. Honey is in the kitchen. I saw a nutty-looking chick in this downtown store who’s a real balling freak. And I hit on her and she’s a nut for bass players, so I told her that I’d bring you over. It’ll be perfect; I can sneak out on Honey because I’ve got to go over there anyway to pick up something.”

  This operation is quite successful with the average satyr who is always “ready.” The girl-in-question has always conveniently taken the day off when you get there, and after your friend recovers from the disappointment of the vanishing phantom lady, you march him to Appliances.

  I shared his second shock. It was a big white monster that was designed to “wash ‘n’ dry” in one cycle. It really was quite a wonderful machine. It could do everything but get through the goddamned door.

  “A little this way.” “Up on this end.” “Easy now, easy now, easy now, goddamnit!” “Oh-oh, one sure thing, we can’t take it back now.” “Well, we’re lucky it’s just scratched in the back.”

  Of course, there are always hallway superintendents that hit you just when you are in the worst position, when you’re going down the stairs with it. One guy’s fingers are slipping, and it has your shoulder pinned against the fire extinguisher, and you have to go to the bathroom in the worst way—and he hits you with encouraging words like “Are you guys kidding? You’ll never get that thing out of here!”

  And there is still one guy who asks, “You got a match?” And would you believe it, I invariably reach for one.

  With the help of a young, willing kid we got the machine into the street. Young boys are sincerely godlike in attitude. A young kid will always help. I think the motivation is for adult acceptance, and the sweet part about it is that you know it’s never profit motivation, because when you go to give them some money, they always say in a shy, awkward manner, “No, that’s all right, mister.” And
when you force it on them, they’re quite embarrassed.

  What happens to sweet, willing young boys? What happens to all of us? We never stop anymore and say, “Can I help you, mister?”

  My musician friend had a 1940 Pontiac convertible, and the washer-dryer just fit in the back seat. The edge of the machine pushed the driver’s seat way forward, leaving my friend pushed tightly against the wheel. As we drove along, he looked very intense because of his position, as racing drivers used to look before they got stand-offish, hugging the wheel.

  We were talking and laughing about the dirty trick I had pulled on him, but the conversation stopped at every bump and I would just hear whoosh, as the machine inadvertently served for an artificial respirator.

  We got to the house, and the car couldn’t make the steep driveway, so we had to lift the machine out of the car and carry it 60 feet. As we were carrying it, I thought this would be a great torture device to give to the Secret Service.

  The landlord looked on apologetically, and then said, “I would like to help you”—he was one of those guys—“but, you know, I’m not supposed to lift anything.”

  The final coup de grâce that I had anticipated with fear now became a reality: the kitchen door was too small. But you still keep thinking that no one would design a product that couldn’t fit through an average door.

  We finally got it through the living-room door. By this time, my thumbnail and my index fingers were Mediterranean blue. My friend’s back would never be the same.

  We set the machine down with a thump on the living-room floor, taking a breather before we attempted to lug it into the kitchen. It was such a cute little kitchen. The house was really a cute little house. A cute little gingerbread kitchen with a cute little door, six feet high by two-and-a-half feet wide. Now I don’t care who you are—even if you’re the mover who did William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon job—you’re not going to get a washer-dryer, four feet high by four feet wide, through that door.

  What the hell, a lot of people have washer-dryers in their living rooms.

  They also have pigs and chickens, but they’re Indians, and they live in Mexico. That’s it, goddamnit, the majority rules. If I were a Mexican or an Indian, and all our neighbors were Mexicans or Indians, we’d think nothing of having the washer-dryer in our living room.

  As I sat with a glum look on my face, wondering whether we ought to move to Mexico with the washer-dryer, Honey started with, “What the hell are you so grouchy about? Boy, you take the fun out of everything. I have to sit here all day by myself, and you’ve been gone three hours.”

  Yeah, that’s it. I’m just selfish. Manny and I, we’re having all that fun, smashing our fingers and putting our backs out of whack. But I never went into this with Honey. I just thanked her, grateful for the laughs she gave me.

  We couldn’t decide where to put the washer-dryer; perhaps next to the sofa, or better yet in a corner, since the living room was a little overcrowded anyway. Honey considered making a coffee table out of it, but then we would have to build up all the couches and chairs. Of course, we could have made a “coffee counter” out of it.

  But what the hell, we were saving money. Luckily, we hadn’t sent the weekly car payment in yet, because it cost that much plus $10 to have the plumber come in and connect the machine.

  It really looked wild . . . those two big, long black hoses going out of the living-room window into the yard . . . like the laboratory where Frankenstein’s monster was born.

  Everything worked fine, until the neighbors started watering the lawn. It had something to do with the pressure. When Honey was washing clothes, the owner would stand there holding a watering hose in his hand with just a trickle coming out.

  We got the plumber back to do some more fixing and pipe changing. Now Honey could do the washing, and the landlord could water the lawn—but suddenly his wife screamed out the window: “The toilet won’t flush!”

  Whenever anyone flushed the toilet, you couldn’t wash clothes or water the lawn. Which worked pretty good, except for those of us who had problems because of early toilet training and suffered from anal repressions, since it was necessary to yell at the top of your lungs, “I’m going to the bathroom! Stop washing and watering!” Then you could flush the toilet.

  For those of us who found this announcement too traumatic, there were proxy announcers. I learned, also, that the landlord, who was quite a timid soul, was using the facilities next door.

  The dopey dryer part of the machine was gas-operated, and it had a pilot light that kept going out. The pilot was right on the bottom, one inch from the floor, so you couldn’t see it, you had to feel it. You had to reach in with your fingers, press down a button and light a match; then you had to hold it for at least 30 seconds till it took. I don’t know what kind of matches the inventor of the machine used, but in 30 seconds, the matches I used always burned my fingers—or else, because of the fact that most floors carry a bit of a draft, the matches burned out in 15 seconds.

  But the machine had a “guarantee.” Of course, like all guarantees, it only covered parts. The particular part that was giving me trouble cost 38 cents, but the son-of-a-bitch who had to come in to replace it cost $26. It wasn’t bad enough that I had been exploited by the department store, but now a mechanic, too.

  That’s something which has always bugged me. Radios, automobiles, whatever—you’re really at the mercy of the repairman, because when they look in “there” and throw a lot of mechanical terms at you, you really feel like an idiot. It’s the same with a broken watch. When the guy tells you that you need a new blah-blah-blah, you can’t say, “Why, that blah-blah-blah is in perfect condition.”

  Maybe some day I’ll write a Manual of Stingmanship. It will contain one completely esoteric reference to apply to each mechanical device the average guy owns, so that the repairman will assume that you’re a genius and that you know twice as much as he does.

  For example: You take your radio in to be repaired. Before the guy unscrews the back, you say: “I don’t know what the hell it is—those new low-impedance osculators haven’t had quite the filtration powers that the old X72103 set had. I’d check it out myself, but I’ve got to rip down that damned radar installation I put up last month in the Radon Valley.”

  After you give the repairman your name and address, leave immediately, before he has a chance to ask you if this radio is A.C. or D.C., which, if you’re like I am, you wouldn’t know. All the Manual would contain would be one or two good sentences for every appliance.

  I wonder where that washer-dryer is today.

  I’ve always wondered about things like that. When I look at a refrigerator that I figure must be 30 years old, I know that the couple who first bought it loved it dearly and shared many personal experiences with it. Probably it was already there in the house at the arrival of their first-born. It probably held the formula for all their children.

  And then what? Sold. Perhaps to some guy who had a Boat, Dock and Fishing Equipment Shack; and the butter, milk, eggs, Jell-o and leftover spaghetti was replaced by frozen bait and cans of beer.

  Then maybe, in between homes and people, it stands in a Used Appliances store. You’ve seen them: big, bare stores with maybe 50 or 60 refrigerators, old and new, with descriptions scrawled on them in black crayon: “As Is,” “Perf. Mechanical Cond.,” “Beauty, Clean,” “Repossessed.”

  Are they happy there, all the refrigerators together? Do they talk to the gas stoves? Are electric stoves snobs?

  There they are, an army of refrigerators, expensive ones and budget jobs, rich and poor. If one of them were socialistically minded, he might indeed say, “Some of us are old and some are quite modern with roll-out trays and automatic cube dispensers, but while we are here, we are all the same . . . because we’re all defrosted.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Living from one crazy disaster to another, Honey and I were always laughing, kidding, teasing, loving each other. Nothing could really hurt ei
ther of us because we were always together, and when one of us was down the other would pick the both of us up.

  I had never enjoyed sleeping as much as when I slept with Honey. She just seemed to fit so nice, and I would really sleep soundly. It was funny, because when we first got married, I had never slept with a woman before. I had schtupped plenty of women, but I had never slept with one. I was fairly promiscuous, but I always went home “after,” so it took me awhile to get used to sleeping with someone. I remember, about the second week of our marriage, Honey was heartbroken because I asked for a room with twin beds. But little by little, I got used to sleeping with her, and after a while I couldn’t sleep without her.

  I was like that kid in Peanuts with his dopey blanket.

  Honey was the most ticklish person in the world. All I had to do was look at her and say, “I’m going to tickle you now, I’m going to give you the worst tickling you’ve ever had,” and she would really get giggly. I would just have to touch her side, and she’d laugh so hard the tears would come to her eyes.

  She really made me laugh and did all kinds of bits for me. As I’ve said before, she had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. It was naturally red, and she could sit on it. When she wears it down, some women are so catty that they come up to her—in a hotel lobby, a shopping market, a movie theater—and say, “Oh, what lovely hair you have!”—and then they always touch it and give it a little yank; Honey wised me up as to their motivation—some women wear things called “switches,” long pieces of store bought hair that fit in their own hair and match it in color, by which device they can make their hair look about a foot longer than it really is. I had never seen anyone with hair as long as Honey’s; to hear others talk, though, 80 percent of the women in the world had hair that long, but they just cut it last week. “Oh, when I see your hair that long, I could just shoot myself. My hair was just as long as that, and I cut it, like a damn fool.”

  If I were depressed, Honey would even use her hair to try to cheer me up—tickling me playfully with it, or even making a mustache out of it.