The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue

by Robert Klein

  There was a nice girl who occasionally got up to perform at the Improv if no other act was available. I will call her Baby, because I cannot remember her name, which is probably just as well. She sang and made an attempt at comic patter, with a mediocre voice compounded by no sense of pitch or rhythm. The jokes were stolen and stale and poorly told—I had heard one of them in the sixth grade. The audience was surprisingly tolerant of her good-natured ineptness, for she clearly did not have it. What she did have was a pretty face, darkish Mediterranean looks, brilliant eyes, and a body that everybody agreed, in the parlance of the day, “did not quit.” Male customers, particularly, seemed to give her the benefit of the doubt, even in the midst of painful off-key high notes that cut through the brain, making everyone grimace and rise three inches from their chairs. Even though she finished eight bars ahead of the pianist, bringing to mind the definite need for a metronome purchase, she seemed oblivious to the fact that she had no talent. On the contrary, she was quite ambitious about her future career.

  I was already established at the club, so she sought my advice on matters relating to her act, and there was a fair amount of flirting. Over a drink at the bar or a cup of coffee, she would ask a lot of questions and absorb the answers like a sponge. “Are my tunes right for me? Should I wear something more dressy? Should I wear my hair up? How do I get an agent? How do I get new jokes?” I could not tell her that none of these answers would help, that her best bet for a career in show business would be to work silent and naked. I would not hurt her for the world. Apart from being a showbiz interloper, she was an incredibly hot woman, and I desperately wanted to have sex with her. She, however, was a more cautious straitlaced type who insisted on putting off sex until our second date.

  This turned out to be well worth the twenty-four-hour wait. All the passion, clarity, focus, and talent that she lacked onstage, she demonstrated three times over as a lover. She was knowledgeable, adventurous, and had the most wonderful smell about her; a gorgeous suntanned body with white stripes left by the straps on her bikini; full lips, beautiful teeth and skin, and dark curly hair. She was a natural and a devotee of The Kama Sutra who liked to say the things that men like to hear.

  We went at it for quite a while, like two contortionists. Then, as her orgasm began to build, she let out with an extraordinary verbal barrage. She began repeating the same phrase over and over again: at first quietly, then increasing in volume until, at her climax, she was screaming it at the top of her lungs: “I want your baby . . . I want your baby . . . I want your baby . . . I want your baby! I want your baby!! I WANT YOUR BABY! I WANT YOUR BABY!! I WANT YOUR BAYYYYYYYYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

  There were two seconds of silence, which she broke abruptly: “Robert, do you think I should do an up-tempo tune for my opening number? The ballad doesn’t seem to work at the beginning, maybe it needs a little more pep. What do you think? How about a vocal coach? Should I work with a hand puppet? How about a duet with me and the puppet?” Seconds before, she wanted my baby, now she wanted a hand puppet. We lay in bed as she continued to pepper me with questions and I continued to give evasive answers. It was not fifteen minutes (ah, youth) before I began to kiss her neck, which distracted her: “Do you think I should wear something more formal—oooh, stop that. Oooh, don’t stop that. Yeah . . . oh yes!” We immediately got hot again and commenced to enjoy a second helping of the carnal, coital experience. And yes, she gave out with the same shouting at the appropriate time. “I want your baby! I want your baby!! I want your baby!!! I WANT YOUR BABY! I WANT YOUR BABY!! I WANT YOUR BABY!!! I WANT YOUR BAAAAAAAAAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Do you think I should audition for William Morris? How about Broadway shows? I was thinking of having a nose job, do you think I should? What about music charts and arrangements?”

  Not surprisingly, she faded from view at the Improvisation, though in the ensuing period, I met a couple of guys who had dated her before I did. She wanted their babies, too.

  * * *

  I had moved to my own little brownstone apartment on 103rd Street, near Riverside Drive. It was the perfect bachelor pad, with a fireplace and bay windows framed by beautiful wood shutters. The three-story house had been the boyhood home of Humphrey Bogart before it was divided up into small apartments.

  I was progressing steadily as a comedian and actor but felt the need to escape as much as possible from the pressure and competition of the pervasive phenomenon known as show business. One of my favorite avocations was feeding the squirrels in Riverside Park. This park was an Upper West Sider’s idea of country, where one could find a modicum of peace and relative quiet. There was even a stone wall separating the park from the street, which stood as a portent that here the wilderness begins, albeit followed by the Hudson River and New Jersey. Flora and fauna abound in Riverside Park, though that counts poison ivy and rats as well. I remembered seeing bilingual signs warning of rat poison: PELIGROSO! PELIGROSO! I could see the “ratones” in question busily going about their business at the base of the wall, in perfect harmony with the pigeons and squirrels, who apparently did not discriminate.

  I had, over a period of three weeks, coaxed a particular squirrel to approach me and accept peanuts from my fingers. This is no small attainment. Squirrels are wild animals: wary, nervous little rodents that, like rabbits and rats, assume that everything is their enemy. They do not, as a rule, come over to you like a golden retriever, to be petted and cuddled. Therefore, I felt tremendous satisfaction in the triumph over the trepidation of this notably cautious creature, a bit like I had conquered nature—without hurting anyone, of course.

  On this particular day, I searched for my subject with a handful of peanuts. I could distinguish him from the others by a peculiar lump on his neck, so I called him Lumpy. Several other squirrels that I recognized clearly acknowledged me as “that big, two-legged thing with the peanuts.” But none of them had the sense of adventure, or courage, or perhaps recklessness to come and take the nut directly from my hand; only Lumpy.

  I heard a squirrel sound high up in a tree and looked toward it. Our eyes made contact at about the same time, and Lumpy skillfully scrambled down the large oak tree, chattering incessantly. At about six feet from me, he stopped and stood up on his hind legs like Trigger used to do with Roy Rogers on his back. I squatted down as I usually did, offering the peanut between my right thumb and index finger, along with a kissing noise. (Incidentally, the same sound that naughty construction workers made when any female passed by who was not their mother or sister.) As the squirrel came nearer, he seemed to do a ritualistic dance of hesitation, moving forward and back, then to the side and forward once again. It seemed that he was regressing and would not accept the nut unless I tossed it to him. Just when I was about to call it a day and throw the nuts to all the ordinary squirrels, Lumpy sashayed forward and nervously took the nut from my fingers. He retreated slightly to consume it, then came immediately back for a second helping. This time he sidled up more confidently but accidentally knocked the peanut out of my hand with his nose. Not realizing what he had done, he opened his mouth and clamped down on the tip of my index finger, mistaking it for the nut.

  I felt the considerable pressure from his considerable jaws and was hesitant about pulling my finger out, for fear that a fair portion of it would remain in the creature’s mouth. I couldn’t say for sure, but I think the squirrel had similar thoughts. Several moments of panic ensued as the realization came to me that my finger was clenched in the razor-sharp teeth of a wild rodent. Suddenly, Lumpy disengaged, paused for a confused second, then dashed off over the wall. I looked at my finger and discovered a tiny puncture, with a minute droplet of blood confirming that the squirrel had indeed broken the skin. I looked over the wall and down at its base, where Lumpy had retreated, and saw a melange of busy animals, including some rats. A horrible thought possessed me. RABIES! Oh, shit no! Bitten by a squirrel that lives among hundreds of rats! Rabies for sure! Fifty needle injections in the stomach is the good news; an excruc
iating death, foaming at the mouth, the worst-case scenario. I remembered a graphic scene from the movie about Louis Pasteur in which an unfortunate rabies victim had a hideous convulsive demise.

  Come to think of it, that ugly tumor on the squirrel’s neck was a sure sign of rabies. My heart began to race. Hold it. This is ridiculous. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m going to a doctor.

  I walked down to West End Avenue, where I had seen a physician’s shingle. I rang the bell and was admitted to an office that must have been furnished fifty years earlier, complete with ancient medical equipment reminiscent of a low-budget Buck Rogers serial. The place was empty. The doctor was a stooped, elderly man with wire spectacles drooping down his nose and shabby suspenders holding up his pants. He had a German accent from a Marx Brothers routine. “Vot can I do for you, young man?” I looked down at the finger in question. There was no blood; the wound was almost imperceptible. I felt a bit ashamed. “Well,” I said sheepishly, thinking for a split second I was Gary Cooper, “a squirrel bit me. Not on purpose, it was an accident.” I fully expected him to chuckle or yawn, but he let out a torrent of excited oaths. “Gott in Himmel! Mein Gott! You must get to the hospital immediately! Immediately! Go go! The nearest is St. Luke’s, Von Hundred and Thirteenth and Amsterdam! I only hope it is not too late! Mein Gott!”

  I staggered out of his office to the street, my life reeling before me, and looked unsuccessfully for what seemed like hours for a cab. I had begun to run up to Broadway when it occurred to me that if the rabies had entered my bloodstream, I was only helping the filthy microbes spread by exerting myself. I’d best calm down. I began to walk in slow motion, like a dream sequence, to retard my circulatory system. I remembered this advice from a Roy Rogers movie in which a man was bitten by a rattlesnake and Roy advised him to stay calm so the poison wouldn’t spread as quickly. As I recall, Roy sucked at the wound as well: the sign of a very, very good friend. I immediately dismissed any notion of sucking at my own wound, as the taste of rodent saliva seemed a poor trade-off for the good it might do.

  I finally hailed a cab, ever so slowly and deliberately: “Taaaaaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxiiiiiiiii!” I began to feel symptoms in the form of aches and numbness, and I was certain that my saliva was foamy. I arrived at the emergency room just in time to find a waiting room full of patients, about sixty strong. None were complaining about the six-hour wait for medical attention, even though many of them appeared critical. An assortment of gunshot and knife wounds, cardiac arrests and strokes, and a man with an ax in his neck all waited patiently for their turn. Enter me with an injury that appeared so minor that I believed it had actually healed in the cab. But those rabies! Should I rush to the front of the line? Doctors and nurses could be seen scurrying to and fro from behind curtains and IV bottles. There was much shouting and chaos that gave the place the aura of a MASH unit.

  A triage was taking place in which those most severely injured or ill would be treated first. I panned the scene of the hideously afflicted and injured, the screaming children, the blood and the pain; then I looked down at my finger and could not find the wound. Worse, I could no longer even remember which hand the finger was on.

  “Excuse me, Doctor, I was bitten by—” I tried to explain, but the doctor was rushing about, obviously preoccupied with the five-inch knife wound in the spleen of the flailing patient on the gurney. “Uh, Nurse my doctor told me that I must seek—” I tried again, but the nurse shouted something about losing number five. I approached an exhausted intern. “Excuse me, Doctor, but I was bitten by a squir—” “Can’t you see I’m busy? Later!” he snapped. I was determined not to die a chump who was too embarrassed to go to the head of the line because he didn’t want to seem pushy. “Doctor, I have an emergency here,” I shouted.

  “No time now,” he replied, squirting a hypodermic of adrenaline into a dead man.

  I was mad now. “Goddammit, I was bitten by a squirrel! You know how serious that is? I could be dying right this minute. I was bitten on the finger by a squirrel!” I screamed.

  The doctor looked up at me. “You were bitten on the finger by a what?”

  “A squirrel. Lumpy. He didn’t do it on purpose, it was an accident.”

  “You were bitten by a squirrel! Hey, everybody, he was bitten by a squirrel! Let’s stop everything else and kiss his squirrel bite and make it all better.”

  All at once every doctor and nurse began to chime in. “Oh my God, a squirrel bite,” said a nurse as she pulled a sheet over her late patient’s face. “Another casualty of that great scourge, squirrel bite,” said the intern with the syringe. “Are you kidding, man?” said another overworked healer with a bloody apron. They all broke into a laugh that went on and on and increased in intensity. It was as if all the tension and horror of dealing with these formidable medical emergencies had exploded into deranged and inappropriate behavior. These people were falling down in hysterical fits, and it was extremely contagious. As a comedian, I would have been proud to get such laughs, were it not for the context and the venue. Unfortunately, this was not the Improvisation.

  One of the physicians composed himself enough to approach me. “Which finger?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied, “but this doctor on West End Avenue seemed quite concerned that I might have rabies, and I did see blood.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re not sure? Holy shit,” he said. I could hear the moaning of the unfortunate wounded in the waiting room, and a fight was breaking out among the impatient patients over who was next. He took my hand, searching unsuccessfully for the injury. “Quite a wound. Have you made out your last will and testament? I’ll give you a tetanus shot,” he said, chortling.

  “Never mind a goddamn tetanus shot. What about the rabies? I’m telling you, he definitely punctured the skin, and he has close contact with rats, I saw them. This is my life we’re dealing with. How can you be so sure I won’t get rabies?”

  “Rabies? There hasn’t been a reported case in New York City since 1938. The only way to get rabies here is to French-kiss a rabid bat. Now get the hell out of here.”

  A nurse gave me a tetanus injection, after which I walked out into a gauntlet of disgruntled patients waiting for attention. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I been waitin’ for three hours, asshole!”

  “Wait your turn like everybody else, man.”

  “I’ll kick your ass, you cuttin’ into line like dat.” I thought I would be beaten to a pulp, and took little comfort in the fact the beating was to be administered conveniently in the emergency room.

  I made it to the street unscathed, but this whole incident ended my squirrel hobby and diminished my enthusiasm for the species considerably. I had little truck with squirrels for some time after my encounter. A few years later, I was engaged to do a show at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, just southwest of New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. We all know Denver is the mile-high city; Thibodaux, Louisiana, has the presence of mind, however, to be a mile below sea level. Or so it seemed. If someone in Minneapolis took a shower, these people had to abandon their homes immediately and seek higher ground. They could be seen regularly on the network news, bravely looking to the future: “Guess we’ll jes hafta rebeeld ageen.” Guess so. Or live on a pontoon.

  These folks, who were regularly laughed at by flood-insurance companies, made up for their perilous existence with some of the finest eating anywhere, and a relaxed tempo of life that was a 33 rpm to my New York 78. The contrast began at once, when my plane landed somewhat tardily in New Orleans. Knowing I would be late for planned interviews, I began spewing out a torrent of worry-laden apologies to my airport greeting party, like an Evelyn Wood speed talker. “Gee, I’m sorry. We’d better get moving here. Can we switch the five P.M. interview to six-thirty? Or the five-forty-five to seven? What about the radio guy, can he do it at the theater? Or, if not, what do you think? Can we get there by seven?” The unhurried reply seemed to take an hour and a h
alf in the saying: “It’s awlraht, Robbad, y’all jes relax neow. Y’all can git theah at sebn . . . oah sebn-thoity . . . oah eight . . . oah nahn . . . oah not at awl. We’ll woik it out, don’t be fussin’ ’bout nuthin’. Tonaght we gonna cook y’all a Cajun feast after yo show.” It was not my desire to be fussin’, particularly about nuthin’, so I surrendered to the locals and the locale and enjoyed the ride in the state university van, with six speakers blasting heavyweight zydeco.

  The show turned out to be wonderful, as I responded to a spirited audience cheered, no doubt, by the realization that their campus was, for the moment, not underwater.

  A note here. Early in my career, I automatically assumed that southern audiences would be less acute, less hip; in a word, dumber. This has rarely proved to be the case, though there are enough vapid audience members everywhere to go around. I personally believe that comedy audiences have become less cognizant of the world around them, less well read, and generally expect more vulgar and gratuitously cruel humor than the ones I started with in the late sixties. College students seem to have less veneration for erudition and the pursuit of knowledge. Perhaps I’m wrong, but didn’t this trend begin when Allen Ludden’s G.E. College Bowl went off the air?

  After my performance, members of the decidedly unintellectual men’s phys-ed department spirited me off to a campus dining room. I was introduced to our chef for the evening, who offered me a fried oyster with a cayenne-pepper smack like I’d never tasted; and shrimp in a dark, sweet, peppery sauce . . . out of this world. The freshness of the catch was one of the secrets; I was assured these shrimp had been backstroking in local waters that very afternoon.