Still Foolin' 'Em (3 page)

2013

H
IM
: Wow, you’re so wet down there.

H
ER
: Oh sorry—I coughed before.

1973

H
ER
: What do you want to fuck to?

H
IM
: Marvin Gaye.

2013

H
ER
: Move a little bit to the right and turn up the sound on the TV.

H
IM
: I can’t hear you, the TV is on.… Oops, I’m done.

1973

H
IM
: Look at you, you’re so beautiful.

H
ER
: Awwwww.

2013

H
IM
: I can’t believe these tits.

H
ER
: Stop looking in the mirror and come to bed.

1973

H
IM
: God, I’m hard.

H
ER
: God, you’re hard.

2013

H
ER
: Did you take your Viagra?

H
IM
: What?

H
ER
: God, you’re hard of hearing.

H
IM
: You lost an earring?

1973

H
IM
: Why are your eyes open?

H
ER
: Because I love to watch you make love to me.

2013

H
IM
: What are you looking at?

H
ER
: The drapes don’t match the paint.

1973

H
ER
: Let’s stay home and make love.

H
IM
: I love rainy days.

2013

H
ER
: Let’s make love …

H
IM
: My hip hurts, it’s going to rain.

1973

H
ER
: Wow, that must be eight inches.

H
IM
: Wait until I get excited.

2013

H
ER
: Wow, that’s so hard …

H
IM
: The doctor said it’s benign.

1973

H
ER
: I love to feel your heartbeat through your shirt.

H
IM
: Every beat is for you.

2013

H
ER
: Maybe it’s your pacemaker.

H
IM
: Call 911, I’m having palpitations.

1973

H
IM
: Now, now!

H
ER
: I’m there, I’m there!

2013

H
ER
: Now, now!

H
IM
: Be patient—Larry at the barbershop says it takes thirty minutes to work because first the blood has to accumulate in the shaft.

1973

H
IM
(whispering): Tell me what you want me to do.

H
ER
(sotto voce): Put your finger in there.

H
IM
: Wow, I’ve never done that.

H
ER
: It’s wonderful.

2013

H
IM
: Tell me what you want me to do.

H
ER
: Get me my vibrator and go for a walk.

1973

H
IM
: Wear something sexy to bed.

H
ER
: How about just a smile?

2013

H
IM
: Have you seen my sweatpants?

H
ER
: They’re in the drawer. And wear some socks, your toenails cut my leg.

1973

H
IM
: Let’s do something we’ve never done before.

H
ER
: Turn me over, baby.

2013

H
IM
: Can we try something new?

H
ER
: Oy.

*   *   *

Oy.
A universal word that sums up how you feel when you hit sixty-five. Many people have said “Oy.” I think it was Custer’s last word when he saw all those Sioux Indians on the hill. Oy: it was what King Kong mumbled when he saw those planes buzzing him on the Empire State Building—until the studio cut it out because they thought it made him sound too Jewish. Oy: it was what Osama bin Laden said when he saw the Navy SEAL at the bottom of the stairs. Oy: it is what life is like at sixty-five … and as I approached my sixty-fifth birthday, I couldn’t help but think,
How the hell did I get here?

Growing Up Crystal

“You know how angry kids will sometimes say, ‘I didn’t ask to be born’? Well, you did,” my mother used to tell me. “Your brothers took hours to arrive—not you. Thirty minutes, tops. Around my eighth month you started kicking a lot and I thought I could hear you saying, ‘Let’s go, I’m breaking your water.’”

On March 14, 1948, at 7:36
A.M.
, I arrived at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, overlooking Gracie Mansion and the East River. I am the youngest of Jack and Helen’s three boys. My brother Richard, known as Rip, is two years older than I, and Joel, my big brother—literally: he’s six foot two—is six years older. We lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx until the lure of the suburbs seduced my parents, who had a dream to own a house with a lawn the size of a toupee. My folks followed my grandparents, who were perpetually not well and whose doctor had advised that the salty sea air of Long Beach, Long Island, a lovely, quaint beach town, would do wonders for them. Not true: they were always sick, and anything metal they owned, including my grandfather’s hip, rusted quickly.

Long Beach, 1953.

My grandmother Susie Gabler was a large woman of Russian heritage, weighing in at over two hundred pounds, and my grandpa Julius was a diminutive, cranky Austrian who had twin albino brothers. Tiny little pink Jewish elves we called the lab rats. Very rare, they would fetch a grand sum on eBay today. They usually wore woolly three-piece suits, and when they stood together they looked like salt and pepper shakers. Grandma, who loved to laugh, was the dominant force in the family and actually is credited on Wikipedia with inventing guilt. For instance, once she asked my mom to take her to a doctor’s appointment, and when Mom said she couldn’t, Grandma responded, “I bought your house for you.” She also put the fear of God in me, literally. If any of us did something she felt was wrong, she’d tell us, “God will punish you.” One time when I was about six, she told me not to skip. I did anyhow and fell, and she said, “See, God punished you.” Terrifying. Grandpa was slowed by arthritis and crankitis. He and I understood each other. He was in pain a lot, and I was pissed that I was short. Yes, I had a case of little guy’s disease for a while. It ended about a week ago, when I finally understood that my big “spurt” had already happened.

Nonetheless, Growing Up Crystal was a great time. My dad was the manager of a popular record store in New York City, called the Commodore Music Shop, which was owned by Grandpa Julius and his sons Milt and Danny. Milt had transformed the place from a hardware store into the center of jazz in Manhattan when he got rid of the light bulbs and whisk brooms Grandpa was peddling and created Commodore Records, the first independent jazz label of its time, and sold hot jazz records that he produced himself. When Milt left to become an executive at Decca Records, my dad took over as manager and became the go-to guy for jazz enthusiasts. He also produced jazz concerts on the weekends at a place called the Central Plaza, on Second Avenue in Manhattan. Dad turned all of us on to jazz, and its great stars were family friends. It was also Dad who saw how much I loved being funny and would let me stay up on school nights to watch the great comedians of the fifties on television. It was Dad who brought home comedy albums from the store so I could listen and learn. And it was my mom and dad whom I most loved to make laugh.

Sixth grade at East School. On to junior high.

My mom was our rock. Dad worked six days a week at two jobs, so much of our time was spent with her. She was a funny and graceful woman who could sing and tap-dance and was always the life of the party. In her twenties, she worked at Macy’s, where she was in the store’s theater group, and she was often the voice of Minnie Mouse in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Uncle Milt was the celebrity of the family. A force in the music industry, he produced more than thirty records that sold over a million copies each, including “Rock Around the Clock.” He worked with stars such as Sammy Davis Jr., Bing Crosby, and Nat King Cole. But it was my uncle Berns, my dad’s brother, who was the actual “star” to us. A large, unself-conscious Saint Bernard of a man, he just loved to be funny and was always the center of attention. He also would get us to perform with him—and we loved to perform. My brothers and I would do skits for our extended family, usually memorizing a bit we’d seen on Steve Allen’s show or Ernie Kovacs’s brilliant program. Joel was fast and razor sharp; Rip was the singer, was all personality; and I was simply nuts: the Jerry Lewis of the three of us. I couldn’t wait for the living room to fill up with relatives so I could get up on the coffee table and imitate them. When we’d go to a relative’s home for a holiday visit, my mom would make sure to pack our props and anything else my brothers and I needed for our “act.” She was our test audience, our out-of-town tryout before we brought it into the big room.

During school shows, I drove my classmates crazy, wandering off the script and improvising if a funny thought occurred to me. I wasn’t the loudmouth, class-clown type of guy. I was never one of those kids who was always “on,” but I loved attention. I guess when you’re the little brother with two charismatic older brothers, it’s a natural craving. I also had other cravings. It was in the wings of a third-grade play that I not only kissed a girl for the first time but had my first erection. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, which probably made it more exciting. I was scared and confused about what was happening in my pants. Then I thought,
Oh no! Is God punishing me by stiffening me?
I made a mental note that in the future when I get an erection, not to think about my grandma. At my twentieth high school reunion I saw the recipient of that first exchange of fluids, and she introduced me to Lois, her mannish and unsmiling “partner.” I took my first aside and asked, “Was the kiss that bad?”