We sat at a table in the back, around which several young comics soon swarmed. Their faces were all obscured in the dim light. Howie shushed them, pointing to a comic now onstage and losing the crowd’s attention.
“Let’s show a little respect,” he whispered.
When the sweating headliner was through, Howie led the applause, putting fingers in his mouth to whistle. Then he allowed himself to hold court.
Free drinks were sent to him; so were plates of fried calamari and stuffed mushrooms. Howie lifted a drink to a nearby bartender, in thanks.
“So, old-timer,” one lean young comic panted, in a humorous Old West accent, “what brings you back to these parts?”
The boyish questioner had taken a risk by being familiar and funny. After a scary pause, Howie smiled at him—a little.
“Just seeing what you guys are up to,” he said. He didn’t compete for laughs with the kid; he didn’t have to. The answer made all the others at the table nod, as if hearing something wise.
“You here to try out some new stuff?” another asked, sycophantically.
Howie shook his head, definitively. “No way. Those days are over. I’m a family man now. And a trivia collector. Just like him. If you can believe it.”
He waved a limp, contemptuous hand at me. The others nodded, with mild curiosity, then stared again at Howie.
Howie went on. “You know, like The Day the Clown Cried.”
Privately, I rolled my eyes at his lack of discretion. And in a comedy club, too, where the movie would hardly be unknown!
“Jerry’s unreleased film?” one asked.
“Wow,” another added.
“Seeing that would be a trip, Howie.”
“Everybody wants to play Hamlet, right? But dying is easy. Comedy is hard, as somebody once said.”
The skinny guy who had done the Western voice now did Jerry Lewis in Shakespeare: “Hey lady! To be or not to be, nice lady!”
This time, Howie stayed stone-faced.
“Don’t talk against Jerry,” he told him. “He’s a genius.”
There was general, solemn agreement with this. The funny kid slowly withdrew, self-consciously crossing his arms and legs. Howie was efficiently drawing in his acolytes, but he wouldn’t let them get too close.
“A genius, like I used to be,” he said, quietly, as the lights faded for another act.
I was the only one who heard him. Or who noticed that he was on his third free drink. Even though a new comic was performing, Howie kept muttering to himself. Then he turned and glared at me, with fury in his eyes.
“You’re, uh, driving back, right?” I whispered, concerned.
“Look, pal,” he mumbled through ice cubes. “Why don’t you go find outtakes from Lassie, or something?”
I was about to reiterate, indignantly, that TV trivia wasn’t my specialty, when Howie erupted, ice falling from his mouth.
“I’m not your prisoner, for chrissake!” he whispered-yelled into my ear. “I’m a free man!”
He pushed me to the side, nearly toppling me from my chair. Then, heedless of the luckless person now performing, he started to stumble to the stage.
Seeing him, the whole crowd, of course, went nuts. Ruining the current comic’s set, they started chanting “How-ie! How-ie! How-ie!” By the time Howie groped his way under the spotlight—and gently but firmly eased the other guy out of it—I couldn’t even hear myself sigh.
Howie waved a grateful hand to stop the crowd. He seemed completely sober now, before them. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, and the place exploded.
Howie proceeded to perform a carefully constructed act, all of new material, except for a few old comments on toothbrushes. He convulsed the crowd with observations about retirement, children, and sneaking a cigarette away from your wife.
I realized that Howie had never retired; he had been working—“observing”—all along. Like me, he had absolutely no interest in everyday life. Unlike me, he had made a fortune from his alienation. And, after tonight, I knew he would continue to.
He saved his most hilarious material for worthless relatives, freeloaders, and nerds, remarks he delivered looking right at me.
“Let’s hear it for him!” Howie yelled. “He’s not paying for his meal tonight, either!”
Suddenly, with Howie’s direction, the spotlight shifted away from the stage. Then it shone, brutally, in my eyes. The crowd whooped and hollered, as I waved, weakly. I thought that Martin Sheen had replaced Harvey Keitel in Apocalypse Now and Jodie Foster had done the same for Nicole Kidman in Panic Room.
The ring of light moved back to the stage, leaving me blind. Howie began to expound on pocket protectors—what were they really protecting? When I opened my tearing eyes and was able to focus, I saw that the skinny young comic, who had been shot down by Howie, whose face I had never really seen, was leaving the club.
—
We closed the place. Then I waited with Howie while the garage attendant searched for his car. If he had been pumped after tennis, now he was positively hyper. Howie kept punching and kicking the air, yelling, “I killed! Killed!” More free drinks had returned him to a state of totally loopy inebriation.
When the car arrived, he pushed me away from it.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” he yelled, sloppily. “You can keep your Jerry Lewis and your …” He groped for a word. Then, finally, he invented one: “Your Clowncried!”
