Authors: Jerry Stiller
“Great. I gotta go.”
“Where?” they asked.
“A reading,” I said, and headed for the street.
I walked toward the medical building on First Avenue, trying to focus on something that would block out my fear. I still had forty minutes to kill. I entered a bookstore and walked quickly to the magazine rack, where I picked up
Time
and turned to the review. They liked it, just as John had said. I looked for my name. No mention. I checked
New York
magazine. Also good. I was not mentioned. A wave of melancholy enveloped me.
At 2:15
P.M.
I started walking from the bookstore toward the doctor’s office. The last mile. Two busted Vietnam vets sitting on some steps looked up at me and asked: “You’re who we think you are, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“We love you and your wife.” They were bearded and toothless. “We’re both drunks,” one of them said. “Could you help us out?”
“Sure,” I said, reaching into my pants and pulling out two bucks.
Funny how fear of dying creates generosity.
When I got to the office, a nurse had me lie on my side, and Dr. Friedlander, a man in his forties with a sweet Jewish face, injected some Valium into my arm. A nurse from Jamaica prepared a long snaky tube that would be inserted into my behind.
“Mr. Stiller?” Dr. Friedlander pointed to the wall, where there was a map of the human anatomy. He explained what he would be doing and where he would be going.
“I’m going to go slow,” he said, “and if I get to something, I’m going to cauterize it and save the tissue. If I break through the intestine, that would cause a hemorrhage. I don’t anticipate that.”
I lay quietly on my side as the long tube was inserted, praying that my intestines stayed intact. The doctor stopped once, twice, three times, explaining that he had discovered something. The anesthesia created a mellowing effect. Time seemed to evaporate. There was no sense of existence, and no pain. For almost two hours the doctor slowly, cautiously, did his work. I looked at the anatomy map and tried to visualize his stops as stations on the BMT subway line from when I was a kid in Brooklyn—Church Avenue, Newkirk, Brighton Beach. Last stop, Coney Island.
The doctor said, “We got them.”
“How many?”
“Three,” he said.
“Can I see?”
“I’ll show you one,” he said.
“Looks like part of an oyster,” I said of the red-tinted tissue he showed me.
“The other two were bigger. Size of garbanzo beans,” he said.
“Those are the culprits?”
“Yes. You can sleep peacefully.”
This I didn’t fully believe.
“They go to the lab and come back in a week, but they’re okay,” he said, breaking into a smile.
The nurse said, “You have to stay here till the anesthesia wears off. I love your work, Mr. Stiller.”
“I love yours too,” I said.
I called Anne in Los Angeles and told her I was okay.
I walked over to Third Avenue, then up Third toward the crosstown bus. Suddenly I was terribly hungry. I tried very hard to make myself remember this moment: the relief of knowing I was in good health, asking myself what greater gift could I have received than my life. I went into an Asian salad bar and bought a health cookie, the kind that tastes like soy and molasses. I slowly ate it as I walked up the avenue, relishing life.
The following Saturday night, when going for the Sunday papers, I saw huge lines outside Loew’s 84th Street movie house. The ushers were telling everybody that
Hairspray
was sold out.
I’ve got to see it with real people
, I told myself. To see it from their eyes. The manager recognized me and escorted me inside.
“The picture’s great,” he said, “and you’re wonderful. Just go right in.”
The kids who ran the hot-dog stand hollered, “Ain’t you in the movie?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Come here. Can we have an autograph?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering how they could possibly have singled me out.
“You know, Divine and John Waters were here last night. They were signing autographs.”
“Lots of people?”
“Sold out.”
I found a seat in the rear of the theater. I could feel the audience’s enthusiasm. For the first time I laughed out loud at Divine and myself, playing wife and husband.
That same week I appeared on Ted Brown’s radio show and “Luncheon at Sardi’s” with radio hosts Arlene Francis and Joan Hamburg.
“What’s Divine really like?” they all wanted to know.
“He’s someone who I love to watch iron my clothes,” I said.
“Why did you do the picture?” Jerry Tallmer asked during an interview for the Post.
“I’ve done Shakespeare, Saul Bellow. Why not Waters.”
A couple of weeks later I was at my health club when a phone call came from producer Stanley Buchtal. “I’ve got some sad news, Jerry. Divine is dead.”
“What?!”
“It’s true,” Stanley said.
I wanted to cry. “How?” I asked.
“Choked on his food, in his sleep. Suffocated.”
“He was so heavy” were the only words I could find at that moment. I meant to say, “How could he have done this to himself?”
Shocks of disbelief rippled through me. I saw Divine as a class person. The guy had finally found stardom, and had been rewarded unfairly. He’d been in Los Angeles shooting an episode of
Married With Children
. In my mind I saw him celebrating his triumph in a most innocent way. Enjoying food. What a vice.
The day of the funeral in Baltimore was two days before I was scheduled to perform with Joe Grifasi in a Cole Porter tribute for Isaiah Sheffer’s “Selected Shorts” at Symphony Space in New York. I called Waters to explain that I could not make the funeral.
“We’ll miss you,” John said in a shaken voice. “The wake’s tomorrow night.”
“Send my love. I’m sorry I can’t be there.”
The following day I called the funeral home in Towson, Maryland, to ask if my letter to Divine’s parents had arrived.
“No, but if you’d like to speak to his mother, she’s here.”
Divine’s mother got on the phone.
“Jerry, he really liked you,” she said.
“I’m so sorry for you and Mr. Milstead,” I said.
“He said you were always there for him,” she answered.
“I’m not going to be able to make the funeral. I’m working tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Milstead said. “We’d love for you to be here. Your flowers arrived. They’re beautiful.”
There was a pause. There was no pressuring.
“I’ll be there tonight.”
I took the Amtrak. We passed through Philly. It was nightfall. I went over the words and music to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” for the show at Symphony Space. The train pulled into Baltimore. Baltimore Film Festival producer George Udel and his artist wife Joan Erbe picked me up at the station, and twenty-five minutes later we were in the Ruck Funeral Home in Towson. The place was filled with people, decks of flowers. Divine once said jokingly, “When I go, I want lots of flowers. Give them in lieu of a donation to a worthy charity.” His request was granted.
To left and right of the open casket were lines of floral arrangements. I walked to the casket and stood there a moment. Waters and his assistant, Pat Moran, came to me. We hugged and then looked at one another and said nothing.
“I saw the picture the other night in New York,” I told Waters. “They told me you and Divine were there the night before.”
“It’s a big hit,” Waters said.
“Yeah. What a way to celebrate.”
“I’m glad you came,” Waters said.
“I had to. I really had to. Where’s his mother?”
“Right there,” Waters said, pointing to a gray-haired lady standing next to a man in a wheelchair.
“That’s Glenn’s father,” Waters said.
I went over to them. “I’m so sorry,” I said. His father looked up and I shook his hand. I suddenly felt how important it was to be here.
There were flowers and balloons from Whoopi Goldberg, along with a note: “So you get a good review and this is what you do.” From
Married With Children
came a message: “If you didn’t like the show, you should’ve just told us.”
I spoke to crew members Gary Lambert and Dave Insley, to actress Mink Stole, and to the costumer, who designed a golfball shirt I wore that got lots of attention. At one point the editing people gathered around me and mentioned my hilarious scene that had been cut. I listened—and knew for the first time that it really didn’t matter.
The Night Owl arrived back in New York at 2:30
A.M.
Twelve hours later, Joe Grifasi and I were doing “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” at Symphony Space. The number went well. I did it for Divine.
In the early 1990s Isaiah Sheffer called again, asking me to travel to Miami to do a reading of John Sayles’s “At the Anarchists’ Convention” at the Dade County Book Fair. The following day I called my Uncle Abe. He had moved to Florida, and I hadn’t seen him in years. His wife, my aunt Anne, had passed away, and he lived alone.
Now, in Miami, I telephoned him.
“Jerry! You’re in Miami?! Where?”
I told him at the Book Fair.
“You want me to come and meet you there?” he said.
“No,” I said. “I’m driving. I’ll come to you.”
“I’m at the Casablanca.”
“Okay, I’ll find it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
My uncle Abe was ninety years old and wanted to pick me up. I’d almost said yes. When would I no longer be the kid being cared for by his uncle?
Minutes later, I was on Ocean Drive, passing small hotels that face the Atlantic. I parked and walked toward the water. There wasn’t a soul on the beach. It reminded me of an empty stage set. I got back in the car and drove onto Collins Avenue, passing the once fabulous Fontainbleu and Eden Roc hotels. There were a few old people meandering at their own pace. They wore bright outfits and funny hats—costumes to deflect pity, to make them feel good inside.
I arrived at a huge oceanfront edifice. The Casablanca parking lot had lots of tow-away warnings but no cars. At the desk I asked for Abe Citron. The clerk asked me to write the name on a piece of paper. He pointed to three men sitting in the lobby on a bench encircling a palm tree.
“Mr. Citron, you have a visitor,” the clerk’s voice on the loudspeaker announced.
An old man with a cane stared at me. “Jer-r-r-y? Is that you?”
His soft Yiddish lilt awakened memories. His appearance shocked me. It was as if I hadn’t been informed that he’d aged, but I could not act surprised.
I too had aged. I wondered,
Does he notice any difference in me?
He played it perfectly. I was still the nephew.
My uncle got to his feet with the help of a cane. His warming smile was still there. He introduced me to one of the men sitting next to him. “This is Mr. Lou Harris.”
Mr. Lou Harris, who wore thick glasses, asked if I was from Avenue U in Brooklyn. No, I told him.
“You look like someone from the block.”
“This is my nephew,” Abe said. “Come,” he said to me, “we’ll go upstairs. I’ll show you my apartment.”
“Tell them not to tow my car,” I said.
“They never tow. Come.”
We started toward the elevator. The movement was in mini-steps. I remembered when he was a vibrant seventy-five. “I’m on the top floor,” he said as he hit the elevator button. “I’ve got a great view.”
A heavyset man in his seventies, carrying a plastic shopping bag filled with groceries, got on at the third floor. He complained to my uncle how the hotel and its clientele had changed. He waited for my uncle to agree. After a moment Uncle Abe said, “As long as they wear nice clothes, they’re just like me.” He was putting down a bigot.
I remember my uncle meeting Anne for the first time. There was no shock in his face when he saw the
shikse
.
The man with the shopping bag got off at the ninth floor. “That’s the first time he spoke to me in three years,” my uncle said.
On my uncle’s floor we rounded a bend in the hall where a fancy iron gate guarded the door to an apartment. An antique lamp hung above the door, throwing an eerie yellow light.
“That’s the dungeon,” my uncle said. “It belongs to the man who once owned the building. He sold the building but kept the apartment as part of the deal. It makes everyone else feel poor. Come,” he said.
We entered my uncle’s apartment, a large single room with a picture window overlooking the Atlantic.
“You like the view?” my uncle said.
It was spectacular. I could see cloud formations and squadrons of birds flying to an unknown destination. As far as the eye could see were miles of desolate beach and trash cans. It was ghostly. I said nothing. I took it all in.
“Tell me, Jerry, what are you doing here?”
I told him about reading the John Sayles story at the Book Fair.
“And where’s Anne?” Uncle Abe asked.
“She’s flying to L.A. to do a TV show called
Alf
.”
“They call this a studio,” he said with a wave of the hand. “A kitchen, a Frigidaire, and a closet.”
Alongside the window was a roll-away bed; in the center of the room, an armchair facing a TV.
I had a feeling of emptiness. The room was depressing. The beautiful Atlantic seemed like a backdrop for despair.
When Anne and I were first married, we had won a huge turkey on
The Price Is Right
. Allan Shalleck, my friend from Syracuse University, was working as an assistant director on the show, and had set Anne and me up as contestants. We had brought the uncooked turkey prize to Uncle Abe’s restaurant, and he gave us a roasted turkey in its place. Now, in his lonely room in Florida, I remembered Leo Bloom, Rex Partington, and Rudy Marinetti, my college roommates, driving down with me from Syracuse for the Barter Theater auditions in New York and Abe feeding us in his restaurant. I remembered him pouring schnapps and cutting sponge cake on a bridge table at my mother’s unveiling in Montefiore Cemetery. His presence made a sad occasion less sad. I thought of the many things he had given me in a lifetime that I was now trying to repay in one fell swoop.
“Sit down. We don’t have to go out. I’ll make lunch,” he said. He reached into a cupboard and took out two cans of Bumble Bee salmon, which he ran under the faucet and then placed in the refrigerator to cool.