Dean and Me: A Love Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

(down the hall) was a delight. You only prayed that all your normal bodily functions would lock up until you checked out of this facility.
    Dean looked at the hotel lobby, then at me.
    “Is this the best we can do?” he asked.
    “No,” I said. “We can do better at the Ritz-Carlton, but their suites run a little more than the twelve dollars a night we’ll be paying here.”
    Resigned to our surroundings, we decided to save a little money by splitting the tab. “Do you have anything in a double for us?” I asked the desk clerk (the same man selling cotton candy outside the hotel lobby).
    “Yeah, about thirty-five rooms,” he answered. “Take your pick. But the twelve-dollar price is only from the eighth floor up.”
    “How many floors are there?” Dean asked.
    “Eight,” the clerk said.
    “We’ll take it,” Dean said. “Can someone carry our bags up?”
    The desk clerk looked at me and said, “Sure, him.”
    After walking up the eight flights (the elevator was broken), I was perspiring pretty good into my wool sweater. I reached down and took the key out of my sneaker (“Are you sure your valuables shouldn’t be in the hotel safe?” Dean asked) and unlocked the door. . . .
    Which swung open and hit a bedpost. Dean looked at the room, then looked at me. “
What
are we paying here a week?” he asked.
    I told him $84, forty-two bucks apiece.
    He plopped himself on the edge of one of the beds and lit a Camel. And began to giggle. No one on the planet giggled like he did, and it was catching.
    “You wanna share with me what’s making you chuckle?” I asked.
    “Yeah, sure. That little card on the dresser from ‘The Princess Management.’ Towels every
other
day?”
    “Sometimes they’re still damp!” I assured him.
    He laughed, so I laughed. While I had him in the mood, I told him: “Dean, so you aren’t disappointed—when we go to the club, our dressing room is a folding chair.”
    Our hotel room was so small, the mice had to go out to change their minds. (Credit: Henny Youngman.) But we were together, and that made me very happy. Loneliness was not my strong suit.
    We arrived at the 500 Club at a quarter to five, walked in, and went straight to the band. A really nice bunch of guys . . . a small bunch, but nice. In fact, the music complement was as follows: piano, trumpet, bass, and drums. The drummer was Bernie, and he had a big nose that everyone teased him about, so he and I became compadres—his nose and my entire being up for grabs. Bernie was the first one to tell a funny story about his beak. It seems he’d been drinking at a party and his girl aroused him while they were dancing. Well, he got an erection, walked into the wall, and broke his nose. Pete Miller was the bandleader. A very nice man and a terrific pianist (I was so jealous).
    Dean put his bag down, opened it, and took out the sheets for his four musical numbers. These weren’t arrangements, like stars have, but just straight sheet music, for piano only, purchased at Woolworth’s music counter. “That’s it?” Pete asked.
    “Just play and let the guys fill in,” Dean told him. “I’ve done it before. It always works.”
    It appeared that Dean was trying to comfort the band, yet deep down, I sensed that he was the one who really needed comforting. But would he ever show it? Not even close. It was my first experience with the bravado that would amaze me for the next ten years. Dean was always working, not just when he was performing but throughout his life and times. He made me understand that your life is your own—work it, nurture it, protect it. He said to me one day, “You know, the day you’re born, you get the pink slip on you—outright ownership. You must only share that life with those that you, and only you, choose. We are not brought on this earth as an object of sacrifice.”
    Often, Dean would speak philosophically, saying things that I believe had been inside him for a long, long time—things that,