Ladies' Man Read Online Free PDF

Donna.
    "I wanna wish
huh
luck too." He extended his hand to her, and I quickly stepped between them and grabbed his hand again. "I want to thank you for both of us." I grabbed La Donna away and tried to find a neutral corner in that loony bin.
    "That big yom start something with you?" Jackie di Paris stood over us now, his jaw cemented with rage. "I'm gonna kick his fuckin' ass before midnight. He's been breakin' people's balls all night." Jackie glared across the room.
    "How you doin', doll?" He kissed La Donna on the cheek. La Donna patted his shoulder like "Downboy."
    "What's your number?" he said, holding his own at arm's length as if he were nearsighted.
    "Thirteen."
    "Yeah? I'm twelve. Hey, tonight's only the beginning. Maybe me 'n' you'll become a famous duet like Tony Orlando and Dawn." He blew into his fist and robbed his hands as if he was still outside, winked at me, gave me a sidearm shot in the shoulder and walked off.
    I started to move La Donna around the room again when she shook my hand away. "Kenny,
cut
it. I'm not furniture."
    "Hey, will you relax?"
    "
You
relax!
You
go up there in twenny minutes and
you
relax."
    "Hey, relax, La Di." I didn't know what else to say.
    "Kenny." She held my hand and took a deep breath. "You wanna help me, right? Please don't be offended." She kept patting my hand for accentuation. "Go inside, get a table and watch me from in there, okay?"
    "Nan, I'll stay with you."
    "Kenny, please." She looked more weary than tense. "Please Kenny."
    I had to do what she asked. I felt so hurt I wanted to cry. I didn't understand what I'd done wrong. I felt like
1
had blown everything. "What about that big nigger?"
    She smiled. "I'll scream for Jackie di Paris."
    "I can handle that bozo. Why don't you scream for me?"
    "'Cause you'll be inside."
    I gave her a tasteless kiss, told her chin up and eyes closed and walked toward the curtain. As I went in I saw she Was standing over the girl with the guitar again, but still looking away like she had no idea she was there.
     
    "Thank you, Chuck Steak, Charles Steak."
    He stepped off the stage sweating like a steam room attendant I was seated during the last thirty seconds of his act, a cheap-shot homo joke, but from the high buzz of table conversation and the almost nonexistent applause I assumed that the funniest thing Chuck had in his head was his name. I sat at a table against the back wall with two drunks and a nondescript guy about my age with a tape cassette and ordered a Chivas from the waitress.
    "I wanna remind you people that
five
of tonight's performers will be invited back on Sunday evening at six for a special showcase, the, ah, cream of the
crap
as it were." That got some laughter, some awws. The emcee shrugged and raised his hands in submission.
    He was a fast-talking prep school Jew, thin, also wearing aviator glasses, shag haircut, Bloomingdale's pullover, very obnoxious. life would go on without him. "Okay." He read from the clipboard. "Number nine, Leonard Wooley, a comedian."
    It was the big spade with the cowboy hat. He sleepwalked up to the stage.
    "Than' you." He tried to adjust me mike, couldn't and wound up lifting the whole thing to his mouth. He stared out over the audience frowning. "Wow, man, you Jews are
wild
, man." Grumbles. Immediately the emcee came back onstage, grim and mechanically applauding, to grab the mike. "Thank you. Thank you," and he ushered Leonard Wooley off before he realized what was happening. "Leonard Wooley, Leonard Wooley. Leonard had to leave early, his Hitler Youth bus threatened to split for Hamburg without him. Number ten! Number ten!"
    Ten was a bad comedian. He got slaughtered. When the kid's time was up he looked like he needed a transfusion. He did not get one laugh in ten minutes. It was brutal. The joint was a killing floor. If they had given me a week to get ready I could have torn down the house. I would have them all laughing, on their knees, then, as a finale, sprayed the joint with