Me and Lenny

Lenny Bruce came to me the other night, I could have called, I don't remember, I could have left a message. I never made you out to be no martyr, I probably said. I dont like martyrs anyway. Toward the end he couldn’t get a job; they were starving him to death. That was even what Mingus was told on a late night train, “They get that gun in your side, the gun of hunger, that’s the most deadly weapon there is.” King coon or whoever he was talking about at the time, just playing a part, just a tool, whatever he was. So I feel like Lenny without the craft, without the struggle. So I am sitting on the couch in the dark living room, and Lenny is there, He is coming out of the kitchen, "you now you don’t have a lick of decent food in there, not a damn crumb, I had to spread peanut butter between two slices of chicken skin, I swear, I spread hot mustard on it so I wouldn’t have to taste it, what the hell is going on in here?"
I told him I had go grocery shopping still; I hadn’t had a chance to. "Yeah, yeah," he cut me off. "That’s where it starts, you forget food, that’s the stomach, then you forget food for the heart, then the brain, then there you are a heartless, brainless schmedrik, what are you going to do, what would your mother say? I don’t care, you know I didn’t come here to eat anyway, I just take the liberty, when I get to come into some young fools mind in a dream, I make a sandwich, if you were a Jew you would have some corned beef maybe, but no, not now, not here, what a schmuck, you know I got arrested for that word, I said schmuck, are you kidding me? Yeah it was stupid then, I said don’t say schmuck in front of a Jew, I knew you could, for Christ’s sake, HA!, you always could, now I see you got a grocery store named “Schmucks”, (I think he means schnucks) and there’s not even a cop in the parking lot, I did see some quite contemporary Japanese oriental Asian looking chicks in there, They shop after midnight, mishpocheh around here I suppose. You know they never blow their cool, I could use some oriental, I mean, Asian friends,or asian in me, myself, to keep it cool, not like personal friends, but friends on the inside, maybe a whole jury come into the courtroom all in line dressed like one of those dragons with the firecrackers all popping at the feet, they don’t waste no time, you never see them bowling, you don’t ever see them fighting in the front yard.."

I speak up for a second "did you have anything to tell me, like specifically". I didn’t want him to go, but I wanted to hear what he could tell me before I realized he was a ghost, and then a fantasy, then a figment and then I reemerged into real life.

"Oh, right," he said. "That’s what they want, listen you, dig this. Quit fucking complaining, I see what you do, you act like the whole ceiling is caving in on you, when you know its not, it did to me. I wish I was you, you asshole. We got one thing in common at least, that is that we both idolized the mail man, you always wanted to be the mailman, I know that, I didn’t take it that far, maybe you would take even a tin badge if it were pinned on you, in honorarium, so now we have a honorary deputy here feeling sorry for himself wondering ‘what do I do to bring the honor to this badge dulled from years of beating a dead horse’, and lies, oh the lies, you never stopped lying, lie, lie, lie. "

"I never lie, not when I write, I…" Like I am going to lay a sermon on him at this hour, but as I expect he doesn’t miss a beat,

"Just don’t lie to me, I hate lies, I do like liars, but not lies, you were going to tell me about time, about planetary spectrums, about god and the devil and heaven and hell, and nothing means a goddamn thing, not a goddamn thing." And he lit a cigarette from his pocket and went on.

"You don’t need to prove anything, you don’t have any three headed dog at the gates of hell, its gone, asleep, you can just creep by it, there is nobody sabotaging you, nobody is listening and taking laundry lists of your words, but if your lucky……they will!"

he smiled and dragged on his cigarette, and waited for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. "Yeah, this is what always happens, you wants to say something, but you have nothing to say, you know, maybe its because of bad early toilet training, back when you’re a kid, when you’re a baby your folks are telling you, ‘say this, say that’ then as soon as you are old enough to talk in full sentences all they ever say is ‘Shut up! Keep it down over there! Come on, I cant hear myself think’. Or then again, maybe you are one of them! It could be… I have no clue, I was told to break the news to you.. Ok, I wasn’t but what if I was?"

I began to believe he was unable to end a story just the same way I was. I watch people tell stories, friends of mine who tell great stories the ones that I always love to listen to, when they begin they say “listen to this..”, and I pay close attention, because I want to hear the end of it, not so much for how the story ends, but I want to learn how they end the story. That is key, I tell a story and it comes to the end, and the party listening laughs or reacts like they should, so I told a good story, and then I cant help it, I add something else, and then they start listening again, maybe its not over, but its over, but I put myself back on the hook and I didn’t rehearse this part, and I just tend to trail off. I go on too long, like a movie when you watch it and its just fifteen minutes too long, or a false ending on a song, if it wasn’t for that it would be perfect. Lenny made a whole career out of it, he exploited that awkward silence between the subjects that comes, that made me feel hot under the lights, and he turned the lights outward. Maybe he did, what do I know? "I got to tell you," Lenny says and he drops his cigarette on the floor and rubs his foot over it. "I know what your thinking, your old lady is going to freak out, the Shmootzik on the floor, but it’s ok, you know it doesn’t even exist, like me, right? I know, you know, go ahead and ask, I have to tell you anyway, but go ahead and ask I can see it in your big asshole face."

So I pause like I always do when somebody ingratiates me to say what they know that I know but I actually don’t know but they have already some faith in my knowledge of something. "ok, Lenny, what knowledge do you have, you know as a dead man. What can you bring back for us?"

Lenny makes a half turn with his hands up, "oh, gawd, here we go! I knew it, I just knew it, the kid wants to know what the dead man can do for him. What can I tell him? Would it make him feel better, a good catholic kid like him if I say, you wouldn’t believe it, I got to the pearly gates and there was saint peter, just like you were told, old white cat, beard and a big key ring on his belt, big book, the whole bit, and I show up. Here comes another Jew, he says and he wont even let me talk, I open my mouth, he shuts me up, I’m sorry Mr. Bruce, you know what we do with Jews up here, first of all there’s just too many of you, and more importantly you are all wrong, yes it’s true, the Christians were right all along. And I say, wait a minute you know, I worshiped the same god, I put up the old argument, I was a good man, I worked hard, all that. And he just looks at me and says, now, we know what you did, we all know what you people did. Oh, right I say, that, yeah I remember, I killed our lord and savior, A lot of people say to me, 'Why did you kill him?' I dunno, it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know., ok let me have it. Trap door opens up, whoosh! There I go down in the hole. You can tell everybody that, I don’t care."

"Here is the truth kid, the whole truth, here I am dead, and dead for a long time, and time does not pass like an instant for me when its years for you, days and years are the same, and here I am, this is a break for me, a vacation to come see you with no food in your fridge, you think that’s so great? How great can death be, when so many dead come back, and if heaven is so great why do all of you fight so hard to stay alive down here on earth?

All of you think you die and you take some express elevator and go up and see god, well I hadn’t seen him yet, maybe he’s busy or maybe he’s like captain Ahab and ducking out in his quarters, I don’t doubt that he is, and I hadn’t heard of a cat yet as crazy as Ahab. I realize that for us dead there is no god, maybe for you living folks not us, not for dead Jews, Christians, or even Martians! None of us, we get left high and dry. We got no money, we got no friends we got nothing, a bunch of dead nobodies, Chaim Yankel.

But everybody else, all of you, me too, we all live in a ‘what should be’ culture instead of a ‘what is’ culture. And here I am to deliver to you the absolute truth, and nothing less, and here it is. "What should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is. The truth is, what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago.

Life is trying to persuade your eyes into telling your mind that what you are seeing is not really happening, and doesn’t really exist, but your mind, knows better, and your mind and your heart or your soul just cant agree on this, and that’s the real dilemma, the real struggle. And you have to swallow all the horseshit that you come across, how you are supposed to act, and all that’s not true, nothing is true, except what’s happening right now, to you, to me. You know yourself you can only write about what’s in front of your senses, what you are feeling, and the ugly truth is that’s all that there is, man. That’s it.

‘What should be’, yeah it should be, you know yourself, I saw what you were painting down there, my comedy was full of destruction and despair, if the whole world was peaceful, without death or disease, the I would have had nothing to say, and you would have had nothing to paint, dopey. In your line of work you feed off of the evil and devastation just as much as some crooked African warlord, now that’s ugly, isn’t it? Yeah, the artist on trial, he says ‘your honor, I never starved any children.’ well you never fed any either, did you?

So we understand now, how we live, in a culture of what should be, so much so, its jammed down your throat no matter where you go, be like this, be beautiful, well I just cant, too bad, I mean, I was born with a head shaped like a walnut, or a cashew, well no matter what you do, you just cant make that work for you, I’m sorry, grow a beard and try to cover it up, it just wont work, you mutant, you deranged psychopath. That’s what is it called? That shit with all the lumps in your head, what is it?"

I cough,"Um, phrenology."

"Yeah, phrenology, you get turned into a cartoon, and now you speak for everyone ever born with a funny shaped head like you, god forbid you ever commit a crime or one of your funny shaped head brethren, because that fucks it all up for the rest of you, once they look at you, they lay eyes on you, they say, Oh, I know your kind, I know what your capable of, you dirty bastard, get the hell out of my sight. Then he tells his friends, ‘damn dirty peanut headed son of a bitch, goddamn son of a bitch ratted us all out, the worlds not safe for us lumpy heads no more."

I sat up; I thought the sun would have been up. I couldn’t be more wrong. it may never come up.

"Go back to sleep, little monkey." Lenny gestured a benediction to me.

"Go back to sleep, that’s the place to be. Shit. You think you can do any better out here in your waking life than you can do in your dreams, goddamn, You’d give your left ass to be back in your dreams if you knew what was good for you."

Lenny walked toward the back door which was glowing bright with the rising sun.

He stopped short and put his fingers to his chin.

Turning halfway around he said.

"Look, kid. If anybody asks, I told you to feel like shit and repent all your sins, alright? I like to get out once in a while, dig?"

“Yeah, ok” I said. The sun, but.. it wasn't the sun behind the door at all. the light was brighter, brighter still.
It enveloped him as he walked through it.
"Zshlub", he said.


me and lenny by Anton Kozieja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.