Old Man Joke

Autumn tugged at the leaves outside the window. Rain was in the clouds and would soon be on the streets. There was a nip to the air. Winter waited around the corner. In all, it was the perfect day to watch the world from behind the windows of the glamorous Astoria Hotel Tea Room.

The seasoned among you know it. For those of you who don’t know her, she is the best of the remaining Gilded Hotels, those gorgeous buildings made by the robber barons to show one another up. She sat on Eleventh Street, her back to the river and her face to the city. Her rival, the Roman, stared at her from two miles down the road. The Astoria survived where the Roman didn’t. I think it came down to neighborhoods.

She took up an entire city block. The façade was too large, running up seven stories before surrendering to the ordinary limestone for the remaining eight. Edifices of stone were made to look like scrolls, like the Library of Alexandria was raining from the sky. In days of old the façade had been red and white so that the building looked like a lasting bastion of Christmas, the Consulate of Kris Kringle. I’ve seen the pictures. I would have loved to be there in those days. The paint had since faded. Maybe it all seemed at bit gauche in the Seventies. In the curved stones scrolls had been golden paint. That was all gone. During the Panic of Sixty-Eight, rumor spread that it was real gold and everything a man could reach had been taken. Still, she remained, the dowager queen of the city watching her children run wild. 

I loved this building, though before today I had only been inside as far as the lobby. She was for the best of clientele. Five Star didn’t even begin to describe her. This was, after all, the place where movie stars got married, back in the good old days at least. Writers of fame and ill repute shacked up in there with whiskey at their side and publishers at their backs to finish their stories. How I wanted to be in their number.

Every time that I passed by, I would stop a moment and look in wonder at her. Someday I would stay there. I promised myself I would drink at the bars and tearooms, I would eat at the famous dinning room where Debbie Fairchild wed Oscar Taybor in the showbiz wedding of the century. Ol’ Green sang there.

Today was finally the day. A friend of mine, Steve Boarman, had been a struggling comedian while I was busy being a struggling writer. Dives and struggling bars with cheap beer were more familiar to us. Those were some long years.

But today was different. Steve caught his big break and I hadn’t seen him all summer. He was getting a scripted T.V. show and was on one of those panel talent shows. I was happy for him, even though I was still living in dive bars.

I owned one nice suit. It probably wasn’t what the Astoria deserved, but it was good enough to get me through the door. I was so thrilled that I showed up two hours early and set up camp in the first tearoom that I found. It was everything that I had hoped it to be. Dark green walls, comfortable seating, dark brown leather, a whisper of conversation that snaked around the room, and a view that couldn’t be beat.

As I sipped, I looked at the other patrons, hoping to see some famous resident, but I didn’t recognize anyone. Of course, I’m better at facades than faces. Not spotting someone famous did nothing to dampen my spirits. I was bubbling more than tea in a kettle. I paid no mind to the clock.   

I was pulled from my joy by a phone call. Deciding that it would be rude to answer in the tearoom, I stepped out into the hall. “Yellow?” (That’s the way I liked to answer phones.)

“Hey, where are you?” Steve sounded chipper as ever.

“Third floor tearoom.”

“I should have known. Well, you’re ten minutes late. Come on up to the dining room. I’ve got things to talk to you about. They’re about to call our reservation.”

“Yeah, I’ll close out.”

Steve laughed. “I think it’s call paying your bill in a place like this.”

“Eh, whatever.” I hung up. Closing up took a moment, and then I set off to the seventh floor. I would have liked to walk up, but with someone waiting for me and the reservation, it was best to hurry.

Besides, the elevators were gorgeous.

I had been dreaming of eating in this room for nearly a decade. When the doors opened, I was standing in my heaven. I could see the dining room before I left the elevator. The joy I had been feeling in the tearoom was redoubled, and I floated gently through the air as I reached the two doors. They opened with a satisfying sigh.

A small waiting room was on the other side. Chairs lined the walls. The dining room was obscured by a thick green carpet whose folds were like ordered waves on the ocean racing to the beach. Perfection. A small standing desk stood to the right where the hostess looked on from.

Steve was waiting disinterested in a fifty-year-old chair that had probably been the seat for a movie starlet some time ago. Okay, I heard it. I needed to tone it down. He was the only one in the room.

“Hey,” Steve said, rising and offering a hand. I took it, glad to see my friend. “It’s been some time for us, hasn’t it?”

“Nah,” I said. I didn’t want him to feel bad about being successful. Lord knows he earned it. “We saw each other in April.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” He relaxed. Since I’d seen him last, he had put on a few pounds. I supposed that was life on the road. Not that I was any model either. Steve turned to the hostess. “We’re all here.”

“Right this way, gentlemen.” She led us into the room.

Be still my beating heart, I thought as I stepped in. Being in the historic hotel was enough for me, but walking into this dining room was unimaginable. I had always hoped that I would be here. Part of me doubted, however. This was the beating heart of the Astoria.

The room was two stories tall with windows to match. It was all a soft green color; I felt that I had dove into those waves and was now presented with another world. Tonight I would be dinning with mermaids. The carpet had a fish motif, so it wasn’t just me who thought this way. At a guess the room was two hundred feet wide and nearly five hundred long. Tables dotted this sea like whitecap waves, or better yet oyster beds. Three enormous chandeliers, and a swarm of smaller ones, were like jellyfish. I took deep breaths as I followed the hostess and Steve, it all smelled of the carpet and wine.

There were diners enjoying a late lunch or early dinner, but the room was only about twenty-five percent full. I don’t think it was ever full except for events. Scanning the sparse crowd revealed no faces I knew. That was for the best. I wouldn’t be able to control myself if I saw the Astoria royalty making their way through a soup.

 We were helped into our seats at a table not near anyone else. I looked over the menu to see how it would compare to the meals served in ages past. The wine list was six pages long. The menu, however, was a page long. Three options for three courses. A note about a dessert menu.

“Well?”

I looked up from the menu. Steve was looking at me. “Well, what?”

“Dude, I know this is your favorite place in all the world. You were up in arms about the restoration five years ago. I think you know every brick layer who worked on this thing. Come on.”

I laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, alright. Thanks for this. I really can’t believe I’m here. This room, the number of people who have had the best meal of their life, I can’t believe it. This is an institution.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“It’s not, I’ve seen the prices.”

We toasted with water as our server had yet to show. We made small talk the next five minutes as we waited. I asked him about his tours and how his mom was doing (her health fluctuated wildly).

When our waiter did come, Steve ordered wine and the first course for both of us. He picked well. A creamy soup was just what I needed on this autumn day.

“So how was your summer?” he asked me.

“Same as the last five.” I meant that lightly, but both he and I were discontented through our aimless years. He knew it too.

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. It’s easy to get used to nothing.

“Well, you know they’re giving me a show, right?”

“Of course.” I met his eyes, though I didn’t want to. I was happy for him, truly. I just wanted my big break. The hotel was a nice consolation prize, at least for the day.

“So I’m in meetings all the time and we’ve got to build this thing from the bottom up and I don’t know how to build it. So I’m trusting my producers. And they’re good guys, don’t get me wrong.” It was here that our soups came. It was so good that I was only half listening, my tongue busy in a world of basil. “Anyway we need a writers room and writers to fill that room.”

“Mhm.” I muttered as I slurped.

“I need writers,” Steve said again, slower this time.

“Yeah, I heard you.”

He gave me an odd look. Then, the slow churning wheels in my mind made the connection. The spoon fell out of my hand.

“Oh. Oh. Are you offering me a job?”

Steve laughed. “What was it, the chandeliers or the drapes that’s got your mind?”

“The soup.”

“Man, if this building could talk I don’t think you would hear me.”

“If this building would talk, I would bother it so much that it would kick me to the curb.” We shared a light laugh. “So you’re offering me a job?”

Steve set his soup aside. How had me managed to eat when he was talking so much? “Yes, I am.”

“But, I’m a literary writer, not a comedy one.”

“Dude, a writer’s room is just a bunch of writers telling bad jokes to one another before they find something that’s almost funny. Your background doesn’t matter. You just need to show up.”

“Okay…why?”

“One of the great joys in life is lifting up friends who were with you since the beginning.”

That hurt. I hate being seen as a charity case. “So I’m just going to tag along?”

“What? No, I…” Steve shrank in his seat. “I know how much you dislike working they copywriting jobs. And I need you.”

I raised an eyebrow. I believed him and I didn’t. No one needed me. I was a little rat writer working nine to five and agonizing over the Great American Novel at a dive every night.

“This last week I’ve been meeting with dozens of guys every day. Nonstop meetings. I think the guys are good, they just don’t know me, you know? And I don’t know them. I want someone at my side who I know, someone who knows me.” Steve took a big drink of his wine in a practiced motion. I frowned.  

“Look,” he said. “A lot of people change when they get famous. I don’t want that. I want someone who can keep me honest. I want you.”

I shrugged. It was better than copywriting. “Yeah, alright.”

“Alright!” Steve said laughing. “That’s what I’m talking about. Look, you’re not going to be head writer or anything, but you’re going to be in the room. That’s something.”

It was, and more than I had.

The main course came and we had a fun time reminiscing as we ate it. I felt a load had been taken off. Through it all, he was still my friend. I suppose that was what I had been afraid of. People change with success, and I had never had any. I was still the same old honest bum that I had always been. It was everyone else who kept changing, leaving me behind. That’s what I was made for, or at least it felt that way sometimes. I was the guy that people wondered what they were up to, and when they learned the truth they thought to themselves ‘there but for the grace of god’.

“Holy shit.”

I looked up from my chicken. Steve was watching a very old man take a seat next to us. His hair was white and wispy, thinly covering his head. He had as much hair coming out of his ears and nose as from his scalp. All the skin on his face sagged. The suit he wore was shabbier than mine, and I was almost offended on the Astoria’s behalf at the relic that sat to my left. They’ll let anyone in these days.

I looked back to Steve. He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were full of wonder as he looked at this newcomer.

“Who is it?” I whispered to him.

“That’s Old Man Joke,” he whispered back.

That made no sense. It was barely a sentence. If we were going to be whispering about him, this conversation was going to take forever. I shuffled my chair around the table so that Steve was at my right and I was looking straight at the back of this old man.

“It sounded like you said he’s Old Man Joke.”

“Yeah, that’s what he’s called in the business. I thought he died ages ago.”

“Okay, but who is he?”

Steve looked at me briefly and then back to the old man. “He’s Daniel Horowitz, but we’ve been calling him Old Man Joke for the last fifty years. He’s a comedy legend, like the most famous funny man of the last century.”

“Huh,” I said, looking at the old man. “He doesn’t look like much.”

“Dude, he’s got to be almost a hundred. He’s been in the business since the war. God, I’ve heard so many stories. Everyone in this business has one. When the topic of Old Man Joke comes up, they jump in and tell their story.”

Steve fell silent and I knew that he wanted one for his own. I wasn’t so sure, but hey, he was my boss now.

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“Of course. The man is an institution. I spent the summer listening to Old Man Joke stories. I’ve heard them all my life. I know everything about him. Every single thing. I’ve read every book there is about the man. I practically worship him, man. He’s an institution. I need to talk to him.”

“Don’t bother him, be subtle.”

Steve looked at me. “You’ve known me for seven years. I have no subtlety.”

“I’m just saying is all. Don’t be rude, don’t be brash.”

“Can you come with me?”

I folded my napkin and stood. Steve followed, looking almost sick. It would be fine. Steve was a good story teller. Anything the old man gave him he would be able to spin into something. That’s what being a comedian was about.

“Excuse me Mr. Horowitz,” I said when we reached him. Steve was standing behind me and to the right. I was a buffer between the two of them. “My friend is a fan and was hoping he could talk to you.”

“I heard you two. He says he knows everything about me,” Old Man Joke grumbled. “I don’t think he needs me to say anything.”

“Oh… er…well, I think…” I fumbled, trying to come up with anything.

“Please sir,” Steve jumped in, his face glowing. Laughter was already on his lips. “I would love to talk or to hear you tell a joke. I worship you.”

“Why?” Old Man Joke said.

Steve brayed a laugh.

I didn’t get it.