Free 700 Sundays by Billy Crystal Page B

Sammy, made me forget Cosby, made me forget
The 2,000 Year Old Man
, made me forget the Yankees, made me forget everything that I cared about because I discovered my penis. This was the greatest discovery of all. I discovered mine six, seven, eight, ten times a day. I wonder what the record is. The penis is not a good thing to get addicted to. Let’s face it. It’s a weapon of self-destruction and you don’t need U.N. inspectors to find it. You know right where it is every second.
    This little guy has caused problems for men throughout history. The great Thomas Jefferson had affairs. His boyhood friend Strom Thurmond—same thing. Kennedy, Eisenhower, Clinton . . . all men of power, and the power went right to their pants. Even FDR fooled around. This I don’t understand. Because if you have a chance to screw Eleanor Roosevelt every night of the week, where you going? A great woman, without a doubt, but not really a “hottie.” He actually faked being paralyzed so he wouldn’t have to have sex with her. He wasn’t only frightened of fear itself, he was frightened of that overbite. Now I had the same problem, right in the palm of my hand.
    I was so horny. I was always ready. My glands were relentless. They were screaming at me.
    NOW, NOW, NOW!
    And I was ready for anything that looked hump-able. A bagel.
    NOW!
    It was poppy-seeded, I almost shredded myself to death.
    A 45 RPM record.
    NOW!
    To this day I can’t look Lesley Gore in the eye.
    NOW, NOW, NOW!
    And then I saw The Girl.
    NOW!
    This wasn’t lust.
    BULLSHIT!
    No, it wasn’t. This was something different. This was love.
    COME ON, YOU’RE TALKING TO ME NOW!
    I fell in love with this adorable blond girl. First love. The kind of love that actually hurts. She was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I knew what head-over-heels meant because I kept tripping and falling when I would follow her home from school.
    THIS IS SO FUCKING BORING!
    Finally, I got up enough nerve to ask her out and she said yes.
    LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
    My first date. Panic. I walked to her house. (Driving was still years away.) She lived in Lido Beach, not far from the Nike missile beach. A perfect image for my condition. I was so nervous I couldn’t remember where she lived.
    MAKE A LEFT!
    It was the first global positioning system.
    YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION!
    Leave me alone!
    NEVER! I OWN YOU!
    I got to the door, I started to knock and I heard something that scared the hell out of me.
    LET ME RING THE BELL!
    I didn’t know what to do, I just stood there frozen.
    FORGET IT. I’LL KNOCK!
    And if they hadn’t cut off the top six to eight inches, I would have leveled the place . . .
    So now we start going out, and it was the first time I made out with somebody in a movie theater, in the balcony of the Laurel Theatre in Long Beach.
    NOW!
    Then in the back seat of a friend’s car . . .
    NOW!
    Oh, she was Miss Right . . .
    NOW!
    And I got up enough nerve and I said, “You know what? I love you, I really do . . . Let’s go steady.”
    “Oh, no, Billy I can’t do that. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to go out with you anymore. I really just like you as a friend.”
    OH NO!
    “Really?”
    “I mean, I like you, but not in that way . . .”
    “Uh-huh . . .” I understand. (But my glands don’t.)
    WHAT ABOUT ME?

CHAPTER 8
    T he rejection was too much to take. The first time out, and you open yourself up to someone. You tell somebody that you care about them, you tell somebody how you feel about them, and they say, “I just don’t like you.” That hurts. I was mad. I was embarrassed. I felt like a fool. I was fifteen, and I was ready to settle down, and have a family. It felt so right, how could I have been so wrong? Why didn’t she like me? I couldn’t see straight for days. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. I didn’t think about anything else but The Girl. It was a Tuesday night . . .
    October 15, 1963. I was sitting at the kitchen table studying for a