Free My Remarkable Journey by Larry King Page A

don’t heat the loading platforms,”
     he said, “I don’t talk to you.”
    These are the sorts of things you learn when you don’t have time to prepare.
    Hoffa said he never wanted to ride in the back of a limousine. These union leaders who go around holding straps, he said,
     are no different from the guys running the corporations. He always rode in the front of a Chevrolet. He had a funny way of
     referring to himself by his own name. He’d say, “Hoffa says.” When he did, I’d say, “King responds.” He had a good sense of
     humor about it. When the show ended, I noticed that Pumpernik’s was jammed.
    Soon, Danny Thomas and a bunch of famous people started coming around between ten and eleven. Saturday was children’s day
     and people brought their kids in to be interviewed.
    Pumpernik’s became
the spot
, and I became Mr. Miami. It wasn’t planned. I didn’t have a PR person. People liked me. Lenny Bruce and Don Rickles liked
     coming by. Once Lenny came in wearing an outfit from the state prison.
    Miami was one of the few places where Lenny didn’t have a lot of trouble with the cops. I said, “Lenny, why are you wearing
     this?”
    He said, “I like to wear prison uniforms.”
    “Why?”
    “I like to walk up to cops and ask them directions.”
    “Why?”
    “To see their reactions. Because you know what they’re thinking. The first thing they’re thinking is,
Is this an escaped con asking for directions?
The second thing they’re thinking is,
Nah, can’t be an escaped con. Why would an escaped con ask a policeman for directions?
Third thing they’re thinking is,
What if he’s a brilliant escaped con who thinks that I’m not thinking what he’s thinking?
”
    And Rickles said, “Lenny, get a job.”
    The Pumpernik’s hour was funny and loose, and that really started to come out in my early morning show between six and nine.
     If I had stayed with it, I’d have ended up a major morning disc jockey like Imus.
    One time during my show I was listening to the morning traffic report. The guy giving the report told drivers that I-95 was
     backed up, so they should use Seventh Avenue. I thought, Well, he’s alleviating I-95. But he’s congesting Seventh Avenue.
     So I invented this character to rectify the situation, Captain Wainright.
    It was my voice, I just hit a control that distorted it and made it sound funny. So Captain Wainright came on and said, “I
     just heard that traffic report, Larry. All you listeners, I want you to know that I-95 is open and clear. Get back on I-95.”
     Then Captain Wainright gave a little laugh.
Heh, heh, heh.
Five minutes later, Captain Wainright came back on with that same laugh and said, “I got ’em backed up to Broward County.”
    Captain Wainright was my alter ego, and everything a cop shouldn’t be. When Gulfstream Park racetrack opened, Captain Wainright
     said, “Don’t go to Gulfstream. Bet with any Dade County police officer. They’ll take your bet. Leave your money where you
     live.”
    I’d get Miami’s state attorney Dick Gerstein on the phone and Captain Wainright would say, “Dickie baby, where are you? Today
     is payoff day, and if you’re not in the office in five minutes, I’m going to call out the boys.”
    Whenever I’d pass a detour sign where roadwork was being done, I’d have fresh material. “If you’re on I-95 and you turn toward
     Miami Beach, you’ll see a detour sign,” Captain Wainright would say. “Disregard that detour sign. We’re on our way to take
     it down. Go straight through it.”
    A guy working for the city called me and said, “Larry, if we didn’t love you, we’d kill you.” Looking back on it, I probably
     wasn’t doing anything different from when Herbie and I clogged the streets as traffic monitors in junior high. Only this time,
     I didn’t have to go to the principal’s office. Now there were bumper stickers around town that read, DON ’ T STOP ME, I KNOW CAPTAIN WAINRIGHT .
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