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“You again.”
She'd caught him coming off an act at a club in midtown. The club was ritzy by midtown standards, much nicer than the Gaslight, but still enough beer on the floor to remind you you weren't at the Copa. She'd kill to get Midge into a place like this of her own accord, without having to rely on someone else's reputation. She’d hoped they were heading toward that, but she wasn’t so sure now.
“Hi Lenny. Nice to see you too,” Susie said. She was already mad enough at herself for having to come down here, she didn’t have time to deal with his sarcastic bullshit.
“Aren't you supposed to be in Europe?" he questioned, pulling out and lighting a cigarette.
“I need your help.” Fuck, she hated that. She hated saying those words. She hated that they were true. Fuck.
“I expected nothing less.”
“It’s about Midge.”
"She talk about the pregnant friend again? Disparage the Sophie Lennon?" Lenny asked, feigning disinterest by leaning back against a post.
Midge was always vehement that she and Lenny were just friends, but the fact that he was clearly pretending to be so casual about two of the hardest moments of Midge's comedy career was telling. Just what it was telling her, Susie wasn't really sure, but it reinforced her decision to seek him out for this. "What? No."
Lenny sighed. “Look, you know I like her, but at some point my reputation’s going to take a hit if I keep playing gigs for free, and, uh, between you and me, I don’t think it can stand to get much lower.”
“This isn’t about that,” Susie cried out, exasperated. It was time to pull out the big guns: “She needs you.”
He looked at his feet and took a long drag from his cigarette before meeting her eyes again. “Is she, uh, okay?”
“Yes. I think. But her career's back in the shitter.”
“And you expect me to do what?”
“I’m not asking you to do another gig. She messed up. And she’s alone and sad and she needs a friend. And I can’t do it, so it’s gotta be you or she’ll turn back to that asshole ex-husband of hers and god knows that is the last fuckin’ thing she needs. Miriam is not going to be insignificant and he makes her turn into a fuckin’ nobody.” God, Susie hated that guy. He represented everything wrong with men. He'd had a perfect woman like Midge and he'd thrown her away like fucking garbage.
“Well, we can’t have that now, can we?” he responded quietly.
Susie let out a breath. “Thank you. Asshole.” Fuck. She'd just called Lenny Bruce an asshole. And had been kind of a jerk to him in general. She was losing her goddamn mind. "I am so sorry, uh, Mr. Bruce, sir."
Lenny smirked at her. “Where is she?” he asked after a moment.
Susie looked at her feet and mumbled a response.
“I’m sorry, I don’t subscribe to the Strasbourg Method, I don’t speak mumble. You’ll have to speak up.”
“I don’t know, okay?” She exclaimed. “Look, she said some shit she shouldn’t have and Shy kicked her off the tour. She was upset, and after she had a good cry, she told me she needed to go figure out if it was still all worth it, whatever the hell that means, and just took off in a cab before I could stop her.”
“Midge got kicked off the tour?”
“Yes! Jesus fuck, Lenny, keep up. Look, I need you to go find her.”
“I’m sorry, isn’t it a manager’s job to manage her client?”
“Fine, if I’d’ve known you were gonna be a fucking prick about it, I wouldn’t have come. I’ll just go fuck off and find her fucking dick of an ex-husband to help Midge. Thanks for nothing, asshole.”
She turned around to leave and instantly began berating herself for speaking to a comedic legend like Lenny Bruce like that. Still, she moved very slowly, hoping that he would stop her. She really didn’t want to have to involve Joel in this.
“Wait,” Lenny said finally.
“Oh thank God,” she mumbled, turning around.
He looked past her for a moment, then chuckled quietly to himself. “I know where she is.”
“Great... so are you gonna go or?“
“I’ll get her.”
Susie breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” They stood looking at each other awkwardly for a few moments. “So I’ll just-“ Susie said, motioning toward the exit.
“Yeah,” Lenny said with a curt nod.
She took two steps out the door then heard him call her back.
“Hey,” he said. He sounded... not like Lenny Bruce. He sounded melancholic. He sounded sad. “Why me?”
“What?”
“There are other people in her life you could have come to, more important people, her parents for example, her former ex-husband. I bet even the doctor would leave a man’s chest open on his operating table just to chase after her. But me, I’m just a background character in her story. I’m not a leading man here. Why did you come to me?” He asked.
Susie would have laughed at the absurdity of Lenny Bruce standing so uncertain before her had his entire being not been shining with sincerity as he asked. This was a side to him she didn’t expect. This was a Lenny Bruce with demons, with self-doubt and self-loathing. Was this sincerity something that Midge was privy to? Because Susie definitely didn’t know how to handle it.
She could only put out so many metaphorical fires in one night.
"Oh, uh," she hesitated. Honestly, she wasn't sure why she'd come to him. She hadn’t even thought to ask anyone else – except Joel, but ew. Not if she could help it. But now that they were out of jobs, Susie needed to find a way to make Midge’s money back fast, so she couldn’t try to track her down. And if she couldn't go after Midge when she was down, Lenny Bruce was the next best choice. "Well, uh, you seem like you care about her, or whatever. And she uh, she told me a little bit about that night in Florida."
Lenny's interest piqued at the mention of Florida. "Oh," he said quietly. "She did, huh?” He cleared his throat and looked anywhere but at her. “She, uh, tell you how it ended?"
"She did not," Susie responded slowly. She knew Midge had left some things out when she'd told her about the date she insisted was not a date, she'd acted as nervous as a whore in church about the whole thing. And now Lenny Bruce stood before her, melancholic. And shy, almost? Something more had definitely happened between them.
"Look, far be it from me to give advice about love or relationships, I don't know the first thing about that shit. The longest relationship I ever had was with a plunger. God, I loved Pamela, may she rest in peace." She took a moment of silence for her beloved plunger, who Jackie had killed one afternoon at the Gaslight. They'd held a funeral. It had been beautiful, yet tragic. She breathed deeply and shucked it off, then turned back to Lenny. Right, she reminded herself, Lenny Bruce needed emotional support. What a weird fucking day.
"I don't know if you slept together, or didn't sleep together or whatever the fuck happened between you. I don’t need to know. But you obviously like her. And Midge can be a moron when it comes to men - have you met Joel? - but you mean something to her. Something special. Just give her time."
Lenny smirked at her around his cigarette, then tossed it and put it out with the toe of his shoe. She watched as he grabbed his jacket, then moved to follow her out the door. "Uh, thanks, for that," he said finally, grimacing slightly and scratching the back of his neck.
"You're, uh, welcome," Susie responded. They looked at each other awkwardly for the second time that night. "Right, so I'm gonna go," she said at last.
"Yeah," Lenny nodded, shoving his hands in his pocket.
She turned to leave, then turned back around. "For the record, she'll be happy it's you. If that uh, if that means anything."
He smiled tightly at her. "Thanks," he said. He turned to leave and gave her a little wave. "See ya, Susie," he said over his shoulder, walking away.
“Yeah, see ya,” she responded slowly. She shook her head a little - offering relationship advice to Lenny freakin’ Bruce was definitely not a thing Susie ever thought she’d do - and kept moving.
She desperately wanted to be the one drowning her sorrows with Midge, but she couldn’t be. Susie didn’t think she could really even face Midge right now. How do you tell your best friend and probably only client – she doubted Sophie would want her as a manager after that verbal sparring match outside the theater – that you lost every cent they’d made? No, she had to get their money back fast and she needed time and space to figure out how to do that without letting Midge know she’d been the one to lose it all in the first place.
Besides, she knew Midge was in good hands with Lenny. She could trust him to find her and take care of her the way she deserved to be taken care of.
Midge needed to be with someone who loved her. And tonight, that meant Lenny freaking Bruce.
Susie shook her head at herself incredulously and picked up her pace. “Weird fucking day.”