Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

Prologue

Las Vegas, Nevada

February 10, 2002

Dean stared out at the crowd from the stage and asked, “How did all these people get in my room?”

Frank said, “Keep smilin’, Sam, so they can see you.”

Joey said to Frank and Dean, “Stop singin’ and tell the people all the good work the Mafia’s doin’.”

They moved around the stage like a well-oiled machine. The lines were old, but the crowd loved each and every one of them.

“Hurry up, Sam,” Frank said, “the watermelon’s gettin’ warm.”

Frank was the Leader, but Joey was the director. Not many people knew at the time that Joey wrote a lot of the jokes the Rat Packers did on stage.

Like Dean and Sammy saying in tandem, “If all the women in Texas were as ugly as yo’ momma, the Lone Ranger gon’ be alone for a loooong time.”

Or Dean picking Sammy up in his arms and saying, “I’d like to thank the NAACP for this award.”

Later I found out that the line was supposed to be, “I’d like to thank the B’nai B’rith …” but Dean couldn’t remember the line, so he kept saying “NAACP” and they finally left it in.

And my favorite was when Sammy put his arm around Dean, and Dino said, “I’ll sing with ya, I’ll dance with ya, I’ll pick cotton with ya, I’ll even go to a Bar Mitzvah with ya, but don’t touch me.”

A modern crowd might have taken offense at this and many of the other lines, but the first time they were performed it wasn’t to a modern crowd. It was 1960.

That was then, and this was now …

Okay, so it wasn’t the real Rat Pack up there on stage. All of them but Joey-about my age now, eighty-three or-four-were gone. Frank was the last one to go in ’98. I had attended all their funerals, because over the years they became my buddies.

This particular tribute show was at the Greek Isles Casino. Buddy Hackett’s son, Sandy-Buddy went in ’03, damn it-was the driving force behind it and also played Joey Bishop. He had been smart enough to get his father to record an opening. Buddy played God and did a small monologue, which was meant to set up the show.

For a while in ’60 and ’61 I kinda thought the guys might’ve just been using me to get themselves out of jams because they knew I had the town wired. But later, when I started getting invitations to shows and events, even Christmas cards, I decided we were friends-especially Dino and Frank.

Peter Lawford and I never got along, but then he fell out with Frank, too.

But Joey and me, we got along from the get-go. I had a lot of respect for Joey because he wrote a lot of the material the Rat Pack did on stage, and he wasn’t bothered by the fact that Frank, Dino and Sammy got most of the accolades. Joey Bishop knew he was brilliant, and didn’t need anybody else’s opinion to prove it. Not for nothing did Frank call him “the Hub of the Big Wheel,” giving him credit for writing most of their shtick.

It took a little longer for me and Sammy to get to know each other. The first two times I had to help the guys-during the filming of Ocean’s 11 and then at the Vegas premier of the movie six months later-I dealt mostly with Dino and Frank. But the third time, that was all Sammy’s mess….

The show was still a few minutes from starting when Sandy Hackett came over to my front row seat.

“You comfortable, Eddie?” he asked, shaking my hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t greet you at the door. I just wanted to make sure they got you to your seat.”

“I’m fine, Sandy, just fine,” I said.

“Can you see okay?”

“I’m old, Sandy,” I said, “but I’m not blind … yet.”

Sandy laughed.

“I want you to tell me what you think when it’s over, Eddie,” he said, “and I want you to be honest. It’s important to me what Eddie G thinks. After all, you were buds with them. All of them.”

“You knew them, too, Sandy.”

“I knew ’em through my dad,” he said, “and I didn’t know ’em back then, like you did. I mean, I wasn’t there at the Sands, Eddie. You were.”

“I know I was, Sandy,” I said.

“Well, I gotta get backstage,” he said. “Enjoy the show, Eddie.”

He shook hands with me again.

“I’m sure I will,” I said. “You’re a good kid, Sandy.” I looked down at the program. “Puttin’ your dad in the show was brilliant.”

“Wait ’til you hear him as God, Eddie. It’s only at the beginning of the show, but you’ll bust a gut. God speaking with Buddy Hackett’s accent talking to the guys, who are supposedly up in Heaven with him, telling them about this show that was being done on earth in their honor. It’s great, great.”

“I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

It had been a long time since I’d busted a gut-in a good way. Those times are few and far between, when I’ve got diabetes and high blood pressure. When I either have shooting pains in or can’t feel my feet. When I can’t eat what I want to eat.

No wonder I spend so much time remembering the past.