I first met Peter Pitofsky on my honeymoon.
Amy and I had a cozy little hotel room in Salt Lake City and were looking for something to wile away a few hours in the afternoon, when I noticed Ringling Brothers was in town at the Salt Palace.
"I used to work there, y'know" I bragged to my new bride.
"Oh goody -- let's go!" she enthused.
So we went.
During the first track gag I saw Terry Parsons point directly at me while telling Peter something.
Apparently a legend had grown up, fostered by Parsons, that I had been some kind of madcap whirling dervish in clown alley -- a force so disruptive and uncontrollable that even the fearsome Charlie Baumann could not keep me in line.
Peter had developed a crush on me.
And so each time Peter came by our section of seats he made a mad dash up to Amy and I to slobber me with kisses.
I took it all in stride; my bride did not know what to make of it.
During Finale Peter made one last frenzied appearance by my side, and I invited him to come out and eat with us after the show.
We met him backstage and took him to a Big Boy restaurant, where he proceeded to eat a hamburger while sticking french fries up his nose. Then he began following the waitresses around to see if any were named 'Madge'. Recognizing a true idiot savant, I did nothing to restrain his shenanigans.
When we got back to our hotel room hours later, Amy asked me "Are all your old circus friends as insane as Peter?"
"No, my dear" I replied. "And they are not as funny, either."
Well, the years snuck by; we had some kids, we bought a house; and then I had the chance to work as a clown at Disneyland in California. I would be gone for four months, but the money was too good to turn down.
And, wonderful to relate, my roommate while I was there was none other than Peter Pitofsky.
No pets were allowed in our apartment, but Peter brought along a disreputable feline he affectionately called 'Jack the Cat'. It was fat and immobile, and it looked at me as if I were a mouse too inconsequential to chase.
Peter did not spend every night in our shared bedroom; he had many professional and romantic pursuits that kept him away until the wee hours of morn. But when he was there at bedtime he discovered I snored like a buzz saw. So he would throw things at me while I was asleep, to interrupt my guttural fizzing. Usually he would throw Jack the Cat. Sometimes he threw a pillow. Once he threw a bagel, with cream cheese.
When performing at Disneyland, there was no telling what Peter might do. He had no standard act -- just a grab bag of schtick and a mind so beyond the pale of human reason that his improvisations defy orderly description.
My act, which never varied, was playing my musical saw (which I can't play anymore due to arthritis, dammit). Peter and I were in the same venue on Main Street, under a candy-stripped gazebo, with a small band to accompany us. Jaded union musicians, who had seen it all, they soon settled into a bored routine of musical bridges for my act; their faces registering an aggressive indifference. But when Peter meandered onstage those same musicians perked right up, becoming bright-eyed and bushy-tailed -- because they never knew what Peter would do during his ten minute time slot. It might be great; it might be painfully silly; it might fall flat -- but whatever he did, it was completely original and absurd.
My fondest memory of those days was the time Peter wanted to leave early so he could go into Los Angeles for an audition. Without consulting anyone or anything outside of his own febrile imagination, he began striding through the Park saying "We will be closing in ten minutes -- please find the nearest exit!"
The befuddled gate attendants couldn't figure out why hundreds of patrons, who had just got there, were suddenly leaving. When informed of Peter's impromptu kiboshing ceremony, the Disney management, to say the least, had kittens.
I don't know what they said or did to Peter, but he was still there the next day. Unrepentant and larger than a dozen lives.
And still throwing Jack the Cat at me each night.
