He built his story slowly, elaborately, with many an ad lib and side-quip. He. painted the joke’s characters with broad strokes until he was sure they were easily identifiable to everybody present. His whole body entered into it. His face contorted and grimaced with each carefully worded sentence. His arms and legs moved to enhance each description. His body rippled and stretched and shrank and took on wings and fat as he needed it to give meaning to his words. His pauses were as important as the words, and his timing was professionally superb.
The story itself wasn't that good. Strictly a case of “you- had-to-be-there” to hear Happy tell it, if you know what I mean. The gag went something like this:
“It’s Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, just before Christmas.” Happy hummed a few strains of Silent Night and his fingers trailed a light snowfall over the scene. “The Santa Clauses are up to their pots in people.” His stomach popped out—instant pregnancy—and he mouthed a silent ho-hoho. “Like it’s curb-to-curb elbows.” He turned himself into a crowd. “And there’s this little old Jewish lady with a shopping bag making her way through the throng.” An elbow ballet with geriatric overtones. “She stops at this butcher shop with hunks of raw meat hanging in the window.” Shirtsleeves up; dangling arm transformed into a loin of beef. “Also there’s a sign in this window: ‘SPECIAL.—LONG ISLAND DUCKLING—79¢ lb.’ Just the thing for Chanukah, the little old Jewish lady decides. So she goes into the shop, which is also crowded, wriggles her way up to the counter, finds a little space on the floor for the shopping bag, and rests her bazooms on the counter.” Happy’s shirt billowed out, turned into a large, matronly bosom and settled on an imaginary counter with a sigh of weariness. “She waits very patiently for her turn. Behind this counter is a large butcher with a face like ground-up hamburger. A very red face, very Irish. Harassed, but naturally jovial nevertheless. Aye, ‘tis a four-leaf clover of a face an’ as he copes with the Christmas rush, he displays a good-natured brogue to match. ‘Sure an’ ‘twill be a turkey you’ll not forget, Mrs. Maroni’ and ‘Was that six pounds of loin chops then, Mrs. Schultz?’ and ‘I’ll be grindin’ the hamburg meat just as fine as you’d be wantin’ it, Mrs. O’Neill.’ ” Now Happy was Barry Fitzgerald with bulk. “Finally the Irish butcher is ready to wait on the little old Jewish lady. ‘An’ what can I be doin’ for you, Mother?’ he asks. ‘I vant a Lung Island duckling,’ she tells him.” The dialogue was on now, and Happy slipped in and out of the roles with craftsmanlike ease. “ ‘A foine Long Island duckling it is for the lady then,’ says the Irish butcher, and he slips into the back where the freezer is to fetch it. He brings back this very plump fowl and lays it down on the counter in front of the little old Jewish lady. ‘Shall I be quarterin’ it for you now, or would you want to be puttin’ it in the pot the way it is, Mother?’ he asks politely. ‘Just a minim! Wait just a minim!’ The lady holds up her hand like she's stopping traffic." Happy demonstrated, and the light changed to red. Then it changed back to green as he lowered his hand and continued. “She takes off her gloves.” Happy did a delicate pantomime of a woman removing her gloves that started us giggling. He continued it, with fingers which seemed to be made of rubber, until the laughter reached a peak. Then, with perfect timing, he laid the imaginary gloves on the imaginary counter and turned his attention to the imaginary duck. “The lady lifts the tail feathers of the duck with one hand.” His hand hung in the air fastidiously. “And with the fingers of the other hand she reaches into the -- you should pardon the expression—aperture, until her hand has vanished up to the wrist.” Happy’s hand disappeared in his arm-sleeve. “Then she reaches still deeper.” The arm re-appeared, bare to the elbow and crooked to show how far inside the duck the lady was reaching. “And she wriggles her fingers—all five of them. Happy wiggled his fingers in a way that was both fastidious and lewd. It was also hilarious. “After which she takes her hand out, turns to the butcher and says ‘A duck, yes, but that is not a Lung Island duckling. I vant a Lung Island duckling!’ So the Irishman shrugs and mutters ‘Begorrah!’ under his breath and takes the duck back to the freezer and comes out with another one He puts it down on the counter in front of the lady. Again she raises the tail feathers and commits what might in some circles be considered an indignity on the dead duck.” Happy repeated the finger motions. Again it was hilarious. “Dot’s not a Lung Island duckling,’ she says very positive, very firm. ‘I vant a Lung Island duckling!’ So the Irishman, trying hard to stay smiling and pleasant, trots back to the freezer and comes back with another duck.” Now Happy did a quick pantomime of the woman reaching into the duck, wriggling her fingers and removing them. The speeded-up action had us roaring. Then he turned himself into a conductor leading a choral group and we all chanted “Dot’s not a Lung Island duckling!” Happy nodded approval. “Exactly. So the Irishman comes back with another. Same thing again. ‘Maybe from Minnesotta, or even Scotsland,’ says the little Jewish lady, ‘but from Lung Island never. I could tell. Dot’s not a Lung Island duck!’ So the Irishman comes back with still another. This time he slams it down on the counter and stabs at the wings with his finger. ‘Now look you here, Mother. See! Stamped on both of the wings, no less. LONG ISLAND! See it? This here is a Long Island duckling, or I’m not Kevin O’F'laherty from Bay Ridge!’ But the little old Jewish lady still holds up her hand. ‘Just a minim! We’ll see!” she insists. And—” Happy went through the familiar pantomime again. This time he added a new finger-twist that drew an added laugh. “ ‘So all right,’ the little old Jewish lady says finally. ‘Why didn’t you bring this one first place? Dot’s a Lung Island duckling. Wrap it up.’ So the Irish butcher wraps it and while he’s so occupied, the little lady, who’s really a very motherly type, stops scolding, he should know before she leaves she really likes him. ‘You said before you came from Bay Ridge?’ she says. ’Tis the truth,’ the Irishman says. ‘You don’t look like you come from Bay Ridge!’ she says like it’s a fact. It’s that old camel straw to the Irishman. He slams the duck down on the counter. He turns around. He bends over. ‘If you’re thinkin’ I’m lyin’,’ he roars, ‘then why don’t you see for yourself, lady! he yells, stretching his cheeks!” Happy was in the position he’d described now, bent over, his back to us, head between his legs, hands on buttocks, his comical face peering at us upside-down as he milked the last ripple of laughter. Finally he straightened up and looked at Rank with an injured air. “Hey, how come you’re not laughing, Dwight? Don’t you think it’s a gasser?"
“I don't like scatology,” Rank told him.
“What’s scatology?” April Wilder wanted to know.
“Scatology?” Happy explained succinctly. “Scatology’s a lot of crap!”
“Scatology is just another form of perversion,” Rank argued.
“Well, one man’s perversion is another man's supper.” Happy made a comic face.
Suddenly Voluptua was on her feet. She faced us with her ankles wide apart, her arms spread. Her eyes were large and glowing, her neck arched so that her face was turned upward like some wild female lupine about to bay at the moon. Her size, her femaleness, transformed her into Mother Earth about to embrace—or-was it envelop? — all the maleness of mankind. “The world," she announced in a strident tone, “is my bedpan!"