A Short Walk with a Rising Star

“Hey man, would you help me?”
At Catch A Rising Star, one sweaty New York night after eleven o’clock, in 1981, this would-be comic caught in a quagmire of anonymity, turned at the rough tap on his arm, to find Robin Williams’ compelling grey eyes locked with his own.
This man, broad-shouldered and bushy-haired to the max, shook with the fear of a gemsbok surrounded by hungry crocs.
“It’s those dad-blasted paparazzos,” he wailed with what sounded like a faint Highlands
burr, “They’re bugging me half to madness–” Suddenly he pulled me away from the club.
“Come on, man! Let’s rip!!”
We dashed, Robin and I, headlong up a slippery alley, leaping over two or three classic Manhattan galvanized tin ash cans. Me in floppy shirt and torn jeans; he in khakis and an oversized hound’s-tooth sport coat.
Soon we emerged onto a typical block, in the East Seventies, of modest walk-ups,
our adventure nearly over. I would scarcely forget what my intense, trembling idol said in parting. Now more than three decades have passed– two of which have found me diligently abstaining from any mood altering substance– Robin gave me a massive, fraternal hug, and whispered, “Thank you Chris, from my wife, my new baby, and especially from me– Thanks for just being Human!” He just needed a quiet moment; a hint of clarity.
Don’t we all?

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