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knew that none of them could identify with. He was coming from a completely different planet. I didn’t realize it then, but I know now that it was the war coming out. When you’d spent years fighting in infernal jungles knowing you could die at any time, five punk kids in Long Island aren’t really going to faze you.
    Not one of the Rizzos initiated any physical contact. One by one they all backed down and just seemed content to talk it out.
    “Weren’t you walking your dog tonight?” one of them stammered.
    “Sure,” Dad said. “The dog’s gotta crap like everyone else.”
    “Well,” the oldest one said, continuing on. “Our little brother says you hit him with a chain.”
    “A chain?” Dad asked, then started laughing. He turned back to face me and gave me a little nod. I opened the door a sliver, then tossed him a tiny leash. “You mean this? I’ve got an eight-pound toothless poodle. I don’t need a chain to walk him. Some cretin kicked at him tonight and I barely snapped this leash in his direction.”
    The Rizzos began placing the blame on their little brother, who had by now joined them.
    “This is what you made us come down here for?” one of them said angrily to the youngest brother. Then they started apologizing to Dad and said they’d never bother him again. He had scared the crap out of them. He scared the crap out of me, too. I’d never seen a man just not care if he lived or died, and smile about it to boot. That was about as heated as the neighborhood ever got and about as nuts as my dad ever got. He was generally happy just to keep one eye on me and one eye on the newspaper as I played out in the street. Dad never hit me. He never yelled. He never said, “I love you.” But that’s who he is. The most important thing is that he was always there.
    My mom was the one with the emotions. She yelled, screamed, cursed, cried, blamed, laughed. She was very protective of me. Little did Dad and Mom know what the next few years would bring.

Chapter 2
    Getting the Bug
    Impressions came naturally to me as a kid, and I would hone my craft at school, since there was an unlimited supply of people to mimic. I also got a lot of pleasure out of writing and creating things that would make my friends laugh. For some reason, every day in fifth grade, I’d draw a comic strip of my classmate Anthony Campo and bring it in for him to read. It was called The Adventures of Campo and His Guido Mobile. I turned him into a superhero with a magical muscle car that people kept messing with. It wasn’t exactly flattering, but he really got off on it and kept bugging me to churn out more. For weeks, every day he’d walk in and say, “Hey, Breuer, where’s The Adventures of Campo and His Guido Mobile ?”
    Anthony was bored at school and the comic strip was enough of a distraction to make the place interesting for him. This encouraged me. Throughout my childhood, humor and wit got me attention and set me apart from my peers. It was my social calling card, and I was good at it in ways that other kids are good at figure skating or math or whatever. And, like I said earlier, it helped prevent kids from making fun of me for being such a lardass.
    Despite the thrill I got from making people laugh, I avoided any and all dramatic productions in school. My long-standing policy was that plays were for fairies. Maybe a tiny part of me feared getting up in front of a bunch of people and making myself vulnerable to their criticism. But I’d still claim it was fear of looking like a fairy. One spring our teacher Mr. Cooper sorted out roles for the end-of-the-year play, and I experienced an awakening. As he described the roles for the play, I could now see a purpose for being funny—somewhere I could use it for good.
    “We have three parts left, kids,” he said. He was known for the “Cooper Clutch.” If you got out of line in his class, he’d look you right in the eyes, wiggle his index finger, and say, “Come with