I Should Have Stayed Home, page 10
Mona and I stepped out into the street. She was looking around, preoccupied.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said.
I didn’t know what was the matter with her. She disappeared into a drug store, and in a minute she came hurrying back across the street.
‘Just a minute,’ she said, going into the morgue again.
I followed her in. The two photographers were still there, standing beside Dorothy. They watched Mona approach, backing up a little. She had taken something from under her coat, I couldn’t see what, and was arranging Dorothy’s hands to hold it. I walked over to see what was happening.
‘Take a picture of that,’ she was saying.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ one photographer said. ‘Those are magazines.’
Now I saw what Mona had done, what she went across to the drug store for. She had brought three or four movie magazines and had propped up Dorothy’s hands so that she appeared to be holding them in death.
The morgue officer came up.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ Mona said. ‘Only these gentlemen wanted a picture of the Instrument of Death—and I’ve given them several instruments. Go ahead and shoot those,’ she said to the photographers. They were staring at her as if she were crazy. ‘That’s what really killed her. Why don’t you shoot that? Isn’t it glamorous enough? Go ahead—show the world an authentic picture of Hollywood.’
‘Outta here, you,’ the officer said.
I put my arm around Mona, helping her outside to the street. She did not break down until we were in the car, coming home...
I had a luncheon date with Mrs. Smithers for one thirty at the Beverly Brown Derby, but I didn’t keep it. That old feeling of hating places like that and the people who went there was back with me. After I had driven Mona home and seen that she was comfortable, I got in the roadster Mrs. Smithers had let me use and drove to her house.
She came home around three o’clock. I was waiting in the patio.
‘You shouldn’t treat me like this,’ she said, pouting, but I could feel the force behind her words, behind all that pretense of injury. ‘I waited for you until a few minutes ago.’
‘I didn’t want lunch,’ I said.
‘Where’d you go? Were you with Mona?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
I explained where we had been—and what we had seen.
‘How ghastly!’ she exclaimed. ‘You dear boy, what an awful thing to see! A dead girl.’
‘It wasn’t awful,’ I said. ‘Maybe she had the right idea, at that. Maybe she did.’
She came over and put her hands on my shoulder.
‘You mustn’t say that,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have let you go away in the first place. Now you’re morbid.’
‘I’m not morbid,’ I said.
‘Yes, you are. I won’t let you out of my sight again. You’re too sensitive to things like that.’
‘Mrs. Smithers,’ I said, ‘can I talk to you a minute?’
‘Why, you dear boy,’ she laughed, ‘we are talking.’
‘Seriously, I mean.’
‘No, absolutely not,’ she said. ‘We must never be serious. Every time you get serious you disappoint me.’
I sat down facing the swimming-pool. She finally sat down beside me, taking off her hat.
‘You should have been with me at luncheon,’ she said. ‘I want you to meet my friends. You’ll like them. Several of them are going to San Simeon next week. Would you like to go to San Simeon?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Do you know where San Simeon is? Do you know what it is?’
‘No.’
‘It’s Mr. Hearst’s estate up the coast. You’ve surely heard of it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
‘How quaint!’ she said, smiling. ‘San Simeon is Mr. Hearst’s castle on the seacoast. He has hundreds and hundreds of acres. He entertains only the dukes and duchesses and the important people.’
‘I still don’t want to go,’ I said. ‘I don’t like Mister Hearst.’
‘You mustn’t say that. You don’t even know him.’
‘My father knows him. My father used to work on a newspaper.’
She seemed horrified.
‘You must not say things like that,’ she said sharply. ‘Mr. Hearst is a very important and a very lovable man. You must not be a Bolsheviki.’
‘Look, Mrs. Smithers,’ I said, ‘you’ve been swell to me. You went bail for me and everything and I owe you a lot. But I don’t think I’m going to like living here so much.’
She leaned over close to me.
‘We won’t show those pictures again,’ she said.
‘It’s not that.’
‘You’re not remorseful about the other, are you? It had to happen sometime, you know?’
‘It’s not that either.’
She straightened up, smiling in a relieved way.
‘Well, then dear boy—give me a chance. I’m just starting. You’ve got your own car and you can have your own friends too. I’m not that selfish.’
‘Mrs. Smithers, it’s just that I don’t feel I’m getting anywhere. I want to be in pictures. The way it is now I’m farther away from pictures than ever. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, the car and everything, but I want to be in pictures. I want to be a star. I want to be famous.’
She looked at me, frowning.
‘It takes time,’ she said. ‘This is a perfect arrangement for you. I know all the picture people. I know all the people who can help you. I want to see you be a star too, Ralph. You know that, don’t you?—Don’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
She reached over and squeezed my hand.
‘You’re upset. Seeing that dead girl did this. Why don’t you take a nap?’
‘I feel all right,’ I said.
‘You’ll be up late tonight. We’ve guests coming. You’d better nap with me.’
‘I’m all right,’ I said again.
She got up and kissed me on the forehead. As she was leaning over me, kissing me, the front of her dress sagged and I had to close my eyes to keep from seeing her breasts.
‘You must have faith in me, dear boy. You must have faith and trust me.’
She walked away. The words that were in the back of my mind before she came were still there, unspoken. I hadn’t said what I had wanted to. I looked at the swimming-pool, remembering the first time I had ever seen it, the night that girl, Fay Capeheart, was swimming in the nude. It had all seemed so wonderful then. I was full of optimism and confidence. I honestly believed it would be only a few days before I would succeed in pictures. I couldn’t understand now, looking at the same scene, why it wasn’t still wonderful. Something had happened, I didn’t know what. All I knew was that I was miserable and missed Mona and that cheap little bungalow more than I had missed anything in my life—anything.
...chapter seven
THE DINNER WAS TEDIOUS and long-drawn-out. There were twelve people in all, and Mrs. Smithers had put on two extra butlers to help serve. The guests were all picture executives and stars with three exceptions: myself, the writer who had jumped into the swimming-pool that first night with all his clothes on and who still was wearing a sweatshirt, and a girl of about twenty-two named Rose Otto. I liked her best of all. She had just finished as an attraction at one of the amusement piers where she had broken the world’s record for being buried alive.
I could tell from the uncertain way she acted at the table that she was feeling the same way I had felt when I ate here the night before. But she needn’t have. From the way this writer was eating, you would have thought the girl and I had come from the best families in the world.
Everybody was talking pictures. Two of the producers were very much concerned about the threatened strike of the stars and had no hesitancy in saying so. But the third producer, across the table, laughed at them.
‘Three thousand dollars a week they make and they should go on strike?’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. Nobody strikes making that much money.’
‘You can’t laugh this off.’
‘Strikes is right up my alley,’ he said. He leaned across the table and waved a cigar. ‘Look—strikes is never won without public opinion. All right. The stars walk out. And so we tell the newspapers: “We are dumbfounded. We are amazed. We are surprised. They are getting from two thousand to five thousand dollars a week and they are not satisfied. What kick have they got coming? Working conditions? A coal miner digs all day, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Does he kick? Five thousand a week and they’re beefing.” So—the newspaper prints that. The public reads it. Pretty soon the public think the stars are crazy for striking. Strikes, phooey!’
Everybody at the table nodded except the two producers who had started the conversation.
‘You’re too pessimistic,’ one of them said. ‘We—’
‘Psst! Psst! the writer said. ‘Not pessimistic. Optimistic. Op-timistic.’
‘All right,’ the producer said. ‘Optimistic. What I started to say was this: we can break any other strike in the world but actors’. Writers we can bring in for a hundred dollars a week and teach ’em the business, directors we can make—but not actors. Not stars. They’ve got us.’
‘Phooey.’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Mrs. Smithers said. She looked at the writer. ‘Heinrich, can’t you do something about those two? You tell us a story.’
Heinrich got up and bowed with great dignity.
‘Dear lady,’ he said, ‘what you’re asking me to do, in plain language, is give these gentlemen the bum’s rush.’
Everybody laughed.
‘But that is not a sagacious thing for me to do. One of them—that one—is my present employer. The other one is a potential employer.’
‘Louder,’ somebody said.
Heinrich nodded, stepping up in his chair, stepping from that to the table. He kicked a couple of dishes away with his foot. He was a little drunk.
‘I will tell you an idea I have for a new picture,’ he said gravely. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to the fact that he was standing on the table. ‘This is to be the goddamndest picture ever made, with a new technique of realism that will even surpass the great Russian school. And the inspiration is that little lady here—’ he motioned to Rose Otto—‘the most modest dinner partner I have ever had in this scurrilous town. Miss Otto, as you know, is the girl who has just broken the record for being buried alive—and at once she was collected by that indefatigable gatherer of celebrities, that magnificent collector of headliners, our lovely hostess, heiress of the great fortune of that late benefactor of mankind, Caleb Smithers, the patent-medicine king.’
Everybody applauded.
‘Well,’ he said, looking down, ‘where was I?’
One of the producers glanced up.
‘This was to be the goddamndest picture ever made. I’m all ears.’
‘You’re telling us,’ Heinrich said, laughing, almost falling off the table. Everybody joined in the laughter. In a moment Heinrich went on:
‘The goddamndest picture ever made. Yes. Well, the girl in this picture is buried alive. She has a grasping manager and he is eager to collect the one-thousand-dollar prize for breaking the world’s record. They have twenty-four hours to go and it looks like they’re in the bag. Well, along comes a guy who pays his dime to go in and look through the periscope at this girl buried thirty-feet beneath him. He speaks to her through the speaking-tube. Now, the point of this—and we’ll emphasize this with camera movement—is that the girl can’t see him. Remember that—she cannot see him—but she can hear him. So they carry on a banal conversation and the girl who is buried begins to feel that old sex urge—’
He broke off, looking at Rose Otto.
‘No offense, Miss Otto,’ he said. ‘This isn’t you. This is another girl.’
‘Go right ahead,’ she said, smiling.
‘All right,’ Heinrich went on, talking to the chandelier. ‘This guy has got sex appeal in his voice. He has got more sex appeal in his voice than any hundred men in the world. He is the kind of guy who says hello to a woman and her pants start smoking. So the girl goes for him. She gets such a yen for him she asks the manager to dig her up. The manager thinks she’s bug-house—because the manager has seen this guy. He’s the most repulsive-looking man in the world. His teeth are snags, his nose is eaten away—but the girl doesn’t know this because she has not seen him. She has only heard him. So the manager and the girl have an argument. He doesn’t want to dig her up, because that thousand bucks is in the bag. And right here the girl plays her trump card. There is a woman’s club in the neighborhood which has been protesting this very exhibition. The girl threatens to tell this club that the manager is holding her against her will—and, boy, that floors him. So he orders the girl dug up and goes to find the guy who’s got that sex in his voice. It’ll take three or four hours to excavate this dame and he’s got plenty of time. He finally locates the little guy in a hamburger joint. He starts talking to him, telling him what’s happened. The little guy can hardly believe his ears. A woman who wants him more than she wants any other man? Think what a close-up that’ll make—a close-up that fills the screen—as it finally dawns on this guy. He’s always had to buy his women before.’
‘How’re you gonna show that?’ the producer said.
‘That’s the director’s problem,’ Heinrich said. He continued: ‘So the manager, this avaricious bird, gets curious about what’ll happen when the girl gets a look at this little repulsive guy who’s got no nose. He asks him what’ll he do when the girl sees him. But that doesn’t worry the little guy. He says, sure, he knows the girl’ll turn and run. That confuses the manager, whose mind is never above his belt. Unless they’re gonna sleep together, he can’t see any point to the little guy making him dig up his star attraction and losing that thousand bucks. So he says something like this: “But if you know she’s going to be disappointed when she sees you, why have me dig her up?” and the little guy looks up at him and says something like this: “Don’t you see? This girl wants me to the exclusion of all the other men in the world”—he’s been well educated—“and that is the first time it ever happened. In the two or three hours they are digging her up, until the actual moment when she sees me, I am the greatest lover in the world.” That puzzles the manager. He doesn’t get it. So we start moving the camera in on a big two-shot while he says, “But I don’t understand.” And the little guy smiles compassionately and replies: “I didn’t think you would.” Fade-out.’
There was some applause as he got down off the table.
‘It stinks,’ the producer said.
‘All right,’ Heinrich said. ‘I’ll write it as a short story. I’ll sell it to an art magazine.’
Mrs. Smithers got up from the table.
‘Shall we go into the living-room?’ she asked.
They all started out. In the hall I excused myself from Rose Otto and went into the lavatory, through the powder room. Heinrich followed me in and shut the door.
‘Like the story?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ I said, agreeing with him because that is the best way to get along with a drunk.
‘I thought it was lousy,’ he said. ‘You know something?’ he said. ‘I knew it was going to be lousy before I told it. You know why I told it? You know why I stood on the table? You know why I jump in swimming-pools with my clothes on? You know why I wore a sweatshirt to dinner? All right, I’ll tell you. Christ, I know it’s wrong. I’ll tell you. I know I’m no writer. Why, there are guys walking the boulevard who can write a million times better than I can. I used to be a newspaper reporter. When I came out here, I was still a good reporter, but nobody would give me a job. I starved to death. So I figured that this was a sucker town and that a smart guy could hit big. I started doing screwy things, like I did tonight—and you know what happened? I’ll tell you. The studios fought for me. They thought I was a genius. So now I’m getting two grand a week. You’ve heard of me, haven’t you?’
‘Sure,’ I said, unlocking the door.
‘You’re a liar,’ he said, missing the bowl, leaking all over the floor. ‘I can tell by the way you say that, you’re a liar. Are you a stranger in Hollywood?’
‘I’m beginning to think so,’ I said, going out.
After dinner other people began to drop in and by eleven o’clock the house was full. This was not the same crowd I had seen the night of the first party, the one that Mona had come to. Only two or three who were present then were here now. But it was the same kind of party. Pictures, pictures, pictures, that was all they talked about. I tried to carry on a conversation with the two producers I had met at dinner, hoping to tell them somehow that I would like to have a movie career, but I never had the chance to get that in. Rose Otto and I finally went into the patio, where there was less noise.
The lights were on in the swimming-pool, but nobody was swimming. Several couples were scattered in different parts of the patio talking, but there was no roar of talk out there. Rose Otto and I strolled out by the pool and sat down in deck chairs.
‘This is lovely, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
She lighted a cigarette.
‘Do you know her very well?’
‘Mrs. Smithers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pretty well. Why?’
‘Nothing. I was just wondering why she asked me to this party.’
‘Don’t you know her?’
‘I met her today for the first time. I had lunch with her.’
‘How’d you happen to meet her in the first place?’
‘Some man came down to the pier and asked me to meet her.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not much good on names. I’d just come up—that’s what we call it when they take you out—and he said she wanted me to be the guest of honor. So I made a date with him and today he brought her down to see me.’
‘When was that?’
‘This morning.’
