I Should Have Stayed Home, page 2
‘I didn’t know he was living with her.’
‘Sure, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She’ll wear him out in another six months. She’s a nymphomaniac, you know.’
‘A what?’
‘A nymphomaniac. She can’t get enough.’
I took the toast out of the oven.
‘You’ll meet her tonight.’
‘I’ll meet her? How?’
‘We’re going to her party. She’s invited us. That’s why Sam came here. She wants to meet the girl who called Judge Boggess a son of a bitch.’
‘She doesn’t want to meet me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t call Judge Boggess a son of a bitch.’
Mona laughed.
‘I know you didn’t, but I explained to Sam that I wouldn’t come without you. He phoned her and she said she’d be delighted for you to come too.’
‘But,’ I said, thinking of Lally’s hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit, ‘I haven’t got any clothes.’
‘Wear your blue suit. This is your chance to get a close-up of a real Hollywood party. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘Say, there’ll be plenty of time for parties after we’re stars,’ I said.
‘Everybody who’s anybody in Hollywood’ll be there—producers, directors, stars—and you never can tell when one of them might be interested in you. You don’t think I want to go just because it’s a party, do you?’
‘I don’t know—’
‘Well, I don’t. Nobody goes to these things just because they’re parties, not like they do back where we come from, to have a good time. People go to Hollywood parties because there’s always a chance to help themselves. This might be the break we’re both waiting for.’
‘I still don’t want to go,’ I said. ‘You know how I feel about meeting important people. You know how I hate the Brown Derby and places like that.’
...chapter five
MRS. SMITHERS LIVED IN Beverly Hills on one of those wide, curving streets, in a house that was almost hidden by palm trees. The street in front of her house was lined on both sides with automobiles. We had to park two blocks away.
‘I’ll disgrace you sure as hell,’ I said to Mona as we approached the house. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what to do or say at one of these things.’
‘Don’t be self-conscious now,’ she said. ‘Just remember that practically everybody who’ll be here was once in the same fix as we are.’
The first person we saw when we got inside was Sam Lally. He had on a tuxedo that fitted him like a glove. He came over to us, grinning, and shook hands. I felt more nervous than ever and I began to get sore. There was a big crowd in the living-room and most of the men had on tuxedos.
‘Well, well, well—’ Lally said. ‘Hello, hello, hello—I’m glad to see you.’
You’d think this bastard owned the place instead of being just a gigolo, I thought.—‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Ethel,’ Lally called, and a big woman dressed in purple velvet came over. ‘Mrs. Smithers, may I present Mona Matthews and—’ he looked at me, trying to remember my name.
You bastard, I thought. —‘Carston,’ I told him. ‘Ralph Carston.’
‘I’m so glad to see you, my dear,’ Mrs. Smithers said, taking Mona’s hand and holding it. ‘And you too—Ralph,’ she said to me. With her other hand she took my arm and held it, looking from Mona to me, smiling. ‘You don’t think it’s odd that I sent Sammy to invite you to my party?’
‘Of course not, Mrs. Smithers,’ Mona said. ‘We were very much flattered.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Mrs. Smithers said, ‘Sam has spoken to me often about you. You’re a very kind person.’
She looked at me again, and I thought I knew what she was thinking—that Mona was doing the same thing for me she had once done for Sam. Well, I thought, looking at her, at least she’s not buying my clothes like you are his.
‘Come, dear,’ Mrs. Smithers said, leading us to the living-room. This room was lower than the hall, four steps down. She stopped at the head of the steps, clapping her hands together.
‘Everybody!’ she said. ‘Everybody!’
In a moment the people were quiet, looking at her.
‘I want all you famous people to meet a real celebrity. This is Mona Matthews—and Ralph Carston, her escort. Mona is the girl, you will remember, who got the headlines yesterday by calling one of our most distinguished judges a dirty name right out loud in open court where everybody would hear her. For which, I might add, she did a few hours in jail for contempt—’
‘Hello Mona,’ somebody shouted from the back of the room near the piano. ‘I’m an ex-convict myself.’
‘We’re all birds of a feather,’ somebody else said.
A woman sitting at the piano started playing The Prisoner’s Song and in a moment everybody was joining in the words.
‘Now, go right ahead, my dear, and have a good time,’ Mrs. Smithers said, moving away towards the front door. The people in the living-room started making up words about Mona to the tune of The Prisoner’s Song and I looked at her, feeling a little better now that I realized most of them were drunk and therefore wouldn’t pay so much attention to my clothes. Mona was smiling.
‘This is a big moment in my life,’ she whispered to me.
‘But most of them are drunk,’ I said.
‘They’re still celebrities,’ she answered.
Three or four girls came over, laughing, and took Mona by the arm, leading her down into the living-room. I stood there for a moment and then went back towards the front door because I didn’t know what else to do. There were some more people coming in. I recognized Grace Briscoe, the big star, shaking hands with Mrs. Smithers and Sam. As she came into the entrance hall she stopped at a table where a man sat and handed him a ten-dollar bill. He thanked her and put it in a tin box.
It’s a funny party where they invite you and then charge you, I thought. They didn’t charge us.
‘Where’s your drink?’ Lally asked, coming over to me.
‘I haven’t got one,’ I said.
‘Sam,’ Mrs. Smithers said, ‘get Ralph a drink. We’ll be out on the patio.’
She led me out into the patio, where the swimming-pool was. It was a big tile pool and had blue and amber lights under the water. Several people were swimming.
‘This is lovely,’ I said.
‘Like it?’
‘I certainly do. I think you were nice to ask me. I didn’t want to come.’
‘You’re not sorry, I hope.’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to go swimming?’
I shook my head.
‘No, ma’am, thanks. I haven’t got a swimming suit.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Look,’ she said, laughing, pointing to the people in the pool. One of them, a girl, was on the bank. She was completely nude. ‘You mustn’t let a little thing like a swimming suit keep you from going swimming.’
Lally came out with the drink just then.
‘Sam,’ she said, ‘this is charming. This is the most charming thing I’ve seen in years.’
‘What?’ Lally asked.
‘Your friend here. He’s blushing.’
Lally looked at me and then around at the nude girl who was still on the bank, and then back at me. He laughed too.
‘This is Hollywood, old man,’ he said, ‘where morality never crosses the city limits.’
‘Jesus,’ I said to myself, thinking this was wonderful; not the naked girl, but to be in a town where nobody paid any attention to what anybody else did. In the town I was brought up in, what everybody did was everybody else’s business and somebody was always trying to tell you how to live your life.
‘I think he’s shocked,’ Lally said, laughing again. ‘He’s still blushing.’
‘I’m not blushing,’ I answered.
‘If this makes you blush, wait’ll you get acquainted,’ Mrs. Smithers said.
I did not say anything, taking a swallow of the drink. It was the first liquor I had ever tasted in my life.
When I came downstairs from the dressing-rooms beside the pool, I had on a pair of wet trunks I had borrowed from a man who had just come out. There was nobody in the pool but the same girl, but there were several people sitting in the patio talking. When the naked girl saw I had on trunks, she pointed her finger at me and began jeering.
‘Hoohoohoohoo,’ she said. ‘A sissy, a sissy!’
She was standing in the shallow part of the pool with only her head and shoulders out of the water, but the lights along the side, under the water, made it transparent, and you could see everything she had, even the place where the Indian shot her. I dived in the deep end and swam around a minute or two to get used to the water. She swam over to me.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Do I know you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I’m new here.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I like people I don’t know because if I don’t know them I don’t dislike them. I’m Fay Capeheart.’
‘I’m Ralph Carston.’
‘You in pictures?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you’re smart. I am.’
‘I know. I’ve seen you.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m just trying to be in pictures. I’m just an extra—when I can get it.’
‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘What desecration! How ever did you get in here?’
I told her how I had happened to come.
‘I don’t know anybody but the girl who brought me. That’s why I came swimming.’
‘You’re better off not knowing anybody here too,’ she said. ‘They’re all phoney.’
‘What are you doing here, then?’ I asked.
‘Publicity,’ she said. ‘I do a lot of things I don’t want to do because I’m in the movies and personal publicity is pretty important. Smithers gives the biggest parties in town and therefore she gets the most space. Coming to her parties is like buying an ad in one of the trade papers. My friend, you don’t know how well off you are—being an extra.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Take my word for it—you are.’
A couple of men walked by the pool where we were. One of them, the big one, was dressed in slacks and a sweatshirt, and the other one, the little one, had on a linen suit. They were talking in loud voices and each one had a drink in his hand.
‘All this stuff about a united front is just so much crap,’ the little one said.
‘How you talk!’ said the other one.
They sat down in a couple of deck chairs, not paying any attention to us.
Fay leaned over to me and whispered:
‘A couple of high-powered writers. This’ll be good.’
‘Certainly it is,’ the little one said. ‘You guys act like a lot of college freshmen. Every goddam one of you is sore at me because I resigned from the Guild. You’ve got a lot of guts talking to me about unity. I’ve got scars on both shoulder-blades from carrying banners in the Sacco-Vanzetti case long before you social climbers took it up, and in thousands of other picket lines, too. Didn’t Bob Minor and I get out of Alabama a jump ahead of the mob that wanted to lynch us for going to bat for the Scottsboro boys? You’re a lot of goddam parlor Communists. You guys get new fads every year.’
‘How you talk!’ the other one said.
‘Yeah, how I talk!’ the little one replied. ‘Where the hell were all you united-front guys when the Federated Crafts were out on strike? I didn’t see any one of you in the picket line around the theaters. You were afraid to jeopardize that two grand a week you’re getting.’
‘How you talk! Aren’t we sending bandages and medical supplies to the Loyalists? Aren’t we supporting the Anti-Nazi League?’
‘Huckleberries,’ the little one said. ‘You support the Anti-Nazi League because every producer in this lousy town’s a Jew and you think he thinks you’re being heroic because you’re a gentile fighting his fight. Don’t tell me. If all the producers were Nazis you guys couldn’t wait to start a pogrom. Good God, fellow, be honest.’
Fay looked at me, shaking her head feebly.
‘Why don’t you two stop arguing and fight?’ she asked them.
The two writers looked at her, seeing her for the first time.
‘Whoops—a mermaid,’ the big one said, throwing his drink into a flowerbed and diving into the pool with all his clothes on. Fay swam quickly to the other side and climbed out, running upstairs to the dressing-room.
The writer came up, puffing and blowing, and I swam over, pushing him into the shallow part of the pool where he could stand up. The other writer, the little one, was still sitting in his chair, drinking as if nothing had happened.
‘Nice going, Heinrich,’ he said quietly.
I helped him to the bank and he got out, walking away, not even saying thank you. There was a lot of noise from the house now, people laughing and talking and singing; but I went on swimming around, alone now, swimming on my back, looking at the stars, thinking these were the same stars that were shining on my home town, where everybody was asleep now, where everybody would get up tomorrow and start doing the same old thing all over again, asking myself if it could really be true that I was swimming in a pool in Beverly Hills at a house where all the movie stars were: imagining I was a movie star myself, feeling that I had been here a long time, even before I was born, in the days when De Mille and Lasky and the others were just starting the business...
I looked around and Mrs. Smithers was watching me.
‘You’ve been in there an hour. Don’t you think that’s long enough?’
‘I didn’t know I’d been in so long,’ I said, paddling over to the side. ‘This is wonderful.’
‘You’ve been in long enough for at least a dozen people to ask me who the Greek god in the pool is. Are you waiting for some attractive woman to come in without her clothes?’
‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ I said, climbing out.
‘I thought maybe you were waiting for me to come in,’ she said.
‘Oh, no, ma’am.’
‘You’re charming—utterly charming,’ she said, smiling, looking at me. ‘And what a beautiful body you’ve got!’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘Are you an athlete?’
‘No, ma’am. I used to play football in high school, that’s all.’
‘You like to swim, though.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Well, you come swimming here any time you want to. Any time at all.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘I want you to join the party. Now run along and put your clothes on—but it does seem such a sacrilege—’
I walked off, not knowing exactly what she meant, but having a funny feeling at the base of my spine, the same kind of feeling I remembered having when I was about thirteen years old when I would go on picnics with the Bible class and Mrs. Smith, the teacher, would get me alone in the woods and sit opposite me, telling me about Christ and all the apostles, but all the time opening her legs, letting me see the tops of her black stockings and her underwear, pretending not to notice that I was looking...
When I put my clothes on and came downstairs into the patio, Mona was sitting on a wicker davenport with some girl.
‘You really gave that pool a black eye, didn’t you?’ Mona said. ‘Here, I want you to meet somebody. Miss Eubanks, this is Ralph Carston.’
‘How do you do?’ she said. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing up, walking away.
‘Wasn’t that Laura Eubanks?’ I asked.
‘That was Laura Eubanks, all right—the one and only.’
‘She acted like she was sore. Did I interrupt something?’
‘I’ll say you did. Well—live and learn. I guess you just can’t tell any more about anybody.’ She looked at me. ‘We’re doing all right, aren’t we?’
‘I’ll say.’
‘Yes, sir. Eubanks on the make for me, and Smithers on the make for you. We’ll be moving out of that little bungalow court any day now.’
‘She wasn’t on the make for me,’ I said.
‘You may not have recognized it, but that’s what it was. As innocent as you are, a woman would have to start taking your pants off before you got suspicious.’
My flesh began to crawl a little.
‘You better lay off the liquor,’ I said.
‘I guess I had,’ she answered, nodding.
Somebody started singing, a man, in the living-room behind us, in a deep, rich voice. I turned around and looked.
‘Hey,’ I whispered to Mona. ‘Look over there in that corner by the living-room door.’
She turned around and looked.
‘I don’t see anything,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘That man and woman in each other’s arms.’
She looked again, and in a moment she spoke to me over her shoulder, still looking.
‘What about it?’
‘Why, he’s a nigger,’ I said.
She turned around to me quickly.
‘You mustn’t use that word,’ she said. ‘There’s no niggers out here. It’s colored men. He’s a colored man.’
‘Indians are colored, too,’ I said, still looking at them. ‘The point is she’s a white woman. Why, the—’
‘Now, wait a minute,’ she said, laying her hand on my arm. I could feel the muscles jumping against her hand. ‘You stop being a professional Southerner. You mind your own business—’
‘This is my business,’ I said, starting to get up. She jumped to her feet and shoved me down in the chair, standing over me, leaning her head in close.
‘You goddam fool—listen to me,’ she said in a tense voice, putting her hands on the arm of the chair, hemming me in; ‘if she doesn’t mind, you shouldn’t. You make a scene here and you may as well pack up and move on. You want to be in pictures, don’t you?’
‘Certainly, I do.’
‘Well, then, mind your own business. Everybody in Hollywood is here. Start a ruckus and you’ll be ruined before you even get inside a studio. You’ll have to put up with a lot worse than this—and it just so happens that the cheap feels they’re getting now is the nicest part of their affair. They’ve been sleeping together for months. That’s Helga Carruthers.’
