Adventures in the Screen Trade (40 page)

It was a long walk downtown. I carried on a semiaudible conversation with myself most of the way. "Don't you see. Father . . , Of course I see, son . . . Then you don't mind. Father . . . Of course not, son, you just go right ahead . . ." It was after two when I turned left down Main Street, creeping on tiptoe. Then I was there. I pecked through the glass window.

Disaster. Both chairs were empty. I waited. Five minutes. A man walked into the shop. I peered again. Double disaster. Bimbaum was cutting the man's hair. I waited. Three o'clock. Ten after three. Bimbaum still snipped. Final disaster. It started to rain. That was too much. I stood there in the rain, hoping for something, some miracle, any miracle.

No miracle. The rain increased. I was soaked. I stuck my hands in my pockets and shivered. I sneezed. Again. A third time. Then I walked inside.

I took off my jacket and hung it over a hook. Bimbaum was finishing, "Hop up," my father said. I did not move.

"Hop up," he repeated, slapping the back of the black leather chair. I stared at the floor.

"I think I'll wait for Mr. Bimbaum," I said finally. Chaos...

I was the first one home. I walked into the kitchen and stood, turning around slowly while my mother inspected. "Very nice," she nodded. "Your father is definitely improving." "Oh, yes," I said.

"Go change into something dry," she said. I did. Then I came back to the kitchen. Bimbaum appeared, gave his customary nod, and disappeared. "Where's your father, Willy?" my mother asked.

"I don't know," I said. It was the truth. I didn't know. He had stormed out of the shop as soon as I sat down in Bimbaum's chair. "Must be busy at the shop," she went on. "Must be."

We waited. She idly turned the chops over in the frying pan and lowered the flame. Then we heard footsteps out in back. Accompanied by loud mutterings. Then my father was standing in the kitchen, pointing a Finger at roe,

"Stabbed in the back!" he roared. "By my own son, stabbed in the back!" With that he vanished into the living room. My mother turned to me, pale. "Tell me you didn't," she pleaded. There was nothing I could say.

Abruptly, she left the room and hurried out to my father. I took off my shoes and crept to the hallway, pressed against the wall, watching and listening.

"He's only a boy, Morris," my mother was saying. "Remember he's only..." "Boy, schmoy," my father cut in. "The little pecker knifed me in the back. Here. Feel. Put your hand on. The blood is still dripping." "Morris," my mother soothed. "Morris."

"That goddam Bimbaum anyway," my father ranted on. "Him and his goddam head shapes. Who the hell does he think he is, Leonardo da Vinci? What right does he got living in my house, eating my food, slopping up my gravy?"

"Does your head ache?" my mother asked. "Are you hungry? Can I get you a little something to nosh on?"

"I don't want food," my father shouted. "I want revenge!" "Morris, don't lose control." "Bimbaum," he went on, shaking his fist. "I tell you this. You are one

washed-up barber. In this town you're dead."

"You can't go firing him for no reason," my mother said. "You want to look like a fool to your son?"

That stopped him, "You're right," he admitted, after a pause, his voice softer now. "I can't fire him without no cause." He smacked his forehead. "Cause, cause, who got a cause?"

"You don't want Willy thinking bad things about you, Morris. Bad things like maybe you was a small man, or worse, that you was jealous. You wouldn't.,."

"You got any chicken broth?" my father asked. "I could use a cup chicken broth to clear the head."

"In the box. It heats up in a second." She stood. I ducked out of sight. I heard her crossing to the kitchen. Then my father's voice, shaking with emotion.

"Bimbaum," he was saying. "Bimbaum old pal. Your days are numbered!" And they were. From then on, it was only a question of time. But it did not happen right away. The days passed, days full of quiet bicker- ing and quiet meals and tension, always tension, mounting steadily. It was three weeks later before the end began.

We were finishing dinner, the four of us, racing to see who would be the first one done and excused. My father cleared his throat and glanced quickly at my mother. "Business is terrible," he announced, No one said anything.

"Yes," he went on. "Business is terrible. But not in the way you might think."

"What do you mean by that, Morris?" my mother asked, I imagine on cue. "Well," he expanded, "it ain't so much that the shop lacks customers ü much as it is that the customers ain't getting service."

"What do you mean by that, Morris?" my mother repeated, a trifle mechanically.

"I mean that Mr. Bimbaum takes too goddam long cutting hair, that's what I mean." "Oh. surely that is not so," my mother said.

"Oh, but it is so," my father replied. "Just today he took a hundred and three minutes to cut the hair of old Mr. Hathaway, who is practically bald to begin with."

"Well, well," my mother said. "Just imagine that."

"A hundred and three minutes!" my father exploded, talking directly to Mr. Bimbaum now. "I timed it myself. Who can make money in a hundred and three minutes, I ask? Answer: not me. I can cut three heads in that time. Maybe four."

"That's because you're a butcher," Mr. Bimbaum said. "What does a butcher need with time?"

"This particular butcher," my father answered, tapping his thumb to his chest, "this particular butcher happens to own the particular shop in which you are employed. Or should I say were employed." "Meaning?" Bimbaum asked.

"Meaning that unless you get a little speedier, you get out and I find some- body who ain't such a slowpoke."

"Butcher," Mr. Bimbaum said again. "Money-grubbing butcher." "Perhaps so," my father said. "Perhaps not. But at least I am fair. Tomorrow we time you. If you can cut a head in, shall we say, forty-five minutes, you

stay. If not, out. Vanished. Gone."

"What head?" Mr. Bimbaum asked. "You going to pick Mr. Dietrich? He got a head like a nose."

"I said I was fair. You need a guinea pig. I got a guinea pig. I happen to be its father." "Me?" I said. "You," he said. With that the discussion ended.

So bright and early the next morning we trooped downtown, my father, Mr. Bimbaum and I. My father carried a big, round alarm clock. Mr. Bimbaum carried his silver scissors. No one spoke. We entered the shop and I jumped into the second chair. My father set the alarm clock. He and Bimbaum looked at each other.

"You got forty-five minutes," my father said, and he left the shop. I waited in the chair. Mr. Bimbaum stared at my head. He bent down and looked up at it and stood on tiptoe and looked down at it and walked around it and placed his fingers on it and drew an imaginary replica of it in the air.

"Spherical," I whispered, "It's spherical, Mr. Bimbaum. Don't you remember?"

"I never forgot a head shape in my life," he said. "But sometimes, especial- ly with the young, the head shape changes."

"Well, mine hasn't changed, Mr. Bimbaum. It's still spherical. Now will you hurry up."

He closed one eye and sighted along the part in my hair. Then he redrew the imaginary replica in the air and squinted at it. "Still spherical," he announced and he tucked the striped towel around my neck. "Forty minutes," my father said, appearing suddenly in the doorway. "Forty minutes to go, Bimbaum," and he was gone again, pacing the sidewalk in front of the shop.

Mr. Bimbaum took out his scissors and blew on them, holding them up to the light. The room grew brighter. He snipped them together a few times. "Come on, Mr. Bimbaum," I said. "Please." "Shut up and sit still," he answered,

Grudgingly, I did what he said. He put his fingers against my head and snipped. A few scattered hairs fell into the towel. He walked slowly around me. Snip. A few more hairs fell. He stepped back and looked at me, his head tilted to one side.

"Hurry, Mr. Bimbaum," I said. "Please hurry."

"Thirty-two minutes," my father announced, again in the doorway. "Almost one-third gone, Bimbaum."

The scissors were in continuous motion now, and again the rhythms began. But this time the songs were different; these were softer songs, sadder songs. "The Minstrel Boy to the Way Is Gone" and "Red River Valley" and ...

"Twenty-one minutes," my father said from the door "Come on, Mr. Bimbaum," I muttered. "Come on. Please come on." "I snould rum a lifetime in twenty-one minutes?" he said Now it was "Shenandoah," and the sound of it poured in, filling the tiny

shop. "Away, you rolling river. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away. I'am bound away..."

I closed my eyes; my father came in again but I did not bother opening them. The sound was too beautiful. I just sat there listening, listening to the distant chants of the boatmen, to the mighty rolling waves pounding steadily in against the shore. The sound swelled, grew richer, louder, even louder, louder still.

Then it stopped. The alarm clock went off. My father was standing in the shop. "Time's up, Bimbaum," he said. Mr. Bimbaum said nothing. He walked quickly to the alarm clock and with one swipe of his beautiful hand knocked it senseless to the floor. Then he turned to my father. "Get out, butcher," he said. "I'm cutting this boy's hair."

Meekly, my father left. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bimbaum." I began. "Shut up and sit still," he ordered. I turned to face him. "I'm really sorry," I began again. "I told you once already," he said, and he swatted me on top of the head with the flat of his hand.

"Anyway," I finished, sitting still, "it's my fault and I'm sorry."

"Fault!" he snorted, snipping away. "Why is it your fault? No time. No- body's got no time. Whose fault is that?" "What I meant . . ."

"Shut up." he repeated. He took another snip of hair. "The butchers. The butchers are talking over. You mark my words. By the time you grow up, the goddam butchers will own the world.You'll see. Goddam little brat anyway." He snipped steadily. I closed my eyes. Snip. Snip. Then no more.

"There, " Mr. Bimbaum said. "Done." With that, he yanked the towel from around my neck, crumpled it in his hands and threw it on the floor. Holding his scissors to the light, he blew on them, one time. Then, without a word, he walked from the store He was gone by the time we got home that night. Bag and baggage gone. We sat down to supper, the three of us. No one shoke. I cleared away the soup dishes and brought in the roast. My father cut the slices and put them on our plates. Still silence. Then my father turned to me. "He was a fine barber, Willy. You understand to me. "He was a fine barber, Willy. You understand that. No one ever said any different."

I nodded. "That's right. But he took too long." It was my father's turn to nod. Then my mother spoke. "Hush and eat your dumplings," she commanded. We obeyed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Before We Begin Writing

In any adaptation-in any screenplay, really-the make or break work is done before the writing actually begins.

The writing is never what takes the most time. It's trying to figure what you're going to put down that fills the days. With anger at your own ineptitude, with frustration that nothing is happening inside your head, with panic that maybe nothing will ever happen inside your head, with blessed little moments that somehow knit together so that you can begin to visualize a scene.

Normally, to fill those terrible preparatory days, I tend to do a lot of research. Now, in the case of "Da Vinci," there isn't a whole lot of research I can do. But I've read and reread the story- (I haven't written the screenplay yet; as you read this, for all intentsts and purposes. I'm not really sure how it will begin or end. Or how long it will be; if I had to guess, it would be betweeen thirty and forty pages, but if it comes out longer or shorter. it won't surprise me much.)

If I haven't actually written, I have made my marks in the margins of the book. On the first page, for example, the second longisn paragraph is inked every time-that's where we learn Willie's old man owns the town barbershop, that he's bald, and that the kid is the guinea pig. That's basic plot, I think I'll need that.

And as well as making my marks, I've asked myself a bunch of questions, which I'll get to now. "Da Vinci," obviously, is not going to be a full-length screenplay--your eyes would glaze over if you had to read a book and then a screenplay of the book.

But these questions, the ones that follow, are what I ask my. self before I begin. Always, always. And many times over. The answers change as the material shifts in your head. But not the questions.

They may seem obvious or irrelevant, and perhaps they are. But not to me. I must know what I am doing before I begin doing it. I must be able to give myself satisfactory answers or I'm nowhere.

With screenwriting, as with a gift, it's the thought that counts....

(1) WHArS THE STORY ABOUT?

There is no right answer for this question. No single right answer. Even though "Da Vinci" is not material of Dostoevskian complexity, there are still various legitimate opinions as to what it's about.

Maybe it's about a family that almost fragments. A visitor appears, causes troubles, tensions, problems. But in the end, the strength of the family endures. The story, after all, ends with the family together, happily following the orders of the mother, perhaps the true strength of the unit. Or-

Maybe it's about a kid learning there is more to life than dreamed of in his philosophy. Bimbaum is clearly something unusual and different for a marble player to have to deal with. Or- -enough or's. I can put down half a dozen others I don't believe, just as I don't believe the two above. For me, the answer is simply this: "Da Vinci" is about a guy who loses a job.

You may not agree; fine. You may be correct. And if you wrote the screenplay, you would handle the material your way But in my version, that's the story line I'm going to use.

Now, many times when you see a movie of a book you've read, you will find they have little or nothing to do with each other. The same can be true here. (Producers often acquire material for crazy reasons. They like a character, or they think if you tuck in a part for Bo Derek, it can be a blockbuster. There was one producer in the not so long ago who bought three books purely for their locations-he had never been to New Zealand, so that was one purchase. He wanted to go around the world at the studio's expense.)