Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (303 page)

“How about a little something on ‘Quaker Girl’?”

“No,” said Pat. “This afternoon I got an important angle to work on. I don’t want to worry about horses.”

At three-fifteen he returned to his office to find two copies of his script in bright new covers.

BALLET SHOES

from

René Wilcox and Pat Hobby

First Revise

It reassured him to see his name in type. As he waited in Jack Berners’ anteroom he almost wished he had reversed the names. With the right director this might be another
It
Happened One Night,
and if he got his name on something like that it meant a three or four year gravy ride. But this time he’d save his money--go to Santa Anita only once a week--get himself a girl along the type of Katherine Hodge, who wouldn’t expect a mansion in Beverly Hills.

Berners’ secretary interrupted his reverie, telling him to go in. As he entered he saw with gratification that a copy of the new script lay on Berners’ desk.

“Did you ever--” asked Berners suddenly “--go to a psychoanalyst?”

“No,” admitted Pat. “But I suppose I could get up on it. Is it a new assignment?”

“Not exactly. It’s just that I think you’ve lost your grip. Even larceny requires a certain cunning. I’ve just talked to Wilcox on the phone.”

“Wilcox must be nuts,” said Pat, aggressively. “I didn’t steal anything from him. His name’s on it, isn’t it? Two weeks ago I laid out all his structure--every scene. I even wrote one whole scene--at the end about the war.”

“Oh yes, the war,” said Berners as if he was thinking of something else.

“But if you like Wilcox’s ending better--”

“Yes, I like his ending better. I never saw a man pick up this work so fast.” He paused. “Pat, you’ve told the truth just once since you came in this room--that you didn’t steal anything from Wilcox.”

“I certainly did not. I
gave
him stuff.”

But a certain dreariness, a grey
malaise,
crept over him as Berners continued:

“I told you we had three scripts. You used an old one we discarded a year ago. Wilcox was in when your secretary arrived, and he sent one of them to you. Clever, eh?”

Pat was speechless.

“You see, he and that girl like each other. Seems she typed a play for him this summer.”

“They like each other,” said Pat incredulously. “Why, he--”

“Hold it, Pat. You’ve had trouble enough today.”

“He’s responsible,” Pat cried. “He wouldn’t collaborate--and all the time--”

“--he was writing a swell script. And he can write his own ticket if we can persuade him to stay here and do another.”

Pat could stand no more. He stood up.

“Anyhow thank you, Jack,” he faltered. “Call my agent if anything turns up.” Then he bolted suddenly and surprisingly for the door.

Jack Berners signaled on the Dictograph for the President’s office.

“Get a chance to read it?” he asked in a tone of eagerness.

“It’s swell. Better than you said. Wilcox is with me now.”

“Have you signed him up?”

“I’m going to. Seems he wants to work with Hobby. Here, you talk to him.”

Wilcox’s rather high voice came over the wire.

“Must have Mike Hobby,” he said. “Grateful to him. Had a quarrel with a certain young lady just before he came, but today Hobby brought us together. Besides I want to write a play about him. So give him to me--you fellows don’t want him any more.”

Berners picked up his secretary’s phone.

“Go after Pat Hobby. He’s probably in the bar across the street. We’re putting him on salary again but we’ll be sorry.” He switched off, switched on again. “Oh! Take him his hat. He forgot his hat.”

PAT HOBBY AND ORSON WELLES

Esquire
(May 1940)

I

‘Who’s this Welles?’ Pat asked of Louie, the studio bookie. ‘Every time I pick up a paper they got about this Welles.’

‘You know, he’s that beard,’ explained Louie.

‘Sure, I know he’s that beard, you couldn’t miss that. But what credits’s he got? What’s he done to draw one hundred and fifty grand a picture?’

What indeed? Had he, like Pat, been in Hollywood over twenty years? Did he have credits that would knock your eye out, extending up to--well, up to five years ago when Pat’s credits had begun to be few and far between?

‘Listen--they don’t last long,’ said Louie consolingly, ‘We’ve seen ‘em come and we’ve seen ‘em go. Hey, Pat?’

Yes--but meanwhile those who had toiled in the vineyard through the heat of the day were lucky to get a few weeks at three-fifty. Men who had once had wives and Filipinos and swimming pools.

‘Maybe it’s the beard,’ said Louie. ‘Maybe you and I should grow a beard. My father had a beard but it never got him off Grand Street.’

The gift of hope had remained with Pat through his misfortunes--and the valuable alloy of his hope was proximity. Above all things one must stick around, one must be there when the glazed, tired mind of the producer grappled with the question ‘Who?’ So presently Pat wandered out of the drug-store, and crossed the street to the lot that was home.

As he passed through the side entrance an unfamiliar studio policeman stood in his way.

‘Everybody in the front entrance now.’

‘I’m Hobby, the writer,’ Pat said.

The Cossack was unimpressed.

‘Got your card?’

‘I’m between pictures. But I’ve got an engagement with Jack Berners.’

‘Front gate.’

As he turned away Pat thought savagely: ‘Lousy Keystone Cop!’ In his mind he shot it out with him. Plunk! the stomach. Plunk! plunk! plunk!

At the main entrance, too, there was a new face.

‘Where’s Ike?’ Pat demanded.

‘Ike’s gone.’

‘Well, it’s all right, I’m Pat Hobby. Ike always passes me.’

‘That’s why he’s gone,’ said the guardian blandly. ‘Who’s your business with?’

Pat hesitated. He hated to disturb a producer.

‘Call Jack Berners’ office,’ he said. ‘Just speak to his secretary.’

After a minute the man turned from the phone.

‘What about?’ he said.

‘About a picture.’

He waited for an answer.

‘She wants to know what picture?’

‘To hell with it,’ said Pat disgustedly. ‘Look--call Louie Griebel. What’s all this about?’

‘Orders from Mr Kasper,’ said the clerk. ‘Last week a visitor from Chicago fell in the wind machine--Hello. Mr Louie Griebel?’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Pat, taking the phone.

‘I can’t do nothing, Pat,’ mourned Louie. ‘I had trouble getting my boy in this morning. Some twirp from Chicago fell in the wind machine.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’ demanded Pat vehemently.

He walked, a little faster than his wont, along the studio wall to the point where it joined the back lot. There was a guard there but there were always people passing to and fro and he joined one of the groups. Once inside he would see Jack and have himself excepted from this absurd ban. Why, he had known this lot when the first shacks were rising on it, when this was considered the edge of the desert.

‘Sorry mister, you with this party?’

‘I’m in a hurry,’ said Pat. ‘I’ve lost my card.’

‘Yeah? Well, for all I know you may be a plain clothes man.’ He held open a copy of a photo magazine under Pat’s nose. ‘I wouldn’t let you in even if you told me you was this here Orson Welles.’

II

There is an old Chaplin picture about a crowded street car where the entrance of one man at the rear forces another out in front. A similar image came into Pat’s mind in the ensuing days whenever he thought of Orson Welles. Welles was in; Hobby was out. Never before had the studio been barred to Pat and though Welles was on another lot it seemed as if his large body, pushing in brashly from nowhere, had edged Pat out the gate.

‘Now where do you go?’ Pat thought. He had worked in the other studios but they were not his. At this studio he never felt unemployed--in recent times of stress he had eaten property food on its stages--half a cold lobster during a scene from
The Divine Miss
Carstairs;
he had often slept on the sets and last winter made use of a Chesterfield overcoat from the costume department. Orson Welles had no business edging him out of this. Orson Welles belonged with the rest of the snobs back in New York.

On the third day he was frantic with gloom. He had sent note after note to Jack Berners and even asked Louie to intercede--now word came that Jack had left town. There were so few friends left. Desolate, he stood in front of the automobile gate with a crowd of staring children, feeling that he had reached the end at last.

A great limousine rolled out, in the back of which Pat recognized the great overstuffed Roman face of Harold Marcus. The car rolled toward the children and, as one of them ran in front of it, slowed down. The old man spoke into the tube and the car halted. He leaned out blinking.

‘Is there no policeman here?’ he asked of Pat.

‘No, Mr Marcus,’ said Pat quickly. ‘There should be. I’m Pat Hobby, the writer--could you give me a lift down the street?’

It was unprecedented--it was an act of desperation but Pat’s need was great.

Mr Marcus looked at him closely.

‘Oh yes, I remember you,’ he said. ‘Get in.’

He might possibly have meant get up in front with the chauffeur. Pat compromised by opening one of the little seats. Mr Marcus was one of the most powerful men in the whole picture world. He did not occupy himself with production any longer. He spent most of his time rocking from coast to coast on fast trains, merging and launching, launching and merging, like a much divorced woman.

‘Some day those children’ll get hurt.’

‘Yes, Mr Marcus,’ agreed Pat heartily, ‘Mr Marcus--’

‘They ought to have a policeman there.’

‘Yes. Mr Marcus. Mr Marcus--’

‘Hm-m-m!’ said Mr Marcus. ‘Where do you want to be dropped?’

Pat geared himself to work fast.

‘Mr Marcus, when I was your press agent--’

‘I know,’ said Mr Marcus. ‘You wanted a ten dollar a week raise.’

‘What a memory!’ cried Pat in gladness. ‘What a memory! But Mr Marcus, now I don’t want anything at all.’

‘This is a miracle.’

‘I’ve got modest wants, see, and I’ve saved enough to retire.’

He thrust his shoes slightly forward under a hanging blanket, The Chesterfield coat effectively concealed the rest.

‘That’s what I’d like,’ said Mr Marcus gloomily. ‘A farm--with chickens. Maybe a little nine-hole course. Not even a stock ticker.’

‘I want to retire, but different,’ said Pat earnestly. ‘Pictures have been my life. I want to watch them grow and grow--’

Mr Marcus groaned.

‘Till they explode,’ he said. ‘Look at Fox! I cried for him.’ He pointed to his eyes, ‘Tears!’

Pat nodded very sympathetically.

‘I want only one thing.’ From the long familiarity he went into the foreign locution. ‘I should go on the lot anytime. From nothing. Only to be there. Should bother nobody. Only help a little from nothing if any young person wants advice.’

‘See Berners,’ said Marcus.

‘He said see you.’

‘Then you did want something,’ Marcus smiled. ‘All right, all right by me. Where do you get off now?’

‘Could you write me a pass?’ Pat pleaded. ‘Just a word on your card?’

‘I’ll look into it,’ said Mr Marcus. ‘Just now I’ve got things on my mind. I’m going to a luncheon.’ He sighed profoundly. ‘They want I should meet this new Orson Welles that’s in Hollywood.’

Pat’s heart winced. There it was again--that name, sinister and remorseless, spreading like a dark cloud over all his skies.

‘Mr Marcus,’ he said so sincerely that his voice trembled, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Orson Welles is the biggest menace that’s come to Hollywood for years. He gets a hundred and fifty grand a picture and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was so radical that you had to have all new equipment and start all over again like you did with sound in 1928.’

‘Oh my God!’ groaned Mr Marcus.

‘And me,’ said Pat, ‘all I want is a pass and no money--to leave things as they are.’

Mr Marcus reached for his card case.

III

To those grouped together under the name ‘talent’, the atmosphere of a studio is not unfailingly bright--one fluctuates too quickly between high hope and grave apprehension. Those few who decide things are happy in their work and sure that they are worthy of their hire--the rest live in a mist of doubt as to when their vast inadequacy will be disclosed.

Pat’s psychology was, oddly, that of the masters and for the most part he was unworried even though he was off salary. But there was one large fly in the ointment--for the first time in his life he began to feel a loss of identity. Due to reasons that he did not quite understand, though it might have been traced to his conversation, a number of people began to address him as ‘Orson’.

Now to lose one’s identity is a careless thing in any case. But to lose it to an enemy, or at least to one who has become scapegoat for our misfortunes--that is a hardship. Pat was
not
Orson. Any resemblance must be faint and far-fetched and he was aware of the fact. The final effect was to make him, in that regard, something of an eccentric.

‘Pat,’ said Joe the barber, ‘Orson was in here today and asked me to trim his beard.’

‘I hope you set fire to it,’ said Pat.

‘I did,’ Joe winked at waiting customers over a hot towel. ‘He asked for a singe so I took it all off. Now his face is as bald as yours. In fact you look a bit alike.’

This was the morning the kidding was so ubiquitous that, to avoid it, Pat lingered in Mario’s bar across the street. He was not drinking--at the bar, that is, for he was down to his last thirty cents, but he refreshed himself frequently from a half-pint in his back pocket. He needed the stimulus for he had to make a touch presently and he knew that money was easier to borrow when one didn’t have an air of urgent need.