Hollywood (13 page)

So there I was sitting around typing up poems and sending them out to the little magazines. For some reason the short story wasn’t arriving on the typer and I didn’t like that but I couldn’t force it, so there I was playing with the poem. It was my release and my feast. Maybe the short story would come back some day. I certainly hoped so. The horses ran, the wine still poured and Sarah did some beautiful work in the garden.

I didn’t hear from Jon for about a week, then one night the phone rang.

“You know that new producer we got the release from Blackford for?”

“Yes, is he ready to go?”

“He’s backed out. Says he doesn’t want to do the film.”

“Why?”

“He said that while he was waiting for the release papers he was offered another property he preferred. A screenplay about twin orphans who become the Doubles Champions of the Tennis World.”

“Sounds great. Wish I had thought of that.”

“But there’s some good news too.”

“Like?”

“Firepower has decided to go ahead with the movie.”

“What?
Why
?”

“I think they got scared that somebody else was going to do it. I think they smell money there. After all, the budget is pared to the bone. Everybody took a cut. And that was their doing, their artwork. I don’t think they wanted anybody else to benefit from that. Harry Friedman phoned me. ‘I want that god damned movie,’ he said. ‘All right,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got it.’ ‘And if this movie doesn’t make money, I will personally cut off
all
of your fingers!’”

“So, it’s on again...?”

“It’s on again.”

Then three or four nights later the phone rang. It was Jon.

“All right if I come over? There is something we must talk about.”

“Sure, Jon...”

Thirty minutes later he was at the door. The bottle and the glasses waited on the coffeetable.

“Come on in, Jon...”

“Where’s Sarah?”

“Acting class.”

“Oh...”

Jon walked around and found his favorite seat near the fireplace. I filled his glass.

“AH right, tell me.”

“Well, we are all set to start shooting, the schedule is set. Then Francine Bowers, she’s in Boston, she falls ill. There must be an operation. She won’t be ready for two weeks...”

“What happens?”

“We shoot around her. We shoot Jack Bledsoe, everything else. We will shoot her last. We get set to shoot the first scene with Jack and he refuses!”

“Why?”

“He demands a Rolls-Royce convertible to bring him to the set before he will do any acting.”

“How the hell can he do that?”

“It’s in his contract. We find him one. No good. It’s the wrong color. We shoot some scenes without Jack or Francine. Then we find the right color Rolls convertible and Jack is back and ready to go to work.”

I refill the drinks.

“He I wants you down there watching him,” said Jon.

“What? Doesn’t he know that I have to go to the racetrack?”

“He says that they don’t run every day.”

“That’s true.”

“Listen, Hank, he wants you to write a scene just for him.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He wants to do a scene in front of a mirror, he wants to say something in front of a mirror. Maybe a poem...”

“That could ruin everything, Jon.”

“These actors can be very difficult. If they get unhappy in the beginning, they can kill the whole film.”

Here I go, I thought, selling my ass down the river...

“All right,” I said, “I’ll write a poem in the mirror.”

“Also, Francine wants a scene where she can show off her legs. She has great legs, you know.”

“All right, I’ll write in a leg scene...”

“Thank you. You know, you have another payment coming. You were supposed to get it when the shooting started but Firepower has held off paying us. But we’ll get it and when we do you’ll be paid.”

“All right, Jon.”

“I wish you’d come down and see the bar and the hotel where we’re shooting. We’re using real barflies, you know. They live in that hotel. You’ll like them.”

“We’ll be down there Monday...”

“I had some other little problems with Jack...”

“Like?”

“He wanted to get a tan, wear a little fedora and a pigtail...”

“I don’t believe that...”

“It’s true. It took me hours to talk him out of it. And look what he wanted to wear in the movie!”

Jon reached down into his briefcase and pulled out a pair of dark shades. He put them on. They were huge. And the frame was shaped into green plastic palm trees.

“Is this guy crazy?” I asked. “There isn’t a man in the state of California who’d wear those things.”

“I told him that. He insisted that he be allowed to wear the glasses
somewhere
in the movie, if only for a moment. ‘OTHERWISE,’ he screamed at me, ‘YOU’LL BE TAKING MY BALLS AWAY!’ “

“Well,” I said, “I don’t want to take his balls away. I’ll figure out a scene somewhere where he can put the glasses on.”

“You’ll get this stuff to me as soon as you write it?”

“I’ll do it tonight.”

I poured another round of drinks.

“How’s François?”

“You know that 60 thousand he got behind on that practice roulette wheel?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he worked his way out of that. He’s now six thousand ahead and a much happier man.”

“Good.”

Three things a man needed: faith, practice, and luck.

The shooting was to start in Culver City. The bar was there and the hotel with my room. The next part of the shooting was to be done in the Alvarado Street district, where the apartment of the female lead was located.

Then there was a bar to be used near 6th Street and Vermont. But the first shots were to be in Culver City.

Jon took us up to see the hotel. It looked authentic. The barflies lived there. The bar was downstairs. We stood and looked at it.

“How do you like it?” Jon asked.

“It’s great. But I’ve lived in worse places.”

“I know,” said Sarah, “I’ve seen them.”

Then we walked up to the room.

“Here it is. Look familiar?”

It was painted grey as so many of those places were. The torn shades. The table and the chair. The refrigerator thick with coats of dirt. And the poor sagging bed.

“It’s perfect, Jon. It’s
the
room.”

I was a little sad that I wasn’t young and doing it all over again, drinking and fighting and playing with words. When you’re young you can really take a battering. Food didn’t matter. What mattered was drinking and sitting at the machine. I must have been crazy but there are many kinds of crazy and some are quite delightful. I starved so that I could have time to write. That just isn’t done much anymore.

Looking at that table I saw myself sitting there again. I’d been crazy and I knew it and I didn’t care.

“Let’s go down and check the bar again...”

We went down. The barflies who were to be in the movie were sitting there. They were drinking.

“Come on, Sarah, let’s grab a stool. See you later, Jon...”

The bartender introduced us to the barflies. There was Big Monster and Little Monster, The Creeper, Buffo, Doghead, Lady Lila, Freestroke, Clara and others.

Sarah asked The Creeper what he was drinking. “It looks good,” she said.

“This is a Cape Cod, cranberry juice and vodka.”

“I’ll have a Cape Cod,” Sarah told the barkeep, Cowboy Cal.

“Vodka 7,” I told the Cowboy.

We had a few. Big Monster told me a story about how they had all got in a fight with the cops. Quite interesting. And I knew by the way he told it that it was the truth.

Then there was lunch call for the actors and crew. The barflies just stayed in there.

“We’d better eat,” said Sarah.

We went out behind and to the east of the hotel. A large bench was set up. The extras, technicians, hands and so forth were already eating. The food looked good. Jon met us out there. We got our servings at the wagon and followed Jon down to the end of the table. As we walked along, Jon paused. There was a man eating by himself. Jon introduced us.

“This is Lance Edwards...”

Edwards gave a slight nod and went back to his steak.

We sat down at the end of the table. Edwards was one of the co-producers.

“This Edwards acts like a prick,” I said.

“Oh,” said Jon, “he’s very bashful. He’s one of the guys that Friedman was trying to get rid of.”

“Maybe Friedman was right.”

“Hank,” said Sarah, “you don’t even know the man.”

I was working at my beer.

“Eat your food,” said Sarah.

Sarah was going to add ten years to my life, for better or worse.

“We are going to shoot a scene with Jack in the room. You ought to come watch it.”

“After we finish eating we’re going back to the bar. When you’re ready to shoot, have somebody come get us.”

“All right,” said Jon.

After we ate we walked around the other side of the hotel, checking it out. Jon was with us. There were several trailers parked along the street. We saw Jack’s Rolls-Royce. And next to it was a large silver trailer. There was a sign on the door: JACK BLEDSOE.

“Look,” said Jon, “he has a periscope sticking out of the roof so he can see who’s coming...”

“Jesus...”

“Listen, I’ve got to set things up...”

“All right...See you...”

Funny thing about Jon. His French accent was slipping away as he spoke only English here in America. It was a little sad.

Then the door of Jack’s trailer opened. It was Jack.

“Hey, come on in!”

We went up the steps. There was a TV on. A young girl was lying in a bunk watching the TV.

“This is Cleo. I bought her a bike. We ride together.”

There was a fellow sitting at the end.

“This is my brother, Doug...”

I moved toward Doug, did a little shadow boxing in front of him. He didn’t say anything. He just stared. Cool number. Good. I liked cool numbers.

“Got anything to drink?” I asked Jack.

“Sure...”

Jack found some whiskey, poured me a whiskey and water.

“Thanks...”

“You care for some?” he asked Sarah.

“Thanks,” she said, “I don’t like to mix drinks.”

“She’s on Cape Cods,” I said.

“Oh...”

Sarah and I sat down. The whiskey was good. “I like this place,” I said. “Stay as long as you like,” said Jack. “Maybe we’ll stay forever...” Jack gave me his famous smile. “Your brother doesn’t say much, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“A cool number.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Jack, you memorized your lines?”

“I never look at my lines until right before the shooting.”

“Great. Well, listen, we’ve got to be going.”

“I know you can do it, Jack,” said Sarah, “we’re glad you got the lead.”

“Thanks...”

Back at the bar the barflies were still there and they didn’t look any drunker. It took a lot to buzz a pro.

Sarah had another Cape Cod. I went back to the Vodka 7.

We drank and there were more stories. I even told one. Maybe an hour went by. Then I looked up and there was Jack standing looking over the swinging doors in the entrance. I could just see his head.

“Hey, Jack,” I yelled, “come on in and have a drink!”

“No, Hank, we’re going to shoot now. Why don’t you come up and watch?”

“Be right there, baby...”

We ordered up another pair of drinks. We were working on them when Jon walked in.

“We’re going to shoot now,” he said.

“All right,” said Sarah.

“All right,” I said.

We finished our drinks and I got a couple of bottles of beer to take with us.

We followed Jon up the stairway and into the room. Cables everywhere. Technicians were moving about.

“I’ll bet they could shoot a movie with about one-third of these flicking people.”

“That’s what Friedman says.”

“Friedman is sometimes right.”

“All right,” said Jon, “we’re just about ready. We’ve had a few dry runs. Now we shoot. You,” he said to me, “stand in this corner. You can watch from here and not be in the scene.”

Sarah moved back there with me.

“SILENCE!” screamed Jon’s assistant director, “WE’RE GETTING READY TO ROLL!”

It became very quiet.

Then from Jon: “CAMERA! ACTION!”

The door to the room opened and Jack Bledsoe weaved in. Shit, it was the young Chinaski! It was me! I felt a tender aching within me. Youth, you son of a bitch, where did you go?

I wanted to be the young drunk again. I wanted to be Jack Bledsoe. But I was just the old guy in the corner, sucking on a beer.

Bledsoe weaved to the window by the table. He pulled up the tattered shade. He did a little shadow boxing, a smile on his face. Then he sat down at the table, found a pencil and a piece of paper. He sat there a while, then pulled the cork from a wine bottle, had a hit, lit a cigarette. He turned on the radio and lucked into Mozart.

He began writing on that piece of paper with the pencil as the scene faded...

He had it. He had it the way it was, whether it meant anything or not, he had it the way it was.

I walked up to Jack, shook his hand.

“Did I get it?” he asked.

“You got it,” I said...

Down at the bar, the barflies were still at it and they looked about the same.

Sarah went back to her Cape Cods and I went the Vodka 7 route. We heard more stories which were very very good. But there was a sadness in the air because after the movie was shot the bar and hotel were going to be torn down to further some commercial purpose. Some of the regulars had lived in the hotel for decades. Others lived in a deserted train station nearby and action was being taken to remove them from there. So it was heavy sad drinking.

Sarah said finally, “We’ve got to get home and feed the cats.”

Drinking could wait.

Hollywood could wait.

The cats could not wait.

I agreed.

We said our goodbyes to the barflies and made it to the car. I wasn’t worried about driving. Something about seeing young Chinaski in that old hotel room had steadied me. Son of a bitch, I had been a hell of a young bull. Really a top-notch fuck-up.

Sarah was worried about the future of the barflies. I didn’t like it either. On the other hand I couldn’t see them sitting around our front room, drinking and telling their stories. Sometimes charm lessens when it gets too close to reality. And how many brothers can you keep?

I drove on in. We got there.

The cats were waiting.

Sarah got down and cleaned their bowls and I opened the cans.

Simplicity, that’s what was needed.

We went upstairs, washed, changed, made ready for bed.

“What are those poor people going to do?” asked Sarah.

“I know. I know...”

Then it was time for sleep. I went downstairs for a last look, came back up. Sarah was asleep. I turned out the light. We slept. Having seen the movie made that afternoon we were now somehow different, we would never think or talk quite the same. We now knew something more but what it was seemed very vague and even perhaps a bit disagreeable.