Hollywood (17 page)

They were set up to shoot in the alley. There was to be an alley fight between the bartender and the barfly. It was cold out there. Almost everything was ready. There was to be a double in the fight scene for both the bartender and Jack Bledsoe. The closeups were to show the faces of Bledsoe and the bartender but the real fight scenes were to be with the doubles.

Bledsoe saw me. “Hey, Hank, come here!”

I walked over.

“Let them see your fighting style.”

I circled about, shooting out weak left jabs, then now and then I rushed forward throwing lefts and rights. Then I stopped. I explained those fights of long ago.

“It really didn’t look very good. At first, there was much circling. Around and around. And then the crowd would get on us and somebody would rush in. I believe that in spite of the drinking the exchanges were very hard and brutal. Then we would back off, size up the situation and charge again, fists pumping. It finally became a matter of outgutting the other guy. Only one could win. And a fight was never over until a man was unconscious. It was a good show and it was free...”

It got close to shooting time. We backed out of the alley and took positions out of the way. Just then Harry Friedman strolled in with a Hollywood babe with a wig, false eyelashes, excessive makeup. Her lips were done over to twice the size and her breasts too. Also strolling in was the great director, Manz Loeb, who had directed such films as
The Rat Man
and
Pencilhead
. Along with him was the famous actress Rosalind Bonelli. So we had to go over and be introduced. Loeb and Bonelli smiled nicely and were polite but I got the terrible feeling that they felt superior to us. But that was all right because I felt superior to them. That was just the way it worked.

Then we went back to our vantage points and the big fight began. It looked brutal enough, right from the start. Except in our fights the brutality came near the end when one fighter was helpless (usually me) and the other man would not quit.

Another thing about those fights. If you didn’t belong to the Bartender’s “Club,” and you lost, you were left out there with the garbage cans and the rats. There were attendant memories. One morning I was awakened by the blaring of a horn and truck headlights shining upon me. It was the garbage truck.

“HEY, MAN, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY! WE ALMOST RAN YOU OVER!”

“Ohh, oh, I’m sorry...”

To get up then, dizzy, sick, beaten, leaning toward the suicide dream with those nice healthy black men only interested in staying on schedule and getting the garbage out of there.

Or it would be a black woman’s head coming out of a window: “HEY, WHITE TRASH, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BACKDOOR!”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry, ma’am...”

And the worst, upon first regaining consciousness, down between the garbage cans, aching too bad to move but knowing you are going to have to, the worst of all was the thought, I’ll bet my wallet is gone again...

You play a game. You try to feel the wallet pressing against your ass without reaching for it. It feels vacant back there. You really don’t want to reach with your hand but you do. And the wallet is
never
there. Then you manage to stand up and then you look through all your pockets: no wallet, ever. I became more and more discouraged with humanity.

Anyhow, then the fight scene was over and Jon Pinchot came over and asked, “Well?”

“Not quite right.”

“Why?”

“Well, in our fights, the gladiators were more like clowns, they played to the crowd. One guy would land and almost blast the other guy off his feet, then turn to the crowd and say, ‘Hey, how’d you like that one?’ “

“They hammed it up?”

“Yes...”

Jon went over to the doubles and spoke to them. They listened. Good old Jon, probably one of the first directors to ever listen directly to the writer. I felt honored. My life had hardly been lucky, now it seemed to be getting so. I could take a little of that.

They shot the fight scene again.

I watched and I have to tell you that I grew weak watching that old dream. I wanted to be one of them, going at it again. Stupid or not, I felt like punching the alley wall. Born to die.

Then it was over. Jon walked over.

“Well?” he asked.

“I liked it...”

“Me too,” he said.

Then that was it.

Sarah and I walked back to the booth in the bar.

Illiantovitch was gone. The bar had probably run out of vodka.

Sarah and I ordered and Rick went for another coffee.

“This is one of the best nights I ever had,” said Rick.

“Listen, Rick, you’ve got to be playing with me. Where have you beea spending your nights?”

He just smiled into his coffee cup. He was a wonderful and innocent man.

Then Francine Bowers was back with her notebook.

“How did Jane die?”

“Well, I was with somebody else by that time. We had been split for 2 years and I came by to visit her just before Christmas. She was a maid at this hotel and very popular. Everybody in the hotel had given her a bottle of wine. And there in her room was this little wooden shelf that ran along the wall just below the ceiling and on this shelf there must have been 18 or 19 bottles.

“ ‘If you drink all that liquor, and you will, it will kill you! Don’t these people understand that?’ I asked her.

“Jane just looked at me.

“ ‘I’m going to take all of these fucking bottles out of here. These people are trying to murder you!’

“Again, she just looked at me. I stayed with her that night and drank 3 of the bottles myself, which brought it down to 15 or 16. In the morning when I left I told her, ‘Please, don’t drink all of them...’ I came back a week and a half later. Her door was open. There was a large blood stain in the bed. There were no bottles in the room. I located her at the L.A. County Hospital. She was in an alcoholic coma. I sat with her for a long time, just looking at her, wetting her lips with water, brushing the hair out of her eyes. The nurses left us alone. Then, all at once, she opened her eyes and said, ‘I knew it would be you.’ Three hours later she was dead.”

“She never had a real chance,” said Francine Bowers.

“She didn’t want one. She was the only person I’ve ever met who had the same contempt for the human race as I did.”

Francine folded up her notebook.

“I’m sure all this is going to help me...”

Then she was gone.

And Rick said, “Pardon me, but I have been studying you all evening and you don’t seem to be a vicious man.”

“And neither do you, Rick,” I said.

We were down there a few days later for some daylight shots and it was just after lunch when Jon Pinchot found us. We had not yet entered the bar.

“Wait,” Jon told me, “the photographer Corbell Veeker will be here any moment. He wants to take some shots of you, Jack and Francine. This guy is known all over the world. He is famous for his shots of women, he really glamorizes them...”

So we stood around in the alley behind the bar. There was an admixture of shadow and sunlight there. I expected a long wait but Corbell Veeker arrived within 5 minutes. He was around 55 with a puffy face, pot belly. He wore a scarf and a beret. He had two boys with him, both of them packing equipment. The boys looked frightened and obedient.

There were introductions.

Then Corbell introduced his assistants.

“This is David...”

“This is William...”

They both gave tiny smiles.

Then Francine arrived. “Ah, ah, ah!” went Corbell Veeker as he ran up and kissed her.

Then he stepped back.

“Now, now, now...Ah! Ah!” he waved his arms. “This is it! Yes!”

There was an old broken down couch that had been abandoned behind the bar. It caught his eye.

“You,” he looked at me, “you sit on the couch...”

I walked over and sat on the couch. “Now, Francine, you sit in his lap...”

Francine had on a bright red dress with a slitted skirt. She wore red shoes, red stockings and white pearls. She sat on my lap. I looked around and winked at Sarah.

“That’s it! Yes!”

“Does my hard ass bother you?” Francine asked me.

“No, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it.”

“Camera number FOUR!” Corbell Veeker screamed.

David ran up with camera number four and Corbell slung it around his neck, dropped to one knee...There was a click and a flash...

“FINE! YES! YES!”

Another click, another flash...

“YES! YES!”

Click, flash...

“FRANCINE, SHOW MORE LEG! THAT’S IT! YES! YES!”

Click and flash, click and flash...

He was shooting furiously, with passion...

“FILM! FILM!” he screamed.

William ran up with a new load of film, inserted it into the camera, put the exposed film into a special box.

Corbell dropped to both knees, focused, said, “SHIT, I DON’T WANT THIS CAMERA! CAMERA NUMBER SIX, PLEASE! NOW! NOW!”

David ran up with camera number six, affixed it to Corbell Veeker and took camera number four away.

“MORE LEG, FRANCINE! IT LOOKS GOOD! I LOVE YOU, FRANCINE! YOU ARE THE LAST GREAT STAR IN HOLLYWOOD!”

Click, flash...Click, flash...again...and again...and again.

Then Jack Bledsoe arrived.

“JACK, YOU GET ON THE COUCH TOO! ONE ON EACH SIDE! YES! YES!”

Click, flash...Click, flash...

“FILM! FILM!” Corbell screamed.

The photos were to be for a fancy woman’s magazine with a very large circulation.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU GUYS OFF THE COUCH! I WANT FRAN-CINE ALONE!”

He had her lie lengthwise on the couch, elbow propped on the armrest, one arm thrown over the back, holding a long cigarette. Fran-cine loved it.

Click, click, flash, flash...

The last great star in Hollywood.

The boys ran in with new film, new cameras...I guess they figured it beat working in a gas station.

Then Corbell noticed the wire fence.

“THE WIRE FENCE!” he screamed.

He had Francine lean provocatively against the wire fence with Jack Bledsoe on one side and me on the other.

“FINE! FINE!”

He loved the wire fence idea and took more and more shots. The wire fence turned him on. Maybe it was the background beyond the wire fence.

Flash, click, flash, click...

And then, like that, it was over.

“Thank you very much, everybody...”

He kissed Francine again. His boys were busy packing things, gathering things, numbering things. William had a notebook and he wrote everything down in the notebook: shot number, time, subject matter, camera and film used.

Then everybody just walked off and Sarah and I walked into the bar. The regular barflies were there. They were movie stars now and had developed a certain dignity. They had become quieter, as if thinking about great things. I liked them better the old way. The movie was just about finished and I was a little sorry I had missed so many days of shooting but then if you’re a horseplayer almost everything else has to go.

Sarah and I were taking it easy. I ordered a beer and she had a red wine.

“You think you’ll ever do another screenplay?” she asked.

“I doubt it. You just have to make too many fucking compromises. And you always have to think through the eye of the camera. Will the audience get it? And almost anything upsets or insults a movie audience, while people who read novels and short stories love to be upset and insulted.”

“Well, you’re good at that...”

Just then Jon Pinchot came into the bar. He took a seat to my left, smiled at us.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Sarah.

“Has the movie been cancelled again?” I asked.

“No, not that...It’s something else...”

“Like?”

“Jack Bledsoe refused to sign a release for the still photos that were just taken...”

“What?”

“Yes, one of Corbell Veeker’s boys went over to his trailer with the papers and Jack refused to sign the release for the photos. Then Corbell went over there. Same thing.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why did he allow himself to be photographed and then refuse to sign the release?”

“I don’t know. But we can still go ahead and use the photos of you and Francine. Are you guys going to watch the next shot?”

“Sure...”

“I’ll come get you...”

“Thanks...”

Sarah and I sat thinking about it. I suppose that she was thinking about it. I know that I was.

I just decided that actors were different than we were. They had their own reasons for things. You know, when you spend many hours, many years pretending to be a person who you aren’t, well, that can do something to you. It’s hard enough just trying to be yourself. Think of trying very hard to be somebody that you’re not. And then being somebody else that you’re not. And then somebody
else
. At first, you know, it could be exciting. But after a while, after being dozens of other people, maybe it would be hard to remember who you were yourself, especially if you had to make up your own lines.

I figured that Jack Bledsoe had gotten lost and decided that they were photographing somebody else and not him so that all that was left for him to do was to refuse to sign the release. It made sense to me. I decided to explain it to Sarah.

I watched her put her wine down and light a cigarette.

Then I thought, well, maybe I’ll explain it another time and I took a long good pull at my beer, wondering if they’d use any of those shots of Francine sitting in my lap with her nice hard ass in that fancy woman’s magazine...

Then, just like that, the 32 days of shooting were over and it was time for the wrap party.

On the first floor was a long bar, some tables and a large dance floor. There was a stairway that led to an upper floor. Essentially it was the film crew and cast, although all of them weren’t there and there were other people that I didn’t recognize. There was no live band and most of the music coming over the speakers was disco but the drinks at the bar were real. Sarah and I pushed in. There were two lady bartenders. I had a vodka and Sarah had red wine.

One of the lady bartenders recognized me and brought out one of my books. I signed it.

It was crowded and hot in there, a summer night, no air conditioning.

“Let’s get another drink and go upstairs,” I suggested to Sarah. “It’s too hot down here.”

“O.K.,” she said.

We made our way up the stairway. It was cooler up there and not so many people. A few people were dancing. As a party it seemed to lack a center but most parties were that way. I started getting depressed. I finished my drink.

“I’m going to get another drink,” I told Sarah, “You want one?”

“No, you go ahead...”

I walked down the stairway but before I could get to the bar a fat round fellow, lots of hair, dark shades, grabbed my hand and started shaking it.

“Chinaski, I’ve read everything you’ve ever written, everything!”

“Is that right?” I asked.

He kept shaking my hand.

“I got drunk with you one night at Barney’s Beanery! Remember me?”

“No.”

“You mean you don’t remember getting drunk with me at Barney’s Beanery?”

“No.”

He lifted his shades and perched them on top of his head.

“Now do you remember me?”

“No,” I said, pulled my hand away and walked toward the bar.

“Double vodka,” I told the lady bartender.

She brought it to me. “I have a girlfriend named Lola,” she said. “Do you know a Lola?”

“No.”

“She said she was married to you for two years.”

“Not true,” I said.

I moved from the bar, made my way toward the stairway. Here was another heavy fellow, no hair on his head but a big beard.

“Chinaski,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Andre Wells...I had a bit part in the movie...I’m also a writer...I have a novel finished and ready to go. I’d like you to read it. Can I mail you a copy?”

“All right...” I gave him my p.o. box number.

“But don’t you have a street address?”

“Of course, but mail it to the box number.”

I walked to the stairway. I drank half my drink walking up the stairs. Sarah was talking to a female extra. Then I saw Jon Pinchot. He was standing alone with his drink. I walked over.

“Hank,” he said, “I’m surprised to see you here...”

“And I’m surprised that Firepower put up the money for this...”

“They are charging it. . .”

“Oh...Well, what’s next?”

“We’re in the cutting room now, working on it...After that, we mix in the music...Why don’t you come up and see how it’s done?”

“When?”

“Anytime. We’re working 12 to 14 hours every day.”

“All right...Listen, whatever happened to Poppy?”

“Who?”

“The one who put up the ten grand while you were living down at the beach.”

“Oh, she’s in Brazil now. We’ll take care of her.”

I finished my drink.

“Aren’t you going to go down and dance?” I asked Jon.

“Oh no, that’s nonsense...”

Then somebody called Jon’s name.

“Excuse me,” he said, “and don’t forget to come to the cutting room!”

“Sure.”

Then Jon was off across the room.

I walked over to the railing and looked down at the bar. While I had been talking to Jon, Jack Bledsoe and his motorcycle buddies had walked in. His buddies leaned against the bar, backs to the bar, facing the crowd. They each held a beerbottle, except for Jack who had a 7-Up. They were dressed in leather jackets, scarves, leather pants, boots.

I walked over to Sarah. “I’m going to go down and see Jack Bledsoe and his gang...You coming?”

“Sure...”

We went on down and Jack introduced us to each of his buddies.

“This is Blackjack Harry...”

“Hi, man...”

“This is The Scourge...”

“Hello there...”

“This is The Nightworm...”

“Hey, hey!”

“This is Dogcatcher...”

“Too much!”

“This is 3-Ball Eddie...”

“God damn...”

“This is FastFart...”

“Pleased to meet ya...”

“And Pussykiller...”

“Yeah “

That was it. They all seemed to be fine fellows but they looked a little on-stage, leaning back against the bar and holding their beerbottles.

“Jack,” I said, “you did a great job of acting.”

“And how!” said Sarah.

“Thank you...” he flashed his beautiful smile.

“Well,” I said, “we’re going back upstairs, it’s too damned hot down here...Why don’t you come up?”

I motioned to the barmaid for refills.

“You going to write another movie script?” Jack asked.

“I don’t think so...Too much loss of privacy...I just like to sit around and stare at walls...”

“If you write one, let me see it.”

“Sure. Listen, why are your boys facing away from the bar like that? They looking for girls?”

“Naw, they’ve had too many girls. They are just easing up...”

“All right, see you, Jack...”

“Keep doing your good work,” Sarah said.

We went back upstairs. Soon Jack and his gang were gone.

It wasn’t much of a night. I kept going up and down the stairway for drinks. After 3 hours, almost everybody was gone. Sarah and I were leaning over the balcony. Then I saw Jon. I had noticed him dancing earlier. I waved him over.

“Hey, whatever happened to Francine? She didn’t make the wrap party.”

“No, there’s no media here tonight...”

“Got it.”

“I’ve got to go now,” said Jon. “Have to get up early and go to the cutting room.”

“All right...” Then Jon was gone.

It was empty downstairs and it was cooler and so we went down to the bar. Sarah and I were the last ones there. Now there was only one lady bartender.

“We’ll have one for the road,” I told her.

“I’m supposed to charge you for drinks now,” she said.

“How come?”

“Firepower only rented this place until midnight. . . It’s ten after 12...But I’ll slip you some drinks anyhow because I like your writing so much, but please don’t tell anybody that I did it.”

“My dear, nobody will ever know.”

She poured the drinks. The late disco crowd was beginning to come in. It was time to go. Yes, it was. Our 5 cats were waiting for us. Somehow, I felt sad that the shooting was over. There was something explorative about it. There had been some gamble. We finished our drinks and walked out into the street. The car was still there. I helped Sarah in and got in on the other side. We belted up. I started the car and soon we were on the Harbor Freeway going south. We were moving back toward everyday normalcy and in a way I liked it and in another way I didn’t.

Sarah lit a cigarette. “We’ll feed the cats and then we’ll go to sleep.”

“And maybe a drink?” I suggested.

“All right,” said Sarah.

Sarah and I got along all right, sometimes.