Hollywood (2 page)

When we returned, François Racine was intent over his little spinning roulette wheel. He had evidently drunk a great deal of wine. His face was quite flushed and he had a large stack of chips in front of him. A huge ash was about to drop off the end of his cigar. It fell to the table.

“I have won one million, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars...”

The little ball stopped at a number. François raked in the chips:

“That’s enough...I mustn’t be greedy.”

We walked to the front room, sat down. Jon went for the wine and the glasses.

“What are you going to do with all the money you’ve won?” Sarah asked.

“I’m going to give it away. It’s nothing. Life is for nothing. Money is nothing.”

“Money is like sex,” I said. “It seems much more important when you don’t have any...”

“You talk like a writer,” said François.

Jon was back. He opened the first bottle, poured drinks all around.

“You ought to come to Paris,” he said to me, “you are well-regarded there. Your own country treats you like an outcast.”

“Do they have a racetrack there?”

“Oh, yes!” said François.

“He hates to travel,” said Sarah, “and they have racetracks here.”

“Nothing like in Paris,” said François. “You come to Paris. We’ll go to the track together.”

“Hell, I gotta write a screenplay.”

“We’ll play the horses and then we’ll write.”

“Let me think it over.”

Jon lit a cigar. Then François found a new cigar and lit it. The cigars were long and round and made sizzling sounds at the lighted end.

“May the Lord save me,” said Sarah.

“François and I went to Vegas the other night.”

“How’d you make out?” asked Sarah.

François took a big swallow of his wine, inhaled on his cigar, blew out a vast, magic plume of smoke.

“Listen. Listen to this. I am five thousand dollars ahead, I am in control of the world, I hold Destiny in my hand like a cigarette lighter. I know Everything. I am Everything. There is no stopping me. The continents tremble. Then, Jon taps me on the shoulder. He says, ‘Let’s go see Tab Jones.’ ‘Who is this Tab Jones?’ I ask. ‘Never mind,’ he says, ‘let’s go see him...’ “

François emptied his wine glass. Jon refilled it.

“So we go into this other room. Here is this Tab Jones. He sings. His shirt is open and the black hairs on his chest show. The hairs are sweating. He wears a big silver cross in these sweating hairs. His mouth is a horrible hole cut into a pancake. He’s got on tight pants and he’s wearing a dildo. He grabs his balls and sings about all the good things he can do for women. He really sings badly, I mean, he is terrible. All about what he can do to women, but he’s a fake, he really wants his tongue up some man’s anus. I am to puke, listening to him. And we paid this good money too. And when you pay for a nightmare, you are
really
a fool! Who is this Tab Jones? They pay this fellow thousands for wearing a dildo and grabbing his balls and letting the lights shine on the cross. Good men starve in the streets and here is this ID-IOTE...being ADORED! The women are
screaming
! They think he is real! This
cardboard
man who sucks on shit in his dreams. ‘Jon,’ I say, ‘please, let’s leave, my mind is sliding away, I am offended and about to get sick in my lap!’ ‘Wait,’ he says, ‘maybe he’ll get better.’ He doesn’t get better, he gets worse, he is louder, his shirt opens more, we see his bellybutton. A woman sitting next to me moans and reaches down into her panties. ‘Madame,’ I ask her, ‘did you lose something?’ The bellybutton, it’s like a dead eye, it’s dirty. Even a bird would be offended to leave his droppings there. Then this Tab Jones turns and shows us his behind. I can see behinds anytime, anywhere, and I don’t even want to, and here we have to pay MONEY to see this fat, soft, ugly ass! You know, I’ve had bad times, I’ve been beaten by the police, for instance, for nothing. Well, almost for nothing. But looking at those dumb buttocks I felt worse than when the police were beating me for nothing. ‘Jon,’ I said, ‘we must leave or my life is over!’ “ Jon smiled, “So we left. I just wanted to see Tab Jones.” François was now actually in a fury. Little white flecks were forming at the corners of his mouth. Bits of spittle flew as he spoke. The end of his cigar was soaked darkly.

“Tab Jones! WHO IS THIS TAB JONES? What do
I
care for Tab Jones? Tab Jones is a fool! I am five thousand ahead and what do we do? We go see Tab Jones! Who is this Tab Jones? I know of no Tab Jones. My brother’s name is not Tab Jones! Not even my mother’s name! This Tab Jones is a fool!”

“So,” said Jon, “we went back to the wheel.”

“Yes,” said François, “I am five thousand ahead and we have seen the dead dildo sing. My concentration is broken. Who is this Tab Jones? I’ve seen better men picking up seagull dung! Where am I? The wheel spins and it is a stranger! I am like a baby dumped into a barrel of tarantulas! What are these numbers? What are these colors? The little white ball leaps and buries itself in my heart, eating from the inside out. I have no chance. My concentration is broken! Dildoes parade as the idiots scream for more! I am dizzied. I leap in with a rush of chips. I see my skull already in the stupid casket. Who is this Tab Jones? I lose. I don’t know where I am. Once the concentration is broken, once you begin to fall, there is no return. Knowing I had no chance, I played all the chips away. I made all the wrong moves as if an enemy had taken over my body and my mind. I was finished. And why? BECAUSE WE HAD TO GO SEE TAB JONES? I ask you, WHO IS THIS FUCKING TAB JONES?” François was finished, exhausted. His cigar fell out of his mouth.

Sarah picked it up and put it in an ashtray. François immediately found a new cigar in his shirt pocket, slid it out of its silver tube, did the licking and the priming, rolled it, stuck it into his mouth, gathered himself and lit it with a fine flourish. He reached for the bottle, poured drinks all about, straightened up, smiled:

“Shit, I probably would have lost anyhow. A gambler without an excuse is a gambler who can’t continue.”

“You talk like a writer,” I said.

“If I could write like one, I’d write that screenplay for you.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s he paying you?”

I made a motion through the air with my hand: nebulous answer.

“I will write it for you and we will split it in half, all right?”

“All right.”

“No,” said Jon, “I will be able to tell the difference.”

“All right, then,” said François, “Tab Jones will write it with his dildo.”

We all agreed on that, lifted our glasses in a toast. It was the beginning of a good night.

I was leaning against the bar in Musso’s. Sarah had gone to the lady’s room. I liked the bar at Musso’s, bar just as bar, but I didn’t like the room it was in. It was known as the “New Room.” The “Old Room” was on the other side and I preferred to eat there. It was darker and quieter. In the old days I used to go to the Old Room to eat but I never actually ate. I just looked at the menu and told them, “Not yet,” and kept ordering drinks. Some of the ladies I brought there were of ill-repute and as we drank on and on, often loud arguments began, replete with cursing and spilling of drinks, calls for more to drink. I usually gave the ladies cab fare and told them to get the hell out and I went on drinking alone. I doubt they ever used the cab fare for cab fare. But one of the nicest things about Musso’s was that when I returned again, after fucking up, I was always greeted with warm smiles. So strange.

Anyhow, I was leaning against the bar and the New Room was full, mostly with tourists, they were chatting and they were twisting their necks and they were giving off rays of death. I ordered a new drink and then there was a tap on my shoulder.

“Chinaski, how are you?”

I turned and looked. I never knew who anybody was. I could meet you the night before and not remember you the next day. If they dug my mother out of her grave I wouldn’t know who she was.

“I’m all right,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, thanks. We haven’t met. I’m Harold Pheasant.”

“Oh yeah. Jon told me you were thinking of...”

“Yes, I want to finance your screenplay. I’ve read your work. You’ve got a marvelous sense of dialogue. I’ve read your work: very filmatic!”

“Sure you won’t have a drink?”

“No, I have to get back to my table.”

“Yeah. What ya been doing lately, Pheasant?”

“Just finished producing a film about the life of Mack Derouac.”

“Yeah? What’s it called?”

“
The Heart’s Song
.”

I took a drink.

“Hey, wait a minute! You’re jokingl You’re not going to call it
The Heart’s Song
?”

“Oh yes, that’s what it’s going to be called.”

He was smiling.

“You can’t fool me, Pheasant. You’re a real joker!
The Heart’s Song
! Jesus Christ!”

“No,” he said, “I’m serious.”

He suddenly turned and walked off...

Just then Sarah came back. She looked at me.

“What are you grinning about?”

“Let me order you a drink and I’ll tell you.”

I got the barkeep over and also ordered another for myself.

“Guess who I saw in the Old Room,” she said.

“Who?”

“Jonathan Winters.”

“Yeah. Guess who I talked to while you were gone.”

“One of your x-sluts.”

“No, no. Worse.”

“There’s nothing worse than those.”

“I talked to Harold Pheasant.”

“The producer?”

“Yes, he’s over at that corner table.”

“Oh, I see!”

“No,
don’t
look. Don’t wave. Drink your drink. I’ll drink mine.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“You see, he was the producer who was going to produce the screenplay that I haven’t written.”

“I know.”

“While you were gone he came over to talk to me.”

“You already said.”

“He didn’t even want a drink.”

“So you screwed it up and you’re not even drunk.”

“Wait. He wanted to talk about a movie he had just produced.”

“How’d you screw it up?”

“I didn’t screw it up.
He
screwed it up.”

“Sure. Tell me.”

I looked in the mirror. I liked myself but I didn’t like myself in the mirror. I didn’t look like that. I finished my drink.

“Finish your drink,” I said.

She did.

“Tell me.”

“That’s twice you’ve said, ‘Tell me.’ “

“Remarkable memory and you’re not even drunk yet.”

I motioned the barkeep in, ordered again.

“Well, Pheasant came over and he told me about this movie he produced. It’s about a writer who couldn’t write but who got famous because he looked like a rodeo rider.”

“Who?”

“Mack Derouac.”

“And that upset you?”

“No, that didn’t matter. It was fine until he told me the title of the movie.”

“Which was?”

“Please. I am trying to drive it out of my mind. It’s utterly stupid.”

“Tell me.”

“All right...”

The mirror was still there.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me...”

“All right:
The Furry Flotsam Flies
.”

“I like that.”

“I didn’t. I told him so. He walked off. We lost our only backer.”

“You ought to go over there and apologize.”

“No way. Horrendous title.”

“You just wanted his movie to be about
you
.”

“
That’s
it! I’ll write a screenplay about myself!”

“Got the title?”

“Yeah:
Flies In the Furry Flotsam.
”

“Let’s get out of here.”

With that, we did.

We were to meet Jon Pinchot in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Cheshire at 2 p.m. It meant missing a day at the track, which did bother me, but Jon had insisted. There was a fellow there who had the ability to raise money, to back films. This fellow, Jean-Paul Sanrah, had no money himself but it didn’t matter: they said he could jack off a statue in the park and money would emanate from the genitals. Great. Suite #530. Sounded more like quitting time.

Also, lounging around Suite #530 was Jon-Luc Modard, the French film director. Pinchot said he more than liked what I wrote. Great.

Dear Sarah was along in case I needed help getting back home. Besides, she believed there might be starlets in #530 flashing their navels.

We got there and Jon was in the lobby sitting in a big leather chair, looking for freaks and madmen. He saw us, then rose, puffing out his chest. Jon was a big fellow but he always liked to appear larger than he was.

We exchanged words of greeting and followed Jon Pinchot to the elevator.

“How’s the screenplay coming?”

“It’s jelling.”

“What’s it about?”

“A drunk. Lots of drunks.”

The elevator door opened. It was nice in there. Padded green, dark fluffed green material and if you looked into the green you could see peacocks there, many many peacocks. They were in the ceiling too.

“Class,” I said.

“Too much,” said Sarah.

It stopped at 5 and we moved out. The rug was made of more fluffed green with more peacocks. We were walking on peacocks. Then we were at #530. It was a large heavy black door, much larger than ordinary doors, maybe twice as large. It looked more like the gate beyond the moat.

Jon rapped with an iron knocker shaped into the head of Balzac.

Nothing.

He knocked again. Louder.

We waited.

Then the door slowly opened. A little man almost as white as a sheet of paper opened the door.

“Henri-Leon!” said Jon Pinchot.

“Jon!” said Henry-Leon. Then, “Do, all of you, please come in!”

We walked in. It was spacious. And everything was oversize. Large chairs, large tables. Long walls. High ceilings. But there was a strange musty smell. For all the vastness there was the feeling of a tomb.

We were introduced about.

The fellow as white as a sheet of paper was Henri-Leon Sanrah, the brother of Jean-Paul Sanrah, the money-getter. And there was Jon-Luc Modard. He stood very still, said nothing. You got the idea that he was posing, being a genius. He was small, dark, looked like he had shaved badly with a cheap electric razor.

“Ah,” Henri-Leon Sanrah said to me, “you brought your daughter! I’ve heard about your daughter, Reena!”

“No, no,” I said, “this is Sarah. She’s my wife.”

“There are drinks on the table. Many wines. And food. Please help yourself. I’ll go get Jean-Paul,” said Henri.

With that Henri-Leon offed to the other room to find Jean-Paul. And with that, Jon-Luc Modard turned and walked to a dark corner, placed himself there and watched us. We went to the table.

“Open the red,” I said to Pinchot. “Open several reds.”

Pinchot began working the wine opener. There was food everywhere on silver platters.

“Don’t eat the meat,” said Sarah. “Or the cakes: too much sugar.”

The gods had sent Sarah to add ten years to my life. The gods kept driving me toward the blade, then, at the last moment, lifting my head off the block. Very strange, those gods. Now they were driving me to write a screenplay. I had no appetite for that. Of course, I knew if I wrote it it would be a good one. Not a great one. But a good one. I was hot with words.

Pinchot poured the wine. We all lifted our glasses.

“Umm Hummm,” said Sarah.

“French,” said Pinchot.

“I forgive you,” I said.

As we drank, I was able to see into the other room. The door, as they say, was ajar. And Henri-Leon was trying to rouse a large body resting on this large bed. The body would not rouse.

I saw Henri-Leon reach into a bowl and grab a handful of icecubes. Two hands full. He pressed the icecubes against both sides of the face and on the forehead. He opened the shirt and rubbed the ice on the chest.

The body still didn’t rouse.

Then all at once it sat up, screamed: “YOU SON OF A BITCH, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? I’M GOING TO HAVE TO DEFROST MYSELF!”

“Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul...you have...visitors...”

“VISITORS? VISITORS? I NEED VISITORS LIKE A DOG NEEDS FLEAS! GO OUT THERE AND STUFF FROGS IN THEIR MOUTHS! PISS ON THEM! BURN THEM!”

“Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul. . . you had an appointment. . . with Jon Pinchot and his screenwriter...”

“All right...shit...I’ll be right out...I’m going to jack-off first. . . No, no, I’ll wait...something to look forward to...”

Henri-Leon came out and spoke to us.

“He’ll be right out. He’s been under terrific pressure. He thought his wife was leaving him. Early today, a cablegram from Paris: now she has changed her mind. It was a mortal blow, like great oxen being ripped apart by a pack of mad dogs...”

We didn’t know what to say.

Then Jean-Paul came trundling out. He was dressed in white pants with wide yellow stripes. Pink stockings. No shoes. His hair was all in brown curls, didn’t need combing. But the brown hair looked bad. Like it was dying and couldn’t make up its mind what color to be. He was undershirted and scratching. He kept scratching. Unlike his brother, he was big, and pink...no, red, a red that flamed and faded, faded away one moment to his brother’s white, then flamed, redder than ever.

The introductions went around.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said.

Then, “Where’s Modard?”

Then, he looked around, saw Modard in the corner.

“Hiding again, huh? God damn, I wish he’d do something new.”

Suddenly Jean-Paul turned and ran back into the bedroom, slamming the door.

Modard let out a little cough from his corner and we poured some more wine. It was all really excellent. Life was good. All you had to do in their little world was be a writer or an artist or a ballet dancer and you could just sit or stand around, inhaling and exhaling, drinking wine, pretending you knew what the hell.

Then Jean-Paul came crashing back through the door. I thought he’d hurt his shoulder. He stopped, felt his shoulder, dismissed it, scratched himself and charged forward again. He began circling the table at a quick and even pace, shouting:

“WE’VE ALL GOT ASSHOLES, RIGHT? IS THERE ANYBODY IN THIS ROOM WITHOUT AN ASSHOLE? IF SO, SPEAK UP AT ONCE, AT ONCE, YOU HEAR ME?”

Jon Pinchot dug his elbow into my side: “See, he’s a genius, see?”

Jean-Paul circled at the same quick pace, screaming: “WE’VE ALL GOT THIS SLICE IN THE BACK, RIGHT? DOWN THERE, ABOUT IN THE MIDDLE, RIGHT? THE SHIT POURS OUT OF THERE, RIGHT? OR AT LEAST WE HOPE IT DOES! TAKE AWAY OUR SHIT AND WE ARE DEAD! THINK HOW MUCH SHIT WE SHIT IN A LIFETIME! THE EARTH, AT THE MOMENT, ABSORBS IT! BUT THE SEAS AND THE RIVERS ARE GAGGING UP THEIR VERY LIVES WHILE SWALLOWING OUR SHIT! WE ARE FILTHY, FILTHY, FILTHY! I HATE US ALL! EVERY TIME I WIPE MY ASS, I HATE US ALL!”

Then, he stopped, seemed to see Pinchot.

“You want money, right?”

Pinchot smiled.

“Fucker, I will get you your god damned money,” said Jean-Paul.

“Thank you. I just told Chinaski, here, that you were a genius.”

“Shut up!”

Then Jean-Paul looked at me.

“The best thing about your writing is that it excites the Institutionalized. Also those that should be excited. And that figure goes into the many millions. If you can only remain pure in your stupidity, someday you may get a phone call from hell.”

“Jean-Paul, I’ve already gotten those.”

“Yeah? Huh? Who?”

“X-girl friends.”

“YOU DULL ME!” he screamed and began circling the table again, scratching himself as he did so.

Then, after one last big circle, he ran to the bedroom, slammed the door and was gone.

“My brother,” said Henri-Leon, “is not feeling well today. He is upset.”

I reached around and refilled the glasses.

Pinchot leaned toward me and whispered, “This suite, they’ve been here for days, eating and drinking, they don’t have to pay the bill...”

“Really?”

“It’s paid for by Frances Ford Lopalla. He thinks Jean-Paul is a genius...”

“Love and Genius are two of the most over-used words in the language,” I said.

“You’re starting to talk silly now,” Sarah told me, “you’re starting to get stinko.”

With that, Jon-Luc Modard emerged from his corner. He walked up to us.

“Give me a fucking wine,” he said.

I poured it tall. Jon-Luc drank it right down. I poured another.

“I’ve read your shit,” he said. “Best thing about it, it’s so simple. You have a case of brain-damage, no?”

“I might. I lost almost all the blood in my body in 1957. I was in the basement of a charity ward for 2 days before some crazy intern with a conscience found me. I think maybe I lost a lot of things then, more mental than physical.”

“It is one of his favorite stories,” said Sarah. “I love him, but you have no idea how many times I’ve had to listen to that story.”

“I love you too, Sarah,” I said, “but somehow, the telling of old stories, again and again, seems to bring them closer to what they were supposed to be.”

“O.K., Popsy, I’m sorry,” Sarah said.

“Listen,” said Jon-Luc, “what I want to ask you to do is to write the English dialogue for the sub-titles of my new movie. Also, I have a scene I want to use from one of your stories, where the man gets a blow job under the desk and just goes about his business, answering the telephone and all that crap. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

Then we just pulled up the chairs and started drinking. And Jon-Luc started talking. He talked and he talked, looking only at me. At first, I felt flattered, then after a while, I felt less than that.

Jon-Luc kept right on talking. He was being dark and playing Genius. Maybe he was a Genius. I didn’t want to get bitter about it. But I had had Genius pushed at me all through school: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Ibsen, G.B. Shaw, Chekov, all those dullards. And worse, Mark Twain, Hawthorne, the Bronte sisters, Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, it all just laid on you like a slab of cement, and you wanted to get out and away, they were like heavy stupid parents insisting upon regulations and ways that would make even the dead cringe.

Jon-Luc just kept right on talking. That’s all I remember. Except now and then, my good Sarah saying, “Hank, you shouldn’t drink so much. Slow down a little. I don’t want you dead in the morning.”

But Jon-Luc was on a roll.

I no longer understood what he was saying. I saw lips moving. He was not unpleasant, he was just there. He needed a shave. And we were in this strange Beverly Hills hotel where you walked on peacocks. A magic world. I liked it because I hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was senseless and perfect and safe.

The wine poured and Jon-Luc kept going.

I lapsed into my pathetic cut-off period. Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up. I am polite. I nod. I pretend to understand because I don’t want anybody to be hurt. That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble. Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta.

No matter. My brain shuts off. I listen. I respond. And they are too dumb to know that I am not there.

The drinks poured and Jon-Luc kept on talking. I’m sure that he said many astonishing things. I simply focused on his eyebrows...

The next morning in my own place, in Sarah’s and my bed, the phone rang about 11 a.m.

“Hello?”

It was Pinchot.

“Listen, I have to tell you something!”

“Yes?”

“Modard NEVER TALKS. There has been NOBODY, NOBODY WHO HAS EVER CAUSED HIM TO TALK LIKE YOU DID! HE TALKED FOR HOURS! EVERYBODY WAS ASTONISHED!”

“Oh, O.K.”

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! HE NEVER TALKS! HE TALKED TO YOU FOR HOURS!”

“Listen, Jon, I’m sorry but I’m sick, I have to sleep.”

“All right. But I must tell you one more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s about Jean-Paul Sanrah.”

“Yes?”

“He says that I must suffer, that I haven’t suffered enough and that when I have suffered more he will get me the money.”

“All right.”

“He’s strange, isn’t he? A real genius.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I think that he is.”

I hung it up.

Sarah was still asleep. I turned on my right side, toward the window, because sometimes I snored and I wanted to direct the sound away from her.

I had just fallen into that gentle dark, that last rest given to us before death, when Sarah’s favorite cat, Beauty, stepped off her own special pillow by Sarah’s head and walked across my face. One clawed foot tore into my left ear, then she jumped to the floor, walked across, and leaped up onto the sill of the open window facing east. As the bloody sun moved up I was not gripped by entrancing thoughts.