he: A Novel(14)

Zera Semon dies when Larry Semon is still only a child, but Zera Semon doesn’t die great. Zera Semon dies forgotten in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the odor of fish on him from the factory in which Zera Semon works. Zera Semon dies poor, and his son watches him die poor.

Larry Semon does not wish to die poor.

Larry Semon does not wish to die forgotten.

Larry Semon wishes to be immortal.





29


He meets Larry Semon at the Vitagraph Studios: two daylight stages, innumerable exterior sets, all working. He thinks that he has never seen such bustle, not even on Broadway. Larry Semon makes a picture every two weeks, which is why Vitagraph is rumored to be offering him a contract worth more than a million dollars a year. This is what Chaplin earns, but Larry Semon makes Chaplin look like a slouch.

Larry Semon learns his trade in the shadow of Hughie Mack, and this is no small shadow. Hughie Mack is a mortician recruited by Vitagraph as an understudy to their resident fat man, John Bunny, the prick. John Bunny is fat, but Hughie Mack is very fat. Hughie Mack weighs three hundred and sixty seven pounds. Hughie Mack can barely walk.

When John Bunny dies, Hughie Mack is waiting to take his place, but Hughie Mack is no actor. This is a town built on gossip, and the gossip says that Larry Semon made Hughie Mack. Larry Semon wrote for him, directed him, produced his pictures, and cast himself only in minor roles, while all the time watching, learning, waiting. When Hughie Mack departs, Larry Semon stays.

Now Larry Semon is a star.

He is sixteen months younger than Larry Semon, and six figures poorer, but there is, he decides, a passing resemblance between them. Larry Semon wears a derby hat that is the wrong size for his head. It accentuates the size of Larry Semon’s ears. Larry Semon favors whiteface, and painted eyebrows.

But Larry Semon has also never met a dollar that Larry Semon does not feel impelled to burn. Larry Semon likes stunts, chases, and explosions, although the studio now prefers others to do the more dangerous work for him, as Larry Semon is such a cash cow.

I saw the Rolin pictures, Larry Semon tells him.

He does not know how, as they remain unreleased, but he imagines that what Larry Semon wants, Larry Semon gets.

He waits. He regards Larry Semon more closely. Larry Semon looks older than his years. Anyone being paid a million dollars in this town should put by three-quarters for the Internal Revenue Bureau, a little for high living, and save the rest for hospital bills. Here, a man earns a million dollars.

British, right? says Larry Semon.

– English.

The distinction seems important to him.

– You know Chaplin?

– No.

He corrects himself.

– I knew Chaplin. I worked with him.

– Where?

– The circuit.

– Not in pictures?

– No.

– I didn’t think so. I’d have heard otherwise. Why not?

He shrugs.

– The opportunity didn’t arise.

– You never asked him for a favor?

– It didn’t seem right.

He almost says ‘proper’, but resists. He is not certain that Larry Semon knows the meaning of ‘proper’.

– Some people might say you were a chump for not asking.

He acknowledges the truth of this.

– Some people might.

– Pride?

– Perhaps.

– I know a lot of proud people. Most of them are poor. You like Chaplin?

– I haven’t spoken to him in a while.

– I mean, the pictures. You like his pictures?

Step carefully here. He has no illusions about Larry Semon. Larry Semon wears whiteface and exaggerated smiles for a reason: Because no one would laugh at the real Larry Semon.

But Larry Semon is still good. Not great, not like Buster Keaton or Chaplin – Larry Semon has not been touched by God, and knows this, which is part of what fuels his ambition – but Larry Semon has charisma on the screen, and a certain vision. Larry Semon, though, is no collaborator: you do not work with Larry Semon, but for him.

Chaplin is good, he tells Larry Semon. Chaplin was always good.

He could belittle Chaplin. He could be more stinting in his praise – even calling Chaplin good instead of great pains him, because to declare the truth, that Chaplin is the best there is, and the best there ever was, would infuriate Larry Semon – but he will not lie, not even for Larry Semon.

Not even for a job.

He’s better than good, says Larry Semon. But over in Europe, my pictures are making as much as his. You know that?

He tells Larry Semon that he did not know this.

– Soon they’ll make more. Here, too.

He nods, because there is nothing more to be said. If money can buy success, then Larry Semon will succeed.

As long as the money does not run out.

Larry Semon decides.

You start next week, Larry Semon says. Three pictures. We’ll see how you go.





30


Larry Semon is as good as his word, but no better. Three pictures are all he gets.

At the Oceana Apartments, he can remember their names: Huns and Hyphens

Bears and Bad Men

Frauds and Frenzies

Larry Semon has a formula, and Larry Semon does not deviate from it, except to make the explosions bigger, the chases longer, the stunts more dangerous.