he: A Novel(19)

He stands.

He runs through the act, speaking aloud his lines.

He closes his eyes, and he is no longer alone.





39


It is 1921. The Lucky Dog. Broncho Billy Anderson has rented space at the Selig Zoo Studio by Lincoln Park because it is cheap. The zoo animals form a chorus, and he can smell their emanations on the breeze.

Babe is the heavy. Babe is always the heavy. At least working with Broncho Billy Anderson is a break for Babe from the demands of Larry Semon. After all, there is only so much a man can learn from being repeatedly knocked down.

He knows Babe by sight and reputation. Jokes are made about Babe’s new bride, but they are kept on the right side of good taste.

Babe Hardy is not a small man.

He is not in competition with Babe, and he has respect for him. Babe understands the workings of the camera. Babe is cognizant of angles and eyelines. In each scene, Babe does just enough: not because Babe is lazy, but because Babe knows pictures. Where he is broad, Babe is subtle. But this is his picture, not Babe Hardy’s. Broncho Billy Anderson believes in him. Broncho Billy Anderson has promised him his own comedy series, but he has heard this before.

From Isadore Bernstein.

From Hal Roach.

Even Mae sees the difference in him this time, the resignation. (After all, there is only so much a man can learn from being repeatedly knocked down.) They have already committed to months on the vaudeville circuit once The Lucky Dog is done, to another winter in freezing theaters in the Midwest and Canada.

He talks with Babe. They share a sandwich and coffee. They speak of Larry Semon, but only in the most general of terms. He holds no grudge against Larry Semon, while Larry Semon continues to pay Babe’s wages. The sun shines. The animals gibber and howl. One scene. Two scenes. A day over, with more to come, but not many. Broncho Billy Anderson may believe, but Broncho Billy Anderson is investing his own money. The Longacre Theater has left a hole in his finances, so Broncho Billy Anderson has to work fast.

Their scenes together are done. He and Babe shake hands. They part.

It is just another job.





40


At the Oceana Apartments, he stores in his desk only the most precious of correspondence. One of these letters is from the actor Sir Alec Guinness, congratulating him on the Academy Award. He rereads it when he is low.

‘For me you have always been and will always be one of the greats.’ It goes on to say that Sir Alec’s portrayal of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – when Sir Alec was just twenty-three-year-old Alec Guinness – was based on how he might have played it. It ends with an expression of hope that ‘I may meet you some day.’

Not that they might meet, but that Sir Alec might get to meet him.

Ida was in the kitchen when he first read the letter. He tried to call to her but his throat seized up. He found himself crying. He was touched by the sentiments expressed – deeply so – but there was more to his emotion than this.

He has always denied any wish to act in drama. It is not where his gifts lie, if such a name can be ascribed to these modest abilities that have sustained him He never yearns to play Lear or the Fool, and he harbors no regrets, not for any of it.

Babe, though.

Yes, Babe should have played Falstaff. This does matter after all. Babe had it in him. Babe had the joy and the appetites and the love and the loyalty, and Babe had the hurt and the rejection and the sorrow and the decline. Babe was ambitious. Babe wanted to escape, to be more than they would allow him to be.

There is this:

Babe tries to enlist during World War I. Babe is no Jack Kerrigan. Babe is rejected because of his weight. This is known. Babe speaks of it sometimes.

But to him, Babe tells another version. It is 1938. They are filming Block-Heads. They are at the height of their fame. Hal Roach is making more money from them than Hal Roach can spend, and has put some of these funds back into the picture. There are extras in full uniform, and a great trench has been constructed. When Block-Heads reaches the screen, those early scenes will prove most striking.

They are standing together in the trench, waiting for John Blystone, the director, to call ‘Action’. Babe is about to go over the top, leaving him behind. But with so many men, and so much detail, delays are inevitable. And Babe is elsewhere. He does not ask the cause, not then, but when they watch the dailies he can see that Babe is distracted. It seems that Babe wishes the scene to be over, as though he is uncomfortable with some aspect of it, even though they have agreed that care must be taken because the memory of the slaughter remains fresh.

Days in uniform, and then they are done with it. He gets changed. In his dressing room, Babe sits in front of a mirror. Babe is still wearing his costume.

– What’s the matter?

– Nothing.

– It’s not nothing. I can see it in you.

– It’s this.

Babe touches his tunic, rubbing the rough material between finger and thumb.

He sits. He waits.

I tried to sign up, Babe says.

– I know.

– I was too fat.

You did more than many, he says. More than I.

They didn’t just reject me, says Babe. They mocked me to my face. Two of them, in uniform. The first one called his buddy in, just so they could laugh at me together.

– If they’re not dead, they’ll be laughing at you again soon, but this time they’ll be paying for the pleasure.