he: A Novel(29)

He is not bitter. Never that. Babe would have said it was not worth becoming bitter, and Babe would have been right. But he is sad, sad that they do not care as much as he does.

And then the young man asks if he has read Chaplin’s autobiography.





58


Joe Rock continues to hold out.

This is frustrating, but William Doane believes that progress is slowly being made. William Doane would like to meet with Joe Rock’s lawyers in order to shake their hands and congratulate them on their acumen, but William Doane is afraid of losing fingers in the exchange. William Doane prefers to keep Joe Rock’s lawyers at one remove, to save having special gloves made. For now, William Doane informs him, he must continue writing and directing, and keep the camera pointed away from himself.

But Babe’s wife Myrtle falls in Laurel Canyon while fleeing from a rattlesnake, and will be laid up for weeks. Babe decides to cook for her, but burns his hand with hot grease, then slips and injures himself while leaving the kitchen to seek help. He thinks that this might make for a memorable gag, but he is not certain that Babe would see the humor in it. With no one else available, he must take Babe’s roles in Get ’Em Young and Raggedy Rose, while also co-directing.

I was you, he will later remind Babe. I was a better you than you.

I gave you your big break, Babe will reply. I burned myself because I felt sorry for you.

Back before the cameras, he realizes how much he has missed this. He is tired of writs, tired of Joe Rock. He wants to marry Lois, but cannot do so with lawyers arguing in his ears, and his future uncertain.

Bring it to an end, he tells William Doane. Make a deal.

Joe Rock is working out of Poverty Row.

Joe Rock is drowning.

Joe Rock takes the deal.





59


He has been liberated from music halls, liberated from vaudeville, liberated from Mae. He has been liberated from fifteen-minute skits, liberated from spoofs of dramas, liberated from Joe Rock.

And he has been liberated from repetition only to find himself bound to a new wheel, because Hal Roach operates a manufactory and its machines must be fed. They are voracious consumers of ideas. They seek novelty, but only to replicate it. They demand variety, but only if it can conform to a set rule.

He watches the vaudeville players come and go. They sense the imminence of the circuit’s passing. When vaudeville sinks, it will sink quickly, like a ship that has stayed afloat only long enough to permit those with an instinct for self-preservation to make for the lifeboats or brave the water, but will now take the rest, the ones who feared to jump, down to the bottom.

But this is not fair. They cannot all leave, these performers. Some the circuit has made lazy, content to recycle endlessly the gags they have created, inherited, or stolen from others. And some have just one gag, one skit, one bit of business, and it will not be enough to save them. They are pigs cavorting in the knife’s gleam.

The acts that survive, and make the transition to pictures, understand certain matters without being told. They must innovate while appearing to remain the same. They must diversify without alienating the Audience. They must mold characters from clay before commencing the process of firing them in the furnace of the Audience’s regard. Most of all, they must be aware not only of the camera, but also of the screen. They will be projected upon it, and the Audience will project itself upon them in turn.

Babe, the electrician, knows this. Babe has seen the Audience bathed in reflected light. Soon Babe will look out from the screen, and gesture at the other, the fool beside him, and asks of those watching if any man was ever before forced to carry such a burden. Babe will seek their sympathy and they will offer it, even as they laugh, because Babe is most like themselves.

Harold Lloyd looks out from the screen, and seeks help and approval. Harold Lloyd cannot benefit from either, yet Harold Lloyd retains faith in the willingness of the Audience to extend help, if it could, and the capacity of the Audience to signal its approval through laughter and applause. It is in the Audience’s gift. It is enough for Harold Lloyd to know that the Audience would rescue him, if it could, and the Audience will applaud, even if Harold Lloyd is not present to hear it.

Buster Keaton looks out from the screen, and remains impassive. Buster Keaton is Job. The Audience cannot aid him, and its approval is lost upon him. Buster Keaton can only suffer.

Chaplin looks out from the screen, and expects love. It is Chaplin’s right. Chaplin offers laughter, but not in return for this love. Chaplin expects the love as his right, but the laughter has to be bought additionally. The currency is sadness: Chaplin is as happy to have the Audience cry as laugh.

And what of him?

He is the camera, and the subject. He sees, and is seen. He records, and is recorded.

And in recording, he remembers.





60


At the Oceana Apartments, the young man waits for his reply.

Yes, he says, I read Charlie’s autobiography.

– And what did you think?

– I don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Charlie.





61


Hal Roach mixes and matches. Hal Roach has a whole stable of stars, so why, then, does Hal Roach persist in putting the same jockeys on the same horses?

Hal Roach’s reasoning is not subtle. Fat men are funny. Joe Rock has The Three Fatties, on the grounds that if fat men are funny, then three fat men are three times funnier than one. (Deo gratias, the appellation ‘Fatty’ has served its time in purdah, and can now safely be used again without immediate associations of rape and violent death.) Fat Karr, Fatty Alexander, and Kewpie Ross: together, they weigh a thousand pounds. Babe worked with Frank Alexander on Larry Semon’s pictures. Babe liked standing beside Frank Alexander. Babe said that Frank Alexander made him feel good about himself.