he: A Novel(32)

The hat supply needs to be replenished.

He has not thought of Vera in a year or more.

He tries not to think of Vera, but she comes back to him at unanticipated moments. He sees her face, and hears her voice.

You’re nothing, Vera goads him. You stole everything you have from Chaplin. You even took his hat.

He does not bother to tell her that he did not steal Chaplin’s hat. If he stole anyone’s hat, he stole George Robey’s, just as Chaplin did, although Chaplin also appropriated George Robey’s frock coat and malacca cane, and Dan Leno’s too-small jacket, and Little Tich’s boots. But it does not matter. They are all part of the same continuum, clowns bequeathed greasepaint from dead clowns, comics built from the bones of forgotten men.

He hears himself talk. He is arguing aloud with the memory of Vera.

God, these women, he says to the soft approaching light, to the shadow skirting the wall.

Mae.

Lois.

Ruth.

Vera.

Ida.

What would he be without these women?





68


He knows Babe is unhappy. Babe did good work on Duck Soup. Babe should not be returning to bit parts and bullies.

And he, too, did good work on Duck Soup. It might even be his best performance yet.

Here is the dilemma. He speaks of it to Lois that night: Lois, who is now his wife.

I wanted to be a star, he tells her. I wanted to be Chaplin. Perhaps I still do. But in all these years, I’ve never been able to do what Chaplin does, or what Harold Lloyd does, or what Buster Keaton does. I have not been capable of constructing a character that can dominate the screen. I don’t think I ever will.

– Do you want to give up?

– No, not that.

– Then what do you mean?

– That perhaps I cannot do it alone.

Jimmy Finlayson sits with feet up and eyes closed. Hal Roach’s promises of stardom still ring in Jimmy Finlayson’s ears, but fainter now. Jimmy Finlayson is small, and Scottish, and unlovely, with a marriage to a younger woman behind him. Hal Roach may not make Jimmy Finlayson a star, but Jimmy Finlayson tries not to be overly concerned, for what is it to be one star among many, to brighten or dim at the wave of the master’s hand?

That is to be no star at all.

Now he and Jimmy Finlayson sit side by side, Jimmy Finlayson apparently asleep.

But Jimmy Finlayson is not asleep.

That boy, says Jimmy Finlayson, using a stockinged foot to wiggle a toe in the direction of Babe, who is practicing golf swings in the noonday sun.

– What boy?

– That boy.

Jimmy Finlayson is only five years older than Babe, depending upon the age Jimmy Finlayson professes himself to be at any particular moment, but he thinks the difference might as well be fifty years. Jimmy Finlayson was born old.

– What about him?

– That boy is tired of playing the bully.

– I noticed.

– Do you know the origin of the word ‘bully’?

– I do not.

– I will enlighten you. It means ‘sweetheart’.

– It does not.

– I tell you, it does. It comes from the Dutch.

Jimmy Finlayson still has not opened his eyes.

That boy, Jimmy Finlayson concludes, is a sweetheart.

Yes, this may be true.

But Babe is not a boy. Babe is a man, and endures the troubles of a man.

Babe has small vices. These are the things Babe does: Babe drinks – a little.

Babe gambles – more than a little.

Babe plays golf – a lot.

Babe, like Larry Semon, wants to be better. Babe, like Larry Semon, wants more.

But Babe worries about the next job. Babe does not want to be fired by Hal Roach, forced to creep off to Joe Rock to become a Ton of Fun on Poverty Row. Babe will take what is offered by Hal Roach, and set aside his ambitions, just as Babe will take what is offered by Myrtle, and set aside his happiness.

Because Babe fears that, for the second time, an error has been made; that Babe, once again, has married the wrong woman.





69


At the Oceana Apartments, he writes a letter to a film historian. He wishes to take issue with a point. He has made so many pictures, some now lost, that he understands how mistakes may occur. But while grateful for the kind words about Putting Pants on Philip – he writes – and acknowledging the important role it played in finally bringing Babe and him together, he would like to point out the significance of the earlier Do Detectives Think? It was the moment that Hal Roach began to understand, and he, too, began to understand.

Stupidity is all.

Stupidity, and derby hats, and ill-fitting suits.

Glances to the camera.

Loyalty, and optimism, and immense, misguided self-belief.

Love.

Mostly, though, there is foolishness.

In art as in life.





70


In October 1927, a heavily pregnant Lois beside him, he witnesses The Jazz Singer.

Al Jolson is no screen actor – Photoplay has that correct – and those critics who declare it to be little more than an extended Vitaphone disc with pictures are not far off the mark, but the response of the Audience is unlike any he has encountered before. The Audience cheers not only the songs but also the dialogue. The Audience applauds the miracle of speech and movement. What is said, or how it is said, is unimportant. All that is of consequence is that it is said, and the Audience can both see and hear it being said.