he: A Novel(50)

Lou Costello steals lamps and tables and chairs.

Lou Costello steals rugs and cushions and a buckskin canoe.

Lou Costello does not even wait for the pictures to finish filming. Lou Costello loads a truck between set-ups and sends it on its way.

It is a game, but it is still stealing.

Lou Costello is an admirer of Chaplin, and is willing to stand up and defend Chaplin’s reputation when the government and the newspapers turn against him. J. Edgar Hoover himself is a fan of Lou Costello, and even writes a personal letter complimenting Lou Costello and his partner Bud Abbott on their radio show, although this is before the Chaplin business. In return, Lou Costello invites J. Edgar Hoover to lunch next time the director of the FBI happens to be in California. Everyone in Hollywood finds this amusing, as Lou Costello is known to possess one of the largest collections of pornographic material known to man, and is therefore not the kind of company that J. Edgar Hoover should be keeping.

They are unlikely friends, he and Lou Costello. Casual acquaintances sometimes wonder what they have in common beyond their profession and their shared troubles at Fox.

But people forget.

They forget that he cremated his child after just nine days of life, and they forget that Lou Costello’s one-year-old son drowned in one-and-a-half feet of water in the back garden of the Costello home in Sherman Oaks while Anne Costello’s back was turned.

Three men, three fathers, united by dead infant sons.

Maybe this is why, when the time comes, Lou Costello stands up for Chaplin.

But Lou Costello, like Babe, is gone. They buried Lou Costello at Calvary Cemetery in March 1959, in a crypt near his son, and nine months later they buried Lou Costello’s wife beside him.

And now there is no more awkwardness when Jerry Lewis comes to call.





104


Bardy, Babe’s older half-brother, arrives in Hollywood from Georgia. He likes Bardy, who bears some passing resemblance to Babe, although he is not entirely clear what it is that Bardy does for a living. Bardy is Bardy Tant, but changes his name to Bardy Hardy while in Hollywood, which has a pleasing ring to it, and flatters Babe.

Bardy picks up a little work as an extra on the Hal Roach lot, but mostly Bardy is content to keep his brother company, and good company Bardy is, too. Bardy is fastidious about his appearance, just as Babe is, and they both like their food, although he cannot help but feel that Bardy is much odder than Babe. Bardy perceives the world in different hues from others, and from stranger angles. When he speaks with Bardy, he is not certain that each of them is engaged in the same conversation.

With Babe and Bardy both in California, their mother, Miss Emmie, decides to join them for a time. Babe finds Miss Emmie an apartment, and supplies her with a chauffeur. Miss Emmie can now disapprove of Los Angeles from the comfort of an automobile.

Miss Emmie is a piece of work.

A widow named Frances Rich lives across the street from Babe. Frances Rich is a lady of mature years, rich by name and rich by bank account. Frances Rich decides that she has never encountered a specimen of manhood quite so dashing as Bardy, and proceeds to set her cap at Babe’s brother.

The woman is terrifying, Babe tells him. You couldn’t invent her.

– And how does Bardy feel about all this?

– Bardy seems to feel all right about it.

But then, he thinks, you couldn’t invent Bardy either.

Week after week, he is kept apprised of Frances Rich’s gifts to Bardy.

Fine cigars.

Government bonds.

A Cadillac.

A private suite in Frances Rich’s home, decorated to Bardy’s tastes.

A suite? he says, when Babe informs him of this latest development.

– It’s by way of being a marriage proposal.

– And how did Bardy respond?

– Bardy said yes.

– Well, you would.

– Would you, really?

– No, I wouldn’t, but Bardy would.

Bardy appears enthused by the prospect of matrimony. Babe does not mention to Bardy that, at sixty-two, Frances Rich is only a decade younger than Miss Emmie, and apparently of a similarly single-minded disposition. Bardy is as good as marrying his own mother.

He doesn’t attend the wedding – given the current state of his relationship with Lois, he might put a curse on the nuptials – but he sends a gift.

Babe arrives late at the studio the day after the wedding. Before anyone can even exchange greetings with him, Babe calls a meeting of like minds in his dressing room, and opens a bottle. Glasses are filled, chairs are occupied, breaths are bated.

Gentlemen, Babe says, I have a tale to tell.

It seems that the ceremony goes off swimmingly. Following a pleasant wedding breakfast, the bride and groom are escorted to their accommodations in the bride’s home, whereupon Babe and his family, including Miss Emmie, repair to Babe’s house to rest.

Three hours later, there comes a knock on Babe’s front door.

It is Bardy.

Bardy is distraught.

Bardy is so upset that Bardy has come out without a necktie.

– I must speak with Mama. It is a matter of the utmost urgency.

Babe cannot think what this matter might be, and Babe is not entirely sure that any clarification will be welcome, since Babe suspects Bardy has not been in the vicinity of an unclothed woman since the moment of Bardy’s own birth. But curiosity overcomes all, and Babe follows Bardy to their mother’s room.