he: A Novel(55)

And eighty-eight cents, Henry Ginsberg adds.

– How can we be losing money if the studio is making profits like this on one picture?

– I don’t know where you got those figures, so I can’t possibly comment. But not all of your pictures make a profit. Mostly, though, I believe you’re losing us money because we pay you too much.

And this is the best he can get out of Henry Ginsberg.

He tries speaking with Hal Roach, but Hal Roach does not enjoy discussing money with actors. It makes Hal Roach feel faint.

He spends the rest of the day working on a script. As he is waiting to be picked up by his driver, Henry Ginsberg appears. From the expression on his face, he can tell that Henry Ginsberg has been stewing all afternoon. Henry Ginsberg does not like being braced by the help.

Do you know what the average annual salary is in this country? Henry Ginsberg asks.

– I do not.

– It’s fifteen hundred dollars. You made seventy times that last year, and you’re still complaining.

– I wasn’t complaining. I was asking how Babe and I could be posting a loss when we’re actually turning a profit.

His temper is rising. He curbs it. If he starts shouting at Henry Ginsberg, he may never stop.

– You’re not turning a profit. That’s what you don’t seem to understand.

– You’re right. I don’t understand.

Henry Ginsberg appears satisfied with this admission. Henry Ginsberg begins to walk away, then pauses.

One more thing, says Henry Ginsberg.

– Yes?

– I don’t think you’re so funny.

And with that, Henry Ginsberg leaves the stage.





111


MR HARDY: I never realized such a terrible condition existed in your family. You should pattern your life after mine.

(from Sons of the Desert)

Ben Shipman asks him to drop by the office for a talk.

No good can come of this, he thinks. Lately any time Ben Shipman calls, it is to have a conversation about money, but it is never the kind of conversation from which he emerges with the prospect of being richer than he was when it started.

When he arrives at Ben Shipman’s office, Ben Shipman has a blue bottle of Bromo-Seltzer sitting on the desk. Ben Shipman invites him to take a seat.

You see that bottle? says Ben Shipman.

– I do.

– You’re the reason I need that bottle. Now, tell me: just what the hell do you think you’re doing?

This is what he has been doing:

The dance with Lois is nearing its end, but still the partners cannot break. They have begun sleeping together again, but their lovemaking resembles the final burst of clarity given to the dying. For all this, these moments of intimacy have a tenderness to them that has been lacking since the death of their son. They are saying farewell, but the acknowledgement of it causes them to err and mistake a conclusion for a new beginning, or the possibility of one. He and Lois embark on a motoring holiday to British Columbia: four weeks to rediscover what it was that first brought them together, only to preside, isolated from home, over their final partition.

On May 25th, 1933, her bags barely unpacked from the trip, Lois files for divorce. In the suit, Lois accuses him of telling her that he no longer loves her, of demanding a divorce from her as quickly as possible, and of ignoring her at parties.

All of which is true, although the detail about the parties is peculiar.

Why did you ignore her at parties? asks Teddy, his younger brother.

Teddy has emigrated from England and now lives in Los Angeles with a wife and children. Teddy has no interest in acting or pictures, which makes Teddy a welcome anomaly in this town. Teddy drives a car for the manager of the Ambassador Hotel.

But Teddy will be dead by the end of the year. Teddy will take to a dentist’s chair and expire from an overdose of laughing gas.

– I guess they were those kinds of parties.

He moves out of the family home to join Teddy’s brood in a rental unit on South Palm Drive. If he is miserable – and he is, because although he now has what he wished for, he is enduring the desolation of the bereaved – then he has company in his misery.

He has Babe.

Ben Shipman is also Babe’s attorney. Ben Shipman stores a separate bottle of Bromo-Seltzer in a drawer next to Babe’s file. This way, Ben Shipman can keep track of which of his clients is giving him the greater dyspepsia, and bill accordingly.

So far, Babe is winning.

Or losing, depending upon how Babe views the size of Ben Shipman’s bill.

While the ink is still drying on his partner’s divorce papers, Babe files for divorce from Myrtle, alleging mental cruelty and claiming that Myrtle’s alcoholism is turning him into a pauper.

What follows is a disaster.



Babe is attempting to keep out of the public eye by residing at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. He arranges for a car to collect Babe and bring him to South Palm Drive, where Teddy’s wife Betty cooks a meal of steak and potatoes, and Babe, even in this darkest of moods, amuses the children. Then, when the meal is over, Teddy and his family depart to take the kids for ice cream, leaving him alone with Babe.

I got a call from Hal, says Babe.

They are not currently at the studio together. He is still working on the script for Busy Bodies, their next picture, and filming is not scheduled to commence for another ten days. Busy Bodies, he has decided, will barely have a plot at all. Busy Bodies will be a stream of gags, because that is what he needs right now.