he: A Novel(74)

– I’m happy to have helped.

He signs the contract. Ben Shipman witnesses it.

Hal Roach steps out.

Okay, says Ben Shipman, so that’s the good news. The bad news is that Ruth wants a thousand dollars a month, her attorney’s fees paid, half of your annual earnings, and half of the community property. She’s also seeking an injunction on the Ruth L, which she’ll have no trouble getting. Judges don’t like men who dispose of their assets during maintenance cases.

– I love that boat.

– Then I hope you took a picture, because you won’t even be allowed to board it again until all this is over. After that, I’d suggest renaming the boat, but it’s just an opinion.

– Do I have to pay you for the opinion?

No, says Ben Shipman, that one’s free.

It is a scourge, every moment of it.

But on the set of Way Out West, Babe sings. He hears Babe as he works on a set-up with James Horne, who is directing the picture, or directing it insofar as anyone directs these men. Walter Trask of the Avalon Boys is playing his guitar to pass the time, and Babe, who gravitates toward music, joins in.

He stops what he’s doing. He is always happy to listen to Babe’s voice.

What is that song? he asks.

And Walter Trask tells him.

Mae steps in.

Ben Shipman requests that he come by the office. Ben Shipman prefers to break bad news away from the set. Ben Shipman knows how delicate the business of making pictures can be.

He takes what is becoming, by now, an uncomfortably familiar seat. Ben Shipman pours him a drink.

I don’t really want a drink, he says.

– No, you just think you don’t want a drink, but believe me, you do.

He accepts the glass.

What has Ruth done now? he asks.

– Ruth isn’t the problem. Mae is.

– Mae who?

– Exactly.

Mae is using the last name she created for him, for both of them, back when they slept together in hard beds on the vaudeville circuit, back when he and Mae were just another act on a bill, and another set of initials on a pair of suitcases: S.L. and M.L.

Mae, whom he paid off more than a decade earlier, paid to disappear from his life so that he might become a star without the burden of her. He does not know where she has been, has never cared to find out.

Mae, his common-law wife.

This I have learned, Ben Shipman tells him. It’s a bad idea to pay someone off, because someone who’s been paid off once will assume that the faucet can be turned on again down the line. If that were not the case, blackmailers would be out of business. So Mae has filed a maintenance action against you.

– What does she want?

– I appreciate that this is going to sound like a bad echo, but she wants a thousand dollars a month, her attorney’s fees paid, and half of the community property.

He buries his face in his hands.

You think you have troubles, says Ben Shipman. I have to go tell Hal Roach.

Hal Roach steps in again.

Jesus Christ, says Hal Roach, how many wives does one man need?

Ben Shipman is trying not to stand on a dead animal. Ben Shipman is worried that it might be bad luck to do so. Ben Shipman figures that bad luck is running a surfeit right now.

He does appear to have more wives than is strictly necessary, admits Ben Shipman. Or, indeed, than is conducive to contentment.

– I still don’t understand why he couldn’t just have stayed with Lois.

– Speaking within the bounds of client confidentiality, I don’t think he understands that either.

– In all my days, I have never met a man so intent on kicking over life’s buckets.

Hal Roach shakes his head in wonderment.

Maybe he just secretly enjoys giving money away to women, Hal Roach suggests.

Ben Shipman assures Hal Roach that this is not the case. Ben Shipman also advises Hal Roach that his client is not in breach of any morals clause, as he has committed no action since signing that could reasonably be construed as such a breach.

It’s not his fault, concludes Ben Shipman, that this woman has now come out of the woodwork.

Actually, says Hal Roach, if you look at it the right way, it is his fault. Unless he never fucked her.

Ben Shipman admits that he almost certainly did fuck her, although Ben Shipman has not asked for confirmation of this.

Can you get the whole mess sorted out before April? asks Hal Roach.

April 16th, 1937 is the scheduled release date for Way Out West.

– Possibly, as long as nothing else happens.

– He hasn’t got any more ex-wives hidden away somewhere?

– He assures me that he has not.

– Because, you know, Babe Hardy I have some sympathy for. Babe Hardy’s wife is a drunk. But him, he just needs to learn to keep his prick in his pants. Who does he think he is, Errol Flynn?

Ben Shipman has no wish to speculate, but Ben Shipman does not disagree with Hal Roach’s overall assessment of the situation.

Hal Roach sighs.

– We ought to have him castrated.

And despite these tribulations, Babe is singing.

Babe is singing ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’. And he thinks – as Ben Shipman hovers, and Hal Roach hovers, and Ruth hovers, and Mae hovers – that they must film this. They must film Babe singing.

Anger falls away.