he: A Novel(81)

He remembers Ruth having fire engines and ambulances maliciously dispatched to his home, the crews seeking to quell imaginary conflagrations and save non-existent victims, all to harrow him.

He remembers making Block-Heads, and how happy he was with the finished picture.

Except.

When he watches Block-Heads now he can see the effects of the alcohol on his eyes and skin, and how he is aging, and how Babe is aging. He sees Babe lift him in his arms to carry him, and winces at a metaphor made real.

He remembers Babe taking him aside on set and remarking, as of the weather: She’s crazy, you know.

– Who is?

– Illeana. Vera.

Such candor is out of character for Babe, and is indicative of the seriousness of the problem.

– I thought you meant Ruth.

– She’s also crazy, but in a good way.

– You haven’t been woken by sirens at two in the morning.

Listen, says Babe, Hal has had enough. Hal is going to fire you.

– Says who?

– Blystone.

John Blystone is directing Block-Heads. Hal Roach likes John Blystone, who will die of a heart attack before the picture is released.

– Hal is always going to fire me.

– No, this time Hal means it.

And this time, Hal does.

He remembers Ben Shipman’s call.

He remembers that Hal Roach, in the absence of Henry Ginsberg, doesn’t even have the decency to fire him to his face.

He remembers the increasing oppressiveness of Countess Sonia’s perfume.

He remembers Roy Randolph grinning from a couch, his eyes devoid of all emotions but fear and avarice.

He remembers Vera pouring a drink for Countess Sonia, and a drink for Roy Randolph, and a drink for herself, but no drink for him.

He remembers the weight of the telephone in one hand, and the absence of a glass in the other.

He remembers apprehending that he has allowed vultures and thieves into his life.

He remembers thinking that he could bury Vera, with Roy Randolph and Countess Sonia to weigh her down, just in case she tries to crawl out of the hole.

Who was that? Vera asks.

– That was Ben Shipman. I’ve been fired.

It is Roy Randolph who speaks first.

– But what will we do now?

Countess Sonia proceeds to cry.





158


Hal Roach is to pair Babe and Harry Langdon as a new team.

He is the one who gave Harry Langdon a break after years in the wilderness by encouraging Hal Roach to hire Harry Langdon as a writer on Block-Heads. He should feel aggrieved, but he does not. He likes Harry Langdon. He wishes him well.

But not with Babe.

He cannot bring himself to say it aloud. He will only whisper it.

Not with Babe.

Vera is ruining him, or making him complicit in his own ruination: she, and Countess Sonia, and Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master, the damned Dancing Master.

All he wants to do is make pictures.

All he ever wanted to be is like Chaplin.

In her room, Vera is performing arias. He can no longer bring himself to fuck her. He sees her sitting next to Countess Sonia, and one woman morphs into the other so that, in his cups, he can barely tell the difference between them.

Sober, he cannot bear to be around either.

Roy Randolph appears. The Dancing Master stinks of fragrance, but as with the interchangeable aspects of Vera and Countess Sonia, so too has the Dancing Master’s scent become one with theirs. His home now smells only of whorehouse cologne and spilled liquor.

Roy Randolph has staged the dances for a Gus Meins picture entitled Nobody’s Baby, and figures that Gus Meins may be good for more work in the future. In his mind, Roy Randolph is already buying villas in Italy, and having his perfume made by monks.

Gus Meins works for a time on the Our Gang comedies for Hal Roach, and directs Babes in Toyland, but Gus Meins leaves the studio under a cloud.

There are rumors about Gus Meins.

Gus Meins is married, with a son named Douglas. By 1940, Gus Meins will be dead. In the summer of that year the police will arrest Gus Meins at his family dinner table and charge him with molesting little boys in his basement. After his arraignment, Gus Meins will drive up to Montrose Hills, attach a hosepipe to the exhaust of his car, and asphyxiate himself, and Roy Randolph will never stage the dances for another picture.

But for now Roy Randolph steps through the kitchen, humming show tunes and performing small, soft-shoe shuffles. Roy Randolph picks at a bunch of grapes and pours a glass of orange juice. Roy Randolph opens a newspaper and reads it while standing over the table.

The Dancing Master, he thinks, is more at home in his house than he is.

Vera proceeds from arias to ‘Beyond the Blue Horizon’.

Countess Sonia calls for the driver to take her to Buffums in Long Beach.

Roy Randolph unseals a jar of imported marmalade and begins eating from it with a teaspoon.

He needs to get back to work.

He needs another divorce.

He picks up the telephone, and calls Ben Shipman.





159


He sits in Ben Shipman’s office. The sunlight streams through the blinds. He admires the order of it, the perfect separation of shadow and light. He reaches out a hand and diffuses the arrangement, trying to capture motes with his fingertips.

Ben Shipman waits for him to speak. If Ben Shipman loves Babe, and Ben Shipman does, then Ben Shipman loves this other twice over. Ben Shipman might claim that this man is incapable of dissembling, but his fornicating would give it the lie. Yet in his misbehavior may be glimpsed the actions of a lost child. On one level he is almost guileless, despite the hurt he causes to those who love him, because he so rarely sets out to cause any hurt at all. It is damage without deliberation, pain without intent. Yet he is selfish, even if his selfishness is a function of his insecurity, and the wreckage he leaves in his wake is no less injurious for the absence of malice.