he: A Novel(85)

He was in love with Lois when he was fucking Alyce Ardell.

He was in love with Lois when he was married to Ruth.

He was in love with Lois even when Lois was suing him for inflated child maintenance, which he could not afford to pay.

But then, he has never claimed to be a rational man.

He settles out of court. He instructs Ben Shipman to agree a property arrangement with Vera. He wishes only for her to be ejected from his life. And Vera will aid him in this regard by being arrested and rearrested; by conforming to her image as a drunk; by being ordered to leave Hollywood, and later the state of California itself, on pain of imprisonment. In time Vera will vanish into the dark of the night, Countess Sonia in tow, and both will die and he will take no cognizance of their passing.

On May 1st, 1939, he is back on the lot with Babe for A Chump at Oxford. Hal Roach has given them a four-picture contract. Better yet, their pictures are to be in a new form: forty minutes in duration, longer than a short, shorter than a feature – ‘streamliners’, to use Hal Roach’s term for them.

For this new chance he thanks Hal Roach in person on the first day of filming. He is sincere in his gratitude. Hal Roach may have vilified him in the press, called him a lush, spread falsehoods about his willingness to work, but to each accusation he added substance by his own behavior.

It was just business, says Hal Roach. Nothing personal.

This, he knows, is not true, but he allows it to pass. Hal Roach’s office is less grand than once it was. Perhaps he has failed to notice its deterioration before now. The furniture, where damaged, has not been repaired or replaced. The dead animals carry a patina of dust.

Or maybe he imagines it all, and it is only a manifestation of his own slow decline that he perceives.

I understand, he says.

– That Illeana, she did a job on you.

– I helped where I could.

– I never met a man who didn’t.

– Even you?

– Even me. Go on, get out of here. Make me a good picture.

He will try, but as he leaves Hal Roach’s office he observes the approach of evening. The sun loses its warmth, and the lot fades around him as he walks, its buildings losing their solidity, its people turning to ghosts. He calls to them, but they are already departed.

Until at last he is alone.





164


At the Oceana Apartments, he counts off the dead on his fingers.

On May 10th, 1939. Jimmy Parrott dies. Jimmy Parrott is a drunk and a drug addict, but Jimmy Parrott was once much more. Jimmy Parrott kills himself, but the studio labels his passing as heart disease and peddles the lie to the papers.

On June 1st, 1940, Babe’s half-sister, Emily Crawford, dies. She is a supervisor at the Orphans Home, a gentle woman who teaches for no salary. Babe pays her funeral expenses.

On June 20th, 1940, Jimmy Parrott’s brother, Charley Chase, who is a drunk but not a drug addict, dies of a heart attack. Charley Chase also dies by his own hand, drowning himself in liquor, but they don’t call it suicide if you do it slowly enough.

On March 17th, 1941, Marguerite Nichols, the wife of Hal Roach, dies from pneumonia. She was an actress, once.

Formerly in pictures.

But then there are so many dying in those years.

And as the dead fall away, he watches Babe’s body contract and then swell again, diets working and diets failing. He sees Babe’s face grow redder. He listens as Babe struggles to catch his breath.

Let them all die, he adjures, every one.

But not this man.





165


He is with Alyce Ardell once again, for this, too, is a roundelay, a dance within dances. Alyce Ardell is now living with him. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark lips, scent unpolluted by liquor, breath without the vomitous undertow of the permanently soused. His head rests against her belly. Alyce Ardell is humming to him, her hand in his hair.

Why are you sad? she asks.

– I didn’t know that I was.

– You’re often sad.

– I have been through strange times.

– For a strange man.

– Am I strange?

– I believe you are.

– Why?

– Because I love you, and have never asked for anything from you beyond the time we spend together, yet you throw away a year of your life on a woman who never cared for you at all, and who only wished to bleed you dry. So, yes, you’re a strange man.

– Do you love me?

– Of course I do.

– If I asked you to marry me, would you accept?

– Are you asking me to marry you?

– Maybe I’m not sure until you offer an answer.

Alyce Ardell laughs.

– This isn’t a scene in a picture. It doesn’t work that way.

– You haven’t asked me if I love you.

She is quiet for a time. He prompts her.

– Well?

– I haven’t asked because I’m afraid of how you might reply.

– Then that leaves both of us with questions we’re scared to have answered.

They speak of it no more. Eventually, he dozes. When he wakes, she is watching him.

What? he says.

– When are you happy? And don’t reply with some foolishness about when you’re here with me. Tell me the truth: When are you really happy?