he: A Novel(94)

He never sees or speaks with Chaplin again.





186


He cannot work upon his return to the United States. His diabetes has worsened. He writes sketches and gags, knowing they will never be performed. He adds to his archive, and sometimes shares with Babe what he has created. Their pictures appear on television, and bolster the bottom half of bills in theaters, but it is not enough. These are former glories, and serve only to remind him that his era has passed. It may be for the best. He is not sure what he and Babe have left to offer, beyond nostalgia, to this new, harsh age, and therefore it is fitting that they should only be remembered as they once were.

But he misses pictures, and is frustrated at being ill. As Ida bustles around him, he feels less like a husband than a patient. He looks in the mirror and beholds a fading man, an image on an overplayed print of a two-reel picture, disfigured by scratches and scars, all contrast evanescing until only blankness remains.

He is no longer at ease in his home. The surrounding walls appear oppressive to him. They have not served to keep him safe; his own body has betrayed him. The walls are also a reminder of his failings. When he looks upon them, he cannot help but recall the circumstances that led to their construction.

He cannot help but recall Vera.

Occasionally news of her reaches him from the east: Vera, drunk, arrested in the office of a theatrical agent, refusing to leave until the agent has listened to her entire repertoire, singing even as the police drag her away.

Vera in the dock, performing – unbidden – a version of ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ before an unimpressed judge.

Vera, predatory as a wasp, rolling drunks for money.

A reporter asks for a comment on Vera. He has none to make, or none worth the breath.

What use has he for walls if they are all he can survey?

We shouldn’t stay here, he tells Ida.

– Where do you wish to go?

I should like, he says, to be near the sea.





187


A.J. is dead.

A.J. passes away at the home of Olga, his daughter, in the village of Barkston, Lincolnshire.

Were he and A.J. ever fully reconciled? He cannot say. The old man could never bring himself to praise his son unreservedly. Always there remained words unspoken, resentments unrevealed.

What did A.J. want: a son like Chaplin?

No, never that.

A son who plowed furrows in the earth from city to city, music hall to music hall, the tours dwindling as the circuit contracted, waning as the venues died, the great stages turned over to picture screens and bingo callers, so that when at last all went dark, he would expire with them? A son who kept the family name, and did not trade under another, as though A.J.’s patronymic and A.J.’s vocation were not good enough for him?

Perhaps.

And now A.J., who rejoiced in a name rejected by his boy, is gone.

Dead the father, dead the son.





188


The director John Ford is putting together a touring production of What Price Glory? as a fundraiser for the Order of the Purple Heart. John Ford calls in favors from all his old buddies: Duke Wayne, Ward Bond, Harry Carey, Jr. John Ford casts Luis Alberni as the innkeeper. Luis Alberni starred in the original production of What Price Glory? back in the twenties, so this is a nice gesture. Unfortunately, Luis Alberni is now an alcoholic. Luis Alberni takes one look at the set, is consumed by stage fright, and returns to the bottle.

Babe is asked to replace Luis Alberni. Babe gives a performance brilliant in its comic timing. Babe is so good that Jimmy Cagney seeks out Babe after the show to shake his hand, and Jimmy Cagney tells Babe that had there not been someone present to hold him upright, Jimmy Cagney would have fallen on the floor laughing.

But what Babe treasures most from the experience, and what Babe describes to him when they subsequently meet for dinner, is a train trip to San Francisco with the troupe, and Babe relaxing in a chair in the club car, and these famous actors sitting in rows at his feet, and Duke Wayne’s eyes wide in his head as Babe recounts tales of old Hollywood, because Babe is a great storyteller.

They were listening to me, Babe says. Can you believe that? All those great men were listening.

To me.

Babe approaches him a month or two later. Babe approaches him the way that Babe once approached Lucille Jones before asking for her hand in marriage. Babe is only a step away from fiddling with his tie.

I’ve been offered a picture, Babe says.

He tries to hide his dismay.

– What kind of picture?

– A western, for Republic, with Duke Wayne.

He thinks that Babe and Duke Wayne get along together because Babe, like Duke Wayne, is worried about Communism. Babe believes that HUAC is doing good and necessary work in winkling out the Reds, although he and Babe rarely discuss such matters.

The Communists want to destroy our way of life, Babe says, on those occasions when the subject does come up. They will impoverish us all.

Not you, he always replies. You don’t have any money. If they redistribute all wealth, you’ll probably come out ahead.

Babe is not delighted by such comments.

It’s a one-off, says Babe of the Duke Wayne picture.

Babe does not say that it might lead to more solo work, but he hears it nonetheless.

– Then you must do the picture. What’s it called?

– Strange Caravan, but who knows what it will end up as.