Let me explain something to you, Hal Roach says to him, as he stands on the splayed skin of a new dead animal. You see this studio? I built it, with my money. You see the pictures we make? I pay for them, with my money. You see the house you live in, the car you drive, the boat you own? You paid for them, but with my money.
This, of course, is not entirely true. Hal Roach makes pictures with other people’s money as well as his own, and does not share the profits.
So if you want to invest your money in your own studio, Hal Roach continues, or find some other sucker to do it for you, then be my guest. When you do, you can make all the decisions you want, and you can film all the gags you like, and you can ignore all the instructions you don’t like. You can run your studio into the ground, but my studio, you’re not going to run into the ground. My studio is going to remain just the way it is. You know what your problem is?
He tells Hal Roach that he does not.
—You want to be like Chaplin. You want to make a million dollars a picture. You want to follow your vision. But nobody is Chaplin but Chaplin. If Chaplin makes a million dollars a picture, Chaplin makes it because Chaplin has gambled his own money on the production and come out a winner. But you want to gamble my money, which means you’re not Chaplin.
—I know I’m not Chaplin.
—Then stop trying to behave like him.
—But maybe if you paid me more money . . .
Hal Roach smiles. It’s the first time Hal Roach has smiled at him in weeks.
—Maybe if you could stay married to the same woman, you’d have more money.
He smiles back. It’s a truce, although it will not last.
—I’ll take that under consideration.
—How is—?
Hal Roach pretends to fumble for the name, although Hal Roach knows it well.
Ruth, he prompts.
—Yes, Ruth.
Ruth’s fine, he lies.
139
He leaves the lot. He has work to do, but it can wait.
The Chaplin jibe has hit its mark.
Chaplin releases Modern Times. It is a marvel. He sees it twice, because he cannot catch all its beauty in a single viewing. Chaplin is making art in Modern Times, while he dresses up as an idiot in one picture and spends a week trying to cut a dead woman from another. Hal Roach believes that he has delusions about his place in the firmament, but he does not.
He knows that these pictures on which he lavishes such attention and imagination are fillers.
He knows that they are forgotten almost as soon as they are seen.
He knows Hal Roach is right, that the days of short pictures have passed, and the only way to keep making them is to do as Harry Cohn does with the Stooges and produce throwaways as quickly and cheaply as possible, recycling an endless cacophony of rage and violence.
But he knows, too, that these pictures are his art. They are all that he can fashion, and he cannot regard them as Hal Roach does. He cannot dismiss them as inconsequential. He cannot say that they do not matter, and therefore to lavish on their creation more money, more time, more care, more sweat, more pain, more joy than is necessary is to engage in foolishness.
To do so is to negate the reason for his existence.
And what of Ruth?
Ruth wants a life he cannot give her. He is not the man whom she believed herself to be marrying. He is a fellow of whims and vagaries. He thrives on dissatisfaction.
Ruth, in turn, is not Lois, or whatever image of Lois he has now conjured in his mind, a being as unreal as a mermaid or dryad. A child might have brought him closer to Ruth—Ruth is fond of his daughter, and his daughter, in turn, is fond of Ruth—but the fact of his daughter’s existence did not save his first marriage, and only in recent months has he learned of Ruth’s previous miscarriages.
Ruth asks if he hates her for not being able to give him a child. He tells her that he does not.
—So why do you hate me?
—I don’t hate you.
—Then why do you humiliate me?
—I don’t understand what you mean.
But he does.
Because there are nights when he comes home smelling of Alyce Ardell.
140
At the Oceana Apartments, Ida serves him lightly sugared tea in a china cup. He is feeling dizzy. He has stumbled on the way to his desk, and only the support of a chair has saved him from a nasty fall.
Ida strokes his forehead.
What are you thinking about? Ida asks.
—My failings.
Ida raises an eyebrow.
—And just how much time do you believe you have for such nonsense?
—Not enough.
—Well, there you are.
Ida kisses him gently.
—You’re a foolish man.
He sits in his chair and sips his tea.
In those (first) dying days of his (second) marriage, he came to regret the nomenclature of his boat. Calling it the Ruth L was an impulsive gesture, like the marriage itself.
His head swims. The cup spills. He almost calls Ida, but he does not wish to trouble her further.
Chaplin: something about Chaplin and the Ruth L.
Something about 1936.
He looks to his shelf again, where the copy of Chaplin’s autobiography sits.
He remembers.
In 1936, he and Babe participate in the Night of 1000 Stars at the Pan-American Auditorium, where Chaplin is also on the bill. On this occasion, Chaplin ignores him, or perhaps Chaplin simply doesn’t see him. He believes it to be the former.
Chaplin is capricious.
Chaplin is Chaplin.
But later in 1936, while out on the Ruth L off Catalina Island, a voice calls to him from a cruiser, the Panacea. It is Chaplin. A rope is thrown. Greetings are exchanged. He and Ruth are introduced to Paulette Goddard, Chaplin’s co-star in Modern Times, but also Chaplin’s latest lover. He and Chaplin have drinks together. They reminisce about England, and Fred Karno.
We are alike, you and I, Chaplin tells him. We are both men adrift.
It is one of the happiest afternoons of his life.
They part. Promises are made to stay in touch. But Chaplin does not stay in touch, and years go by before they speak again.
Because Chaplin is Chaplin.
That night, Ruth fucks him for the first time in weeks.
Ruth fucks him for the last time in this marriage.
The next morning, over coffee, Ruth asks him if the others fuck like she does.
At the Oceana Apartments, the cup drops, and he sleeps.
141
Babe is sometimes touchy, even with him, but he exploits Babe’s frustrations when he can, just as he has always done. Babe’s exasperation, captured on film, is at its best when unfeigned.
Babe now spends more time than ever at Santa Anita, watching the races. It is a place of refuge from Myrtle, but it does Babe no good. Any pleasure Babe might previously have derived from the smell of horses and grass is besmirched by the knowledge that another marriage is crumbling, and not quickly enough for Babe’s liking. Nevertheless, Santa Anita offers security of a sort: Hal Roach is one of the investors in its parent company, the Los Angeles Turf Club, and Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, and Harry Warner are among its stockholders. Babe is on the board of directors.
Where there are stars there is money, and money, like stars, must be guarded.
But no system is perfect.
This is how Babe tells it to him:
Babe is studying the racing form at Santa Anita on a day rendered less bright only by Babe’s disposition. Babe is alone. Babe hears his name being called. Babe looks up. Perry Fowler is hovering with his camera, and where Perry Fowler goes, so follows Aggie Underwood.
Aggie Underwood is a reporter for William Randolph Hearst’s Herald-Express. Aggie Underwood gets her first break by walking into the offices of the L.A. Record and refusing to leave until she is given a job, first as a telephone operator and late
r as a reporter. Once in the door, and on the ground floor, Aggie Underwood begins her ascent. Now Aggie Underwood works for the Herald-Express alongside Bevo Means on the sheriff’s beat. Bevo Means is a punctual man. Bevo Means starts drinking every day at seven a.m. sharp and Bevo Means does not stop drinking until bedtime. Aggie Underwood mostly covers rapes and murders and scandals, doing milk runs of the city’s jails early in the morning to see what fish the night nets have caught. Aggie Underwood subsists on misery and misfortune. Aggie Underwood does not know the meaning of the word “privacy,” but just in case Aggie Underwood is ever tempted to find out, Perry Fowler is always present to ensure that her resolve remains strong.
But Babe thinks that maybe if Perry Fowler is foiled, Aggie Underwood will let him be. Babe Hardy at a racetrack is no news without a picture to go with it.
Perry Fowler asks Babe for permission to take a photograph, which is, at least, good manners. Babe supposes that even Perry Fowler recognizes the necessity of some social graces at Santa Anita.
But Babe does not want his picture taken, not today.
No, says Babe, I’m busy.
Goddamn Aggie Underwood appears, and now it’s two against one.
Come on, Mr. Hardy, says Aggie Underwood, just a smile for the Herald-Express.
Babe thinks of Hal Roach. The last thing Hal Roach needs is someone from William Randolph Hearst’s office bitching about access, and then someone from MGM, with which William Randolph Hearst is in partnership for Metrotone newsreels, bitching about William Randolph Hearst bitching. If Babe gives them their picture, then they’ll go away, and Babe can return to losing money and mourning the ongoing tragedy of his marriage.
Just one, Babe says.
Babe tries to compose his features into some semblance of jollity. The process is still ongoing—under his current personal circumstances, these things take time—when Perry Fowler asks if Babe is accompanied by his wife or daughter, which means that Perry Fowler is confusing Babe with his partner.
—Maybe they’d like to be in the picture, too, Mr. Hardy. You know, a family shot.
Not this, Babe thinks, not now.
Don’t ask so many goddamn questions, Babe says.
Which is out of character for Babe, and no mistake.
On another day, Perry Fowler might simply chalk this up to experience, take the picture, and go looking for someone else to bother. But this is not that day, because Perry Fowler is not happy to be growled at by some fat fuck comic.
Don’t get so goddamn tough about it, says Perry Fowler.
Babe Hardy is a big man. Perry Fowler has always understood this in the abstract sense, because everyone is made smaller by the viewfinder of Perry Fowler’s camera, but as Babe rises up before him, Perry Fowler understands it in the concrete sense, too.
You listen to me, Babe says. I’m sick of goddamn shutterbugs like you who won’t give a man a moment’s peace. Put the goddamn camera away.
Babe’s glare takes in Aggie Underwood, whose pen has now frozen somewhere above her notebook.
You’re all the same, Babe continues. You have no respect for people. You write what you want, snap what you want, and never give a thought to what you’re doing. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Perry Fowler has also frozen, which means that his camera remains pointing at Babe, a fact that Babe now recognizes.
So Babe hits Perry Fowler.
It’s not a hard blow: open-handed, on the shoulder. It pushes Perry Fowler back a couple of steps. Perry Fowler has been hit before—it comes with the territory—but never by a comic.
Now Babe speaks softly but clearly to Perry Fowler.
—I said put down that camera, or I’ll throw you over the rail and break your goddamn neck.
The rail is only a few feet away. It’s not a long drop, but it’s not a short one either, and it’s onto cement. The fall will almost certainly break Perry Fowler’s goddamn neck, but Perry Fowler isn’t about to let that happen. Instead, Perry Fowler is going to knock Babe Hardy’s block off.
Except Aggie Underwood steps between them and pulls Perry Fowler away, because if a photographer hits a star at Santa Anita then so much hellfire will descend that even William Randolph Hearst himself won’t be able to put out the blaze.
It’s okay, Aggie Underwood says, we didn’t want your picture anyway.
Then why, roars Babe, not unreasonably, did you goddamn ask for it?
But they’re leaving now, and that should be the end of it, except Babe’s blood is up, and Babe’s day is ruined, and Babe is still married to Myrtle, and the bell has just gone for the next race, and goddamn it, goddamn it all.
Punk! Babe shouts.
At Perry Fowler.
And maybe, Babe later admits, at himself.
Aggie Underwood tells Babe not to make the situation worse by calling people names.
I didn’t call anyone any names, Babe replies, already rowing back. I said “punk,” and that still goes.
But the storm is passing, and Babe is regretting ever having opened his mouth. The only consolation is that the confrontation has occurred away from others. Aggie Underwood and Perry Fowler depart. Babe goes back to his racing form, but can no longer concentrate.
Babe shouldn’t have used the word “punk.”
Cappy Marek, the city editor of the Herald-Express, calls Babe’s publicist. Cappy Marek makes it clear that William Randolph Hearst doesn’t like his staff being abused by stars, and reminds the publicist that they all need to go along to get along.
Babe is summoned to the publicity office. Babe denies calling Perry Fowler a punk. This may or may not be true, but Babe has convinced himself that it is. If Babe uttered the word “punk,” then its use was meant in the universal sense, but it is a mess, and a mess mostly of Babe’s own creation.
They sit across from each other in the dressing room, he and Babe. Babe looks like a sadder version of his screen self. It makes Babe appear both more and less real. Babe has written to Cappy Marek, giving his side of the story. It’s not an apology, more a grudging acknowledgment of fault on both sides. It will have to suffice. Cappy Marek isn’t getting any more than this.
I just wanted to be left alone, Babe says.
—I know.
He thinks it may be harder for Babe, who is somehow closer than he is to his adopted persona. There is a greater capacity for hurt in Babe.
I’m about to have a second ex-wife, says Babe. How the hell did that happen?
—Maybe you want to start a collection. You could store them in your basement, and run tours.
—I can’t figure out if I keep marrying the wrong women, or they keep marrying the wrong man.
And perhaps, he thinks, it will get worse as it goes on, although he does not say this to Babe, because it will not help. Madelyn and Myrtle knew Babe before his mask became fixed, just as Lois knew him. But those who come after, what of them? They will know Babe and him from the screen, perhaps even love Babe and him from the screen, but they cannot marry those men, and would not want to; sleep with them, possibly, even mother them along the way, but not marry. What they marry must inevitably disappoint because it will be those screen creatures made flesh, with all the flaws of the flesh; men without innocence, like Adam after the fall.
I believe, he tells Babe, I may also be in trouble. With Ruth, I mean.
He feels that this is a familiar refrain. Only the names appear to change.
—This isn’t a competition.
—Where you go, so go I.
Yes, says Babe. I guess that must be true.
142
What patterns are these? What paths are they following, he and Babe? It is as though they have worn twin grooves in the world, like the ruts created by the wheels of wagons, but deeper and more profound, so that as one travels, so must the other. They are yoked together by forces beyond contracts, beyond friendship. Their lives have become reflections, each of the other, an infinity of echoes.
Babe seeks comf
ort from Myrtle with other women.
He seeks comfort from Ruth with other women.
When the marriage of one is troubled, so, too, is the marriage of the other.
They rhyme. They are partners in the dance.
Or it could, of course, be only coincidence. It must surely be.
And yet it is not. The strangeness of this year will prove otherwise.
An overlapping, a shaded Venn.
Babe.
Ah, Babe.
143
At the Oceana Apartments, he sits and watches the play of light on the sea. Ida is sleeping. She has collected the broken crockery, and soaked up the spilled tea. But now he is unable to rest. He is in pain.
He has been in pain for such a long, long time.
That year, that extraordinary year: so much misery, but from out of it he and Babe created something beautiful.
Babe, he whispers. Babe.
I hear you singing.
144
You’d Be Surprised.
Tonight’s The Night.
In The Money.
They Done It Wrong.
This picture, says Jimmy Finlayson, has so many names, it ought to be on the run.
They settle for Way Out West.
The movements of the new dance, much the same as the old dance but with some unwelcome variations, go like this:
Babe steps in.
Babe is estranged from Myrtle. A court date has been set. Ben Shipman tells Babe to expect to take the stand.
It will be a foul experience, Ben Shipman says, but then it will be over.
Ruth steps in.
At the same time, he and Ruth separate. Ruth sues for maintenance. His finances are made public, even down to the cost of the apartment in which he sometimes fucks Alyce Ardell.
Hal Roach steps in.
To add to his humiliation, Hal Roach insists upon a lengthy morals clause in his new contract. He must in future conduct himself with due regard to public conventions. He must not commit any act that might prejudice Hal Roach or the studio.