Serenade

  "Yes, I've heard of you. And you're washed up."

  I cut one loose they must have heard in Glendale.

  "Does that sound like I'm washed up? Does it?"

  "You lost your voice."

  "Yeah, and I got it back."

  He kept looking at me, opened his mouth once or twice to say something, then shook his head and turned to the manager. "It's no use, Morris. He can't do it. I just happened to think of that last act Mr. Sharp, I wish I could use you. It would pull us out of a spot. But for the sake of the ballet school, we've interpolated Arlésienne music into Act IV, and I've scored the baritone into it, and--"

  "Oh, Arlésienne, hey? Listen: Cue me in. That's all I ask. Just cue me in!"

  You think that's impossible, that a man can go on and sing stuff he never even saw? All right, once there was an old Aborn baritone that's dead now, by the name of Harry Luckstone, brother of Isidore Luckstone, the singing teacher. He had a cousin named Henry Myers, that writes a little music now and then. Myers had written a song, and he was telling Luckstone about it, and Luckstone said fine, he'd sing it.

  "I haven't put it on paper yet--"

  "All right, I'll sing it."

  "Well, it goes like this--"

  "God Almighty, does a man have to know a song to sing it? Get going on your goddam piano, and I'll sing it!"

  And he sang it. Nobody but another singer knows how good a singer really is. Sure, I sang his Arlesienne for him. I got a look at his score after Act III, and what he had done was put some words to the slow part, let the baritone sing them, then have baritone and chorus sing them under the fast part, in straight counterpoint. I didn't even bother to look what the words were. I bellowed "Auprčs de ma blonde, qu'il fait bon, fait bon," and let it go at that. One place I shot past a repeat. The dancers were all frozen on one foot, ready to do the routine again, and there was I, camped on an E that didn't even belong there. He looked up, and I caught his eye, and hung on to it, and marched all around with it, while he spoke to his men and wigwagged to his ballerina. Then he looked up again, and I cut, and yelled, "Ha, ha, ha." He brought his stick down, the show was together again, and I began flapping the cape at the dancers. In the Toreador Song, on the long "Ah" that leads into the chorus, I broke out the cape and made a couple of passes at the bull. Not too much, you understand. A prop can kill a number. But enough that I got that swirl of crimson and yellow into it. It stopped the show, and he let me repeat the second verse.

  Some time during the night I had been given a dressing room, and after the last bow I went there. My clothes were there, piled on the table, and Sabini's trunk. Instead of taking off the makeup first, I started with the costume, so he could get away, if he was still around. I had just stripped down to my underwear when the manager came in, to pay me off. He counted out fifty bucks, in fives. While he was doing it the process server came in. He had a summons to appear in court and a writ to attach costumes. It took all the manager and I could do to convince him I wasn't Alessandro Sabini, but after a few minutes he went. I was scared to death he would see the "A.S." on that trunk, and serve the writ anyhow, but he didn't think of that. The conductor came in and thanked me. 'You gave a fine performance, and I'd like you to know it was a pleasure to have somebody up there that could troupe a little."

  "Thanks. I'm sorry about that bobble."

  "That's what I'm talking about. When you gave me the chance to pull it out of the soup, that was what I call trouping. Anybody can make a mistake, especially when they're shoved out there the way you were, without even a rehearsal. But when you use your head--well, my hat's off to you, that's all."

  "They be pleasant words. Thanks again."

  "I don't think they even noticed it. Did they, Morris?"

  "Notice it? Christ, they give it a hand."

  I sat on the trunk, and we lit up, and they began telling me what the production cost, what the hook-up was, and some more things I wanted to know. Up to then I didn't even know their names. The conductor was Albert Hudson, who you've probably heard of by now, and if you haven't you soon will. The manager was Morris Lahr, who you've never heard of, and never will. He runs a concert series in the winter, and manages a couple of singers, and now and then he puts on an opera. There's one like him in every city, and if you ask me they do more for music than the guys that get their name in the papers.

  We were fanning along, me in my underwear with my make-up still on, when the door opens and in pops Stoessel, the agent I had been talking to not a week before. He had a little guy with him, around fifty, and they stood looking at me like I was some ape in a cage, and then Stoessel nodded. "Mr. Ziskin, I believe you're right. He's the type. He's the type you been looking for. And he sings good as Eddy."

  "I need a big man, Herman. A real Beery type."

  "He's better looking than Beery. And younger. A hell of a sight younger."

  "But he's rugged. You know what I mean? Tough. But in the picture, he's got a heart like all outdoors, and that's where the singing comes in. A accent I don't mind, because why? He's got a heart like all outdoors, and a accent helps it."

  "I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Ziskin."

  "O.K., then, Herman. You handle it. Three fifty while he's learning English, and then after the script is ready and we start to shoot, five. Six weeks' guarantee, at five hundred."

  Stoessel turned to Hudson and Lahr. "I guess Mr. Ziskin don't need any introduction around here. He's interested in this man for a picture. Tell him that much, will you? Then we give him the rest of it."

  Lahr didn't act like he was any too fond of Mr. Ziskin, or Stoessel either, for that matter. "Why don't you tell him yourself?"

  "He speak English?"

  "He did a minute ago."

  "Sure, I speak English. Shoot."

  "Well, say, that makes it easy. O.K., then, you heard what Mr. Ziskin said. Get your make-up off, put on your clothes, and we'll go out and talk."

  "We can talk right now."

  I was afraid to take my make-up off, for fear he would know me. They still thought I was Sabini, I could see that, because there hadn't been any announcement about me, and I was afraid if he placed me there wouldn't be any three fifty or even one fifty. I was down, that day, and he knew it. "All right, then, we'll talk right now. You heard Mr. Ziskin's proposition. What do you say?"

  "I say go climb a tree."

  "Say, that's no way to talk to Mr. Ziskin."

  "What the hell do you think a singer works for? Fun?"

  "I know what they work for. I handle singers."

  "I don't know whether you handle singers. Maybe you handle bums. If Mr. Ziskin has got something to say, let him say it. But don't waste my time talking about three hundred and fifty dollars a week. If it was a day, that would be more like it."

  "Don't be silly. "

  "I'm not being silly. I'm booked straight through to the first of the year, and if I'm going to get out of those contracts it's going to cost me dough. If you want to pay dough, talk. If not, just let's stop where we are."

  "What's your idea of dough?"

  "I've told you. But I've been wanting to break into pictures, and to get the chance, I'll split the difference with you. I'll do a little better than that. A thousand a week, and it's a deal. But that's rock bottom. I can't cut it, and I can't shade it."

  We had it hot for a half hour, but I stuck and they came around. I wanted it in writing, so Stoessel took out a notebook and pen and wrote a memo of agreement, about five lines. I got a buck out of my pants and made him a receipt for that, first of all. That bound them. But when we got that far I had to tell my name. I hated to say John Howard Sharp, but I had to. He didn't say anything. He tore out the leaf, waved it in the air, handed it to Ziskin to sign. "John Howard Sharp--sure, I've heard of him. Somebody was telling about him just the other day."

  ***

  They went, and a boy came in for Sabini's trunk, and Lahr went out and came back with a bottle and glasses. "Guy has broke into pictures, we go
t to have a drink on that...Where did you say you were booked?"

  "With the Santa Fe, mashing down ballast."

  "Happy days."

  "Happy days."

  "Happy days."

  The crowd was gone and she was all alone when I ran down the hill, waving the cape at her. She turned her back on me, started to walk to the bus stop. I pulled out the wad of five Lahr had given me. "Look, look, look!" She wouldn't even turn her head. I took my coat off her, put it on, and dropped the cape over her shoulders. "...I wait very long time."

  "Business! I been talking business."

  "Yes. Smell very nice."

  "Sure we had a drink. But listen: get what I'm telling you. I been talking business."

  "I wait very long."

  I let her get to the bus stop, but I didn't mean to ride on a bus. I began yelling for a taxi. There weren't any, but a car pulled up, a car from a limousine service. "Take you any place you want to go, sir. Rates exactly the same as the taxis--"

  Did I care what his rates were? I shoved her in, and that did it. She tried to stay sore, but she felt the cushions, and when I took her in my arms she didn't pull away. There weren't any kisses yet, but the worst was over. I halfway liked it. It was our first row over a little thing. It made me feel she belonged to me.

  We went to the Derby and had a real feed. It was the first time I had been in a decent place for a year. But I didn't break the big news until we were back at the hotel, undressing. Then I kind of just slid into it. "Oh, by the way. I got a little surprise for you."

  "Surprise?"

  "I got a job in pictures."

  "Cinema?"

  "That's right. A thousand a week."

  "Oh."

  "Hell, don't you get it? We're rich! A thousand a week--not pesos, dollars! Three thousand, six hundred pesos every week! Why don't you say something?"

  "Yes, very nice."

  I didn't mean a thing to her! But when I took the cape, and stood up there in my drawers, and sang the Toreador song at her, like I had at the Bowl, that talked. She clapped her hands, and sat on the bed, and I gave her the whole show. The phone rang. The desk calling, to ask me to shut up. I said O.K., but send up a boy. When he came I gave him a five and told him to get us some wine. He was back in a few minutes and we got a little tight, the way we had that night in the church. After a while we went to bed, and a long while after that she lay in my arms, running her fingers through my hair. "You like me?"

  "Yes, much."

  "Did I sing all right?"

  "Very pretty."

  "Were you proud of me?"

  "...You very fonny fallow, you, Hoaney. Why I be proud? I no sing."

  "But I sang."

  "Yes. I like. Very much."

  Chapter 8

  I didn't like Hollywood. I didn't like it partly because of the way they treated a singer, and partly because of the way they treated her. To them, singing is just something you buy, for whatever you have to pay, and so is acting, and so is writing, and so is music, and anything else they use. That it might be good for its own sake is something that hasn't occurred to them yet. The only thing they think is good for its own sake is a producer that couldn't tell Brahms from Irving Berlin on a bet, that wouldn't know a singer from a crooner until he heard twenty thousand people yelling for him one night, that can't read a book until the scenario department has had a synopsis made, that can't even speak English, but that is a self-elected expert on music, singing, literature, dialogue, and photography, and generally has a hit because somebody lent him Clark Gable to play in it. I did all right, you understand. After the first tangle with Ziskin I kind of got the hang of how you handle things out there to get along. But I never liked it, not even for a second.

  It turned out he wasn't the main guy on his lot, or even a piece of the main guy. He was just one producer there, and when I showed up the next morning he seemed even to have forgot my name. I had his piece of paper, so they had to pay me, but I wandered around for a week not knowing what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to do it. You see, he didn't have his script ready. But my piece of paper said six weeks, and I mean to collect on it. After four or five days they shoved me in what they call a B picture, a Western about a cowboy that hates sheep and the sheep man's daughter, but then he finds some sheep caught in a blizzard and brings them home safe, and that fixes it all up. I couldn't see where it fixed anything, but it wasn't my grief. They had bought some news-reel stuff on sheep caught in the snow, and that seemed to be the main reason for the picture. The director didn't know I could sing, but I got him to let me spot a couple of campfire songs, and on the blizzard stuff, Git Along, Little Dogies, Git Along.

  They finished it toward the end of September, and gave it a sneak preview in Glendale. I thought it was so lousy I went just out of curiosity to see how bad they would razz it. They ate it up. On the snow stuff, every time I came around the bend with a lamb in my arms, breaking trail for the sheep, they'd clap and stamp and whistle. Out in the lobby, after it was over, I caught just a few words between the producer, the director, and one of the writers. "B picture hell--it's a feature!"

  "Christ, would that help the schedule! We're three behind now, and if we can make an extra feature out of this, would that be a break! Would that be a break!"

  "We got to do retakes."

  "We got to do it bigger, but it'll get by."

  "It'll cost dough, but it's worth it."

  She hadn't come with me. We were living in an apartment on Sunset by that time, and she was going to night school, trying to learn how to read. I went home and she had just gone to bed with her reader, Wisdom of the Ages, a book of quotations from poetry, all in big type, that she practiced on. I got out the guitar and some blank music paper that I had, and I went to work. I split up that song, Git Along, Little Dogies, Git Along, into five-part harmony, one part the straight melody, the other four a quartet obbligato in long four-beat and eight-beat notes, and maybe you think it wasn't work. That song is nothing extra to start with, and when you try to plaster polyphonic harmony on top of it, it's a job. But after a while I had it done, and went to bed with her to get a little sleep.

  Next morning, before they could get together and really think up something dumb, I got the producer, the director, the writer and the sound man together in the producer's office, and I laid it down to them.

  "All right, boys, I heard a little of what you said last night. You thought you had a B picture here, and now you find out if it's fixed up a little bit, you can get away with it for a feature. You want to do retakes, put some more money in it, do it bigger. Now listen to me. You don't have to put one extra dime in this if you do what I tell you, and you can make it a wow. The big hit is the snow stuff. You've got at least ten thousand feet of that that you didn't use. I know because I saw it run off one day in the projection room. The problem is, how to get more of that stuff in, and tie it up so it makes sense so they don't get tired of it before you've really made full use of it. All right, this is what we do. We rip out that sound track where I'm singing, and make another one. I do that song, but after the first verse I come in, singing over top of myself, see? My own voice, singing an obbligato to myself on the verse. Then when that's done, I come in and sing another one on top of that. Then I come in on top of that, so before the end of it, there's five voices there--all me--light falsetto for the tenor part, heavier for the middle point, and plenty of beef in the bass. Then we repeat it. At the repeat, we start a tympanum, a kettle drum, just light at first, but keeping time to the slug of his feet, and when he gets in sight of the ranch-house we bang hell out of it, and let the five-part harmony swell out so the thing really gets there. All during that, you keep cutting in the snowy stuff, but not straight cuts. Slow dissolves, so you get a kind of dream effect, to go with the cock-eyed harmony on that song. And it doesn't cost you a dime. Nothing but my pay, and you've got me anyhow, for another two weeks. How does it hit you?"

  The producer shook his head. His name
was Beal, and he and the director and the writer had been listening like it was merely painful, my whole idea. "It's impossible."

  "Why is it impossible? You can put all those parts on your loops, I know you can. After you've checked your synchronization, you run them off and make your sound track. It's absolutely possible."

  "Listen, we got to do it big, see? That means we got to do retakes, we got to put more production in, and if I got to spend money, I'd a hell of a sight rather spend it on that than on this. This way you say, I got to pay an arranger, I got to hire an orchestra--"

  "Arranger, hell. It's already arranged. I've got the parts right here. And what orchestra?"

  "For the kettle drum, and--"

  "I play the kettle drum myself. On every repeat of the song, I tune it up. Just a little higher, to get a sense of climax, a little louder, a little faster. Don't you get it? They're getting near home. It'll build. It'll give you what you're looking for, it--"

  "Nah, it's too tricky. Besides, how can a goddam cowboy be singing quartets with himself out there in the snow? They wouldn't never believe it. Besides, we got to pump up the rest of the picture, the beginning--"

  "O.K., we'll do that, and then they'll believe everything. Look."

  It had suddenly popped in my mind about my voice coming back at me, that night in the arroyo, and I knew I had something. "In that campfire song, the second one, Home On The Range, we do a little retake and show him singing it at the mountains. His voice comes back, in an echo. It surprises him. He likes it. He begins to fool around with it, and first thing you know, he's singing a duet with himself, and then maybe a trio. We don't do much with it. Just enough that they like it, and we establish it. Then in the snow scene it's not tricky at all. It's his own voice coming back at him from all over that range--out there all alone, bringing home those sheep. They can believe it then, can't they? What's tricky now?"

  "It's not enough. We got to do retakes."