You mean Sammy Glick the copy boy? I asked.
No, I mean Sammy Glick the radio columnist, he said. His stuff looked good today.
Maybe you’d like to know he copied the first paragraph from Somerset Maugham, I said.
Maybe that’s where you need to go for your stuff, he said.
So that’s how Sammy got his start. He was smart enough never to crib from the same writer twice. When it came to wisecracks, he rolled his own. I hated him so much I began to admire him. Every other copy boy was a nice guy. At least if you bent over, they’d ask you to stand up and turn around before stabbing you.
But I began to see what made Sammy run. Though I couldn’t see just then where he was running.
After Sammy Glick had been writing his column for a couple of months he came up to me one day and said, Say, Al, next Monday is my birthday, and since you sorta gave me my start I thought maybe you’d like to have dinner with my girl and me at the Algonquin.
I’ll never forget that girl, or the day either, and there’s a real story in that too. Everything Sammy did was a story. That’s why I’m telling you all this. Because Sammy is a genius, one of our big Americans, Napoleon in a double-breasted suit. Some day he’s going to lie in a museum, stuffed, labeled: THIS IS SAMMY GLICK. IN AN AGE THAT COULD NEVER STOP RUNNING, HE RAN THE FASTEST.
We met in front of the restaurant. He was standing with a spindly-legged, thin, pale, vague little girl. She would have been an angel, only her face was made up like an actress, heavy red lipstick and eye shadow and too much powder. I wanted to take my handkerchief and wipe it all off. The poor little kid. The blue eyes and the frail body and the sad look were hers. They grew out of the shadow of the tenement right up through the crowded sidewalk. There was a little of the gutter and a little of the sky in her. I could see her staying after school, lost somewhere between the two covers of a book.
And then, later, almost grown up, evening elbows on the dusty sill, looking up at the stars, clean stars, high over a Hundred and Eighteenth Street.
Miss Rosalie Goldbaum, he said, meet Mr. Al Manners. He has the column next to mine.
Oh, Sammy has told me so much about you, she said.
Sammy smiled. We walked into the Algonquin lobby. He was nineteen years old.
Dinner was what I would have called uneventful. Sammy was almost too busy looking for celebrities to pay much attention to either of us. Miss Goldbaum was shy, very sweet and frankly unaffected. Except when she talked about Sammy. And I encouraged her. Perhaps I had been misjudging Sammy, I thought. Perhaps there was another side to him. He was a thoughtful lover, and slowed down to a walk for Miss Goldbaum.
You know, Mr. Manners, she said, writing that column isn’t what Sammy wants to do.
Of course not, I said; they forced it on him.
He just does that to make a living, she said.
It’s a damn shame, I said.
But he writes me the loveliest things, she said, and some day he’s going to be a great writer. Because he’s a poet.
Sammy was looking across the room at George S. Kaufman. He was lost in thought. Miss Goldbaum edged her hand into his. Sammy played with it absentmindedly, like a piece of silverware.
Gee, Miss Goldbaum said, sometimes when I look at Sammy I just can’t believe it, so artistic and everything, and him just a little kid right out of the Bronx.
Her tight little world was bursting with Sammy Glick. All her craving to live and her blood beating to possess and to be maternal found expression in this one little smart ass. She had little pointed breasts, miserable and sad, and they seemed to me to be reaching out for Sammy, the way black-eyed Susans tilt themselves toward the sun. She was boring me. So I caught George Kaufman’s eye, and he came over, and was introduced, and had a drink with us.
Sammy was in his element, artificially gay, trying his best to out-wisecrack Kaufman. He was obsequious, sniveling, unsure of himself and very bold. It would have been funny, only I had seen Sammy too long.
Kaufman stayed only a few minutes, and soon Miss Goldbaum yawned, and I said I had a lot of work to do before getting to bed, and Sammy looked at Miss Goldbaum and said, We both appreciate your celebrating this way with us. She nodded. Yes, Sammy said it exactly right. And they were gone, walking down the steps to the subway arm in arm.
When I turned to Winchell’s column next morning there it was, the bold-face print laughing up at me:
When rising critic Sammy Glick celebrated his nineteenth birthday yesterday at the Algonquin, Al Manners and George Kaufman were on hand as principal cake eaters.
You didn’t have to be a mastermind to figure out how Walter got that item, and when Sammy came in I gave him one of my searching looks.
I see where Kaufman got himself a plug in Winchell’s column, I said.
Yeah, Sammy cracked, you should have been there.
Listen, Samuel, I came back. You got enough gall to be divided into nine parts.
Aw, don’t be sore, Al, he said. I can’t keep hiding under your desk. I gotta spread my wings a little.
You didn’t even give Miss Goldbaum a break, I said. You’re a disgrace to the rodent family.
Listen, he cracked. She gets a break three times a week.
You … stink, I ended lamely. I was too sore to be smart.
O.K. by me, he said, walking off. Some day you’ll cut off an arm for one little whiff.
Then another thing happened. It all began when a tall, timid guy came in with a manuscript under his arm and asked for Mr. Glick. He had written a radio script, and since Mr. Glick was an expert on radio he thought maybe Mr. Glick would be so kind as to read his stuff.
I should be happy to help you, Sammy said, a little different than he had ever talked before. I could feel at that moment something loud and strong pumping inside that little guy, like a piston, twisting him up and forcing him on.
After the tall guy had gone, Sammy sat down and read the stuff. He smiled as he read it, and when he hit the third page he laughed out loud.
Hey, this is good stuff, he said; funny as hell.
What’s it about? I asked doubtfully.
Brand-new angle, he said. The guy won’t have anything to do with the girl. So she kidnaps him. But he still says nix and gets her arrested. In the court it looks like curtains for her, but they clinch and decide to get married, and the babe is saved because he’s the only witness and a guy can’t testify against his own wife. Pretty hot!
The guy who wrote it came back the next week.
You have an idea here, Sammy told him. Of course it’s rough, and it needs developing, but maybe with a little work we could fix it up, he said.
You mean you’ll help me! said the dope.
I think I can pull something out of it, Sammy said, and then I’ll give it to my agent.
Say, I didn’t expect all this, said the dope.
When the guy had gone, Sammy asked me, Say, Al, who’s a good agent for me? I want to sell this story to Hollywood. I got the title all doped out—Girl Steals Boy.
Why not Leland Heyward? He only manages Hepburn and a couple of dozen other stars, I said.
Is he good on stories? Sammy asked.
Pretty fair, I said. He makes a couple of thousand a week out of them.
Well, I’ll think it over.
I thought that was the end of it. It should have been, if life didn’t confound us ordinary sleep-and-eat people by producing geniuses like Sammy Glick. Life is choppy, full of rip tides and sudden breakers, and some guys scream once and go down, and others fight their way to the surface and still go down. Some have water wings; they have a genius for self-preservation. It’s them we see when we raise our water-logged heads above the foam, floating, just floating over us as nice as you please—Sammy Glicks, every one of them.
Two weeks later Sammy rushed in, exultant and jumpy.
Shake hands with God’s gift to Hollywood, he said, grabbing my hand before I had time to stick it in my pocket.
Don’
t use the name of the Lord in vain, I said. You mean you sold that story?
Five thousand dollars, he said. We should have had a better price, but this is my first story.
It’s a disgrace, I said, five thousand.
Well, that’s just the first, he said, and there’s plenty more ideas where this one came from.
You mean from the guy who wrote this one, I said.
Aw, he said, he had nothing on the ball but a prayer. He’s lucky I bothered with him.
Like Miss Goldbaum, I said quietly.
And all of a sudden I hated Sammy Glick. Before, I had been annoyed, or disturbed, or just revolted. This was one hundred percent American hatred.
The next morning I read something in the film section of the morning paper that revealed the fine Bronx hand of Sammy Glick:
Sammy Glick, prominent radio columnist, has sold his first screen story to Colossal for $10,000. Titled Girl Steals Boy, this is the first of a series Colossal has contracted for, according to Mr. Glick. Collaborating with him was Eugene Spitzer.
What I can’t understand, I thought, is how Eugene Spitzer ever got mentioned at all. I was very bitter. All of a sudden I was jealous of Sammy Glick, and congratulating myself on not being like him.
One day, a week later, Sammy didn’t show up at all. Maybe he’s sick, I thought at first, but I quickly discounted this optimism. Guys like Sammy Glick don’t get sick, unless it helps them get out of a contract, or lands them an insurance payment. The afternoon passed.
Sammy came in around suppertime. He wore a new suit. He also wore a new expression. I liked it even less than the old stock. He had a blue check shirt and a red carnation in his buttonhole. He held a cigarette loosely between his fingers. My Sammy Glick, my little copy boy.
Hello, Obnoxious, I said.
I came in to say good-bye. Sammy said. I’m off for Hollywood.
How did this happen? I asked. Metro wire that they just couldn’t get along another day without you?
Not exactly, said Sammy seriously. My agent sold me to Colossal on the strength of that story.
And that’s strength, I said. How about Eugene What’s-his-name? Does he go too?
Colossal just wanted me, Sammy said simply.
Well, I said, our gain is Colossal’s loss.
No more of these pebbles for me, Sammy said. It’s two hundred and fifty bucks a week for me, starting a week from Wednesday.
There was a short pause, during which time I reviewed the history of Sammy Glick, complete from fifteen a week to two hundred and fifty. It was America, all the glory and the opportunity, the push and the speed, the grinding of gears and the crap.
See you in the Brown Derby, Sammy was saying.
Then I got nostalgic. I was always a soft guy, and I said:
Sure, kid, and remember, don’t say ain’t.
That was too much for Sammy. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like to be reminded. There are two kinds of big shots: those who tell as many people as they can that they started out as newsboys at two dollars and peanuts a week, and those who take every step as if it were the only level they knew, those who drive ahead in high speed and never bother to look back to see where they’ve been. I began to have a strong hunch that Sammy fell roughly into the latter category, only more so.
I watched Sammy walk out of the office that day, and then I stood at the window and watched him as he appeared on the street below and jumped into a taxi. I sound like a sucker, but I felt just a little sorry for Sammy Glick. I felt the way I did on the commencement platform, the last day of college, watching the guys; thinking, You poor uneducated guinea pigs, you’re smug, you’ve got no springs, and you’re going to take some awful bumps. And it’s not your fault; they’ve poured you into a mold, like Jell-O. They is the villain, but don’t get me wrong.
I never said Sammy Glick wasn’t arrogant, deceitful, four-flushing, crude, cruel—well, I could go on like this all day. But that’s what Sammy learned. He learned it on the sidewalks in the Bronx and he learned it well. He knows where he’s going, and he’s running fast. And when you know that, when you know what makes Sammy run, you know something.
A couple of months passed, and then I got my break. I don’t know yet how it happened; you can bet dollars to supervisors I didn’t get it by stealing any stories from Eugene Spitzer. One of the Warner brothers must have got the idea to round up all the drama columnists in New York, and when they pulled in the net, there I was, floundering with the rest.
The day after the news broke that I had “surrendered to Hollywood”—it certainly wasn’t a battle—a girl’s voice came trembling over the telephone to me.
You probably don’t remember me, she said. This is Miss Goldbaum—Rosalie Goldbaum.
Her voice sounded funny to me. It was shrill but dead, like a high note on a cheap piccolo.
I told her I was glad to hear from her again, which was a lie.
I’ve got to see you, she said.
Oh, hell! I thought. Meet me at the Tavern at seven, I said.
I got there fifteen minutes late, and she was sitting in a booth. I noticed that her shoulder blades stuck out. Her eyes were red. When I took her hand and said, Gladtoseeyou, it was rubbery and soft, like a half-blown balloon. She said, Oh, it was so good of you to come.
There was something too intimate and uncomfortable between us.
You’re looking swell, I said.
I read you were going to Hollywood, she told me. You’ll see Sammy Glick.
Somehow I sensed I shouldn’t wisecrack about that. I can, I said guardedly.
Will you—Mr. Manners, would you see him for me?
Sure, I said. When I run into him I’ll say hello for you.
I knew it was more than that. I wanted to find out.
It’s not that, she said. You could find out why he never writes, she said. Never, not once, not a single letter, and she kept mumbling it as if trying to make herself believe it was true.
Sure, I said, I can ask him; but after all, it’s new to him out there, and, getting adjusted and all, it’s hard to write.
Can you imagine me, defending the slob? It didn’t sound convincing.
You don’t understand, she said. He promised to send for me the second week he was out there. I got rid of everything I couldn’t take along. I was all set. He told me not to worry; he’d send for me in a couple of weeks. He told me the only reason we couldn’t go together was he didn’t have the train fare. Said he’d send me his second week’s salary. Now I don’t know what to do.
Skunk, I said.
Tell him I don’t understand, she said. Ask him why. Ask him why.
She was crying. The waiter was standing over us impatiently. It was embarrassing.
Do you want yours with onions? I asked.
She wiped her eyes with her napkin. Her mascara was running.
Before I left, I slipped her twenty-five bucks. Just to salve my conscience for knowing a slime like Sammy Glick. She put it into her purse as quickly as possible, as if her hand was trying to put something over on the rest of her.
Give me your address in Hollywood so I can pay it back, she said.
Write me care of Warner’s, and tell me if you hear from him, I said.
I looked after her as she turned down to Broadway and the crowd sucked her in like an undertow. And I stood, thinking what New York and Sammy Glick had done to Miss Goldbaum, this little female toothpick of humanity, thin and straight and strong for its size, but easy to break for a grown-up man, or a grown-up city.
All the way out to Hollywood, Miss Goldbaum kept running through my mind, and when I got out there, the first thing I did was go over to Colossal and look up Sammy.
His secretary had a bigger office than our city room. She said Mr. Glick was in a story conference.
I waited an hour and fifteen minutes. I was all steamed up about this thing. Finally Mr. Glick made his appearance. He didn’t wear a tie. Instead he wore a big yellow scarf, with a big yellow handkerchie
f to match. If you put his suit on a table you could have played checkers on it. He was no longer the thin, pale, eager little kid that used to say, Thank you, Mr. Manners. He had one of those California tans, and he was beginning to bulge at the waist. But he hadn’t stopped running.
Well, Al, he said, so they finally pulled you into the racket. I didn’t think you were smart enough.
We sat down in his office. His desk looked as long as the runway in a burlesque theater. He swung his feet on to it. I noticed he was wearing camel’s-hair socks.
How’s the gang? he asked. Still selling their souls for twenty kopecks?
They all send regards, Sammy, I said.
Great old bunch, he said meaninglessly; but once you get the Indian sign on the producers out here the dough comes rolling in so fast you use it for wallpaper.
Miss Goldbaum was asking for you too, I said. Sammy stopped running for a moment. He looked at me and I knew he was wondering how much I knew. Even through that sunburn he paled.
How is she, Al? he asked.
Swell, I said, just swell. High and dry.
I couldn’t help it, he said.
He was frightened. And it’s a funny thing, the poor guy meant it. He had to come out here. He had to move along. There was something in him that wouldn’t be checked, something that had to run loose. And sometimes it was so strong it ran way out ahead of him. That’s what Miss Goldbaum got for loving a guy like that. I guess it can happen to anyone up in the Bronx, and the Bronx is just like any place else these days, only faster and harder.
Al, he said, I’ll write her. I’ll tell her it just isn’t the place for her: I’ll send her a thousand bucks. Damn it, you know how those promises are; it could’ve happened to anybody.
Give her a break, Sammy, I said. And then, for no reason at all, I said, Give everybody a break.
Sure, he said, sure. What are you working on over at Warner’s?
I don’t know, I said. But I’ve got a hunch it’s the ninth episode of the Mr. Wu series.
Don’t be a sucker, Sammy said. Turn down the first three stories they give you. They’ll think more of you.
I guess I’ll be seeing you around, I said, getting up.