B00AZRHQKA EBOK (24 page)

21

Today’s daily surprise is young Saul Clune. I had heard Art talk to him on the phone several times, and could not help but observe the dramatic change in voice, vocabulary, attitude, and personality that overcame him when he did so. Another man.

Afterward, he would wind down by talking to me about this great son. Handsome, lithe, brilliant beyond words, charming of course. Art would become a prototype of the proud middle-class American Rotarian father.

“That Saul of mine? Knows everything, can do anything, on his way to great things—in science. Why do you think I been workin’ my ass off for twenty-five years? For him. Because he deserves it.”

He goes on and on, usually for twenty to thirty minutes, making that nutty, arrogant assumption that because he is talking, whoever is listening is automatically interested. In my case, he is dead wrong.

There is a photograph of Saul in every room of the suite, including the bathroom.

Today, Saul arrived, turned up again. Everything Art has ever said about him is true—only more so.

Art was downstairs, at a meeting.

“Is he here?” Saul asked.

“Not at the moment. Conference. Downstairs with the record boys.”

“Oh, dear!” he said.

“Why?”

“He hates that. He doesn’t comprehend their aims or aspirations or motives. It’s an esoteric world, isn’t it?”

“So they say.”

“Will I be in your way if I wait?” he asked.

“Certainly not. Can I get you anything?”

“Such as?”

“The kitchen’s insanely stocked,” I said. “Almost anything.”

“I’ll get it.”

He went out and returned a few minutes later with a glass of apple juice and a raw carrot. I laughed. He regarded me quizzically.

“Nothing,” I explained. “It just struck me how well you’d team up with our Star.”

“That so?”

“She’s a food nut, too.”

“Am
I?”

“Aren’t you?”

He looked at the glass in the hand and the carrot. That smile again.

“I see what you mean.”

“She has goat’s milk flown down here from New Hampshire twice a week.”

“Not me,” he said. “I carry my own goat!”

He sat down and nibbled his carrot, looking around the room.

“How’s everything going?” he asked.

“Well, now, that’s a tough question.”

“Why?”

“Depends who you are. Some people think it’s all going great and others are in despair.”

“Which are you?”

“Patient,” I said. “I think it’s
going
to be absolutely marvelous.”

“If?”

“If what?”

“If what happens?” he asked.

“Control.”

“Yes,” he said, “I knew you were going to say that.”

“You did? How?”

“Obvious. Also, I talk to my Dad every day, almost. Almost every day.”

“Either way,” I said.

“How’s he?”

“Overworked,” I said. “But don’t tell him I said so.”

“I tried desperately to convince him not to do the film simultaneously—but my influence is limited. He only accepts my more outré ideas. You understand, I’m completely out of my depth in this area—but I
could
bring a refreshing note of common sense to the proceedings, if he’d let me. Are you as wild about common sense as I am?”

“I hardly ever run across it,” I said.

“Yes, I know. Take me. I’m brilliant—in my own field, I mean—but I have very little common sense. I work nights, don’t eat, don’t exercise, except on weekends when I
over
exercise. Then I come down here, another world, and I know less than nothing about it—I’m a dolt—but my common sense is in perfect working order.”

“Keep going,” I said.

“I told Dad when he started that I thought it was terrific—dynamite. I’d read that book by Gene Bowman—a family
scandale,
but enthralling to me. So—the common-sense question is: Why aren’t they following the book?”

“Don’t look at
me,”
I said.

“Every single element that’s come into the show has added something or subtracted something or made changes. Next thing you know—”

Art came in, looking harried. He saw Saul and was instantly transformed.

“Hey, Goofy!” he shouted, as he went to embrace his son.

“Dad.”

“How
about
this guy?” Art asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” he repeated. To Saul: “You see the kind of brains I have to work with?”

“Looks good to me,” said Saul.

“Beat it, Midge. Can’t you see I’ve got company?”

I got my things together.

“Tell
him,”
I said to Saul.

“Tell him what?” asked Art.

“He’ll tell you,” I said.

“Or maybe not,” said Saul, enjoying the game.

“Tell me
what,
God damn it?” I heard Art yell as I closed the door.

22

Staff meeting. Everyone shows up except Jenny. She sends Buddy. Art is sore as hell and tells Buddy to go get her and don’t come back without her.

Larry opens and says he thinks now that Jenny is a definite liability. He admires her and respects her talent, but she has not functioned on this show and what’s to be done?

Hy piles in. “I’ve done more shows than anybody in this room. Twenty-two. Broadway musicals of which nineteen came in and most were hits and I know trouble when I see it and I see it. Right here and right now. This has
got
to be
cruel
-time, Art. We’re sorry for the woman but she’s standing still. You wanted an extension of 'Waltz’? I wrote it. I wrote it great and Ralph did an orchestration, for Chrissake—
Ravel
couldn’t have done it. Now ten days we’re sitting on it and she’s just futzing around and won’t move.”

Russ speaks up. “Why don’t you let Buddy take over? Suppose she got sick? Isn’t that what you’d do?”

“She
is
sick,” says Hy.

“Well, so there you are!”

I look at this little weasel and have to admire his gall.
Three
birds with a single stone. Maybe
four
. He scores with AC by solving the problem easily and cheaply. He gets his boyfriend the Big Break. He lays the groundwork for his own advancement should anything go wrong with Larry. He builds character with Hy, who is Jenny’s principal enemy.

23

The trouble with Jenny is coming to a head. According to the record sheet, she has missed four rehearsals completely. Buddy took them, but that was not the point. She has been late for nine of her own calls. Again, Buddy had to stand in for her. The excuse given is that she is “unwell”—said with an inflection that suggests trouble in the lady-works. But no one is fooled. We all know that poor Jenny is a lush.

The night we arrived in Boston, Jenny and Buddy, Clay and I, and Hy and his wife, Rachel, went to Chinatown for dinner. (A word about Rachel Balaban. It isn’t just that she is rich—she looks rich, talks rich, acts rich, eats rich, dresses rich. She is a tiny woman and her jewels weigh more than she does. She is surprisingly attractive in a casual, effortless way. Hair dyed an original reddish hue; light-brown, enormous eyes; discreet makeup. Says little. Smiles a lot. Why not? She’s got it
taped!
) Buddy is the Chinese food expert and knew exactly where to go. Apparently there is a constant turnover of chefs, and the game is to find out exactly where the top ones are working at any given time. Buddy found out, all right. The place looked like nothing, but the food was superb, nothing like the ordinary Chinese cuisine usually offered in Chinese-American restaurants.

The bar, however, was limited. Jenny, having suspected that it might be, had brought along three bottles of Wild Turkey, and by the time the fortune cookies were being cracked open, had turned into something of a wild turkey herself.

She leaned over to Rachel, apparently admiring her fabulous jewelry, and asked, “Is any of it real, sugar?”

We all laughed, with the exception of Rachel, who shot a look at Hy that shut off
his
laugh as though it had a switch on it. Then she said, “Of course not.
Upstairs
doesn’t wear the real stuff to dinner with
Downstairs.”
She got up. “Thank you, whoever’s paying. It was delicious.” She started out. Hy was after her at once, and such was his abashment that he forgot he was carrying a teacup. I assumed that he, or both of them, would be back. I was wrong.

“Cunt,” said Jenny. “Good fucking riddance.”

“Mistake, ol’ girl,” said Clay, quietly.

“You’re
a cunt, too,” said Jenny. “Where does she come off with that 'Upstairs-Downstairs’ shit?”

“She hadn’t opened her mouth even
once
until you provoked her,” said Clay.

“That was it!” Jenny shouted. “That was just
fucking
IT! Sitting there with that matzo-puss, looking rich. I’d be rich, too, if my old man was a Booze Tycoon. But what the fuck has
she
ever done, except get married four times?…My old man was in booze, too. Only he didn’t sell it. He
bought
it!” She laughed too hard. “And put it away, too. All-time Pulitzer prize-winning pisshead! And I loved him, the little muzzler.” She began to cry, and quenched her tears with a straight slug out of the bottle. She looked around the table blearily, and said, “By the way, who
is
paying?”

“I’ll take it,” said Clay.

“No, no,” said Jenny. “I won’t hear of it.” She looked at me. “Let’s give it to the Rumanian or the Bulgarian, or whatever the fuck you are, and have her charge it to the production. He’ll never know, the asshole. And doesn’t he
owe
us a meal? At least?”

Clay had picked up the check. Jenny tore it out of his hand. She gave it to Buddy, opened her bag, and found a fistful of bills. She gave these, one by one, to Buddy, and said in a choreographer’s count, “Four, three, two,
one!”

Buddy went off to pay the check. We got ready to leave. I was feeling the Wild Turkey myself, and do not now recall how we got to the topless-bottomless bar. It was somewhere in the depths of the celebrated Combat Zone. The minute we walked in, I felt like walking out. The pungent redolence, the acid-sweet fragrance of pot filled the air (if it could be called air). A few kids from the company joined us. I felt like leaving because I was sure I was going to wind up with a contact high. Two things stopped me. One, I was unsteady; two, I was terrified of going out into that hazardous neighborhood. So I stayed and stuck to soda water, with everyone jeering at me. The flesh was in action, mirrored, and revolting. Pot was being peddled as openly as popcorn. (“Loose joint? Loose joint!”) I was sitting between Clay and Jenny. She was pretty far gone, and yet deep feelings and thoughts came out. How curious that in this surrealistic atmosphere, reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch or Gustave Doré, filled with booze and grass and tits and ass and worse, Great Truths were revealed once and for all. That
vino veritas
did its work. Jenny talked to Clay, across me.

“You’re a man, Clay. You’re a fine man. You’re a faggot, but you’re a
man.
Damn few around, my boy.
None
at this outfit, if you ask me. Go ahead, ask me. No? O.K. The so-called producer, a ridiculous little Bugs Bunny, who doesn’t know his tool from a hot rock. Larry? He
could
be good, but he’s yellow. Worried about the job. Needs a hit—or at least,
wants
a hit so bad he can taste it. He’ll do anything for a hit. And that’s a sure way to have a flop. When you don’t give a shit, that’s when you get a hit. Hey! Song title!” She burst into song, adroitly fitting the words to the tune of “Big Town”:

“‘When you don’t give a shit

That’s when you have a hit!’

“Larry.
He
wants to be
popular,
for God’s sake. He worries about if actors
like
him, for God’s sake. So at the helm, what’ve we got? A scared shitless washout. Ivan and Alicia. Christ, what a team! He’d like to redo her stuff, she knows
she
could fix
his.
They’ll ruin each other. Which brings us to that poor benighted Chris. Strictly Hasty Pudding. How’d
he
get this job? Who’s he screwing?” She turned to me. “If you find out, let me know. Jesus, when I first read the book—I mean the real book, the Bowman book—I damn near pissed myself. I laughed and I cried and I was uplifted, and then I laughed and cried at the same time. And for a couple of days—I guess I went bananas—I thought, Holy shit, here it is! Here’s my
comeback!
I
am
Nora Bayes. I can do it—I’ll work on the singing with Keith Davis. I can dance it and act it. Can I buy it? Should I call Hal Prince? And I
did
try—but ICM told me not available, so I figured all right, so what? So it’s just one more kick in the twat. I can take it. My twat can take it. Goodbye. See you later. So you can imagine, a year goes by—more—and I get this call from this guy; I swear, I didn’t know him, never
heard
of him, even. But when he lays the title on me, I go all gooseflesh. And I say yes. Damn right, yes. Time. I hear the score. All right. It’ll work, maybe. It’s no
Kiss Me Kate
—but it’s a show. Then I get a load of this book, this so-called book, and I damn near passed out. Where are we? What doing? So I told him—I didn’t bullshit him. I told him. He says, 'It’s in rewrite,’ and that’s where it’s been ever since. I get nothing to take off on—so I’m faking half the time. But the big thing, the main thing, the killing thing, is—SHE is
nothing.
She is a hit record. She is an album. She is a Star. But if She’s Nora Bayes—or even a half-assed, cockamamie, reasonable, or even
un
reasonable facsimile—I’ll go down on her in Macy’s window. In every branch of the country. Got it? So now you see why I’m on the ol’ Heimerdeimer morning, noon, and who
cares?
It should be
me,
not She. And me? I’m counting out steps and combinations for a bunch of goddamn gypsies who couldn’t care less. Say, listen, Clay. Would you please get me home before I throw up all over these bare asses?”

She was gone, as was Clay. I was with the kids. McDonald’s. Hamburgers. A taxi. A hand up my skirt and down my bra. Whose? I’m crying. Thank God for the Ritz-Carlton. My own bathroom, my own shower, my
own
nakedness, instead of those strangers’. My own bed. My own sleep and dreams—and my God,
what
dreams!…I am playing Nora, and doing great, but every time I look into the wings, there is Jenny, wearing the same costume I am wearing, or She, or Debbie Reynolds, or Barbra Streisand, or Shirley MacLaine, ready to go on—but I am the one out there, in the spotlight, and doing great, except that I don’t know the words, and I hope no one notices…

I am certainly paying for it this morning. I have done it all—everything I know to do: yogurt, fructose, tomato juice with raw egg and Worcestershire sauce, three Theragrans, one Ritalin, and gallons of fruit juice. I’m a fine one to talk about Jenny. I seem to be turning into quite a lush myself—but then, I haven’t undertaken a position of importance and responsibility. I could be replaced in five minutes. One call to The Brook Street Bureau. But Jenny is something else again. She is brilliant and original and wildly inventive. She can dance better than any member of her own company—and they know it and respect her and admire her for it. In spite of all this, it is easy to feel the resentment against her building up. I wish I knew her well enough to tell her, to warn her, to beg her to watch out. But I don’t. Does anyone? I doubt it. She is a loner, like most alcoholics. They use the bottle as a friend, company, a confidant. What a sad, sad girl. The hell with it. I am going to tell her.