What Makes Sammy Run? (6 page)

CHAPTER 2       

F
or the next few weeks I tried to avoid Sammy, even though he had his desk in the adjoining cubicle. I was beginning to wonder if this office wasn’t too small for the two of us, and I was afraid to put that suspicion to the test for fear of losing the best job I’d ever had. Of course, all that time I knew I was living in a fool’s paradise because nobody on earth could sit within ten or twelve feet of Sammy day after day without becoming emotionally involved in some unexpected phase of his activity.

One day a frightened young man with an unassuming, intelligent, unhandsome face behind glasses came in with a manuscript under his arm and inquired for Mr. Glick in a voice quavering with inferiority.

He said his name was Julian Blumberg and he had a small job in our advertising department, and, and his life’s ambition was to become a writer and, and, er—he had written a radio script and, and, er—er since Mr. Glick was such an expert on radio writing, would he be so kind as to read Blumberg’s manuscript?

I expected Sammy in his own pungent vernacular to go into the physiological details of where Mr. Blumberg could dispose of his manuscript, but Sammy was playing a new role today, and that’s what made me sneak up and grab a choice seat in the orchestra. Sammy had decided to be flattered.

“I should be very happy to help you,” he said, in a new and different tone.

That was one of the moments when I could feel something happening to him, a new step, something big. So help me God, I could feel something loud and strong pumping inside that little guy, like a piston, twisting him up and forcing him on.

After Julian Blumberg went back to his advertising department, Sammy sat down and read his stuff. He was smiling when he turned the first page, and when he hit the third page he laughed out loud.

“Hey, Al,” he said (he used to yell over to me whether I answered him or not), “this is good stuff, funny as hell.”

“Mmmmmmm,” I said.

He read through the rest of it, laughing and loudly commenting, and then, never being able to keep anything to himself, he popped over to my desk and slapped Blumberg’s manuscript down.

“Whataya know about that?” he said. “A brand-new angle.”

“Yeah?” I said doubtfully. “What’s it about?”

“It’s a comedy with a helluva twist in it,” Sammy said. “It starts out where the guy won’t have anything to do with the dame. So
she
kidnaps
him
. But he still says no dice and gets her arrested. In court it looks like curtains for her till they clinch and decide to get married, which saves the dame, because he’s the only witness and a guy can’t testify against his own wife. Pretty nifty, huh?”

I didn’t pay much attention to the story, but I was surprised to find Sammy so interested in somebody else’s work and I told him so.

“Say, that’s nothing,” Sammy said, “I even have a better ending for him. The same Judge that was going to sentence her suggests that he have the honor of marrying her. So they hold the wedding right in court, and how’s this for the last line: the Judge says, ‘Case dismissed.’ ”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s swell, but I don’t see what it adds up to for you.”

“Oh,” he said, “I’m not thinking about myself. I just like to see a young kid get ahead.”

That was all I needed to watch the further development of the Blumberg-Glick affair with suspicious interest.

Sammy Glick’s pale young genius returned the following week. Sammy shook his hand firmly, but I noticed that he didn’t exactly boil over with enthusiasm as he had with me.

“You have an idea here,” he admitted to the poor guy. “Of course it’s rough and it needs developing, but maybe with a little work we could fix it up.”

“You mean you’ll help me?” said the dope.

“I think I can pull something out of it,” Sammy said modestly, “and then I’ll give it to my agent.”

“Say, I didn’t expect all
this
,” the dope said.

I thought Mr. Blumberg was going to break down and fall on Sammy’s neck for joy. I never saw a man so pleased about getting chiseled in all my life.

When the guy had gone, practically bowing out backwards, Sammy turned to me and said, “Say, Al, who’s a good agent for me?”

“Jesus, Sammy,” I said, “haven’t you any shame? First you muscle in on Mr. Blumberg’s perfectly good story. Then I hear you tell him you’ve got an agent.”

But Sammy was in no mood for cross-examination. This was the chance he knew he had been waiting for and he was as preoccupied as a good quarterback figuring out the next play.

“Who’s a good agent for me?” Sammy repeated. “This story is too good for radio. I’m going to sell it to Hollywood. I even got the title all doped out:
Girl Steals Boy.”

“As soon as the agents hear you’re interested in Hollywood, they’ll be coming at you from all sides,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “But you might do worse than Myron Selznick.”

“Is Selznick any good?” Sammy asked with a naivete that was to pass all too quickly.

“I think so,” I said. “At least he’s good enough for Carole Lombard, William Powell, Norma Shearer and a couple of dozen other stars.”

“Is he any good with stories?” Sammy asked.

“Pretty fair,” I said. “He’s supposed to average a couple of grand a week out of them.”

“Maybe I’ll give him a try,” said Sammy.

“Why, Sammy,” I said, “I never heard you so retiring before. I’m sure Myron Selznick will never forgive you when he hears how you hesitated about giving him your business. If I were you, I’d put in a long-distance call to him right now.”

If Sammy knew I was kidding, he certainly didn’t let on. “Where can I reach him?” he asked.

“Myron Selznick and Company, Beverly Hills, California, is all you need,” I said.

I was laughing. But Sammy wasn’t laughing. Sammy never looked more serious in his brief, serious career. “By God, Al,” he said tensely, “I think you’ve given me an idea.”

Then, while my face must have drained white with shock and disbelief, I was privileged to overhear one of the most astounding conversations in the history of the telephone.

“Hello, operator,” Sammy said, “this is Mr. Glick. I wish to speak with Mr. Myron Selznick in Beverly Hills, California, person-to-person.”

While he waited for his call to go through, we didn’t say anything, he too intense and I too stunned. I just looked into his face, waited for his voice and wondered. His face was beginning to settle into a permanent sneer. I had begun to hear it in his voice
too, an incredible contempt for other human beings, not only for those like me, the secretaries, the copy boys and the men on the staff who were unfortunate enough to be his everyday acquaintances, but for strangers too, the back of a taxi driver’s neck at which he yelled instructions, people he pushed out of the way in a crowd, the anonymous operator just now …

It stemmed partly from the confidence he was taking on like fuel at every new station, but there was something more, some angry, volcanic force erupting and overflowing deep within him.

“Hello, Mr. Selznick? This is Mr. Glick calling from New York …

“Sammy Glick! I just wanted to let you know I’ve decided to let you handle my story …

“No, of course you never heard about me. But you’re going to—plenty …

“Don’t give me that maybe stuff. The most surefire story sale that’s come to Hollywood in years, and he tells me maybe. Well, I’ve got a couple of maybes of my own, Mr. Selznick. Maybe I won’t even show you that story. Maybe I’ll give another agency first crack at it instead …

“Oh, I’m paying good money for a long-distance call just to make jokes, I suppose. Well, if that’s the way you feel. Good-bye …

“Yes, it’s right here on my desk, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to send it to you until you show a little more interest …

“Oh, that’s different. But you’ve got to read it as soon as you get it. Because the idea is so hot I don’t want to give anybody time to steal it …

“And one more thing, I want you to call me as soon as you finish it. Call me collect here at the
Record
, if you don’t like the expense …

“Now you’re talking my language.
Girl Steals Boy
will be on your desk the day after tomorrow. So long, Myron.”

Sammy hung up, took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Then he put his handkerchief back in his pocket, took it out again and wiped his head some more.

“Whew!” he said. He slumped in his chair like a fighter after the final bell.

I stared at him. I felt as I did when I stared at a photograph of the man who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. With such a stunt I could have absolutely no sympathy, yet I was held fascinated by its crazy boldness. In Sammy was everything I hated most: dishonesty, officiousness, bullying. But I felt I wasn’t only staring at him with dislike, I was staring at him with actual awe for the magnitude of his blustering.

He sat there smiling as I came over to him.

“Sammy, were you scared?”

I asked him that because the phone call was completely outside my sphere of experience. It was like asking a man how it felt to start out in a rocket to the moon. Even though superficially we were similar, both columnists, both Jewish, both men, both American citizens, both awake for the same brief moment in world time, I stared at Sammy now, asked my question and waited for the answer like a mystic trying to reach another world.

“Sammy, were you scared?”

“It’s a funny thing, Al,” Sammy said in the most quiet voice I had ever heard in him, “I’m scared now, all right. Goddam scared. I got scared the second I hung up. But I wasn’t scared when I called him. I didn’t even think about being scared.”

I leaned forward. I felt closer to him than I ever had before. For just a moment his guard was down.

“What were you thinking about, Sammy?”

He murmured as if he were talking to himself.

“I was just thinking about me. I just kept thinking nothing but me. I just kept saying Sammyglicksammyglick over and over inside my head and it kept growing louder
SAMMYGLICKSAMMYGLICKSAMMYGLICK
. I guess that don’t quite make sense, does it?”

Oh, yes, I thought to myself; oh, yes, that makes sense all right. It makes the most fearful horrible frightening sense I ever heard.

Sammy rose and snapped out of it.

“Come on down to Bleeck’s,” he said. “I’ll beat the pants off you in the match game.”

“The hell you will,” I said, and we walked down together and he beat me. And, as we played and drank together, I kept wishing I could really hate him because I was in no-man’s-land now and there was a terrible sense of frustration about not being able to hate him as much as he deserved.

Weeks passed without Myron Selznick ever returning Sammy’s call. I watched closely for some sign of disappointment in Sammy but there was none. He went right on crowing around the office like a bantam cock. I began to picture Sammy twenty years from now, growing bald and mellow, making mild jokes about the impetuousness of youth. It was a tremendous temptation not to exult. Well, Sammy, my boy, so you finally bit off more than you could chew?

Soon I was glad for my restraint. Because it was so wrong to imagine that Sammy could ever stop running this early in the race.

I remember Sammy rushing in, triumphant and jumpy, as if he had stolen the cheese and avoided the trap. He had.

“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 our Lord in vain,” I said. “You mean you sold that story?”

“Five thousand bucks,” he said.

“Go home and get a good night’s sleep,” I said. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“We should have had a better price for it,” he went on, “only this was my first story.”

It was screwy, it was Horatio Alger, it was true.

“It’s a disgrace,” I said. “Only five thousand. I’d be ashamed to take it.”

“Well, that’s just a starter,” he said, “and there’s plenty more ideas where that one came from.”

“You mean from Julian Blumberg?”

“Aah,” he said, “that schlemiel had nothing on the ball but a prayer. He’s lucky I bothered with him.”

“Like Miss Goldbaum,” I said quietly.

There. That’s what it needed. All of a sudden I was hating
Sammy Glick. Ah, that felt better. It was satisfying. No more being annoyed or disturbed or curious or revolted. There isn’t a decent emotion in the lot. But this felt like it was on the level, good-to-the-last-drop one-hundred-percent-pure hate.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the next morning right between a spoonful of soft-boiled egg and a bite of toast I read something in the film section of the morning paper that brought on acute indigestion. You didn’t have to be an FBI man to detect the subtle hand of Mr. Glick.

TEN GRAND FOR BOY GENIUS

Sammy Glick, youngest radio columnist and ranking favorite for national boy-genius honors, has sold his first screen story to World-Wide for $10,000. Titled
Girl Steals Boy,
story is supposed to go into immediate production as one of big budget pictures on World-Wide’s program. It is the first of a series World-Wide has contracted for, according to Mr. Glick. Mr. Glick was undecided whether to accept any Hollywood offers or to remain in his position on the
Record,
he said last night Collaborating with him was Julian Blumberg
.

What I can’t understand, I thought, is how Julian ever managed to get mentioned at all. I was very bitter. I didn’t know whether to be painfully jealous of Sammy Glick or congratulate myself on not being like him. I’m afraid I did both.

Sammy was in and out of the office the next few days, very important and mysterious, conscientiously neglecting his work.

“You still here?” I said. “I thought you had gone to Hollywood.”

“No,” Sammy said, “you know how it is, once you get newspaper ink in your veins.”