The New York Stories

by John O'Hara

  “You son of a bitch. I had her in the palm of my hand till you came along. I’m doing the sweetness-and-light bit. The new Mary Coolidge. You know what’s in that notebook? All about how I want to do Joan of Arc, for God’s sake.”

  “They all want to do Joan of Arc.”

  “They all do do Joan of Arc, but I’m right for it. I’d hit them with a Joan of Arc that they could smell burning flesh.”

  “I’d pay to see that. Where did you go last night?”

  “None of your God damn business.”

  “I heard Harry Browning was giving a party. I damn near went,” said Nick Orlando.

  “Who is Harry Browning?”

  “That’s my line. When did you get my wire?”

  “I got your wire Sunday, in plenty of time if I’d of wanted to have a date with you, but I don’t. You’re a Hollywood hambo.”

  “Oh, that again. If you were prettier and more photogenic there wouldn’t be any knocks on Hollywood.”

  “You got it mixed up. I said you were a Hollywood hambo.”

  “Is that worse than a Broadway hambo?”

  “Infinitely. A Hollywood hambo is chicken, sells out for security. At least a Broadway hambo fights for parts, parts he wants. But you Hollywood hamboes take anything the studio says.”

  “Not me. I don’t have to, it’s in my contract.”

  “Mad River. I hear you play a cowboy. You a cowboy?”

  “So you’re right for Joan of Arc. What the hell are we talking in circles? Why won’t you have a date with me? And don’t give me that Hollywood hambo answer.”

  “I could ask you, why do you keep pestering after me? From the first time I ever met you you thought all you had to do was ask, and I’d give you a date. That paisana stuff.”

  “Answer the question. Why didn’t you? Why don’t you now?”

  “Because nobody gets a date with me that I don’t want to go out with. You tell me I’m not pretty. All right, then why do you want a date with me? You know why? Because from the first I’d never go out with you and it’s no different now with you a star and me a star. You know what the trouble is? You’re jealous of me, and if you get me in bed with you you think you don’t have to be jealous any more. The kind of a fellow you are, I go to bed with you and it doesn’t make any difference if I’m a better actor than you. You can go around and tell everybody you slept with Mary Coolidge. I know bellboys that slept with famous actresses, but does that make them a better actor? You want to get in bed with me, Nick, I’ll be proud to—when you’re a good enough actor so I can brag about sleeping with you. But not before. So give up. You know who I get phone calls from? From Paris and London and all over? A really big star. Not like you or I, but a big star. And you know why I won’t have a date with him? Because as an actor he stinks. And you know what his trouble is? He’s jealous of me. He’s like you. Last season he came to see me every night for a week and two matinees, torturing himself. ‘If I could be as good as that little bitch up there, that homely little bitch.’ So he wants to take it out in going to bed with me. Like you.”

  “What the hell is acting?”

  “Right! It’s a phoney business, but you don’t have to be a phoney in it. If you’re gonna be an actor, don’t be a phoney actor. If you’re gonna be in a phoney business that’s all the more reason why you shouldn’t be a phoney in it.”

  “You’re a phoney.”

  “No. If I was a dishwasher I’d want to be a good one. You know what I’m gonna give this waiter for a tip? Ten dollars. Because he’s a good waiter. That waiter over there, I give him ten percent if it comes to forty-eight cents. I count out the three pennies.”

  “They pool their tips, so what’s the difference?”

  “Because this waiter I hand him the ten bucks and say thank-you, and the other waiter I just put the money on the dish and say nothing. That’s the difference, and they both know the difference. My applause. Don’t tell me applause doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  “You want to know something? I get a hand in Mad River. I got two scenes in there where I get a hand.”

  “How many takes?”

  “What?”

  “How many takes before you got the scenes right?”

  “Ah, nuts,” said Nick Orlando. He got up and pushed his way through the matinee-bound crowd. “Nick! Nick! It’s Nick Orlando! Could I have your autograph please? On this menu? On this package?” He did not stop until he reached the curb.

  “Get me a hack, quick,” he said to the doorman.

  “Right away,” said the doorman. He stood in the street, a few feet from the curb, waving for a taxi. “I hear very good reports on Mad River,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m spreading them all over,” said Nick Orlando.

  The doorman laughed. “Well, I’ll say this for you, Nick. You didn’t change. You’re just the same. Some of them go out there . . .” He shook his head.

  2

  At the next restaurant Nick Orlando was not so well known. He was recognized by the doorman and by the hatcheck boys, but this was not a theatrical crowd, and Nick Orlando could not count on a headwaiter to fake a reservation. “Good afternoon, Mr. Nick Orlando,” said one of the proprietors. “You meeting someone?”

  “Well, sort of,” said Nick Orlando. “I have a sort of a half date.”

  “Well, if they’re here I can tell you. Who is your party?”

  The first name that came to Nick Orlando’s mind was Harry Browning’s. “Sort of looking for Harry Browning.”

  “Mr. Harry Browning is here, lunching with the eminent playwright Mr. Asa Unger. You know Asa, I’m sure. I’ll take you right to them myself. Just follow me, sir.”

  The proprietor led Nick Orlando to a remote table, in a section usually referred to as left field. Nick Orlando hated every step of the way, which took him farther from the choicest tables, and his only consolation was that Harry Browning, a steady customer, and Asa Unger, a writer of hits, had done no better. Browning and Unger were sitting with their backs to the wall and could see everything that was going on, including Nick Orlando’s approach. They both showed some surprise when it became unmistakable that Nick Orlando was joining them.

  “Nick-ee, Nicky boy!” said Harry Browning.

  “Your party,” said the proprietor, leaving them. Nick Orlando did not speak until the proprietor was out of earshot and unable to guess that he had not been expected.

  Harry Browning held out both hands and closed them over Nick Orlando’s hand. “You know Asa, Asa Unger.”

  “Sure. Hi, Asa,” said Nick Orlando.

  “Hello, Nick. Long time.”

  “Long time is right.”

  “Cohasset, four years ago,” said Asa Unger.

  “That’s right, you played Spike in Dangerous Illusion. Right?” said Harry Browning. “Nicky, why don’t you stir up a little enthusiasm for a picture buy? Asa don’t need the money, but I’d like to see Illusion a picture. I always said it was a natural for any studio that had the right man for Spike. Well, you’re it, Nicky, and they’ll listen to you now. They gotta listen to you now. Mad River—a blockbuster. I was talking to Irving Rudson before, and he read me the Time and Newsweek notices over the phone. You see them yet, Nicky?”

  “No.”

  “Irving read them to me over the phone. They echo what the trade reviews said. Nicky, what did they bring River in for, do you happen to know?”

  “Two million four was the last figure I heard.”

  “It’ll do seven and a half. It’ll do eight. You eat yet or you meeting someone?”

  “I ate before, but I’ll have a cup of coffee with you,” said Nick Orlando.

  “Listen, fellows, I got a train to catch,” said Asa Unger.

  “Asa opened in Philly the night before last,” said Harry Browning.

  “I know,” said Ni
ck Orlando, lying. “How’d it go, Asa?”

  “Don’t read the Philadelphia notices,” said Asa Unger. “I’m getting into another line of work.”

  “They weren’t that bad, Asa. Honestly they weren’t. You read them over again and the Bulletin fellow, he only said what we were saying all along. I’ll be over tonight on the six o’clock train. See you, Asa.”

  “Hang in there, boy,” said Nick Orlando.

  “Thanks,” said Asa Unger. He left.

  “Take his seat, Nicky. Sit here,” said Harry Browning. “Asa got a real dog for himself this time. They murdered him in Philly. Sheer murder. He didn’t want to show his face in the theater. You know, a sensitive guy like Asa. He wrote a kind of an open letter to the cast, that he wanted to put up on the bulletin board, but I persuaded him. I said id be a mistake. But he’s taking it to heart, Asa. Nicky, get the studio to offer him forty thousand for Illusion, and I’ll let it go for fifty.”

  “They don’t want it for five. They don’t want it for free.”

  “I don’t know, Nicky. You may be making a mistake,” said Harry Browning. “He may have other properties later on, something you like. This guy’s an in-and-outer, and maybe the next one could be very big. Take Illusion for fifty now, and I promise you first refusal on his next hit. That’s a firm promise.”

  “I can’t do it. Illusion stinks.”

  “All right, well I tried. Now what’s with you? Got in when, yesterday? I had a big bash and I looked for you, but I guess you had something lined up.”

  “Something, yeah,” said Nick Orlando.

  “There’s a lot around. I don’t know where it all comes from, but suddenly there’s seventy-five new faces. It happens that way every year. Suddenly you look around and while you been busy the new stuff’s been catching up on you. At my party there was four or five I never saw before.”

  “You been busy?”

  “As busy as an agent at option-time—and who else should that happen to? Yeah, I been busy. A little thing called Mary Coolidge that I don’t doubt for a minute that you know her, but who would ever figure me going for her? Talent and all that, but a mutt. A homely mutt. And egotistical? That’s all right if she was doing the intellectual bit with Asa. But I’m not Asa. I like a dumb, pretty broad that looks good without any clothes on and never knew from Ibsen. Nevertheless, I found myself calling her up two-three times a day and couldn’t wait, couldn’t wait till I got her in the kip. And it’s nothin’ there, believe me. Oh, you know, it’s all right, but can you explain to me what I want to bother with her for, when you know yourself, Nicky, like you see that broad just getting up over there? The tan suit? I get a call from her about every two-three months, notwithstanding although she was kept by two millionaires and married one of them.” The handsome girl in the tan suit turned and waved to Harry Browning, just a tiny little wave with her fingers to which he responded in kind, an exchange which passed unnoticed by others in the restaurant. “The Ivy League type with her is the husband. I can have that any time I want to, but the last six months I been concentrating on Mary Coolidge.”

  “Does Coolidge go for you?”

  “I gotta be truthful with you there. In three words, I don’t know. Here’s the situation, Nicky, and you figure it out. This egotistical, homely little mutt, she got two pet names for me. Not dearie or sweetheart. She calls me rascal and scoundrel. Hello, Rascal. Hello, Scoundrel. She says I’m the only pure, unmitigated scoundrel she ever knew. Well, I get called all kinds of names and epithets, but who is she to call me anything? Five years ago she was lucky to get a walk-on in that play of Asa’s, Mainliner. About the junkies. What was I doing five years ago? Well, I had my elder son graduating from Deerfield and I give him a T-Bird for graduation. I had a little piece of property, six acres in Mount Kisco. I had twelve people on my payroll in New York, and I was spending more money in this place alone than Mary Coolidge could earn in two years. Then. She’s big now, I grant you. Money-wise and billing-wise, she’s big. But I saw bigger ones come and go before she knew if rascal was spelt with a k. She’s what I call a ten-dollar thinker.”

  “Yeah? How, Harry?”

  “Well, I tell you. She’ll give a waiter a ten-dollar tip for a meal that only runs her three or four dollars. Or else she’ll give the waiter thirty-five cents, depending on if she likes the waiter.”

  “I get it, yeah.”

  “No, I didn’t finish. The point is, she has a ten-dollar psychology. Ten dollars is still a lot of money to her. The big gesture. That’s the difference between her and some of the dames I used to know. A lousy sawbuck? I used to go out with dames that gave a sawbuck to the woman in the little girls’ room. This one, this Mary Coolidge, she’d be good for a quarter, a half a dollar at the most. You know, I wish I’d of known somebody like Anna Held. There was no ten-dollar psychology. Or even Bernhardt. Bernhardt was slow with a dollar, but you know what she used to do on tour? She got twenty-five hundred dollars a night, and every night before she’d go on, it had to be all there in gold. In gold. Before she’d go on. Ten dollars for a tip. Big deal. Nicky boy, where can I take you? You want to use my car and shofer for the afternoon?”

  “What are you riding in these days?”

  “The same. I got the Rolls. You know me, Nicky. I gotta hear that clock ticking. Very soothing. You sure you don’t want to help Asa? I gotta go over to Philly tonight, and I wish I had something to tell him on the positive side.”

  “Well, I know the studio is looking for something.”

  “You’re my boy, Nicky. Offer forty and we’ll take fifty, and then you can burn the God damn play. Asa will come up with something one of these days, and he listens to me.”

  “You’re a scoundrel, Harry.”

  “I know. And a rascal. Thank God I don’t have to listen to that tonight. Gettin’ weary, Nick. If you want to make a move in that direction, she’s all yours.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Well, we did a lot of talking about her. That’s what I call buyer-interest. We wouldn’t of done that much talking if you didn’t show some buyer-interest, Nicky. Hey?”

  “A little. I know her, but I never thought of her that way.”

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve had it. You take it from the top, boy.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that, once around,” said Nick Orlando.

  3

  “Take me over to 414 East Fifty-second. I’m sure you know the way,” said Nick Orlando.

  “I been there a couple times,” said Harry Browning’s chauffeur.

  “How long did Harry have this rig?”

  “This is our fourth year for it.”

  “You buy it new?”

  “Imported it brand new. Mr. Browning has a corporation.”

  “Oh, yeah. That gag.”

  “The garage we use, there’s eight other Rolls and there’s only the one owned private. The government’ll slap down one of these days, but we’ll still have a good car. We only got less than seventy thousand miles on this.”

  “Just driving around New York City?”

  “Oh, no. I go to Boston for when the boss has a play opening there. Like tomorrow I go to Philly.”

  “Why doesn’t Harry go with you?”

  “He gets car-sick on a long ride. Over twenty miles he goes by train or flies. And like some of the clients have the use of the car as a favor. Where you’re going now the young lady had me and the car for a week in Boston and a week in Philly, a year ago, during tryouts.”

  “She a good tipper?”

  The chauffeur shrugged his shoulders. “I get a good salary.”

  “In other words, she’s a stiff?”

  “I don’t want to talk about a client.”

  “Come on, give. What the hell?”

  “Well, you don’t have to tell her this, but if you’re gonna ride around in a Rolls, yo
u don’t have to give out with a lot of communist propaganda. I’m not ashamed to wear a uniform. A uniform goes with the job. She wouldn’t insult a subway guard, but he has to wear more of a uniform than I do. If it wasn’t for the cap you wouldn’t know this was a uniform. And the cap ain’t so bad. It’s just a cap that matches the suit. I wear this suit to Mass on Sunday, with a regular hat.”

  “What’s the most tip she ever gave you?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “For a week in Boston? Ten bucks?”

  “On the nose.”

  “And in Philly?”

  “In Philly, nothing. I give her an argument in Philly. I told her, I said she had to wear costumes in her line of work, and I wear a uniform in mine, and I didn’t see no difference. I don’t, either. I’m not a downtrodden servant. I’d just as soon punch you in the nose if I had cause to. Or anybody. But I bet you she wouldn’t punch Mr. George Abbott in the nose, or Eli Kazan. Would you punch Spyros Skouras in the nose?”

  “I’d think twice about it.”

  “Well, there you are. Any of those people I’d punch them in the nose if I was driven to it. I’m not show business, see? Oh, where you’re going, she don’t like me. I seen her for a phoney right away.” The back of his neck had begun to redden. “And you can tell her, go ahead!”

  “What made you so sore all of a sudden?”

  “That’s the way she affects me. As soon as I begin thinking about her I boil up.”

  “She’s your boss’s girl friend.”

  “Oh, he knows how I feel about her. It’s impossible to keep a thing like that from Harry Browning. He’s too smart. In some ways. In other ways—but he’s learning about this one.”

  “You think he is, eh?”

  “I know he is. Nine years with a man, I can tell when he’s getting fed up sometimes before he knows it himself. You’re from The Bronx, aren’t you? What parish are you in?”

  “I used to go to St. Nicholas of Tollentine.”

  “Yeah? Our Lady of Mercy, not very far away. The same section.”

  “Our Lady of Mercy, sure. We used to call it Old Lady Murphy.”