The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  "Last Halloween, someone on the lot had a party and all the guys went over to costume and some of the designers helped us out."

  "Sounds great."

  "It was. I went as a pizza."

  Stan laughed.

  "I looked adorable," Mickey said, grinning.

  "Have you been in the mail room a long time?" Stan asked. When Mickey's face tensed, Stan realized that was the wrong question. The mail room was a means to an end. The end was getting out and into a good studio job.

  "Yeah," was the answer. Stan didn't pursue it.

  They rode for a long distance and Stan was amazed at how large the Hemisphere lot was.

  "Makeup," Mickey said, pointing to a smaller building in front of which were parked half a dozen long black limousines. The drivers stood next to their cars talking to one another. A few of them waved at Mickey.

  "All of the stars have to stop there first. Those guys are their drivers. When the actors come out, the drivers take them to the sound stages."

  Mickey turned the cart and they drove through the Western town. It was empty and looked very flat and Stan recognized it with a grin.

  "Is this where they did Desperado?" he asked.

  "That's right," Mickey laughed. "God," he said, "I love to take the new guys on the lot for the first time. I guess I forget how used to all of this I am till I see someone else seeing Lorne Greene."

  He made a left turn and passed several pink one-story Spanish buildings.

  "The casitas," Mickey told him. "Up until this year when the gold building went up, the hotshot execs were out here. Now they stick writers and the young executives in the little buildings and anybody important is in the big building. Even casting moved upstairs."

  Stan spotted an ambulance with its red lights flashing up ahead and craned his neck to see.

  "Don't panic," Mickey said. "It's not a real one; we're about to pass transportation. The shop there services all the vehicles used on the lot. That's the ambulance from Med School. It's a new show this year." As they passed the big garage, Stan saw several black-and-white police cars and a fire truck inside.

  "And these are the places where it all happens," Mickey said, making a sweeping gesture as they passed several buildings that looked like airplane hangars. "Stages one through thirty-five, which have been converted at one time or another to look like the inside of an airplane, the bottom of the sea, the top of a mountain in a snowstorm, the surface of the moon, the giants' living room in Here Come the Little Folk, and more. You probably won't have to take any mail to those stages, unless something special comes up, but we're allowed to watch anything that's shooting on our off time, unless the director says its a closed set."

  "Really?" Stan had never found himself at a loss for words before, but the idea of being able to walk into any set on the lot made him too excited to speak.

  Mickey nodded. "By the time you've been here as long as I have," he said, "you'll get tired of it." Mickey turned the cart back toward the gold building. "That's pretty much all you need to know today," he said to Stan, turning the cart again. "There's the tour department over there," he said, pointing to a long trailer in the distance. They're just starting out. They'll be building the thing within the year. Universal's tour is so successful I guess Greenfield figured Hemisphere should have one, too."

  They were almost at the gold building. "Now I'll show you the mail room and introduce you to the guys."

  He drove the cart under the building into a large parking area and stopped in a space that was right next to a bicycle rack containing half a dozen rickety-looking bicycles with bright metal baskets on the handlebars. Before Stan could ask, Mickey answered.

  "That's right," he said, "this cart's only for emergencies. One of those bikes is for you. That's how we all get around. So if you don't get a better job out of all of this, at least you'll get great legs."

  As the two walked into the building, Mickey was slightly ahead, and when they reached the door marked Mail Room, he stopped. There was a cardboard sign tacked to the door. BE KIND TO THE BOYS IN THE MAIL ROOM, it said in block letters. SOMEDAY YOU'LL BE WORKING FOR THEM.

  "Like that?" Mickey asked. "I made that sign. It's what keeps me going."

  He pushed the door open.

  In the middle of the large room was a high table with a postage machine on it. A redheaded fellow was arguing with another guy who was sitting on a stool by the table.

  "I have this building until next month," the redhead said.

  "David, I wasn't trying to bird-dog your goddamned route," the other guy said. He was short and had thick black hair. Stan noticed that he couldn't stop shifting nervously. "So just fuck off. I was talking to Milt Fredericks' secretary yesterday about an article I read in The New Yorker and she asked if I'd save it for her. That's what was in the envelope you saw me giving to her."

  The redhead's face was very flushed.

  "This is Stan Rose," Mickey said. The two young men were so locked in their argument neither of them even looked over.

  "That's David Kane and Barry Golden," Mickey said to Stan.

  "Did you ask Fredericks for a job?" Kane demanded.

  "No, I didn't," Golden answered. "Fredericks is in Europe."

  "Oh."

  Stan looked around at the large room. One wall was covered with pigeonholes for the mail. A name was printed under each box and the boxes were divided into sections. The wall on the other side of the room was covered with larger pigeonholes. "That's where the outgoing stuff goes, in the pouches."

  "Pouches?"

  "The airborne service picks those up and gets them almost anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. The small pigeonholes are like individual mailboxes. Twice a day we go to the post office and pick up mail. We sort it, then run it."

  Kane and Golden had finished their fight. Kane was leafing through today's Variety and Golden came over.

  "Ned quit," he told Mickey. Not even acknowledging Stan. "There was a note from upstairs. So we don't have a boss."

  Mickey explained it to Stan. Ned Carr had been the head of the mail room. He was a sniveling spoiled boy whose family owned one of the country's largest wholesale food companies. "This'll give you a picture of Ned Carr," Mickey said to Stan. "He once said to me, 'You've never had an onion ring in the West that didn't belong to my family.' So you know what I said back to him? I said, 'I never touch fried foods.' "

  Everyone laughed.

  "Ned's father didn't want him in the food business, so they tried getting him into show business through friends," Barry said. "Unfortunately for him, according to the system, in order for a mail room employee to get out of the mail room, an executive has to make him an assistant, and no one wanted Ned Carr as an assistant."

  "Yeah," Kane said. "He was in the mail room for five years, watching everyone else come and go. This year it looked as if he was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown."

  "Well, we better get busy," Mickey said. "Golden, why don't you and Kane get to the post office for pick up. Then Rose here and I can do a run at eleven so he can see how it's done. I'll call personnel and find out if there are any more candidates for these fabulous jobs, and I'll stamp the few things left on the table." Golden nodded and he started out with David Kane behind him. Mickey watched them go and then turned slowly to Stan.

  "Uh-oh," he said. "I think something terrible just happened."

  "What's that?" Stan asked.

  "I think I just became the head of the mail room," Mickey said.

  He tried to say that as though it made him angry, but Stan noticed there was a look of pride in Mickey Ashman's eyes.

  Six

  It was Stan Rose who always insisted that the four mail room boys take their lunch break in the main dining room of the commissary.

  "It's exposure, you guys," he'd say, hyping them with a twinkle in his eyes. "You know what I mean? You can bury yourself in here with a brown-bag lunch at the postage table, or you can have a tuna melt in the same roo
m where the biggies are having their tuna melts, and pretty soon they think they have something in common with you, so they start talking to you."

  Stan Rose had turned from an awkward boy into an attractive man during his college years and his days at WEBU. Maybe because of his childhood bout with polio he seldom participated in any athletic activities, so his body wasn't particularly toned. But he had a kind, toothy smile and beautiful eyes. His best quality, which was a razor-sharp mind and a wit to match, made everyone ask his advice. Not because they were necessarily planning to take it, but just to see what he'd say and how he'd say it.

  He brought an attitude with him that made the place more like a fraternity house than a studio mail room. And it was that attitude that brought the guys closer together.

  To begin with, there were the nicknames. Stan was kidding David Kane about his bright-red hair and he called him Archie, like Archie Andrews from the comic book—and the others laughed.

  "Then you should be Jughead," Mickey said to Stan. "Remember that time when Archie asked Jughead doesn't he have any clothes besides that one long sweater and those dark pants and that little hat he always wore that looks like a crown?"

  "It's nice to see you remember great moments from important literature, Ashman," Stan said. The four of them were stuffing the pigeonholes from the newly arrived bags of incoming mail one morning.

  "So Jughead takes Archie to his closet," Mickey went on, "to show him he's got plenty more clothes."

  "I can hardly wait to hear what happened next," Barry said. He was standing on a step stool to reach the top row of pigeonholes.

  "And he opens the goddamned closet and," Mickey started to laugh, "and he does have a lot of clothes. Only they're all the same. Ten of those long sweaters, and ten pairs of those dark pants and ten of those hats that look like crowns."

  No one else was laughing.

  "Yeah," Stan said. "So?"

  "So you're like that, Rose, with your goddamned plaid shirts and khaki pants. That's all you ever wear. You should be Jughead."

  "And Golden can be Big Moose," Stan said.

  Barry smiled. Stan Rose was boring, but at least he was a nice guy, not like that cold bastard Kane.

  "And Mickey?"

  "I'll be Reggie," Mickey said.

  "Because he's Archie's rival?" Barry asked.

  "No, because if I don't pick him, all that's left is Betty or Veronica. And I'd have to go out and rent some tits."

  It was expensive to have lunch in the commissary every day; the prices were not made for the mail room salary. But the others knew Stan was right about being seen there, so they each managed to work their budgets around to afford it. After a few weeks they'd established a regular table near the entrance and the favorite game was to figure out what was going on in town by who was having lunch together. The room was always bustling, and the passing faces were impressive.

  "Don't look now, but Al Dietrich is meeting in the last booth with Sandy Koufax. Big-time movie offers to the Jewish baseball player," Stan said.

  "Would I look like a jerk if I asked Koufax for an autograph?" Mickey said.

  "You always look like a jerk, Ashman," Barry said.

  "Listen, I was very cool last week when Lynda Bird Johnson and George Hamilton were in here," Mickey said. "I went over to their table and I was very charming and I said, 'I think your father is a great old boy. I used to think he was just a shit-kicker but now he's all right with me.' "

  "Right," said Stan. "Unfortunately you said that to George Hamilton."

  "Oh, yeah," Mickey said, furrowing his brow, pretending to be confused. Stan and Barry laughed.

  Most of the time David stayed out of those exchanges. He liked Rose but he thought Ashman was a loudmouth and Golden a frantic little nobody.

  "Hey, Archie," Mickey would say to David. "How come you're so quiet?"

  "Leave him alone, Reg," Stan would tell Mickey.

  David wouldn't even reply. Frequently he'd get up, leaving enough cash on the table to cover his part of the check, excuse himself and spend the last part of the lunch hour wandering around the lot.

  "Don't go," Stan Rose said to him one day as David was reaching for his wallet. "Wait for dessert."

  "I don't want dessert," David said.

  "You'll want this one. Here it comes."

  David looked up to see what Stan was talking about. Five of the commissary waitresses were walking toward their table. One was carrying a piece of cake with a lit candle on it. The waitresses were all smiling and they began to sing.

  "Happy birthday to you," they sang.

  "Happy birthday to you," Barry, Mickey and Stan chimed in.

  "Happy birthday, dear David." People at the other tables in the commissary were looking over.

  "Happy birthday to you."

  How in the hell did they know?

  Everyone in the entire commissary burst into applause. David flushed. Jesus Christ.

  One of the waitresses kissed him on the cheek. His birthday last year was a few weeks after Marlene died and he'd sat in a chair in the living room of the apartment all day knowing that nobody he could think of knew it was his birthday or cared either.

  "Make a wish," Mickey said.

  A wish. What could he wish? That he could get out of the mail room. That someone would care about him? He couldn't decide what to wish but he knew everyone wouldn't stop staring at him unless he blew out the goddamned candle, so he closed his eyes as if he were wishing something important, then opened them and blew. There was another burst of applause.

  "How did you know?" David asked Stan.

  "Ashman knew," Stan replied, "He's seen all of our job applications."

  David looked at Mickey Ashman.

  "Don't get sentimental about me, Arch," Mickey said. "I only did it because I wanted everybody to look at our table instead of staring over there at Mia and Frank."

  It was true. Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra were having lunch with Harold Greenfield. In fact, they were just getting up to leave now.

  "Happy birthday, David," a woman David didn't even know said to him as she walked by their table.

  "Happy birthday!" a guy from accounting said, grinning at David.

  Mia and Frank and Greenfield were in animated conversation as they walked toward the door of the commissary to leave. All eyes were on them. Mia stopped near their table.

  "Happy birthday, David," Mia said smiling. "Have a nice day." The four of them discussed it for weeks afterwards, and the general consensus was that Sinatra smiled too.

  "Yes, David, happy birthday," Harold Greenfield said. Mia and Frank kept walking, but Greenfield stopped and stood looking closely at the four of them.

  "How's it going, boys? Making the deliveries through rain and sleet and dark of night?"

  Greenfield was tall and thin. He had white hair and wore black horn-rimmed glasses. He also wore dark-blue suits. Only dark-blue suits, and so did all the other studio executives at Hemisphere. All four of them were thinking the same thing as he stood there. He didn't have any idea who they were besides delivery boys. He couldn't possibly. None of them had ever even seen him this close before.

  "Your team got trounced last week, eh, Rose?" he said.

  Stan was startled. The University of Miami team had indeed been trounced by Tulane.

  "That why you didn't go to homecoming?"

  "No, sir. Too expensive to fly back there for just a weekend."

  "Good point," Greenfield said. "Well—it's nice that you're all looking so well."

  "Golden," Greenfield nodded at Barry, then at Mickey. "Ashman, good to see you." Then he looked at. David. "Happy birthday, Kane," he said. "Many happy returns."

  "Thank you, sir," David said, and Harold Greenfield turned and walked out of the commissary to rejoin Mia and Frank.

  The four looked at one another silently for a moment, then laughed.

  "Can you beat that?" Mickey said. "He knows us. He really knows our names and everything."

&
nbsp; "And what football team I root for," Stan said. They were incredulous. "But how?"

  "It's part of what makes him who he is, I guess," Barry said.

  "Amazing." They were about to do their usual dividing of the check.

  "You don't pay today, Arch. It's your birthday," Stan said to David. "We'll divide the total by three." He hadn't consulted the others but they nodded in agreement.

  "Thanks, Jug," David said. It was the first time he'd used one of the nicknames. It was also the first time he'd had any feelings for any of them.

  seven

  Days passed when they felt as if they were robots. Pick up the morning mail, sort the morning mail, run the morning mail, pick up the outgoing, sort the outgoing, eat lunch. Pick up the afternoon mail, sort the afternoon mail, run the afternoon mail, pick up the outgoing, sort the outgoing, go home. Sometimes they joked that the rickety bikes they drove on their routes could probably find the way to their deliveries alone.

  Finally they found something to break the monotony.

  To: Mr. Noel Gordon

  Director of Business Affairs

  Hemisphere Studios

  North Hollywood, Calif.

  Dear Noel,

  Please note that this letter has been hand-delivered to you personally because of its highly confidential nature. I trust you will respect the secrecy surrounding its contents exactly as instructed herein, in order to facilitate the security measures with which the following issue must be handled. I specifically chose not to meet with you personally regarding this issue, so as not to arouse the suspicions of our respective staffs.

  As I am sure you are aware, the Russian film director Milton Pinsky has defected from the Soviet Union and is now trying to find a place for himself in the American film community. For obvious reasons, Pinsky is a frightened and secretive man and wishes to keep his new-found association with Hemisphere Studios unknown and above all, unpublished. It is for this reason I have gone to elaborate lengths to maintain his cover. Even so far as making it appear as though his remuneration for services comes from outside sources. Which is why, to date, none of his paperwork has passed through your offices.

  Henceforth, however, to our great fortune, Pinsky has chosen to emerge from hiding, as it were, if only slightly, and will be making use of some of our facilities. Because of the complicated political ramifications of his alliance with Hemisphere, and here I use the word political in both the personal and territorial senses, it is imperative that my association with him appear nonexistent.