You have to relax, he says. They already have one flood outside.
– I can’t remember my lines.
– You can remember your lines. You’ve just forgotten that you remember them.
Babe stops pacing to stare at him.
There are times, says Babe, when I don’t know where the real you ends and the other you begins.
– If you need clarification, you could call some of my ex-wives.
As if they could help, says Babe, and resumes his pacing.
When they take to the stage, the Audience rises. The noise is unlike any that he has heard before. The Audience cheers and claps in unison, becoming one voice of approbation, a perfect series of adulatory strikes pulsing from the dark. It begins as a joyful sound before growing deeper, more elemental. It transforms, and in transforming, it liberates.
It drowns out the orchestra.
It drowns out their voices.
It drowns out war and pain and fear and loss and hunger and grief.
It drowns out death itself.
184
At the Oceana Apartments, he recollects leaving England in triumph, infused with a joy he has not felt in many years. England has reinvigorated them. England has given them hope.
But hope is a candle.
Hope burns, and then it is gone.
185
In England, he has been given a book inscribed to Chaplin, with a request to pass it on. He considers mailing it, but decides instead to renew their acquaintance. He makes an appointment, as one might with a politician or public dignitary, and arrives at Chaplin’s house in Beverly Hills at the appointed time.
Chaplin greets him heartily. They sit. They drink. They reminisce.
They speak of the dead.
And he glimpses the old Chaplin, the being that existed before Chaplin became a god.
We are alike, you and I, says Chaplin, and he is back on the waters off Catalina Island, back with Chaplin, and Paulette Goddard, and Ruth.
He is, once again, a man adrift.
No two fellows, Chaplin continues, have shared the adventure we have shared. We are children of Karno, of the music halls. Who else like us is left?
Chaplin talks of damp rooms on the vaudeville circuit, the two of them enfolded in shared beds, and meals taken in shabby restaurants, and women fucked whose names Chaplin has long since forgotten. He sits in the ambit of Chaplin’s light, in the warmth of Chaplin’s affection, and he watches the spell being cast, but he is older now, and Chaplin’s words are hollow bones: they hold no marrow. Yet he cannot help but admire Chaplin, even as he wishes him more capable of truth, and more worthy of affection.
They part. Promises are made. They will stay in touch. They will meet. They must do so, Chaplin says, because they are alone of their kind.
He never sees or speaks with Chaplin again.
186
He cannot work upon his return to the United States. His diabetes has worsened. He writes sketches and gags, knowing they will never be performed. He adds to his archive, and sometimes shares with Babe what he has created. Their pictures appear on television, and bolster the bottom half of bills in theaters, but it is not enough. These are former glories, and serve only to remind him that his era has passed. It may be for the best. He is not sure what he and Babe have left to offer, beyond nostalgia, to this new, harsh age, and therefore it is fitting that they should only be remembered as they once were.
But he misses pictures, and is frustrated at being ill. As Ida bustles around him, he feels less like a husband than a patient. He looks in the mirror and beholds a fading man, an image on an overplayed print of a two-reel picture, disfigured by scratches and scars, all contrast evanescing until only blankness remains.
He is no longer at ease in his home. The surrounding walls appear oppressive to him. They have not served to keep him safe; his own body has betrayed him. The walls are also a reminder of his failings. When he looks upon them, he cannot help but recall the circumstances that led to their construction.
He cannot help but recall Vera.
Occasionally news of her reaches him from the east:
Vera, drunk, arrested in the office of a theatrical agent, refusing to leave until the agent has listened to her entire repertoire, singing even as the police drag her away.
Vera in the dock, performing – unbidden – a version of ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ before an unimpressed judge.
Vera, predatory as a wasp, rolling drunks for money.
A reporter asks for a comment on Vera. He has none to make, or none worth the breath.
What use has he for walls if they are all he can survey?
We shouldn’t stay here, he tells Ida.
– Where do you wish to go?
I should like, he says, to be near the sea.
187
A.J. is dead.
A.J. passes away at the home of Olga, his daughter, in the village of Barkston, Lincolnshire.
Were he and A.J. ever fully reconciled? He cannot say. The old man could never bring himself to praise his son unreservedly. Always there remained words unspoken, resentments unrevealed.
What did A.J. want: a son like Chaplin?
No, never that.
A son who plowed furrows in the earth from city to city, music hall to music hall, the tours dwindling as the circuit contracted, waning as the venues died, the great stages turned over to picture screens and bingo callers, so that when at last all went dark, he would expire with them? A son who kept the family name, and did not trade under another, as though A.J.’s patronymic and A.J.’s vocation were not good enough for him?
Perhaps.
And now A.J., who rejoiced in a name rejected by his boy, is gone.
Dead the father, dead the son.
188
The director John Ford is putting together a touring production of What Price Glory? as a fundraiser for the Order of the Purple Heart. John Ford calls in favors from all his old buddies: Duke Wayne, Ward Bond, Harry Carey, Jr. John Ford casts Luis Alberni as the innkeeper. Luis Alberni starred in the original production of What Price Glory? back in the twenties, so this is a nice gesture. Unfortunately, Luis Alberni is now an alcoholic. Luis Alberni takes one look at the set, is consumed by stage fright, and returns to the bottle.
Babe is asked to replace Luis Alberni. Babe gives a performance brilliant in its comic timing. Babe is so good that Jimmy Cagney seeks out Babe after the show to shake his hand, and Jimmy Cagney tells Babe that had there not been someone present to hold him upright, Jimmy Cagney would have fallen on the floor laughing.
But what Babe treasures most from the experience, and what Babe describes to him when they subsequently meet for dinner, is a train trip to San Francisco with the troupe, and Babe relaxing in a chair in the club car, and these famous actors sitting in rows at his feet, and Duke Wayne’s eyes wide in his head as Babe recounts tales of old Hollywood, because Babe is a great storyteller.
They were listening to me, Babe says. Can you believe that? All those great men were listening.
To me.
Babe approaches him a month or two later. Babe approaches him the way that Babe once approached Lucille Jones before asking for her hand in marriage. Babe is only a step away from fiddling with his tie.
I’ve been offered a picture, Babe says.
He tries to hide his dismay.
– What kind of picture?
– A western, for Republic, with Duke Wayne.
He thinks that Babe and Duke Wayne get along together because Babe, like Duke Wayne, is worried about Communism. Babe believes that HUAC is doing good and necessary work in winkling out the Reds, although he and Babe rarely discuss such matters.
The Communists want to destroy our way of life, Babe says, on those occasions when the subject does come up. They will impoverish us all.
Not you, he always replies. You don’t have any money. If they redistribute all wealth, you’ll probably come out ahead.
Babe is not deligh
ted by such comments.
It’s a one-off, says Babe of the Duke Wayne picture.
Babe does not say that it might lead to more solo work, but he hears it nonetheless.
– Then you must do the picture. What’s it called?
– Strange Caravan, but who knows what it will end up as.
– Strange Caravan sounds like a gypsy musical.
– I’m sure they’ll change it. I don’t think I want to be in another gypsy musical. I’m not even sure about a western. They may have to insure the horse.
– I’m very pleased for you.
And he is.
My salary will be paid to our company, says Babe.
– That’s not an issue.
But he is glad to hear this. Babe can play other parts, but he cannot. It says much about Babe that the contract should be structured so he also will benefit.
– Will you get to carry a gun?
– A musket, I hear.
– Well, just remember which end is which.
Thank you for the advice, says Babe. How I’ll manage without you, I do not know.
The picture ends up being titled The Fighting Kentuckians. Babe is the best thing in it. Doors open for Babe. Babe only has to push a little to enter.
But Babe does not push.
Babe stays true to him.
189
It is 1950. His son would have been twenty this year.
Chaplin’s son would have been thirty-one.
Three days Chaplin had with his ill-made child. He, at least, was given nine days with his boy.
Norman: that was the name of Chaplin’s son.
And he sees his son’s name every time he writes his own.
190
There is to be one more picture, one last appearance together on screen.
There should not be, but there is.
Hope burns, but it burns slowly.
Who could blame them for accepting the offer? Three months in Europe, with enough money on the table for Babe to stave off the IRS and Myrtle. He needs the income less. His tax affairs are less complex than Babe’s – although it is hard to imagine anyone’s tax affairs being more complex than Babe’s – and his ex-wives are less vindictive than Myrtle – although it is hard, etc.
But most of all, it is a picture, and an expensive one: $1.5 million, more than has ever before been spent on one of their productions. It is a set, and a crew. It is he and Babe, together. His input will be welcomed. It will not be as it was at Fox, at MGM. He will be an integral part of the process.
He travels to Paris ahead of Babe to work on the script. And he has ideas, so many ideas. The yellow pads filled during his years of illness will not now gather dust.
The writers have been laboring on the script for weeks.
The script is terrible.
How can it be so terrible? It can be so terrible because it is the work of four writers: two Americans, one Frenchman, one Italian. The Italian speaks Italian, and a little French. The Frenchman speaks only French. One of the Americans speaks French, but no Italian. One of the Americans speaks only English.
You’re writing the script, he points out. You’re not supposed to be the script.
To further complicate matters, he and Babe deliver their lines in English, but everyone else responds in French, a language he and Babe do not understand. The director, Léo Joannon, does not speak English, only French. Just one member of the crew is fluent in all three languages.
It’s the Tower of Babel, observes Babe, but with fewer laughs.
– I could salvage it, if only they’d listen.
– Listening isn’t the problem; understanding is the problem. I don’t have time to learn French before I expire.
He does his best. He contributes gags, and suggests changes. But he is sick, so very sick. On top of his diabetes, he now contracts dysentery. He feels pain every time he pisses, but only a dribble emerges from his poor withered cock. His prostate is ulcerated. He is hospitalized, but there, too, no one speaks English.
Ida is by his side. Ida translates. It is all that he can do not to cry. He believes that he may die here, in Europe, his death announced in a foreign tongue.
And Babe is ill. Babe’s heart is giving him trouble. Babe gains weight while he, ravaged by dysentery, loses it, an unwelcome transfer of mass to maintain an infernal equilibrium, as though the partnership were being paid by the pound.
Lucille is worried.
Can’t we just go home? Lucille asks, when she comes to see him in the hospital.
Babe is resting. Babe wants to visit, but the heat is extreme, and Lucille does not wish Babe to exert himself. They have been led here by hubris, he thinks. They will never see the promised money because they will both be dead in the ground.
– We can’t leave. We’re contracted. If we leave, they’ll sue us.
– Let them.
It is bluster. Babe may be unwell at present, which is not good, but the stress of another court case, and the further depletion of his finances, could potentially kill him. Babe will be able to clear his debts if they can just hang on until the end of filming. The picture must be finished, for the sake of everyone involved. To abandon it would cost more than to continue, even as the budget escalates:
$2 million.
$2.5 million.
He leaves the hospital. He is kept functioning with injections for the pain, like a racehorse past its prime. He rests in a tent between takes, under the supervision of a doctor, under unfamiliar skies. An English-speaking director is found for their scenes: Jak Szold, who now goes by the name of John Berry. Jak Szold has fled to Europe from the United States after being named as a Communist. If Babe has any objections to this, Babe keeps them largely to himself. Babe is simply glad to be advised by someone intelligible, and every completed scene is another step closer to the end of the ordeal.
Three months stretch into seven, then twelve. In April 1951, they are finally permitted to leave, but his health is irreparably damaged.
And Babe?
Babe quickens his step toward the grave.
All for an aging man’s vanity.
All for money to pay off a vindictive woman.
All for a picture.
A miserable, lousy picture.
191
Jimmy Finlayson dies.
Jimmy Finlayson, who might have been sixty-six, or sixty-nine, or seventy-two, or seventy-four, because Jimmy Finlayson was too vain to admit his real age, or never really knew it; Jimmy Finlayson, who traded on a squint and a stuck-on mustache, and perfected a double-take so unique that no one could ever perform another without laboring in his shadow; Jimmy Finlayson, who had little hair and too few toes, yet once believed that stardom might be his; Jimmy Finlayson, who married a woman at least eleven years his junior, and divorced her soon after, but never once regretted all the times that he fucked her between; Jimmy Finlayson, who made a career out of playing himself, who was eccentric and dour but was the first to look on Babe and see the beauty within.
Jimmy Finlayson is no more.
192
Who shall have them? None shall have them, or none in this place.
They grow poorer as their fame endures. He speaks of it with Babe and Ben Shipman, as alimony nips and the IRS tears. He will be stopped on the street, or Babe will be questioned at the racecourse, and the mouth of a person impossibly young will ask the one if he were not formerly renowned, and the other will be told of his past self being glimpsed on a television screen; and the eyes of the person impossibly young will gaze upon this gaunt, enervated patient, or this ponderous, amaranthine gambler, and wonder how someone once so famous could grow so old?
Those contracts, he says to Ben Shipman, those papers we signed, all they did was give everything away.
He is not blaming Ben Shipman, because that is not in his nature, but Ben Shipman cannot deny the truth of what is being said. Ben Shipman has done his best for these men, has always done his best for them, even if Ben Shipman for
ever felt himself to be out of his depth among agents and producers. Ben Shipman was born in Poland in 1892. What does Ben Shipman know from pictures? Maybe, when it came to studios and contracts, Ben Shipman was just playing at being a lawyer.
Television, Ben Shipman says. Who knew?
Hal Roach knew, he thinks, or Hal Roach guessed, or Hal Roach anticipated that just as the stage gave way to pictures, so too would pictures give way to a greater innovation, and if money was to be made from it, Hal Roach would be poised at the front of the queue, weighted with wares.
But their contracts were no worse than those of others, and better than most. If he is unprosperous, it is not entirely Ben Shipman’s fault; it is not really Ben Shipman’s fault at all.
He and Babe could have become independent producers.
As Chaplin did.
He and Babe could have controlled all aspects of their work.
As Chaplin did.
He and Babe could have owned their own pictures.
As Chaplin does.
But he is not Chaplin, and Babe never wished to be. Again and again it comes back to him. It will be the refrain that carries him from the clamor of this world to the oblivion of the next. They will carve it on his gravestone.
Not Chaplin.
Chaplin understood money. From the start, Chaplin was careful with it.
But he never understood money, no more than he understood women. He married unwisely, and too often. This is no one’s fault but his.
What can be done? he asks.
– About television? Nothing, unless we crawl to Hal Roach’s door and beg for a share.
He will not do this, not even if he were living rough under a bridge. He knows a dog that goes to Hal Roach’s door seeking scraps will leave hungrier than when it arrived.
You could go back to England, says Ben Shipman. Then:
– Why are you smiling?
193
At the Oceana Apartments, he reflects on circularity.
he: A Novel Page 30
