Violencia!

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  “Perhaps you ought to go along with them,” said Clement Hartog. “See if you can get by with one Mercedes, as a demonstration of good faith.”

  Essie seemed to melt whenever her son spoke; she looked at him with reverence, savoring his every word, and indeed became quite gentle and feminine in style at these times. Since Gurney had similar feelings about the great director, he appreciated this quality in Essie.

  “All right, darling,” she said to her son, “if you say so.”

  Before the dinner was over, Gurney had forgotten that first impression of vulgarity and begun to find Essie’s company quite pleasant and convivial, if not entirely winning.

  When three months had gone by with nothing specific accomplished— not a line on paper—it was Gurney who felt he could not take the pressure any longer and suggested they really try to get some of their ideas down in the form of actual scenes for the libretto. Gurney felt that although they had come down hard on Norman Welles, at least the composer was coming up with songs, however preposterously wide of the mark they were. Then, too, Undertag had repeatedly insisted that his hands were tied, when it came to future planning, until he had something he could actually show to investors.

  “I’ve got money out the kazoo,” he said one day, his lips untypically thin and bitter, “but I’ll be damned if I’ll risk a dime of it on a show unless someone matches me dollar for dollar.”

  Against this background, Gurney and Hartog sat down one morning with the idea of actually getting down to cases. After the two had agreed on an opening line or two, Gurney giddily took them down while Hartog, grim, scattered, nervous as a kitten, wrung his hands in his lap.

  “I just hope we’re right and that we’re not going off half-cocked.”

  Gurney felt like a young colt, anxious to test his legs in an open meadow. Hartog was the wily old trainer, reining him in when he got too frisky and issuing warnings about the terrain.

  All of the preplanning and seemingly idle chats the two collaborators had had before getting under way now began to pay dividends. The work went easily and swiftly. Along the way, they uncovered several rich bonanzas in the way of numbers, including one they felt could be quite charming, involving a march of young daughters of dicks in the Bureau in which the tikes express their yearnings to be policewomen. Gurney, realizing he might be out of bounds, dummied up a lyric:

  Even though

  We’re little girls

  With little curls

  And fluffy skirts,

  We’re dying to be dicks

  And make arrests

  And make a name

  In good ole

  Hom—i—ciiiide. …

  Hartog liked the sound of it and encouraged his partner to show it to Welles.

  “Listen,” said the composer after he had reviewed Gurney’s efforts, “I’ll take help anywhere I can get it. You’re obviously not a lyricist, Paul, but perhaps by my really tearing it to shreds and reworking it from the start, I might be able to utilize the germ of an idea you have here.”

  * * *

  When Welles returned with the completed song, Gurney was surprised to see that he had changed only one word: “Little curls” had become “diminutive curls,” which, frankly, he did not think of as being a genuine improvement.

  Hartog was incensed when he learned that the composer hadn’t credited Gurney with making a significant contribution to the number.

  “It’s a dirty shame, Paul,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” said Gurney. “I’m just glad I could help. And it’s great that the song might actually make it into the show.”

  Hartog did not specify how long he wanted the first act to be, and yet he seemed concerned about length and would keep hefting the completed pages and saying: “Let me see how much we got.”

  One morning, the director appeared with a thin, cadaverous-looking man and asked Gurney if he would mind having the fellow sit in on their session for the day.

  “He’s Lester Daggo,” said Hartog, “an out-of-town critic who will be reviewing the show when it opens on the road.”

  Hartog explained that Daggo liked to be in at the very start of a show, so that when he reviewed it, further down the line, he could take into consideration the early and perhaps feeble first efforts on the production—and how far it had come along since the work began.

  “It’s all right with me,” said Gurney.

  He noted that as he worked, the fellow would occasionally slip noiselessly across the carpet and peer over his shoulder, which was discomforting to the young librettist. But since Hartog had okayed the unorthodox procedure, Gurney went along with it and did his best.

  In truth, it was not a good day for the team. To Daggo’s credit, he said hardly a word and did not weigh in with suggestions—perhaps sensing, correctly, that Gurney would have found this unacceptable.

  Only once did the little critic break into speech.

  “I wonder if I could have a junior club sandwich with extra mayonnaise, Clement, but only if it’s paid for by the producers.”

  The director ordered one up immediately and picked up the tab himself.

  When Daggo had left for the day, Gurney asked Hartog: “How do you think he liked Violencia?”

  “It’s hard to tell. At times I’ve felt he’s loved a show and he’s turned around and blown me out of the water. But I believe in working closely with him and taking my chances.

  “And incidentally, I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of that club sandwich. Daggo is miserably underpaid and—trust me on this—it meant an awful lot to him. Our paying for that measly lunch could yield dividends in the long run.”

  When the two felt they had an acceptable first-act draft, Hartog, without stopping for a celebration, asked Gurney to come along to a meeting he had set up with Hunt Feur, one of the greats of the film world, who had produced a number of the director’s top films. Admittedly, they were considered to be fluffy family fare, but they were handsomely turned out. It was Hartog’s idea that if the powerful Feur liked Violencia, he would come through with a rich preproduction deal for the film rights that would solve all of the show’s financial difficulties and get that side of the project off their minds.

  “Undertag’s office should be doing this,” said Hartog, “but will they get off their ass? Forget it.”

  Even though Hunt Feur’s office was only five blocks away, the moviemaker sent over a limousine to pick them up, with a young up-and-coming starlet inside to keep them company along the way.

  Gurney had never been in a limousine before, although he had hitched a few rides in hearses in connection with his work at the Bureau. Feur’s operating style made an impression on him. Nonetheless, he was offended when the starlet turned her back to him and began to nuzzle the director’s neck and to put her hand between his legs. Clearly, she was there to entertain only Hartog. The ride was so short it was hardly worth quibbling about. All the same, the rudeness annoyed Gurney, who felt that simple courtesy should have dictated that she put her hand between his legs as well.

  Hartog took both the limousine and the young girl—who was virtually panting for a role in one of his pictures—in his stride, a quality Gurney admired in the great director. A simple and modest man, he seemed uninvolved in the glitter and false trappings of the theatrical and film worlds. Either that, or he had never taken advantage of the perks and did not know how to get started at this late date.

  Though Feur had gone out of his way to make their short trip almost ridiculously comfortable, he did a mysterious turnabout when the team arrived at his office. The two of them were kept cooling their heels for close to an hour.

  “I don’t know why I put up with this,” said Hartog, who was breathing heavily and trying to control his anger.

  Indeed, Gurney did not see why he did either, and felt indignant, not personally, but on behalf of the director.

  Feur finally ushered them into his palatial office, embracing Hartog, whom he referred to as “P
utzi,” and inquiring about Essie Hartog’s health. Gurney gathered that the pair had not only been associated in films, but were great pals in Vienna when both were young men, totally unknown but consumed with ambition.

  Feur was a pudgy, round-shouldered man of medium height. He was spectacularly bald. Gurney took an immediate dislike to him when the moviemaker, after shaking hands, slapped a cheap cigarillo out of Gurney’s mouth and stuffed a cigar of his own into it, saying: “As long as you’re smoking, have a good one.”

  The cigar he had forced on Gurney was a grand specimen— long, rich, and fragrant, probably smuggled in from Havana; nonetheless, he thought Feur was out of line in his manner of presenting it. He considered letting the film great know exactly how he felt about this, but decided to hold his temper.

  “The one I was smoking was just fine,” he said, hardly a rapier-like rejoinder but one he felt would serve for the moment.

  A thin and lovely young woman appeared then with a tray of sandwiches. Her eyes were large and startling, her features classically sculpted.

  Feur introduced her as Carmela.

  “She is my mistress and fahhkkks exquisitely, like an obedient little bunny rabbit.”

  “A marvelous cook, too,” he said, leaning over to take a tweak at her trim fashion model–style buttocks.

  Gurney felt sorry for the woman, who indeed seemed forlorn and pathetic. Yet such were the mysteries of attraction that, for all he knew, she may have thrived on the filmmaker’s coarse, somewhat vulgar treatment of her.

  The trio dug into the sandwiches, Feur eating his behind a huge, magisterial desk. Gurney noticed that the first act draft of Violencia, sent on ahead by Hartog, was on prominent display before the producer. He had to admit to himself that it was exciting to see it there.

  “Now tell me,” said Feur, picking up the script with two fingers and getting egg salad on it, “why the fahhkk do you want to waste your time on this shit, Putzi?”

  Not waiting for Hartog to respond, he flung it over his shoulder.

  When Gurney saw the pages scattered all over the floor, streaked with egg salad, it was all he could do to keep from punching out Feur. The filmmaker, seemingly out of shape, would have been easy to handle. But he held himself in check, thinking that perhaps this was Feur’s way of opening a negotiation, feigning disinterest so as to purchase the material at a ridiculously low price. As though to confirm this notion, Hartog seemed to take Feur’s reaction with nonchalance, calmly eating his liverwurst sandwich and not even bothering to meet the producer’s eyes.

  “What makes you think it’s shit?” he asked neutrally.

  “Putzi darling, it’s shit. Don’t I know shit when I see it?

  “You want to do scripts?” he said, shoving a stack of them over to Hartog. “Here’s scripts. Good stuff, for the whole family. You want to ruin your career, I can’t help you.”

  Gurney saw that Feur had not been fencing at all. He had no confidence whatever in Violencia.

  “I just can’t agree with you, Hunt,” said Hartog, wiping his mouth with a napkin and getting up to leave. “And I think we’re going to prove that you’re dead wrong.”

  Expecting Hartog to be furious, Gurney was amazed at the director’s great control and lack of passion. Was it possible he didn’t want to anger Hunt Feur in case Violencia was indeed a turkey, forcing the director to crawl back to the producer, hat in hand, begging for the chance to do some more light family fare?

  “All right, all right, Putzi,” said Feur, conciliatory now. “Go and be a naughty boy. I can never be angry with you, my darling.”

  With that, he snapped his fingers and an assistant rolled out a giant package on wheels. Carmela followed, holding a cute little purebred puppy which she presented to Clement Hartog.

  “Take them both,” said Feur, “and I’ll see you when you return to your senses.”

  “And you?” he said to Gurney at the door. “You get nothing.”

  Gurney realized then that the producer resented him for weaning Clement Hartog away from him. It seemed absurd that Feur would consider an unknown and inexperienced librettist a competitor, but Gurney was now convinced he had the key to Feur’s excessively nasty behavior toward him. The great director said goodbye to Feur, then gathered up his puppy and began to wheel the massive package out the door. Gurney was angered by the spectacle—but he also felt a degree of admiration for Feur and his naked use of power. He stopped at the door and addressed the producer.

  “I lead a simple life, sir, filled with simple pleasures—but I enjoy every second of it, and millions wouldn’t change my way of doing things. People like you can’t understand that.”

  Gurney was curious to see how Feur would respond to this declaration. Was it possible that the display of boldness would result in the filmmaker’s suddenly changing his mind and becoming filled with admiration for him? Perhaps Gurney would get a puppy, too.

  “Good for you, darling,” said Feur, failing to pick up the bait and slamming the door in his face.

  In the hallway, while waiting for the elevator, Hartog could not resist peeking into the package. Looking over his shoulder, Gurney saw that it was a brand new electric dryer with high-tech controls. To the best of his knowledge, no other dryer had them.

  The gifts were unquestionably generous. Still, Gurney thought he knew how the director must have felt about the rejection of Violencia. He put an arm around the older man’s shoulder.

  “Don’t feel bad, Putzi, we’ll see it through.”

  Hartog drew back in anger when he heard the nickname, and Gurney realized it was reserved for those who were part of the director’s circle in the early Vienna days. He promised himself he would be careful and never call Hartog “Putzi” again.

  “I don’t feel that bad about Violencia,” said Hartog. “I know how good it is. What bothers me is that I’m in his debt now, because of the goddamned dryer and this cute little puppy. If I had any guts, I’d give both of them back, but I can’t because I love them too much.”

  He shook his head, half in admiration.

  “The sonofabitch always knew how to get around me.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Hartog conceded he had made a huge blunder in showing the half-completed libretto to Hunt Feur and he began to flagellate himself for his error. At the very minimum, he felt, he should have had the filmmaker travel to see him; he believed it might have made a world of difference.

  “Why do I degrade myself so?” he asked rhetorically. “When will it sink in that it’s a mistake to run like an errand boy whenever someone whistles?”

  Hartog then went over the line of self-pity into actual bitter tears. Gurney, while consoling his friend, had to observe that for a man of his stature, the celebrated director had surprising chinks in his self-confidence.

  Hartog finally pulled himself together. With great gentleness, he took Gurney’s arm—they were always taking each other by the arm—and said: “Do you think we might continue?”

  The two pushed on, and, as Hartog had promised, the second act, much shorter than the first by traditional design, did indeed take care of itself. In its overall scheme, it involved a brutal song-and-dance grilling sequence in which the captured black dick is tricked into confessing that he did indeed murder a series of innocent pants-pressers; the continuing struggle between the Homicide Chief and his detective son over whether to simply beat the suspect’s ass to a pulp or to handle him with socially enlightened methods; and a payoff scene in which the Homicide Chief wearily cleans out his desk and drives off in his squad, while his forward-looking detective son, who is to take over the department, screams after him in tears born of love and hate that he is a fine man and a good dick in many ways but that his methods are old-hat.

  The two collaborators decided that a “Hookers’ Dance” and a “Mad Dog Shooting” ballet were possible second-act production numbers; mild comic relief might be supplied by a song in which the young detective hero’s girlfriend petulan
tly complains that he wears his gun at all times—at weddings, at dances, in steam baths, and even, by inference, when he goes to bed with her. The musical lament, slyly, would be called, “I Can’t Get His Gun Off.”

  Another comedy selection, and a possible show-stopping sleeper if Norman Welles came through on the lyrics, would be called “Let Us Inform You of Your Constitutional Rights,” to be sung by a quartet of rookie dicks as they comedically practice quite the reverse on an elderly suspect, slamming down the door of his apartment, grabbing his favorite sister’s ass, pissing on his personal belongings, and finally hauling him down to headquarters, where they shove his head into a toilet bowl that they continually flush until, bleeding, pissed on, and thoroughly humiliated, the suspect is ready to confess that he’s killed the Pope if they want him to.

  The libretto took a mere two weeks to complete and probably could have been wrapped up in one had not Gurney dragged his feet a bit, reluctant to end this satisfying phase of his work. He knew that once rehearsals got under way, Hartog would begin to function solely as a director. As a result, there would be little time for those wonderful delicatessen snacks and the exchange of anecdotes, Hartog holding forth on movie greats, Gurney pitching in with unusual moments along the homicide beat. Indeed, when Gurney handed over the final page, there was a sadness in the room. Gurney, whose work at Homicide had taught him to conceal, if not eliminate, his feelings, merely tightened his jaw and looked stoically out the window. Hartog, a man of the theatre and consequently unafraid of revealing emotion, wept openly for a moment, and was not ashamed of his tears.

  The director suggested that they celebrate the completion of the first draft of Violencia by passing up their regular snack and going out for drinks and a more sumptuous lunch at a nearby restaurant, one frequented by theatre regulars.

  The waiter who took their order appeared to have inside information on the show.

  “I hear it’s very Jewish,” said the man.

  Gurney quickly corrected him, wondering at the same time how that strange notion had gotten currency.

  A famed theatrical producer, known for his acerbic wit, strolled by and said to Hartog: “Sounds like you’ve got a million-dollar baby. I just hope it doesn’t die in the cradle.”