Narrows Gate

by Jim Fusilli

  In his memoirs, he wrote that the most achingly beautiful thing he’d ever seen was when she left their bed and walked away naked through moonlight. Until she returned, an uninhibited expression of desire in her emerald eyes, nothing could surpass the beauty in that. He claimed those two images were what every man who ever saw her yearned to witness for himself.

  They separated four months later. He liked the sex but he’d enjoyed the conquest more. He found her dull and disconnected and she felt he needed applause and approval wherever he went. But they parted well. She’d take him in when he had no place else to go and he asked Louis B. Mayer to be good to her, unaware that the studio head had been against their marriage because he didn’t want his perennial teenage star to be seen by the public as a married man and he didn’t want Ree to be thought of as someone who could be satisfied by a boy.

  A multimillionaire oil man—a renowned Romeo—was a better fit for her image. He gave her several thousand dollars in gifts, but he was a clumsy lover, had a peculiar odor, sent his spies to tail her. Out of raging frustration, he slapped her with the back of his hand. She hit him on the head with an inkwell, causing a gash that left a notable scar. As an apology, he bought her a house in Bel Air. “Hit me again,” she said, “and a house won’t keep me from shooting you.”

  Next came Guy Simon, the bandleader whose dreamy music she’d known since she was a teen. It was sophisticated and mature and so was he. He was full of himself but so were most men she’d met in Hollywood and he didn’t seek her approval. He could talk a blue streak and she hardly knew what he was saying; it was like listening to someone read the encyclopedia. He volunteered for the service when the war began and led an Air Force band. He didn’t think he was doing the war effort a damned bit of good and he had a nervous breakdown when he came home. He’d been married three times before he enlisted but hadn’t touched a woman since he returned—until Ree, after she insisted. It worked. He called her “the pinnacle of his adult life.” They were married and so full of modern ideas was he that one of his ex-wives was Ree’s maid of honor. He said the two women were suited for each other, and they were—in ways he hadn’t expected, though, knowing him, he might’ve calculated that, too. The ex said Ree’s pussy tasted like honeysuckle.

  Marriage put the bounce back in his step. He started a new band, maybe the best she’d ever heard with amazing musicians, including Roy Eldridge on trumpet. Anything Simon threw at them, they picked up instantly. They toured the California ballrooms. When the rhythm section stepped out to back him and Eldridge, it was magic. But the kids wanted the big band. They’d come to the ballroom to dance, not to listen. “Fuck it,” he said and sent everybody home. He moved Ree into a house in Laurel Canyon he designed. Books arrived by the crateful and he insisted she read. She tried, but she preferred magazines and the movies. Thomas Mann made her nuts. She wanted a dog. He told her she was superficial, banal, a cipher. Though she told him to go straight to hell, she agreed. She knew she was a moron.

  She left Simon and he hardly noticed. Then she got the part in a film adaptation of a Hemingway short story. She played the personification of sex as a weapon for power and gain. On screen, she walked into a nightclub and the audience gasped at her poise and beauty. Before the first reel ended, she was a star.

  But by then, it didn’t mean much. They’ve poured me some cocktail, she thought, equal parts fantasy, stardom and heartbreak. I’m an object. A punching bag. An imbecile. A goddess.

  Bombay gin became her companion. When the picture’s publicity tour ended, she checked into Good Samaritan and was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis caused by the stress of trying to match the expectations of others. Simon failed to visit her but her first husband did.

  “I never felt adequate,” she told him.

  “You?” he replied with boyish amazement.

  She decided she wouldn’t give a shit. That’s it. Life’s a wild ride. Fuck it and just hang on.

  For Rosa Marsala, peace settled over the 4,000-square-foot stone ranch in the Valley. Bill started coming home at night, and Rosa saw that his trip to New York somehow inspired a new passion for their marriage. He was working at MGM in Culver City, just 20 miles away. Her life found its rhythm within her new routine: mornings with Bill Jr. at Griffin Park or the lake where the air was crisp, the breathtaking Santa Monica Mountains all around. In town, she’d see Bob and Dolores Hope on the way to the club, Bill Holden filling up with Phillips 66. “Hey, Rosa,” they’d say, waving.

  In the afternoons, she shopped to make the house as beautiful as her Bill wanted, trying to adapt her tastes to the standards of the community. She loved to sit in the sun while the baby slept, an ear perked for his cry, and read long rambling letters from home. A social life emerged. Dixie Crosby invited her to lunch. She shared a doctor with Walt Disney’s sister-in-law, who was homespun, a real lady of the Midwest. As she waited for Bill to return for dinner, Rosa answered his fan mail, mimicking his signature on his latest publicity stills.

  She told him she was thinking of taking painting lessons. “Go ahead,” he said, fresh from a dip in their backyard pool. “It’ll be good for you.” When he said he’d be shooting late, he’d pop home in the afternoon to play with Bill Jr. He was always in a bright mood. He’d invite her into the music room when an arranger visited to work out songs for his next recording—a concert only for her. Phil Klein came by and gave her a paint set. It was wrapped just so with a card from her husband. “Baby, you’re a masterpiece,” it read. “Love, Your Bill.”

  Maybe it was the flawless sky, the scent of the orange trees, his second top-10 hit of the year, a “swinging little affair,” as he called it. It reached the charts despite an unexpected rasp in his voice and a touch of Narrows Gate in his diction. Whatever it was, Bill was happy; that it hadn’t reached number one didn’t seem to bother him. It seemed he’d settled into his new life in Southern California and he made ample room for her. Maybe his flings were over, out of his system for good. She lost seven pounds.

  Turning 29 on Memorial Day, she awoke to a sense of contentment. She reached for her husband’s pillow, pulled it to her side of the bed, consumed his scent. She’d begun to think they might try for a sister for Bill Jr. That night, over dinner at Ciro’s, Bill promised to take time off, a trip to Tahoe. Later, he kissed her tenderly, met her in bed and in the afterglow, nestled in her arms. Twenty-nine pink roses arrived the following morning, after he’d gone to the studio.

  Delighted, she returned with Bill Jr. from the lake and following his nap, decided to put on Bill’s new hit. Spry music filled the house. Dancing on air, Rosa would’ve sworn the baby was smiling, squeezing his pudgy hands in rhythm. She didn’t hear him come in.

  “Shut that shit off,” Marsala shouted. Seconds later, he smashed the record against the side of the cabinet. “Why do you torture him with that? Can’t you hear? It’s goddamned awful.” Shards of black vinyl scattered across the rug. Bill Jr. wailed in fright.

  By the time Nino Terrasini rushed in from the carport, Marsala had stormed into his office, slammed the door and locked it.

  “What happened?” Rosa asked.

  Terrasini shrugged. He didn’t know—other than Bebe was furious. At a red light before the ramp to the 405, Bebe jumped out of the car and started marching along Sepulveda, horns honking. When Terrasini caught up, Bebe shouted that he was walking back to the studio to kick Louis B. Mayer’s ass.

  “I’ll go see,” Terrasini said, hurrying toward the office.

  Crying baby in her arms, Rosa followed.

  Behind the locked door, books flew. Marsala swore, his voice raw with rage. Then a startling crash. Glass shattered.

  “Bebe,” Terrasini shouted. He pounded the door. “Bebe!”

  The door opened slowly. Marsala’s ashen face was smeared with blood. He held up his hand. Already his shirtsleeve was soaked through. A gash crossed his wrist and it spurted with each beat of his heart.

  Instinctively, Rosa put her hand ac
ross the baby’s eyes.

  Marsala stumbled toward Terrasini and fell into his arms.

  “Rosa,” Terrasini said, “chiamata Phil Klein, por favore.”

  Klein called the doctor.

  Eleven stitches.

  “Broken mirror,” Klein told the press.

  “Suicide attempt?” asked Louella Parsons in her column, alluding to rumors of Marsala’s jump from a ledge when he was a boy. She included news of yet another Marsala temper tantrum on the Metro lot. Mayer had suspended Marsala, contract and the picture be damned, she reported. The not-so-young man from New Jersey was a menace, completely unprofessional.

  Bill fired off a telegram. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong,” he wrote. “Get your nose out of the sewer, lady. Nobody in this whole wide world’s got more to live for than me. As far as my temper goes, the next time I see you I’ll show it to you—by punching you right in your nose.”

  The Los Angeles Examiner and Hearst papers across the United States printed it verbatim.

  Rosa took the blame for his injury, saying she’d asked Bill to help rearrange the furniture in his office so they could move Bill Jr.’s playpen closer to his father’s desk. When the mirror toppled, Bill grabbed for it and his hand smashed the glass. A jutting shard slashed him as the frame fell to the floor. “Bill Jr. is fine,” Rosa said, reading from Klein’s script. “A little frightened by all the noise. Bill would do anything for his beautiful boy.”

  Klein went hat in hand to MGM. Soon, Variety said, “Marsala Back on Board,” reporting that he was returning to the picture. Two weeks of exteriors in New York City starting in a few days. The suspension was lifted—a misunderstanding, really—and the studio said it was glad the gifted singer-turned-actor had returned to the fold.

  Rosa saw the magazine at the Piggly Wiggly and expected to be invited back East. She didn’t know her husband was already over-the-moon crazy for Eleanor Ree. The actress kept a suite at the Hampshire House on Central Park South. On the drive to Union Station, Marsala told Terrasini to book him a room at the hotel and leave 50 $100 bills for Rosa. To annoy Mayer, he demanded a double on the Super Chief to Chicago and then on the Twentieth Century Limited, taking his time. Klein begged him to travel alone. For once, he listened and Ree flew ahead to LaGuardia Field.

  Before they left, Marsala got into a shouting match with the tiny, hot-headed owner of Romanoff’s in Beverly Hills, who, as usual, wouldn’t bump a reservation to slip in celebrities, in this case Marsala and Ree. In the lounge, Deanna Durbin waited quietly, as did Van Johnson and his wife. They heard the row. So did everybody at the bar, including Ziggy Baum, who was hanging on as Farcolini’s man on the West Coast.

  The cops came and removed Marsala, struggling, sputtering, swearing. “You fuckin’ Red!” he screamed. They escorted him to his apartment at the nearby Wilshire Towers, a bachelor pad Rosa knew nothing about.

  Baum went to a phone booth and pumped nickels until he’d covered a person-to-person call to Anthony Corini, who was dining with a vice president of the American Stock Exchange.

  The summer stretched into a lazy season, soggy asphalt, everybody angling for shade, kids jumping in the Hudson when the temperature topped 100. Benno delivered to Anthony Corini every other Monday, Central Park West no longer a big deal. A couple of weeks ago, he brought the food up and the fat envelope and Frankie Fortune hardly looked at him. Benno said, “Frankie, how about we ditch the routine with the food?”

  Counting the cash, Fortune snapped, “Why don’t we tell the feds you’re the Jersey bagman?”

  On the drive back, Benno could only see the “you dumb bastard” look Fortune gave him. That’s it for me, he thought. Easy come, easy go and I ain’t even met Corini. But Mimmo kept him on and palmed him $100, saying, “Anthony knows you work hard.” Benno felt damned good about that and he sewed his mouth shut, saying nothing to Mimmo about what an asshole Bebe was in the newspapers, stiffing Rosa like that and embarrassing everybody in the neighborhood.

  As he washed the store’s windows, Benno was thinking about Bell, who he hadn’t seen in days. Maybe he’d drive uptown to the A&P and just say, Leo, how come you don’t drop in so much no more? You’re too busy putting away fruit? You melted in the heat? Gemma and Vito ask after you. Or maybe you got a broad stashed and what, she’s married? Maybe it ain’t none of my business, but maybe it is and if you’re keeping secrets, I’ll ask you why. Have I ever blown a secret on you? I tell anybody you’re a Jew, Leo, or the Army wanted you to sit on the candy store and hope Mimmo gives you the next Operation Husky, huh?”

  For a minute there, Sal Benno was about to lose his temper, his ears turning red. But remembering it was Leo he was thinking about, he calmed down and admitted to himself he was feeling confused and, yeah, a little bit hurt. Deciding to bury his woes in work, he went hard at the glass, banishing streaks.

  Then, reflected in the window, he saw Hennie Rosiglino hurrying along Polk Street. Her expression said she was chewing nails and swallowing castor oil at the same time. Without realizing it, Benno dropped his squeegee and followed her.

  Boo Chiasso and Fat Tutti bit back a laugh when Hennie tried to stare them down. They unfolded their arms and parted like swinging doors. Hennie burst into the candy store.

  To Benno, Chiasso said, “Store’s closed, Sal.”

  Benno tried to look past him, instead of over, given the 12-inch difference in their height.

  “Closed? There’s, like, eighteen kids in there playing pinball.”

  “Well, you ain’t a kid,” Tutti said, Chiasso snorting a laugh.

  Meanwhile, Hennie was across the weedy yard, already past the tinkling pisser-boy fount.

  Mimmo summons me, she thought as she entered his house. Bill Marsala’s mother. My Bill tipped more than Mimmo brought in, the fuckin’ greenhorn. People came to the crew’s crummy joints on the long shot Bill might walk in sentimental and if it was the luckiest day of their life, he sings a couple of tunes or signs their napkins.

  Mimmo was seated on a sofa.

  “Mimmo, what the fuck is so goddamned—”

  With his finger, Mimmo told her to look that way.

  Frankie Fortune was standing beside an empty armchair. He said, “Take a seat.”

  Hennie’s outrage fled at the cold glare of Fortune’s eyes.

  “Take a seat,” he repeated.

  She obeyed.

  The armchair wheezed.

  Mimmo crossed his legs, his hands cupping his knee, sunglasses on though the shades were drawn. “Where’s Bebe?” he asked.

  “On location. The piers in Brooklyn, I guess. Maybe Rockefeller Center. Yeah, I think Rockefeller Center.” She was sweating under her dress.

  “He’s at the Hampshire House,” Mimmo said. “In his room. Or maybe now it’s Eleanor Ree’s room. He didn’t go to work. Not yesterday. Not two days ago. Last week neither.”

  Seeing she had no play, Hennie said, “Is he OK?”

  Fortune snorted. He couldn’t believe they were going this route.

  “This is no good,” Mimmo said as he sat back. “This is an embarrassment.”

  “Maybe it’s the director. The papers say he didn’t want Bebe for the picture.”

  Mimmo said, “Rosa is his wife, the mother of his son—”

  “Mimmo, I love Rosa. You know that. She’s like my own daughter. But what are you going to do? People grow apart. They change. Am I right?”

  “Hennie, you know and I know it’s Bebe,” Mimmo said. “Let’s not kid ourselves. Yankee Stadium, the nightclubs, the restaurants. He throws it in her face.”

  Hennie nodded in agreement. “He’s like me—you tell him not to do something and he does it. First thing.”

  “Look,” Fortune said, coming around the armchair. “Let’s keep this simple. He goes back to his wife. He stops acting like some ciuccio in the papers. He does his job like a professional.”

  Hennie waited for Fortune’s expression to soften, but he remained ice and stone. “I’ll tell him
, Frankie,” she said finally.

  “He’s got no right to blow up the career we gave him.”

  Which landed like a slap. Hennie shuddered.

  Mimmo said, “And Rosa. She deserves better.”

  “Rosa.” She nodded.

  “Nobody wishes bad for Bebe,” Mimmo said, softening. “Him in the Chatterbox, with his cane, singing…” He smiled. “Little Crosby. The sailor’s cap. Then the Lakeside.”

  “It’s true. We all go way back,” Hennie said.

  “So we can say it’s Hollywood, the sun, the broads. He’s on top of the world and maybe he forgets.” Mimmo tapped his temple. “He forgets.”

  She sighed. “Mimmo, I—I’ll tell him, my hand to God. But I don’t know what he’ll think about this.”

  Frankie Fortune said, “Nobody gives a shit what Bebe thinks. Tell him.”

  “I will, Frankie.”

  Fortune went toward the front door. He found his hat in the vestibule, looked in the mirror and tugged his suit jacket until it laid perfectly. Fuckin’ Bebe. He couldn’t wait for the day Don Carlo shrugged and said, We cut our losses, earn off his records and the jukeboxes and go find another singer.

  Mimmo squirmed to the sofa’s edge. A faint trace of a plea in his voice, he whispered, “Hennie…” His gesture told her it was out of his hands.

  The door slammed as Fortune stepped into the sun thinking, Mimmo, he gets stupider every day. Bebe’s gone, Mimmo. There’s no more Bebe. He’s Bill Marsala now and he thinks he can do what he wants.

  “Hey, Frankie.”

  Fortune saw Benno at the bottom of the steps. “What are you doing here?”

  “You got nobody out front,” Benno replied.

  Fortune drew up next to him. “So?”

  “Hennie marching down Polk, Boo and Tutti with their arms folded. You should have a guy out front.”