‘What is happening to me, Imogen?’
She met my gaze. ‘They want to put both your columns on hold for a while.’
‘In other words, you’re firing me.’
‘No, we are definitely not firing you.’
‘What the hell do you call it then?’
‘Hear me out. His Godship really likes you, Sara - as we all do. We don’t want to lose you. We just think that, until this entire issue with your brother is resolved, it’s best if you lie low for a while.’
‘Better known as vanishing from view.’
‘Here’s the deal - and, under the circumstances, I don’t think it’s a bad one. We announce in the next issue of the magazine that you’re taking a leave of absence for six months to do some other writing. We continue to pay you a retainer of two hundred dollars a week. Then, six months from now, we review the entire situation.’
‘And if my brother’s still in trouble then?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘Say I decide to fight this? To go public about the way you are buckling to pressure from …’
‘I really wouldn’t do that if I were you. You can’t win this one, Sara. If you try to fight it, they’ll simply fire you, and you’ll end up with nothing. At least this way you come out of the situation with no loss of face, no major loss of income. Consider it a paid sabbatical, courtesy of Saturday/Sunday. Go to Europe. Go write a novel. All His Godship asks for is …’
‘I know - my complete and total silence.’
I stood up. ‘I’m going now,’ I said.
‘Please don’t do anything rash,’ she said. ‘Please think this all through.’
I nodded. Imogen stood up. She took my hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
I pulled my hand away.
‘Shame on you,’ I said.
I left the Roosevelt. I marched north up Madison Avenue, oblivious to the wave of pedestrians heading south. I was in something close to a rage, and would have chewed the head off of anybody who dared to bump into me. I hated the world at that moment. I hated its pettiness - its malevolence and spite. More than anything, I hated the way people used fear as a way of gaining control over others. Right now I wanted to jump the next train to Washington, and walk straight into the office of J. Edgar Hoover, and ask him what he really felt could be achieved by persecuting my brother. You say you ‘re defending our way of life, I’d tell him. But all you ‘re really doing is enhancing your power. Information is knowledge. Knowledge is control. Control is based on fear. Because you now have us all afraid, you win. And all we like sheep have no one but ourselves to blame for your power, because we’ve given it to you.
I was so enraged that I ended up walking nearly twenty blocks before realizing where I was. I looked up and noticed a street sign saying East 59th Street. I was only five minutes away from Eric’s apartment. But I knew I couldn’t see him in the state I was in. Just as I knew that I couldn’t really tell him about the conversation I’d just had with Imogen Woods … though I also realized that as soon as he saw the notice in Saturday/Sunday next week that I had ‘gone on sabbatical’, he’d blame himself.
I leaned against a phone booth, wondering what my next move should be. I answered that question immediately by stepping inside the booth, dropping a nickel in the slot, and doing something I vowed never to do: calling Jack at work.
He’d been due back from Boston this morning, and was planning to stop by and see me on his way home tonight. I needed to see him now. But when I rang his office, his secretary told me he was in a meeting.
‘Would you let him know that Sara Smythe called.’
‘Will he know what this is about?’
‘Yeah - I’m an old friend from the neighborhood. Tell him I’m in Manhattan, and was hoping to take him to lunch at Lindy’s. I’ll be there at one, if he can make it. If not, ask him to phone me there.’
Jack walked into Lindy’s exactly at one. He looked very nervous. As we never met during the day, let alone in a public place, he did not kiss me hello. Instead, he sat down opposite me, and took my hands under the table.
‘I saw Winchell,’ he said.
I took him through everything that had happened: Eric refusing to name names, the Winchell column, the eviction notice from Hampshire House, and my conversation with Imogen Woods. When I got to the part about the FBI informing Saturday/Sunday about my relationship with a married man, Jack tensed.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I doubt any of this will ever go public. I won’t let it go public.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ he said. ‘I can’t fathom how …’
He broke off. He let go of my hands, and anxiously patted his jacket pockets for his cigarettes.
‘Are you all right?’
‘No,’ he said, fishing out a Chesterfield and his lighter.
‘I promise you, Jack - your name will never be linked with …’
‘To hell with my name. Eric and you have been smeared. And that … those bastards … they …’
He broke off. His distress in the face of our predicament touched me beyond words. At that moment, I loved him unconditionally.
‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said. ‘I am so goddamn sorry. How’s Eric bearing up?’
‘I think he’s scrambling to find a new place to live. The eviction notice is six p.m. tomorrow.’
‘Tell him if there’s anything … anything … I can do …’
I suddenly leaned over and kissed him.
‘You’re a good man,’ I said.
He had to run back to the office. But he promised to call me tonight before returning home to Dorothy. Not only did he phone - but he also rang Eric at his apartment that evening, offering support. The next day, he showed up at the Hampshire House at five to help my brother move his stuff to the Ansonia on Broadway and 74th Street. The Ansonia was a residential hotel, favored by people in the mid-to-lower echelons of show business. Eric’s new apartment was a dark, one-bedroom suite, overlooking a back alley. It had peeling green floral wallpaper, a threadbare green carpet pockmarked by cigarette burns, and a tiny kitchenette, consisting of a hotplate and a faulty ice box. But the rent was cheap: twenty-five dollars a week. And the management didn’t seem terribly concerned about the co-habiting arrangements of its residents. As long as the rent was paid on time - and you didn’t disturb the peace - their attitude was: we don’t want to know.
Eric hated the new apartment. He hated the grim, last-chance-saloon atmosphere of the Ansonia. But he had few options. Because he was so damn broke. After his little shopping spree, he had less than a hundred bucks in his pocket. With the eviction notice from the Hampshire House came a bill for four hundred dollars - covering assorted room service and hotel charges. When Eric told the hotel management that he wouldn’t be able to settle the bill before his departure, they informed him that they would impound all his belongings. So Ronnie and I paid Tiffany’s a visit, and collected a seven-hundred-and-twenty-dollar refund on the diamond earrings and the silver cigarette case. After settling his Hampshire House bill, the remaining three hundred and twenty dollars paid for a month’s deposit and two months’ rent at the Ansonia. Jack insisted on organizing the van which moved Eric’s stuff to his new apartment. Just as he also arranged for two painters to strip the new apartment of its cheerless wallpaper, and brighten the place up with several coats of white emulsion.
Eric and I were both overwhelmed by Jack’s generosity.
‘You know, you really don’t have to be doing this,’ I told Jack as I cooked dinner at my place. It was the Monday after Eric moved apartments, and the painters had started work that day.
‘Hiring a couple of painters for two days isn’t exactly going to break the bank. Anyway, I had a bit of a bonus windfall. Out of nowhere, I was handed a check for over eight hundred dollars. It’s Steele and Sherwood’s way of saying thank you for bagging a new insurance client. When things are going well for you, you should help o
thers, right?’
‘Sure. But I always thought that, when it came to Eric …’
‘Hell, that’s all in the past. As far as I’m concerned, he’s family. And he’s in trouble. I know how I’d feel if I was forced to move from the Hampshire House to the Ansonia. So, if a coat of paint cheers the new place up a little bit for your brother, it’s money well spent. I also hate what’s happened to you.’
‘I’ll be okay,’ I said, not exactly sounding convinced.
‘Have you gotten back to Saturday/Sunday since the meeting with your editor?’
‘No.’
‘You have to accept their offer, Sara. Your editor’s right - if you fight Saturday/Sunday, you’ll lose. Take the money, darling. Take a break. In a month or two, all this naming names stuff should blow over. It’s gotten way out of hand. It’s gone crazy.’
I wanted to believe Jack that the nightmarish game called blacklisting would be over soon. Just as I wanted to reject Saturday/Sunday’s offer of two hundred dollars a week as a retainer fee. Because, after all, what they were offering me was a Faustian Bargain: money to balm their guilt at suspending me … out of the absurd fear that their so-called ‘family magazine’ mightn’t look so ‘family’ if it was discovered that one of their columnists shared her bed with a married man, and had an ex-Communist brother who also practiced ‘the love that dare not speak its name’.
His Godship really likes you, Sara - as we all do. We don’t want to lose you. We just think that, until this entire issue with your brother is resolved, it’s best if you lie low for a while.
God, Imogen looked so conscience-stricken when she hit me with that suggestion. But, of course, like everyone else, she too felt under threat. Had she not ‘followed orders’, she might have found her own position at the magazine in jeopardy. Or maybe questions would have been asked about her loyalty to God and Country. That was the worst thing about the blacklist - the way it scared everyone away from acts of common good, and appealed to the most basic of human instincts: personal survival … at all costs.
‘Take the money, darling.’
In the end, I did. Because Jack was right: this was a fight I could not win. And because I also knew that Saturday/Sunday could have simply dropped me without cause. At least this way, I would be guaranteed a salary for the next six months - and the money would be very useful in keeping Eric afloat.
The Winchell column about Eric’s dismissal didn’t just result in his eviction from the Hampshire House. One by one, every restaurant or emporium which once welcomed him as a great customer (and, noting his free-spending ways, granted him credit) slammed the door in his face. A few days after his move to the Ansonia, he arranged to meet Ronnie for an after-midnight drink at the Stork Club. But when he showed up, the maitre d’ informed him that his presence wasn’t desired. Eric knew the guy by name (‘Hell, I used to give him a ten-buck tip every week’). He pleaded to be let in.
‘Sorry, Mr Smythe,’ the maitre d’ said. ‘I don’t make the rules. And I think the management is a little worried about the tab you owe us.’
The next day, the Stork Club tab arrived: seven hundred and forty-four dollars and thirty-eight cents. To be paid within twenty-eight days, or else.
This demand was quickly followed by similar ones from Alfred Dunhill, 21, El Morocco, and Saks Fifth Avenue - all of which asked that he settle up his accounts within four weeks or face legal proceedings.
‘I never knew so many people read Walter Winchell,’ I said, sifting through this small stack of threatening letters.
‘Oh, that bastard is enormously popular. Because, of course, he’s such a great American.’
‘Did you really spend a hundred and seventy-five dollars on a pair of hand-made brogues?’ I asked, scanning one of the attached bills.
‘A fool and his money are quickly parted.’
‘Let me guess: Bud Abbott, or maybe it was Lou Costello? Of course, it wouldn’t be Oscar Wilde.’
‘I don’t think so - though he’s a gentleman with whom I am now feeling a growing rapport. Especially as I can write my own “Ballad of Reading Gaol” after HUAC finds me in contempt of court.’
‘One drama at a time, please. You haven’t been subpoenaed by the committee yet.’
‘Oh yes I have,’ he said, picking up a document off the chipped card table that he was now using as a makeshift desk. ‘Good news comes in big bundles. This arrived this morning. A Federal official actually showed up here personally, and shoved it into my hand. I’ve even got a date for my appearance: July twenty-first. Washington’s pretty humid in July, isn’t it? So are most federal penitentiaries.’
‘You’re not going to jail, Eric.’
‘Oh yes I am. Because the committee will demand names. Under oath, of course. When I refuse to provide them with this information, I will most definitely be going to jail. That’s how it works.’
‘We’ll call Joel Eberts. You need some legal counsel.’
‘No, I don’t. Because the equation here is a simple one: cooperate and avoid the slammer. Don’t cooperate, and enjoy six months to a year as a guest of the United States government in one of their select prisons.’
‘First things first, Eric. Give me all the bills.’
‘No way.’
‘I’ve got the cash in the bank. It’s not a stretch …’
‘I won’t let you pay for my stupidity.’
‘It’s just money, Eric’
‘I was profligate.’
‘Also known as generous. So let me be generous back. What’s the total damage? About five grand?’
‘I am ashamed of myself.’
‘You’ll be even more ashamed when you’re hauled into court for non-payment of bills. This way, your debts are cleared. It’s one less worry. You’ve got enough to deal with.’
‘All right, all right,’ he said, tossing me the pile of bills. ‘Play Good Samaritan. But on one condition: that five grand is considered a loan. To be paid back as soon as I get some work.’
‘If it makes you feel better, fine - call it a loan. But I’m never going to ask you for the money.’
‘I can’t stand all this generosity.’
I laughed. And said, ‘Next thing you know, you might have to renounce misanthropy and start accepting that there are a few decent people out there who actually care about you.’
I paid off Eric’s bills the next day. I also called Imogen Woods at Saturday/Sunday and informed her that I would accept the magazine’s leave-of-absence offer. She assured me that, six months from now, I’d be back writing for them.
‘Please don’t hate me,’ she said. ‘I’m just caught in the middle like everyone else.’
‘Everyone’s caught in the middle, aren’t they?’
‘What are you going to do with the six months?’
‘My first goal is trying to keep my brother out of jail.’
Actually, my first goal was trying to snap Eric out of the depression into which he quickly descended. A depression which deepened when Ronnie was offered an amazing job opportunity: a three-month nationwide tour as part of Count Basie’s orchestra. The offer arrived a week after he moved into the Ansonia with Eric. Privately he told me that - though he was over the moon about the prospect of playing in Basie’s big band - he was reluctant to take the gig. Because he was worried about Eric’s mental stability.
The Pursuit of Happiness (2001) Page 51
