City of Flickering Light

by Juliette Fay

  “Friends?” said Millie, obviously disappointed.

  “Just a couple of guys from the set. I’d rather be with you two.” He hesitated, the dilemma playing out on his face. “It’ll probably be a bore.” He sighed. “But I said I’d go.”

  The restaurant was at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Avenue, and it was a far cry from Musso & Frank, with its mahogany paneled walls and leaded glass bar cabinets. The exterior was brick with two plain bay windows and a wood-frame door in the middle. Above in pale green paint on a dark brown background were the words THE COTTONWOOD. Inviting but not fancy. Irene suspected Dan had chosen it so as not to run up Millie’s bill.

  He was waiting inside the door, standing quietly with his hands clasped behind his back, his short black hair freshly washed and slicked back from the tan skin of his face. He wore a nondescript brown serge suit, white cotton shirt, and green wool tie. He was either not trying very hard to impress them, or it was his only suit. Or both.

  Millie laughed and patted his arm. “I’m not used to seeing you in clothes!”

  The host waiting to seat them put a fist up to his mouth and coughed. Dan shot a warning look at the man, who then turned away.

  “I don’t generally wear the breechcloth when I go out to dinner. It tends to make the ladies blush and the men want to fight me.”

  Millie grinned. “It didn’t make me blush.”

  “You’re an actress,” he said. “The work requires a certain open-mindedness.”

  Millie leaned toward Irene and whispered, “I’m an actress!”

  “You are now,” she whispered back.

  They were seated at a small round wooden table in one of the front windows. Mismatched but pretty cotton napkins sat under the forks, and a thin vase with dried purple flowers was the only table decoration. The placed smelled of freshly baked bread and roasting meat. Savory, homey smells so different from what Irene was used to at Ringa’s. She liked the feel of it, unassuming and yet confident about what it had to offer. It was a little like Dan himself.

  The menus were small printed paper cards with much of the usual fare: lettuce salad, mashed turnips, baked chicken, corned beef and potatoes, and the like. But there were also some things Irene had never seen.

  “What’s good here?” asked Millie.

  “I always get the roast mutton and the blue corn dumplings. Reminds me of home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Arizona,” he said. “The cook is from there, too.”

  “What took you from Arizona all the way to Hollywood?” said Millie, and Irene worried that Dan Russell didn’t like being interrogated, no matter how innocently it was meant.

  “The train,” he said. “How about you? Where were you ladies before life brought you to the flickers?”

  “Oh, we were in a burlesque show,” said Millie. “That’s where we met, right, Irene?”

  Irene’s face went hot, and it was all she could do to keep from kicking Millie under the table, except it was so small she’d likely end up kicking Dan, or toppling the whole thing over, little purple flowers and all.

  “It’s all right,” murmured Dan.

  “What?” said Millie. “Burlesque?”

  Irene cut her eyes at Millie, a shut-up-would-you? look.

  “Dan’s an actor,” said Millie, “which, as we all know, requires a certain open-mindedness.”

  Dan chuckled. Irene just hoped her flaming cheeks wouldn’t light anything on fire.

  “It’s not like we wanted to be in burlesque,” Millie went on. “More than anything we wanted to get out, but that wasn’t so easy to do, until Irene decided we should jump off a moving train.”

  Dan caught Irene’s eye. “Stunt women, too? That’s some list of talents.”

  Irene shook her head and sighed. She was already planning the talking-to she would give Millie on the walk home.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” said Millie. “We just got kind of banged up and scratched. Irene’s knee swelled, but it was much better the next day, even after we had to run for our lives from the burlesque show owner’s henchman. That was my fault entirely. I stole his silver tea set.”

  The waiter came, and they all ordered mutton and blue corn dumplings, Millie barely pausing to say, “Yes, me, too, please,” before she resumed the saga of their escape.

  Surreptitiously, Irene watched Dan watching Millie. He didn’t seem the least bit appalled, though he was clearly well versed at keeping himself to himself. But no, he seemed genuinely to enjoy Millie’s performance, as she giggled her way through the part about The Gypsy and the Runaway Bride or pumped her arms a little when describing how they bolted willy-nilly for the train, shaking her finger as she imitated Henry yelling something foul in Yiddish at Barney.

  Dan was charmed, Irene decided. She had to admit it was understandable. She herself had been utterly charmed by the wild-yet-guileless Millie Martin.

  When the story was over, and Millie was tucking into the mutton that had gone almost cold on her plate, Dan turned to Irene and said, “So you’re a writer.”

  Irene nearly choked on her dumpling. “No, I . . . well, I’m hoping . . . maybe someday.”

  “Millie told me you write in a notebook all the time, practicing to be a scenarist.”

  “I do scribble a lot. As a matter of fact . . .” Why was she telling him this? She shouldn’t brag when it would likely come to nothing. “ . . . I submitted a scenario to one of the head writers today.” She put her napkin to her lips and compelled herself to slow down, stop talking about herself and her little story. She shook her head. “It’s just a first try, and it will definitely get rejected, but at least it’s good practice.”

  Millie let her fork drop onto her plate with a clatter. “Irene, you did it!”

  Irene shrugged, but she couldn’t help but smile. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Now you are a writer,” said Dan.

  25

  Happiness often sneaks through a door you didn’t know you left open.

  John Barrymore, actor

  Henry climbed the steps from the speakeasy door and headed down the alley to Sunset Boulevard. He stopped to remove his jacket, loosen his tie, and lean up against the side of the building in the cool night air for a moment to collect himself. The combination of scotch and memories and, yes, he had to admit, the sight of men being openly romantic with one another, had him practically feverish with emotions that ran the gamut from shock to sadness to longing.

  He had tried so hard not to be what his father had called him. To his everlasting shame, Henry had refused to speak to Sol when he’d come to visit in the hospital that next day. As if it were in any way Sol’s fault that Henry’s father was brutal. Or that Henry was what he was.

  The look on Sol’s face, so terrified that he might come face-to-face once again with the raging Mr. Weiss. But he’d come, hadn’t he? He’d been far braver than Henry was on that day or any day since.

  He’d never seen Sol again. Henry had quit school and gotten a job laying bricks with his father, hating both the man and the job. All that cement, such a godawful mess. He’d dated girls and started fistfights and missed his zayde terribly. The old man, gone almost two years by then, might not have had much to say about such matters, but Henry knew without a moment’s doubt that he would have served as the human refuge his grandson so desperately needed.

  His mother, a quiet person, had gotten quieter. And then one night when his father was out, his mother had handed him a little muslin pouch with a string tie and said, “Go see your uncle Benny.” The pouch had sixty-three dollars in it. To this day Henry wasn’t sure where she’d gotten such a boodle. Had she stolen it? Had she siphoned it penny by penny from the money her husband gave her to buy food and household items over the years, anticipating just such an emergency? This was his mother’s knippel—her stash of money that offered a small sliver of freedom from her husband’s control. And she had given it all to her son.

  Unc
le Benny was living in a boardinghouse near Coney Island during his summer break, when many theaters were too hot to hold performances. He taught Henry some jokes and sent him off to the bars with a hat for people to throw change in. Henry would sneak back into his uncle’s room to sleep in the middle of the night, until the two of them got thrown out.

  “It’s time to get back to work, anyway,” said Uncle Benny, and he set Henry up with a traveling review, the owner of which owed him a favor.

  Must have been a big one, Henry thought, because he still wasn’t very good. Over time he improved enough that when the review closed, he’d been able to get himself hired onto a series of mediocre shows until he’d hit Chandler’s Follies.

  Henry straightened up and put on his jacket, his head still foggy with drink and memory. When he stepped from the shadow of the alley, a car was rattling down Sunset toward him. With the headlights shining at him, he couldn’t see the car, but by the clanking of the engine and the occasional backfiring, he guessed it was an old flivver.

  It slowed as it approached, and he wondered if the driver was lost and in need of directions, though there weren’t many to give. Keep going east toward downtown Hollywood or turn around and go west toward the ocean were really the only two options.

  The car stopped, and Henry stepped toward the driver’s window. He heard the driver say, “Okay, but make it quick.” Then the back door opened.

  The next thing he knew someone had socked him in the jaw. Henry staggered back, and in that moment he wanted only to ask why. What had he done to provoke this attack? But he had been in enough fights to know that, no matter the reason, he’d better come back swinging if he didn’t want to end up facedown in the dirt.

  His first punch landed on the side of the fellow’s head with a crack, quickly followed by the sound of stunned pain from the recipient as he went down. But suddenly there was another man coming toward him from a different angle whom he could see a little more clearly by the car’s headlights: stocky, in a coarse cotton shirt, with a crooked nose, and messy hair to match.

  “Faggot can hit,” the man muttered to his friend.

  Oh, thought Henry. That’s why.

  He barreled into the man, wanting only to knock him over so he could run. But even several inches shorter, the thug had at least thirty pounds on Henry and only staggered back a few feet. He pummeled Henry in the gut until Henry delivered an uppercut to the chin.

  He heard voices behind him coming from the alley, but he had no idea who they were or whether they might help or join in. He turned to bolt, knocking squarely into the other man who had gotten back up. He hit Henry in the chest so hard, he went down on one knee.

  Ah, shit, he thought, because once you’re below the other fellow, it’s so much harder to hit back.

  The man raised his foot and kicked Henry in the chest. “Fucking faggot actor,” he growled as he stood over Henry, now splayed out on the ground. “Take your faggot friends and go back to New York!”

  Henry threw his hands up over his head and curled on his side to protect his gut. He heard shouting and someone saying, “Get in, get in!” The gears screeched, and the old car pulled away, spraying him with road dust.

  “My God, are you all right?” The voice was beside him, and Henry slowly uncurled himself.

  He groaned as he tried to sit up. “Nothing ice and aspirin won’t fix.”

  He was still trying to right himself, the stabbing pain in his ribs making that a goal he had to accomplish slowly, when the voice said, “Henry?”

  Henry looked up and squinted into the face of Edward Oberhouser.

  Now in the back of Oberhouser’s car, which his driver had run to fetch when they’d come upon the melee, the director asked, “Are you sure you won’t go to the hospital?”

  “Honestly it’s not that bad,” Henry assured him. “There’s nothing to stitch, so they won’t do anything except clean me up, which I can easily do myself.”

  “Sounds to me like this wasn’t your first fight, especially with the way you were able to hold off two large men.”

  “No, not my first.” Henry shifted painfully on the soft black leather seat, trying not to grimace. “Hopefully my last.”

  “I don’t mean to pry.”

  Then please don’t, thought Henry. The less said about all of this—the whole strange night—the better. But what could he do? It was likely that Oberhouser had saved him from far more damage, showing up and calling out like he did. “Not at all,” said Henry.

  “I’m just wondering if this was a random attack . . . or was it possibly someone who was looking for you? Perhaps you owe money? Because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Many, many actors are forced to borrow if they don’t find work right away. I might be able to help—”

  “Oh, no, thank you, but it’s nothing like that. They didn’t know me.”

  “I see. I thought that might be why you were so adamant about not reporting it to the police.”

  How could anyone be so dense? wondered Henry. Didn’t he know what kind of bar he’d been in? Of course he did. The very fact of it was clear from every dancing couple. The police would never help someone who’d been coming out of a place like that. Did the director think he was immune somehow because of his position? Or did he imagine that Hollywood was an entirely different planet, where that kind of threat didn’t exist?

  “Mr. Oberhouser—”

  “Please call me Edward.”

  “Not Obie?”

  “Oh, Lord no. I absolutely hate that. Obie,” he scoffed, “like I’m some sort of mutt begging for food at the screen door.”

  “You do know everyone calls you that.”

  “Yes, I know. I let it go because it makes people think I’m chummy enough to have a nickname. Which I’m not, actually. But friendships, even the appearance of them, are what make the cogs of Hollywood turn. Pictures are made—or not—based on alliances. You’ll see that soon enough.”

  It wasn’t lost on Henry that Edward was choosing to reveal this bit of personal information to an extra he’d only known for a month, which actually was chummy. He hoped to return the kindness by warning him about going to the bar again.

  “Edward, I don’t mean to bring up something that generally isn’t . . . discussed.” At this he shot a glance at the driver, who appeared to hear nothing, but who Henry was sure could hear everything. “Based on the comments those fellows made while they were trying to beat the stuffing out of me, they did it because of the . . . the establishment I’d just left. The one you left only minutes later.”

  A dark look passed over Edward’s face. “Because we’re homosexuals.”

  Henry’s pulse began to race at hearing such words spoken aloud, and his immediate reaction was to deny it, as he’d done his whole life. But it seemed pointless. Edward knew. He also seemed to feel no qualm about including himself in the category or proclaiming it at normal volume for his driver to hear.

  “Yes,” said Henry. How strange it felt to hear the admission come from his own lips!

  “Well, it’s no surprise, I guess,” said Edward.

  Henry was dumbstruck by the man’s casual tone, as if the possibility of getting beaten up was just the price of admission for allowing your proclivities to be known. As if it were worth it.

  “There’s the general, you know . . . revulsion.” Edward said this as if this were a mere irritant. “And then there’s the industry.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, when filmmakers first started coming out to Hollywood ten or fifteen years ago, it was practically like one of those Gold Rush towns that popped up—rustic, a little dangerous. They thought of themselves as he-men, braving the Wild West to get the shot. As pictures got more sophisticated and started making real money, the New York crowd took notice. The artists came. Since then there’s always been a bit of a standoff between the straight shooters, as they like to call themselves, and the sophisticates.” He gave this last word a meaningful emphasis.

 
“So that’s what he meant when he said go back to New York,” said Henry. “I’m actually from there, so I wondered how he knew.”

  “I grew up outside of Cleveland,” said Edward with a wry smile, “but apparently we’re all from New York.”

  “I don’t think these fellows were movie people. The one I could see was dressed for manual labor—a farmer or a dock worker, maybe.”

  Edward nodded. “Thugs, then. The kind who feel like handing out a licking and think we’re the easy prey.” He smiled. “They were in for a surprise with you, though, weren’t they? I’ll have to keep you in mind for my next picture with a fight scene in it.”

  Henry smiled. Maybe the bruising had been worth it if it generated more work. “I’d be happy to oblige. But I . . . uh . . . I hope I can trust you not to mention . . .”

  “Of course.” Edward nodded thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Forgotten?”

  “What it’s like when you first get here and you assume you have to be as desperately secretive as you’ve always been.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Well, you have to be discreet, of course,” said Edward. “But Hollywood is like no other place in the world for people like us.” He smiled. “You’ll see.”

  26

  I hired out to be an Indian in the morning then turned cowboy and chased myself all afternoon. They paid five dollars a day and two-fifty extra to fall off a horse. Make it ten dollars and I’ll let the horse kick me to death.

  Hoot Gibson, actor, producer, director, writer

  “I’m pretty sure I die today,” Dan told Millie as they sat side by side on the shuddering truck heading out to the set the next day.

  Millie frowned. “How do you know?”

  “I chummed up to the scenarist yesterday afternoon between takes, and he told me I’m going to get shot in the back. Least it fits with history,” he muttered.