“It’s fine,” he said, “nothing important is left out and I think it reads just as well.”
“Maybe better.”
Then there was more applause. Francine Bowers was making her entrance. She wasn’t that old but she was from the old school. She stood very straight (straight as in regal) turning her head slowly to the right and then to the left, smiling, then not smiling, then smiling again. She hesitated and stood there. She stood like a statue for ten seconds, then moved forward gracefully into the room. This earned her more applause. A few flashbulbs popped. Then she relaxed. She stopped at some of the tables for a word or two, then moved on.
God, I thought, what about the writer? The writer was the blood and bones and brains (or lack of same) in these creatures. The writer made their hearts beat, gave them words to speak, made them live or die, anything he wanted. And where was the writer? Who ever photographed the writer? Who applauded? But just as well and damn sure just as well: the writer was where he belonged: in some dark corner, watching.
Then, behold! Francine Bowers approached our table. She smiled at Sarah and Jon, then spoke to me, “Did you write in that leg scene for me yet?”
“Francine, it’s in there. You get to flash them.”
“You’ll see. I have great legs!”
“I certainly hope so.”
She leaned over the table toward me, smiled her beautiful smile, her eyes shone above those famous high cheek bones. “Don’t worry.”
Then she straightened and was gone, off to another table.
“I have to see Friedman about something,” said Jon.
“Yes,” I said, “ask him about pay day.”
Sarah and I continued to sit and study the crowd. Sarah was good at parties. She pointed people out to me, told me about them. I saw things that I never would have noticed. I had most of humanity pegged on a very low scale and preferred not even to take notice of them. So Sarah made them a bit more interesting, which I appreciated.
The night wore on, and as usual Sarah and I didn’t order any food. Eating was hard work and, after 2 or 3 drinks, the food was tasteless. Strangely as the wine got warmer it seemed to taste better. Then, out of nowhere, appeared Jon Pinchot.
“Look,” he pointed to a table, “over there is one of Friedman’s lawyers.”
“Good,” I said, “I’m going over there. Please join me, Sarah...”
We walked over and sat down. The lawyer was well into his cups. Next to him was a very tall, blond lady. She sat tall and rigid, as if frozen. She had a long long neck and the neck stretched and stretched, rigid. It was painful to look at her. She looked frozen.
The lawyer knew us.
“Ah, Chinaski,” he said, “and Sarah...”
“Hello,” said Sarah.
“Hello,” I said.
“This is my wife, Helga...”
We said hello to Helga. She didn’t answer. She was frozen, sitting tall in her chair.
The lawyer waved in some drinks. Two bottles appeared. Things looked good. The lawyer, Tommy Henderson, poured.
“Betcha you don’t like lawyers,” he said to me.
“Not as a group, no.”
“Well, I’m an all-right lawyer, I’m not a crook. You think because I’m working for Friedman that I’m out to screw everybody?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not...”
Tommy drained his wine glass, poured another. I drained mine.
“Take it easy, Hank,” said Sarah, “we have to drive back.”
“If it gets too bad we’ll take a cab back. The lawyer will pay.”
“That’s right, I’ll pay...”
“Well, in that case...” Sarah drained her glass right off.
The tall frozen woman was still frozen. Mostly it was painful to look at her. Her neck was so long and stretched that the veins protruded—long hard aching veins. It was truly awful.
“My wife,” said the lawyer, “has given up drinking.”
“Oh, I see...” I said.
“Good for you,” said Sarah, “that takes courage, especially with people drinking all around you.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I said, “worst thing in the world is being sober around a bunch of damn fool drunks.”
“I woke up alone and naked one morning at 5 a.m. on the sands of Malibu. That did it for me.”
“Good for you,” I said, “it takes guts to cut it out.”
“Don’t let anybody talk you out of it,” said Sarah.
The lawyer, Tommy Henderson, poured fresh drinks for himself, Sarah and me.
“Chinaski doesn’t like me,” he said to his wife, Helga. “He thinks I’m a crook.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Helga.
“Oh yeah? Oh yeah?” said the lawyer. He drained most of his drink, then looked at me. He stared deeply. “You think I’m a crook?”
“Well,” I said, “probably...”
“You think we’re not going to pay you?”
“That’s the feeling that I have ...”
“Well, listen, I’ve read most of your books, what do you think of that? I think you’re a great writer. I think you’re almost as good as Updike.”
“Thanks.”
“And, listen to this, this morning I mailed out all the checks. You people are going to get paid. You’ll have your money in the next mail.”
“It’s true,” said Helga, “I saw him put the checks in the mail.”
“Great,” I said, “you know, it’s only fair...”
“Sure, it’s fair. We want to be fair. We had a cash flow problem. Now it’s solved.”
“It’s going to be a good movie,” I said.
“I know it. I’ve read the script,” said Tommy. “Now, do you feel better about everything?”
“Hell yes.”
“Do you still think I’m a crook?”
“Well, no, I can’t.”
“Let’s drink to it!” said Tommy.
He filled the glasses. We raised them in a toast. That is, Tommy, Sarah and I did.
“To an honest world,” I said.
We clicked the glasses and drank them down.
I noticed that the veins in Helga’s neck were protruding further than ever. Nevertheless, we drank on.
We made small talk. A lot of it was about how brave Helga was.
We were the last to leave. That is, Helga, Tommy, Sarah and myself. The remaining two waiters gave us very dirty looks as we left. But Sarah and I were used to that. And Tommy most probably was too. Helga walked with us toward the exit, still rigid and suffering. Well, she wouldn’t have a hangover in the morning. Then, it would be our turn.
31
We went down to the other set on Alvarado Street on Monday a week later. We parked a couple of blocks away and walked over. As we got closer we could see that there was some activity around Jack Bledsoe’s Rolls-Royce.
“They’re taking some shots,” said Sarah.
There was Jack Bledsoe standing on the hood of the Rolls and standing up there with him were two of his biker pals. The flashbulbs went off, the bikers laughed, Bledsoe smiled and they all walked around on the hood in their heavy boots, changing positions for more shots.
“I don’t think that’s too good for the hood,” said Sarah.
Then I saw Jon Pinchot. He walked toward us. There was a tired smile upon his face.
“What the hell’s going on here, Jon?”
“We have to keep the children happy.”
Then there was a yell from one of the bikers. Everybody leaped off the hood. The shots were finished. They walked off, laughing and talking.
“Look at those dents on the hood,” said Jon.
“Everywhere. Didn’t they notice?”
“They don’t know. They live, not knowing.”
“That poor beautiful car,” said Sarah.
(It would later cost $6,000 to get those dents taken out of the hood and to repaint it.)
“You talked to the lawyer at the party, d
idn’t you, Hank?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the checks had been mailed out.”
“That’s true. I got them and deposited them in my account.”
Jon opened his wallet. He took them out. There were two of them. Stamped across the face of each it said: Insufficient Funds.
“They are on a Netherlands bank. Rubber.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said.
“Why?” Sarah asked. “Why is Firepower doing this?”
“I don’t know. I confronted Friedman this morning. He claimed the checks were good, that the accountant deposited funds in the wrong bank account and that as soon as the funds were transferred back the checks would be good. I told him, These are drawn on a Netherlands bank. No bank here will touch them when they are marked and stamped as they are. You must write me new checks.’ Friedman said, ‘No, I can’t do this on my own. I must wait for my accountant to straighten it out.’ “
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“I told Friedman, ‘All right, let’s get your accountant in here.’ And he said, ‘My accountant is at the deathbed of his mother in . Chicago. She is dying of cancer.’ Then he leaned back in his chair and looked out the window.”
“ ‘Mr. Friedman,’ I told him, ‘this is not right.’ “
“Then what did the monster say?” Sarah asked.
“He looked at me with those innocent blue eyes and he said, ‘Remember, baby, nobody else in this town wanted this film. They spit on it. They laughed at it. We took it on, remember that. Work with us, honey-boy, and you’ll be in the clover.’ “
“Then what did you do?”
“Sarah, Hank, please come with me now,” Jon said. “We are getting ready to shoot the bathtub scene. Remember it?”
“Yes, of course. Are you going to go ahead without pay?”
We walked toward the set.
“The bathtub scene is going to be a good one. I like it,” Jon said.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s all right.”
Jon continued his story. “Anyhow, after seeing Friedman, I went around the block. I walked around the block twice looking at that green Firepower building. Then I finally had had it. I walked back to Friedman’s office...Pardon me, Hank, please stand behind me as I sit in this chair...”
“Huh?”
There was a photographer standing and waiting. Jon sat in a chair.
“Are you behind me?”
“Yes.”
“Now give a big phoney smile.”
I did.
The flash went off.
“Again,” said Jon.
The flash went off again.
“Good. That’s it.”
Jon got up. “Follow me. We’re shooting upstairs...”
We began up the stairway.
“Friedman and Fischman had a photo just like that taken last week, Friedman in the chair, Fischman standing behind him, both of them smiling. The photo appeared as a full page ad in Variety. And under it were the words, FIREPOWER WILL WIN!”
“Yeah?”
“Wait. Stop here. Let me tell the rest before we enter the set.”
“All right.”
We stood there at the top of the stairway. The shooting was to take place down the hall.
“I went back to his office. I told Friedman that I had seen his ad in Variety. I said that you and I were taking out an ad next week. You and I with the same pose. And underneath would also be a picture of the two bounced checks with the caption, FIREPOWER WILL WIN, BUT HOW? I told him that unless we received two certified checks within 48 hours that this ad would appear.”
There was an extremely tall man standing at the end of the hall. It was Jon’s assistant director, Marsh Edwards.
“We’re ready to shoot, Jon. Everything’s ready.”
“Wait...I’ll be right there...”
“Maybe you can tell us later?” Sarah asked.
“No, I want to finish. Then I told Friedman, ‘On the other hand, if we get the certified checks within 48 hours, we can still run the ad in Variety, minus the Netherland checks, and the caption will say, FIREPOWER, WE WILL HELP YOU WIN!’ “
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“He didn’t say anything for a while. Then he said, ‘O.K., you’ll have your checks.’ “
“But those shots you just took of us have big fake smiles. Won’t we need better shots for a FIREPOWER, WE WILL HELP YOU WIN! ad?”
“If we get the checks,” said Jon, “we’ll forget the ad. Such an ad would cost $2,000.”
With that we moved along the hall to shoot the bathtub scene.
32
The bathtub scene was a simple one. Francine was to sit in the tub and Jack Bledsoe was to sit with his back against it, there on the floor, while Francine sat in the water talking about various things, mainly about a killer who lived there in her building, now on parole. He was shacked up with an old woman and beat her continually. One could hear the killer and his lady ranting and cursing through the walls.
Jon Pinchot had asked me to write the sound of people cursing through the walls and I had given him several pages of dialog. Basically, that had been the most enjoyable part of writing the screenplay.
Oftentimes in those roominghouses and cheap apartments there was nothing to do when you were broke and starving and down to the last botde. There was nothing to do but listen to those wild arguments. It made you realize that you weren’t the only one who was more than discouraged with the world, you weren’t the only one moving toward madness.
We couldn’t watch the bathtub scene because there just wasn’t space enough in there, so Sarah and I waited in the front room of the apartment with its kitchen off to the side. Actually, over 30 years ago I had briefly lived in that same building on Alvarado Street with the lady I was writing the screenplay about. Strange and chilling indeed. “Everything that goes around comes around.” In one way or another. And after 30 years the place looked just about the same. Only the people I’d known had all died. And the lady had died 3 decades ago and there I was sitting drinking a beer in that same building full of cameras and sound and crew. Well, I’d die too, soon enough. Pour one for me.
They were cooking food in the little kitchen and the refrigerator was full of beers. I made a few trips in there. Sarah found people to talk to. She was lucky. Every time somebody spoke to me I felt like diving out a window or taking the elevator down. People just weren’t interesting. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn’t understand it.
Jon Pinchot was still one day ahead of the shooting schedule and I was damned glad for that. It kept Firepower off our backs. The big boys didn’t come around. They had their spies, of course. I could pick them out.
Some of the crew had books of mine. They asked for autographs. The books they had were curious ones. That is, I didn’t consider them my best. (My best book is always the last one that I have written.) Some of them had a book of my early dirty stories, Jacking-Off the Devil. A few had books of poems, Mozart In the Fig Tree and Would You Let This Man Babysit Your 4 Year Old Daughter? Also, The Bar Latrine Is My Chapel.
The day wafted on, peacefully but listlessly.
Some bathtub scene, I thought. Francine must be fully cleansed by now.
Then Jon Pinchot just about ran into the room. He looked undone. Even his zipper was only halfway up. He was uncombed. His eyes looked wild and drained at the same time.
“My god!” he said, “here you are!”
“How’s it going?”
He leaned over and whispered into my ear. “It’s awful, it’s maddening! Francine is worried that her tits might show above the water! She keeps asking ‘Do my tits show?’ “
“What’s a little titty?”
Jon leaned closer. “She’s not as young as she’d like to be...And Hyans hates the lighting...He can’t abide the lighting and he’s drinking more than ever...”
Hyans w
as the cameraman. He’d won damn near every award and prize in the business, one of the best cameramen alive, but like most good souls he liked a drink now and then.
Jon went on, whispering frantically: “And Jack, he can’t get this one line right. We have to cut again and again. There is something about the line that bothers him and he gets this silly smile on his face when he says it.”
“What’s the line?”
“The line is, ‘He must masturbate his parole officer when he comes around.’ “
“All right, try, ‘He must jack-off his parole officer when he comes around.’ “
“Good, thank you! THIS IS GOING TO BE THE 19TH TAKE!”
“My god,” I said.
“Wish me luck...”
“Luck. .
Jon was out of the room then. Sarah walked over.
“What’s wrong?”
“19th take. Francine is afraid to show her tits, Jack can’t say his line and Hyans doesn’t like the lighting...”
“Francine needs a drink,” she said, “it will loosen her up.”
“Hyans doesn’t need a drink.”
“I know. And Jack will be able to say his line when Francine loosens up.”
“Maybe.”
Just then Francine walked into the room. She looked totally lost, completely out of it. She was in a bathrobe, had a towel around her head.
“I’m going to tell her,” Sarah said.
She walked over to Francine and spoke quietly to her. Francine listened. She gave a little nod, then walked into the bedroom off to the left. In a moment Sarah came out of the kitchen with a coffeecup. Well, there was scotch, vodka, whiskey, gin in that kitchen. Sarah had mixed something. The door opened, closed and the coffeecup was gone.
Sarah came over. “She’ll be all right now...”
Two or three minutes passed, then the bedroom door flung open. Francine came out, headed for the bathroom and the camera. As she went past, her eyes found Sarah: “Thank you!”
Well, there was nothing to do but sit about and indulge in more small talk.
I couldn’t help but look back into the past. This was the very building I had been thrown out of for having 3 women in my room one night. In those days there was no such thing as Tenants’ Rights.