I, Fatty

by Jerry Stahl

  For a moment, we just stood there. Holding each other. Minta in the terry cloth robe she'd thrown over that lacey nighty, me in purple Chinese silk pajamas, courtesy of His Honor the mayor, still buttoned to the chin. We just stayed that way, in awkward embrace, swaying slightly. Looking into each other's eyes, then looking away. Then looking again and holding each other tighter still. The whole experience, in one way wonderful, was so unnerving in another I began to shake uncontrollably. When Minta offered to pour me a drink herself, I knew that I had taken the right woman for my bride.

  Honeymoon in San Berdoo

  The next day we were off on our honeymoon, if you can call five shows a day in San Bernardino a honeymoon. We'd signed on to a tour with an Irish comic named Walter Reed. Nine days later, in Arizona, we had still not consummated our union. Painful as it was to go into, I explained to Minta about Mama's little flower, and what Daddy said I did to it. Minta insisted that she understood. But I could tell how bad she felt.

  I did not try again to fulfill my manly duty until one night in Bisbee, Arizona. Bisbee was one of those towns so rife with vice, it was decided that Minta would keep to her rooms. Drinking with the fellows after the show, I was overwhelmed by the number of sporting girls in the street. A bunch of them let on that they liked husky boyos, and I even kind of accidentally let one lick me behind the ear, if you can imagine that. Somehow, visions of these ladies' painted faces played in my head like scenes in a one-reeler and spurred me to fulfill our union as God intended. Or almost. Unfortunately, as soon as my car pulled into the garage, I flooded the engine.

  I was—I know I've said it already—very self-conscious about my body. And I could not stop thinking how wide Minta's eyes went when she saw my drawers. I was so afraid she would laugh, my mouth dried up. Not knowing what else to do, I laid her down on the bed, kissed her forehead, then licked it a little, which made her giggle, and waited for something to happen. Neither of us spoke, but I could see Minta's bosom rising and falling with an urgency she seemed both shy and proud of. I closed my eyes, touching my new wife where her hand guided me. But then I froze. I don't know why.

  Finally, when the sound of the clock ticking had begun to feel like pounding, I leaped out of bed. I told Minta I was going out for a nightcap. I scrambled down to the hotel bar and tipped back a few—fast. Maybe more than a few. Next thing I know the room was swirling and my eyes burned from watching the sporting girls hike their slips up to scratch their thighs. It was around this time I returned to our nuptial chamber, determined.

  Entering the suite, I aimed myself directly for the bed, found my pint-sized bride, and pulled her towards me, careful not to paw. I held Minta as close as I could without hurting her. Then, as mentioned, I made my entrance. And a little bit of a mess.

  Later, the almost-official husband and wife spooned in the dark. I held Minta to me, telling her all over again about the little flower, trying to explain, but always ending up repeating "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry" until the words sounded like a jungle chant.

  Most of the above, I confess, I know only from Minta's accounting. I'd drunk so much, so fast, what remains in my memory is a perfumed blur, punctuated by one strange thought that lingers to this day: This, it occurred to me at the height of the act, is how they make jelly doughnuts . . .

  Each night from then on was spent in honest cuddling. Occasionally we made the effort, but when we got close my pipe burst. If I could even find it. Although, as Minta pointed out some time later—under much more savage circumstances—those may have only been the nights I remembered. There were, she hinted, many other nights. And many things she was not going to tell me, if I was going to insist that I didn't remember. Which may be true. When you pass out, your body and mind go down together. But when you black out, your mind says good night and your body heads off without it.

  When kidders in the company made jokes about our life as man and wife, when they hinted about my manly capacities—"Fatty's just a big softy!"—little Minta could always be counted on to take my hand and say, "That's all right. There are other ways to be affectionate . . . " This actually made me feel more embarrassed, though I never could find a way to tell her, since she meant so well.

  Still, for the rest of that tour, when I watched my wife descend on a cardboard crescent to sing her nightly showstopper, "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," I'd feel hot tears in my eyes. That's when I needed a drink the most. But mostly I just tried to keep chuckling. A good chuckle will always see you through. Although, in El Paso, a chuckle nearly got me killed.

  The Mexican Revolution Pie-Fight

  A free afternoon in El Paso is a mixed blessing. On this scalding April day, I was dragging the troupe around town, trying to find a keno game. When that plan fizzled, we ended up having a picnic on the banks of the Rio Grande. We were all amazed how, at that point, the mighty river was no wider than a good-sized trickle. When we looked up from the water, they were standing there. Soldiers. On the other side. A dozen of them, half-starved and filthy-looking, like they'd been in the jungle for so long they didn't know they were out of it. A couple of the soldiers saw us gawking and pulled their guns on us. I yelled, "Hold your fire!" Then I grabbed a ham sandwich and tossed it across the river. (If somebody's gonna shoot you 'cause they're hungry, why not feed 'em?) The soldiers didn't know whether to smile or fire. The boy who picked up the sandwich examined it seriously, then began to delicately peel off layers of ham, cheese, tomato, and bread and pass them out to his cohorts.

  One by one, after the boy dismantled the sandwich, the whole troupe started throwing whatever they could grab: apples, muffins, hard-boiled eggs. We were whooping it up good when a short, wild-haired pistolero with a giant mustache and twin cartridge belts criss-crossed over his chest rode his horse right into the middle of the soldiers, who instantly dropped our theatrical offerings and looked solemn. The power accorded this surly figure was apparent without a word being uttered.

  El Jefe turned his eyes from his soldiers to us and we all fell silent. Then he announced, in a commanding voice, "I am Pancho Villa!" There was a long, tense hush, until I bellowed back, "Have a pie, Pancho!" and threw a blueberry pie I happened to be holding across the river. An audible gasp rose from soldiers and actors alike as the pie sailed over the water. And then, an ever bigger gasp—this time of delight—as the Mexican leader turned on his horse, almost casually, and caught the pie one-handed with flawless timing. An amazing feat!

  Pancho tossed the pie back to me. I bobbled it but managed to hang on. His men and my own ragtag troops cheered wildly. I wasn't sure if I should throw it back again, then figured the Mexicans had probably gone a lot longer without pie than I had, and flung the thing back over. This time Pancho smiled and fired two shots that winged the pie plate before snatching it out of the air.

  Now this was a showman! I shouted, "Viva La Revolution!" Then "Bravo!" Pancho acknowledged my kudos. He smiled big, took a bite out of the pie, and fired his pistol straight in the sky as he galloped off with his freshly fed soldiers in the same direction he'd galloped in.

  "My God, that was Pancho Villa!" Reed kept saying. "There's a thousand-dollar reward on his head!"

  "Well," I said, "if he ever gets out of that jam, he's got a future in vaudeville."

  Something, I'd be lying if I didn't admit, I was no longer sure I wanted for myself.

  The Grind

  After the El Paso run was over, we were out of bookings, so Minta and I worked our way back to Los Angeles doing pass-throughs. We'd announce to whatever theater we could find that we were passing through, then I'd snag us a slot on the bill, pop onstage for some songs and patter, and finish with a surprise duet with Minta. Of course the regular acts weren't too happy about a "name" showing up. And half the time I had to practically sit on the manager to get us our money.

  The two of us got back to Los Angeles ragged and crabby—with little more cash in our money-sock than when we'd started out.
This meant we had to live with Minta's parents. I actually liked the Durfees. I liked their little house on Coronado Street in Echo Park. But I felt more squeamish than ever taking to bed with Minta knowing her Mom and Dad were two inches of plaster away. Lounging around one morning—"Pick up your feet, Roscoe, I'm dusting!"—I read a story in Variety about James O'Neill, who made 50 grand free and clear touring as the Count of Monte Cristo. For one role—50 grand!

  That was the thing to be: a real actor, making real money. Like I told Minta later, I must have forgotten about the money part when I prayed to the theater gods for a long-running role. (I also forgot to pray for the right long-running role, but never mind.) When, out of nowhere, impresario Ferris Hartman offered me a part in The Mikado, my first thought was Why me? But what was even stranger than the idea of Roscoe Arbuckle in The Mikado was the idea of where we were performing it—in the Far East. What could the audience possibly think?

  Still, after lounging around imitating furniture for all those weeks at the Durfees', I'd have played Queen Victoria in Pago Pago just to get out of the house.

  The Mysterious Orient

  The closer we came to departing, the more the whole notion made me nervous. How would we like a bunch of coolies coming to our shores, playing white men and making carnival of us? As I kept saying to Minta, it's like taking a minstrel show on a tour of plantations.

  But hunger, like I told you when I was stranded in San Jose at 10, always trumps nerves, so off we went. First to Honolulu and a command performance for Queen Liliuokalani, at the Royal Hawaiian Opera House. During the reception afterwards, I misjudged the potency of the native cane liquor. According to Minta, I made an appearance in a hula skirt, attempted to dance cheek to cheek with the queen—who looked 96 if she looked a week—then took ill and spewed poi on a royal show pony. My poor wife had to apologize the next day. (Not, sadly, for the last time.) I was ushered unceremoniously out of the palace, and advised not to try and return to Hawaii without armed guards.

  All the way to the boat in Honolulu, I was convinced I was going to be hijacked, skewered with an apple in my mouth, and left for pineapple fertilizer. Sadly, my boorish behavior, and poor Minta's inevitable apology, set the tone for the expedition.

  Round-Eyed Demon

  When the 43 of us arrived in China, it was obvious at once this was 43 more white people than any of the natives had seen before. Men and boys followed me everywhere—including to the public latrine—where, to my amazement, I'd find them brazenly ogling my privates.

  Our host, a Chinaman who spoke English like a landed duke, explained that your average Chinee believed "round-eyes" were endowed with jumbo equipment, and could not resist the chance to catch a glimpse of the big fat white man's package. I felt like a zoo animal, and became too self-conscious to urinate. I held it in till my scalp felt damp. I was afraid of what would happen if they weren't impressed. I was a big man, but I wasn't a big man.

  To keep the locals out of pee-peek range, my host told the throngs of curious that I was a wrestler, and it would be dangerous to stand too close in case I got riled. After less than a week in the East, I found myself cupping my wiener when I passed water, blocking the eyes of the curious, like a man trying to light a smoke in a strong wind.

  We spent a year and a half in the Far East, and halfway through I stopped drinking after the show. Instead I started drinking before it. Thank you. It was all just too much. In Tokyo we saw prostitutes kept in swinging cages. They looked about 9, with eyes so dead you wanted to rip your heart out and feed it to them to make them alive again. In Shanghai, to get to our restaurant we had to step over children in the street, old-looking babies grown big-headed from starvation. My wife wanted to adopt every one, and I had to pull her away with more force than either of us cared for.

  Minta was even more livid the first time I paid for a rickshaw. How could I be so insensitive? It took four dainty yellow men to move this big fat white one an inch and a half. The Chinese on hand to catch the spectacle seemed to find it highly amusing. Especially the other rickshaw drivers.

  What the Chinks enjoyed more than anything was watching their friends get hurt. The perfect Mack Sennett audience. Stick four Keystones in coolie hats, let 'em lose control of the rickshaw on a steep hill with me in it, and you've got yourself a two-reeler. Culling a chuckle from the suffering of others appeared to be a universal plot.

  When Minta ranted about the rickshaw ride, I told her that, harsh as the work might seem to her, if she had never been broke, really broke, then she could never understand how much our little slant-eyed chums would appreciate having it—not to mention how gaga they'd go over my sizable four-way tip for a job well done.

  But Minta didn't see things that way. We fought constantly, not just about the beggars—she couldn't pass an outstretched hand—but about whatever impropriety I'd perpetrated on our gracious host or fellow cast members the night before. The worse my behavior, the more uncomfortable my wife's next-morning apology was to the other actors and local society swells whose carpets I'd waltzed on with poop on my shoes the night before. Poor Minta had sacrified a promising career to become a professional apologizer. But to give the angel her due—she was good at it.

  I loved my wife, but I hated myself when I was around her. Does any drunk like to be called an ogre by his glass widow before he knows how big a hangover he has to sweat through that morning, or what manner of shame he brought on himself and his loved ones the previous evening? I suppose I could blame the ground rhino horn they put in sake—I've downed tastier paint thinner—but it was my own fault that in Asia I became a belligerent dipso. Somewhere in Nanking Province, the entire troupe began to regard me with that worse-than-hateful, worse-than-angry look that every lush on the planet has had aimed in his or her direction. The look that says, "Before, your behavior was just disgusting—now it's making our lives a living hell." The words may as well be plastered on their foreheads: "You're an asshole and we wish you would just go away."

  Still, when Fatty was buying, Roscoe always had friends. Anything was better than the tension of being cooped up with Minta. My wife's mounting disappointment in me made it hard to breathe. I couldn't wait to head out with the boys at night and get roaring. Since women weren't allowed in drinking joints, Minta remained behind. Some nights I'd crash back into our room at some ungodly hour, screaming so loudly the entire company would get an earful. "I'm tired of having to carry the whole damn show on my back! What am I—a white sumo?"

  "Two sumoes!" someone shouted from down the hall. Or so Minta told me. I, of course, have no memory of Nanking Province whatsoever.

  Somehow, in my hooch-addled brain, it was Minta's fault that we were slaving away in Riceland instead of doing respectable theater and getting rich like that O'Neill fellow. The Count of Monte Cristo, every day of your life. And wouldn't that be heaven?

  If I really concentrate, I can squeeze out a cracked memory or two of the Mikado tour. The worst image is Minta cowering on a tatami mat—the fear in her eyes so damning it made me want to hurl somebody out the window. Probably myself. Did she really think I'd hit her? She must have, or she would not have looked so scared.

  I could tell the company was turning on me, so I picked up every tab. Bought everyone presents of shantung silk. Organized tea parties that started out pleasant and ended up with me sweaty-faced, doing the Black Bottom with nervous women I'd yank out of their chairs—often as not the wives of respectable businessmen too polite to kill me.

  The cast knew how much cash had gone to keeping me out of scrapes. They also knew how much it cut into the net profits. My assaholic behavior was taking money out of everybody's pockets.

  By the time we hit the Philippines, the strain and firewater caught up to me. My voice went. I got a fever of 104. For three weeks I soaked the sheets in Manila, stinking up a hotel room and shutting down the show—leaving the rest of the company unpaid and justifiably hateful.

  Living with In-Laws

  Is Its O
wn Kind of Death

  All I wanted to do was crawl back to Los Angeles. Once we actually returned, though, it was back to Minta's parents' house, back to scraping around for work. It didn't take too many botched auditions before I had to admit I was never going to be a high-paid serious stage actor. With my body, I was not likely to be a serious anything. Who was I kidding? They were paying to see a dancing elephant, not a dramatic one.

  Minta grabbed some chorus work through a man her Dad met in his capacity as streetcar conductor. This gave me more time to hunker in the Durfees' easy chair and stew. Some days my big activity was lifting my ankles when Minta's Mom vacuumed around me.

  For hours, I sat in that chair, sneaking sips from a flask and pawing my tattered scrapbook to see what a big-time headliner I was in vaudeville. But sooner or later I'd have to raise my eyes and admit what I was in life: a dead broke, bone-tired 22-year-old who'd been hustling nonstop for 12 years, a young man who'd known top billing and now lived off the charity of his wife's parents.

  That night, waiting at the streetcar stop to meet Minta and walk her home after her night on the chorus line, I ran into a hoofer named Davey Woods. Woodsy and I had worked a tour or two together and crossed paths on the circuit for years. The last time I'd seen him he was fanny-out-of-his-pants broke in Idaho, stranded after a promoter stiffed him. Now here he was, back in Los Angeles, in a spanking new suit and boater. When I told Woods how well he looked, he smiled sheepishly and looked down at his shiny new shoes. "Movies, Roscoe."

  "Movies!" I launched into my usual diatribe: "Only people so poor they couldn't afford a vaudeville ticket go to the nickelodeon. . . . Any actor who would demean himself by blah blah blabbity blah . . ."

  Then I heard myself and laughed. What was more demeaning than living off your wife's parents? Even if I could go star in a vaudeville show, right now I couldn't afford a ticket to one. Years after this, Buster Keaton told me how, in 1914, William Randolph Hearst offered his father big money to put the Three Keatons, the family vaudeville act, in a feature movie version of the comic strip Bringing Up Father. Pops Keaton turned Hearst down flat. "The dough's great, but the work's beneath us." He'd sure change his tune down the road, but then who wouldn't?