"Get out of here," he screamed at her one day. "I wish you had polio and not me."
Stanley would be crippled for life. He knew it. His father didn't tell him that, but he knew it. Just like he knew other things his father didn't tell him. That he never went to work anymore, and that he was giving up his practice totally to Dr. Charles so he would have nothing to do every day but be home with Stanley. And he was very worried, Stanley could see it in his eyes. Just the way he knew Albert's helpless expression, he knew the worried one too.
When he wasn't hovering over Stanley, Albert was taking care of Bonny. Shopping with her, making sure she had a portion of his time every day.
Albert moved the television set into Stanley's room, to distract the boy from what was becoming an agonizing process.
The television set. Stanley always had it on. Every waking minute. Even some sleeping minutes. Amazing. Sometimes he would wake up at night and the postprogram flurry of dots would be on and he would stare at them, seeing colors and shapes. It wasn't long before he knew everything about every show. News, Westerns, detective shows, Beat the Clock, Kukla, Fran and Ollie. He played a game with himself, where he tried to remember who each of the writers was, and who the producers and the directors were, and where the shows were made. He loved Boston Blackie. It was on on Friday nights at nine thirty. Albert and Bonny joined him to wait for it. First they would watch I Remember Mama at eight because Bonny liked the little girl named Dagmar. Then at eight thirty they'd watch Life of Riley. Then Bonny would go to sleep and Albert and Stanley would watch The Big Story and Albert would fall asleep in his chair. By the time Boston Blackie came on, Stanley would have to try to hear it over Albert's snoring.
Blackie was played by Kent Taylor. He was handsome and tough and smart. And sometimes he got into his convertible without even opening the door. He just vaulted over the side into the front seat and drove away. Stanley wanted to do that. To move and be like that. Watching Boston Blackie helped him decide he couldn't and wouldn't be crippled. He would endure the hot packs his father told him were called the Sister Kenny treatment. Even though in his mind he was sure Sister Kenny must be some monster who hated children.
Dr. Grogen came by once a week to examine Stanley. For the first few months, every time he came, he took Albert aside and chastised him for doing this to Stanley, to himself and to Bonny. Albert never said a word in response. After a while Grogen stopped commenting. To begin with, the boy didn't look so bad. But mainly, Grogen knew Albert never even heard him anymore.
Once, in a sort of joke, Grogen made a remark to Albert about his being like Florence Nightingale. It made Albert laugh and became Grogen's nickname for him.
"You're tough, Flo," Grogen would say, and the two of them would laugh heartily. Grogen was right. Albert was tough, but he was getting tired, too. He was only thirty-four years old, but he felt as though he were ancient. The stairway leading to the bedrooms seemed more and more difficult to climb when he carried up Stanley's meals. And then, every day, so many times, boiling those blankets, over and over, twisting them, wringing them out. Carrying them upstairs, too. And watching his baby. His wonderful boy, trying bravely not to cry out from the pain of the heat. Stanley only joked and called him the Bully with the Blankets.
Sometimes Albert thought maybe Stanley would be better off . . . No. He had to be there for him. If the boy was in a hospital, Albert couldn't be on top of everything. In control. He had to stay with it. He would.
"God damn you, Flo, you devil," Grogen said to him. It had been nearly a year. "You did it. He's perfect."
Stanley had licked the polio. Albert had licked it. The boy and his father both grinned, then squeezed one another's hands conspiratorially. Albert bought himself a bottle of wine. Stanley wrote a poem called "God Bless Sister Kenny," and after he'd printed a neat copy of it and showed it to Albert, they mailed it to the Sister Kenny Institute in Minnesota.
After Stanley recovered from polio, Albert was a different person. Happier. Less serious. It was almost as though curing Stanley relieved him of the guilt he had for being unable to cure Lena. The young dentist was anxious to have the well-loved Albert come back to the office, so they made arrangements for his return to the practice.
Stanley was a different person, too. The year he'd spent at home in bed had changed him. Made him quiet. Introspective. And reentering the world of other kids was hard for him. He had spent so much time watching television that he'd never once opened the math book or the spelling book the school sent to him, accompanied by a get-well-soon card a year ago. So he was behind academically. But there was something else wrong, too. Something about the way the kids were acting now. And even the way they looked. Especially the girls.
A couple of them had real bad pimples, and all of them were giggly and secretive and would sometimes just start crying for no reason at all. Yuch! The only thing he liked about school was coming home every day after it was over. He would turn on the television and watch anything and everything. He even watched WEBU, the educational channel. And when he realized the station was located in downtown Miami, without asking Albert's permission he took a bus there one day after school.
There it was. All of it. Cameras and lights and microphones. And the sets. He recognized the sets from a show called Wendy's World. It was a puppet show and Wendy was a pudgy blond woman who was a very bad ventriloquist. Each day, in a fifteen-minute segment, Wendy and the puppets would deal with some moral issue, then resolve it, and end the segment with a song. Wendy was on her set today and Stanley stood wide-eyed on the sidelines, and watched as she slipped Winnie on her left hand and Wally on her right.
"Okay, let's take the song from the top, Wendy yelled to someone who was controlling the tape-recorded music Her voice sounded a lot different from the way it did on the show when she would say, "Welcome to Wendy's wide and wonderful world," or when she was talking to the puppets. But then the music started and she was using the Wendy voice that Stanley remembered. And the Winnie voice. And the Wally voice. They all sounded pretty much alike.
"We're Wendy, we're Winnie and we're Wally
And we want to welcome you to Wendy's World
Where whimsy and wisdom and wishes all abound
Where weakness and worries and woes just can't be found."
It was really neat to hear it in person. Stanley decided to come back the next day, too. For a few months he visited WEBU every day, and the people there were beginning to think he belonged there, so they started giving him jobs to do. Little jobs, like going to the coffee machine in the hallway to bring back coffee, or running outside to close someone's car window when it started raining unexpectedly. But it wasn't until Stanley got up the nerve to ask Arnold West, the station manager, if they would pay him a small wage, and West agreed, that Stanley even mentioned to Albert where he had been going every day after school.
Albert was concerned. Stanley's report cards were pretty disappointing. But after Stanley swore he'd bring his grades up, Albert agreed to let him take a real job at WEBU. It became the most important thing in his life.
After two years of sweeping the studio and emptying the trash cans and ashtrays, and making sure he always had quarters in his pocket for the coffee machine, Stanley got his first big break.
The station was short-handed that week and they needed someone to turn the TelePrompTer for a professor who was speaking on "Comedy and Tragedy in Literature." Stanley was chosen, and Arnold West told him he did a great job. "A great job means I didn't fall asleep from boredom," Stanley said. As a result, the next week they asked him to pull the photographs, one at a time and in order, while an expert in ornithology gave a lecture on endangered birds. Stanley asked Bonny to watch that day. "This could be stardom," he told her. "Maybe part of my hand will be seen on camera and then, who knows? My own show." Bonny told him later that his hand was never visible.
Finally, when he was a senior in high school, they let Stanley operate a camera during a geography lecture.
He was thrilled. "This is creativity. Great art. And I'm grateful for the opportunity," he said to West, who laughed. Stanley's camera was focused, throughout the entire lecture, on a map of South America.
Stanley didn't want to go to college, but Albert insisted. So he applied to and was accepted by the University of Miami. The school was in his neighborhood, and if he didn't take a full load of credits he would be able to continue at WEBU. By now he was telling his ideas for new programming to Arnold West and West liked them. West liked Stanley. Stanley's best idea wasn't really original. He stole it from the television series You Are There. He wrote a series of short plays telling stories from history in a simple way. He would combine the use of drawings with scenes performed by members of the school's drama department. And the actors answered questions from the narrator, played by Stanley.
The first show was about Christopher Columbus discovering America. A boy named Michael Tucker played Columbus. He was a very good actor. Queen Isabella was played by Carol Sue Schwartz. Carol Sue was from Memphis, so her portrayal of Queen Isabella included a Southern accent. But that didn't bother Stanley. He was willing to give her other parts too. He told her that one night in the doorway of her Coral Gables apartment.
"Would you like to play the part of Betsy Ross in my next production and go to bed with me?"
"Huh?"
"It's a yes-or-no question."
"Now wait—"
"Would you?"
"It's a good thing ah lahk you, Stanley Rose, or ah'd slap you."
"Sounds like a no to me."
"There were two parts to that question," she said.
"Not really."
"You mean you'd use your power at that station to get a girl to bed?"
"Not really."
"Oh, I'm glad you wouldn't."
"No. No. 'Not really' was me repeating the answer to the question before."
"Then you would."
"In your case. Maybe."
"I don't know whether to laugh or—"
"Laugh."
She did. They went to bed together that night. They also went steady for his whole senior year.
Stanley was starting to think of himself as the creative force behind WEBU. He was, after all, a writer, a director and a producer. So when graduation time came, he informed Albert he was heading "out West" to get an agent. He kissed Carol Sue Schwartz goodbye. "I'll send for you," he said, and they both laughed, knowing it was B.S., as Carol Sue called it. Then he told Arnold West he would be using him as a reference, took the money he'd saved from his job at WEBU and flew to Los Angeles.
For weeks Stanley made phone calls but he couldn't reach anyone at the William Morris Agency or at GAC who wanted to represent his directing career. He made the rounds of the local television stations, but only got as far as the receptionists, who told him, "Leave a résumé." He did. But no one called. He was beginning to understand that being a great director at WEBU didn't, as he later put it, "mean shit, or anything else of equal or lesser importance."
After Stanley had been in Los Angeles for eight months and still didn't have a job, his father, Albert, decided to take the matter into his own hands.
Albert called Larry Portner, a guy he'd known in dental school. Lawrence Portner, D.D.S., had his practice at 9255 Sunset Boulevard, which was between Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Portner and his wife, Sylvia, always called Albert and took him out to dinner when they came through Miami to see Sylvia's mother, Sadie, who lived in Miami Beach. Lawrence Portner showed Albert his clippings once. They were from columns where they referred to him as "Larry Portner . . . the dentist to the stars."
"My son is a director and a writer and a producer," Albert told Portner on the phone. "Twenty-two years old."
Portner wanted to know what Stanley's credits were.
"Local television," Albert said. "But he's brilliant."
"I'll see what I can do."
After a few days Portner called Albert Rose back.
"My contact is a guy named Joe Rabinowitz, a patient of mine," he said. "He has bad gums, but a good heart. He's some kind of executive in the television business, and he says, on my say-so, he'll recommend your Stanley for a job at the studio."
Albert thanked Portner, said someday he'd return the favor and he would have Stanley call Joe Rabinowitz right away.
When Albert told Stanley, Stanley said, "I can't believe I spent the last eight years of my life learning about television, and I'm getting a job in show business through the root-canal underground."
Stanley called Joe Rabinowitz's secretary. Rabinowitz was in the hospital. Portner was wrong. Rabinowitz's heart was as bad as his gums. Worse, maybe. He'd had a heart attack that morning and, as the secretary told Stanley, it didn't look good. Rabinowitz had, however, already written a letter to personnel regarding Stanley Rose, only yesterday. And she would send it off today. She wished Stanley luck, and when her other phone rang she said, "Just a sec," and put him on hold.
"Rabinowitz is dead," she said to Stanley when she came back on the line.
A few days later Stan got a call from the personnel office. If it wasn't too soon after his friend Joe Rabinowitz's death, they said, they'd like him to come in and start working right away. The job was in the mail room at Hemisphere Studios.
IN THE MAIL ROOM . . .
five
The first stop on any tour of Hollywood was always Hemisphere Studios.
In the middle of the arid San Fernando Valley, the Hemisphere executive building rose majestically from the bustling lot like a shrine to the film, television and music industries. The architect had worked closely with Harold Greenfield, the president and chief executive officer of Hemisphere, Inc., on the design.
Greenfield wanted the building to be twenty stories high with hundreds of windows that had an orange, yellow and brown cast, so that when they caught the California sun it would look as though the building were made of gold. Like a piece of fine jewelry. Maybe that was the reason the Hemisphere tower was sometimes referred to by people as "Greenfield's mezuzah." Or maybe because, as one well-known comedy writer quipped, "Inside there is a religious experience."
The personnel office was in the basement of the gold building. Stan Rose sat in a chair across from the receptionist reading Variety while he waited.
FILMWAYS FOUNDED IN 1953 WITH $200, SPENDING $25 MILLION ON PRODUCTION THIS YEAR. UNITED ARTISTS QUARTERLY NET RECORD $3,042,000, UP 46% OVER 1964. PREXY PREDICTS $12,000,000 PROFIT THIS YEAR.
The numbers fascinated him. The amounts were always so enormous. He wondered how much of it was true.
"Sorry you have to wait so long," the receptionist said. "They promised somebody would be right over to get you, but they're always real slow."
"I'll change all that," he said. She smiled.
She was great-looking. Probably wants to be an actress, Stan thought. He was playing a game with himself trying to decide what her name might be when he heard the door open and a very loud voice shout, "Judy baby!"
Stan turned to see who made the loud entrance. The young man was chubby and sweet-faced.
"Hi, Mickey," the receptionist, Judy, said, grinning, and before she could protest, the guy named Mickey had lifted her from her chair and was dancing her around the room singing like one of the Supremes. "Baby love, my baby love. I need you, oh how I need your love." Judy was screaming with laughter. Mickey pulled her against him. "Let's dance close, baby," he said, and whirled her around again.
"Mickey," she screamed through her laughter. "Get out of here." Mickey let Judy go, then he made an entire show of fanning himself, unzipping his pants, adjusting himself, and extending the hand he'd used to Stan Rose.
"No, thanks," Stan said, laughing.
"I'm Mickey Ashman."
"I'm Stan Rose."
"Welcome to Hemisphere Studios," Ashman said to Stan. "You'll love the mail room. It's the asshole of show business. Contrary to what some people believe, which is that I am. C'mon, I'll take you over there.
"
Stan nodded to Judy, who was sitting at her desk, combing her hair, trying to put herself back together.
"I love you, Judy," Mickey said, "and remember that any time you want to touch my penis it's okay with me because, after all, what are friends for?"
Judy shrieked at the outrage then giggled, and Mickey led the way for Stan out the door and onto the Hemisphere lot.
As they walked toward the gold cart that had the words Mail Room stenciled on it, Stan couldn't believe his eyes. Right in front of him was Lorne Greene. It took Stan a minute to realize who it was, and when he did his heart started to pound. It was one thing to see a star's footprints or parking place somewhere, and another to see the actual person. So real. Just walking by talking to someone, as if he were just a regular guy. Mickey saw the look on Stan's face and laughed. "Yeah," he said, "that's really him. You'll get used to it. There's Natalie Wood."
Stan turned quickly to look where Mickey was pointing. It was true. Natalie Wood and a man in a dark suit were entering the gold building. This job was going to be better than he imagined. It reminded Stan of the joke about the shy little man who was a janitor in a burlesque house. He came there every night to clean and watched the beautiful girls go by. One day, after the man had been there a few weeks, the boss asked him why he hadn't come by to pick up his pay check, and the janitor asked, "You mean I get paid for this, too?"
"Actually, the M.R. is right near the personnel office where you came in," Mickey told Stan as the cart started off with a lurch, "but I have to show you around the lot so you'll know where the routes are.
"The costume department is in that four-story building over there. The first floor is made up of sewing rooms and offices. And the second, third and fourth floors are lined with racks, covered with every kind of costume you can imagine. There's one huge room that's just shoes. Another one is only hats. Thousands of goddamned hats."
Stan shook his head in amazement.
The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel Page 8