There Should Have Been Castles

by Herman Raucher

  Pat Jarvas wasn’t helping my morale either, for she had gone completely the other way, calling me “office boy” and making me run errands that I knew could not be of Gruber’s design. The atmosphere was clumpy. I seemed to have more enemies than friends, though I could not object to my co-workers lack of affection for me since I had earned that enmity (though not by design). What I questioned was the imbalance of my own relationships. As friends I had Mickey Green, with Dora Leindorf a kind of nonbelligerent. Gruber? Tough to figure. Certainly I couldn’t go to him with my troubles. What it added up to was one friend, one neutral, and one enigma.

  As enemies I had that anatomical trio: Sam Gaynor, Pat Jarvas and Alan Morse—a prick, a cunt, and an asshole. The rest of them, as I said, were indifferent to me. Adding to the mix, both of my scripts were returned to me on the very same day.

  Philco had sent me a form letter thanking me for my submission and hoping that, perhaps, another script etc., etc. Kraft was a bit more personal: “We do not find the material to our liking and, in the future, please submit through a recognized literary agent…”

  What is a recognized literary agent? Does anyone really know? To this day I am uncertain what that phrase is intended to connote. At that time the image I had of a recognized literary agent was of a well-read fellow whose socks matched, who worked for a percentage, and to whom, if one recognized him on the street, one would say hello and feel the better for it because class had passed him by. Today I think otherwise. Today I think that a recognized literary agent is a man who sells books, can easily be picked out in a police lineup and readily be identified as a purse snatcher.

  I shined up my two returned scripts and, before they had even caught their breath, sent them out again, one to Studio One, the other to Theatre 60. If they came running home I’d call up Irving Tannenbaum and perhaps the two of us would get together and collaborate on a tooth.

  I was feeling wicked and evil the next day. No word from Ginnie beyond a picture post card of the Wrigley Building upon which she had written “Did you know there are no stationery stores in the Wriggly Building?” It took me a half hour to figure out the joke and even then I wasn’t sure it was funny.

  I went to the office with a premonition of doom. It wasn’t a specific feeling, it was more of an uneasiness. And I decided that, if doom was really afoot, I did not want it to be of my making. Or if it was to be of my making, then I hoped to exercise enough restraint in the provoking of it to still be able to bail out without getting the axe.

  Since I’d rather have been in Philadelphia, I managed to arrive at work ten minutes late and was instantly informed that “He wants to see you.”

  I strode into Alan Morse’s office and he was in his puffed-up chair, swiveling around so that he was looking out the window, his back to my face. He was a detestable runt, still rubbing my nose in it even though he had all the weapons and I had hardly a nose left at all.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  He didn’t move and didn’t speak. He just sat there, the top of his head barely visible over the back of his chair, gazing out of his stupid window which commanded a view of a brick building that had no windows with which to look back.

  “Your secretary said you wanted to see me.”

  No answer.

  And I blew. No script sale, no money in the bank, nothing between me and the poorhouse but the generosity of my out-of-town girlfriend, and I blew. “Listen, you little blot—” Even as I was talking, I wished that I wasn’t, that it was my thoughts I heard and not my voice. “…let me give you the word. I don’t want this fucking job! I wouldn’t work for you if you paid me a thousand bucks an hour! What you know about movie advertising wouldn’t fill your fucking inkwell! So shove it, Mr. Morse! Take a hot ramrod and shove it!” And before he could turn around and raise as much as an eyebrow, I stalked out, slamming the door on him, causing his secretary to jump three feet straight up. Had she been under the ceiling fixture at the time of her ascendance, she’d have impaled herself.

  I stormed down the corridor to the bullpen, slamming the door to that so hard that the entire plate glass fell out and crashed into the corridor. Dora screamed but Mickey looked at me with a mini-smile. “You did it, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah! And it’s a far better fucking thing than I have ever done before.” I was packing my things, throwing it all into the waste basket that I’d eventually use to haul it all away.

  Sam Gaynor was at his desk and was laughing, “You stupid shit. That’s what he wanted you to do. You walked raht into it. Man, you are some kind of a simpleton, you know that? He hands you the loaded gun and you go and blow your own balls off. He can’t fire you because of the fucking union so you go and fire yourself—to Mars! Webber, you have got all the intelligence of a freshly laid buffalo turd in the Sahara sun. You are as stupid as—”

  That’s all he got to say as I had picked up my metal stapler and fast-balled it at his head. Unfortunately for the glass partition behind him he ducked, and more glass flew. And Dora screamed anew. And Mickey moved to restrain Sam because that King Kong lump of crap was coming at me and it wasn’t to wish me good luck.

  I didn’t know whether to run for my life or wait for the sonofabitch in a field goal-kicking position from which I might send his balls over the wall to Grandmother’s house—three points for my side at the final gun, even though I’d lose the game by a hundred. Mickey couldn’t restrain the lummox for more than five seconds because Mickey didn’t weigh as much as Sam’s arm, but in that time another scream was heard from up the corridor, from Alan Morse’s office.

  It was his secretary, hysterical. “He’s dead! Oh my God he’s dead!”

  That set everything moving in a different direction. Sam Gaynor was standing and looking at me, his red-faced anger turning to bald-faced triumph. Mickey looked at me as if I had suddenly grown another head. And Dora collapsed into her chair, clutching at her heart and reaching for a life-saving Kleenex.

  Footsteps. Doors opening and closing. Other people arriving to investigate the situation. And Sam Gaynor leering at me. “I hope you did it, Webber. Man, how I hope you did it.” And he flicked Mickey off and swept past me, clomping up the corridor to see for himself.

  Later, after the police and the ambulance had arrived—because, yes, Alan Morse was dead, he had died just before I’d gone in—I was in Gruber’s office and that man was explaining it all to me.

  “He had terminal cancer. He knew it and we knew it. When it got to be too much for him, he popped a dozen sleeping pills and closed the book. He was an old buddy of Skouras’s. Strange man, Spyros. With Josh having walked out so suddenly, he told me to put Morse into the job, that Morse couldn’t live longer than a couple of months and that all the man wanted was a chance to die in the saddle. Don’t ever try to read Skouras, Ben. He’s been known to destroy people simply for the way they looked at him, yet he’ll turn around and make a gesture for an old friend that no one else in the world would make. Anyway, that’s what I couldn’t tell you and why I asked you to hang on.”

  “I’ve already quit.”

  “The man was dead. He never heard your resignation speech, though his secretary did. I hear it was a beaut.”

  “It was—heartfelt. I’m sorry the guy is dead, but a lot of Skouras’s loyalty came out of my hide. If someone had told me—”

  “Sorry, kid, nobody tells office boys nothing.”

  “Why was he such a bastard to me?”

  “You were Josh’s boy. You reported for work all teed off. You never gave him a chance to like you. Anyway, it’s over, and I think you should stay on. Don’t worry about the glass. We’ve been planning to do that whole place over anyway.”

  “Who gets to be ad manager?”

  “Buddy Connors. He’s my man. He’s been waiting since the day Josh walked. He knows you’re to be moved up to copywriter status.”

  “What happens to Gaynor? Won’t we have one copywriter too many?”

  “Sam moves to
Special Projects.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who knows? Whatever he wants. Best thing to do with Sam is to get him the hell out of the way.”

  “Isn’t he Skouras’s boy, too?”

  “His father is. I promise you, Ben, it’ll be the way you want it, the way it should’ve been.”

  I stayed on at 20th. Buddy Connors walked in almost before Alan Morse was carried out. It was as though he were waiting downstairs in the lobby. It was an aspect of daily life that I knew I had better get used to for it was happening continually, almost cyclically. I had seen it with my stewardesses and I had seen it in the Army; people were interchangeable and replaceable. Like leaves on trees they could fall off and be substituted for even as they were falling. There was always someone in the wings, waiting to go on. All I wanted then was my turn, one shot at the world before I too fell into the compost heap.

  One thing Gruber had said, albeit in passing, was that I had not given Alan Morse a chance to like me. Again it was being suggested, however obliquely, that thanks to my aggressive temperament, I had made a bad situation worse, made a dying man grieve, and brought dishonor upon my name. Well, I was getting just a bit tired of that shit. I had tried to keep my pugnacity in tow in every new relationship, but it never seemed to work out in my favor. And all I was ever left with for my efforts was a form of Hebraic guilt that, if I was not careful, was going to cause me to take on, as a second nature, a negative personality that would soon overpower the one God had given me. Though far from perfect, it was at least a positive personality, one I could build on and move forward from without forever wondering what bug I had offended or what cloud I had dislodged by simply attempting to establish my own tiny territorial rights.

  Why should I have given Alan Morse a chance to like me? What would have been so bad if he had given me a chance to like him? Why was I always being asked to give up the Sudetenland, to offer the first olive branch, to bake the first bread? Why was I always expected to be the Little Red Hen? I hadn’t killed Cock Robin. I didn’t even see him die. It was the sparrow who did it. He even admitted it. The sparrow had a bow and arrow. Me? I didn’t even have a pot to piss in.

  A conclusion and a new self-evaluation was cauldroning in my mind. For it was beginning to dawn on me that perhaps aggressiveness was not such a bad thing, that maybe it wasn’t aggressiveness at all but only ambition, and that maybe no one had the right to point fingers at anyone other than one’s own self. If one’s self thought one’s self bad, then one’s self was. But if one’s self didn’t, then one’s self wasn’t. And if one’s self didn’t do it anymore, then one’s self didn’t have to feel guilty anymore. The prime obligation of one’s self was to one’s self. And that applied to me just as it applied to little winter animals foraging for roots. I was foraging, too, and in the foraging I determined to God damn not feel guilty anymore. Mea Culpa get off my back!

  Back at my apartment I found two things in the mail: my script returned from Studio One, with the usual letter of rejection, and a letter from Don asking for another hundred dollars.

  I was not of a mind to send Don any more money, mostly because I didn’t have it to send. But even if I had, I wouldn’t. Who knew if I’d ever see him again or if he’d ever pay it back? Why should the Little Red Hen send bread that nobody had helped her bake? Fuck you, Cock Robin, you’re getting to be a pain in the ass, and I have miles to go, miles to go—mixing my metaphors all the way.

  I thought of writing to Don to explain why I could not send him more money, but I just didn’t feel up to either lying or spleenventing. So I just tore up his marker and placed his letter in the drawer.

  No letter from Ginnie and that was depressing, but she called an hour later and I lied to her on the phone, telling her that my three rejections were all very encouraging, that all three shows wanted to see more of my writing, that I had sent “Tony” to Theatre 60, and had a strong feeling I had a sale there because they were taking so long to decide.

  What I didn’t tell her was that Alan Morse had died and that I wanted to forget he ever lived. She filled me in on the act which was really going great. She was calling from Cleveland and next stop was Pittsburgh and did I want her to call my folks? I said yes, if she had the time, and no, not to tell them that we were living together.

  We swore eternal love, fidelity and celibacy, plus abstention from masturbation for as long as we both could last. When I hung up the phone I had no idea where I was in time. I took Don’s letter out of the drawer and figured what the hell, I’d send him the hundred dollars. But all I had in my checking account was $83.60, so I put his letter back into the drawer, thinking that maybe I should write to him and ask him for money because maybe he’d find it funny and wouldn’t it be better than not replying at all. So I did.

  Then Johnnie Walker and I went to Ginnie’s room, going to her closet and touching all her things and wondering what that was all tied up in brown paper, leaning against the far wall. But it really wasn’t my business and, excruciatingly tired, I fell asleep—in her bed, in her arms, in my dream.

  The phone was jarring, ringing as it did so middle-of-the-night that I thought the noise was inside my head and how do I answer that? Stumbled into the living room and got it. Somebody from NBC calling all day. Why hadn’t I put a phone number on my script where they could reach me when I wasn’t at home? What? Who is this? Jerry Kaplan, NBC, Theatre 60. Frank Brokaw’s office. Have your play. Can you come in to discuss? Who? Please take this number down and call at ten A.M. Jesus Christ. Goodbye.

  I woke at around seven, knowing that I’d spoken to someone on the phone during the night and wondering if I’d managed to write anything down on the subject. I had, on a bit of paper, on the table by the phone, two names and a phone number: “Julie Klimplin—Frankbroe Craw—Plizzy 630-999-256342-8808088808-8.” Which made about as much sense as having a hangover in the middle of the week.

  I made coffee and studied my scrawl as I sipped. Only Ginnie could have deciphered what I’d written. I got dressed, stuffed the bit of paper into my pocket, and bussed myself off to work.

  Buddy Connors was nice to me. He wanted my approval on the new office boy, Arnie Felsen—Corporal Arnie Felsen, back from Korea, honorably discharged, no battle scars, and anxious to go to work in the ad department if a transfer could be arranged.

  I was very glad to see Arnie because, due to circumstances over which I had only minimal control, he had become just by showing up my dearest and closest friend. I approved of him immediately and, suddenly, we had a nice group going—Mickey, Dora, Arnie, and me—all under the benign direction of Buddy Connors, not a great ad man, but in favor with Gruber and that’s what dreams are made on.

  Alan Morse was buried somewhere upstate, and Sam Gaynor was buried in an office on another floor, in another world, where later that day he would ask to have Arnie to run him some errands but would be turned down by Buddy because Arnie could not be spared until August of ’73. Buddy was applauded for his actions, after which we all went to a screening of a film that I don’t remember seeing because, ten minutes into it, I realized what the names and number in my pocket meant and ran out of the screening room and called NBC.

  I sat opposite Frank Brokaw in his dandy functional office that was strewn with photos of prior Theatre 60 productions, plus a few Emmy Awards and a thousand empty coffee containers. The man had to be the tallest, skinniest man alive—if he was alive, for there was some doubt in my mind because he hadn’t moved and hadn’t spoken and had been for ten minutes doing a superb imitation of Alan Morse the last time I saw that man.

  The talking had all been done by Jerry Kaplan, a young man in his early thirties, darkly handsome and carefully dressed. Kaplan had been telling me of all the problems they had with my play—that it was too long, depressing, had too many sets, and was guaranteed to unhinge the US Army because it was so blatantly anti-. Other than that, the play was fine.

  Brokaw spoke, in a raspy voice as if pushed thro
ugh a pencil sharpener. “Do you see the validity of our comments and will you make the changes because, if not, on our last play of the season we don’t need this kind of a headache.” He was clearly disturbed at having to interpret the rules to me and I half expected him to say, “Watch the low blows, no rabbit punches, and go to a neutral corner in event of a knockdown.”

  “I’ll make changes.”

  “I’m not anxious to murder your script, but the way it is now, I’ll never get it passed Network Continuity. And even if I did, the sponsor will kill it. Kemper Aluminum is very conservative. Who’s your agent?”

  “Barry Nadler.” Why in the world had I said that?

  “Who?”

  “Barry Nadler. Mostly handles performers. I’m his first writer.” And last.

  “Tell Jerry where the man can be reached. We pay $2500 for a first script. After that, if you do more with us it goes up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Brokaw drew himself to his feet wearily. “Look, you two work it out. I’ve got to get down to stage four. I’ve got Paddy waiting and—”

  “Paddy Chayefsky?” I asked.

  Brokaw smiled at Kaplan as he headed for the door. “Get him some aspirin, and a contract.”

  Kaplan sat on the couch, lit a cigarette and spoke slowly. “Ben, if I could write like you, I’d tell ’em where they could put this job. Still, I can do other things, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “First off, I think you ought to know I was with the 35th Division in Italy, and, though I share a lot of your opinions about how the Army can fuck up, I’m not anxious to do a hatchet job on them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t call me ‘sir,’ because all I was was a PFC. Your script is too partisan. The trick is to do it in a way where the audience can make up its own mind. Otherwise it’s liable to boomerang, and they’ll end up liking the Army and hating you. The way it is now, it’s too loaded. And, frankly, I resent a lot of it.”