There Should Have Been Castles

by Herman Raucher

  Variety Arts, Showcase, Dance Players, Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall—I checked out every room in every one of those places, without success. Obviously it had occurred to both of them that I might come looking for them so they were undoubtedly auditioning in a place so remote that not even they could find it without a guide.

  It was after seven P.M. when I got home. There was a package for me downstairs. Arnie Felsen’s script. He had dropped it off with a little note asking me to read it at my pleasure. It was the last thing I wanted to do.

  I called Richie again. No answer. I called Barry again. Nothing new. I read Arnie’s play. No talent. I had a sandwich and a beer. Two beers. I called Richie again. No answer. I called Richie every fifteen minutes. At nine forty-five he answered; I had worn him down. He knew it was me and why I had been calling so I went right at it. “Okay, Richie, enough farting around. Is Ginnie with you?”

  “She’s the guts of the act, Ben. More important even than me. I can replace me. I can’t replace her.”

  “I asked if she was with you.”

  “She’s not.”

  “But you know where she is.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And obviously you’re not going to tell me.”

  “She’s a half inch away from flipping. Neither of us can risk that. So, you have to stay away from her. You have to—give it time.”

  “If I give it time the whole thing’ll set and I’ll never be able to explain.”

  “You mean you can explain that?”

  “She told you.”

  “I practically had to pull it out of her. It was like defusing a bomb.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She functions.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “If you leave her alone she can make it back.”

  “Is that your diagnosis, Herr Doctor?”

  “You sound like an idiot.”

  “Richie, I have to see her. I can explain—”

  “No.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if, by keeping me away, you’re doing more harm than good?”

  “I don’t think I am. Whatever your explanation—She’s in lousy shape, Ben, okay? That was a helluva surprise you gave her. She’s only a kid. You and her mother? It’s a miracle she didn’t flip right on the spot. Why can’t you accept the fact that she’s on thin ice and that I’m the only one who can get her across—at least for the moment. It’s not even twenty-four hours.”

  “I told you, I’m afraid to wait.”

  “And I’m afraid not to. It’s a standoff. And the way it sets up, I win all ties. You still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “She says she never unpacked, that she left her bag there. Can you bring it over to Barry’s office?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll pick it up there and get it to her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not now. Do it first thing in the morning. Just leave it with Barry.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll have to stay away from her, Ben. She’s not ready.”

  “Who decides when she’s ready?”

  “Hopefully, she does. Okay?”

  “I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I’ll bring her bag over in the morning.”

  He hung up but I held the receiver for a few moments, afraid to hang up, afraid that, once I did, it would break my connection with Ginnie for all time. Eventually I hung up. And, out of sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep.

  I woke up because the sun was in the room. I looked at my rehearsal schedule. Ten A.M. to five P.M. Upstairs at the St. Nicholas Arena on West Sixty-sixth Street. I had almost two hours.

  I dressed and took Ginnie’s bag down. I sat it on the seat next to me in the cab, with my arm around it. It was as if Ginnie were inside, dead. Worse, I felt as if I were the one who had killed her. I took it to Barry’s office. Barry was there, looking sheepish. Richie had called him, and so he was expecting me. I left, feeling as though my insides had been vacuumed out. I waited in the cigar store on the corner because it commanded a perfect view of the entrance to Barry’s building. When Richie showed up, I was going to follow him. He never showed. An hour of waiting and I went over to rehearsal. Sam Spade I wasn’t.

  The whole building stunk, as befit my play. Jock straps, armpits and oil of wintergreen—the smell of the ring, the mythical squared circle in all its putrescent glory. When I had boxed in high school I thought then that the gym smelled offensive. But next to the St. Nicholas Arena, my old gym smelled like Snow White’s prom. This was the stench of an unearthed grave, stale and acrid and mossy, of things mummified and better burnt, like plague garments. It was the smell of defeat. Winners smelled of Aqua-Velva and orange slices. Losers smelled of St. Nicholas Arena. No play rehearsed in that building could go three rounds.

  I went upstairs and found them still at it, my director and my cast. I couldn’t see any improvement, only that they were beginning to memorize my lines—lines I wanted to forget, lines that sounded as though Cheetah the chimp had written them while falling from a tree.

  Harvey Epstein ignored me until the first five-minute break. Then he introduced me to the cast, and they all told me how much they liked my play. If they were as convincing in their roles as they were in their praise, I had the first play ever that was going to close in a locker room.

  I left at four and walked through the park, hop-scotching dog turds, passing people in love. It was the weekend and rehearsals would not resume until Monday. I did nothing that weekend beyond calling Richie six hundred times. It had crossed my mind that Ginnie, in all likelihood, was staying with Richie, especially if her psyche were that fragile and Richie was all that concerned. Actually, it was the best and most logical place for her to stay. She’d be with someone who was vitally concerned for her welfare, if for no other reason than that his welfare depended on hers. Were they sleeping together? Not likely. Like most male dancers, Richie was probably gay. And if he wasn’t, he’d have too much sense to complicate matters by embarking on a sexual relationship with a girl in his employ, especially a girl whose stability was suspect.

  I decided against pushing Richie too much, choosing instead to call periodically and unemotionally just to get a kind of weather report on Ginnie. Surely Richie would tell her I was calling and she’d know that I was concerned. What I didn’t want was for them to get a new girl so quickly that they’d be back on the road before I had a chance to see Ginnie. On that issue Barry kept me well informed. No, they hadn’t found a new girl yet but they did have two good prospects—one in particular, only she wanted too big a slice of the take. They were negotiating.

  Arnie Felsen called and I told him that I still hadn’t read his play because I was so involved in my own. He was quite understanding, asking that I give him a call my first opportunity. I said I would.

  On Sunday, Richie called. Could he come over and get the rest of Ginnie’s things? I said he could. I had by then determined to cooperate with him in every way I could, to demonstrate to both him and Ginnie my willingness to go along with anything that might help straighten her out—after which, hopefully, she’d give me my day in court.

  I was taking a condescending position and it troubled me. Though logic told me to give the situation time, a little voice was telling me that the longer I waited the fewer were my chances.

  Richie came over in the afternoon with two empty valises. We were very civil, very matter-of-fact as we packed her things (everything but the Gypsy Robe, which I put in my closet before Richie came up and back in Ginnie’s closet after he left). I asked if they’d found another girl and he told me exactly what Barry had told me, which I took to be a good sign. Richie was being honest with me. He told me that Ginnie was working especially hard but was, each day, gaining greater control over the situation. Still, she didn’t want to see me or talk to me on the phone. Richie promised to remind her that my play would be on
next Sunday night.

  Richie promised that, if and when they found another girl, he would not leave town without telling me where they could be reached. Under the circumstances, it was about the best I could hope for.

  He left with both bags. Ginnie in luggage. Love dismembered and carried off. The killer playwright still at large, somewhere in New York. Caucasian, mid-twenties, deep scar over his heart. Dangerous when challenged, inept when in love.

  I watched Richie leave and, somehow, he seemed more straight than gay. For obvious reasons I’d have much preferred it if he had bleached hair, rhinestone earrings, and a walnut in his navel. That the matter was entirely out of my hands did not brighten my outlook, for I was never good in a situation over which I had no control. I bit off a nail, down to the quick. I chain-smoked cigars. And I looked into the mirror at the dissipated man therein and wondered where, oh where, had the little boy gone?

  The week eased on, my routine established. I’d check with Barry in the morning, go to rehearsal, check with Barry in the afternoon, finish rehearsal, go home and have dinner, call Richie at eight, and fight for all the sleep I could get.

  On Friday I received the following letter from Don. Attached to it was a check for a hundred dollars.

  Dear Ben—

  The day after your letter arrived my luck looked up. And so I’m returning your lousy hundred dollars because who needs it? Thanks anyway. It got me over a couple of rough spots. I’m directing here in LA at KTLA-TV. It’s a little dramatic workshop. Professionals out of work and amateurs who don’t know better. But I’m on the payroll, sort of director-in-residence. I don’t really know what I’m doing but neither does anyone else, so why worry? I’m living with a very great gal who is thirty, beautiful, no money and no tits. It must be love.

  Hang in. If things can break for me, they can do likewise for you.

  Love to Ginnie,

  Don

  I felt like an ass. I didn’t even remember what I’d written to Don that he should have so quickly returned my money. It must have been some real, loud cry for help. Still, the news of Don’s luck was great and I realized how much I missed the crazy bastard. I hadn’t seen him since before I went into the Army, and that was too long for a man to have to go without seeing his best friend—only friend.

  Saturday, according to my rehearsal sheet, rehearsal was from ten until two, and from three until five, studio 8G in the RCA Building. I got there early and saw, for the first time, the six sets we would be using. They looked authentic. The barracks, the command post, the PX, even the infiltration course had a ring of truth all about it. The barbed wire, the mud, and that bloody, bloody machine gun.

  The show would be shot with three cameras, each one on a dolly that an assistant would push and pull according to some kind of invisible marks on the studio floor. The whole thing reminded me of how, when I was a boy, my two cousins and I, each with a toy metal truck, would run them at each other in hopes of a simultaneous three-car, head-on crash. The three cameras looked like they could do it. Lord knows, we never could.

  Then there were the miles of electrical wires, squiggled about on the floor like snakes without beginnings, and huge lights and circuit boards and plugs and switches—a cobweb of equipment, crisscrossing the floor, ceilings, and walls, making the entire studio look like the nether side of a Jackson Pollock splat. I was impressed, awed, and terrified. My little play had spawned all this. Would that it might prove worthy.

  Harvey Epstein was once again at the throttle. He was neither confident nor anxious, merely businesslike. Somehow it all made sense to him. Somehow he saw a way into and out of it, like a surgeon, or a burglar who had been there once or twice. And I had a momentary feeling of confidence. It vanished when Epstein’s glasses slid off his nose and, because he failed to catch them, shattered on the floor. Someone brought him another pair almost as soon as the first pair had killed itself, all of it perfectly performed as the passing of a baton in a relay race.

  How many pairs of glasses had slid off Epstein’s nose in the course of his career? And what did it portend that he failed to catch them? If the glasses broke did it mean failure? If he caught them three times running, did it mean we’d be a hit? What if one lens broke and the other survived? What if the left one broke and the right one received only a hairline fracture? What would happen to Epstein’s career if he switched over to a monocle and directed like Von Stroheim? What Delphic Oracle could explain the significance of Epstein’s slidey glasses and still hang onto his union card?

  The cast knew their lines but the show was eight minutes long. Harvey Epstein grabbed a script, made five slices on five separate pages and—voilà—the show was the prescribed forty-seven minutes. Was I consulted? No. Was I upset? No. I would have cut the whole thing and then cut back to the studio for organ music. Studio 8G did not smell like the St. Nicholas Arena, but something did and it could only have been my play. Oh, that I had never written it and that Tony had never died. Perfidious friend, had you been standing ten inches to either side, I wouldn’t be on the air and you wouldn’t be in the ground.

  There was dinner in there, somewhere, but Saturday still slid into Sunday without my much noticing. After rehearsal I walked the city, all night, getting to bed well after three. Ginnie’s image still hung around, leaning on my conscious yet lying back just enough so that I could still go about the business of being alive.

  From one to two thirty Sunday afternoon they blocked it and did a run-through. From two thirty to three fifteen Harvey Epstein gave them notes. Some of the cast seemed interested though two of them were inconspicuously asleep. Had they been in the 42nd they’d have made Draftee of the Week.

  From three fifteen to four thirty they had a coordinated run-through—camera and cast. From four thirty to six twenty-five was dinner and makeup, and I was involved in neither.

  Barry dropped by the studio to see how I was holding up. He brought me a bag of salted peanuts, which I ate one at a time, popping them like arsenic tablets, wishing they were, waiting to die, failing in even that. Barry shook my hand and went home. He’d be watching with his wife and he knew it would be great. But even as he said it, he shrugged in his own Semitic way, as if to say, “And if it isn’t, so fuck ’em, you’ll do another. What do they know from playwrights?”

  Gethsemane was drawing closer and I would soon be up there on the cross. I straightened my crown of thorns so as to look good for the cameras, and I watched the dress rehearsal from six twenty-five to seven twenty-five P.M. I watched in the private viewing room, just me and the cleaning lady. Her only comment on it was a deep and meaningful belch, filling the air with the scent of garlic, after which she flounced her dust mop and left.

  The dress rehearsal was an unqualified disaster, which, I was told, boded well for the actual performance, only I couldn’t see how. I had counted twenty-eight things that went awry, after which I stopped counting. Lines were blown. Cameras filled the screen with stagehands picking at their underwear and probing their ears. Props fell. “Holdoffer” snagged his feet on a wire and took a header. “General McArdle,” during the scene in which he reads me out, forgot that most important speech and filled the time with “The Boy Stood On The Burning Deck,” which I thought most applicable.

  And in the big scene, the closing scene, the scene in which the entire play comes together to pose the issue of who is guilty for Tony’s death—the Army or me—two lights fell over and a camera dolly pulled the plug on a microphone and all the sound went out and nobody knew who said what and nobody seemed to much give a shit.

  From seven twenty-five until nine P.M. (air time) Harvey Epstein and his giggily goggles went over his notes. He had fewer than I had. Obviously his glasses had tried to escape and he had missed the entire second act. Of the two actors who had fallen asleep before, only one fell asleep again, for which Horrible Harvey gave it to him pretty good. “Maxwell, since this is the last fucking show you’ll ever do for me, I suggest you stay awake for your own sake.
You were late on your cues four times and were facing the wrong way twice. If you do that on the air, your next show will be radio—in Finland. The rest of you—okay; it’s pulling together. Just remember to keep it pumping. Don’t let any air in. If it’s running too fast I’ll tell you at the commercial breaks.”

  I couldn’t believe that Epstein really believed that the show was pulling together. To me it looked to be flying apart. He must have said that to give the poor bastards courage to go on—to Akron, where the local Lions Club would do it because their cubs had eaten all the scripts of Philadelphia Story and it was either my play or Captain Jinx of the Horse Marines.

  Again I moved into the viewing room. It was eight forty-five P.M. I didn’t want to talk to, see, or be with anyone. It was something I wanted to do by myself, like an old cat going off to a corner to die. I knew that by ten fifteen the word would be out on me and I would be stoned wherever I went thenceforth, serfs and peons appearing in the doorways of their hovels to shout, “Let him write greeting cards!”

  At five minutes before nine, the door to the viewing room opened and in came Frank Brokaw, Jerry Kaplan, Jason Kimbrough and his smashing-looking wife, and four middle-aged couples smacking of such wealth that I knew them to be the Kemper family. I was introduced and everybody smiled like sunshine on aluminum. Then my show stupidly went on the air.

  The announcer spoke over my screen credit. “Tonight, Theatre 60 proudly presents the work of a provocative new writer—Benjamin Webber.” After that, everything was a merciful blank. I knew that my show was on, I could see it, hear it. I just didn’t comprehend its place in the world, why it was on, what it was meant to say, who gave a crap.

  The hour transgressed, the lights in the viewing room came on, and everyone there sat around and talked about something else. Then the door opened and Harvey Epstein came in, preceded by his flying eyeglasses. Without getting up they all told him that it was a fine show, only they said it with the same emotion they’d expend in ordering a can of sardines over the phone.