The Deer Park

by Norman Mailer

  “A slob movie! If you really loved me, you’d want to get married instead of treating me this way. With twenty thousand dollars you’d have financial security.”

  “A lot of security,” I said. “Twenty thousand dollars would buy your toenail polish.”

  She was so angry she ran the car on the shoulder of the road and had to twist it back. “You don’t love me,” she said. “If you did, you would listen to me.” We continued the quarrel for half the drive. Then Lulu had an inspiration. “You’re right, Sergius,” she said, “twenty thousand dollars isn’t enough.”

  “Rat-feed,” I said cautiously.

  “But I know a way you could make more.”

  “How?”

  Her face became hard as though she were considering which dress to wear. “Sugar, I want you to tell me exactly what H.T. said to you the day he invited you to the party.”

  “Oh, now look!”

  “Sergius, I’m serious. You tell me every word.”

  While I talked, she listened with a little air of triumph, nodding her head at certain details. “Of course that’s it,” she announced when I was done. “I tell you, Sugar, I can see right into H.T.’s mind. What he’s thinking is that maybe you could act in your own picture. You could be the star.” She put a hand on my arm as I started to laugh at her. “Now be serious!” she cried. “It’s obvious H.T. is behind Collie in wanting to make this picture. H.T. likes you. He thinks you have sex appeal.”

  “Did you give him a run-down on me?”

  “I just know. If we play our cards right, H.T. will agree to everything you want.” She nodded her head at the thought. “If you’re a star, Sugar, then we each have financial independence, and we can get married.”

  “I don’t know how to act,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to learn.” And she gave me a talk. The way Lulu described it, nothing was easier than to act. A good director would draw out my qualities. “If you’re wooden,” Lulu said, “he’ll make it seem like sincerity. If you’re self-conscious, he’ll know tricks to make you look like a small-town boy. And if you ruin a scene … well, you know, they always shoot protection. With the way they work, you could walk through the part.”

  “This is the end,” I told her. “I don’t want to be an actor.” But as if to hint I was a liar, my heart began to beat.

  “Wait till Collie gets ahold of you,” she said.

  Lulu was not wrong. Two days after we returned to Desert D’Or, the producer flew down to see us and slammed me into a conference. To my surprise, for I always thought people found it hard to understand me, Collie wasted no time in dissecting my character. “Look, Sergius,” he said in the first hour we were alone, “I know you, and I’m going to tell you frankly. You’re a sick boy. You got many qualities of character which could amount to something, honesty, integrity, bravery, desire, durability, heart”—he rattled these off like a recipe—“but they don’t mesh. You don’t click. Nothing’s working in you.” On he-went, stabbing for the center of me. “I’m older than you, Sergius,” he said, “and I can tell what’s at the bottom of your attitude. You’re afraid things will change. You’re not happy with Lulu and yet you hold on to her. What really scares you is that one of these days she’s going to take off for the capital on her new picture and hook up with some other guy. You know something? I don’t blame her. You’re afraid to move back, you’re afraid to move forward. You just want to sit still. Only it’s not possible. How much money do you have left?”

  “Three thousand,” I found myself admitting.

  “Three thousand. I can see you pinching it, trying to keep up with Lulu, hoping the character next to you will pick up the check. You can carry three thousand, maybe you can carry it ten weeks. And then what? You’re broke. Do you understand that? What are you going to do next? Bum around here, take a job as a car-hop? Kiddo, don’t look smug. I’ll blast your smugness. Do you know what it’s like to go to a new town without a cent?”

  “Yes, I know what it’s like,” I said.

  “Once you knew it, but now you’ve had a taste of something else. You think you’re going to enjoy goosing waitresses when you’ve been boffing the best? Brother, I can tell you, once you’ve been bed-wise with high-class pussy, it makes you ill, it makes you physically ill to take less than the best. There’s nothing worse,” Munshin promised.

  He had succeeded. He made a puncture. For the first time the four thousand dollars I lost became real to me, and I saw their loss as the loss of future time. Munshin had figured it well; I had been spending, I never knew how, several hundred dollars a week, and by his words, weeks went away, fifteen weeks, sixteen weeks, I saw suddenly that I had very little time left at the resort, and I had no idea where to go, and what to do about Lulu.

  Now Munshin changed his tactics. Like an advertising executive, he worked first with fear and then with hope. “I know how you feel about the movie industry,” he said. “You think it’s phony, you don’t like the movies they make, the lies they hand out. Should I tell you something? It’s disgusted me, too. There’s hardly a day goes by I’m not disgusted to the breaking point It disgusts every man in the industry who wants to be a part of something serious and important and progressive. These people exist, they work, they make up three quarters of the industry, four fifths, and you’d be amazed at the quality of some of the product. I tell you the industry is more than just an entree into something ridiculous and corrupt. It’s a chance to fight, an opportunity to grow!” And Munshin threw out his arms like an expanding world creating space. “Sergius, you’ve been thinking along the lines that you’d be trading your soul for a bag of loot. You’re a child,” he growled at me. “This is your opportunity for the real money, kiddo, and dignity and importance. So you start as an actor. I don’t like actors myself. But you can go into anything from there, production, direction, even writing although I don’t advise it. But you’ll meet the people who count, you’ll have opportunities. You’ll get an education and you can use one. What the hell do I have to break my heart arguing with you for? Sergius, I know you. Get yourself in gear and you could be a full-fleshed articulate guy benefiting the world, benefiting yourself, that’s your type if you give yourself a chance. What, do you think it’s purer in any other line of work? Why you have no idea of how we’re planning to show up that orphan asylum where they pushed you around.”

  Maybe this was the one mistake Collie made. Without warning, I lost my temper. “Show up that orphan asylum?” I yelled. “Munshin, you’re a damn liar.”

  He looked delighted at having roused an outburst, and this made me even angrier. “Progressive? Important people?” I babbled at him. “Serious?”

  “Cough it up, kid,” Munshin said agreeably.

  “It’s all bullshit,” I shouted. “War, marriage, movies, I mean take religion,” I said, not even knowing how that had come into it, “suppose there’s a God and imagine what He thinks seeing people get in the same room and get down on their hands and knees, I mean just look at the idea of sticking kids in an orphan asylum, did you ever think of how crazy that is, I mean a man and a woman for instance making legal arrangements to live together all their lives?” I must have sounded insane to him. “You’re full of bullshit, too, Munshin.”

  “Oh, oh, oh, another anarchist,” Munshin groaned. He stretched out his arms. “You know something?” he asked, beginning all over again, “anarchists make talented people. Maybe I think the way you do, deep down. I know Charley Eitel does.”

  His easy voice made me feel ridiculous. “Have a drink, Sergius,” Munshin smiled, and I knew then how easy it was for him to start tantrums like mine.

  After hope comes sentiment. So the world has been sold ten times over. “The only real appeal I know,” Munshin said, “is to your best instincts. I think you ought to act in this picture, but there’s something bigger than that. You can help a friend.”

  “Eitel?” I asked. I hated the way I continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
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  “Exactly. He’s the only man who could direct you properly. I know I could sell H.T. on that. Do you understand what it would mean to Eitel?”

  “He wants to work by himself,” I said.

  “Nonsense. I’ve known Charley Eitel for years. Do you realize the talent he has? I wish you could have seen how Eitel at his best could take mediocre talent and weak scripts and make films that had a beauty to them. His talent is rotting away now because his talent is to work with people and be loved and admired. You could put him back where he belongs.”

  “You mean I could put him back where you’d like to have him.”

  “Listen, you have a brain like a muscle. I understand Charley Eitel better than he understands himself. Everything is closed to him now. You can’t begin to appreciate the interrelations of film-making, the finances. H.T. has a big thumb, big enough to blacklist him at any studio in the world, and it’s only Herman Teppis who can lift that black list. You’re the boy I can use to convince H.T. that he should take Eitel back.”

  “Even if I went along with you, it wouldn’t be that easy.”

  “Everything is easy,” Munshin said. “When H.T. wants a picture, and I can make him want this picture, he’ll cut off his arm before he’ll be stopped. He’ll even take Eitel.”

  “I’d like to see you put that in writing.”

  “Did you just come out of the woods?” Collie asked. “Fifty lawyers would have a stroke. You can trust me. I want Eitel back more than you.”

  “Why? You know, I wonder about that,” I said to him.

  “I don’t know why, brother,” Collie answered with a big grin. “Maybe I ought to talk to my analyst.”

  “I’d like to talk to Eitel,” I said.

  “Go ahead. Ruin it. Charley Eitel is all pride. You think you can go to him and ask what he wants? You got to beg him to do your picture.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said finally. What an answer!

  “Say yes. You’d agree right now if you weren’t so stubborn that you hate to contradict yourself.”

  Munshin had to be back in the capital by morning, and at last he quit me, leaving the promise he would call. I can say that he kept his word. Between Lulu’s emotional blackmail and Collie on the phone I didn’t have a moment to think.

  I had been tempted more than once to sign the papers Munshin would hand me, but it wasn’t stubbornness alone which held me back. I kept thinking of the Japanese K.P. with his burned arm, and I could hear him say, “Am I going to be in the movie? Will they show the scabs and the pus?” The closer I came to wanting the contract, the more he bothered me, and all the while Collie would go on or Lulu would go on, painting my career with words, talking about the marvelous world, the real world, about all the good things which would happen to me, and all the while I was thinking they were wrong, and the real world was underground—a tangle of wild caves where orphans burned orphans. Yet the more they talked, the more I wanted to listen to them, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was right, and I didn’t know if I cared, and I didn’t even know if I knew what I wanted or what was going on in me.

  No matter what Collie said, I ended by going to see Eitel. I had to; I no longer knew if it was more selfish to refuse Munshin than to sell my expensive history to Supreme Pictures.

  Eitel refused to talk about it at first. “You see,” he said, “I promised I wouldn’t mix in it.”

  “To Collie?” I asked in surprise.

  “I’m sorry, Sergius. I can’t say.”

  “You’re my friend,” I told him. “Don’t you think this is more important to me than it is to Collie?”

  Eitel sighed. “I suppose I knew,” he said, “that I couldn’t stay out of this.”

  “Well, what do you think I should do?”

  He smiled sadly. “I don’t know what you should do. Did it ever occur to you that as you get older, it gets more difficult to give advice?”

  “Sometimes I think that no matter what, you still have to do something,” I told him.

  “Yes. In my day it used to be dialectics.” He nodded his head at this as if deciding whether to absorb it or throw it away out of hand.

  “Tell me,” I asked, “what kind of picture do you think would come out of this?”

  “Sergius, let’s not be naïve,” he snapped. “It will be a picture and it will have lots of beautiful photography about airplanes shooting at airplanes. What kind of pictures do you think Collie makes anyway?”

  “And what about the plans Collie has for you?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I know those plans,” Eitel said. “If your picture is going to be made, and they want me for it, I wouldn’t have an easy time deciding.” He held a finger to his nose as though to stop me because he wanted to say more. “Sergius, I don’t think it will be very nice if you use me as the excuse. You see, you may be doing me no favor.” Then he stared into my face for a long time, and he looked stern. “Are you sure,” he said at last, “that you don’t want the career … and the money … and the rest of it? Are you sure you don’t really want to be an actor?” And he went on to tell me about his talk with Collie.

  As he spoke, I felt a touch of sickness. It was no more than a turn in my stomach and an instant when I felt pale, but I had one of those hints of what cold and violent ambition had been stifling in me for so many years, and it was as if deep inside two powerful hands fought each other forward and back, locked in a test of strength which left room for little else. “You see,” Eitel was saying into my ear, “it took me until now to realize I wanted such things very much, and that was why I stayed in the capital.”

  I could hardly answer him. I sat there sick at what I had found. “You’re right,” I said, and I suppose my voice shook. “I guess I was trying to put it off on you.”

  “Maybe you were,” he said, and then leaned forward. “I’ll tell you a little of what I think. I think you should pass this offer by if there’s something you want to do more. But that is what you have to know.”

  I nodded at this. “What do you think of me being a writer?” I asked slowly.

  “Well, Sergius, that’s hard to say.”

  “I know. I brought something along I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It’s a poem. Just a stunt.” I had hoped I wouldn’t have to show it—I had written it after waking up from a dream—but I reached into my pocket and handed him the piece of paper. “I like to play with words,” I mumbled.

  “Sergius, do shut up, and let me read your masterpiece.”

  This was the poem:

  THE DRUNK’S BEBOP AND CHOWDER

  Shirred athe inlechercent felloine namelled Shash

  Head tea lechnocerous hero calmed Asshy

  Befwen hes prunt cuddlenot riles fora lash

  Whenfr hir cunck woodled lyars affordelay?

  “Yi munt seech tyt und speets tytsh”

  “I-uh wost tease toty ant tweeks tlotty”

  “And/or atuftit n pladease slit,”

  “N ranty off itty indisplacent,”

  “Frince Yrhome washt balostilted ina laydy.”

  “Sinfor her romesnot was lowbilt inarouter dayly.”

  When he finished it, he laughed. “It’s amusing, I guess. I didn’t realize how much you’re under the influence of Joyce.”

  I knew I was going to make a fool of myself, but for once I didn’t care. “Who’s Joyce?” I asked.

  “James Joyce. You’ve read him, of course?”

  “No. I think I heard the name though.”

  Eitel picked up my poem and read it through again. “Isn’t that odd?” he said.

  There was one thing I wanted to take home with me. “You think I’m talented?” I asked.

  “I’m beginning to have that suspicion about you, yes.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, “I guess … well …” So much talk was coming up in me, so much enthusiasm. I felt as old as a ten-year-old boy, and it was a relief to feel that way with somebody I could trust. “Do you mind if I talk about w
hy I never thought of being a professional fighter?” I asked him.

  “I always thought it was because you didn’t want to get your brains scrambled.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “do you know that’s exactly it. I was afraid of that. How did you know?”

  He only smiled.

  “Charley, I was afraid all the time. There are fighters like that, you know, and some of them even get to be halfway competent, but that’s not the way to be. Not to go in scared every time.”

  “Maybe the boys you fought felt the same way.”

  “I suppose some of them did. But I didn’t know that then.” I shook my head. “Besides, there’s something worse. After a while I realized I had no punch. A counter-puncher who doesn’t have a punch fights all night and he takes too much punishment.” I whistled. “I can hardly tell you how I hated to admit to myself that I had no real punch. No real punch.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Once, I had a punch,” I said to him. “It was the Quarter-finals fight in the Air Force tournament. The word we had around the Base was that if a man reached the Semi-Finals, he had a good chance for flying school. So I was pressing for that fight, and I almost got knocked out. I don’t remember a thing, but my second told me that I caught the other dupe with a beautiful combination when he was coming in to finish it off. And they counted him out, and I didn’t even know until it was all over. Then in the Semi-Finals I took a beating. I got stomped. But they say that sometimes a fighter is dangerous when all that’s left is his instinct sort of, because he can’t think his fight any more. It seems to come from way inside, like you’re a dying animal maybe.”

  “And what is your instinct now?” Eitel asked.

  “I can’t help it. I guess I want to be a writer. I don’t want somebody else to tell me how to express myself.”

  “Trust your instinct,” Eitel said, and made a face. “How optimistic I am at bottom. Do what you think, Sergius.”

  Somehow, I had known Eitel would help me to refuse the offer. On the way back, knowing my decision was made, I discovered I was feeling fairly well. I knew that my decision didn’t mean very much; if my movie was not made then others would be made, but at least my name would not be used. I suppose what I really was thinking is that I would always be a gambler, and if I passed this chance by, it was because I had the deeper idea that I was meant to gamble on better things than money or a quick career. I had a look then into the kind of vanity I shared with Eitel. Each of us judged himself hard, for strong in us was the idea that we must be perfect. We felt we were better than others and therefore we should act better. It is a very great vanity.