Rich and Famous

by James Lincoln Collier

  The Further Adventures of George Stable

  RICH AND FAMOUS

  Copyright © 1975 by James Lincoln Collier

  All Rights Reserved

  First ebook copyright © 2013 by AudioGO.

  All Rights Reserved.

  978-1-62064-645-8 Trade

  978-0-7927-9778-4 Library

  Cover photo @ Sander Huiberts/iStock.com.

  ______________

  For Gwil

  ______________

  OTHER EBOOKS BY JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER:

  Chipper

  The Corn Raid

  The Dreadful Revenge of Ernest Gallen

  The Empty Mirror

  Give Dad My Best

  It’s Murder at St. Buckets

  The Jazz Kid

  Me and Billy

  My Crooked Family

  Outside Looking In

  Planet Out of the Past

  Rock Star

  The Teddy Bear Habit

  When the Stars Begin to Fall

  Wild Boy

  The Winchesters

  The Worst of Times

  Contents

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  Chapter

  “Well, what are you going to do, George?” Stanky said.

  “Commit suicide, probably,” I said. We were lying around Stanley’s room messing the place up with banana slushes we had made in his blender.

  “Good thinking,” Stanky said.

  “You think I’m kidding,” I said. I slurped at my banana slush. “Why do you have to go to music camp this summer?”

  “Because I want to,” Stanky said. “Besides, what difference does it make? You aren’t going to be around.”

  “Maybe I will be,” I said.

  “What time are you supposed to meet Woody?”

  “At three o’clock,” I said. “He says this guy is the biggest guy in the record business in New York. He says to be there punto, baby.” Woody Woodward was always saying stuff like baby and groovy and being places punto, which is Spanish for being on time, I guess, although I’m not too sure, because I got a D in Spanish.

  “I don’t know why you’re so worried about it. You keep saying that nothing ever comes from these big deals that Woody has. What about that television show you were supposed to be on? What about that movie you were supposed to be in?”

  “I was supposed to be in it for a minute,” I said.

  “Well, anyway,” Stanky said.

  “Yes, but this one might work out. I have a feeling.”

  “Come on, George,” Stanky said. “You had a feeling about that movie, too.”

  I put my banana slush down on the floor beside Stanky’s guest bed where I would be sure to kick it over if I forgot and got up suddenly, and lay down on my back. I was feeling pretty gloomy.

  “Well, I didn’t have the same feeling about that movie. I just have a feeling this one might happen. And there I’ll be shoved off upstate watching Cousin Sinclair be perfect for four weeks.”

  “You’ll just have to explain it to your father.”

  “Stanky, give it up will you? How can I explain it to Pop? I’m not supposed to know I’m going to get shoved off all summer watching Sinclair be perfect.”

  “Did you tell your Pop that Woody has this hot new record deal going?”

  “Sure I told him. He just said what he always says, „Don’t get your hopes up Georgie. These things of Woodward’s never work out.’”

  We didn’t say anything. I felt around for my banana slush without looking.

  “You’re going to knock that over,” Stanky said.

  “Where is it?” I said.

  “A little closer to the bed. Watch it.”

  I got hold of the banana slush and had a good noisy suck at it. The Stankys are rich. Well, not exactly rich, but they have plenty of money and they always have straws and things around.

  “I’m getting bored with this conversation,” Stanky said. “Let’s play ping-pong.”

  “I’m getting bored with being beaten in ping-pong,” I said. “Anyway I have to go home and get changed so I’ll get there punto.”

  I walked home through Washington Square. It was May. The leaves on the trees were unfolding, the squirrels were running around like mad, the N.Y.U. students were out there without any shirts on, playing frisbee, and the junkies were dozing on the benches. You can always tell when spring comes in Greenwich Village because the drug addicts come out of hibernation or wherever they spend the winter and take up half the benches in the park.

  But I was too worried about my problem to pay attention to spring. The truth was that Pop didn’t want me to make a record and get rich and famous and retire at twenty-five. Oh, he let me go to the auditions Woody got me, and he pretended to take it seriously, but that was just because he didn’t believe that anything would ever come of any of the means for getting rich and famous Woody was always coming up with. If he’d thought anything was likely to come of them, he’d have blown up. It was his belief that anybody who got into the music business was bound to drop out of school and die of an overdose of drugs about six weeks later. Oh, maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t know what Pop really would have done if any of Woody’s means for getting rich and famous came true. But having me sing on a record wasn’t going to turn him on, that was for sure.

  I took a shower, put on my brush denims and my coolest looking shirt, which wasn’t too cool because Pop won’t buy me anything too cool, and took the subway up to Camelot Records. It was in the Camelot Building, a huge thing about eighty stories high on Sixth Avenue near Rockefeller Center. They had a pretty snazzy office— you know, glass tables and gold record plaques on the walls and small trees growing around here and there. But being around the music business I’d gotten used to places like that and when I told the receptionist my name I acted cool and nonchalant, as if I were already a star. She phoned up somebody and in about three minutes Woody Woodward came out. He put his arm around my shoulder and kind of walked me over to the side of the reception lounge. “Listen, baby, this guy we’re seeing is the Camelot A. and R. man. Everybody calls him Superman because he’s put together so many hits. He’s got a real commercial feel. He can smell a winner a mile away. He’s got about twenty kids lined up waiting to try out for this deal but I persuaded him to see you first. One thing, he had polio when he was a kid. He walks around on crutches, and he’s very sensitive about his legs. Don’t stare or anything. Okay? Groovy, baby. Let’s go.”

  We walked down a maze of corridors to Superman’s office. It was a really terrific place with a huge desk and enormous windows that you could see out of for miles. You could even see LaGuardia Airport, and tiny planes coming in for a landing.

  The A. and R. man was sitting behind the huge desk. A. and R. stands for “Artist and Repertory.” In a record company the A. and R. man is the one who really decides which records to make and I guess this one was considered terrific about knowing which records would sell. He was completely bald, as if he had shaved his head. He had hardly any eyebrows, either, and his eyes seemed to stand out like blue eggs. His shoulders and arms were big, the way they usually are with people who walk on crutches. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “I Love Camelot” on it. He didn’t get up when we came in. I guess it was too much trouble for him. He just stared at me, and after awhile he said, “Hmm.”

  “I told you he was a good-looking kid,” Woody said.

  Superman stared at me through his big egg-ey
es. Then he opened his desk drawer, took out a huge cigar, smelled it, bit off the end, and lit it. “Havana,” he said. “Illegal here. No way a customs inspector can tell Havana if you take the labels off.” He rolled it in his fingers, then he lit it and blew out a huge puff of smoke all over me and Woody. “Have the kid turn sideways, Woody, so I can get a look at his profile.”

  The way he said it made it sound as if I were a poodle in a dog show. I didn’t say anything, but just turned sideways. “Hmm,” he said again. “How old is he, Woody?”

  “Thirteen,” Woody said.

  “Hmm,” Superman said. “Born the year I went to jail.” That was a pretty interesting remark, and I quickly tried to figure out some polite way of asking him more about it, but I couldn’t come up with anything in time.

  “But he’s got the kind of face that could pass for anything from eleven to sixteen,” Woody said.

  Superman blew smoke all over us. “Maybe twelve. Eleven I doubt. Does he have to shave yet?”

  “No,” Woody said. “He won’t start shaving for years. They mature late in his family.” That was a complete lie. I’d already shaved twice.

  “I don’t know,” Superman said.

  He stared his egg-eyes at me some more. “He isn’t flipping me out with his personality. Have him bop a little, Woody.”

  “Bop a little, George,” Woody said.

  “What?” I said. I was getting pretty tired of being in a dog show, and besides, I didn’t know what he meant by bopping.

  “Give us a little personality.”

  “Oh,” I said. What they wanted me to do was to start talking about something with a lot of gestures and some big phony smiles. You know, say something like, “Well, Mr. Superman, I certainly appreciate this opportunity, wait till I tell the rest of the kids that I actually met you,” and stuff like that. Some kids can do that, just walk up to a grown-up and talk to him and tell stories. I can’t. They were staring at me, so rapidly I tried to think of something interesting to say. But my mind was blank, and finally I blurted out, “I guess I don’t have much personality. I’m just an ordinary kid.”

  “Hmm,” Superman said.

  “See, that’s his schtick,” Woody said. “Just your plain ordinary kid who happens to have all this talent falling out of his ears. The boy next door. Modest. Bashful.”

  “Hmm,” Superman said.

  “The kind of kid who’s happiest walking down a country road, munching on an apple, or fishing in a creek with a bamboo pole and a bent pin.”

  “Hmm,” Superman said. “Hmm.”

  “Milking the cows and pitching the hay,” Woody said. “Camelot Records’ hot new star, George Stable, The Boy Next Door.”

  “Hmm,” Superman said. “Maybe.”

  “Swinging on a grape vine.”

  “That’s too much Tarzan-time,” Superman said. “What we want is Vermont-time.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” Woody said. “Sledding down this old country road with scarf and earmuffs flying.”

  They went on this way for awhile, still pretending that I was a poodle at a dog show and couldn’t understand anything they were saying. I just stood there listening and wondering what Superman went to jail for, and if Woody would buy me a coke the way he sometimes did. Finally, Superman told Woody to get some test pictures made and we went out of the office and down the elevator. All the way down Woody kept saying, “We’re home, baby. I’ve never seen Superman so excited.”

  “He didn’t seem too excited to me, Woody. All he said was „Hmm.’”

  “You don’t know Superman, baby. All he usually ever says is „Hmm.’ But today he was really talking—I mean using actual words.”

  “Something might come out of it this time, you mean?”

  “Well look, Georgie, I don’t want to make any promises. Everything in this business is a spin of the dice, but I could tell that he loved the concept—George Stable, The Boy Next Door.”

  “Did you just think that up on the spur of the moment?”

  “I had to do something, Georgie, the way you were coming on like a block of wood.”

  I blushed. “What kind of act would it be?”

  “Oh, I’ll figure something out.” We had got down to the street and were standing there. I was wondering if he would buy me a coke. Woody took out a cigarette and flicked his lighter at it. Woody is the greatest man in New York at cigarette lighters. He just sort of flicks his wrist and there’s the lighter in his hand as if he had dealt it out of his shirtsleeve.

  “Listen, Woody,” I said. “What did Superman go to jail for?”

  “God, Georgie, don’t ever bring that up with him.”

  “No, but I mean what was he in for?”

  “Drugs. He was some kind of big dealer. At least that’s the story. He did about three years. But for God’s sake, don’t bring it up.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “You just worry about the singing, I’ll worry about Superman.”

  “Maybe I won’t be good enough,” I said.

  “Confidence, baby, con-fee-dence. We’ll get you some shy-type, down-home songs to do. All you’ll have to do is stand around and look bashful and stutter.”

  “That doesn’t sound very interesting to me,” I said.

  He slapped me on the shoulder. “Stay loose, baby. Let me do the worrying. Now go on home. I’ll call you when we get the photographer set up.”

  I was disappointed that he didn’t buy me a coke. I walked over to Sixth Avenue and took the IND subway home. I didn’t know what to believe. On one hand, I’d heard all that stuff before—about con-fee-dence and somebody liking the concept and so forth. It had never worked out before, so why should it work out now? On the other hand, it seemed to me that if you tried often enough, sooner or later something was bound to work out. The one thing I’d learned about show business was that the dumber the plan sounded, the better a chance it had that somebody would do it. If you went to some record company and said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s get a really good group together and record a lot of really great songs,” everybody would look at you as if you were an idiot and ought to be ashamed of yourself. But if you came up with something really nuts, like recording some group on a hayride in an airplane or something, why everybody would say it was terrific. It was a million dollar idea which would make show business history.

  Well, the idea of George Stable, The Boy Next Door, fit right in with that for dumbness. I mean I’d spent the whole of my life in the least country place in America: Greenwich Village, the nut center of New York City. I never saw a hen until one time I visited Sinclair when I was eight. It surprised me how big they were—I thought they were more the size of pigeons which was the only kind of bird I’d ever paid any attention to. In fact, I probably knew less about the country than practically anybody in America because we hardly ever went to the country, even for vacations—Pop was always too broke. Frankly, I didn’t mind. I never thought the country was so groovy, there was never anything to do except get beaten at chess by Cousin Sinclair. I guess I’m not the kind of person who gets turned on by trees.

  Anyway, because I was exactly the wrong type of person to be George Stable, The Boy Next Door, I figured there was a good chance it would happen. And that meant one thing for sure: I couldn’t afford to spend the summer upstate watching Cousin Sinclair be perfect.

  Chapter

  You might have read about me in a book called The Teddy Bear Habit, which I wrote when I was twelve. You probably think it’s pretty nutty for a twelve-year-old kid to write a book, and I guess it is. What happened was, because of my own dumbness, I got into a terrible mess with some criminals and almost got killed. I mean really, I almost got killed, but fortunately I got saved at the last minute. A lot of it had to do with this teddy bear I had. I was sort of hung up on it. I mean I would carry it around with me, especially when I had to do something that made me nervous. In the end the teddy bear got burned up by one of the criminals. To b
e perfectly honest, I’m sort of ashamed of that book, The Teddy Bear Habit. Not ashamed of the book so much, but of exposing to everybody that I carried a teddy bear around with me when I was twelve. Of course I got over that when my teddy bear was burned up. Although, to tell the truth, I still have a teddy bear key chain that my Pop gave to me, just a little fuzzy bear on a chain. He felt sorry about my teddy bear being burned up, and he gave me the key chain. I kind of like having it. Of course, since I got over my teddy bear habit I don’t carry the key chain around with me all the time. Carrying around a thing that big in your pocket is a pain. I keep it on my bureau; I just like to look at it sometimes.

  Anyway, you probably haven’t read that book, so I’d better tell you something about me. The first thing is that I live in Greenwich Village, the Bohemian part of New York, which is just a fancy way of saying that it’s full of nuts and whackos. There are lots of painters and writers and actors and so forth who don’t have to be nuts, but usually are. Then there are the leftover hippies, who live in these little stores and spend most of their time out on the sidewalk. Honest, they sleep out there and eat their meals out there and play chess there—little kids and mothers and fathers and everybody. Sometimes I go over and talk to them. They’re pretty interesting, but to be frank about it, it doesn’t appeal to me too much to see them eating out there on the sidewalk with the flies all around and these dirty dogs and cats they have hanging around.

  Then we have around the Village people who are totally out to lunch. I mean guys wearing witches’ hats and carrying shepherds’ poles, people who walk backward, and ones who give long speeches in the park to midair. And the drug addicts. And then of course all the normal people.

  I count Pop and me as normal people, but maybe I shouldn’t be so sure about Pop. We live on West Fourth Street near where it meets with Cornelia Street and Sixth Avenue. We’ve lived there all my life. My mother died when I was a baby, just practically born, and my father’s had to raise me by himself. I hear a lot about that. He says, “I’m trying to be a father and a mother to you, George, and it isn’t easy.” To be honest, for him it seems to be impossible. Sometimes he’s a good mother and gets up and makes me scrambled eggs or pancakes or something for breakfast, but a lot of the times he just lies there in bed—he sleeps on a daybed in the living room— and shouts out that it’s almost eight o’clock and if I don’t get up immediately I’ll be late for school, which never struck me as a big enough disaster to go shouting around about. And sometimes he gets over to the laundromat on Monday the way he says he’s going to, but about half the time he doesn’t, so by Wednesday morning I don’t have any clean underwear or socks and my jeans are beginning to look pretty bad, although I admit it would help if I didn’t wipe my hands on them so often. So I say, „Pop, I haven’t got any clean underpants,” and he says, “Oh hell,” which isn’t a very good explanation, and I say, “What’ll I wear?” and he says, “You have to remind me of these things, George. I can’t keep a lot of petty details in my head when I’m trying to make a living, and besides it seems to me that you’re old enough to wash out a few things in the sink for yourself.” And I say, “Well I would have, except that you said you were going to the laundromat on Monday,” and he says, “Next time when you take a bath throw a few things into the tub with you and let them soak,” and I say, “I never take baths, I take showers, do you want me to go into the shower with my underwear and socks on?” And he says, “I don’t want to get into a big wrangle about this, I have a lot of things on my mind this morning,” so I go to school with used socks on. I tell you, it isn’t much fun having a father for a mother. Who wants to have his father take him up to Gimbels to buy pajamas?