Me and Orson Welles

by Robert Kaplow

  I shook my head. “Heading into the city. Want to get there a little early. Opening on Broadway tonight.

  She raised her head in mild curiosity. “¿Es verdad?” She took another drag on her cigarette. I wanted to kiss her.

  “Es verdad, sister,” I said. “Me and Orson Welles.” I crossed my fingers. “Like that. Give you all the dirt tomorrow. Got a train to catch. Adios, lindita.” I headed down the path toward town.

  “Adios.”

  And I left Joe Rutgers standing there with his big ape mouth hanging open.

  Bam! Right to the body!

  The wind was up. I pulled my collar tightly around my neck, set my hat at an angle.

  I had some time.

  I thought: O.K., if I don’t get hit by a cab, I’m opening tonight in Caesar. If that guy in the doorway doesn’t jump out and smash my skull in with a tire iron, I’m opening tonight in Caesar. If those construction guys up there don’t drop a fifty-ton vat of cement on my head, I’m opening tonight in Caesar.

  I had a cup of coffee and a plain doughnut in some little dive with steamy windows. I thought: O.K., if I don’t choke to death on this doughnut, I’m opening tonight in Caesar.

  I turned up West 14th Street. The clock from the Spanish Church was striking two. There was a cab waiting in front of Welles’s apartment.

  I heard Welles’s deep laughter, then Sonja’s laughter—and up from the basement steps came the two of them.

  I hid lamely behind a street-sign pole.

  Welles was reading aloud from a folded copy of the Times. “Good God, listen to this,” he said. “ ‘Slowly paced, incompetently spoken, badly edited, this Anthony and Cleopatra’—Anthony with an h! Christ, Atkinson can’t even get the goddamn name of the play right! ‘. . . this Anthony and Cleopatra is a considerable trial of an audience’s patience and good will.’ ” Welles shook his head. “Why don’t they just ask poor Tallulah to apologize for being born? ‘Her voice has none of the music that blank verse requires; she misses the rhythm of poetic speaking, and a large part of what she says cannot be understood.’ God, this is priceless.”

  Sonja was breathless with laughter—then she spotted me. I had half-turned away, but there was nowhere to hide. She touched Welles on the sleeve. He glanced up, and then put his arm around her and headed toward me. He laughed heartily.

  “Lucius, old man! What are you doing down in these remote parts of the isle?” he said. “A great night tonight! Can you feel it? Going to be one of those magic nights.”

  “May I have one minute alone with Sonja?”

  “What’s the problem?” said Welles. He lit a cigar in the windy street. “We’ve got half a dozen interviews this afternoon, a final tech—”

  Sonja raised her index finger. “Give us one minute, Orson?”

  He shrugged and walked toward the parked cab.

  She and I remained there. Her eyes shone bright and hard. “What do you want me to say, Richard? I told you what I was doing. I’m not sorry.”

  I heard Cotten’s voice in my head: Fight for her. It’s what she wants. But I couldn’t seem to find the words. The hurt was deflating me.

  “Isn’t your wounded silence a little melodramatic?” she asked. “You’ve known me for a week.”

  “Sometimes you remember a week for the rest of your life.”

  “Then be grateful you had a week.”

  “And that’s all there is to say?”

  “Richard, you’re a nice little kid from a nice little town. Stay there if you don’t want to get hurt.”

  “I’m not a little kid, and it’s insulting for you to call me one.”

  She moved in the direction of the cab, then stopped and turned. “Look, I warned you what you were getting into. People betray each other—and now you can add me to the list. I like you, Richard, honestly—”

  “I love you. I’m willing to fight for you.”

  Wrong, wrong—

  “Fight for me?” She smiled. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Then allow me to know you.”

  She drew herself more tightly into her coat. “Orson is going to introduce me to Selznick.”

  “So Selznick makes this morally right?”

  Worse—

  Her eyes widened with anger.

  Lady Rage.

  “Morally right? This is 1937, Richard—I don’t think the words ‘morally right’ mean anything anymore.”

  “To me they do.”

  “You’re beginning to sound a little self-righteous.”

  I kept thinking to myself: What would Stefan say? “I would never do to you—”

  She was furious. “You’re so above ambition? So morally high and righteous? Great! Quit the show. You want to impress me with your nobility? Orson and I are so morally second-rate next to you? Great! Quit the show! Make a real stand. Make a real protest. Be a real man.”

  Now I was angry.

  “You’re not worth quitting for.”

  “I’m not worth quitting for—or you’re just so piss-afraid of missing your Broadway debut that you’ll conveniently look the other way? You better think hard before you start pointing the finger of righteousness at me.”

  Welles was approaching now. He’d been reading the newspaper, waiting, I imagined, for Sonja and me to resolve our little skirmish. “I told you, Junior, we’re late already.”

  “Richard told me he wants to quit the show,” said Sonja.

  “I did not.”

  “What the hell is going on here, Junior?” said Welles.

  And suddenly I knew how much I hated that asshole. “First of all,” I said, “my name isn’t ‘Junior.’ Or ‘kid.’ Or ‘Lucius.’ My name is Richard, and that’s what I want to be called.”

  Welles turned to Sonja. “Get in the cab.”

  “This concerns me, too, Orson.”

  “Get in the cab.”

  She did.

  “Now what exactly is your problem, Junior?” said Welles, and he pushed me in the chest. “ ‘Cause you’re picking the wrong day to upset me.”

  I shoved his hand away. I wanted to punch him. “Sonja is my lover,” I said.

  “Your what?”

  He laughed. And it was ridiculous, but it seemed to me a matter of pride.

  “My lover. As in the-girl-who-I-am-in-love-with. And I resent your screwing around with her, all right? You’ve got a wife, for Christ’s sake—a pregnant wife. This is my girlfriend. I’d like you to back off.”

  “Your lover, huh? You and half of Actors Equity.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re angry at me, Junior? And don’t you think—” and he pointed at the cab “—Mistress Quickly over there deserves a little of the blame?”

  “I’m asking you to back off; you’re married for Christ’s sake.”

  Welles grabbed me by the collar. “You’re asking me to back off, Junior? Well, here’s my answer. Go fuck yourself. And I wouldn’t worry your little heart about quitting—because you’re fired. Effective this second. And you ever mention my wife again, I’ll break your fucking neck. Now, you want to apologize to me, Junior? You want to go down on your knees and apologize for being a talentless little, meddling shit, then go right ahead.”

  I suddenly wanted to kill him—kill him for his ability to diminish people so completely. It was me. It was Sam Leve. It was Lloyd and Houseman. And, for once, I wanted to turn that destructiveness on him. And maybe, even more than that, I wanted to kill him because for the rest of his life he would be a star, and I would not.

  I said, “You want to open your show tonight without a Lucius?”

  “I’ll cut your scene in two seconds.”

  “Then start cutting.”

  He used his fingers in a scissor gesture. “Done. You’ve got half an hour to get your stuff out of my theatre. One half hour, and if I see your talentless little face again, I’m calling the cops.”

  “Go to hell, you arrogant fuck.”

  “I hope you enjoyed your Broadway c
areer, Junior, ’cause it’s over.”

  He stepped into the taxi, slammed the door, and the cab pulled away.

  I stood there shaking.

  The city roared around me.

  Eighteen

  Vakhtangov met me on the stairs.

  “I put your stuff in a box,” he announced. “Orson told me to.” He said nothing more and continued down the stairs.

  A couple of extras were up in the dressing room playing hearts. They stopped talking when I entered. My gloves, my stage shoes, my overcoat, and my John Gielgud’s Hamlet were inside an old carton.

  They pretended not to notice me, but I heard somebody whisper: “Sic transit gloria.” They all chuckled.

  I didn’t know whether to say goodbye or screw you. I said nothing.

  Descending the stairs I met Cotten.

  “Put that down,” he said. “Don’t you know Orson yet?”

  I didn’t say anything because I felt I might cry.

  “My God, he pulls this every show,” said Cotten. “He just wants you to kiss his ass—that’s all. Then you laugh, and he laughs, and you both put this behind you. I was the goddamned star of Horse Eats Hat, and he fired me two hours before we opened just because I hammered Henrietta Kaye before he did.” He laughed in his graceful, Virginia-gentleman way. “Just apologize to him, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Apologize for what?”

  “For whatever the hell he wants you to. You think it matters for what? Even he doesn’t remember what this was about.”

  Lloyd was coming up the stairs. “You can’t quit anyway. We still owe you five bucks—and we’re not paying until we get all the details.”

  Cotten looked at him as if to say: Do you believe I have to put up with this idiot? “Apologize, Richard,” he said.

  “I can’t. I don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  “Apologize for giving Welles the clap,” said Lloyd. “God, I hope you did. Can you imagine that son-of-a-bitch with the clap?” He threw himself into Brutus’ funeral speech—stopping every few seconds to madly attack his groin. “ ‘As Caesar loved me (scratch, scratch) I weep for him. As he was fortunate (scratch, scratch) I rejoice at it. As he was valiant I—(two-fisted punching of groin) Ooahhhh!’ ”

  “Apologize,” said Cotten.

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  “You don’t have time to think about it.”

  “I finally stood up for myself. I finally fought for something. It’s what you told me to do!”

  “Holy Christ,” said Lloyd. “You’re taking advice from him?”

  Cotten said: “Let me talk to him for you.”

  “He told me I was a talentless little shit. Now I’m supposed to apologize to him?”

  “I don’t think talentless little shit is so bad,” said Lloyd. “I mean, it’s better than unemployed talentless little shit. Now that’s bad.”

  “Will you shut up?” said Cotten.

  “I’m explaining to him how the world works! Welles is the boss, so you tell him any goddamn crap he wants to hear. Who cares if you believe it? Kid, every boss in America is being told, ‘Boss, that’s a great idea. Boss, you’re smart. I don’t know how this place would be running without you,’ and meantime every employee is really thinking: ‘You stupid son-of-a-bitch, I hope you get run over by a truck, you dumb schmuck.’ ”

  “Richard, I’m pleading with you,” said Cotten. “Do it for me. I want you in the show. Orson’s in his dressing room. He’s expecting you.”

  I headed down the stairs unsure of what I was going to do.

  In the second-floor dressing rooms a radio played Latin music. Then Evelyn Allen was on the stairs: her sneakers, her white short-sleeved T-shirt, bee-stung lips. In her hand was the rust-colored hardback book she was always reading.

  “I was afraid you’d left already.” She lowered her eyes.

  “I haven’t quite disappeared completely yet.”

  “Richard, I wanted you to have this,” she said, and she pressed the book into my hands. “I hope someday you might read it. And remember me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ve got to get changed.” She retreated into the dressing rooms.

  I stood there a little bewildered.

  The book was some ancient thing: Monadology by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. On the first blank page she’d written:

  Nov. 11, 1937

  Richard—I have no right to say this, but I love you. It’s strange, but sometimes you feel connected to someone almost immediately. Please write to me, Richard, whatever happens. I hope we can possibly see each other in the future.

  love, E.

  I read it over three times. Holy Christ, I thought. This woman hasn’t said two words to me the entire show, and now she’s telling me she’s in love with me.

  The world was feeling more and more like a madhouse.

  Bryant Park. The leaves fell around me.

  I looked down at my carton: my shoes, my Caesar script, and Monadology. I read the inscription again. Richard—I have no right to say this, but I love you.

  Oh, Evelyn, I thought. You’re even more lost than I am.

  I closed my eyes.

  My neck and shoulder throbbed in tension.

  I breathed slowly—tried to let the city pour into me.

  I flipped through Monadology. I liked the inscription, crazy as it was. I read a sentence at random. Every particle of matter in the universe experiences everything else in the universe, so much so that anyone who perceives accurately enough might read in any particle of matter what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or will happen . . . . Thus every particle of matter can be perceived as a forest of living things, or a river of abundant fish . . . . There is nothing lifeless in the universe, no chaos, no disorder, though this may not be immediately clear to us.”

  This was the stuff Evelyn thought about? She was reading philosophy as she sat alone on the Mercury staircase? I read the passage a few more times. There is nothing lifeless in the universe, no chaos, no disorder, though this may not be immediately clear to us. She’s standing onstage, enduring Joe Holland’s paint-peeling breath, and she’s thinking that there is nothing lifeless in the universe, no chaos, no disorder.

  And if you believed that philosophy, didn’t it mean you could never really do anything wrong? Never be out of grace? Even if you wanted to, there was no disorder possible . . . .

  So you trusted the universe?

  I looked up into the trees.

  Maybe there was nothing else to trust.

  Then I thought for a moment about Orson Welles. And I thought about myself.

  I took my billfold from my pocket and found the back of my driver’s license where I’d filled out the change-of-information card. There, in my handwriting, it read Richard Orson Samuels.

  I laughed at my own absurdity.

  “Richard Kenneth Samuels,” I said out loud.

  Then I repeated my name.

  Terrible, but mine.

  Walking toward me, in a black overcoat, and smoking a cigar, was Orson Welles.

  He laughed warmly. “Richard, old man, Joe said I might find you here.” He shook my hand humbly, expansively. “What can I tell you? That I’m sorry? That we need you? Those words are paltry and inadequate to describe the depth of friendship that you and I share.” He put his gloved hand on my shoulder, as if he were going to walk me toward Fifth, but I pulled away and faced him.

  “Why don’t you skip all the bunk about the depth of our friendship,” I said, and for the first time I felt the power shifting to my side of the table. The son-of-a-bitch needed me.

  “Whatever you say.”

  “All I wanted was to be treated as a human being—deserving of some dignity.”

  “It was never my intention to treat you any other way, Junior.”

  “Don’t call me Junior.”

  “Sorry. I use the term affectionately.”

  “It diminishes me.”

  “
Then no more.” He gave me a Boy Scout salute. “Word of honor.”

  “Why do I want so much to believe you?”

  Now we were walking down Fifth.

  “Because you really are a God-created actor, Richard. Those weren’t just words; you see, I recognized the look.”

  “The look?”

  “The bone-deep understanding that your life is so utterly without meaning that simply to survive you have to reinvent yourself. Because if people can’t find you, they can’t dislike you. You see, if I can be Brutus for ninety minutes tonight—I mean, really be him from the inside out—then for ninety minutes I get this miraculous reprieve from being myself. That’s what you see in every great actor’s eyes, you know. You see someone weeping at the broken thing that he knows himself to be: that every gesture is affectation, that every stirring of the heart is instantly stuck dead into the performance book. And I don’t mean to insult you with all this—I just sense it inside you, as it’s inside me.”

  “I don’t know what I feel anymore,” I said. “In the last twenty-four hours I seem to have run the entire possible range of human emotions. I’m exhausted.”

  “Cigar? Cuban.”

  “Sure.”

  We stood on the steps of the library and I lit my cigar off his. We watched a businessman in an expensive-looking suit flirting with a much younger woman. He was offering her a cupful of hot chestnuts.

  “Tonight I’m Brutus,” said Welles. “And I want you to be Lucius.” He touched my shoulder. “You may not like me, Richard—and, frankly, it’s irrelevant to me whether or not you do. Our business together is to create the best art we can. That’s all that matters. But I am asking you to give me this opening night. After tonight you can do whatever you want. But, Richard, give me this opening. I need you. Don’t think about it; say yes, Orson. Say yes, Orson, right now.”

  “And Sam Leve gets his credit in the Playbill starting tomorrow?”

  He looked at me sourly. “I’ve arranged that already.”

  “Promise it to me. He’s my friend.”

  “I promise you. He’ll get his credit.”

  “And you’ll call my mother and tell her that I’m an important part of this show—and that it’s urgent I miss some school?”