His secret is being, and his being is most truly being when he falls upon her to be bitten and to bite, to hold fast, to kiss, to put in her all of his family, from long ago, all of his time, to have her grow their families together in a new man, to capture the unknown one, the one long gone, to bring him back to the grass and green of being.
What good is it? (It’s fun, brother. It is better than nothing. To be, to be trying, to be at love, to be on the way with the family, to be going, to be dying, to breathe, to be angry, to be mad with astonishment, to be running at the capturer, to be wrestling with the capturer, to be killing the capturer, to be walking with the capturer in comradeship, is better than nothing, brother.)
What good is it? (It’s no good at all, sister, but it is better than nothing. Sandwiches are good. Thin sandwiches. A bath is a good thing. To scratch the nose is better than nothing. For God’s sake, woman, to be rotting is better than nothing.)
What about philosophy? Will that help? (No. The best philosophy is to open a can and if there is anything good in it to eat it. A can of something good to eat is a good thing. A tree with fruit growing on it has a certain wisdom to it. The thing to do is to pick the cherries and eat them, the apricots, the peaches, the figs, apples, pears, plums, or whatever the philosophy of the tree happens to have put it to bearing.)
What about religion? Will that help? (No, but if it’s time to sing hosanna, sing it and let it not help, for it is better than nothing. If there is a red rose on a rose tree, pluck it, give it to a loitering girl, fall upon her, for that is better than nothing, that is much the best of the variations of better than nothing. It is religious and will not help, but it is much the best of the little that is better than nothing.)
Is there anything at all to art? Will art help? (No, but if it seems like a good idea to look at things carefully, though this will help nothing, look at things carefully, for that is art, that is what art is, and it is often a good idea to look at things carefully, and to see them. This also is better than nothing. To see an eye clearly is art, but it does not help. It’s just that it’s better than nothing.)
What about being great? Wouldn’t it be great to be great? Wouldn’t being great be a great help? (No, but it is better than nothing, although it is no different, the same as not being great, the same as being a fool, for a man is a jackass with the heart of a lion, as he himself knows. This, too, is better than nothing.)
What about music? (Music is fine. A man ought to listen to music. A man ought to listen. He ought to listen to the music in everything, including the music of orchestras, although it will not help, for this also is better than nothing. Music is fine. It will not help.)
What about jokes? Will the telling of jokes or the listening to the telling of them help? (No, but this will come nearest to seeming to be something that will help. It will not help, but it is better than nothing.)
What about money? Will money help? (No, but it’s all right, and every man should collect Indian-head pennies. Every man should have at least two or three of them carefully collected.)
Is there something to be said for shoes? (Yes, a man should wear shoes except in the bath. This will not help, but it is also better than nothing. A prosperous man, a spendthrift, should have a pair of black shoes and a pair of brown shoes, the black for his feet, the brown for his hands if that’s what he wants to do.)
Is penmanship nice? (Penmanship is one of the nicest things there is. A man with a flair for it can sit down and write a letter to somebody, or his name, with flourishes. Penmanship is a very nice thing. Many great men have had it, and their signatures are to be seen here and there, though they are dead. There is a certain innocent confusion and absurdity in penmanship, but it is better than nothing, too.)
Would swifter airplanes come in handy? (No.)
Is there anything at all to the dropping of bombs more destructive than atomic or H or I or J or K or L or M or N or O bombs? (These should be dropped, especially the I and O ones, but this is not better than nothing. It’s just pure. Dropping them will not help and is not better than nothing, but not dropping them would be to waste them, and as they are expensive, they ought to be dropped. Their dropping should be pin-point, on the head of whoever spoke so clearly.)
Wouldn’t it be better if people were different? Wouldn’t it be better if Russians were more Americanized and Americans were more Russianized? (No. The theory that people should be different from apes is a false theory. There is nothing for apes and people to be different from. This also is better than nothing.)
Are eggs good? (Yes, with salt and pepper.)
Do you like it in Hollywood? (Drop dead.)
He drove the old Cadillac into the old parking lot across the street from U.S. Pictures and got out. The policeman with the pistol on his belt who parked the cars for the U.S. boys said, “Rock Wagram! Tell me, Rock, is Yale a good school to send my boy to?”
“I’m glad you asked me that, George,” Rock said. “It is George, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Rock,” the man said. “George Warrington. I’ve been here twenty-five years now.”
“Yes,” Rock said. “Now, about Yale. It just happens I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to questions like Yale. You’ve got a boy to send to school, is that it?”
“Yes, a fine boy,” the man said. “I’ve heard about Yale. Is that the school to send my boy to?”
“Now, let me think about this a minute, George,” Rock said. “I don’t want to make a careless answer.”
“Take your time, Rock,” the man said.
“Yale,” Rock said. “That’s in New Haven. Well, this is my answer, George. Yale’s the place to send your boy. It’s a fine place. They teach at Yale, George. Philosophy, law, medicine, poetry.”
“Is that where you went, Rock?”
“Yes.” Rock smiled. “Majored in Armenian, animal husbandry, and meaning. You’re going to be very happy about your boy at Yale.”
The policeman roared with laughter because he hadn’t seen Rock in years.
“Shall I wash the car?” he said.
“No,” Rock said. “Get it painted. It’s been gray for eight years, and I’m tired of it. Get it painted bright yellow-green. That was the color of Murphy’s Cadillac.”
“There’s a place down the road about a mile that does a complete job for twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents,” George Warrington said. “It takes them three hours.”
“Take care of it for me, will you?” Rock said. “I’ll be in there at least four hours.”
“Bright yellow-green, is that right, Rock?”
“Yes.”
When he came out four hours later he saw the tired old car looking like sad sin itself. The sun was going down and Sam Schwartz was saying, “It’s about time you came home, Rock. I know the test is going to be great. We’ll sign the papers immediately afterwards.”
Rock stopped on the broad brick walk to look at the sinking sun.
“Look over there,” he said.
“What is it, Rock?” Schwartz said.
“The sun,” Rock said. “Look at it. Did you ever see it so bright and hot in December before? Did you ever see it so alone before?”
“Rock, does the sun travel in groups?” Schwartz said. “Did I ever see it so alone before? It’s always been alone. Let’s go to Romanoff’s and talk. This is like old times, Rock. Paul Key is a happy man in his grave.”
Rock stood and looked at the sun.
“Look over there again,” he said.
“What’s the matter now?” Schwartz said.
“It’s red, Sam,” Rock said. “It’s red now. Bright, hot, alone, and red, Sam.”
He began to walk suddenly, moving swiftly, the heavy man taking after him.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Rock,” Schwartz said. “We’ve come a long way, the both of us, and we’re in better shape than ever. I knew you’d come home, Rock. The past is past and the pictures of the past are nothing to what the pictures of the future
are going to be.”
They went across the street to the parking lot. Rock walked around the car slowly, examining it and the new paint job while George Warrington and Sam Schwartz walked behind him, Sam talking steadily about Paul Key’s happiness in the grave and George Warrington saying nothing because Sam was U.S. Pictures itself. Rock opened the door for Sam, who got in and settled himself on the blue leather seats. Rock then lifted the hood of the car and had a long look at the motor, black and greasy now, while George Warrington said very softly, “He ain’t no Paul Key, Rock, but they say he gets them out, they say he gets them out fast and cheap, they say they make a lot of money. They say he’s a human dynamo. I remember when he was a half-wit. He runs the place, Rock.”
“He went to Yale, too,” Rock said. “That’s the place to send your boy all right.”
He got into the car and drove off. The old piece of junk had a lot of power still. It was quick to start, quick to go, and it still plunged, it plunged the instant Rock asked it to.
“What’s that old smell I smell, Rock?” Schwartz said. “What’s that?”
“It’s me and the leather of the seats,” Rock said.
“Is this the same car you drove me to the hotel in Fresno in, Rock?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I thought it was a brand-new car,” Schwartz said.
“No,” Rock said. “I had it painted this afternoon.”
The sun was almost gone now. The car plunged toward it, on the way to Romanoff’s, each passenger of the car meaning just about all there is for a man to mean.
A man lives in ignorance all his life. He is a fool, a crook, and a hoodlum all his life. He counts his money all the time. He thinks it has something to do with the soul he’s losing or gaining. If he spends or wastes or loses some of his money, he feels vaguely that he’s lost some of his soul. If he accumulates a great deal of it, he feels vaguely that he has neglected his soul, but he doesn’t mind so much because he has the money. If he has no money to count, spend, waste, or lose he feels vague, and gets a haircut.
At Romanoff’s Eddie Lucas came to the table and said, “Rock, I want to talk to you the minute you’re free.”
“Right now,” Rock said.
“No, I don’t want to bust in,” Eddie said. “Besides, I’ve got this girl at the table.”
“Which one is this one?” Rock said.
“This one’s not a wife,” Eddie said.
“Which wife is it now?” Rock said.
“It’s the sixth,” Eddie said, “but I’m divorced, Rock. We just didn’t see eye to eye.”
“Sit down,” Rock said. “You know Sam.”
“I’ve met Mr. Schwartz,” Eddie said.
“Hi,” Sam said, and went back to his eating.
“When can we talk?” the song-writer said. “It’s important.”
“Any time,” Rock said. “Call me at the Beverly Wilshire.”
“In a couple of hours?”
“Sure.”
“O.K., Rock,” Eddie said, and went off.
“That no-good,” Sam said.
“You know him?” Rock said.
“That sneak,” Sam said.
“What did he do?” Rock said.
“I can buy and sell him a dozen times,” Schwartz said, “and a dozen more like him. Dreamy Arabia!”
“Did he write that?” Rock said.
“I paid him to write it,” Sam said. “I tried to keep all of P.K.’s people at U.S., so I kept this one, too.”
“Wasn’t Dreamy Arabia at the top of the hit parade, as they say?” Rock said.
“Sure it was, and the film made a lot of money, too,” Schwartz said.
“Isn’t that good, Sam?”
“He can write songs all right,” Sam said. “I’m not saying he can’t, but songs aren’t everything.”
“No, I guess not,” Rock said. “I’ve always liked songs, though, even bad ones, and there was never one worse than Dreamy Arabia.”
“Dreamy Arabia was fine,” Sam said. “It had a nice lilt. It should have had. It was swiped from the Blue Danube. The guy that wrote it is a son of a bitch, though. He’ll never work for me again.”
“He can be liquidated,” Rock said. “You can get him bumped off.”
“Why should I waste my money?” Schwartz said. “Two or three hundred dollars of my good money. I’ll just sit back and wait for him to commit suicide.”
“What’d he do?” Rock said.
“I had this girl in a picture,” Sam said. “He comes along, a married man, a man with his sixth wife at home. He gives her that fast, nervous, excited, intellectual talk all these dumb stars go for.”
“What happened?”
“I suspended her,” Sam said. “She’s at Fox now, playing drunks.”
“What happened between her and him, I mean?”
“The usual,” Sam said. “What else? Moves me out, moves himself in.”
“You didn’t mean to marry the girl, did you?” Rock said.
“I haven’t time to get married,” Sam said. “Marriage is for suckers.”
“What’d you suspend her for?” Rock said.
“I took her out of the star part,” Sam said. “Had the writers change the character. Brought in a girl from Italy who spoke with an accent. Gave the American girl the part of the chambermaid at a cheap hotel. She refused to play the part. I suspended her. Finished her.”
“Who is the girl?” Rock said.
“Maybe you’ve heard of her,” Sam said. “Marcy Miller.”
“I was in a picture with her once,” Rock said. “She seemed like a nice girl. Married to a cameraman, wasn’t she? Had a couple of kids.”
“She threw him out years ago,” Sam said. “Married a director. Threw him out when he couldn’t make a good picture any more.”
“How are the kids?” Rock said.
“How should I know how the kids are?” Sam said. “What kind of kids can they be with a mother like her?”
“They can be fine kids,” Rock said. “I hope Paul’s sister’s all right.”
“Who?” Sam said. “My mother?”
“Yes. Is she well?”
“The same as ever.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Sam.”
“I don’t think any son in the world has taken the kind of care of his mother that I have,” Sam said, “but she’s the same as ever. All she says is, if Paul had lived, this, if Paul had lived, that. Well, Paul didn’t live. I think she thinks he was Lincoln, and she’s Lincoln’s mother, not mine.”
“She sounds wonderful, Sam.”
“Don’t think I’m not crazy about her,” Sam said. “I’ve been crazy about her all my life, but isn’t there a limit? She was seventy-five her last birthday. All she does is order the servants around, eat chocolates, and tell everybody she meets she’s Paul Key’s sister. ‘I’m Paul Key’s big sister,’ she says. What a woman, Rock. Bosses me around as if I was eight years old. I came home with a girl once that I wanted to marry. It was during the war. She thinks the girl’s Irish or something, I guess, so she talks to the girl in Yiddish, and the girl talks back to her in the sweetest Yiddish you ever heard. I think she’s going to love the girl, but the first thing she tells me is, ‘That girl’s a crook, Sammy. She’s taking lessons. She speaks Yiddish with an accent. She’s after your money. Don’t trust that girl. She’s no good.’ She keeps it up day after day. I’m afraid to bring the girl home again. So the girl marries a Christian millionaire. They’ve got three kids. So my mother says, ‘See, Sammy? What did I tell you? A phony.’ That’s Mama. But I love her. She bets the horses all day, by telephone, and do you want to hear the pay-off? She wins. She bets them twenty on the nose, every race, every track, and she wins. She sits there by the radio and the phone, waiting for the results, phoning and eating chocolates. She came home with a new mink coat the other day. I’ve bought her two already, but this one’s different, it’s got more style, it’s cut different. Three thousand wholesale, horse wi
nnings. I’ve got to take her to Las Vegas at least once a month, to the Flamingo. She sits at the wheel all day and all night, betting ten-cent chips, and comes home with a profit of anywhere from two hundred to two thousand dollars. Once she lost two hundred dollars and was so upset I thought I was going to lose her. I talked to her for hours, but it didn’t do any good. The next day she went back and lost another hundred. I didn’t know what to do.”
“What did you do?” Rock said.
“Well,” Sam said, “I talked to her again. ‘Mama,’ I said, ‘don’t you understand? You don’t have to worry about two hundred dollars. You don’t have to worry about two hundred thousand dollars, Mama. Don’t you understand? I am US. Pictures now! I make a fortune every year, Mama! Here,’ I said. ‘Here’s two hundred dollars out of my own pocket.’ Listen to this, Rock. ‘I lost two hundred twenty-two dollars,’ she says. ‘So all right, Mama,’ I tell her. ‘Here’s a hundred more. Now, will you stop being unhappy?’”
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