“Because there are no halfway measures. This is not a job like any other job. That is the mistake a lot of you people make when you get started; you figure that it’s take a couple of sets and do a couple of scenes and pick up your money and go home that it’s just another way of making a little. But it isn’t like that at all. It is a very peculiar, demanding business. I have been in this business for many years and it is not a question of business but of your whole life. This is something that people learn with difficulty.”
“I wanted to be an actress,” Susan says. “That was the thing; I wouldn’t have gone into this just for money.”
“Well that’s not the point,” Phil says. “We can’t talk about your problems and ambitions just now; that’s a lot later. The point is, do you want to make it in this or don’t you? Because if you don’t, you’re going to have to get out now.”
“I told you before I wanted to get out.”
“But it isn’t that simple, sweetheart,” Phil says persuasively, cupping his palms, leaning across the desk, talking to her now confidentially, almost with affection. For the moment it is as if Timothy were not even in the room and the scene is between just the two of them. “You’re already in it. You’ve been in a movie. You’re making another movie. This is not the time to back out. Maybe you should have done this thinking before you got started. But you said you wanted the work and I believed you. So I gave you a chance. Now I am sorry to say that you are beginning to fuck with my business, Susan, and when you fuck with my business, you are screwing around with my life. So certain adjustments must be made. There is no margin for error in this business. All the errors are on the other side, with the people seeing this stuff. They got enough problems; we have to meet them with efficiency. It is very rare that we break someone new into this business. You are under the wrong impression if you think that every person who comes in off the street gets a job in a film. We screen very carefully and we demand more of a person than many find themselves ready to give. We took a chance on you. Twice now within an hour you have been responsible for serious problems. Most of the people who are working with you have been with us for years, do you know that? We trust them. They trust us. But you are making things very difficult.”
“I promise,” Timothy says, “that if you let me go now, I’ll walk straight out of this place and never have anything to do with it again. I won’t even think about it, that’s what I promise you. If someone ever asks me what I think of the blue film business, I’ll say that I don’t even go to movies. I give you my word of honor on that. And I won’t even think of Susan. She doesn’t mean a thing to me. All that I want to do is to walk out of here and — ”
“Isn’t that disgusting?” Phil says absently, pointing to Timothy with a shrug. “This is a man who is absolutely terrified and he does not even know why. This is a man who thinks that since we make a certain kind of film, we must all be killers. This is not good thinking. This is not reasonable thinking. This is not the kind of thinking which made our country great. Nevertheless, there are more people like him than you might realize. They are responsible for the way that ninety percent of the people in this country look at things. I think that that is very sad.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Timothy says. “I promised — ”
“Shut up. This has nothing to do with you at all; you are just sitting here for safekeeping. In due course we’ll find out what we’re going to do with you. Right now I’m trying to finish things up with your girl friend.”
“She’s not my girl friend.”
“Nevertheless,” Phil says. “Nevertheless. That is your decision to make.” Turning to Susan he goes on, “From the beginning I have noticed a certain ambivalence about you. On the one hand, you wanted to act in this and on the other hand you were not sure how much of you could be given to it without beginning to feel that you were a part of the process. This is very common with you young people just starting out and I take it as a matter of course. Sooner or later you learn that you must give almost everything of yourselves and that nothing can be held back. And you are ready to go along with that. But we can no longer put up with this, Susan.”
“I don’t think I want it any more,” she says, after a pause. “If that’s what you’re asking me. I don’t think that it’s really the kind of thing I want to do. So maybe we’ll just forget the whole thing, after I finish this picture. I’d like to finish this. I mean, I feel responsible — ”
“Now, that’s where I think you’re making a mistake, Susan. Your thinking is not good. It is not thorough. It is not a matter of finishing this film, it involves a lot more than that. Your entire attitude is one of commitment if you are in this business. You cannot take things lightly and you are in it for a long term.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand very much, Susan. I hate to say this and I do not want you to take this personally, but you are not a very bright girl. You do not think things through.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Timothy says.
“That’s not necessary,” Phil says quietly. “I told you, we are having a conversation here and it is as if you do not exist. I do not want to hear from you again.”
“All right. I don’t care for her anyway. I just want to get out of here.”
“I have to finish the film,” Susan says. “Can’t I decide after that?”
“No you cannot. You cannot postpone decisions, Susan; you must face them now Your attitude is too casual. This sort of thing must stop.”
“It’s not fair. It just isn’t fair.”
“Nothing is fair,” Phil says gently. “Consider the restraints we have put upon us. Consider what we must go through. We are only trying to give people what they want. We are deeply concerned with the business of appealing to their real desires and what do we get for all our troubles? Contempt and betrayal. Hypocrisy and discontent. Nothing comes easily. Nevertheless, we do the best we can.”
“All right,” Timothy says from the corner. “If you let me go now, I’ll do everything to build you up. I never had anything against this kind of picture. I work with the most dangerous and dislocated segment of the population; I see their pitiful desires and actions before me in cold print every day, mountains of disasters in the case histories recorded in the most horrifying, deadly way. I’m no hypocrite. I’m on your side.”
“All right,” Susan says, feeling that she is passing over an important boundary. “All right, I see what you’re saying and I agree. I’ll stay. I’ll finish the film and I’ll stay.”
“Pornography is for the middle class anyway,” Timothy says. “Don’t you agree? How could a welfare client possibly take this kind of stuff seriously? He has no imaginative power left; it’s all been squeezed out of him.”
“You know what you’re saying?” Phil asks. “Are you aware of what it means?”
“I think so.”
“This is for the long haul. There are serious issues here. You are either with us or against us. We do not want the kind of person who is only interested in giving us a day’s work.”
“All right.”
“And not only has the imaginative power been squeezed out of him,” Timothy says, “but the very belief in alternatives, the very belief in a whole system of operating choices does not exist. The middle class, don’t you agree with this Phil, the middle class believes in choice. They have been educated in the truism that they can do almost anything and that, if they fail, they will be bailed out. That’s why most middle class people go crazy by the time they’re forty.”
“He talks a lot, doesn’t he?” Phil says, shrugging a shoulder toward Timothy. “He just doesn’t get turned off, no matter what. You have that problem with him?”
“Yes,” Susan says. “I did.”
“This kind of thing definitely has to stop. If you listen to too much of that you could go out of your mind.”
“I know what you mean,” Susan says. She feels detached from all of it, even Phil
now. She stands, adjusts herself, turns away from Timothy and says, “Can I go back now?”
“I think so,” Phil says. “Wait a minute.” He leans forward slowly, puts a hand to her cheek, with a strange, gentle gesture. He looks at her intently. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I see. I see now. You can go back.” He drops his hand.
Susan turns, walks to the door, leaves. Phil’s touch burns upon her, burns coldly as she returns to the loft. When she reaches the others she thinks that his touch must have become a stain and that she is glowing for all of them to see, but they drop their eyes. One by one they turn from her and continue their work. What Phil has done to her is invisible. What she has done to herself is invisible. She removes her clothes slowly and carefully, picks up her waiting script, holding for instructions from the director.
CHAPTER XL
Later, Phil has no time for the hotel room. He says that he has an important appointment, people to see, certain contacts who will drop in shortly; they will have to use his office even at the risk of offending his sense of delicacy. She submits willingly, easily, finding a familiarity in his grasp, an accessibility in his need. At last she is comfortable under him and willing to be led where he will take her, but he goes almost nowhere at all. His orgasm is only a small quiver inside her, a bare pathetic act, springing away. He wipes himself in a kneeling position, his eyes on the wall. She almost asks him about Timothy but decides that she is not really interested in his whereabouts. Phil volunteers nothing.
CHAPTER XLI
On the way from the building she intercepts the director who is also on the steps heading out. She says hello and for an instant he does not seem to know her; then recognition works slowly across his face and he licks his lips, touches his eyes, asks her what she is doing in the building so late after the shooting. She shrugs and he says that he understands; furthermore he apologizes for shouting at her this afternoon, but he has been under enormous strain, terrific pressure, and she must realize that. He has never had to operate under a strict budgetary situation before while trying to do work of some achievement and value. “I think that when this is over I will go back to the Continent,” he says, “the Continent has very little money and an insignificant audience but there is a respect for serious work built into the culture and they do not torture you for being an artist. Here it is entirely different. However I suspect that I am just talking and I will not go back to the Continent after all because the corruption is already too basic. It is too late to change; what brought me here has made me irretrievable. You do not understand that, do you?” Susan says that she guesses she does not, and the director nods slowly, sadly, going on his way, a stooped figure afflicted by vagrant flashes of energy so that he pauses in midstride, every now and then, to commence an erratic skip. Then each time he immediately gains control of himself and moves ponderously until the next skip which is more of a twitch than a true vault. At least he does not seem to be interested in her sexually which Susan can appreciate. At the corner he turns, kisses his fingers, waves to her again and she wonders if she can be sure of that. Now he is out of sight and it is too late for any such speculation. Besides, she has absolutely no desire for him. She has no desire for anyone anymore.
CHAPTER XLII
She returns to Frank’s apartment because there is really nowhere else to go and most of her belongings are still there. Frank is out but his mother who is sitting, working out a crossword puzzle in the living room, says that he only went for a couple of minutes and left word that Susan should definitely expect him back soon. His mother says this as if she were reading it off a strip of tape projected on the far side of the room, then sighs, adjusts her glasses, and goes back to the crossword puzzle. “I don’t suppose,” she says, after a pause, Susan having gone halfway to the door leading to her own room, “I don’t suppose that there’s anything really going on between you and Frank, is there? I would be so happy if there were, but usually there isn’t; he finds it impossible to have serious relationships any more. He hasn’t been the same boy since he came back from school.”
“Nothing too serious,” Susan says. “I mean, I like him, but I’ve only known him two days and the reason I’m staying here is that I had trouble with my roommate. I wouldn’t want you to think — ”
“Oh I don’t think. I haven’t had a thought since 1952; I just do these crossword puzzles on instinct. You don’t have to worry about what I think, dear. Frank and I have had terrible arguments about this; he thinks that I’m making judgments and of course I’m not making judgments. I don’t try to judge anyone least of all my own son whom I don’t understand any more. You don’t think that there could be anything serious between you, do you?”
“It’s not that kind of thing. It’s — ”
“Yes, I know. It’s never that kind of thing. Frank has never had any luck. Of course that runs in the family: luck is inherited like everything else. You’re a very attractive girl; you know that.”
“I don’t think about it too much.”
“The attractive ones never do. You wouldn’t know a four-letter word for a Chinese hexagon, would you?”
“No,” Susan says. “I don’t do crossword puzzles.”
“I know you think that this is very trivial and obsessive but I’m an old lady and what else is there to do? What is bacchanalian cry? I always forget. I don’t even know the easy ones. The trouble is I have no talent for crossword puzzles.”
“I don’t know what a bacchanalian cry is.”
“I didn’t think you did, dear. Frank gives me nothing to do; he’s ashamed of me and we have this strict arrangement that I won’t interfere in his life. But what good does that do if he’s always interfering in mine? He has to know everything I do and he doesn’t like any of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So I wind up doing crossword puzzles because it’s easier than having fights with my son. I’ll be seventy-three years old next September. I was really quite old when Frank was born and he was something of a mistake. I never expected to get pregnant at forty.”
“Must we talk about this?”
“Well, what’s the alternative, dear? We must talk about something and I’d rather that it was basic things rather than hypocritical lies. Frank’s an only child, you know. He was born out of wedlock. Maybe I should have married the man; I’ve often wondered about that. Maybe that was the real problem with Frank from the beginning, that he needed a father. But I treasured my independence and felt that the child would have to come second even though I did want him. Well, you never know. The thing is,” Frank’s mother says, “the thing is that I had a very dull, uninteresting job as a clerk-typist with absolutely no future and I was fired when Frank was three years old anyway. I wish that I could be resigned and ironic, don’t you? That’s what old ladies are supposed to be, full of irony. But I’m just as mad now as I was back then. I can have the same feelings. You don’t understand that, you young people; you think that everybody over fifty stops feeling. But inside it’s always the same, there’s just nothing you can do about it and that’s why old people are so nasty and unhappy. You must be very hungry.”
“No,” Susan says, giving up on the idea of leaving the room, and sits down on the couch opposite the old lady’s chair with a sigh. “No, I don’t have any appetite at all, really.”
“It must be the kind of work you’re doing. Oh don’t be embarrassed; I know exactly what you and Frank are doing. He says that he wants to lead separate lives but actually he tells me everything. Sometimes he comes into my room at two in the morning and tells me everything that’s on his mind and exactly what he went through. He just can’t stop talking. That kind of work keeps you from having an appetite, I bet.”
“I never had much of an appetite.”
“Well, I neither approve nor disapprove; it doesn’t make any difference to me. I guess it makes as much sense as anything else these days and a dollar is a dollar. At least you have a chance to do something creative although I never thought t
hat Frank would become an actor. Somehow he never seemed the type to be an actor in that kind of business. But it shows that the apple rolls further from the tree than you can ever tell. You look a little ill, dear; are you sure that you wouldn’t want to get something to eat?”
“No,” Susan says and, shifting in the couch, decides that after all she will stand and leave this room, will even leave this house if necessary; but before she can gather herself together Frank walks through the apartment door holding a bag of groceries in both hands. “Hello Susan,” he says. “I was just gone for a few minutes; I hope it wasn’t long.”
“I think I want to leave, Frank.”
“Susan and I have been talking,” his mother says. “We’ve had a talk about this thing and that. I’m afraid that I haven’t made her very happy though, Frank. Maybe you’d better save the situation.”
“I can’t stand this any more, mother.”
“It’s your own fault, Frank; you talk too much. If you don’t want me meddling in your life or knowing what goes on, why do you tell me all these things? You can’t dump all this horrifying information on me and expect me to take it without a twitch. I’m seventy-three years old next September; I don’t have the resources that you young people have.”
“Let’s go upstairs, Susan,” Frank says, putting down the groceries on a table. “Look, we can talk there.”
“I don’t want to talk,” she says, getting up from the couch finally. “I’ve been talking all day. I just came back here really to pick up my things. I’m going to a hotel. Tomorrow I can look for an apartment.”
“There’s no reason for you to leave.”
“It’s your own fault, Frank,” his mother says. “You never really knew how to handle a girl. There’s something peculiarly self-destructive in you; I’ve seen it from the first. You make yourself less than what you are and then you want people to take you on those terms to show that they really care. And if they don’t care, then you can always say that you weren’t trying. You see, I know some psychology too. I’ve read up on this type of thing.”
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