The Pat Hobby Stories

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The Pat Hobby Stories Page 11

by F. Scott Fitzgerald


  Berners smiled.

  'Grand Motel,' he repeated. 'By God! I think you've got

  something. Grand Motel.'

  'I said Grand Hotel,' said Pat.

  'No, you didn't. You said Grand Motel--and for my money it wins

  the fifty.'

  'I've got to go lie down,' announced Pat. 'I feel sick.'

  'There's an empty office across the way. That's a funny idea Pat,

  Grand Motel--or else Motel Clerk. How do you like that?'

  As the fugitive quickened his step out the door Bee pressed the hat

  into his hands.

  'Good work, old timer,' she said.

  Pat seized Mr Marcus' hat, and stood holding it there like a bowl

  of soup.

  'Feel--better--now,' he mumbled after a moment. 'Be back for the

  money.'

  And carrying his burden he shambled toward the lavatory.

  FUN IN AN ARTIST'S STUDIO

  Esquire (February 1941)

  I

  This was back in 1938 when few people except the Germans knew that

  they had already won their war in Europe. People still cared about

  art and tried to make it out of everything from old clothes to

  orange peel and that was how the Princess Dignanni found Pat. She

  wanted to make art out of him.

  'No, not you, Mr DeTinc.' she said, 'I can't paint you. You are a

  very standardized product, Mr DeTinc.'

  Mr DeTinc, who was a power in pictures and had even been

  photographed with Mr Duchman, the Secret Sin specialist, stepped

  smoothly out of the way. He was not offended--in his whole life Mr

  DeTinc had never been offended--but especially not now, for the

  Princess did not want to paint Clark Gable or Spencer Rooney or

  Vivien Leigh either.

  She saw Pat in the commissary and found he was a writer, and asked

  that he be invited to Mr DeTinc's party. The Princess was a pretty

  woman born in Boston, Massachusetts and Pat was forty-nine with red-

  rimmed eyes and a soft purr of whiskey on his breath.

  'You write scenarios, Mr Hobby?'

  'I help,' said Pat. 'Takes more than one person to prepare a

  script.'

  He was flattered by this attention and not a little suspicious. It

  was only because his supervisor was a nervous wreck that he

  happened to have a job at all. His supervisor had forgotten a week

  ago that he had hired Pat, and when Pat was spotted in the

  commissary and told he was wanted at Mr DeTinc's house, the writer

  had passed a mauvais quart d'heure. It did not even look like the

  kind of party that Pat had known in his prosperous days. There was

  not so much as a drunk passed out in the downstairs toilet.

  'I imagine scenario writing is very well-paid,' said the Princess.

  Pat glanced around to see who was within hearing. Mr DeTinc had

  withdrawn his huge bulk somewhat, but one of his apparently

  independent eyes seemed fixed glittering on Pat.

  'Very well paid,' said Pat--and he added in a lower voice, '--if

  you can get it.'

  The Princess seemed to understand and lowered her voice too.

  'You mean writers have trouble getting work?'

  He nodded.

  'Too many of 'em get in these unions.' He raised his voice a

  little for Mr DeTinc's benefit. 'They're all Reds, most of these

  writers.'

  The Princess nodded.

  'Will you turn your face a little to the light?' she said politely.

  'There, that's fine. You won't mind coming to my studio tomorrow,

  will you? Just to pose for me an hour?'

  He scrutinized her again.

  'Naked?' he asked cautiously.

  'Oh, no,' she averred. 'Just the head.'

  Mr DeTinc moved nearer and nodded.

  'You ought to go. Princess Dignanni is going to paint some of the

  biggest stars here. Going to paint Jack Benny and Baby Sandy and

  Hedy Lamarr--isn't that a fact, Princess?'

  The artist didn't answer. She was a pretty good portrait painter

  and she knew just how good she was and just how much of it was her

  title. She was hesitating between her several manners--Picasso's

  rose period with a flash of Boldini, or straight Reginald Marsh.

  But she knew what she was going to call it. She was going to call

  it Hollywood and Vine.

  II

  In spite of the reassurance that he would be clothed Pat approached

  the rendezvous with uneasiness. In his young and impressionable

  years he had looked through a peep-hole into a machine where two

  dozen postcards slapped before his eyes in sequence. The story

  unfolded was Fun in an Artist's Studio. Even now with the strip

  tease a legalized municipal project, he was a little shocked at the

  remembrance, and when he presented himself next day at the

  Princess's bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel it would not have

  surprised him if she had met him in a turkish towel. He was

  disappointed. She wore a smock and her black hair was brushed

  straight back like a boy's.

  Pat had stopped off for a couple of drinks on the way, but his

  first words: 'How'ya Duchess?' failed to set a jovial note for the

  occasion.

  'Well, Mr Hobby,' she said coolly, 'it's nice of you to spare me an

  afternoon.'

  'We don't work too hard in Hollywood,' he assured her. 'Everything

  is "Ma�ana"--in Spanish that means tomorrow.'

  She led him forthwith into a rear apartment where an easel stood on

  a square of canvas by the window. There was a couch and they sat

  down.

  'I want to get used to you for a minute,' she said. 'Did you ever

  pose before?'

  'Do I look that way?' He winked, and when she smiled he felt

  better and asked: 'You haven't got a drink around, have you?'

  The Princess hesitated. She had wanted him to look as if he NEEDED

  one. Compromising, she went to the ice box and fixed him a small

  highball. She returned to find that he had taken off his coat and

  tie and lay informally upon the couch.

  'That IS better,' the Princess said. 'That shirt you're wearing.

  I think they make them for Hollywood--like the special prints they

  make for Ceylon and Guatemala. Now drink this and we'll get to

  work.'

  'Why don't you have a drink too and make it friendly?' Pat

  suggested.

  'I had one in the pantry,' she lied.

  'Married woman?' he asked.

  'I have been married. Now would you mind sitting on this stool?'

  Reluctantly Pat got up, took down the highball, somewhat thwarted

  by the thin taste, and moved to the stool. 'Now sit very still,'

  she said.

  He sat silent as she worked. It was three o'clock. They were

  running the third race at Santa Anita and he had ten bucks on the

  nose. That made sixty he owed Louie, the studio bookie, and Louie

  stood determinedly beside him at the pay window every Thursday.

  This dame had good legs under the easel--her red lips pleased him

  and the way her bare arms moved as she worked. Once upon a time he

  wouldn't have looked at a woman over twenty-five, unless it was a

  secretary right in the office with him. But the kids you saw

  around now were snooty--always talking about calling the police.

&
nbsp; 'Please sit still, Mr Hobby.'

  'What say we knock off,' he suggested. 'This work makes you

  thirsty.'

  The Princess had been painting half an hour. Now she stopped and

  stared at him a moment.

  'Mr Hobby, you were loaned me by Mr DeTinc. Why don't you act just

  as if you were working over at the studio? I'll be through in

  another half-hour.'

  'What do I get out of it?' he demanded, 'I'm no poser--I'm a

  writer.'

  'Your studio salary has not stopped,' she said, resuming her work.

  'What does it matter if Mr DeTinc wants you to do this?'

  'It's different. You're a dame. I've got my self-respect to think

  of.'

  'What do you expect me to do--flirt with you?'

  'No--that's old stuff. But I thought we could sit around and have

  a drink.'

  'Perhaps later,' she said, and then, 'Is this harder work than the

  studio? Am I so difficult to look at?'

  'I don't mind looking at you but why couldn't we sit on the sofa?'

  'You don't sit on the sofa at the studio.'

  'Sure you do. Listen, if you tried all the doors in the Writers'

  Building you'd find a lot of them locked and don't you forget it.'

  She stepped back and squinted at him.

  'Locked? To be undisturbed?' She put down her brush. 'I'll get

  you a drink.'

  When she returned she stopped for a moment in the doorway--Pat had

  removed his shirt and stood rather sheepishly in the middle of the

  floor holding it toward her.

  'Here's that shirt,' he said. 'You can have it. I know where I

  can get a lot more.'

  For a moment longer she regarded him; then she took the shirt and

  put it on the sofa.

  'Sit down and let me finish,' she said. As he hesitated she added,

  'Then we'll have a drink together.'

  'When'll that be?'

  'Fifteen minutes.'

  She worked quickly--several times she was content with the lower

  face--several times she deliberated and started over. Something

  that she had seen in the commissary was missing.

  'Been an artist a long time?' Pat asked.

  'Many years.'

  'Been around artists' studios a lot?'

  'Quite a lot--I've had my own studios.'

  'I guess a lot goes on around those studios. Did you ever--'

  He hesitated.

  'Ever what?' she queried.

  'Did you ever paint a naked man?'

  'Don't talk for one minute, please.' She paused with brush

  uplifted, seemed to listen, then made a swift stroke and looked

  doubtfully at the result.

  'Do you know you're difficult to paint?' she said, laying down the

  brush.

  'I don't like this posing around,' he admitted. 'Let's call it a

  day.' He stood up. 'Why don't you--why don't you slip into

  something so you'll be comfortable?'

  The Princess smiled. She would tell her friends this story--it

  would sort of go with the picture, if the picture was any good,

  which she now doubted.

  'You ought to revise your methods,' she said. 'Do you have much

  success with this approach?'

  Pat lit a cigarette and sat down.

  'If you were eighteen, see, I'd give you that line about being nuts

  about you.'

  'But why any line at all?'

  'Oh, come off it!' he advised her. 'You wanted to paint me, didn't

  you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, when a dame wants to paint a guy--' Pat reached down and

  undid his shoe strings, kicked his shoes onto the floor, put his

  stockinged feet on the couch. '--when a dame wants to see a guy

  about something or a guy wants to see a dame, there's a payoff,

  see.'

  The Princess sighed. 'Well I seem to be trapped,' she said. 'But

  it makes it rather difficult when a dame just wants to paint a

  guy.'

  'When a dame wants to paint a guy--' Pat half closed his eyes,

  nodded and flapped his hands expressively. As his thumbs went

  suddenly toward his suspenders, she spoke in a louder voice.

  'Officer!'

  There was a sound behind Pat. He turned to see a young man in

  khaki with shining black gloves, standing in the door.

  'Officer, this man is an employee of Mr DeTinc's. Mr DeTinc lent

  him to me for the afternoon.'

  The policeman looked at the staring image of guilt upon the couch.

  'Get fresh?' he inquired.

  'I don't want to prefer charges--I called the desk to be on the

  safe side. He was to pose for me in the nude and now he refuses.'

  She walked casually to her easel.' Mr Hobby, why don't you stop

  this mock-modesty--you'll find a turkish towel in the bathroom.'

  Pat reached stupidly for his shoes. Somehow it flashed into his

  mind that they were running the eighth race at Santa Anita--

  'Shake it up, you,' said the cop. 'You heard what the lady said.'

  Pat stood up vaguely and fixed a long poignant look on the

  Princess.

  'You told me--' he said hoarsely, 'you wanted to paint--'

  'You told me I meant something else. Hurry please. And officer,

  there's a drink in the pantry.'

  . . . A few minutes later as Pat sat shivering in the centre of the

  room his memory went back to those peep-shows of his youth--though

  at the moment he could see little resemblance. He was grateful at

  least for the turkish towel, even now failing to realize that the

  Princess was not interested in his shattered frame but in his face.

  It wore the exact expression that had wooed her in the commissary,

  the expression of Hollywood and Vine, the other self of Mr DeTinc--

  and she worked fast while there was still light enough to paint by.

  TWO OLD-TIMERS

  Esquire (March 1941)

  Phil Macedon, once the Star of Stars, and Pat Hobby, script writer,

  had collided out on Sunset near the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was

  five in the morning and there was liquor in the air as they argued

  and Sergeant Gaspar took them around to the station house. Pat

  Hobby, a man of forty-nine, showed fight, apparently because Phil

  Macedon failed to acknowledge that they were old acquaintances.

  He accidentally bumped Sergeant Gaspar who was so provoked that he

  put him in a little barred room while they waited for the Captain

  to arrive.

  Chronologically Phil Macedon belonged between Eugene O'Brien and

  Robert Taylor. He was still a handsome man in his early fifties

  and he had saved enough from his great days for a hacienda in the

  San Fernando Valley; there he rested as full of honours, as

  rolicksome and with the same purposes in life as Man o' War.

  With Pat Hobby life had dealt otherwise. After twenty-one years in

  the industry, script and publicity, the accident found him driving

  a 1933 car which had lately become the property of the North

  Hollywood Finance and Loan Co. And once, back in 1928, he had

  reached a point of getting bids for a private swimming pool.

  He glowered from his confinement, still resenting Macedon's failure

  to acknowledge that they had ever met before.

  'I suppose you don't remember Coleman,' he said sarcastically. 'Or

  Connie Talmadge or Bill C
orker or Allan Dwan.'

  Macedon lit a cigarette with the sort of timing in which the silent

  screen has never been surpassed, and offered one to Sergeant

  Gaspar.

  'Couldn't I come in tomorrow?' he asked. 'I have a horse to

  exercise--'

  'I'm sorry, Mr Macedon,' said the cop--sincerely for the actor was

  an old favourite of his. 'The Captain is due here any minute.

  After that we won't be holding YOU.'

  'It's just a formality,' said Pat, from his cell.

  'Yeah, it's just a--' Sergeant Gaspar glared at Pat. 'It may not

  be any formality for YOU. Did you ever hear of the sobriety test?'

  Macedon flicked his cigarette out the door and lit another.

  'Suppose I come back in a couple of hours,' he suggested.

  'No,' regretted Sergeant Gaspar. 'And since I have to detain you,

  Mr Macedon, I want to take the opportunity to tell you what you

  meant to me once. It was that picture you made, The Final Push, it

  meant a lot to every man who was in the war.'

  'Oh, yes,' said Macedon, smiling.

  'I used to try to tell my wife about the war--how it was, with the

  shells and the machine guns--I was in there seven months with the

  26th New England--but she never understood. She'd point her finger

  at me and say "Boom! you're dead," and so I'd laugh and stop

  trying to make her understand.'

  'Hey, can I get out of here?' demanded Pat.

  'You shut up!' said Gaspar fiercely. 'You probably wasn't in the

  war.'

  'I was in the Motion Picture Home Guard,' said Pat. 'I had bad

  eyes.'

  'Listen to him,' said Gaspar disgustedly. 'That's what all them

  slackers say. Well, the war was something. And after my wife saw

  that picture of yours I never had to explain to her. She knew.

  She always spoke different about it after that--never just pointed

  her finger at me and said "Boom!" I'll never forget the part where

  you was in that shell hole. That was so real it made my hands

  sweat.'

  'Thanks,' said Macedon graciously. He lit another cigarette, 'You

  see, I was in the war myself and I knew how it was. I knew how it

  felt.'

  'Yes sir,' said Gaspar appreciatively. 'Well; I'm glad of the

  opportunity to tell you what you did for me. You--you explained

  the war to my wife.'

  'What are you talking about?' demanded Pat Hobby suddenly. 'That

  war picture Bill Corker did in 1925?'

  'There he goes again,' said Gaspar. 'Sure--The Birth of a Nation.

  Now you pipe down till the Captain comes.'

  'Phil Macedon knew me then all right,' said Pat resentfully, 'I

  even watched him work on it one day.'

  'I just don't happen to remember you, old man,' said Macedon

  politely, 'I can't help that.'

  'You remember the day Bill Corker shot that shell hole sequence

  don't you? Your first day on the picture?'

  There was a moment's silence.

  'When will the Captain be here?' Macedon asked.

  'Any minute now,' Mr Macedon.'

  'Well, I remember,' said Pat, '--because I was there when he had

  that shell hole dug. He was out there on the back lot at nine

  o'clock in the morning with a gang of hunkies to dig the hole and

  four cameras. He called you up from a field telephone and told you

  to go to the costumer and get into a soldier suit. Now you

  remember?'

  'I don't load my mind with details, old man.'

  'You called up that they didn't have one to fit you and Corker told

  you to shut up and get into one anyhow. When you got out to the

  back lot you were sore as hell because your suit didn't fit.'

  Macedon smiled charmingly.

 

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