he: A Novel Read online

  In bed, he trusts hers.

  This is vaudeville, and on the vaudeville circuit a blind eye is turned to who is sleeping with whom, but performing together, and traveling together, and rooming together, bring a different kind of attention. There are still laws against fornication and adultery. Mae cannot be his wife because she is already Mrs Cuthbert. If she remains Miss Dahlberg, problems will arise.

  He stirs, and takes in the room. The furniture is chipped. The carpet is a lattice of cigarette burns. The mattress is iron, the pillows slabs, the sheets stained like mortuary shrouds. Chaplin, at $700,000 a year, would not even deign to step across its threshold.

  The first time I came to America, he tells her, I left my shoes outside the door of the rooming house to be polished. When I woke up the next morning, they were gone.

  He shares this story often. By now, it may even be true.

  Mae laughs, although she has heard the tale before. It is told whenever they stay in the same place for more than a night or two. He speaks it aloud to remind himself of his own foolishness. He speaks it aloud in the hope that, one day, he will stay in the kind of hotel in which his shoes are no longer in danger of being stolen.

  He does not ask Mae about her husband. He does not ask Mae about her son. But he thinks about both of them, often. Rupert William Cuthbert, spouse. Rupert Clifton Saxe Cuthbert, son. Their unseen presence stretches across every bed.

  Chaplin, he tells her, is the best that has ever been.

  – Chaplin is good, but Chaplin is not that good. You are his equal.

  Mae is wrong, but he loves her for being so. For all the darkness and all the doubts, for all the falsehoods and all the flesh, Mae sees in him what he sees in Chaplin.

  Mae sees greatness.

  Or perhaps Mae sees money.

  Even years later, at the Oceana Apartments, he cannot be sure.

  21

  He feels that he is anchored to a post by a chain; he can only advance so far before his progress is arrested.

  Carl Laemmle is Universal Studios. Isadore Bernstein looks after Carl Laemmle’s business affairs on the West Coast. Isadore Bernstein builds Universal City. But Isadore Bernstein has ambitions beyond signing another man’s checks. Isadore Bernstein wants to found his own studio. Isadore Bernstein smells success in comedy.

  It is 1917, and Isadore Bernstein offers him his own series of films. He has waited. He has been patient. Now he is being rewarded, and Mae also: they sign together.

  The picture is called Nuts in May.

  An Isadore Bernstein Production.

  Written by Isadore Bernstein.

  Filmed at Bernstein Studios.

  Isadore Bernstein talks of a possible collaboration with Chaplin.

  He should have known better. He plays a book salesman who becomes convinced that he is the Emperor Napoleon. He plays a deluded individual.

  There is one preview at the Hippodrome. He sees himself on the screen at last. He sees Mae. Cigars are lit. Toasts are made.

  It is the only showing of the picture.

  It is the first and last comedy in his series.

  Someone tells him that Chaplin was sitting at the back of the Hippodrome for the screening. It may be a lie, because there is no sign of Chaplin afterward. He hopes that it is a lie, because if Chaplin departed without exchanging a greeting it can only be for one of two reasons: either Chaplin saw the picture and viewed his old understudy as competition, and Chaplin dislikes competition; or the picture was so bad – and he so bad in it – that Chaplin wished only to spare him the shame of an encounter.

  But Chaplin reappears. Chaplin invites him to dinner. Chaplin offers him work, because Chaplin says that he is better than this, better than Isadore Bernstein Productions.

  And he believes Chaplin, because Chaplin is Chaplin.

  But the work never materializes.

  Because Chaplin is Chaplin.

  Isadore Bernstein blinks at him through round spectacles and asks for a donation toward the building of the Temple Israel on Ivar Street. He tells Isadore Bernstein that he is not Jewish. Isadore Bernstein replies that it does not matter.

  – You could be Jewish. You could be Jewish and just not know it. You don’t have to give the full amount. Give half. A quarter.

  He has money, but not enough of it. He is back where he began, with ‘The Nutty Burglars’ and ‘Raffles the Dentist’, town after town, stage after stage, in boarding houses that reek of grease and mildew, drinking whisky in kitchens by candlelight, drinking with men who have failed and men who have yet to fail. He wishes that he had never met Isadore Bernstein. He regrets ever seeing his own face on the screen.

  Because he wants this now.

  He wants it more than ever.

  He lies in Mae’s arms. Beyond the walls, beyond the light, someone cries a woman’s name.

  You were good, Mae tells him, just as she has told him every night for the last month.

  But if he were good, then the picture would be good. If the picture were good, then the picture would be released, but the picture will not be released, and therefore it must not be good. He cannot get Isadore Bernstein on the telephone. Isadore Bernstein, he suspects, may be off doing God’s work, recruiting Jews at a discount.

  There will be another chance, Mae tells him, just as she has told him every night for the last month.

  He looks in Mae’s dark eyes, and cannot see himself reflected. He licks at Mae’s nipple with the tip of his tongue so that he may be sure she is real, and he is real. He kisses Mae’s pale, supple flesh.

  Between them, he and Mae have come up with a new identity for him, and a surname they will both share.

  He adds the initials to their suitcases.

  S.L. and M.L.

  Like the tree, says Mae. Like the victory wreath.

  Mae shifts position. She gazes down at him, and runs her hands through his hair. She moves on him, and he in her.

  Within the walls, within the light, he cries her name.

  22

  At the Oceana Apartments, he follows a daily routine. He has always sought stability. He thrives on the habitual, on control, even as his comedy relied on its usurpation.

  Ida gets up first. Ida goes to bed late – she likes to watch her shows – but still she rises earlier than he. He requires a test each morning for his diabetes, and this task falls to Ida. He breakfasts on toast and tea, or coffee if the mood strikes him. Lois, his daughter, keeps him supplied with jellies from the Farmers Market. He could have a different flavor every day of the week, if he chose.

  Such small pleasures, such simple delights.

  When he is done with breakfast, he ventures to the lobby to pick up his mail. He moves slowly. His stroke has left him with a limp, and he is hugely self-conscious about its effects. Only here, in the safety of the Oceana Apartments, where his neighbors are familiar with his ways, is he comfortable to be seen in decline.

  There is always mail. Mostly it is a handful of letters, but sometimes it comes in sacks, and he tips the doorman to help him carry them up to his desk. And then he sits, for hour upon hour, and composes his replies. A blood vessel has burst in his left eye. It makes it difficult for him to read books, but he can cope with letters easily enough, and the stories in the trade papers. He once calculated how much he spends on stamps every week, and it is an exercise he chooses not to repeat; there are some expenses it is better to ignore. He pauses only to take telephone calls – from friends, from strangers, and always, always from his lawyer, Ben Shipman, who continues to look after his business affairs, and ensures he never has so much money that he is in danger of becoming a playboy.

  He stops for lunch. If he is feeling strong enough, he and Ida go out to eat at Madame Wu’s, or The Fox & Hounds; otherwise, they order in. He naps. He looks out upon the ocean. He watches television. He plays canasta with Ida and her friends, or poker with Buster Keaton.

  He goes to bed.

  He repeats the cycle.

  This is ho
w he spends the days, the days without Babe.

  23

  J. Warren Kerrigan: Jack to his friends. The Handsomest Man in Pictures: broad-shouldered, soft-eyed. They have passed each other on the circuit, but now Jack Kerrigan has left vaudeville behind. Jack Kerrigan is a big name at Universal, starring opposite Louise Lester in the Calamity Anne pictures, although the whispers suggest that the westerns have been miscast, and Jack Kerrigan has missed his calling as Calamity Anne.

  Jack Kerrigan is a notorious fairy. Jack Kerrigan lives with his mother and his lover, James Vincent, in a house in Balboa Beach. Jack Kerrigan also believes in his own status as an artist, which is his downfall. On May 10th, 1917, the Denver Times asks Jack Kerrigan if Jack Kerrigan is planning to sign up and fight for his country. This is the answer that Jack Kerrigan gives to the Denver Times:

  I think that first they should take the great mass of men who aren’t good for anything else, or are only good for the lower grades of work. Actors, musicians, great writers, artists of every kind – isn’t it a pity when people are sacrificed who are capable of such things, of adding beauty to the world?

  Jack Kerrigan is fucked.

  He reads about Jack Kerrigan while Mae dresses before him. He likes watching her dress, enjoys watching her apply her make-up, this careful construction of the self. Mae purrs as she moves, lost in the acts.

  Now that they share the same name, he has almost begun to think of her as his wife, although they remain unmarried. But the business with Jack Kerrigan causes him concern. He is no fairy, unlike Jack Kerrigan, but some motion picture contracts contain morals clauses. They are puffery, for the most part – if they were invoked for every lapse, no pictures would ever get made – but the threat of them remains.

  He is not a star. This room still smells of the detergent Mae has purchased, and which they have applied together to every surface in the hours since their arrival. They are to be here for a week, and Mae has refused even to remove her shoes until the room is scrubbed to her satisfaction. After this, they make love.

  In their clean room.

  In their unclean bed.

  But if he were to become a star, what then?

  Universal has tolerated Jack Kerrigan’s sexual proclivities, but they have remained a cause for concern, particularly as they are common knowledge in the motion picture community. In shooting his mouth off, Jack Kerrigan has drawn attention to himself. Jack Kerrigan may be a fairy, but that doesn’t mean Jack Kerrigan has to disport like a damsel in the Denver Times.

  That evening, after the show, the conversation at the boarding house is of how Jack Kerrigan’s career is over. Jack Kerrigan’s decline will be gradual, his termination carefully managed, but Jack Kerrigan is done. By talking like a fairy, Jack Kerrigan has given the studio permission to treat him like a fairy. Worse, a Jack Kerrigan picture is finished and ready for release the following year. To add to the studio’s misfortunes, the picture is titled A Man’s Man.

  He returns to his room, leaving a drink unfinished. Mae is already in bed, concealed beneath a thin sheet.

  He sits by the window and monitors the rise and fall of her breathing, a pale witness to the comber of her form.

  24

  He and Mae go to the pictures. They watch a Rolin company short starring Harold Lloyd. Harold Lloyd has previously made a series of pictures for Hal Roach as Willie Work and now, following an unsuccessful flirtation with Mack Sennett, has returned to Hal Roach’s stable as Lonesome Luke. He thinks Harold Lloyd is good, but can tell that the actor is copying Chaplin. After all, everyone has copied, is copying, and will copy Chaplin. Even he.

  Especially he.

  Later, over coffee, he is quiet. He believes that Harold Lloyd cannot endure as Lonesome Luke. No one can compete with Chaplin. He has tried, and failed, and he knows Chaplin better than anyone, for he has walked in Chaplin’s footsteps.

  Maybe you should try calling Chaplin, Mae suggests.

  Mae means well. He understands this, but it does not stop him from feeling a muted rage. He tries to hide it, but she knows his every expression.

  That night, the Audience does not laugh as hard or as often as before, and Mae does not speak to him in the dressing room, or on the walk back to their rooming house, or in their bed.

  When he touches her, she pretends to be asleep.

  25

  Carl Laemmle saves him.

  Isadore Bernstein’s dreams of a motion picture empire may be so much smoke, but Carl Laemmle sees Nuts in May, even if no one else does.

  He gets the call.

  – Mr Laemmle likes you. Come in and talk to us.

  He shines his shoes, the shoes that have not yet been stolen because he no longer leaves them outside his door at night. He pays to have his suit pressed, and examines it at the laundry counter to ensure that the fabric is spotless and without wrinkle or burn. He irons his own shirt, even though Mae offers to do it for him. He will perform all these duties himself because he is superstitious, and he has worked so hard, and he fears that if he does not take care of every detail his future will slip through some small fissure and he will be forced to watch as it tumbles into the void until at last its light is lost.

  He does not sleep that night.

  He bathes in the morning. The proprietor of the rooming house is not used to men wishing to bathe in the morning. The proprietor regards it as a tendency worthy of comment and suspicion for a man to bathe excessively – or even, it is speculated, given the state of the proprietor’s personal hygiene, to bathe very much at all.

  Word spreads through the rooming house, among the failed and the yet-to-fail. They wait for him. He can hear them gathering in the halls, on the stairs, crow women and crow men.

  Mae helps him dress. From his suit she picks stray lint and infinitesimal molecules of dust and dirt that have conspired to undo the good work of the laundry and might present sufficient cause for Carl Laemmle to refuse him entry to the studio.

  Finally, he is ready. Mae moves in to kiss him, but stops just as her lips are poised to brush his skin, as though even this might be too much for the fragile warp and weft of present and future. Instead she tells him that he is as good as any, that she loves him.

  And Mae does. Child-weighted and child-scored she may be, a creature of craft and ambition, but Mae has already begun the process of willing into being the man he is to become. Without Mae, he is weaker. Without Mae, he would still be merely A.J.’s son.

  They stop him on the stairs, the failed and yet-to-fail. They speak of acts they have stolen from others, of gags old before they were told, of motion pictures and missed chances. They wish him luck only that they might benefit from it, but the wiser ones understand luck to be in finite supply, and whatever he gains must be procured from the rest. If he is to succeed, then all others in this house on this day must founder.

  He steps into the sunlight, and takes their luck with him.

  26

  He meets Carl Laemmle only briefly. Carl Laemmle is a busy man.

  The functionary who deals with him does not notice his clean shoes, or his pressed suit, or his shirt bleached for the whiteness of it. It does not matter. Carl Laemmle has spoken, and he is to be hired.

  A fee is agreed. It is not much. It never is.

  It does not matter.

  Four pictures.

  Four pictures for the Universal Film Manufacturing Company.

  Four pictures for the units known as the L-KO Motion Picture Kompany and Nestor Comedies.

  Four pictures that are already written, but not with him in mind. He will dine on another man’s leavings.

  It does not matter.

  He does not ask if there is a role for Mae. If he succeeds, Mae will rise with him. This is what he tells himself.

  He tells himself that it does not matter.

  Four pictures. He plays a suitor, a farm worker, a waiter, and a sanitarium supervisor. He plays them well, or as well as anyone can, and that is the problem: any actor could pl
ay these roles, and as yet he has no character. He no longer even has his own name.

  And there is no love for him on the lot. The faces here are leaner yet than those in the theater.

  Rube Miller does not want competition.

  Neal Burns does not want competition.

  Walter Belasco does not want competition.

  Even Charlie the elephant does not want competition, because there are only so many peanuts to go around.

  Someone whispers that Chaplin considered hiring him for his stock company, but decided against it. Carl Laemmle, he is told, is doing Chaplin a favor by taking him on, because Chaplin feels sorry for him. He is a charity case. He should go back to vaudeville, to rat-gnawed bags of corn for popping, and dressing rooms shared with midgets and jugglers and ventriloquists, and nickel meals at lunch counters in towns only a generation advanced from dust.

  And although he wishes to be like Chaplin, neither is he like these others. He wishes to be in pictures, but he does not hate the stage. He is A.J.’s seed, and has never forgotten Pickard’s Museum, and the act worked up before dolls, and A.J.’s voice asking where he got his gags, the gags he procured, the gags he invented. He has Mae. They can work the theaters; the Pantages Circuit is waiting.

  The four pictures are completed by October. When will they be released? A shrug. Perhaps it will be as it was with Nuts in May. Perhaps they may never be released, and Chaplin will cover the bill with a check, Chaplin’s conscience at ease, a debt never owed now paid to Chaplin’s satisfaction.

  By November, he and Mae are lying once again in unfamiliar beds, in rooming houses where men bathe weekly, and only by night.

  27

  Hal Roach will live so long that Hal Roach will be permitted to dictate his own history, like God conveying His Word to the evangelists. They will record as gospel Hal Roach’s tales of mule-skinning and Yukon prospecting, of ice-cream truck driving and saloon swamping – a term that Hal Roach will generally resist explaining for fear that it may purge the exoticism, because a saloon swamper is so much more esoteric an entity than a janitor, and ‘swamping’ sounds better than emptying spittoons and cleaning blood and shit and vomit from toilet stalls.