he: A Novel Page 5

  Hal Roach, a colorful man trapped in a black and white world, apprehends the value of anecdotage.

  Hal Roach comes up the hard way, and learns from those who fall on the climb. Hal Roach acts opposite Jack Kerrigan, the fairy. Hal Roach likes Jack Kerrigan, and does not enjoy seeing him cut loose. Hal Roach is a kind man, but obsessed with refinement. Mack Sennett, Hal Roach’s great rival, is vulgar; Hal Roach is sophisticated. Hal Roach stresses this distinction to anyone who will listen, so it must be true.

  Under the guidance of Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd begins to learn and develop. No longer content to imitate Chaplin, Harold Lloyd experiments with a new character. Harold Lloyd finds a pair of dark-framed glasses. Harold Lloyd picks up a boater.

  Aided by Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd becomes a star.

  But he does not become a star.

  He is now twenty-eight, and has begun to despair. Hal Roach gives him work on five one-reel pictures, but when he watches himself on the studio screen he discerns only a poor man’s Harold Lloyd, a pale Chaplin; an anybody, a nobody.

  It is summer 1918, but his pictures with Hal Roach will not be seen in summer 1918, or in fall 1918, or even in winter 1918. Time will crawl, dust will gather, and eventually these pictures will be greeted with a kind of muted enthusiasm, which is no enthusiasm at all. But he knew this would be the case, knew it as soon as he left the lot without the promise of more pictures, knew it as soon as he climbed on the streetcar without a glimmer of recognition from those around him, and none likely to become manifest in the future.

  He sees the looks on the stairs as he climbs to his room, the eyes of the failed and yet-to-fail. He has squandered their luck, and his own. They have gambled on him once more, and they have lost. They can only hope that some of the luck might come crawling back to them, like a strayed dog that finds its way home again, beaten and hurt, grateful for a familiar corner in which to lick its wounds and recover.

  Hal Roach didn’t renew, he tells Mae.

  – Hal may yet. Maybe Hal just needs time to think.

  – If Hal needs time to think, there’s no thinking to be done.

  What will you do? Mae asks, but he has no answer for her. The fault, he feels certain, lies with him. He has failed Isadore Bernstein, failed Carl Laemmle, failed Hal Roach. It is not enough to want to be a star. It is not enough to hunger for it. The fire that blazed in Chaplin, the spark that has ignited in Harold Lloyd, appears dormant in him, or absent entire.

  A diary sits on Mae’s dressing table. It contains the details of bookings confirmed and yet to be confirmed, of living without being alive. The Pantages Circuit. He reads the names now of theaters and towns, a litany of the tiredly familiar:

  The Regina in Brandon, Manitoba.

  The Orpheum in Detroit, Michigan.

  The Margaret in Anaconda, Montana.

  The Capitol in Logan, Utah.

  A.J. is wrong. Some names possess no poetry, or none better than doggerel. He can already smell every venue, and they all smell the same.

  We’re okay, you and I, says Mae.

  I can’t do it, he tells her, not anymore.

  – What choice is there?

  – I have another offer.

  – You didn’t tell me.

  – I didn’t want to.

  – Why not?

  – It’s a step back. No lead. No name above the title. Maybe no name at all.

  – Sennett?

  – Vitagraph.

  Vitagraph, and Larry Semon.

  28

  At the Oceana Apartments, he sits at his desk. On it stand a clock, a lamp, a black telephone, and a typewriter to answer the steady flow of correspondence from those who remember him as he once was.

  In the face of such demands, Babe would have fled the room.

  Babe does not enjoy writing to fans. Babe does not even like signing autographs, not when there are bets to be placed, and rounds of golf to be played, and football games to be watched, and hands of poker to be won. But Babe is also ashamed of his lack of education, and Babe fears to see it confirmed in his writing.

  This is important, he tries to explain to Babe, as a pile of photographs appears on the table before them, each one requiring two signatures.

  – Not one. Two.

  It’s not important, says Babe. Only what appears on the screen is important.

  Babe works, and works hard. Babe sits up long into the night memorizing scripts and visualizing scenes in his head. Babe wants the pictures to be the best they can be.

  But when filming is done, so too is Babe. Babe is practical. Babe never really wishes to be a star, never expects it. Babe desires only to be employed. If this were to end tomorrow, Babe would go back to playing bit parts and heavies.

  And now, at the Oceana Apartments, he watches Babe’s shade rise from a studio table and put on his jacket, the pile of photographs left untouched.

  You’re afraid, Babe says, that if you don’t sign for them, they won’t come to see the pictures anymore.

  – Yes.

  – They’ll still come. Maybe a signature will make them love us more, but the lack of one won’t make them love us less. If you start thinking any other way, you’ll be calling on each one in person to shake his hand.

  – Perhaps you’re right.

  But he signs the photographs after Babe leaves, and knows that Babe will eventually add a signature alongside his own, even if the studio publicist has to put a gun to Babe’s head.

  But Babe is right. He would, if he were able, go to every picture house and personally thank each member of the Audience. He might even offer to buy them all a drink. Because he does not want it to end, and he fears that if his concentration lapses, even for a moment, the whole edifice will collapse, and his obituary will read:

  Formerly in pictures.

  Sometimes he replies to letters while sitting on his balcony, gazing out on Ocean Avenue and the Pacific. He knows that he is fortunate to have such a view, just as he and Ida are lucky to have secured a good deal on the apartment.

  Each morning he dresses in a shirt and tie, with a handkerchief folded carefully into the pocket of his jacket. He takes care of his appearance, because visitors often arrive, sometimes unexpectedly. Every guest is invited to sit, even the ones who neglected to call first. He does not mind. He is happy that he has not been forgotten.

  Like Larry Semon.

  He has not thought of Larry Semon in many years. He associates Larry Semon with Babe, because Babe, too, accepts supporting roles with Vitagraph, and works there alongside the man they call The Comedy King.

  Larry Semon comes from a family of magicians. His grandfather, Emanuel Semon, emigrates to the United States from Amsterdam and teaches the business to his son Zerubabel Semon, Larry Semon’s father. Zerubabel Semon tours the East Coast and Canada circuits as a magician named Zera the Great. Zera the Great has one leg shorter than the other. For the tougher crowds, Zera plays up the limp. Nobody wants to be seen to give a hard time to a cripple.

  Zera the Great.

  Zera the Wonderful.

  Zera the Marvelous.

  Zera the Unrivaled.

  Zera Semon has more names than a war memorial, but Zera Semon tries to live up to all of them. Zera Semon is a conjuror. Zera Semon is a ventriloquist. Zera Semon dances with marionettes. Zera Semon works up a phony spiritualist act with his wife, Irene. Zera Semon promises a gift to every member of the Audience, and Zera Semon delivers: a set of knives, a slab of ham, a sack of flour. No one has any idea how Zera Semon manages to make a dollar on the circuit, Zera Semon gives away so much. Zera Semon is the only magician who pays the Audience to show up, although Zera Semon is not above stiffing his suppliers when times are tough.

  Zera Semon dies when Larry Semon is still only a child, but Zera Semon doesn’t die great. Zera Semon dies forgotten in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the odor of fish on him from the factory in which Zera Semon works. Zera Semon dies poor, and his son watches him die poor.

  Larr
y Semon does not wish to die poor.

  Larry Semon does not wish to die forgotten.

  Larry Semon wishes to be immortal.

  29

  He meets Larry Semon at the Vitagraph Studios: two daylight stages, innumerable exterior sets, all working. He thinks that he has never seen such bustle, not even on Broadway. Larry Semon makes a picture every two weeks, which is why Vitagraph is rumored to be offering him a contract worth more than a million dollars a year. This is what Chaplin earns, but Larry Semon makes Chaplin look like a slouch.

  Larry Semon learns his trade in the shadow of Hughie Mack, and this is no small shadow. Hughie Mack is a mortician recruited by Vitagraph as an understudy to their resident fat man, John Bunny, the prick. John Bunny is fat, but Hughie Mack is very fat. Hughie Mack weighs three hundred and sixty seven pounds. Hughie Mack can barely walk.

  When John Bunny dies, Hughie Mack is waiting to take his place, but Hughie Mack is no actor. This is a town built on gossip, and the gossip says that Larry Semon made Hughie Mack. Larry Semon wrote for him, directed him, produced his pictures, and cast himself only in minor roles, while all the time watching, learning, waiting. When Hughie Mack departs, Larry Semon stays.

  Now Larry Semon is a star.

  He is sixteen months younger than Larry Semon, and six figures poorer, but there is, he decides, a passing resemblance between them. Larry Semon wears a derby hat that is the wrong size for his head. It accentuates the size of Larry Semon’s ears. Larry Semon favors whiteface, and painted eyebrows.

  But Larry Semon has also never met a dollar that Larry Semon does not feel impelled to burn. Larry Semon likes stunts, chases, and explosions, although the studio now prefers others to do the more dangerous work for him, as Larry Semon is such a cash cow.

  I saw the Rolin pictures, Larry Semon tells him.

  He does not know how, as they remain unreleased, but he imagines that what Larry Semon wants, Larry Semon gets.

  He waits. He regards Larry Semon more closely. Larry Semon looks older than his years. Anyone being paid a million dollars in this town should put by three-quarters for the Internal Revenue Bureau, a little for high living, and save the rest for hospital bills. Here, a man earns a million dollars.

  British, right? says Larry Semon.

  – English.

  The distinction seems important to him.

  – You know Chaplin?

  – No.

  He corrects himself.

  – I knew Chaplin. I worked with him.

  – Where?

  – The circuit.

  – Not in pictures?

  – No.

  – I didn’t think so. I’d have heard otherwise. Why not?

  He shrugs.

  – The opportunity didn’t arise.

  – You never asked him for a favor?

  – It didn’t seem right.

  He almost says ‘proper’, but resists. He is not certain that Larry Semon knows the meaning of ‘proper’.

  – Some people might say you were a chump for not asking.

  He acknowledges the truth of this.

  – Some people might.

  – Pride?

  – Perhaps.

  – I know a lot of proud people. Most of them are poor. You like Chaplin?

  – I haven’t spoken to him in a while.

  – I mean, the pictures. You like his pictures?

  Step carefully here. He has no illusions about Larry Semon. Larry Semon wears whiteface and exaggerated smiles for a reason:

  Because no one would laugh at the real Larry Semon.

  But Larry Semon is still good. Not great, not like Buster Keaton or Chaplin – Larry Semon has not been touched by God, and knows this, which is part of what fuels his ambition – but Larry Semon has charisma on the screen, and a certain vision. Larry Semon, though, is no collaborator: you do not work with Larry Semon, but for him.

  Chaplin is good, he tells Larry Semon. Chaplin was always good.

  He could belittle Chaplin. He could be more stinting in his praise – even calling Chaplin good instead of great pains him, because to declare the truth, that Chaplin is the best there is, and the best there ever was, would infuriate Larry Semon – but he will not lie, not even for Larry Semon.

  Not even for a job.

  He’s better than good, says Larry Semon. But over in Europe, my pictures are making as much as his. You know that?

  He tells Larry Semon that he did not know this.

  – Soon they’ll make more. Here, too.

  He nods, because there is nothing more to be said. If money can buy success, then Larry Semon will succeed.

  As long as the money does not run out.

  Larry Semon decides.

  You start next week, Larry Semon says. Three pictures. We’ll see how you go.

  30

  Larry Semon is as good as his word, but no better. Three pictures are all he gets.

  At the Oceana Apartments, he can remember their names:

  Huns and Hyphens

  Bears and Bad Men

  Frauds and Frenzies

  Larry Semon has a formula, and Larry Semon does not deviate from it, except to make the explosions bigger, the chases longer, the stunts more dangerous.

  He is given a bit of business with eggs and chicks in the first picture, but less to work with in the second. For the third picture, he is promoted. Larry Semon makes him his co-star. They are to be convicts on a chain gang who escape to the city. Larry Semon informs him of this storyline the week before filming commences, and they spend days rehearsing their scenes together. He returns each evening to Mae bruised and exhausted. He might conclude that Larry Semon is torturing him were it not for the fact that Larry Semon is more bruised and exhausted than he is. And when he is back in his rooms, back with Mae, he practices in front of a mirror, just as he once practiced in the dusty attic rooms of lodgings procured by A.J. He feels this is his last, best chance, and he wants to be as good as he has ever been.

  They begin work on Frauds and Frenzies. The crew laughs, and laughs hard, but the crew is not always laughing at Larry Semon.

  This Larry Semon notices.

  He learns a lot from observing Larry Semon, who agonizes over every shot; who dreams up gags when not behind, or in front of, the camera; who works through these gags when alone, pacing them out, counting steps, timing every movement; who, when not agonizing or dreaming or practicing, is drawing, sketching characters and scenes and stunts.

  And who does not laugh, not unless a camera is pointed at him, and only when the scene requires a simulation of mirth.

  Larry Semon lets him go. There is no explanation.

  It is over.

  Later, Babe will speak of his own time with Larry Semon, of playing the heavy to this relentless man, and they will express their gratitude for the chance given to them, even as they acknowledge that it was all to serve the myth of Larry Semon.

  And Larry Semon believes this myth, even though Larry Semon has fashioned it himself. Larry Semon spends too long brooding on Chaplin. The money is not sufficient recompense, because Larry Semon also wants the Audience to adore him as the Audience adores Chaplin. What Larry Semon does not understand is that Chaplin started out already believing the Audience was waiting to adore him; the Audience had just not yet encountered Chaplin, and so had no name to put to this nebulous presence at the margins of perception.

  Chaplin knew. Larry Semon only desires.

  Larry Semon spends and spends. If Chaplin’s genius cannot be matched, then Chaplin’s budgets can be exceeded, and in this way the Audience will bow before Larry Semon. But Larry Semon forgets the cardinal rule:

  Never set a match to your own money.

  Larry Semon blazes through his fortune. Larry Semon’s career goes up in smoke.

  He remembers Larry Semon.

  Babe remembered Larry Semon.

  They are among the few.

  31

  At the Oceana Apartments, on his balcony, he smokes a ci
garette, his eyes concealed by sunglasses. He has removed his jacket because the morning is warm, even in the shade of the building.

  How often he comes back to Chaplin. Babe is always with him, even if only as a sensed absence, like the ticking of a clock now silenced. But Chaplin is different. Chaplin was always different.

  Chaplin reads dictionaries while shaving.

  Chaplin has sex with fifteen-year-old girls.

  Chaplin rehearses scenes fifty times.

  Chaplin takes Paulette Goddard to bed, believing her to be only seventeen, and is disappointed when she reveals that she is twenty-two.

  Chaplin has the strings of a violin reversed so Chaplin can play it left-handed.

  Chaplin watches him practice and rehearse in their shared rooms, then steals his gags.

  Chaplin carries a gun, and patrols the grounds of his home hunting for men who might seek to sleep with his child bride.

  Chaplin promises him work, and reneges on that promise.

  Chaplin’s hair turns white in the 1920s.

  Chaplin bears the name of a man who was not his father.

  Chaplin’s mother is a prostitute.

  Chaplin endures squalor and deprivation.

  Chaplin is abandoned.

  Chaplin is an exile.

  Chaplin marries a woman thirty-six years his junior.

  Chaplin is the greatest comedian he has ever seen, and the greatest he will ever see.

  Chaplin is a monster.

  32

  And Babe?

  Babe deals with his own vexations: twenty-six pictures as a stooge for Jimmy Aubrey, who never likes a frame of film that does not feature Jimmy Aubrey, although Babe does not hold a grudge, and will later put in a word for Jimmy Aubrey when Jimmy Aubrey needs work. They both will: Jimmy Aubrey is from Lancashire, just as he is, and serves time with Fred Karno, just as he does, and is a former understudy to Chaplin, just as he is, and works on pictures with Chaplin, just –