Hollywood Read online

  “All right, you know the Ralph’s Market just outside the ghetto?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll park in the parking lot and phone you from there. Then you come get me, all right?”

  “Good, I’ll do it. . .”

  Sarah and I were waiting by our black 320i BMW when Jon pulled up. We climbed in and moved toward the ghetto.

  “What are your readers and the critics going to say when they find out about the BMW?”

  “As always those fuckers will have to judge me on how well I write.”

  “They don’t always do that.”

  “That’s their problem.”

  “You have the screenplay with you?”

  “I’ve got it right here,” said Sarah.

  “My secretary.”

  “He wrote it right out,” said Sarah.

  “I’m a 320i genius,” I said.

  We rolled up to Jon’s place. A number of automobiles were parked outside. It was still daytime. Maybe about 1:30 p.m. We walked through the house and into the backyard.

  The luncheon party had been going on for some time. Empty bottles sat about on wooden tables. Half-eaten watermelon slices looked sad in the sun. The flies lit upon them, then left. The guests looked as if they had been there for at least 3 hours. It was one of those splintered parties: clusters of 3 or 4 people here, ignoring clusters of 3 or 4 people there. There was an admixture of European and Hollywood types plus some others. The others had no special character, they were just there and they were damned determined to stay there. I felt hatred in the air but didn’t know what to do about it. Jon knew: he opened a few fresh bottles of wine.

  We walked over to François. He was working the grill. He was slobbering drunk and totally depressed. He was turning chicken parts on the grill. The chicken parts were already done, getting black, but François was still turning them.

  François looked terrible. He had on one of those large white chefs hats, only it had evidently fallen from his head several times and there were mud smears on it. He saw us.

  “AH! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU! YOU’RE LATE! WHAT HAPPENED? I CANNOT UNDERSTAND THIS!”

  “I’m sorry, François, we had to park at Ralph’s.”

  “I HAVE BEEN SAVING SOME CHICKEN FOR YOU! HAVE SOME CHICKEN!”

  He gathered two paper plates and flung a bit of chicken upon each.

  “Thank you, François.”

  Sarah and I found a table and sat down. Jon sat with us.

  “François is upset. He thinks I killed one of the chickens. There was no chicken ever born with this man^ legs, breasts and wings. I’ve counted the chickens with him over and over. It’s a full count. But he gets to drinking and he thinks I killed one of the chickens. I got the parts at Ralph’s.”

  “François is very sensitive,” said Sarah.

  “And how,” said Jon. “And to make things worse, now he prides himself upon guarding us against theft. He has little wires and signals set up everywhere. All types of crazy alarms. Very sensitive. I farted and one of them went off.”

  “Come on, Jon...”

  “No, it’s true. So, to make matters worse, the other day François went out to start the car. It started. He shifted it into reverse and nothing happened. He thought the reverse gear was finished. He got out of the car and found that the 2 rear wheels were missing...”

  “Unbelievable...”

  “It happened. The rear of the car was sitting on a pile of rocks and the wheels were missing...”

  “They left the front wheels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’d you get new wheels and tires?” Sarah asked.

  “We bought them back from the crooks.”

  “What?” I said. “May we have another drink?”

  Jon poured.

  “They knocked on the door. They said, ‘You want your wheels? We have your wheels.’ I told them to come in. ‘I WILL KILL YOU!’ François shouted. I told him to be still. We drank wine with them and haggled over the price. It took much haggling and much wine, but we finally reached an agreement and they brought the wheels and tires in and dumped them on the floor. That was it.”

  “How much did it cost you?” Sarah asked.

  “$33. It seemed a good deal for 2 wheels and 2 tires.”

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “Well, actually, it came to $38. We had to pay them $5 to promise not to steal the wheels again.”

  “But suppose somebody else steals the wheels?”

  “They said the $5 would guarantee that nobody would ever touch the wheels. But they said the $5 applied only to the wheels and not to anything else on the car.”

  “Were there any more agreements?”

  “No, then they left. But we noticed that our radio was gone. We had been watching them all the time and yet the radio was gone. I have no idea how they did it. It’s a standard size radio. How could they hide it? How did they get it out the door? I don’t understand. It is something to be admired.”

  “Yes.”

  Jon stood up. He had the screenplay.

  “I must now hide this. I have a very special place. And I thank you for your work on this, Hank.”

  “It was nothing. Easy money.”

  Jon left with the screenplay. I looked down at my chicken.

  “Jesus, I can’t eat this...it’s burned damn near rock-hard...”

  “I can’t eat mine either...”

  “There’s a trash can by the fence there. Let’s try to sneak this stuff. . .”

  We went over to the trash can. All along the top of the fence were these little eyes looking out of little black faces.

  “Hey, let’s have some chicken!”

  “Give me a wing, motherfucker...”

  I walked over to the fence.

  “This stuff is burned...nobody can eat it...”

  A little hand shot out and the piece of chicken was gone. Another hand shot out and Sarah’s piece of burnt chicken was gone also.

  The two little guys ran off screaming followed by a bunch of other little guys screaming.

  “Sometimes I hate being white,” said Sarah.

  “There are white ghettos too. And rich blacks.”

  “It’s not comparable.”

  “No, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Start somewhere...”

  “I don’t have the guts. I’m too worried about my own white ass. Let’s join this jolly group here and have some more to drink.”

  “That’s your answer to everything: drink.”

  “No, that’s my answer to nothing.”

  It was still splinter-group time. Even in that broken down backyard there were ghetto areas and Malibu areas and Beverly Hills areas. For example, the best-dressed ones with designer clothes hung together. Each type recognized its counterpart and showed no inclination to mix. I was surprised that some of them had been willing to come to a black ghetto in Venice. Chic, they thought, maybe. Of course, what made the whole thing smell was that many of the rich and the famous were actually dumb cunts and bastards. They had simply fallen into a big pay-off somewhere. Or they were enriched by the stupidity of the general public. They usually were talentless, eyeless, soulless, they were walking pieces of dung, but to the public they were god-like, beautiful, and revered. Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste. It finally boiled down to a matter of who got the most votes. In the land of the moles a mole was king.

  So, who deserved anything? Nobody deserved anything...

  François was sitting at a table and we went and sat with him. But he was saddened, completely out of it. He hardly recognized us. A wet and broken cigar was in his mouth and he stared down into his drink. He still had on his dirty chefs hat. He had always had a bit of style even at his worst moments. Now it was all gone. It was terrible.

  “WHY WERE YOU LATE? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND! I HELD BACK THE LUNCH AND WAITED FOR YOU! WHY WERE YOU LATE?”

  “Look, friend, why don’t you sleep this one off
? Tomorrow will look better...”

  “TOMORROW ALWAYS LOOKS THE SAME! THAT’S THE PROBLEM!”

  Jon walked up.

  “I’ll take care of him. He’ll be all right. Come on, let me introduce you to some of the guests.”

  “No, we’ve got to go...”

  “So soon?”

  “Yes, I’m worried about the 320i.”

  “I’ll drive you over...”

  It was still there. We got in and waved to Jon as he drove off back to the ghetto and the party and poor François.

  Soon we were on the freeway.

  “Well, you’ve written the screenplay,” said Sarah, “at least there’s that.”

  “At least...”

  “Do you think it will ever become a movie?”

  “It’s about the life of a drunk. Who cares about the life of a drunk?”

  “I do. Who would you like to play the lead?”

  “François.”

  “François?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do we have anything to drink at home?”

  “Half a case of gamay beaujolais.”

  “That ought to do it...”

  I pushed down on the gas pedal and we moved toward it.

  18

  Jon got busy. Copies of the screenplay were made, mailed to producers, agents, actors. I went back to fiddling with the poem. I also came up with a new system for the racetrack. The racetrack was important to me because it allowed me to forget that I was supposed to be a writer. Writing was strange. I needed to write, it was like a disease, a drug, a heavy compulsion, yet I didn’t like to think of myself as a writer. Maybe I had met too many writers. They took more time disparaging each other than they did doing their work. They were fidgets, gossips, old maids; they bitched and knifed and they were full of vanity. Were these our creators? Was it always thus? Probably so. Maybe writing was a form of bitching. Some just bitched better than others.

  Anyhow, the screenplay went around and there weren’t any takers. Some said it was interesting but the main complaint was that there wouldn’t be an audience for that type of film. It was all right to show how a person who had once been great or unusual was destroyed by drink. But just to focus on a bum drinking or a bunch of bums drinking, that didn’t make sense. Who cared? Who cared how they lived or died?

  But I did get a phone call from Jon: “Listen, Mack Austin got hold of the screenplay and he likes it. He wants to direct it and he wants the same guy I want to play the lead.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Tom Pell.”

  “Yeah, he’d make a good drunk...”

  “Pell is crazy for the screenplay. He’s crazy about your writing, he’s read all your stuff. He’s so crazy about the screenplay he says he’ll do the acting for a dollar.”

  “Jesus...”

  “Only he insists that Mack Austin directs. I do not like this Mack Austin. He is my enemy.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, we’ve had some problems.”

  “Why don’t you guys kiss and make up?”

  “NEVER! MACK AUSTIN WILL NEVER DIRECT MY FILM!”

  “All right, Jon, then let’s forget it.”

  “No, wait, I want to arrange a meeting at your house between Mack Austin, Tom Pell and myself. And you, of course. Maybe you can get Tom Pell to change his mind and do the film without Austin. He’s a great actor, you know.”

  “I know. So have them come over. Is he going to bring Ramona?”

  “No.”

  Tom had married Ramona, the famed pop singer.

  “Well, when would be a good time?”

  “They’ve agreed to tomorrow night at 8:30 if it’s all right with you.”

  “You move fast.”

  “In this game you move fast or you die.”

  “It’s not like chess?”

  “More like a checker game between idiots.”

  “One idiot wins?”

  “And one idiot loses.”

  I found out a little more about the Jon Pinchot and Mack Austin affair. Although Jon had made most of his films in Europe, and Austin’s films were American, the film crowd hung out in the same places in Hollywood. Jon and Mack Austin were in the same fancy eatery. I am not quite sure who was drinking and who wasn’t but it seems that some bickering started between these two directors from tables not too close together. Shoptalk, you know. Technique. Background. Training. Insight, etc.

  It went back and forth between the tables before a goodly audience of people in the “industry.”

  Finally, Mack rose and shouted at Jon:

  “YOU CALL YOURSELF A DIRECTOR? YOU CANT DIRECT TRAFFIC!”

  Well, I don’t know. Directing traffic is a job that takes great skill.

  Anyway, some other people had once accused Mack in public of not being able to direct traffic. Now he was passing on the compliment. All’s fair in hate and Hollywood.

  I later heard some other half-documented accounts of run-ins between Mack and Jon.

  Anyhow, the meeting was on...

  INTERIOR. WRITER’S HOME. 8:15 p.m.

  Jon had arrived a little early.

  “Wait until you see this Austin,” he said. “He’s off drugs and booze. He’s like a flat tire, an empty stocking...”

  “I think it’s great,” said Sarah, “that he has gotten himself cleaned up. That takes courage.”

  “O.K.,” said Jon.

  They arrived about 8:35 p.m. Tom in leather jacket. Mack in a calfskin jacket with a leather fringe. He had on a half dozen gold chains. Introductions over, I poured Tom a wine. We hunkered around the coffee table.

  Tom started it off.

  “I’ve seen the screenplay. I love it. I want to sink my bicuspids into the fucker. I can taste it already. It’s my kind of part.”

  “Thank you, my man. Yours is the only nibble we’ve gotten.”

  “Tom and I even have a backer. We’re ready to roll,” said Mack.

  “You sure you don’t want a drink, Mack?” I asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll get you a soda,” said Sarah. “Or would you rather have tea?”

  “A soda would be fine.”

  Sarah went off to get Mack something to make him comfortable. We had health food sodas. The best.

  I drank my drink right off, poured another. I was beginning to sense a futility about any sort of compromise or agreement.

  “I need Mack for a director. I know his work. I trust him,” Tom said.

  “You don’t trust me?” asked Jon.

  “It’s not that. It’s only that I feel that I could work closer with Mack.”

  “I am the only one who will direct this movie,” said Jon.

  “Listen,” said Tom, “I know this movie means a lot to you. We can create a position for you. You’ll be paid well and you’ll be allowed plenty of control. Please accept this. I want this thing to roll. Please try to understand.”

  Sarah was back with Mack’s soda.

  “I know that I can work well with Tom,” said Mack.

  “You can’t,” Jon began...

  “...direct traffic,” Mack finished it.

  The discussion went on and on. For hours. Sarah, Jon and I kept drinking. Tom kept drinking. And Mack kept working on the health food sodas.

  “You’re all bullheads,” said Sarah. “Surely something can be worked out.”

  But everything was just as it was in the beginning. Nobody gave way. And I had no ideas. I couldn’t break the deadlock.

  We even began talking about other things. We told various funny stories in turn. The drinks went round and round.

  Toward the end, I don’t remember who was telling the story, but it got to Mack Austin. It struck him, health food sodas and all. He fell backwards laughing loudly. His gold chains bounced up and down.

  Then he pulled himself together.

  Soon after that, it was time to part. Tom and Mack had to leave. We said our goodbyes. After their car backed down the drive Jon looked at
me:

  “Did you hear that fake laugh? Did you see how those fucking gold chains bounced up and down on his neck? What was he laughing about? Did you see all those fucking gold chains?”

  “Yeah, I saw them,” I said.

  “He was nervous,” said Sarah. “He was the only one who wasn’t drinking. Have you ever been in a roomful of drunks when you aren’t drinking?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Listen,” Jon asked me, “can I use your phone?”

  “Sure...”

  “I must phone Paris! Now!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, I will call collect. I want to talk to my lawyer. It’s about an addition to my will...”

  “Go ahead.”

  Jon walked to the phone and began making arrangements for a connection. I walked over and refilled his glass. Then I came back.

  “It’s awful,” said Sarah, “there goes the movie.”

  “Well, almost something is better than nothing.”

  “Is it?”

  “Come to think of it, I’m not so sure...”

  Then Jon had his connection. He’d had more than a few drinks and was excited. He was easily heard:

  “PAUL! YES, IT’S JON PINCHOT! YES, IT IS URGENT! I WANT AN ADDITION TO MY WILL! ARE YOU READY? YES, I’LL WAIT!”

  Jon looked over at us.

  “This is very important...”

  Then:

  “YES, PAUL! THERE IS THIS MOVIE. I HAVE CONTROL. IT IS CALLED THE DANCE OF JIM BEAM, WRITTEN BY HENRY CHINASKI! VERY WELL, GET THIS DOWN! IN CASE OF MY DEATH THIS MOVIE IS NEVER TO BE DIRECTED BY MACK AUSTIN! THIS MOVIE CAN BE DIRECTED BY ANYBODY ON THIS EARTH EXCEPT MACK AUSTIN! DO YOU HAVE THAT, PAUL? YES, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, PAUL. YES, I AM WELL. HOW IS YOUR HEALTH? ALL RIGHT, ANYBODY BUT MACK AUSTIN! THANK YOU SO MUCH, PAUL! GOODNIGHT, GOODNIGHT!”

  After that, we had one more drink together. Then Jon had to go. He stopped at the door.

  “Did you hear that fake laugh? Did you see those gold chains bounce?”

  “Yes, Jon. . .”

  Then he was gone and that night was over. We went out to call the cats. We had 5 cats and we couldn’t sleep until all 5 cats were in the house.

  The neighbors heard us calling those cats late each night or early in the morning. We had nice neighbors. And those 5 cats each took their damned time coming in.