Rock Wagram Page 4

  Paul Key was at his desk when Rock Wagram stepped into his office.

  “You’ve had little sleep,” Paul said. “I expected as much. All the better. Everything is set. I’ll have you taken to the sound stage at the proper moment. I don’t want you to be there beforehand, standing around. For your own sake, in case this turns out the way I believe it will, let me tell you a few things, which you can take or leave, as you please. When you stand before the camera, let the muscles of your face relax in final sorrow. When the girl speaks to you, notice her as if she were already dead. Say what you are to say with a voice that does not wish to be heard, with lips that do not wish to move. When she draws close to you and her eyes offer herself to you, pity her. Pity her, and then accept her. That is all I want to say about that part of it. That’s the art. Now for the real. Yourself. You are a friend. It’s your nature. You regard every man as your friend until he has proven himself your enemy. That’s all right for Fresno, for your friends there, the hoodlums and hooligans, as you call them. Here, for the time being, be no man’s friend. Friendship will be offered to you from all sides—if all goes well, as I believe it will. But it will not be friendship. It will not be friendship for you, that is. It will be each man’s friendship for himself. I have brought here to this studio in twenty years only two others, as I have brought you here. I was not mistaken about either of them, although one went off after only a year, to become, in my opinion, a great man. The other is one of the most famous names in the world of the theatre, but his name is no matter. I did not bring them here because of friendship. I brought them here because that is part of my work, although it is a part that I myself invented. I will not watch you work. Your director is an offensive bore who will wish to humiliate and destroy you at the outset. I insisted on him. It is good to make a test that will be a test. The girl will be much the same as the one you had dinner with last night, except that she will be under twenty and more difficult to be near. You will be told when your work is finished. It may take no more than five minutes in front of the camera, but it may take hours before you will be permitted to be in front of the camera. I insisted on that, too, although I myself do not know how long the director will choose to take. Your name is Rock Wagram. The pronunciation and accent is that of your own language. That is, Vah-GRAM. Did you sleep at all?”

  “No,” Rock said. “We talked until it was time to go.”

  “That’s just right,” Paul Key said. “The way you spoke those words. Now. Who are you?”

  “Rock Wagram.”

  “That’s just right, too,” Paul Key said. “Are you the bartender from Fresno Paul Key thinks is an actor?”

  “Who’s Paul Key?” Rock said.

  “That’s just right, too, away from the camera,” Paul Key said. “This one’s for the camera. What happened last night?”

  “I don’t talk about things like that,” Rock said.

  “That’s perfect, for the camera,” Paul Key said. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rock said.

  “That’s perfect, too, away from the camera,” Paul Key said. “The minute you’re told your work is finished, no matter when that is, come here.”

  It was more than three hours before Rock got back to Paul Key’s office.

  “Well?” Paul Key said.

  “It was pretty much like you said,” Rock said. “I did pretty much like you said, too, except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Before I left I spoke to the director.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What did he say?” Paul Key said.

  “He laughed,” Rock said. “He was laughing when I left.”

  “He wasn’t angry?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t,” Rock said.

  “Yes,” Paul Key said. “Still, unless he had a better reason than that, he would have gotten angry. Perhaps it’s turning out all right. If it isn’t, though, will going back to Fresno make much difference?”

  “No,” Rock said.

  “How about dinner tonight?” Paul Key said. “The same four? Or would you rather it were the girl you just worked with?”

  “No,” Rock said. “The same four.”

  “What do you make of Selena Hope?”

  “I like her.”

  “She telephoned my wife this morning.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s all right,” Paul Key said. “She doesn’t know, but you may as well know, I had to do it. I’m thinking of putting her to work here. Everybody else is finished with her. What did you talk about?”

  “None of your business,” Rock said.

  “I’m not your friend, either, you see,” Paul Key said. “It’s all right, though, because telling you so makes me more nearly your friend than anybody else you’ll ever run into around here. Besides, I may be just a little mistaken. Perhaps I am your friend. We won’t know about the test until day after tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d like you to read a story I’m thinking of shooting. Are you still angry?”

  “I wasn’t angry in the first place,” Rock said. “I just said it’s none of your business because it isn’t. As a matter of fact, we talked about ourselves. I told her some stories.”

  “Did she laugh?”

  “Yes.”

  “She hasn’t laughed in a year,” Paul Key said. He handed Rock a manuscript. “This is the story,” he said. “Take your time. I’ll send the car for you around seven-thirty.”

  “No,” Rock said. “I’ll be wherever we’re going to be, whenever we’re supposed to be there.”

  “Chasen’s, at eight?”

  “O.K.”

  “How about a car to get you to your hotel?”

  “No.”

  “I understand,” Paul Key said.

  “You think you do,” Rock said.

  “You want to walk.”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t think I knew, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, it’s a two-hour walk,” Paul Key said.

  “I’ve got a lot of time.”

  “Do you know what direction to take?”

  “I’ll find out,” Rock said.

  He was an hour and a half getting to the hotel. He had a little thinking to do, and he wanted to walk as he did it.

  When he got to his room he sat down and read the story. It was called To Remember Harry. Harry tried to hold-up a bank in a small town, got caught, and was sent to the penitentiary. He tried to escape, was shot, and died at the age of twenty-five. He was remembered by his mother, his eighteen-year-old brother, his girl, a teacher of grammar school, and a pal who had tried to get him to stay out of trouble.

  At dinner Vida Key said, “Did you like the story?”

  “I just handed it to him this afternoon,” Paul Key said to his wife. “He hasn’t had time to read it.”

  “I liked it,” Rock said.

  “He has had time,” Paul Key said.

  It was an inexpensive picture, shot in twenty-two days, and six months later his pals in Fresno saw Rock in To Remember Harry, and began to remember him as if he had died.

  A man himself is junk, and all his life he clutters the earth with it. He carries junk around with him wherever he goes, and wherever he stops he accumulates it. He lives in it. He loves it. He worships it. He collects it and stands guard over it.

  Rock loved his car. He’d ordered it in October, and he’d gotten it in June.

  He went to Paul Key.

  “I just got my car,” he said. “I want to take it for a drive.”

  “O.K.,” Paul Key said.

  “To New York,” Rock said.

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t want to do the new picture,” Rock said.

  “Don’t you like the story?”

  “I’ll be thirty-three in a couple of months,” Rock said.
“I’ll be in the Army before the year’s out.”

  “No, you won’t,” Paul Key said.

  “Yes, I will.”

  “I can get you a commission.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Let’s have dinner at Romanoff’s,” Paul Key said. “I want to have a long talk with you. I don’t want you to do anything foolish.”

  “I wouldn’t be in a hurry,” Rock said, “except that my car was delivered this morning, and I haven’t got much time.”

  “Let’s have dinner,” Paul Key said. “You’ve got dependents. You’ve got your mother.”

  “I’ve sent her most of the money I haven’t spent or gambled,” Rock said. “She’s all right.”

  “You’ve been here almost seven years,” Paul Key said. “You just can’t let yourself get drafted into the Army. It’s silly.”

  “No sillier than if I was tending bar at Fat Aram’s in Fresno,” Rock said. He began to go.

  “Wait a minute, Rock.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Rock said.

  “All right,” Paul Key said. “Start driving to New York. Forget about pictures. We’ll see what happens. Your draft board has got to call you yet. You’ve got to take your medical. You may not pass. Where is your draft board?”

  “In San Francisco,” Rock said.

  “In San Francisco?”

  “Yes,” Rock said. “I’ve got an apartment in the house I built there for my mother. I was visiting her when it was time to register. I got a card from the board last week saying they’ll send for me to take my physical sometime soon. If they send for me while I’m in New York, I’ll take it there. If I pass and it’s time to go, I’ll go from there.”

  “Why go to New York?” Paul Key said.

  “I want to drive across the country.”

  “All right, Rock. Take care of yourself.”

  Months later Paul Key telephoned Rock from Hollywood. It was about two in the morning. They talked three or four minutes, then Paul Key said, “Rock, you shouldn’t have said the things you said to the newspapermen when you were getting your physical.”

  “Why not?” Rock said.

  “They’ll have to take you now.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No, it’s not, Rock.”

  “They’d take me anyway.”

  “Do you want me to name three or four dozen they’re not going to take?” Paul Key said.

  “No.”

  “They’re essential. They’re going to entertain troops. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Rock said.

  “You should have kept your mouth shut,” Paul Key said. “If you’ll keep your mouth shut now, I’ll look into things and see what I can do.”

  Paul Key waited for Rock to speak.

  “Hello,” he said. “Hello. Rock?”

  “Yes?” Rock said.

  “What happened?”

  “I was keeping my mouth shut,” Rock said.

  “I can straighten things out, Rock.”

  “I won’t have to keep my mouth shut in the Army.”

  “I can straighten them out, anyway,” Paul Key said. “You can tell me the truth, and keep your mouth shut when you talk to others, can’t you? Isn’t that what everybody in the world has to do?”

  “It’s not what I have to do,” Rock said.

  “You don’t understand,” Paul Key said. “This hasn’t got anything to do with your contract. I’m talking to you as a friend. I’ll fly to New York and straighten things out.”

  “There’s nothing to straighten out,” Rock said.

  “I’ll fly and we’ll have a drink.”

  “I’ve gotten a postponement,” Rock said, “so I can drive back to San Francisco. I’m leaving early in the morning.”

  “You mean you’re going to be inducted?” Paul Key said.

  “In about two weeks,” Rock said.

  “On your way to San Francisco, come and see me,” Paul Key said.

  “Sure,” Rock said.

  He was west now, but he wouldn’t be stopping in Hollywood to see Paul Key. He’d arranged with his landlord in Hollywood to pack the stuff he’d left in his apartment and ship it to San Francisco. It was all junk, but he wanted it.

  All his life everything a man does he seems to have done before. He is forever kissing the same mouth, embracing the same woman, looking into the same eyes which will not yield their secret.

  Is a man himself therefore or is he the race itself? Is every woman her own race, but never herself? Each woman the same but older now, or younger, weeping now and desolate, or laughing and contemptuous of desolation?

  A man wears the same face all his life, but sees a stranger every time he shaves. He inhabits the same body all his life, but himself is never the same in it. Everywhere he goes is a place he knows and does not know, home and nowhere, his own place and nobody’s at all.

  He comes to birth and goes to death. He comes to desire and goes to despair. For every man is too much for himself. Every man is too many men to contain and control, as he himself knows.

  If at thirty-three, in the year 1942, in late September, driving his own car through New Mexico, he comes to noon in Montoya, he has been to noon before, to Montoya before, and if he stops there a moment to stand on his feet, look around, walk, sit down and eat, he has done it all before.

  “Ham on rye and a bottle of beer,” Rock said.

  “Yes, sir,” the girl in Montoya said, and then smiled.

  Was the smile for himself, or was it for the actor she’d seen in one of the fooling fables, fooling her? Was the smile for the truth, or for the lie?

  “How’s your mother?” Rock said.

  “All right, I guess,” the girl said.

  “How’s your father?”

  “All right, too, I guess.”

  “Is your brother all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your sister happy?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I know you feel fine,” Rock said.

  “Do you always talk to people like that?” the girl said.

  “Only when I like them,” Rock said.

  “Why do you like me?” the girl said.

  “I like to like you.”

  “Why, though?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I used to be at Cobb’s, around the corner,” the girl said.

  “I don’t mean in this restaurant,” Rock said.

  “I was born in Montoya.”

  “I don’t mean Montoya, either,” Rock said. “I’m glad you were born.”

  “Do you always talk like that?” the girl said.

  “No. Sometimes I don’t talk at all.”

  “What are you doing here?” the girl said.

  “I live here,” Rock said.

  “You don’t.”

  “I was born here,” Rock said.

  “You weren’t.”

  “I’m here,” Rock said.

  “I know, but why?”

  “It’s on the highway.”

  “Where you going?” the girl said.

  “Home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Fresno.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “California.”

  “Got a job there?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Tend bar.”

  “Bet you make the boys laugh, talking the way you do.”

  “They talk the way I do, too,” Rock said.

  “I never heard anybody talk the way you do,” the girl said. “How’s your mother? How’s your father? How’s your brother? How’s your sister? Do they talk that way, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody in that town talks that way?” the girl said.

  “More or less.”

  “Bet it must be some town.”

  “Bet Montoya must be some town, too,” Rock said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re here.”<
br />
  “You don’t know anything about me,” the girl said.

  “I see you,” Rock said. “You’re seventeen, aren’t you?”

  “Be eighteen in November, though,” the girl said.

  “What day?”

  “Twenty-seventh.”

  “A holy day.”

  “You don’t even know my name.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Bet you can’t guess.”

  “Bet I can.”

  “What is it?” the girl said.

  “Well,” he thought, “if I say Ann and her name is Ann, I’ll know I must marry Ann Ford.”

  “Ann,” he said.

  “No,” the girl said.

  “Well,” he thought, “I’ll think about it.”

  “Desdemona,” he said.

  “Desdemona?” the girl said. “How’d you happen to go from Ann to Desdemona?”

  “She was a lot like you.”

  “Who?”

  “Othello’s Desdemona,” Rock said. “Light and quiet.”

  “Othello?” the girl said.

  “Fellow in Fresno. Desdemona’s husband.”

  “Are they happy?”

  “No.”

  “Wish they were.”

  “So do I.”

  “I like to see married people happy,” the girl said. “Why aren’t they?”

  “Well,” Rock said, “Othello’s dark, darker than I am, and she’s light, almost as light as you are. He’s neurotic, and she’s not.”

  “What’s that?” the girl said.

  “He wants to know the truth all the time.”

  “Well, doesn’t he?”

  “Of course not,” Rock said. “Nobody does.”

  “Are you married?” the girl said.

  “No,” Rock said.

  “Are you what you said means you want to know the truth all the time?”

  “Worse than he is,” Rock said.

  “It doesn’t seem so bad,” the girl said.

  “It gets bad when you’re married and jealous.”

  “Is she cheating on him?”

  “No, but he’s suspicious.”

  “Do you want some apple pie?” the girl said.

  “No,” Rock said.

  “Coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’d like to know your name.”