I, Fatty (23 page)

Buster knew about my problems south of the border. I could always tell him anything. I mean, we were both raised on the stage. We'd been put—and kicked—through the same paces. There was nothing either of us could do that the other would judge. Pretty soon, I'd realize that's the definition of a friend. And that Buster was the only one I had.

That Friday was pretty much the last day of my life. The last day of it as
me,
anyway. The me who thinks about gags, and movie plots, and funny angles, as opposed to the "fanged lard-monster" or "sex-crazed blimp" I was about to be labeled. Chatting with Buster, I was already on the slide from "beloved family entertainer" to "lock-up-your-daughters monstrosity." I just didn't know it.

Branded

There were lots of things I should have known but didn't. But what, really, do you ever know about the future? If you're lucky, you never have to see how wrong you were about everything . . .

Friday morning, at 10 a.m., Virginia's bladder ruptured. Right in time for the nurse's coffee break, she went into a coma. Her bladder popped, then she got the peritonitis. By Friday afternoon, infection had spread inside her body. By nighttime, it was about to spread outside of it. Courtesy of Maude Delmont, my personal Typhoid Mary, it was going to spread to me.

While I was spending the day sketching out plot gags for
Are You a Mason?
and
The Man from Mexico,
Maude was still in San Francisco spinning her own funny tale.

See, Virginia died at one-thirty in the afternoon, and by two o'clock Maude had already made two phone calls: one to the San Francisco Police Department, one to the
San Francisco Examiner.
I didn't know any of this, of course, until I got a knock on the door. A couple of mugs in sheriff's outfits—San Francisco sheriffs—handed me a summons. The littlest monkey, who owned jug ears that would have held up a gravy boat, pulled out an official envelope. He got his dirty prints all over it trying to get the letter out, then read, in a halting tone, "By the powers vested in me by the Police Department of the City of San Francisco, I am hereby authorized to remand you to the care of said department, and return you for questioning, on charges of murder in the first degree."

"You gonna tell me who I murdered," I quipped, "or should I ask Buster, since he's the one paying you?" I snipped the butt off a cigar and sipped a brandy while they pondered their reply. His practical jokes were getting to be masterpieces.

"Not just murder," the other cop, a real hatchet-face, declared after they'd conferred. "Murder and rape."

At that point I stepped outside and yelled into the yard, "Very funny, Buster." But Buster didn't answer. So I stepped back in. I didn't know what to think. You hear people say, "Oh, such-and-such felt like a bad dream." But that's not how it is. It's just the opposite! When the worst thing in the world actually happens, it feels absolutely real. That's what makes it so bad. It's everything else that feels like a dream.

"How'd you like it, crushing that little girl?" the hatchet-faced cop asked me. His expression was nakedly hateful.

Slow as I am, it finally started to dawn on me. "Maude Delmont." My voice came out like a croak. "That's who's saying this?"

Both cops just looked grim. The little one piped up again, making fists at his sides as he talked. "Virginia was Maude's best friend. And you made Maude watch while you took your sweaty way with Virginia. That tiny beauty. That
angel!"

"Easy, Floyd," said the bigger cop, putting his hand on emotional young Floyd's shoulder. "Easy there, partner."

Floyd made a manly face and soldiered on with his story. "Maude said Virginia was a virgin."

"She said
what}"
Should I have laughed or cried?

"You heard me!" the cop snapped back. The little fireplug kept hopping from foot to foot, like he was going to either wet his pants or punch me in the face. He was
that
indignant. "You kept screaming at Virginia, 'I've waited five years for you!' You acted like a pre-vert."

"Maude said
that}"
I was flabbergasted. I knew the woman was capable of lies, but why
these
lies? And why, by the way, was I talking to the police? "Who'd she say it to?" was the one question I managed to ask.

Hatchet-face pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his back pocket and slapped it in my hand. I unrolled it and saw the Page One headline: DYING GIRL LAID BLAME ON COMEDIAN! Then, just below,
"So Charges Woman at Bedside of Orgy Victim to SF Police."

The first thought I had was
"Orgy victim?"
Where was the orgy? My heart felt pumped full of bad air. What was going on? I looked up at the policemen, but their eyes were dead. If I were a balloon, I'd have flown backward around the room and sputtered to the floor. It was that wrong. The picture on the front page showed a "Miss Rappe" I'd certainly never seen. Her hair was cut like a Sunday-school teacher's, falling demurely above the shoulder straps of a humble gingham dress she might have made herself, with a matching bonnet.

"She was mad at me," I heard myself say to the cops. I'd polished off a snifter of brandy, but the drunk was sucked right out of me. My own voice sounded tinny and faraway.

Even though it was horrible, it seemed silly. That was the way things felt, for the next day or so. Horrible and silly. The idea that I'd killed Virginia, the idea that people believed I'd raped her to death—one second it would make me lose my breath and nearly upchuck, the next I'd start laughing,
then
lose my breath and nearly upchuck. Why would anybody have to rape Virginia Rappe?

"So you did crush her?" one of the cops said.

"Not Virginia," I said. "Maude. The one who made this up. She was mad. She thought I insulted her."

"Whyzzat?"

"Not to tell tales out of school," I told the boys from Frisco, "but I had to 86 Mademoiselle Delmont when she started showing her breasts to the bellboys."

Did I mention that before? Lowell's pajama bottoms hid her well enough, but his tops were missing all the buttons, and Maude kept finding an excuse to lean over and pick up nickels. Real class.

"These people were a breed unseen by churchgoers . .
." That was the one line I read in the papers I agreed with. When I told Maude to play ladylike or vacate the premises, Lowell got to be the White Knight—the reward for which, in this case, was getting to toss her in the tub with her knickers on. Lowell even thanked me later for getting Maude riled up. "Gave me the chance to play tough guy," he winked. "Maudie likes tough guys."

After that, I could not stop contemplating how I'd riled Maude up. It got me thinking, had I spent a lifetime riling people up and not knowing it? Making folks so mad that they wanted to do things to me? Was my Dad just first in a line that stretched to Adolph Zukor, Maude Delmont, and a cast of thousands I'm just too dense to have noticed?

When the sheriffs announced that we'd be leaving for San Francisco tomorrow at seven, I felt like I was trapped in a script that needed a rewrite. I figured it wouldn't hurt to improvise, so I said the first thing that came to mind. "Ever ride in a Pierce-Arrow? It's got a toilet."

Red Meat

So it was that I was tooling north at the wheel of my trusty Big Man-mobile, the pair of San Francisco's Finest wedged between Frank Dominguez, the lawyer Schenck lined up, and Al Semnacher, Virginia's manager. Al said he'd be happy to ride up and vouch for me. Schenck didn't tell me Semnacher's next call was going to be to Zukor and Lasky. I'd find that out later. For now, my pariah status was still in its fetal stages. Horrifying as it all seemed to be—the headlines, the lies—I could not help treat it, at least partly, as a joke. I dressed as if for a formal occasion. Minta had once bought me a set of emerald plus-fours, with jacket and hat of the same material. I figured I'd march them out.

My part-scared, part-larky outlook was altered after Schenck called and told me not to talk to anybody on the drive north. He hung up before I could ask him why. He called back later to say that no hotel in San Francisco would take us. We'd have to check in at the Olympic Club, a rooming house outside the city, under pseudonyms. I said I'd sign in "Will B. Good." Joe didn't laugh. "Remember," he said, with what sounded like genuine dread, "San Francisco already hates us. You're going to be red meat."

Well, how do you prepare for that? With a helmet, if you're smart. But we already know I wasn't smart.

We were three blocks from the Olympic when the first rock hit the car. A swarm of women, upper-crust and angry, waved posters in front of the car: FATTY WILL FIT IN THE GAS CHAMBER! VIRGINIA —THE BEAST WILL PAY!

Maybe that's when it
really
hit me. This was worse than I'd imagined—though I hadn't imagined much. It still seemed ridiculous. In the abstract. But not when a young lady who looked about Virginia's age, in a starched collar and Salvation Army cape, rammed her face right over the windshield and spat. There's nothing abstract about spitting women. Not when they look at you like you're missing a noose.

Photographers were everywhere when we pulled in. Dominguez and Sherman had to make a wedge so I could squeeze into the lobby. Ever since I could actually afford to stay in them. I'd loved walking into hotels. The way the 'hops run over, the manager's smile when he offers you cigars and a handshake. Or when some shy kid with his dad wants an autograph. I could never stay unhappy about anything in a hotel lobby. Until today.

The Olympic desk clerk looked so uncomfortable, I felt bad for
him.
I slid a 50 his way on the counter and said, "It's going to be okay," though maybe I was talking to myself. The clerk just stink-eyed the greenback, then inched it back to me with the nub of a fountain pen, like he didn't even want to touch it. After that he threw the check-in card across the counter and said, as coldly as he could, "Sign here."

The bellboys had scattered, so our bags were still sitting in the Pierce-Arrow, unfetched. I slipped the 50 back in his direction, left it there, and gave him my biggest smile. "Buy your mother something nice. She deserves it."

I called up Buster long distance and said, "J'accuse!" He said, "Gesundheit," and told me to be careful. "There's blood in the water, Roscoe. Don't take your trunks off." That's how Buster and I spoke to each other. Every conversation was half gag.

The deal was, I would check in to the Olympic Club—where I'd been so warmly welcomed—then drive with my lawyers down to the Hall of Justice. This was Dominguez's idea. Don't act guilty! But the two S.F. assistant DAs who met me at the curb were not impressed. In time I'd get to know Izzie Golden and Milton U'Ren pretty well. Golden was a ham-loving Jew. U'Ren was a tough guy who must've taken a lot of poot about his sissy name. In a way it must have been a lot like being a fat kid.

The Laws of Nature, Gone

It all happened so fast. But since nothing like it had ever happened before, I could not believe it was happening now. If you saw an apple fall up, you wouldn't believe that, either. Until you fell up after it. And knew gravity no longer applied. Think how that would feel, and you have an inkling of my days and nights.

This was unprecedented madness. One minute I'm still a movie star, the next I'm plunked behind a battered desk, 100 watts in my face, and these DAs are walking around cracking white folders off the table. "We got three affidavits, Arbuckle. Maude Delmont, Zey Prevon, and Alice Blake. They all say you dragged Virginia into the bedroom, you overpowered her when she resisted, and you tried to rape her."

Dominguez interrupted. "Tried to?"

I thought this was an odd time for my lawyer to speak up. And an odd thing to speak up about. I squirmed for reasons I hoped I would not have to go into. You know what I'm talking about. Then my swarthy attorney asked the DAs if we might have a moment. Muttering openly, they agreed. Dominguez led me into a corner, turned his back on U'Ren and Golden, and whispered in my ear, "Don't give 'em anything." I whispered back, "Why not?" And then, more urgently, "How can they know I'm innocent if I never tell them what happened?"

Dominguez sighed and put his hands on my shoulders like you would a 5-year-old. "Roscoe, they know you didn't murder her. If you give your story, they'll just think you're trying to snow them and think maybe you did!"

It didn't make any sense, but nothing that was happening made any sense. So I went along. What did I know?

For the next three hours, my high-powered attorney did not say boo while the two district attorneys grilled me like a salmon. Ten minutes in, they were joined by a trio of big micks in shirtsleeves: Harry McGrath, John Dolan, and Griffy Kennedy. The homicide dicks. The Fighting Irish took turns trying to trip me up. It was like trying to remember whether they said "Simon says" or not. Finally I had to go to the bathroom, and U'Ren and the Jew told me they were done anyway. A couple of peach-fuzzed deputies then led me down the hall to the Little Suspects' Room. We turned a corner and I could see the reporters pressed against the glass doors of the Homicide Office. The pack came alive when they saw me. By instinct I shot 'em a smile and wave, and the flashes popped like fireworks. Smoke leaked under the door. Then I caught Dominguez's eye, and he looked over my shoulder when he talked. "I wouldn't look too chipper, Roscoe. The last thing you want to look right now is chipper."

Ten minutes later, the DAs had two homicide bulls wrap me in handcuffs. Then they signaled for some uniformed string bean to open the doors and let the press mob in. The newshounds started barking questions. String Bean pulled out his pistol to shut them up. Then, in suitably hammy fashion, DA U'Ren began to read his official statement. "Roscoe Arbuckle, I am arresting you in the name of the State of California, County of San Francisco, City of San Francisco, on the count of Murder in the First Degree."

And that was that. It wasn't even me trudging down the stairs to processing. It was somebody I didn't know. Never met. At the same time, the fear that grabbed my throat was completely familiar. I was wet-undie scared. The way I used to be. All the time. So I did what I did when Daddy'd march me behind the shed, woken out of a dead sleep, to whip me with the rake handle. I looked at the ground. I kept my eyes down and counted spittoons. I shuffled where they pointed me, and didn't look up till we came to a high counter manned by a baldie in green eyeshades.