Mitla Pass (12 page)

“I didn’t tell Gold I was taking his offer.”

Sal’s face expressed pain, deep, terrible pain. “Don’t make with the jokes.”

“Why don’t we skip Romanoff’s. Let’s have lunch tomorrow and well talk about it. Calm down, Sal, you look like you’ve just been liberated from Auschwitz.”

Sweat broke out simultaneously on Sal’s shirt front, his face, and his armpits. He fished around his jacket pocket for his date book.

“Lunch. How about breakfast? Why not let’s talk it over at your house tonight? Why wait for tonight, how about now?”

“See you tomorrow for lunch,” I said. “Frascati’s, Beverly Hills, okay? One o’clock.”

Sal was having a difficult time getting the key into his Jaguar door. I turned and without further word headed back to my office.

“Don’t you even want to ...”

“See you tomorrow.”

The writers’ building at Pacific was set up so that it could be observed from all directions by the studio police. The only thing missing was guard towers. The Colonel had a number of petty obsessions. One of them was to keep his writers penned in. A few writers around town were beginning to work at home. I planned to make a stand on it, if and when I did another screenplay.

My secretary Belle Prentice was on pins and needles waiting for me to return from my meeting with Gold. A summons from Gold’s office was a chilling thing. I stopped at her desk in the outer office.

“Any calls, anything?”

I shuffled through the notes. One from a young lady who wanted me to have dinner with her. She would be the dinner. Another from a tennis partner, Johnny Brookes. Another from a visiting relative who wanted a tour through a studio.

“Call them back. Tell them I’ve gone for the day.”

Belle trailed me into my office. I flopped on the couch. “Will you tell me what happened?” she demanded.

“The Colonel wants me to remain at the studio. A three-year writer/producer deal.”

“Congratulations!”

“I told him I’d think it over.”

Belle’s face saddened. “You’ve already made your mind up, haven’t you?”

“Six months ago. I’ll get my crap out of here tomorrow. Do you want me to put in a word for you with anyone in particular?”

“No, I’ll just go back to the secretarial pool and take my chances.”

“I’m sorry, Belle. You’ve been real thunder and lightning.”

She shed a few tears. We’d had a heavy year together. She’d covered for me a dozen times and even marched into von Dortann’s office and chewed him out on my behalf.

She closed the door behind her and returned to her office. I gave a sentimental look around the room. The office had once been occupied by William Faulkner on one of the thousand and one studio projects that never got off the ground. Belle had been his secretary. She used to siphon him out of the gutter, blind drunk. He apparently needed the money.

This wasn’t a difficult decision for me. All I had to do was spend an evening with Kurt von Dortann to see what I’d become in three years. What I didn’t want to face was the coming shoot-out at home, tonight.

Val and I were having a lot of heavy arguments. A half-dozen times, when I was waging trench warfare at the studio, Val had disappointed me. She blew up at me for refusing to sign the loyalty oath. She could not bring herself to understand that it was an affront to me after having served in the Marine Corps. Later, the oath was judged unconstitutional. It didn’t matter—I was still wrong in her eyes.

Val had turned on me when I walked out of the studio after von Dortann put on a writer behind my back. Hell, I was back at work two days later. I was the bad guy for not cooperating with the studio. It was my fault for standing up to Gold.

Val didn’t want me to fight about anything that would endanger my jobs with the studios. It hurts to say it, but she was an out-and-out appeaser. Val was happy down there, sterilized by the good life. “Don’t Rock the Boat” might as well have been done in petit point and hung over the fireplace.

I didn’t want to commit to writing a full-time screenplay until I completed my second novel, so I took short doctoring jobs. There comes a moment in the life of every screenplay when the writer has to take a stand or give away a piece of his soul. When you’re dealing with the swollen egos of actors, actresses, and directors, you’ve got to try to remember that they are the boss—even though they can’t read a script, even though their arguments are moronic. They’re the boss. When the inevitable showdown came, Val raised purple hell with me for playing it tough.

She really was livid when I turned down a project, a flat-fee screenplay for Columbia for fifty thousand dollars. The project was a piece of trash. Not one bloody word of understanding from her.

I don’t know what it was with Val. I’d never seen this in her before. Maybe it was because she had been raised in the Navy where you obey orders and don’t make problems.

“What’s the difference, Gideon,” she argued. “Nobody remembers the name of the screenwriter. You recall what Sal told you the first day. What you’ve written is between covers of a book and can’t be changed. I know screenwriting runs against your grain, but you get paid a hell of a lot for your discomfort.”

A lot of nights I drove out to the Holiday House past Malibu when I’d had a fight at the studio. I’d walk over to Paradise Cove, rent fishing gear, and fish from the pier. I was just too damned beat to go home and have her blast at me. Well, you know what follows. I started taking women out to the Holiday House. Lots of them.

What troubled me about the other women was that I felt less and less guilty about it after each brawl with Val.

After Sal drove off, I returned to my office. I dialed home a half-dozen times. The line was busy. Obviously Sal had headed for the first pay phone. That son of a bitch had gotten to Val first. He was chewing her ear off.

Belle came in with tea. I remained on the couch and she took my chair behind the desk and kept dialing my home.

“Still busy.”

“You liked Faulkner an awful lot, didn’t you?”

Belle smiled. “Secretly, I suppose I loved him. He was a great man, very genteel and soft-spoken. Yes ma’am, Miss Belle, no ma’am, Miss Belle. He always called me Miss Belle.”

“How was he able to take Stanley Gold?”

“I sat in to take notes on quite a few story conferences. It became apparent early on that Mr. Faulkner’s project would never get off the ground. But Gold kept him on, much like a pet dog. I think the Colonel got off on the very notion that he had control over the mind of a great writer like Mr. Faulkner. He loved to berate Mr. Faulkner, the same as he does von Dortann. The same as he does with anyone who’s afraid of him. Mr. Faulkner would go to pieces. He was always at one of three or four bars along Ventura Boulevard. George and I would find him, take him to his apartment, and sometimes we’d have to put him to bed.”

“The resolution of fear is one of the writer’s greatest reasons for being,” I said.

Belle smiled again. “That’s from his Nobel acceptance speech.”

She answered the phone and covered the mouthpiece. “It’s Stanley Gold.”

“Hello, Colonel,” I said.

“Zadok. I was thinking that it might be time to pop some bubbly. I’d love to give a little dinner party for you over at my place. How about Friday?”

“Sorry, I can’t. One of my daughters is in a play at school. You know how that one goes.”

There was a long, expected silence. Gold was stashing this rebuff in his memory book. “Another time,” he said, “you’ll be around.”

I tried home again. The line was still busy.

I PULLED OUT
of the studio gate and flicked on the radio, girding myself for the traffic.

EXTERIOR VENTURA BOULEVARDDAY

After
ESTABLISHING SHOT
of the bumper to bumper traffic, CAMERA zooms in to

CLOSE SHOT
of
WRITER
at the wheel of his TR-3 convertible, top down. His jacket is on seat beside him. He fishes for, finds, and lights cigarette and snaps on radio as he inches along in traffic.

FIRST RADIO VOICE (OVER SCENE)

And now for Ernie, Maxine, Dave and all the gang at Mario’s the king ... Elvis sings “Love Me Tender” ...

WRITER
turns dial

SECOND RADIO VOICE O.S.

The situation at Central High School in Little Rock has worsened. According to White House sources, President Eisenhower is considering sending troops ...

WRITER
flips dial again, grunts impatiently at the traffic.

THIRD RADIO VOICE O.S.

Davy! Davy Crockett King of the wild frontier ...

ANGLE WIDENS
as a chorus of horns sounds in frustration. WRITER drives off and we

DISSOLVE TO:

EXTERIORLOVELY RANCH HOUSE EVENING

Grounds show some affluence. WRITER pulls into driveway, parks, gets out of car. He is besieged by two young GIRLS wearing Davy Crockett coonskin caps and shooting toy guns. Family dog joins in. WRITER “falls dead” and is pounced upon by daughters. He gets up, throws ball for dog. The three walk to

INTERIORLOVELY LIVINGROOM
NIGHT

WIFE
is glum. She approaches
WRITER
obliquely.

WIFE

Sal called. He told me all about your meeting with the Colonel.

(no response)
Well, what are you going to tell him?

WRITER

 I told him I’d think it over.

WIFE

Two thousand dollars a week going up to four thousand. A producership by the time you’re thirty. What’s to think over?

WRITER

(dreads this moment)
I can’t be a producer, Val. I’m not cut out for these studio gang bangs. Too much politics. Too much back stabbing. Too many people to deal with. Look, baby, one of the reasons I became a novelist was so that I could work alone. Writing to me is freedom. Freedom!

WIFE

You’re a very selfish man, Gideon.

WRITER

I know that.

FADE OUT

Dinner was perky with the girls. Lots of happy things were going on for them. I helped with their homework and after their bath we had a short punch-up and pillow fight.

“Just one half hour of TV and that’s it,” I said.

They accepted reluctantly.

“I wish we didn’t have one of those idiot boxes in the house.”

“They’ve been looking forward to this program all week. So, why make a fuss, every single week?”

The volcano was rumbling within. I went into the living room and took a crack at reading a magazine. Val came in. She was glum. She paced and looked at me, sort of out of the corner of her eye.

“Sal called,” she said. “He told me all about your meeting with the Colonel.”

I didn’t answer her.

“Well, what are you going to tell him?”

“I told him I’d think it over.”

“Two thousand dollars a week going up to four thousand. A producership by the time you’re thirty. What’s to think over?”

I dreaded this moment. “I can’t be a producer, Val. I’m not cut out for these studio gang bangs. Too much politics. Too much back stabbing. Too many people to deal with. Look, baby, one of the reasons I became a novelist was so that I could work alone. Writing, to me, is freedom. Freedom!”

“You’re a very selfish man, Gideon.”

“I know that. Being selfish is one of my job requirements. But I’m not going to be a producer for Stanley Gold, period, paragraph, end of report. There’s a few more things we’d better get cleaned up, right now.”

“Look at you. You’re begging for a fight. Nobody can talk to you when you’re in this kind of mood.”

“Every time we have something to talk over, you start out by saying nobody can talk to me. Well, a lot of things have piled up. We’d better sort them out.”

Val became more and more defensive when there was something to thrash out. Delay it, stuff it in the closet, do anything but face up and get it over with. Half of our life was the unspoken words. I’d get angry and stomp out and when I returned Val would pretend that absolutely nothing had happened.

“I’m going to my office,” I said. “If you feel like talking, come on over. Incidentally, I’m going to cut out for a few days for San Francisco. I need to hang out, see some of the guys.”

“I can’t stop you.”

T
HE OPENING SALVOS HAD
been fired. The silent period now ruled the scene. The ice age was setting in. My office was a little guest cottage on the other side of the pool. I rehearsed my arguments just as I was certain Val was rehearsing hers. The only problem was that neither of us followed the script. She didn’t give the answers I expected. Our mouths were set on automatic. Usually within two minutes we’d both blown off course, and sometimes we even forgot what we were fighting about.

I poked about the office. I couldn’t concentrate on reading. No use phoning around. Didn’t want to answer my mail. Letter from my old man. Better not read it now. Nothing on the tube. I stretched on the couch and continued to present my bulletproof case to the “jury.”

One of the unwritten rules was that Val had to give in first and come to me. A couple of times I caved in and went to her first. No way, this time.

At around two in the morning, I could hear the shuffle of her steps. I drew the blanket over me and feigned sleep. A knock, the door opened, and a small light was turned on.

“Honey,” she peeped softly.

I grunted as though coming out of a deep slumber. I sat up, stretched, yawned, looked over my surroundings, and “remembered” where I was. Val slipped into the easy chair as I dunked my face and wiped it.

“We’d better start from square one,” I said. “When J. III and Reaves accepted
Of Men in Battle,
the only plans we made regarding the future were a few vague mentions of trying to find a nicer place in Sausalito. Soon as the screenplay was done, we’d go back up there and I’d keep writing books.”

“Things have changed, Gideon. You’ve opened up a second career in the studios. We have other options in life now.”