On the morning of April 3rd, 1935, he telephones Ruth and proposes to her. Ruth accepts. He urges her to pack a bag, and informs Baldy and Alice Cooke that their services will be required, and therefore they also should pack a bag. Then he, Ruth, Baldy and Alice are driven to the station, where they catch a train to Tijuana, Mexico. He rents two adjoining rooms, calls a justice of the peace, and by nightfall on the same day he and Ruth are married. They enjoy a short honeymoon before returning to Los Angeles to accept the congratulations of family and friends.
Except the last part doesn’t quite work out that way, because Ben Shipman is waiting for him at the station, and upon arrival takes him aside with no small amount of force, dragging him into a corner away from the flashbulbs and the reporters.
What do you think you’re doing? Ben Shipman asks.
– I got married.
– You’re not allowed to get married. Your divorce isn’t final.
– That’s why I got married in Mexico.
– The state of California doesn’t care if you got married on the moon. The law stipulates that you may not live in wedlock in California until your final decree is issued.
– So we won’t live together until then.
– But you were already living together before you left.
– We were chaperoned, and nobody was paying much attention anyway.
– Well, they’re certainly paying attention now. And by the way: the last time we spoke, you told me you wanted to get back with Lois. How helpful do you think your latest actions might be in securing such a happy outcome?
He has been drinking champagne on the train, so his reactions are duller than he might wish. He had been planning to explain his reasoning to Ben Shipman upon his return, but the requisite faculties desert him now that he is faced with the lawyer in the flesh. He needs a clear head if he is to discuss matters of such import.
I’ll come by tomorrow, he tells Ben Shipman. We’ll talk then.
And Ben Shipman replies:
– I can hardly wait.
He is hungover when Hal Roach calls him first thing the next morning. They have not spoken since the beginning of their dispute. Hal Roach has already been forced to postpone Babes in Toyland once, and will soon have to do so again. By this point, Hal Roach would like to fire him and have done with it, but he still brings in a lot of money for Hal Roach, whatever the accounts might state to the contrary, and MGM does not want to make Babes in Toyland with Wallace Beery and Raymond Hutton. MGM wants to make it with Babe Hardy and this man.
Or MGM did until he decided to marry his girlfriend in Mexico while still technically wedded to his first wife. Babes in Toyland is meant to bring in kids as well as adults, and Mexican marriages are not compatible with family entertainment. The reputation of Hal Roach and his studio rests on his stars, and their behavior, good or bad, reflects on Hal Roach.
Hal Roach does not engage him in conversation. Hal Roach talks at him, and then, just to be certain that the message has got through, Hal Roach talks at him some more.
– I don’t approve of how you’re leading your life. You’re jeopardizing your good name and your livelihood, and you’re jepardizing the good name and livelihood of everyone who works on your pictures, including Babe Hardy.
I believe that you were wrong to leave Lois, and I’ve done everything in my power to effect a reconciliation. I’ve even talked her down over this alimony business, because God forbid she goes back to the judge and accuses you of reneging on your legal obligations, especially now that your health appears to have recovered sufficiently to enable you to get married in Tijuana. If you’re well enough to marry, you’re well enough to work, and if you’re well enough to work, you can make your alimony payments.
So listen closely to what I’m about to say, and I’m speaking as your employer and your friend. The studio is on spring break. When production resumes, you’d better be on my lot and ready to work, or so help me I’ll see you out on the street, and I’ll hold you to your contract so you’ll never again work in this town unless you work for me. And in the meantime, you sort out your private life, and you keep that woman away from your home and my studio until your divorce becomes final. Have some respect for Lois. Jesus, have some respect for yourself.
He could argue his case, he supposes, assuming Hal Roach lets him get a word in, but he does not even try.
Because Hal Roach is right.
123
He returns to work.
He agrees to star in Babes in Toyland, but only if he is permitted to adapt the script in his usual manner. Hal Roach consents, if reluctantly. Hal Roach’s script is for a family picture featuring the names of his two biggest stars above the title, but with a great deal of secondary business going on around them. Hal Roach fears that what he will get back is a vehicle for his two biggest stars, tailored to their strengths but also indulgent of their weaknesses.
Babes in Toyland is a success, but Hal Roach derives no pleasure from it. Babes in Toyland is not the great adornment to the studio for which Hal Roach has worked so hard, and its existence is tainted by the battles fought with one of its stars. Worse, that same star is now pronouncing it to be the most entertaining of their features, he who fought so hard against making it, he who forced its postponement, he who cost Hal Roach time and money and effort, he who showed Hal Roach no gratitude, no gratitude at all.
And Hal Roach will never forgive him.
124
At the Oceana Apartments, he hears Ida chopping vegetables for the pot, and music playing from one of the residences below. He has closed the balcony door. He is feeling the cold. He has tried to write more gags, but the remaining pages of his legal pad remain bare. Some days you have to walk away and let the gags come to you instead of running after them like a man in pursuit of a wind-thieved hat.
He puts a blanket over his knees. He suspects that the anniversary of a death may be approaching, but then the anniversary of a death is always approaching. He has reached an age where barely a week goes by without the necessity of an observance.
He has never visited Babe’s grave. He did not even go to the funeral. He has never attended funerals: not his son’s, not Teddy’s, and not Babe’s. He could not have coped with Babe’s funeral. He would not have been able to let Babe go.
And he has not let Babe go, since he speaks to him every day, and writes gags for him every day, and likes to believe that he can sometimes sense Babe’s presence, even though he knows that this is an illusion. If there is any ghost here, he has created it in his own image.