What patterns are these? What paths are they following, he and Babe? It is as though they have worn twin grooves in the world, like the ruts created by the wheels of wagons, but deeper and more profound, so that as one travels, so must the other. They are yoked together by forces beyond contracts, beyond friendship. Their lives have become reflections, each of the other, an infinity of echoes.
Babe seeks comfort from Myrtle with other women.
He seeks comfort from Ruth with other women.
When the marriage of one is troubled, so, too, is the marriage of the other.
They rhyme. They are partners in the dance.
Or it could, of course, be only coincidence. It must surely be.
And yet it is not. The strangeness of this year will prove otherwise.
An overlapping, a shaded Venn.
Babe.
Ah, Babe.
143
At the Oceana Apartments, he sits and watches the play of light on the sea. Ida is sleeping. She has collected the broken crockery, and soaked up the spilled tea. But now he is unable to rest. He is in pain.
He has been in pain for such a long, long time.
That year, that extraordinary year: so much misery, but from out of it he and Babe created something beautiful.
Babe, he whispers. Babe.
I hear you singing.
144
You’d Be Surprised.
Tonight’s The Night.
In The Money.
They Done It Wrong.
This picture, says Jimmy Finlayson, has so many names, it ought to be on the run.
They settle for Way Out West.
The movements of the new dance, much the same as the old dance but with some unwelcome variations, go like this: Babe steps in.
Babe is estranged from Myrtle. A court date has been set. Ben Shipman tells Babe to expect to take the stand.
It will be a foul experience, Ben Shipman says, but then it will be over.
Ruth steps in.
At the same time, he and Ruth separate. Ruth sues for maintenance. His finances are made public, even down to the cost of the apartment in which he sometimes fucks Alyce Ardell.
Hal Roach steps in.
To add to his humiliation, Hal Roach insists upon a lengthy morals clause in his new contract. He must in future conduct himself with due regard to public conventions. He must not commit any act that might prejudice Hal Roach or the studio.
He reads over the contract and the clause in Ben Shipman’s office.
Hal is already prejudiced, he tells Ben Shipman.
– Hal could be more prejudiced.
Ben Shipman knows Hal Roach well, having acted for him in the past before devoting himself almost entirely to Babe and this man seated before him. These two, with all their predicaments, take up so much of Ben Shipman’s days that Ben Shipman barely has time for a piss.
What if I don’t sign it? he asks Ben Shipman.
– Then you’ll have another reason to be in the newspapers. Is that what you want?
That is not what he wants.
– This is demeaning.
– It may be demeaning, but you’re not the first to have to sign one, you won’t be the last, and you’re certainly not the worst. There are men in this town who can’t trip over a crack in the sidewalk without landing with their cock inside another human being. If I weren’t a lawyer, I’d be a clap doctor.
Listen to me: if you sign the contract, you get four more pictures, and the money that comes with them. If you don’t sign it, Hal will fire you, and you can’t afford to be fired because, unless I’m mistaken, you’re about to invest in more alimony bonds.
He stares at Ben Shipman, then reads the morals clause again.
– I don’t even know what all this means.
– It means that if you fuck someone, it should be your wife. If it isn’t your wife, then make sure it isn’t someone else’s wife. If it is someone else’s wife, lock the door.
– Well, that certainly makes things clearer.
– I’m happy to have helped.
He signs the contract. Ben Shipman witnesses it.
Hal Roach steps out.
Okay, says Ben Shipman, so that’s the good news. The bad news is that Ruth wants a thousand dollars a month, her attorney’s fees paid, half of your annual earnings, and half of the community property. She’s also seeking an injunction on the Ruth L, which she’ll have no trouble getting. Judges don’t like men who dispose of their assets during maintenance cases.
– I love that boat.
– Then I hope you took a picture, because you won’t even be allowed to board it again until all this is over. After that, I’d suggest renaming the boat, but it’s just an opinion.
– Do I have to pay you for the opinion?
No, says Ben Shipman, that one’s free.
It is a scourge, every moment of it.
But on the set of Way Out West, Babe sings. He hears Babe as he works on a set-up with James Horne, who is directing the picture, or directing it insofar as anyone directs these men. Walter Trask of the Avalon Boys is playing his guitar to pass the time, and Babe, who gravitates toward music, joins in.
He stops what he’s doing. He is always happy to listen to Babe’s voice.
What is that song? he asks.
And Walter Trask tells him.
Mae steps in.
Ben Shipman requests that he come by the office. Ben Shipman prefers to break bad news away from the set. Ben Shipman knows how delicate the business of making pictures can be.
He takes what is becoming, by now, an uncomfortably familiar seat. Ben Shipman pours him a drink.
I don’t really want a drink, he says.
– No, you just think you don’t want a drink, but believe me, you do.
He accepts the glass.
What has Ruth done now? he asks.
– Ruth isn’t the problem. Mae is.
– Mae who?
– Exactly.
Mae is using the last name she created for him, for both of them, back when they slept together in hard beds on the vaudeville circuit, back when he and Mae were just another act on a bill, and another set of initials on a pair of suitcases: S.L. and M.L.
Mae, whom he paid off more than a decade earlier, paid to disappear from his life so that he might become a star without the burden of her. He does not know where she has been, has never cared to find out.
Mae, his common-law wife.
This I have learned, Ben Shipman tells him. It’s a bad idea to pay someone off, because someone who’s been paid off once will assume that the faucet can be turned on again down the line. If that were not the case, blackmailers would be out of business. So Mae has filed a maintenance action against you.
– What does she want?
– I appreciate that this is going to sound like a bad echo, but she wants a thousand dollars a month, her attorney’s fees paid, and half of the community property.
He buries his face in his hands.
You think you have troubles, says Ben Shipman. I have to go tell Hal Roach.
Hal Roach steps in again.
Jesus Christ, says Hal Roach, how many wives does one man need?
Ben Shipman is trying not to stand on a dead animal. Ben Shipman is worried that it might be bad luck to do so. Ben Shipman figures that bad luck is running a surfeit right now.