Disturbing the Peace (Vintage Classics) (25 page)

“No; worse, in a way. He systematically destroys everything that’s still bright and promising in his life, including the girl’s love, and he sinks into a depression so deep as to be irrevocable. He winds up in an asylum that makes Bellevue look like nothing. And I think you’ll see, Carl, when the whole thing’s on paper, that there’s an inevitability to it. The seeds of self-destruction are there in the man from the start.” His performance was over, and only his trembling hands – quickly corrected by the lighting of a cigarette – betrayed his anxiety.

“I don’t know,” Munchin said. “Something’s missing. Something’s lacking. What do you people think?”

Wilder had been made so uneasy by the first part of the writer’s recital (Who the hell
was
this Jack Haines? How did he know so much?) that he almost welcomed the chance to reject him – then they might get another writer with a whole new set of ideas – but he didn’t want to say anything precipitate. “I see what you mean about clichés, Carl; still, it’s hard to judge something that hasn’t been written yet.”

“I think it sounds interesting,” Pamela said, and Wilder looked at her in surprise. He’d been sure she would think it sounded terrible.

“And where’s all this going to take place?” Munchin inquired. “In New York?”

“Mostly; I haven’t really worked that out. If you want a change of scene he could take off somewhere with the girl. Could be anywhere.”

When Jack Haines had been cordially dismissed (“Talk to you later, Jack,” Munchin said) he drove away in a dusty white Volkswagen that looked too small to accommodate his legs.

“What did you really think, Pamela?” Wilder said.

“I told you; I thought it sounded interesting. It’s the first time
I’ve really been able to picture Carl’s idea for a three-part story.”

“Well, all right,” Munchin said, “but remember, Haines is expendable. All I know about Haines is that he published two obscure novels some years ago and he’s got a list of television credits as long as your arm. We can do better. I saw in the trades this morning that Chester Pratt’s in town. He may be tied up with other things, but I intend to find out. Get a writer of that calibre, you might really see some imaginative work.”

“No, that’s out, Carl,” Wilder said, afraid the rush of heat in his face must be visible to them all. “We don’t want Chester Pratt.”

“Why not, for God’s sake?”

“I met him once. I’ve heard he’s not reliable. He’s a drunk.”

Pamela was inspecting her fingernails.

“He stayed sober long enough to write a pretty terrific book,” Munchin said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Wilder said. “I thought it was a little overwrought.”

“Have you read it?” Pamela inquired. “I didn’t know you’d read it.”

When they were driving home she said “Why were you so funny about Pratt? It
would
be a break if Munchin could get him.”

“I don’t want him around, that’s all. I must say I’m surprised you want him around.”

“Oh, John, he wouldn’t be ‘
around
.’ He’d be holed up writing the script, and once it got into production we’d probably never see him again. Besides, whatever we think of the man personally, he happens to be an excellent—”

“
Okay
,” he said, gripping the wheel very tight in both hands to prove he wasn’t angry. “
Okay
.”

“And in any case it’s silly even to think about it. I don’t think Munchin’ll ever get him.”

Later that night, walking home from dinner, she stopped and bought copies of the two trade papers.

“What’s all this?” he said.

“I just want to check that item about Pratt. I want to see what they say about him.”

“No you don’t.” He stopped on the sidewalk. “You’re not bringing those fucking papers into the house.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

It wasn’t their first quarrel in Hollywood but it was the most abrupt, and it was the first to happen on the street.

“All right,
read
’em!” he shouted. “
Read
’em – they won’t have what
you’re
looking for; they won’t print his
phone
number.”

“John, this is the most utterly pointless, ridiculous – if you don’t stop this, I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll
what?
Take your daddy’s money and move out? Fine! Go shack up with Chester Pratt again! Get him together with Munchin and the three of you can make a movie about me! Oh, I’m a Dark Character, all right, baby; I’m Doomed; I’ve got the fucking Seeds of Self-Destruction coming out my
ears
…”

She was walking quickly away from him, and several gaping adolescents in bright-colored T-shirts – two boys and a girl – had stopped to watch. There was nothing to do but turn and walk in the opposite direction, fast, in search of a bar to hide in.

He found a cheap, loud, crowded place that was evidently a hangout for young actors – it had a much-used call-board instead of a mirror behind the ranked bottles – and after fighting his way to the bar for two shots and a beer, he left quickly. The second place was better, and the third was the best – so agreeably dark and somber that he felt he could stay here forever, signaling the courteous waiter for refills and hearing of how Tony Bennett had left his heart in San Francisco.

Soon he would go home and apologize – he would wake
her up, if necessary, to do so – but not right away. It was very important to think things out.

“Sir?”

“Yes, please. Another double.”

He was faltering, staggering drunk by the time he got home. He thought at first that instead of waking her to apologize he would crawl in beside her and pass out, but he couldn’t even do that. He wasn’t sleepy.

He sat on the living-room sofa, tapering off on beer, waiting for sleep. And he was still there, awake and whispering to himself, when daylight crept through the Venetian blinds.

“… Good news,” Munchin said on the phone a few days later. “It isn’t final yet, but I think we’re going to get Pratt.”

“Oh,” Wilder said.

“His agent asked for the script yesterday, and Pratt’s reading it today. So listen: assuming he likes the property, what day do you think you two could come out here? To meet him and talk it over?”

“Well, don’t count on me, Carl,” he said, and the phone trembled slightly in his grip. “I don’t want to see him at all. Hold on, I’ll ask Pamela.”

She was sitting in an armchair across the room. She had been reading
Sight and Sound
but she’d dropped it when the phone rang, and now as he relayed the message she drew a section of her lower lip between her teeth and bit it. Her eyes were wide. “God,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“She doesn’t know, Carl,” he said. “She’ll call you back in a few minutes when she’s made up her mind, okay?” And when he hung up the phone he said “Okay, baby. It’s up to you.”

“I won’t go at all if you don’t want me to,” she said. “You know that.”

He hadn’t known it, and it pleased him, but he didn’t want to show it. “No, you’d better go,” he said. “You’re one of the producers.”

“Well, so are you. If you go alone he might never even know I’m connected with it.”

“He already knows. Your name’s on the script.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

In the end she called Munchin and agreed to go on whatever day was most convenient.

On the appointed afternoon she took longer getting dressed than usual, trying different dresses, until he said “Anybody’d think you’re worried about how you look.”

“Oh, you’re right,” she said. “This is silly. I’ll just wear a shirt and some old slacks. You sure you don’t want to come?”

“I’m sure.”

But after she was gone he walked the floor with his fist in his mouth. Why
hadn’t
he gone along? Wouldn’t it have been better to let Pratt see she had another man? He had a drink – just one, he promised himself, because he wanted to be alert and keen – and settled down to wait for her.

When she came back he studied her closely, weighing her every answer and every glance for signs of duplicity, and he had to admit there were none.

“How was it?”

“Oh, it was – pleasant. At least he was sober.”

“How’d he act when he saw you?”

“He was very discreet. He just said ‘We’ve met’ when Munchin started to introduce us, and after that it was all – you know – strictly business. I thought he had some interesting ideas. I wish you’d come along.”

*

Chester Pratt was retained to write the screenplay, and since it would take him a few months to finish it they were left with nothing much to do. They spent time at Munchin’s, meeting several directors, and they spent time with real-estate agents in futile search of “a nice little house in the hills,” but for the most part their days were empty.

“We might as well do
something
with all this time,” she said. “Do you want to go up to San Francisco for a few days? Or down to Mexico?”

But they did neither.

“And what seems to be the trouble, Mr. Wilder?” said Dr. Burton L. Rose of UCLA.

“There’s no real trouble, doctor, but I suppose you could say there might be. I really only came to get my prescriptions refilled – here, look, I’ve brought the bottles – and then on the way over here I thought of a few things I’d like to talk about.”

As soon as he’d said that he regretted it. Dr. Rose was a very small, slight, pale man who couldn’t have been over thirty, with humorless eyes that stared unblinking at his visitor. His office, deep in the labyrinthine complex of the Medical Center, was barely big enough to contain a desk, two chairs, and a psychiatric couch that looked obscenely out of place. How could anyone “talk” to this solemn, staring boy in this claustrophobic room?

The doctor frowned over the labels of the pill vials and reached for his prescription pad. “How long have you been on these medications?”

“These four, you mean, or medications in general?”

“These four, to begin with.”

“Oh, let’s see. About three months. Before that I was taking something else, another combination of drugs. Dr. Brink used to change the prescriptions quite often, you see. I’ve been on drugs of one kind or another for two and a half years.”

“And what did you want to talk about?”

Wilder’s hand went involuntarily to his brow and a small patch of skin near his eye began to twitch. “I don’t know; it’s very complicated. If I started telling you everything it would take all day.”

“You’ve been feeling a good deal of anxiety?”

“I’m not sure if ‘anxiety’ is the right word; but yes, I guess that’s about it. It’s just that there’s so much I’d have to tell you to explain it – even begin to explain it. For one thing I haven’t been sleeping well and I think I’ve been drinking too much.”

“Didn’t Dr. Brink tell you not to drink when you’re on these medications?”

“He said one drink would have about the same effect as two. Look, maybe I don’t want to talk to anybody. Maybe all I need is to have my prescriptions changed again. Could you help me there? Could you put me on a stronger antidepressant or a stronger psychic energizer or something?”

“I’m not a magician, Mr. Wilder. And in any case I can’t change your medication without knowing more about you. If you’ll sign a records-release form I can write to Dr. Brink and have him send me an abstract of your history.”

“Okay.”

The doctor opened a desk drawer in search of recordsrelease forms, and now, freed from his scrutiny, Wilder let his eyes roam around the tiny office. On the desk blotter were scattered half a dozen bright, foil-wrapped chocolate mints, the kind sold at check-out counters for two cents apiece, and by leaning forward and peering over he could see many crumpled foil wrappers in the bottom of the tin wastebasket. Maybe Dr. Rose was trying to quit smoking. Or maybe he was a candy freak; maybe when he had no patients to stare at he sat here alone, staring at the wall and masticating the chocolate and the
cheap cream filling, compulsively easing some dark and secret neurosis of his own.

“If you’d like to arrange a series of appointments for psychotherapy,” he was saying, “let me know. In the meantime I would suggest very strongly that you stop the alcohol.”

On the way home Wilder thumped the steering wheel several times with his fist and said “Shit! … Shit! …”

“What’s he like?” Pamela inquired.

“He’s a jerk. He’s not much older than you and he has an office about as big as a phone booth and he stuffs his face with chocolate mints all the time. The hell with him. At least I got my prescriptions refilled.”

“Did you ask him to put you on something stronger?”

“He says he can’t until he writes to Brink.”

“Oh.” She was reading a copy of
Newsweek
, probably the “Movies” section.

He fixed himself a drink without asking if she wanted one; he was reasonably sure she’d say it was too early.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said after a while. “Let’s go to one of those big, opulent restaurants on La Cienega where they have fountains and strolling violinists and the whole works. Just for the hell of it.”

“No,” she said. “We’ve been eating out too much. I’m going to fix dinner here tonight. Do you want to come along to the market with me, and help?”

He had always hated supermarkets, and the one she took him to was a giant – more aisles and more check-out stations than he could count, with acres of brilliant overhead lights trained on the eggs and carrots and toilet paper. She wheeled her doubledecked shopping cart briskly down one aisle in search of meat, and he followed her, staring at the passing merchandise and into the petulant, bewildered faces of other shoppers. He guessed he
ought to push the cart for her – was that what she’d meant by “helping”? – but when he offered to take it she said “No, it’s easier this way; I know just where I’m going and where I’m going to stop.” But she hadn’t allowed for all the stops she would have to make for traffic jams, where the carts and the people blocked the aisle.

“Excuse me,” she said helplessly. “Excuse me.”

“Jesus,” he said. “At this rate we’ll never get out of here.”

“I only have a few things to get. Just be patient.”