Me and Orson Welles (23 page)

“Yeah, but everybody here don't count.”

I hit the dressing room stairs at a run to change into my street clothes, but Cotten stopped me on the second-floor landing. He was looking glum. There was an open window, and I could hear a light rain dripping on the fire escape.

“What's eating you, Fertilizer?” I asked. I took a swig from my root beer bottle. “Jeez, I thought I was going to forget the whole lyric. You know, until I actually
sang
the words, until they actually came from my mouth, I had no idea I still remembered them. You taking a cab to the party? Maybe we can share. How was I? Brilliant, wasn't I? That's what I am. A brilliant young man. I'm thinking of forming my own theatrical company with me as the director and the star. You want to be in it? You can take some of the smaller roles.” I did my Gabriel Heatter impersonation: “There's
good
news tonight!”

“Not so good news. You don't know yet?”

“What?”

“Orson hasn't told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

“You're fired, Richard.”

I stood staring at him. “I'm
what?”

I could still hear the rain falling on the fire escape.

“I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. Orson's not only a son-of-a-bitch, he's a coward.”

“Joe, you're kidding—”

“He never forgave you; he just wanted his opening night.”

The root beer bottle slipped from my hand and spilled on the floor. “Tell me you're kidding me, Joe. Because this isn't funny.”

“Sonja told me. Did you see that blond kid hanging around the stage tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said, and I felt something large and sad rising in my throat. I tried to mop up the soda with my shoe.

“He's your replacement.”

“What's the gag?”

“He's been
hired
already.”

“Joe, stop kidding me.”

“Sonja wanted me to break the news to you, to tell you how
absolutely terrible
she feels. Though not absolutely terrible enough to tell you herself.”

Down below, the band was still playing.

“Joe, this can't be happening. The show's a hit.
I'm
a hit.”

“Orson apparently gave the kid the script, told him to learn his lines by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?
Joe—he can't learn the part by tomorrow.”

“Richard, I'm sorry. Orson's going to give you all this crap that it's Actor's Equity, and that the kid's an Equity Junior Member, which he is—but that's horseshit—it's not about Equity. . . . Orson is a sick man in many ways; a dark, sick man. I tried to talk to him. He won't even
listen
to me. No. Made up his mind. Can't be budged.”

“It is
not
going to end like this, all right? I refuse to allow that possibility. I'm fighting this. I mean, what the hell did I do wrong? I didn't do one thing. I've been to every rehearsal. The show's a hit—I'm—”

“Don't you get it? Orson can't be wrong.”

“I said
one
thing, Joe. I said Sonja was my lov—my girlfriend. I fought for her—just like you told me to!”

“Maybe that was lousy advice.”

“I said that he should back off. That's
all
I said.”

“You told him that?”

“Yeah, well, I started to—right before he tore my head off, but he
apologized
to me, Joe—he said—”

Cotten shook his head. “And you took Leve's side when Orson pulled his credit?”

“What was I supposed to do? Let him call that man a credit-stealing Jew and not say one word? Is that what everybody
does
around here? Jesus Christ!” I kicked the wall. “O.K., what do I do, Joe? Tell me what I have to do. Am I supposed to apologize to him? 'Cause if that's what it takes to get my part back, I'll do it. I'll do whatever—”

“I don't think it'll help. I'm sorry.”

“He gave me
this
.” From my pocket I took out the small white card with two hearts drawn on it. “Doesn't this mean anything?”

Cotten shook his head, reached into his shirt pocket, and pulled out the same card. “He gave everybody the same bullshit.”

“Well, I don't care what it means, 'cause I
refuse
to accept that this is over. It's not over—O.K.? I refuse to accept that he can make some five-second decision because he's in a shitty mood, and that's it—that my career in the Mercury Theatre is over. Is he here? I'm talking to him right now!” I moved down the stairs.
“I'm not accepting this.”

Cotten grabbed me. “He never wanted to bring you back, Richard; don't you get it? He wanted his opening night.”

“So I stand up
once,
and that's it? That's the end of my job here? That's not fair, Joe. It was
one
time.”

“Richard, my heart goes out to you—you've been treated like shit. I don't know what to tell you. I'm going to the party; I'll
try
to talk to him. But don't expect any—”

“No,
I'm
going to the party.”

I ran down the stairs—furious—ready to argue my part back with Welles. The words I'd say were flying through my head.
This is not fair, and there is not one person in this company who would agree with—

Cotten called down after me. “Don't! Richard, you're going to make it worse. Let me—”

Vakhtangov was standing guard by Welles's dressing room. “He's gone. They're all gone.”

“Oh, fuck you.” I tried the door. It was locked.

I tore back up the stairs to get my hat and coat. Cotten was dressed and ready to leave.

“Wait for me!”

“Richard! For Christ's sake! Listen to me! He won't back down tonight. I'm telling you; don't go to the party! You will only make it worse.”

I stopped running. “He can't
dismiss
people like this! People's lives just don't exist on the whim of Orson Welles! Don't I count, Joe? Don't I count at all?”

He looked at me with compassion.

“You mean to tell me that no one in this company would stand up for me? Would argue for me?”

“You're asking them to walk away from a hit show for you? In the middle of a Depression?”

I opened my mouth, but there were no more words.

“
I'll
argue for you, Richard. That's all I can do.”

“If I were there—in front of people—at the party—”

“So Welles is going to back down in front of the whole company? With you standing there? That's what you're expecting?”

I held my head. “I don't know what I'm expecting.”

“Go home, Richard.”

 

The theatre was nearly empty. I stood by the open third-floor window. The air felt rainy.

Next to the window, outside, a ladder led up to the roof. I wiped my eyes and stepped onto the fire escape.

Stefan and Skelly had gone home. Everyone had gone home.

I climbed the ladder.

On the roof, New York was lit like an enormous stage set: a thicket of supporting cables, ventilator shafts, streetlights—all silhouetted in the fog. It reminded me of the night I'd slept with Sonja.

I sat on a tar-paper-covered abutment. Its wetness soaked through my pants. The rain was a fine mist now.

In my head I still argued my part back from Welles.

I removed my hat and rubbed my temples. Then I took my scarf and tied it as tightly as I could, like a headband, around my forehead. It seemed to ease the ache that was spreading behind my eyes.

My ears rang with
Caesar.

This is how it ends, I thought. And there you are, unsure of everything but your own headache—tumbling back to some old sense of belonging nowhere.

I tried to shake the self-pity, but I felt as if I were growing physically smaller.

And I said to myself: This is too small a loss to feel this kind of despair, Richard. You haven't made the theatre your life. This has been just one lucky week for you—one week that came and sparkled and passed.

And still part of me argued with Welles. It pleaded:
What did I do that was so wrong?

I walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over the city—its immensity in the night. The buildings rose like the massive hulls of ships. A fire engine howled below. A bus passed. And the illuminated headlines wrapped around the Times Building. And the rain fell on every brick and stone of the city.

From my pocket I took out the small card Welles had given me. Two hearts joined by an arrow.
Orson
.

“Kiss my ass, Orson Welles,” I said, and flicked the card over the side of the roof.

I heard myself breathing, and I watched my breath steam into the fog. The tension in my neck was loosening a little.

I walked along the edge of the roof. I studied the city rising in its towers and wires—and I thought:
What if I closed my eyes? What if I counted to five, and then opened my eyes again, and the whole city would be made
perfect
—and everything under the face of God would be exactly where it was supposed to be, and everyone would be doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, and every speck of dust would be exactly in its right place?
I shut my eyes and imagined the world turning to such a paradise, and I counted to five—and I opened my eyes and saw the city exactly as it had been before. Unaltered. Traffic passed. Somewhere below a neon light blinked.

And I thought: Could this
be
paradise? Maybe every particle of dust
is
exactly where it's supposed to be. Every turning, every heartache, every atom—exactly where it's supposed to be—exactly where it could only be?
There is nothing lifeless in the universe, no chaos, no disorder, though this may not be immediately clear to us.
If only I could believe that. And the darkness and the skyscrapers and the fog and every water droplet—a kind of life: complex, connected—a kind of paradise, at least the only kind of paradise I would ever know. This crazy, beautiful web of light and stone.

Footsteps on the roof; it was Sonja in her raincoat. “Richard, I'm sorry,” she began. “Orson is intractable. Do you believe me that I tried? I gave it everything I had . . . .”

I was still thinking about paradise.

“Richard?”

“Oh, I believe you,” I said.

“Orson's playing the Tyrannical Director again. I'm sorry. I tried to talk to him. Joe Cotten tried to talk to him. John tried. Maybe in a day or two he'll change his mind. What am I saying? He's not going to change his mind.” She stood there, a silhouette with her hands in her pockets.

“Sonja, what did I do that was so wrong?”

“You told the boss the truth.”

“And what are you supposed to tell the boss?”

“ ‘You're great, boss.' ”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“So everybody lies . . . .”

“I'm sorry, Richard.”

“Can you arrange it so I can talk to him for five minutes? That's all I want. O.K.? He doesn't have to change his mind. I just want five minutes.”

She had nothing to say—and even as I'd asked the question, its meaninglessness pained me.

“You know,” I said, “a couple of days ago I was thinking that it would be the greatest thing in the world to be Orson Welles—to think like him, see the world through his eyes. You know, to have that static charge you were talking about? But I was just thinking: even if I was exactly like Orson Welles, even if I woke up tomorrow with all his talents, an exact copy of Orson Welles—who would I be? I'd be the guy-who-sounds-like-Orson-Welles. Wouldn't I? I'd be the guy-who-directs-like-Orson Welles. I'd be the world's greatest Orson Welles impersonator. And I would
always
be that. Always the second-rate Orson Welles.”

“Whoever said you had to be Orson Welles?”

“I did. I mean, I want to accomplish things, you know? As much as you do. I'm filled with dreams, too. Art. Music. Theatre. Enormous, absurd dreams.”

“So who's stopping you?”

“What I mean is, I can never be a first-rate Orson Welles. Do you know what I'm saying? That job is already taken. I seem to be the last person on earth who's figured this out. I'm Richard Kenneth Samuels. God, what a lousy name.
But that's who I am.
Nothing more or less. Does any of this make sense to you?”

“Not really,” she said gently.

“It's just something I'm feeling . . . ,” I said. “You going to the party?”

She checked her watch. “My date's picking me up downstairs. He told me he was going to be late.”

“Not Welles, Sonja. At least tell me it's not Welles.”

“It's David O. Selznick.”

“You're going to the party with David O. Selznick?”

She nodded.

“You're amazing.”

“You want to hear my prediction?” she said. “I'll be working for him within two weeks, and within two months I'll be a production assistant on
Gone with the Wind.
And can I make a little prediction about you?”

“Right now I couldn't handle a bad one.”