Serenade (15 page)

"You needn't even bother to try to understand. But if they ever pull something like that on you, just let me know. That's all I've got to say. Just let me know."

We went to the Golondrina. It's a Mexican restaurant on Olvera Street, a kind of Little Mexico they've got in Los Angeles, with
mariachis,
pottery, jumping beans, bum silverware, and all the rest of it. If she had dressed for me, I was bound she was going to have a good time if I had to stand the whole city on its ear to give it to her. She had it. She had never been there before, but as soon as they spotted her they all came around, and talked, and laughed, and she was back home. The couple in the floor show made up a special verse of their song for her, and she took the flower out of her hair and threw it out there, and they did a dance with it, and gave her some comedy. Their comedy is a lot of bum
cucaracha
gags, with a lot of belly-scratching and eye-rolling and finger-snapping, but it was funny to her, so it was funny to me. It was the first time I had ever had a friendly feeling toward Mexico.

Then I sang. A big movie shot is an event in that place, but a Mexican would never pull anything, or let you know he was looking at you. I had to call for the guitar myself, but then I got a big hand. I sang to her, and to the girl in the floor show, and whanged out a number they danced to, and then we all sang the
Golondrina.
It was two o'clock before we left there. When we went to bed I held her in my arms, and long after she was asleep this fury would come over me, about how they had treated her. I knew then I hated Hollywood, and only waited for the day I could clear out of there for good.

Under their contract, they had three months to call me for the next picture, and the way the time was counted, that meant any date up to April 1. It was just before Christmas that I got the wire from the New York agent that she had a tip the Met was interested in me, and would I please,
please,
let her go ahead on the deal? I began to rave like a crazy man. "Hoaney, why you talk so?"

"Read it! You've been going to school, there's something for you to practice on. Read it, and see what you've been missing all this time."

"What is 'Met'?"

"Just the best opera company in the world, that's all. The big one in New York, and they want me. They want me!--she'd never be sending that unless she knew something. A chance to get back to my trade at last, and here I am sewed up on a lousy contract to make two more pictures that I hate, that aren't worth making, that--"

"Why you make these pictures?"

"I'm under contract, I tell you. I've got to."

"But why?"

I tried to explain contract to her. It couldn't be done. An Indian has never heard of a contract. They didn't have them under Montezuma, and never bothered with them since. "The picture company, you make money for her, yes?"

"Plenty. I don't owe her a dime."

"Then it is right, you go?"

"Right? Did they ever give me anything I didn't take off them with a blackjack? Would they even give me a cup of coffee if I didn't pack them in at the box office? Would they even respect my trade? This isn't about right. It's about some ink on a dotted line."

"Then why you stay? Why you no sing at these Met?"

That was all. If it wasn't right, then to hell with it. A contract was just something that you probably couldn't read anyway. I looked at her, where she was lying on the bed with nothing on but a
rebozo
around her middle, and knew I was looking across ten thousand years, but it popped in my mind that maybe they weren't as dumb ten thousand years ago as I had always thought. Well, why not? I thought of Malinche, and how she put Cortes on top of the world, and how his star went out like a light when he thought he didn't need her any more. "...That's an idea."

"I think you sing at these Met."

"Not so loud."

"Yes."

"I think you're a pretty bright girl."

Next day I hopped over to the Taft Building and saw a lawyer. He begged me not to do anything foolish. "In the first place, if you run out on this contract, they can make your life so miserable that you hardly dare go out of doors without some rat shoving a summons at you with a dollar bill in it, and you'll have to appear in court. Do you know what that means? Do you know what those blue summonses did to Jack Dempsey? They cost him a title, that's all. They can sue you. They can sew you up with injunctions. They can just make you wish you never even heard of the law, or anything like it."

"That's what we got lawyers for, isn't it?"

"That's right. You can get a lawyer there in New York, and he can handle some of it. And he'll charge you plenty. But you can't hire as many lawyers as they've got."

"Listen, can they win, that's all I want to know. Can they bring me back? Can they keep me from working?"

"Maybe they can't. Who knows? But--"

"That's all I want to know. If I've got any kind of a fighting chance, I'm off."

"Not so fast. Maybe they don't even try. Maybe they think it's bad policy. But this is the main point: You run out on this contract, and your name is mud in Hollywood from now on--"

"I don't care about that."

"Oh yes you do. How do you know how well you do in grand "I've been in it before."

"And out of it before, from all I hear."

"My voice cracked up."

"It may again. This is my point. The way Gold is building you up, Hollywood is sure for you, as sure as anything can be, for quite some time to come. It makes no different to him if your voice cracks up. He'll buy a voice. He'll dub your sound for you--"

"Not for me he won't."

"Will you for Christ sake stop talking about art? I'm talking about money. I'm telling you that if your pictures really go, he'll do anything. He'll play you straight. He'll fix it up any way that makes you look good. And most of all, he'll pay you! More than any opera company will ever pay you! It's a backlog for you to fall back on,
but
--"

"Yeah, but?"

"Only as long as you play ball. Once you start some funny business, not only he, but every other picture man in Hollywood turns thumbs down, and that's the end of you, in pictures. There's no black-list. Nobody calls anybody up. They just hear about it, and that's all. I can give you names, if you want them, of bright boys like you that thought they could jump a Hollywood contract, and tell you what happened to them. These picture guys hate each other, they cut each other's throats all the time, but when something like this happens, they act with a unanimity that's touching. Now, have you seen Gold?"

"I thought I'd see you first."

"That's all right. Then there's no harm done. Now before you do anything rash, I want you to see him. There may be no trouble at all. He may want you to sing at the Met, just for build-up. He may be back of it, for all you know. Get over and see him, see if you can fix it up. After lunch, come back and see me."

So I went over and saw Gold. He wanted to talk about the four goals he made in the polo game the day before. When we did get around to it he shook his head. "Jack, I know what's good for you, even if you don't. I read the signs all the time, it's my business to know, and they'll all tell you Rex Gold don't make many mistakes. Jack, grand opera's through."

"What?"

"It's through, finished. Sure, I dropped in at the Metropolitan when I was east last week, saw Tosca, the same opera that we do a piece of in Bunyan, and I'd hate to tell you what they soaked me for the rights on it, too. And what do I see? Well, boy, I'm telling you, we just made a bum out of them. That sequence in our picture is so much better than their job, note for note, production for production, that comparison is just ridiculous. Grand opera is through. Because why? Pictures have stepped in and done it so much better than they can do it that they can't get by any more, that's all. Opera is going the same way the theatre is going. Pictures have just rubbed them out.

"Well--before it dies, I'd like to have a final season in it. And I don't think the Metropolitan stamp would hurt me any, even in pictures."

"It would ruin you."

"How?"

"I've been telling you. Grand opera is through. Grand opera pictures are through. The public is sick of them. Because why? Because they got no more material. They've done Puccini over and over again, they've done La Bohčme and Madame Butterfly so much we even had to fall back on La Tosca for you in Bunyan, and after you've done your Puccini, what you got left? Nothing. It's through, washed up. We just can't get the material."

"Well--there are a couple of other composers."

"Yeah, but who wants to listen to them?"

"Almost anybody, except a bunch of Kansas City yaps that think Puccini is classical, as they call it."

"Oh, so you don't like Puccini?"

"Not much."

"Listen, you want to find out who's the best painter in the world, what do you do? You try to buy one of his pictures. Then you find out what you got to pay. O.K., you want to find out who's the best composer in the world, you try to buy some of his music. Do you know what they charged me, just for license rights, on that scene you did from Tosca? You want to know? Wait, I'll get the canceled vouchers. I'll show you. You wouldn't believe it."

"Listen, Puccini has been the main asset of that publishing house for years, and everybody in grand opera knows it, and that's got nothing to do with how good he is. It's because he came in after we began to get copyright laws, and because he was handled from the beginning for every dime that could be got out of him from guys like you. If you're just finding that out, it may prove you don't know anything about opera, but it doesn't prove anything about Puccini."

"Why do you suppose guys like me pay for him?"

"Probably because you knew so little about opera you couldn't think of anything else. If you had let me help on that script, I'd have fixed you up with numbers that wouldn't have cost you a dime."

"A swell time to be saying that."

"To hell with it. You got Tosca, and it's all right. I'm talking about a release for the rest of the season to go on at the Met."

"And I'm talking about what's good for one of our stars. There's no use our arguing about composers, Jack. Maybe you know what's pretty but I know what sells. And I tell you grand opera is through. And I tell you that from now on you lay off it. The way I'm building you up, we're going to take that voice of yours, and what are we going to do with it? Use it on popular stuff. The stuff you sing better than anybody else in the business. The stuff that people want to hear. Lumberjack songs, cowboy songs, mountain music,
jazz
--you can't beat it! It's what they want! Not any of this tra-la-la-la-la-la! Christ, that's an ear-ache! It's a back number. Look, Jack: From now on, you forget you ever were in grand opera. You give it to them down-to-earth! Right down there where they want it! You get me, Jack? You get me?"

"I get you."

"What did Gold say?"

"He said no."

"I had an idea that was how he felt. I had him on the phone just now, about something else, and I led around to you in a way that didn't tip it you had been in, but he was telling the world where he stood. Well, I'd play along with him. It's tough, but you can't buck him."

"If I do, what did you say my name would be?"

"Mud. M-U-D, mud."

"In Hollywood?"

"Yes, in Hollywood."

"That's all I wanted to know. What do I owe you?"

When I got home there were four more telegrams, saying the thing was hot, if I wanted it, and a memo New York had been calling. I looked at my watch. It was three o'clock. I called the airport. They had two seats on the four-thirty plane. She came in. "Well, Juana, there they are, read them. The
abogado
says no, a hundred times no. What do I do?"

"You sing Carmen at these Met?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"Yes, I like."

"O.K., then. Get packed."

I made my debut in Lucia right after New Year's, sang standard repertoire for a month, began to work in. It felt good to be back with the wops. Then I got my real chance when they popped me on three days' notice into Don Giovanni. I had a hell of a time getting them to let me do the serenade my way, with a real guitar, and play it myself, without the orchestra. The score calls for a prop mandolin, and that's the way the music is written, but I hate all prop instruments on the stage, and hate to play any scene where I have to use one. There's no way you can do it that it doesn't look phoney. I made a gain when I told them that the guitar was tradition, that Garcia used to do it that way, but I lost all that ground when somebody in the Taste Department decided that a real guitar would look too much like the Roxy, and for a day it was all off again. Then I got Wurlitzer's to help me out. They sent down an instrument that was a beauty. It was dark, dull spruce, without any pearl, nickel, or highlights on it of any kind, and it had a tone you could eat with a spoon. When I sounded off on that, that settled it.

I wanted to put it up a half tone, so I could get it in the key of three flats, but I didn't. It's in the key of two sharps, the worst key there is for a singer, especially the high F sharp at the end, that catches a baritone all wrong, and makes him sound coarse and ropy. The F sharp is not in the score, but it's tradition and you have to sing it. God knows why Mozart ever put it in that key, unless it's because two sharps is the best key there is for a mandolin, and he let his singer take the rap so he could bring the accompaniment to life.

But I tuned with the orchestra before the act started, and did it strictly in the original key. I made two moves while I was singing it. Between verses I took one step nearer the balcony. At the end, I turned my back on the audience, stepped under the balcony and played the finish, not to them, but to her. On the F sharp, instead of covering up and getting it over quick, I did a
messa di voce,
probably the toughest order a singer ever tries to deliver. You start it
p,
swell to
ff,
pull back to
p
again, and come off it. My tone wasn't round, but it was pure, and I got away with it all right. They broke into a roar, the
bravos
yipped out all over the house, and that was the beginning of this stuff that you read, that I was the greatest since Bispham, the peer of Scotti, and all the rest of it. Well, I was the peer of Scotti, or hope I was. They've forgotten by now how bad Scotti really was. He could sing, and he was the greatest actor I ever saw, but his voice was just merely painful. What they paid no attention to at all, mentioned like it was nothing but a little added feature, was the guitar. You can talk about your fiddle, your piano, and your orchestra, and I've got nothing to say against them. But a guitar has moonlight in it.