The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (15 page)

D
UDDY WAS NOT IDLE WHILE HE WAITED FOR HIS FATHER
to introduce him to the Boy Wonder. The morning his fever had gone he began to size things up. He figured he would need at least fifteen thousand dollars down for the land he wanted (he’d have to sign mortgages for the balance) and no job advertised in the
Star
would bring him in that kind of dough, not in twenty years. He had to make a killing. A real killing. But these things just don’t fall into a guy’s lap, he thought, and meanwhile it would be wise to bring in as much money as he could whatever way possible. You’ve got to start operating, he told himself. It’s getting late.

But where does a guy start, he thought. Where and how?

He read enviously about the real estate boom in Toronto and of men who had bought land as farms and sold it at twenty to thirty cents a square foot two months later. Other guys had gone prospecting for uranium in Labrador and come back with a mint. Television, he had heard, was the coming thing. Dealers had already made a fortune in the States. Duddy got an appointment with the representative of a big American firm and tried to get an agency, but the man, obviously amused, asked Duddy how much selling experience he had had, what his education was, did he own a car and how much capital was he willing to invest in stock. He told Duddy that he was too young and advised him to try for something smaller. “You can’t run
before you learn how to walk,” he said. So Duddy grew a mustache and began to take the
Reader’s Digest
and work hard on
How to Increase Your Word Power
. He also came to an arrangement with his father about the taxi. While Max slept Duddy drove.

Duddy drove at night and during the day he got a job selling liquid soap and toilet supplies to factories. For this work he had to have a car of his own and here Debrofsky helped out. He took Duddy to his son-in-law’s used car lot and got him a ’46 Chevvie cheap and on excellent terms. While Debrofsky was bargaining Duddy visited the clothing factory next door and got a medium-sized order for soap and paper towels. He usually slept from four to six and at a quarter to seven he drove down to Wellington College, where he was taking a course in business administration. He joined the cine club at Wellington and that’s where he met Peter John Friar, the distinguished director of documentary films. Mr. Friar had come to Wellington to speak on “Italian Neo-Realism, What Next?” He had a lot to say against Hollywood (it was a soul-killing place, he said) and he seemed to be against something called the witch-hunt, but Duddy wasn’t sure. Mr. Friar had a difficult British accent and he spoke softly. There was a question period after he was finished and Mr. Friar was asked point-blank did he think Huston had gone permanently commercial and what had become of Sir Arthur Elton? Afterwards Duddy pulled him aside. “I’m going into the film business here myself soon and there’s something I’d like to talk over with you,” he said.

Mr. Friar checked his smile. Irving Thalberg, he remembered, had been only twenty-two when he took over
MGM
, and besides, the most surprising people had money in Canada. “Why don’t we have a drink together,” he said.

They went to a bar around the corner and Mr. Friar immediately ordered a double gin and tonic.

“Your talk was a pleasure,” Duddy said. “It was very educational.”

“Jolly decent of you to say so.”

Duddy hesitated. The palms of his hands began to sweat. “I hope you like it here. Montreal,” he said, “is the world’s largest inland seaport.”

Mr. Friar lifted his glass and gave Duddy an encouraging smile. “Cheers.”

Peter John Friar was a small, pear-shaped man with a massive head and a fidgety red face. His graying hair was thin but disheveled and there were little deposits of dandruff on his coat collar. He seemed especially fond of stroking his graying vandyke beard, knitting his fierce eyebrows, and – squinting against the smoke of a cigarette burnt perilously close to his lips – nodding as he said, “Mm. Mm-hmm.” He wore a green tweed suit and a shirt with a stiff collar. Duddy figured him for forty-forty-five and something of a lush maybe. He had those kind of jerky hands and the heavily veined nose.

“Have another on me,” Mr. Friar said.

“No, thanks. But you go right ahead.”

Duddy wanted to ask Mr. Friar for advice, but lots of drinks were consumed before he got a chance to say anything. Mr. Friar, stammering a little, told him about the documentary he made for an oil company in Venezuela. It had been shown at the Edinburgh Festival and had won a prize in Turkey, but even though he had directed it his name was not actually on the picture for a dark reason he only hinted at. Mr. Friar had come to Canada from Mexico to work for the National Film Board, actually, but he was having trouble again because he was a left-winger. An outspoken one. Temporarily, he said, he was at liberty. “Grierson,” he said, “is madly determined for me to come to Ottawa, but …”

“Jeez,” Duddy said, “I feel a bit embarrassed now to bother such a B.T.O. with my plans.”

“Dear me. Why?”

“Naw. You wouldn’t like it. They’re what you called … commercial.”

“Let’s have another. But this one’s on me, old chap.”

Duddy said there was plenty of money around these days. He told him about his idea to make films of weddings and bar-mitzvahs.

“A splendid notion.”

But that, Duddy said, would only be a beginning. He wanted to investigate the whole field of industrial films and one day he hoped to make real features. He had under contract, in fact, Canada’s leading comedian, and next week he was going to meet a potential big backer. “Listen,” Duddy said, “I’m no shnook. I can see you’re a very sensitive man. I know you couldn’t care less about making films of weddings and bar-mitzvahs but if you could help me with advice about equipment and costs I would certainly appreciate it. I’d be willing to show my appreciation too.”

Mr. Friar waved his hands in protest. “Have you any interested clients?” he asked.

“I have two orders in hand,” he said, “and a long list of weddings and bar-mitzvahs that are coming up soon. I spent some time in the hotel business and I know lots of people in Outremont. All I need is to get started,” Duddy said, leaning back in his chair with his hands resting on his knees.

“I just might be interested. You see,” Mr. Friar said, “it so happens that for years I have been absorbed in folklore and tribal customs in every shape and form. I’m not unfamiliar with Hebraic rituals, you know. Your people have suffered so much. The lore is rich.”

“Wha’?”

“The record of a wedding or bar-mitzvah needn’t be crassly commercial. We could concentrate on the symbolism inherent to the ceremony.”

“They’d have to be in color. That would be a big selling point.”

“I say,” Mr. Friar said, “there’s one thing I like to warn every producer about before I start on a project. I demand a completely free hand. I will tolerate no interference with my artistic integrity.”

“I don’t know a camera lens from a horse’s ass, so stop worrying. But look, Mr. Friar, I’ve got a feeling that the important thing about
this kind of movie is not the symbolism like, but to get as many relatives and friends into it as humanly poss –”

“That,” Mr. Friar said, “is exactly what I mean,” and he leaped up and started out of the bar.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Duddy shouted, starting after him. The waiter stepped in front of Duddy.
“You
wait a minute, buster.”

The bill came to eight dollars. Duddy paid it and hurried outside.

“Have you ever got a temper. Jeez.”

“In my day, Kravitz, I’ve thrown more than one bloody producer off a set.”

“No kidding?”

“If I could only learn to be as obsequious as Hitchcock I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Duddy could see that Mr. Friar’s eyes were red. He took his arm.

“I have no home,” Mr. Friar said. “I’m a vagabond.”

“Listen, I’m starved. Why don’t we go in here and grab a smoked meat? My treat.”

“I’m going back to my flat.”

“Where is it? I’ll walk you.”

“You are tenacious Kravitz, aren’t you?”

“Aw.”

“I’d really like to be alone now. Sorry, old chap.”

“Aren’t you interested in my project any more?”

Mr. Friar hesitated. He swayed a little. “Tell you what, Kravitz. You come to my flat tomorrow at four. We can talk some more then.” He gave Duddy his address and shook hands with him.
“Hasta mañana,”
he said.

“Sure thing.”

Mr. Friar lived in an apartment on Stanley Street and Duddy was there promptly at four the next afternoon. He had brought a bottle of Booth’s Dry Gin with him. There was no bell on the door and Duddy had to knock again and again.

“Avante.”

Mr. Friar was in the nude, his fallen belly thick with curly gray hair.

“Hiya!”

Every drawer in the living-room-cum-bedroom was open and dripping underwear or shirtsleeves. One wall was completely covered with bull-fighting posters.

“It’s not my flat, actually. It belongs to Gilchrist. He was my fag at Winchester. A proper bastard. Well, Kravitz, sit down.”

Mr. Friar freed a couple of glasses from the pile of pots and pans in the sink, wiped the lipstick off one with the corner of his sheet, and poured two drinks. He knocked all the magazines off the coffee table with a scythelike sweep of hairy leg and set down a tray of icecubes beside the bottle.

“Cheers,” Duddy said quickly.

“Prosit.”

But Duddy continued to stare. Mr. Friar sighed, retrieved an old
New Yorker
from the floor, and covered his genitals with it.

Duddy began to talk quickly, before Mr. Friar could begin on his reminiscences once more. He told him that he had no equipment and not the vaguest notion of the production costs of a bar-mitzvah picture. Mr. Friar, speaking frankly, could be of invaluable service to him. Duddy explained that he was the one with the connections and it was he who would risk his capital on equipment. “But you’re the guy with the know-how,” he said, and he offered Mr. Friar one-third of all the profits. “We can help each other,” he said. “And if you don’t trust me the books will be open to you any time you like.”

“Your glass is empty.” Mr. Friar poured two stiff drinks.

“Prosit,”
Duddy said quickly.

“Chin-chin.”

Mr. Friar told Duddy that he was not interested in money. All he wanted was enough to keep him and a guarantee of non-interference.

“You’ve got a deal,” Duddy said.

“One moment, please. There’s another stipulation. I won’t be bound by any contract. I’m a vagabond, Kravitz. I’ve got the mark
of Cain on my forehead. I must be free to get up and go at any time.”

And then Mr. Friar became very businesslike. He told Duddy that to begin with they ought to buy their own camera but rent everything else they needed. He said that he knew lots of people at the Film Board in Ottawa and he was sure that they would let him edit and process the film there. That, he said, would be a substantial saving. He told Duddy he’d need five hundred dollars down towards equipment and he asked for an advance of one hundred dollars against personal expenses.

“Agreed.”

“Let me refresh your drink.”

Duddy told Mr. Friar that he had his eye on an office in the Empire Building. First thing tomorrow morning he would put down a deposit on it. He would have
DUDLEY KANE ENTERPRISES
printed on the glazed glass door and, since the Empire Building was in the Monarch exchange area anyway, he would pay a little, if necessary, to get a phone number that spelt
MOVIES
and then he could advertise “Dial
MOVIES
” in all the newspapers.

“Brilliant.”

Another thing, Duddy added, was that he wanted Mr. Friar to give him a write-up on his past work and stuff. He hoped to get a story in the
Star
and maybe a paragraph in
Mel West’s What’s What
.

After a few more drinks Duddy could see that Mr. Friar’s eyes were red again and he began to worry.

“I should have followed my brother into the
FO,”
Mr. Friar said. “Winchester and King’s did me no good in Hollywood. I couldn’t speak
Yiddish.”

“Jeez.”

Mr. Friar wiped his eyes and poured himself another drink, straight gin this time. “It’s no good, Kravitz. I can’t do this to you. You’re young. I have no right to ruin what promises to be a brilliant career even before it’s begun.”

Duddy looked puzzled.

“I’m afraid I’ve been concealing something from you, old chap. I’m a communist.”

“So?”

“I believe in the brotherhood of man.”

“Me too,” Duddy said forcefully. “Do unto your neighbor … Aw, you know.”

“I am a card-holder,” Mr. Friar said in a booming voice. He stood up and the
New Yorker
dropped to the floor. “I tell you that here but no committee could drag it out of me with wild horses. Do you realize what that means?” Mr. Friar touched Duddy’s knee. He lowered his voice. “I fled the United States one step ahead of the
FBI
. I’m on the blacklist.”

“No kidding!”

“I
must
be. I’ve never attempted to conceal my beliefs.”

“So?”

“Don’t you see, Kravitz? I will not direct again without a credit. But if you hire me it’s likely that you’ll never be able to work in Hollywood. Don’t hesitate. I’ll understand perfectly if you want to call the deal off.”

“We’re partners, Mr. Friar. Shake.”

Duddy saw Mr. Friar daily after that, but the next time he came he only brought a half bottle of gin. On Monday he moved into his office. He took out a subscription to
Variety
and, quickly adapting himself to the idiom of the trade, learned to think of himself as an “indie.” Duddy waited until the paragraph he wanted had appeared in Mel West’s column before he went to see Mr. Cohen about his son’s bar-mitzvah. He had kept putting the visit off because if Mr. Cohen was not interested he was in trouble. Mr. Friar was anxious to get started. “You told me you had two orders,” he said.