“Ah, God,” she said at last. “That’s no hospital. It’s where great elephant ideas go to die. A graveyard for lunatics.”
“That’s over the wall, Constance.”
“No. You die here first, you die over there last. In between—” She held to the sides of her skull as if it might fly apart. “Madness. Don’t go in there, kid.”
“Why?”
Constance rose slowly to stand over the steering wheel and cry havoc at the gate that was not yet open and the night windows that were blind shut and the blank walls that didn’t care.
“First, they drive you crazy. Then when they have driven you nuts they persecute you for being the babbler at noon, the hysteric at sunset. The toothless werewolf at the rising of the moon.
“When you’ve reached the precise moment of lunacy, they fire you and spread the word that you are unreasonable, uncooperative, and unimaginative. Toilet paper, imprinted with your name, is dispatched to every studio, so the great ones can chant your initials as they ascend the papal throne.
“When you are dead they shake you awake to kill you again. Then they hang your carcass at Bad Rock, OK Corral, or Versailles on backlot 10, pickle you in a jar like a fake embryo in a bad carny film, buy you a cheap crypt next door, chisel your name, misspelled, on the tomb, cry like crocodiles. Then the final inglory: Nobody remembers your name on all the pictures you made in the good years. Who recalls the screenwriters for Rebecca? Who remembers who wrote Gone With the Wind? Who helped Welles become Kane? Ask anyone on the street. Hell, they don’t even know who was president during Hoover’s administration.
“So there you have it. Forgotten the day after the preview. Afraid to leave home between pictures. Who ever heard of a film writer who ever visited Paris, Rome, or London? All piss-fearful if they travel, the big moguls will forget them. Forget them, hell, they never knew them. Hire whatchamacalit. Get me whatsisname. The name above the title? The producer? Sure. The director? Maybe. Remember it’s deMille’s Ten Commandments, not Moses’. But F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? Smoke it in the Men’s. Snuff it up your ulcerated nose. Want your name in big type? Kill your wife’s lover, fall downstairs with his body. Like I say, that’s the flickers, silver screen. Remember, you’re the blank spaces between each slot-click of the projector. Notice all those pole-vault poles by the back wall of the studio? That’s to help the high jumpers up across into the stone quarry. Mad fools hire and fire ’em, dime a dozen. They can be had, because they love films, we don’t. That gives us the power. Drive them to drink, then grab the bottle, hire the hearse, borrow a spade. Maximus Films, like I said. A graveyard. And, oh yeah, for lunatics.”
Her speech over, Constance remained standing as if the studio walls were a tidal wave about to fall.
“Don’t go in there,” she finished.
There was quiet applause.
The night policeman, behind the ornate Spanish ironwork was smiling and clapping his hands.
“I’ll only be in there a while, Constance,” I said. “Another month or so, and I’ll head South to finish my novel.”
“Can I come with you? One more trip to Mexicali, Calexico, South of San Diego, almost to Hermosillo, bathing naked by moonlight, ha, no, you in raggedy shorts.”
“I only wish. But it’s me and Peg, Constance, Peg and me.”
“Ah, well, what the hell. Kiss me.”
I hesitated so she gave me a smack that could flush a whole tenement tank system and make the cold run hot.
The gate was opening.
Two lunatics at midnight, we drove in.
As we pulled up near the wide square full of milling soldiers and merchants, Fritz Wong came leaping over in great strides. “God damn! We’re all set for your scene. That drunken Baptist Unitarian has disappeared. You know where the son of a bitch hides?”
“You called Aimee Semple McPherson’s?”
“She’s dead!”
“Or the Holy Rollers. Or the Manly P. Hall Universalists. Or—”
“My God,” roared Fritz. “It’s midnight! Those places are shut.”
“Have you checked Calvary,” I said. “He goes there.”
“Calvary!” Fritz stormed away. “Check Calvary! Gethsemane!” Fritz pleaded with the stars. “God, why this poisoned Manischewitz? Someone! Go rent two million locusts for tomorrow’s plague!”
The various assistants ran in all directions. I started off, too, when Constance grabbed my elbow.
My eyes wandered over the facade of Notre Dame.
Constance saw where I was looking.