A Stranger in the Mirror (7 page)

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ion! and they were all saying funny things, things that oby Temple had never thought of before. The words, the kes poured out of him in a frenzy of desperation. He was man drowning in the darkness of his own oblivion, clinging Va life raft of words, and the words were all that were keep- a him afloat. He was soaked in perspiration, running around ie room, imitating the movement of each character who was Bring. He was manic, totally outside of himself, forgetting here he was and what he was here for until he heard Alice aimer saying, "Stop it! Stop it!" Tears of laughter were streaming down her face. "Stop it1" she repeated, gasping fur breath. And slowly, Toby came down to earth. Mrs. 'I anner had :aken out a handkerchief and was wiping her eyes. "You--you're insane," she said. "Do you know that?" 11 Toby stared at her, a feeling of elation slowly filling him, Kring, exalting him. "You liked it, huh?" Alice Tanner shook her head and took a deep breath to amtrol her laughter and said, "Not -- not very much." Toby looked at her, filled with rage. She had been laughg at him, not with him. He had been making a fool of _mself. "Then what were you laughing at?" Toby demanded. She smiled and said quietly, "You. That was the most Erenetic performance I've ever seen. Somewhere, hidden ineath all those movie stars, is a young man with a lot of lent. You don't have to imitate other people. You're naturally any." Toby felt his anger begin to seep away. "I think one day you could be really good if you're willing to work hard at it. Are you?" He gave her a slow, beatific grin and said, "Let's roll up )ur sleeves and go to work." Josephine worked very hard Saturday morning, fielping her mother clean the house. At noon. Cissy and some other friends picked her up to take her on a picnic. Mrs. Csinski watched Josephine being driven off in the

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long limousine filled with the children of the Oil People. She thought. One day something bad is going to happen to Josephine. I shouldn't let her be with those people. They're the Devil's children. And she wondered if there was a devil in Josephine. She would talk to the Reverend Damian. He would know what to do. 9

Actors West was divided into two sections: the Showcase group, which consisted of the more experienced actors, and the Workshop group. It was the Showcase actors who staged plays that were covered by the studio talent scouts. Toby had been put with the Workshop actors. Alice Tanner had told him that it might be six months or a year before he would lie ready to do a Showcase play. Toby found the classes interesting, but the magic ingredient was missing: the audience, the applauders, the laughters, the people who would adore him. In the weeks since Toby had begun classes, he had seen very little of the head of the school. Occasionally, Alice Tanner Would drop into the Workshop to watch improvisations and give a word of encouragement, or Toby would run into her on las way to class. But he had hoped for something more intimate. He found himself thinking about Alice Tanner a great deal. She was what Toby thought of as a classy dame, and t)�at appealed to him; he felt it was what he deserved. The idea of her crippled leg had bothered him at fast, but it had slowly begun to take on a sexual fascination. Toby talked to her again about putting him in a Showcase play where the critics and talent scouts could see him. "You're not ready yet," Alice Tanner told him. She was standing in his way, keeping him from his success. 7 hace to do something about that, Toby decided. A Showcase play was being staged, and on the opening night Toby was seated in a middle row next to a student' named Karen, a fat little character actress from his class. Toby had played scenes with Karen, and he knew two things about her: she never wore underclothes and she had bad breath. She had done everything but send up smoke signals to let Toby know that she wanted to go to bed with him, but he had pretended not to understand. Jesus, he thought, fucking her would be like being sucked into a tub of hot lard.

As they sat there waiting for the curtain to go up, Karen excitedly pointed out the critics from the Los Angeles Times and Herald-Express, and the talent scouts from Twentieth Century-Fox, MGM and Wamer Brothers. It enraged Toby. They were here to see the actors up on the stage, while he sat in the audience like a dummy. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to stand up and do one of his routines, dazzle them, show them what real talent looked like. The audience enjoyed the play, but Toby was obsessed with the talent scouts, who sat within touching distance, the men who held his future in Aeir hands. Well, if Actors West was the lure to bring them to him, Toby would use it; but he had no intention of waiting six months, or even six weeks.

The following morning, Toby went to Alice Tanner's office. "How did you like the play?" she asked. "It was wonderful," Toby said. "Those actors are really great." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I see what you mean when you say I'm not ready yet." "They've had more experience than you, that's all, but you have a unique personality. You're going to make it. Just be patient." He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'd be better off forgetting the whole thing and selling insurance or something." She looked at him in quick surprise. "You mustn't," she said. Toby shook his head. "After seeing those pros last night, I -- I don't think I have it." "Of course you have, Toby. I won't let you talk like that." In her voice was the note he had been waiting to hear. It was not a teacher talking to a pupil now, it was a woman talking to a man, encouraging him, caring about him. Toby felt a small thrill of satisfaction. . : He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, anymore. I'm all rfbne in this town. I have no one to talk to." * "You can always talk to me, Toby. I'd like to be your friend." 4: He could hear the sexual huskiness come into her voice. Ibby's blue eyes held all the wonder in the world as he gazed at her. As she watched him, he walked over and locked the office door. He returned to her, fell on his knees, buried his head in her lap and, as her fingers touched his hair, he slowly lifted her skirt, exposing the poor thigh encased in the cruel steel brace. Gently removing the brace, he tenderly kissed the red marks left by the steel bars. Slowly, he unfastened her j|rter belt, all the time telling Alice of his love and his need tils her, and kissed his way down to the moist lips exposed before him. He carried her to the deep leather couch and made love to her. That evening, Toby moved in with Alice Tanner.

In bed that night, Toby found that Alice Tanner was a pitifully lonely woman, desperate for someone to talk to, someone to love. She had been born in Boston. Her father was a wealthy manufacturer who had given her a large allowance and paid no further attention to her. Alice had loved the theater and had studied to be an actress, but in college she had contracted polio and that had put an end to her dream. She told Toby how it had affected her life. The boy she was engaged to had jilted her when he learned the news. Alice had left home and married a psychiatrist, who committed suicide ax months later. It was as though all her emotions had been bottled up inside her. Now they poured out in a violent eruption that left her feeling drained and peaceful and marvelously content. Toby made love to Alice until she almost fainted with ecstasy, filling her with his huge penis and making slow circles with his hips until he seemed to be touching every part of her body. She moaned, ^Ob, darling, I love you so much. Oh, God, how I love this!" But when it came to school, Toby found that he had no influence with Alice. He talked to her about putting him in the next Showcase play, introducing him to casting directors, speaking to important studio people about him, but she was firm. "You'll hurt yourself if you push too fast, darling. Rule one: &e first impression you make is the most important. If they don't like you the first time, they'll never go back to see you a second time. You've got to be ready." The instant the words were out, she became The Enemy. She was against him. Toby swallowed his fury and forced himself to smile at her. "Sure. It's just that I'm impatient. I want to make it for you as much as for me." "Do you? Oh, Toby, I love you so much!" "I love you, too, Alice." And he smiled into her adoring eyes. He knew he had to circumvent this bitch who was standing in the way of what he wanted. He hated her and he punished her. When they went to bed, he made her do things she had never done before, things he had never asked a whore to do; using her mouth and her fingers and her tongue. He pushed her further and further, forcing her into a series of humiliations. And each time he got her to do something more degrading, he would praise her, the way one praises a dog for learning a new trick, and she would he happy because she had pleased him. And the more he degraded her, the more degraded he felt. He was punishing himself, and he had not the faintest idea why. Toby had a plan in mind, and his chance to put it into action came sooner than he had anticipated. Alice Tanner announced that the Workshop class was going to put on a private show for the advanced classes and their guests on Ae following Friday. Each student could choose his own project. Toby prepared a monologue and rehearsed it over an dover. On the morning of the show, Toby waited until class was over and walked up to Karen, the fat actress who had sat next to him during the play. "Would you do me a favor?" he asked casually.

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"Sure, Toby." Her voice was surprised and eager. Toby stepped back to gel away from her breath. "I'm gulling a g^ on an �^ friend of mine. I want you to telephone iQifton Lawrence's secretary and tell her you're Sam Goldwyn's ^ccretary, and that Mr. Goldwyn would like Mr. Lawrence :fa come to the show tonight to see a brilliant new comic. There'll be a ticket waiting for him at the box office." Karen stared at him. "Jesus, old lady Tanner would have my head. You know she never allows outsiders at the Workshop shows." "Believe me, it'll be all right." He took her arm and squeezed it. "You busy this afternoon?" She swallowed, her breath coming a little faster. "Not-- not if you'd like to do something." i, "I'd like to do something." t : Three hours later, an ecstatic Karen made the phone call.

;,'::, The auditorium was filled with actors from the various ; dasses and their guests, but the only person Toby had eyes ,' for was the man who sat in an aisle seat in the third row. .'I Toby had been in a panic, fearful that his ruse would not 'F' work. Surely a man as clever as Clifton Lawrence would see w'through the trick. But he had not. He was here. y A boy and girl were on stage now, doing a scene from ^ The Sea Gull. Toby hoped they would not drive Clifton Lawrence out of the theater. Finally, the scene was finished, tad the actors took their bows and left the stage. It was Toby's turn. Alice suddenly appeared at his side i,in the wings, whispering, "Good luck, darling", unaware that his luck was silting in the audience. "Thanks, Alice." Toby breathed a silent prayer, straight ened his shoulders, bounced out on stage and smiled boyishly at the audience. "Hello, there. I'm Toby Temple. Hey, did you ever stop to think about names, and how our parents choose them? It's crazy. I asked my mother why she named me Toby. She. said she took one look at my mug, and that was it." His look was what got the laugh. Toby appeared so innocent and wistful, standing up there on that stage, that they loved him. The jokes he told where terrible, but somehow that did not matter. He was so vulnerable that they wanted to protect him, and they did it with their applause and their laughter. It was like a gift of love that flowed into Toby, filling him with an almost unbearable exhilaration. He was Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, and Cagney was saying, "You dirty rat! Who do you think you're giving orders to?" And Robinson's, "To you, you punk. I'm Little Caesar. I'm the boss. You're nuthin'. Do you know what that means?" "Yeah, you dirty rat. You're the boss of nuthin'." A roar. The audience adored Toby. Bogart was there, snarling, "I'd spit in your eye, punk, if my lip wasn't stuck over my teeth." And the audience was enchanted. Toby gave them his Peter Lorre. "I saw this little girl in her room, playing with it, and I got excited. I don't know what came over me. I couldn't help myself. I crept into her room, and I pulled the rope tighter and tighter, and I broke her yoyo." A big laugh. He was rolling. He switched over to Laurel and Hardy, and a movement in the audience caught his eye and he glanced up. Clifton Lawrence was walking out of the theater. The rest of the evening was a blur to Toby. When the show was over, Alice Tanner came up to Toby. "You were wonderful, darling! I..." He could not bear to look at her, to have anyone look at him. He wanted to be alone with his misery, to try to cope with the pain that was tearing him apart. His world had collapsed around him. He had had his chance, and he had failed. Clifton Lawrence had walked out on him, had not even waited for him to finish. Clifton Lawrence was a man who knew talent, a professional who handled the best. If Lawrence did not think Toby had anything... He felt sick to his stomach. "I'm going for a walk," he said to Alice.

He walked down Vine Street and Gower, past Columbia Pictures and RKO and Paramount. All the gates were locked.

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r He walked along Hollywood Boulevard and looked up at the huge mocking sign on the hill that said, "hollywoodland". There was no Hollywoodland. It was a state of mind, a phony dream that lured thousands of otherwise normal people into '?'-the insanity of trying to become a star. The word Hollywood had become a lodestone for miracles, a trap that seduced people i with wonderful promises, siren songs of dreams fulfilled, and ' then destroyed them. Toby walked the streets all night long, wondering what he was going to do with his life. His faith in himself had been ;. shattered and he felt rootless and adrift. He had never imagined himself doing anything other than entertaining people, and if ie he could not do that, all that was left for him were dull, 'I;! monotonous jobs where he would be caged up for the rest of -S-tos life. Mr. Anonymous. No one would ever know who he ^ was. He thought of the long, dreary years, the bitter loneliness ^of a thousand nameless towns, of the people who had applauded ^ him and laughed at him and loved him. Toby wept. He wept I" for the past and for the future. ?V } He wept because he was dead.

^ It was dawn when Toby returned to the white stucco ^g bungalow he shared with Alice. He walked into the bedroom ^ and looked down at her sleeping figure. He had thought ,that fr: she would be the open sesame to the magic kingdom. But �;', there was no magic kingdom. Not for him. He would leave. ' He had no idea where he would go. He was almost twenty& seven years old and he had no future. He lay down on the couch, exhausted. He closed his eyes; ' listening to the sounds of the city stirring into life. The mom^ ing sounds of cities are the same, and he thought of Detroit. ^ His mother. She was standing in the kitchen cooking apple iz tarts for him. He could smell her wonderful musky female odor mingled with the smell of apples cooking in butter, and she was saying, God wants you to be famous. !:- He was standing alone on an enormous stage, blinded '^ by floodlights, trying to remember his lines. He tried to speak but he had lost his voice. He grew panicky. There was a great rumbling noise from the audience, and through the blinding lights Toby could see the spectators leaving their seats and running toward the stage to attack him, to kill him. Their love had turned to hate. They were surrounding him, grabbing him, chanting, "Toby! Toby! Toby!" Toby suddenly jerked awake, his mouth dry with fright. Alice Tanner was leaning over him, shaking him. "Toby! Telephone. It's Clifton Lawrence."