Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [40]
“Christ sake, there are art schools in San Francisco!”
“Neither Penny, Roxy, nor I want to be around with your hookers and pimps.”
“But that’s the book I’m writing! Val, I’m not buying this. For ten years you’ve complained about the magnificent career you lost on account of me. You’re using this fantasy career to lie to yourself. You want to hear it? You don’t have the talent or the balls to make it. If you needed it like I need to write, you would have done it ten years ago. Dammit, all it is is a lie to keep a weapon over my head.”
WELL, I DIDN’T GO to San Francisco to finish my research. Val knew I wouldn’t. Of course, she never set foot in art school either.
So, I wrote The Tenderloin in my pleasant little cottage in four frantic months. I really needed double that time, but Sal kept pressure on me and Val had established a fat lifestyle.
When the book was finished, Val found a lovely home on three acres in Woodland Hills that had every yummy thing that any girl would want, forever and ever. Stable, pool, tennis court, big oaks, the works. I’d need a screenplay right away.
Several months later, The Tenderloin was published. Do you want the long version or the short version? It bombed. Of all the hurts inflicted on me, none was more devastating than what one reviewer wrote: “Zadok must have written the novel in an orange grove. He certainly didn’t go anywhere near the tenderloin.”
The Tenderloin was a flat, glossy, imitation Runyon, a superficial exercise for me to zip through and then get back to what was really important in life, making money.
If. If ... if ... IF! IF I had taken the three months and gone up to San Francisco, I would have captured the unique lilt and toughness of the place. IF the rabbit hadn’t stopped to take a crap he would have caught the turtle. Val and I didn’t talk much about The Tenderloin. We didn’t have to.
A man can lie to his boss, his wife, his children, but he can’t lie to the typewriter. Sooner or later truths will emerge. The truth was that I was writing about people who were suffering, but I never felt their pain and the readers saw right through me. It’s hard to feel your stomach growl with hunger on two thousand dollars a week. Want to play the novel game? You’ve got to bare it all.
I was going to dwell in shit city forever. I envisioned the yellow brick road stretched out before me. Producership, maybe with Stanley Gold. Television series, bundles of money involved. Take any ridiculous idea and embellish it with canned laughter. Crap is selling these days like never before.
When I had wept before God begging Him to spare Penny’s life, didn’t I also swear I’d be a writer He would be proud of? Golden handcuffs. Mink-lined cells. God almighty, Val bought me shirts with my initials on the pockets. My asthma was returning. I hadn’t had an attack in fifteen years. Maybe I’ve got to see a shrink. Fire a shot on Bedford Drive and you’ll hit fifty of them.
It had become apparent that with all my bluster, I didn’t really have what it takes. I couldn’t stomach the sacrifice anymore and I blamed it on Val or Sal or Mal or Gold. Everyone but myself. All right! I haven’t got it! Leave me in peace! I HAVENT GOT IT!
“HELLO, Zadok speaking.”
“Gideon, you old mother. How you been?”
“Junkyard?”
“That’s what they call me.”
“Oh, buddy, you’re a voice for the weary. Where are you?”
“I’ve got a cottage at the Beverly Hills. I’m on the way to Hong Kong on a business trip. I was hoping you’d be in town.”
My spirits lifted. Sergeant Kelly Murphy had been an old Marine buddy. We called him Junkyard because he’d collect the oddest pieces of worthless trash and somehow always get rid of it for a profit. A regular rug merchant.
Along with running his oriental bazaar, Murphy was a hell of a gambler, one of the best crap shooters I’d ever seen. He left the Corps with a sizable bankroll.
Junkyard had done a hitch in the Corps before the war, which included service in the Caribbean. He swore