The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [54]
At the lunch break once, one of the actors asked Larry for a couple of days off to do some filming. “What are they paying you?” he asked and when the actor told him he said: “Go back and ask for twice as much.” The actor stalled and Larry became furious. I’d never seen him in such a rage before—not even over Blair. “Are you crazy?” he barked at the actor. “They’re robbing you. Go back and ask for twice as much or I won’t release you. Never undersell yourself unless you want everyone else to. How many years did you go to acting school?” “Two.” “Well, that was your investment in your profession, now you’ve got to get your investment back.” “Yeah,” said the boy, “but acting’s something I like to do. I just can’t get over being paid for doing what I like.” “Get over it,” was Larry’s command, and that was the end of the conversation.
I couldn’t believe my ears. It was the first time I’d ever heard Larry mention money. Larry and money. I could write an essay on that. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Teddy that evening at the Ritz, when he asked me what Larry did for money and the thought had sprung so quickly into my mind: Larry needs money. I felt it again, I felt it, I always felt it and I couldn’t say why. Certainly not from outward appearances, clothes and so on. But some days, for instance, he might say carelessly to the owner of the café at lunch time, “I’m not hungry now. I’ll just have a peach and peel it for me like a good girl, will you?” and in a second I would be wondering whether it was out of necessity or caprice.
When we all sat around moaning and groaning about how expensive Paris was—and we did, it was one of our favorite conversations—he simply switched off. You could actually see it boring him. And the few times that we dined alone together, at the end of our meal there was none of the usual leaping up from the chair as though shot through with an arrow, yelling Wow! or similar Indian war whoops, which most of my friends felt de rigueur in heralding the arrival of the bill. I was grateful to him for that, and yet it was impossible to say just why, but it was always a relief to find out that he had the money to cover it. Did it mean he was going without breakfast next morning, or what? And it was crazy to feel like this, because sometimes you could see he was just rolling in the stuff.
“Are you a gambler?” I asked him finally.
“There isn’t anything you do in life that isn’t a gamble, Gorce,” he replied.
“But do you gamble?” I insisted.
“In a way. In a way.” He looked at me oddly.
It just defeated me. I could guess and guess and guess about Larry and still not get anywhere. It all led down a blind alley.
At first I had him sliced like a pie into thirds: one-third High Living (Soldier of fortune, gambler, womanizer); one-third Low-living (preoccupation with “real” world, anti-phony, anti-tourist, anti-lounge lizard, pro-student, pro-worker, on elaborate terms of equality with waiters, etc.); and one-third Serious Artist (all the qualities of a good director plus a positive genius for making people do what he wanted them to). But later on, when he showed me with great reluctance and humility his fiercely penned poetry, I had to reslice him into fourths, and the last fourth—I hate to say it (I will though)—was Corn, pure Corn. Maybe it didn’t add up. Or maybe it didn’t add up to much, but to me the charm of his toughness, deviltry