Chapter 4: "Why must the show go on?"

In the course of settling the Clinton versus Klutz NewFrontier torchpassing debate, the author is forced to reveal the truth about the Doris Darlinge Affair.

HAVING ESTABLISHED A REPUTATION for driving up to MGM's maingate every morning "at the crack of dawn" in the Duesenberg Speedster Clark Gable lent to her, on this Day of Days Doris was late for her 7 a.m. makeup call. Willie Conroy, the maingate guard, reported having seen "not a trace of her winsome hide nor hair all morning," when Mayer drove in at 6:45. More ominously yet Doris' English housekeeper, Mrs Dixon, answered Slapsy Meier's telephonic inquiry by telling him, "Miss Darlinge left home at 6 O'clock—practically the dead of night this time of year—so as not to risk the slightest chance of being late for the first day of shooting should that fancy motorcar of hers break down again." By 9 a.m. the concerns over Doris' whereabouts and/or welfare had reached the proportions of a Major Motion picture Studio Panic. A police sweep of every route she could have taken from her Malibu beach house to Culver City turned up no evidence of a breakdown and no witnesses who saw a Duesenberg Speedster or any other car being driven by "a beautiful blue eyed platinumblonde dame with a 42inch bust." Not that the LAPD could be trusted to take the matter of Doris' failure to show up for work all that seriously. Keeping track of Hollywood's temperamental actresses wasn't exactly their cup of law enforcement tea. In addition to which they had their suspicions the "disappearance of this busty broad was part of some publicity stunt MGM was arranging to promote its new civil war movie."

     This wasn't the first time MGM had sent an SOS to the LAPD in connection with the Doris Darlinge film. Ever since rumors began circulating that it was planning to cross the colorline with its "black-on-white" civil war movie the studio and many of those involved in producing TABOO! became the targets of hatemail and telephone death threats from just about every White Supremacist, proNazi and antiSemitic group in America. Not that Hollywood VIPs didn't routinely receive with their fan mail a few envelopes containing notes that were anything but the "mash" variety, messages of impending doom, extortion demands disguised as begging letters and the most graphically obscene propositions. The LAPD had in fact established a special downtown office—the socalled "Poison Pen Detail"—to coordinate the handling of such matters with the FBI and Federal Postal Inspectors. In this case, however, the PPD was, to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic about putting its investigatory resources at the disposal of a cause—extolling the virtues of colorblind love—about which the average cop was anything but sympathetic.

     "The best—and probably only—way to solve this kind of problem," they told Mayer at a highlevel meeting held some weeks earlier to discuss the security situation, "was simply for you not to make a film so many decent Americans will find offensive, let alone all these crackpots and crazies who have their special sociopathic axes to grind." That wasn't the kind of advice Mayer was looking for.

     "This is still a free country, isn't it?" he asked.

     "Of course it is, L B, but—" the Chief of Police tried to object.

     "The last time I read the Constitution it said I had the right to make any kind of goddam movie I wanted to make."

     "Ah!" said the Postal Inspector wagging his finger. "But that same document says nothing about the price one may have to pay for exercising that right!"

     "Besides which," the special FBI agent added smugly, "according to our Supreme Court the First Amendment doesn't draw a bright line between one man's 'hatemail' and another's 'passionate expression of dissent.'"

     "As for these death threats," the lieutenant from the Poison Pen Squad dryly pointed out, "any ACLU shyster could get them thrown out of court on a plea of selfdefense."

     "Selfdefense against what?" Mayer bellowed incredulously.

     "Against the racemingling you so conveniently wrap in the cloak of 'Jeffersonian egalitarianism' but which, to someone who views the status quo Americana more conventionally, is seen as threat to their White AngloSaxon Protestant way of life," the Chief answered in a display of fraternal solidarity with his subordinate.

     "Believe me gents," Mayer responded, "I hate to end an 'erudite' discussion like this by pulling rank, but I must remind you all that as this town's—and one of the nation's—largest corporate taxpayers MGM is entitled to—and fully expects to get—its goddam money's worth lawenforcementwise! Which, now that this meeting is officially adjourned I'm confident you will proceed to do when you get back to your goddam offices!"

     During their return journey the postconference debriefing conducted by the local dicks and their Gman cronies was decidedly more candid—and not a little less refined.

THE CHIEF OF POLICE: The fucking nerve of those fucking Jew bastards expecting us to work our fucking law enforcement asses off saving their niggerloving bacon!

FBI SPECIAL AGENT CARRUTHERS: If you ask me Chief, every one of these commie kikes, fellowtraveling fags, pinko sexperverts and interracial cocksuckers deserve all the goddamned hate mail they get!

POISON PEN SQUAD LEADER JONES: Personally fellows, I wouldn't give a shit if some fucking Nazi or Klansman did every fucking redblooded American the fucking favor of blowing every fucking filmstudio in fucking Hollywood sky fucking high.

POSTAL INSPECTOR KNOX: Believe me; if these fucking bolshie dogooders ever get their fucking way they'll fucking force every fucking government agency north and south of the fucking MasonDixon line to fucking replace us with fucking niggers, kikes, spics and cunts!

DESPITE MAYER'S TAXPAYING ARGUMENT, in the end MGM was forced to make its security arrangements with some private detective agencies.162 The firm responsible for Doris' extracurricular welfare was an outfit located on the corner of Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards called "Sunset Security Systems, Inc." As its motto —"While The Stars Sleep Our Eyes Never Close"—indicated, along with standard burglarproofing and kidnap prevention, SSS specialized in providing "Dusk to Dawn" surveillance for the palatial homes of LA's more successful, famous, affluent (and, consequently, most insecure) residents of Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood itself.  As with so many other corporate slogans163 SSS, Inc's didn't prevent the operative—a certain Alejandro "Ace" Escobar—it assigned to keep tabs on Doris from grabbing a little shuteye of his own164 while parked across the street from her Malibu beach house in his "distinctively marked" white & black (as opposed to the LAPD black & white) Sunset Security Systems Patrol Car. In Ace's defense, on the shift when Doris disappeared, he had taken the extra precaution of setting his trusty Big Ben alarm clock for 5:15—a full halfhour before he normally165 awoke with a solid fifteen minutes to spare before the red "doozie" began the leisurely 35 mph trip that always ended at MGM's main gate on the stroke of 6:30.  Awakening to find the Duesenberg nowhere in sight, Escobar's heart skipped more than a few beats before he remembered having been briefed by the dispatcher166 before going on duty that some sort of "special shindig" was in the works at MGM the next morning and he should keep an eye peeled for any change in his client's "normal modus operandi."

     "It was more likely the dizzy dame left a few minutes earlier than usual because that fancy roadster of hers was acting up again," Escobar muttered to himself as he started the engine of his Ford. "Like all broads her automotive knowledge is limited to the gas, brake and clutch pedals," he editorialized while doing 85 along the deserted stretch of Pacific Coast Highway leading to Santa Monica Pier where, after turning on to Ocean Blvd, he would only average around 50 because of the traffic lights on Lincoln and Washington. Even at that reduced rate of speed Escobar figured he would most likely catch up with the Duesenberg somewhere near Sepulveda—or Robertson at the worst. Assuming she wasn't already stranded in Venice with a bad fuel pump, clogged carburetor or fouled plugs! In which (not unlikely) event he might just be able to turn this little snafu into a modestlysized feather for his NightOwl's cap by coming to her rescue with a "lifesaving" lift to the studio in time for that gala event MGM was putting on. An act of "gallantry" she would no doubt insist on rewarding him for with a 10- or 20dollar bill. Which "generous offer," however, he would just as gallantly decline, pleading with her instead that: "If señorita, you could somehow manage to overlook what is otherwise sure to be my careerending dereliction of duty—caused by the need a humble man such as myself has for working night and day to support his family —I, along with my wife and 7 niños, would, of course, be eternally grateful. And señorita, since you have nothing to do now that I'm behind the wheel, perhaps you wouldn't mind using the pad and pencil attached to this clipboard of mine to dash off a thankyou note telling SSS, Inc. how this rescue operation exemplifies the dedication Ace Escobar has always shown in safeguarding your welfare?"

     By the time he crossed Sepulveda Blvd Escobar's RescuingADamselInDistress fantasy had reached a point where the damsel was so overcome with her own "feelings of eternal gratitude" she began undoing the top of her dress to offer him a view of her braless breasts as "a token—or is it tokens?—of my undying appreciation for your chivalrous act."

    "More than one man has told me," Escobar imagined her whispering into his ear, "he would be willing to die for just one look at them au naturel. And, while no normal woman could fail to be flattered by such a romantic proposition, in the present circumstances I find the prospect of sacrificing myself for a cause which, no matter how beneficial it might be to both parties is, nevertheless, somewhat more advantageous to a voyeur than an exhibitionist, not all that thrilling. So, my sweet, perhaps it would be wiser if we pulled over and parked somewhere for the few minutes it will take you to give these mankilling knockers of mine a thorough going over visuallywise?"

UNLIKE THOSE FANTASIES CONDEMNED men entertain to deconcentrate their minds from the imminent prospect of being hung, decapitated, boiled in oil, gassed, electrocuted, burned at the stake, strangled, crucified, drawn and quartered or shot at dawn; there was a substantial167 grain of that truth which is occasionally stranger than fiction in these macho variations on the female Sleeping Beauty theme. From that electrifying moment when those first (timelessly silent) symbols of feminine sexuality—Theda Bara, Nita Naldi and Alla Nazimova—vamped their sirenesque way into America's cinematic psyche, until the contemporary eyepopping, earsplitting, bump&grinding likes of such dimeadozen bellesdejour as T**a L***e, E****h M****a and E**e M*c P*****n168 men of Escobar's lovelorn ilk have been adding some imaginary spice to their lackluster lives by inventing scenarios similar to those described in the foregoing footnote.  Once again, however, on what would turn into the most nightmarish of his mornings, Escobar was rudely awakened. And, to make matters even worse, this time he had been on the very cusp of consummating the wettest yet of his (Latino)American daydreams! Rather than having his pauper's priapicG way with that barebreasted and blondest of blonde Princesses he found himself approaching the alltoo familiar environs of MGM's vast Culver City complex without seeing so much as a single platinum hair or square inch of that foxy hide he was chasing! As he cruised slowly past the main gate the fellow guarding it acknowledged the fact with that "semiserious" salute he typically rendered as a fraternal gesture from one uniformed wageslave to another; and to signify that special solidarity shared only at sunrise between proletarians fated from birth to earn their daily bread from dusk to dawn. Although not an eyewitness to the event, Escobar assumed that while he was preoccupied with his thoughts of ravishing her, the Blonde Bombshell had somehow made her exit into the studio a few seconds before he arrived on the scene—a "vanishing act" which might very well have been concealed by the large Helms Bakery van he now noticed was preceding him by some 50 yards as they both headed east on Washington Blvd. And, as he further assumed, if the main gate guard's salute was also meant to convey the message their 2 nocturnal shifts were about to end as they always did—on a predictably anticlimactic note—it would confirm his hypothesis that: Yet again God—or Lady Luck—had written a happy ending for this latest of his potentially fatal (paycheck wise) misadventures.

WITH THAT LOAD LIFTED FROM HIS MIND and a couple of hours to kill before he changed uniforms, got behind the wheel of his tour bus and drove it to the corner of Hollywood & Vine for the day's first load of "stargazers," Escobar looked forward to enjoying a leisurely breakfast at the Roaring Lion Beanery—a habit he acquired since working the Doris Darlinge case. Located in the heart of Culver City and only a short walk from MGM, the Roaring Lion was an establishment frequented by the actors, writers, directors, technicians and even some front office types seeking "exercise," "fresh air" and/or "a change of diet from that offered by the studio commissary."169 Unlike the somewhat swankier Frank & Musso's Grill in Hollywood itself, "Where the elite of Tinseltown's intelligentsia preferred to eat and meet," Culver City's Roaring Lion Beanery more closely resembled one of those Norman Rockwellstyle luncheonettes in which the local yokels of midAmerica's cornbelt congregate to gab about nothing more earthshaking—socioculturallywise—than the weather, the price of pork bellies and their next church social.  For all the glamor of its clientele and its fame among the citizens of Culver City as "the greasy spoon where some of Hollywood's biggest movie deals—and most scandalous offcamera love scenes—were negotiated over a steaming bowl of Mama Zapata's red hot chili con carne" the Roaring Lion was one of the best secrets Los Angeles ever kept from the public at large. And, while neither Hollywood nor Culver City are what they once were, to this day the Roaring Lion Beanery has never appeared as a "must see" attraction on a single LA area tourist map, or in any "Guide to the Historic Landmarks of Southern California's Golden Age of Motionpicturemaking Glory."

     Having survived the emotional ringer he'd just been put through, Escobar lingered over his huevos ranchero, chili Diablo and freshly handmade tortillas with particular gusto. For "dessert," as always, he ordered a 35¢ Garcia y Vega Corona Grande—an extravagance on which he puffed blissfully170 while browsing through an Examiner the previous occupant of his stool had obligingly left behind. When he had reduced the Corona Grande to the size of a Rothschild, Escobar asked the waitress for his check, left her a dime tip on the counter and made his contented way to the cashier's station near the entrance. As he did so his attention was drawn to the gabfest a party of MGM employees were having as they waited by the door for an empty booth. The following highlights of which were more than sufficient to stop Escobar completely in his tracks: "—Doris Darlinge—" "—fiascoed debut—" "—some cholo named Esco—" "—gate guard saw him drive—" "—it hitting the fan—" "—pushing the panic but—" "—nished into thin air—" "—studio crawling with cops—" "—Gmen—" "—picions of foul pl—" "—kidnapping—" "—manhunt—" "—looking for this asshole Esco—"

     Escobar didn't have to fill in all the blanks to realize his Happy Ending Hypothesis was coming apart at its seams. He gripped the cashier's counter with both hands to stop himself from freefalling into the bottomless pit exposed when the portion of floor he was standing on suddenly gave way like the trap door of a gallows. "What's the matter, honey?" asked the matronly cashier in a way that sounded to him as if she were genuinely concerned about him. "I hate sounding like one of those characters in a bad movie, but you really do look as if you'd just seen a ghost!"

     "It's nothing," Escobar lied, as all men are expected to do regardless of their infantile yearnings to shut out the sights and sounds of adulthood's outrageous fortunes between the pillows of a motherly bosom like that with which the cashier happened to be so conveniently endowed. "I must have gotten up from that stool a little too fast for my circulatory system."

     "Or maybe that fancy cigar171 is too rich for your blood, amigo!" she joked to relieve the tension arising from his apparently mistaken impression of what were in fact her purely maternalistic motives.

     "Maybe," he said while paying the check. Considering the present crisis circumstances, it was wiser to ignore a remark whose snide ethnoeconomic innuendoes (leaving aside those directed toward the shortcomings of his manhood) he would normally take exception to as "one who, while my ancestors didn't arrive on the Mayflower, happens to be the citizen of a country where men aren't judged by the color of their skin or the size of their paycheck!"172

     Once outside the fresh air helped to clear his mind. And Escobar knew he would need all the mental resources he could muster to supplement his survival instincts if he were to escape from the web of multiplying misfortunes in which he now found himself so thoroughly entangled. Among the options he began pondering were: (a) Lay low in some local flophouse until the Doris Darlinge disappearance dust had settled; (b) Thumb his way Texasward for a midnight swim across the Rio Grande at El Paso to the safety of a certain cantina in Ciudad Juarez noted for its hospitality to wetbacks on the run from Uncle Sam; (c) Play dumb and carry on as if nothing had happened in the hope that, by some miracle, this mountain of misfortunes would turn out to be a molehill; (d) Concoct some story that might put a mitigating—if not a heroic—spin on the snowball of catastrophic events he had set in motion by making (what still seemed to him like) the most trifling of mistakes, or; (e) Turn himself in, tell the truth and, after that—que sera, sera. In the final analysis he decided honesty wasn't just the best policy, it was the only course of action available to him that had any conceivable chance of success. Exercising option (a) or (b) would result in further compounding his problems by making him look like a fugitive from justice when, no matter how serious his mis- or even malfeasance might have been, sleeping on the job was hardly a criminal —let alone a capital— offense. Option (c), of course, was in reality nothing more than one of those "battlefield conversion" prayers God likes to hear coming from the lips of a lifelong infidel before He smites the perfidious bastard with the fullest fury of His Old Testament wrath.  As for Option (d)—without knowing a single one of the facts surrounding Doris Darlinge's mysterious disappearance any attempt by him at fictionalizing them was fraught with perils far more frightening than those faced by the most experienced novelist when trying to sell his storytelling credibility to readers who are equally adroit at spotting the verisimilitude tricks bestselling authors are known for hiding up their literary sleeves. For all Escobar knew, by the time he got around to spinning some fanciful yarn about having been "overpowered in the predawn darkness by an unknown number of assailants who concealed their identities" from him the case would already be solved in a way that made his account of its genesis phonier than a 3dollar bill.

† † †

[NOTE: Up to now, dear reader, I've been patiently biting my tongue like a "good editoress" is supposed to do. But, at the risk of leaving some of the same egg on my own face, I simply can't let this latest example of how the author insists on putting his neobaroque words into what should be "Escobar's" semi- if not completely illiterate mouth pass without expressing to you the same objections I made to him when we discussed the writing of what I believed then —and nothing has changed my mind since—was this most "misbegotten" of his chapters. "There are some novelwriting commandments, darling," I told him for the umpteenth time, "which can't be broken. The most absolutely unbreakable of which is: THOU SHALL NOT CREATE CHARACTERS WHO ARE MADE SO UNMISTAKABLY IN THINE OWN IMAGE THE READER'S BELIEF IN THEM AS LIVING, BREATHING AND, ABOVE ALL, THINKING HUMAN BEINGS—WITHOUT WHICH NO NOVEL CAN HOPE TO BECOME A BESTSELLER—IS SHATTERED BEYOND ANY HOPE OF REPAIR."
    To which his (predictable) response was: "But by definition, my beloved Jayne, your 'commandment' doesn't apply to me because, among other things, the neoBaroque novel is itself a manifesto against (among other things) those best selling authors to whom literature has become nothing more than another opiate for the masses rather than what it once was—that magic (if somewhat bitter) potion as a result of whose drinking man- and womankind occasionally rise above the egalitarian mud in which they ordinarily wallow."
    "Aren't you the one who is always telling me," I was quick to reply, "that a manifesto isn't worth the paper its printed on if nobody reads the damned thing?"
     "I'm flattered," he said enigmatically.

    "How so?" I foolishly asked.

    "By the fact you would remember a comment I made so casually in connection with your rewriting of my magnum opus! I can only return such a compliment by quoting the advice you gave me not long ago to: (a) Thicken this 'non fictional' stew of mine with a little more oldfashioned plotting; and (b) Season it with a liberal dash of the spice most commonly used in cooking all blockbusters, namely: 'That saltier sort of sex an otherwise perfectly decent housewife hopes to find between the hard covers of each new softcore romance she adds to her bedside collection of literary trash.'"

    "Liar! Liar! Liar!" I protested. "You never heard those words coming from my lips!"

    "Are you sure about that?" he said rather smugly, while reaching into the pocket of his coat as if to produce yet another of those tapes he made of our editorial tets-a-tets (or, as he called them, 'shouting matches') to settle the (more or less incessant) arguments we had over who said exactly what to whom. On this occasion, however, I had a strong hunch he was bluffing. Ordinarily he didn't offer me a chance like this to change my 'testimony' before 'convicting' me with it.

    "Absolutely!" I said without the slightest hint of hesitation or trace of vocal vacillation. Although, when he remained perfectly pokerfaced, I did hedge my bet just the teensiest bit by adding: "But even if I had given you some advice along lines that might have been vaguely similar to those you just invented, this chapter shows no signs whatsoever of your having followed it."

    "Oh?" he answered in that villainous way men of his dastardly ilk manage to make a woman like me feel as if she hasn't won an argument when it couldn't be plainer she has—and in a manner that leaves them totally dumbfounded. Except, of course, for that artful little 'Really?' 'You don't say?' or 'Oh?' they are capable of uttering with those mealy mouths of theirs no matter how smartly you knee them (metaphorically) in the groin.

    "Yes," I stated as calmly as I could—knowing what I was about to say would throw him into a temper tantrum not unlike the fabled one thrown by Rumplestiltskin when that most distressed of damsels dropped her own notso ladylike monkeywrench into his dirty old dwarf's grandiose designs on a virginity he presumed (with typical male arrogance) to be no less pristine between its girlish owner's ears than it was between her maidenly hips. "If," I persevered, "after all the trouble I've gone to editing this 'literary masterpiece' of yours into what will at least look like a book the average American housewife might be flimflammed into buying, this chapter really does represent your idea of plot thickening and salty sex all I can say is this: Foreplaywise your understanding of what makes a woman slowly tick her way to that Biggest and most Blissful of all Bangs may have impressed me on a personal basis with the depth of its gynecological acumen; in my professional opinion as an editoress—and the plainest possible English—when it comes to the business of novelwriting you don't know your elbow from your a*s."

    "Well, my dear Miss Playne," he calmly replied to what I confess was my complete surprise, "since we are speaking in anatomical terms of the most private nature you know what you can do with those 'professional' opinions of yours. One of which, by the way, I seem to recall was this 'nugget' of publishing house wisdom: 'After she has read the first 50 or so pages of a novel the average American housewife will continue sliding her way down a slope whose slipperiness might vary on a wordbyword, sentencebysentence, paragraphbyparagraph or even pagebypage basis.' Which I construe to mean that, Morons Awake!wise, one slightly less than scintillating chapter won't spoil a barrel filled with the kind of golden apples I've crafted from that NeoEgalitarian Motherlode whose message of Socio Cultural salvation according to the gospel of Born Again Klutzianity God has, in His mysterious way, chosen me to preach unto the multitudes."173  Moreover my dear Miss KnowItAll," he continued, "in performing that Herculean and—if the fate of such other premature prophets as Aristotle, John the Baptist, Savanarola, Thomas More, Galileo, Luther, Sade, Marx, Wagner, Freud, Stravinsky, Picasso and D. H. Lawrence, to name but a few, is any guide— thankless task, I don't think it's asking too much of God—or even you—that I be permitted the 'luxury' of devoting one lousy little chapter in this monumental undertaking to a cause which, while it might not be quite as 'cosmic' as the one I'm martyring myself for, is no less noble."

    Well, dear reader, if you found the previous sentence difficult to decipher in its printed form, you will understand why it took me several longish moments to make sense of what I could only remember having heard of the original— spoken—version. Not that what he said was news to me. Oh, no! We had plowed this particular ground on so many previous occasions I really didn't think he could come up with a new variation on a theme whose finest wrinkles were themselves wrinkled. But, to his "credit," he did! "My God!" I began while he was still catching his breath, "how can you call this cowardly act of assassinating Margaret Mitchell's long dead character a noble cause? Especially when the only 'crime' she ever committed was to write a harmless bit of romantic fluff that just happened to become America's alltime bestselling novel."

    "Harmless fluff you say!" he thundered with an indignation whose level of selfrighteousness I had never seen reached even when my provocations for him to do so were far more outrageous—and premeditated—in nature. "For your information," he continued fulminating, "Gone With The Wind, is nothing less than the quintessence of every cultural evil this accursed country of ours has inflicted upon itself! As for its 'sainted' authoress: In neoEgalitarian terms she—along with that bitchy heroine of hers—represents nothing less than the AntiKlutz!"

    "Really, darling, aren't you being just a trifle overdra—" I tried to say, but he would have none of it. A resounding "No!" was his reply to this latest of what he habitually called my "halfasked" questions. "It's quite impossible to over dramatize the damage done by this Female Novelist From Hell to America's oncebright prospects for becoming a SocioCultural Paradise! Not," he sighed, "that I take any personal pleasure cutting our nation's most lionized authoress down to the size of the literary pussycat she really was. However, as General Sherman said before burning that beloved antebellum Atlanta of hers to the ground: 'It's a dirty job, boys, but some poor bastard's got to do it; and the way things stand I guess history has elected me for the decidedly dubious distinction of being remembered as the ruthless sonofabitch who turned what was once the genteel practice of an ancient artform into the modern science of total warfare.'"

    While he was catching his breath174 I tried once again to restore some semblance of sanity to what began as a reasonably civilized dialogue but was rapidly degenerating into one of the author's Hitlerian tirades by asking him to explain what struck me175 as the mixed—if not oxymoronic—nature of those metaphors he used in describing Margaret Mitchell as both a "Female Novelist From Hell" and a "literary pussycat." No sooner did I open my lips to do so, however, than he was back on his soapbox with a fresh supply of hot air, sturming und dranging about "The need to incinerate every last copy of copy of Gone With The Wind as the first step in rededicating ourselves to the postmodern principles of a new Egalitarian Order wherein every American is created equally capable of at least pursuing the perfect bliss which only comes by fully appreciating that finest of all art forms—the one whose deceptively humdrum subject matter is the everyday state of our being human!"

    Rather than bore176 you any further with what were in fact the tediously repetitious details of the author's hourlong harangue against "a book that, for more than fifty years, has polluted the mainstream of Great American Novelwriting with its trashing of what was the proudest chapter in mankind's age old struggle to practice the preachings of the Sermon On The Mount, Discours sur L'origine de l'inégalité des hommes, Declaration of Independence and Morons Awake!"—suffice it to say that, as on so many previous occasions, we "agreed to disagree." In exchange for keeping my "goddamn claws" off his precious chapter he would permit me "at some convenient point to insert a discreet sentence or 2 of my own denying any editorial responsibility for it." Which, I believe, this note of mine has now done—J. P.]

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AFTER HE HAD BEEN HUSTLED from the maingate into Louis B. Mayer's Presidential office by the studio police it didn't take Escobar more than 10 seconds to tell the walltowall crowd of LAPD dicks, Gmen and MGM VIPs hastily assembled there, "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about his knowledge of what they were calling the Lost Leadinglady Caper. "Honest to God, fellows, all I know is when I woke up the dame was gone!"  His simple plea of total ignorance unleashed a chorus of scornful comments, among which were: "Do you really expect us to swallow that crap, you creep?" "This case has all the earmarks of an inside job—with you as the Jaunito-on-the-spot!" "If you come clean now, Mex, we might be able to work a white man's deal for you with the D.A.—" "—Assuming no bodily harm has come to the leading lady in this foul play of yours." "—And that you are in fact the complete cholo asshole you're trying so hard to make us believe you are."  When, after being threatened with everything from a rubber hose to a pair of brass knuckles, Escobar stubbornly refused to change his story, Mayer told the professionals to "Leave me alone with Señor Escobar for a few minutes before you haul him off to the slammer. Maybe the 2 of us can reach some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement that will clear up this little misunderstanding we are having over what actually happened to my missing property."

     "I don't know about that, Mr Mayer," said the Police Chief, this sleazeball could turn out to be as sinister as he looks."

     "Besides which," one of the Gmen interjected, "making any kind of monetary arrangements with a kidnapper is a federal offense."

     "Who's talking monetary arrangements?" Mayer said with a smile while draping his arm around Escobar's shoulders. "I just want the chance to shoot a little shit civilian-to-civilianwise with my amigo here in case he's clamming up because of the reputation you ballbusting bastards have in the barrio for ignoring the 14th Amendment as it applies to our Chicano compatriots."  Once they were alone Mayer went to a filingcabinet, withdrew a standard talent contract, filled in a few blanks, signed it and shoved the document across his desk toward Escobar without saying a word. Expecting one of those typewritten confessions a "suspect" is browbeaten into signing no matter how doggedly he protests his innocence, Escobar was confused by what looked to him like an employment contract. "I don't understand—" he started to ask after reading it.

     "What's to understand?" Mayer asked before Escobar could complete his own question. "Didn't you just hear those goddamn Gmen tell me that doing business with kidnappers was a federal offense?"

     "Yes, but—"

     "No buts about it, amigo. That piece of paper makes our financial arrangements 100% kosher. As far as the FBI, the IRS and even my own CPA are concerned, over the next 3 years MGM will pay Mr Alejandro Escobar $200 per week 'in return for certain services he renders.' Which in round numbers comes to a total of 30 thousand dollars."177

     "Exactly what kind of 'services' did you have in mind for me to render, Mr Mayer?" Escobar asked; having tried—and failed—to imagine how someone with his bluecollar background could be worth $30,000 to a major moviestudio like MGM. In a manner calculated to let this Mexican weisenheimer know that he, Mayer, wasn't buying the idea that he, Escobar, was the complete idiot he was pretending to be Mayer explained to him that: "Technicallyspeaking the same services rendered by every other actor MGM has under contract. In this case, of course, the only real 'service' you'll be rendering for that 30 grand is the safe return of the valuable 'property' we so carelessly lost and you so fortunately found for us."

     When Escobar didn't jump at his "more than generous offer" Mayer told him: "If you're thinking I might back out of our instalment plan scheme after your end of the deal is complete, don't. Everyone in this town will tell you Louis B. Mayer has never failed to honor even the worst of his bad bargains. And believe me amigo, despite my reputation as Hollywood's Savviest Dealmaking Sonofabitch I've been left holding more empty bags and shittyended sticks than I care to remember."

     "Whether I believe you or not isn't the point, Mr Mayer—"

     "Well it sure as hell should be!" Mayer exploded. "Let me give you some free advice my Mexican friend: Don't make the fatal mistake some very important people I could name have made trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of me by acting as they weren't impressed with the price I put on their 'stellar' services. Those 30 big ones were my first—and my last—offer. The only choice you have is to take it or leave it."

     "In that case, señor, I must leave it," Escobar stated somberly after a dramatic sigh of resignation Mayer couldn't help admiring for the way it set the stage so convincingly for what was an act of dealmaking doubletalk that couldn't have been more suspect for its total lack of credibility.

     "Oh?" was all Mayer said in reply to what he surmised was only the prologue of a sad story Escobar was bent on telling him whether he wanted to hear it or not.

     "Not because your offer isn't a generous one!" Escobar conceded with a stroke of bargaining boldness so brilliant Mayer came perilously close to actually flinching because of it. "No," he continued, "The sad—indeed the tragic—truth of the matter is I can't deliver this 'lost property' of yours because, as God is my witness, I don't have the slightest idea where it is." Whereupon, with a gesture no less impressive for its theatricality than the aforementioned sigh, he sent the contract sliding its way back to Mayer across the sleek surface of his kingsized desk.  And, before the now visibly disconcerted Savviest of Hollywood's Dealmaking Sonsofbitches could regain his mogulesque composure, Escobar quickly added a final insult to Mayer's fatally wounded pride by telling him: "Moreover, while I don't expect someone who moves in your elegant social circles to know—or give a damn about—what goes on in mine, it is nevertheless a fact that, among the secondclass citizenry of L A's barrio, Alejandro Escobar has a reputation for being a man who always says what he means and means what he says."

MAYER BEGAN TO THINK he might have seriously underestimated the negotiating—and certainly the linguistic—skills of what he (not unreasonably) presumed would be just another 4thrate scamartist from south of the border, where pennyante extortion rackets are a way of life, who thinks he can strike it rich by pulling the same kind of nickel& dime wool over the eyes of a fat, dumb and filthy rich gringo. Maybe it had been a mistake to slam the door so firmly on any future horsetrading. But Escobar would soon discover the gentlemen farmers of Bel Air, Brentwood and Beverly Hills kept the swiftest of their hunting steeds prudently locked away in more than one stable. "Oh yes!" Mayer said to himself, "This notso merry chase of ours is far from over, Señor Zorro!178 After spending a few hours in one of those isolation cells the LAPD reserves for its toughest customers that first and last offer of mine will look a hell of a lot better to you than it does now!"

     "Keep it, amigo," Mayer said aloud as he shoved the contract back across his desk to Escobar. "From what I hear Alcatraz is notoriously short of good reading material. And that signature of mine will help substantiate the otherwise 'tall tale' you will be telling to your fellow cons for the next 40 or 50 years about these 15 minutes of fame you enjoyed going mano a mano with the legendary Louis B. Mayer."

     Mayer's dire predictions were only partially correct. After his arrest Escobar did indeed spend several extremely unpleasant days sitting in one of the LAPD's danker isolation cells with nothing but that contract (a "privilege" Mayer finagled by pulling some police department strings) to keep him company. But—as we shall shortly see—that was to be the full extent of the suffering Alejandro Escobar endured in what was for him "a continuing saga of nearly epic proportions" but for us is of little or no consequence now that his usefulness in my telling you this story has ended.179

Book Two Chapter 4 Part 2   Return to Index

Footnotes

162 Arrangements that, like the hate- and deaththreatmail that was intercepted before reaching its intended recipients, were secretly made so as not to "unduly alarm" the actors and studio employees they were meant to safeguard.

163 Including MGM's own Ars Gratias Artis, the U. S. Treasury's "In God We Trust," The Marine Corps' Semper Fidelis and the N. Y. Times' "All The News That's Fit To Print."

164 In contravention of SSS, Inc's rule against "sunlighting"—but to support his wife and 6 kids—Escobar was working a 9–5 day job driving busloads of sightseers through the exclusive neighborhoods where his nocturnal clients lived.

165 The use of alarm clocks was a fairly common practice among the more seasoned SSS, Inc. "Night Owls" who regarded their nocturnal vigils to be—as with most of the tasks a man is made to perform for a paycheck—a complete waste of time. Except for the odd peeping Tom, moonlit exhibitionist or overzealous fan trying to filch a welcome mat, clod of dirt or blade of grass upon which the object of their veneration might have walked, the "annals" of SSS, Inc. contained not a single report from any of its eagleeyed operatives who ever actually prevented a celebrity from being murdered, raped or otherwise harmed in her or his bed. A negative fact the company proudly advertised as "a tribute to the reputation it had earned among the criminal and lunatic fringes of Hollywood for the professionalism with which its highlytrained and motivated employees performed their duties."

166 An office wallflower aptly named Mildred Motley with whom the normally discriminating Escobar carried on a "harmless flirtation"—or so he told his wife—to protect his job in what were these hardest of Great Depression era times.

167 Apart from the author's celebrated encounter with that starknakedplatinumblondesexgoddess at the corner of Hollywood & Vine the most reliable information concerning the promiscuity practiced by some of Tinseltown's most legendary leadingladies is found in Irving Shulman's "intimate biography," Harlow. According to Shulman—who most certainly heard it from the horse's mouth of Harlow's agent, Arthur Landau: "Determined to prove how little she was impressed with [Hollywood stardom] the Platinum Bombshell [willfully deglamorized] her own body" before boarding a train for San Bernardino where, disguised in a black wig, cheap hat, cloth coat and the plainest of dresses she "borrowed" from MGM's wardrobe department, the woman Time Magazine would call "the most lethal of filmdom's femmes fatales" in its cover story of 19 August 1935 allowed herself to be "seduced" by a (failed!) doortodoor toiletry salesman!
     "So simpleminded was this weekend gigolo of mine," Harlow bragged to Landau, "he told me that if his toothpaste sales improved he could spend more time teaching me the fine points of fucking. After which, with a little luck—get this!—I might get myself a decent job in some classy whorehouse! Not that he was buttering me up because, all things considered, I was a pretty good lay! No, sir. There were hundreds of hookers he had screwed who were better looking than me but—hold on to your hat, pops—I had some special features in my favor; namely a body made for screwing, the finest set of nipples he had ever seen and/or sucked—and above all, the fact that I was bald!" [Harlow's dimwitted lover believed the story she told him about all of her hair having fallen out after a recent case of typhoid fever. Actually she bobbed her platinum locks so they would fit under the brunette wig.]
     On another fornicational fling in San Francisco Harlow picked up a strange man outside a theater showing her latest film, Red Dust. After a night of nonstop lovemaking he told her that, in his opinion, if she went to Hollywood, she had a damned good chance of getting herself a job as Jean Harlow's double or standin. As for similar stories involving some of America's other "sexgoddesses," suffice it to say Harlow's promiscuous peccadilloes were unique to neither her nor the Anything Goes Age in which she lived.

168 Even if you do manage to correctly fill in all these *s the fact remains, dear reader: Today's "sexgoddesses" can't hold a candle to those R**a H****hs, J**e R***ls, G****rs, G**a G**os, M****n M***es, M****e D****hs and, of course, J***e M*******ds of yesteryear.

169 All of which were, of course, flimsy excuses for at least temporarily escaping the totalitarian regime that gave MGM it's industrywide reputation as Hollywood's most ruthlessly efficient maker of motion pictures.

170 I will leave it for you to decide, dear reader, what kind of comment this makes on the "enlightened" times in which we now live; but during those barbaric days when this part of our story was unfolding it was the common practice—if not the policy—among even the most upscale of Hollywood's eateries and watering holes to allow their patrons to smoke and/or dally as much and/or as long as they wished. And, while these restaurateurs of yesteryear were probably oblivious to the health hazards of passive smoking, the decision not to give their customers the "bum's rush" during peak dining hours was made with the knowledge of the negative impact such a humanitarian practice would have bottomlinewise.

171 In those bygone days a cashier in the average eatery also presided over a display case filled with what would now be viewed as an admirable variety of domestic and imported cigars. Some of these women became such experts in this most unladylike of subjects they could tell the brand and style name of a man's cigar by its aroma, ashcolor, wrappershade and ringsize even when it had been smoked down to a butt "so small no self respecting bum would stoop to pick it up."

172 "Or the dimensions of their genitalia," he would add when some Anglo bitch from Brentwood or Bel Air who heard that "Latins make the best lovers" tried to engage him in a less than ladylike conversation. And, it should be mentioned, innuendowise Escobar was being more than a little disingenuous himself since, in point of INS fact, he never actually became a United States citizen—preferring instead to remain a proud (and more or less loyal) subject of the Republic of Mexico throughout the lifetime he continued living on the gringo side of the border.

173 How strange dear reader, that the clearest (if not the most concise) statement yet of what Morons Awake! is really all about should appear in this Editoress' Note of mine!

174 While in many respects (not the least of which were his intellectual—and to a surprising extent—lickerishG virility) he was considerably younger than his seventyplus years, under the kind of severe emotional stress arising from confrontations like this one he exhibited the breathlessness symptomatic of advanced senility.

175 And those of you who've learned by now not to take every word he writes—or speaks—at its face value.

176 Or reveal any more than is absolutely essential for you to know about the intimate working relationship between a man and a woman when they collaborate in the making of such seminal works of art as the Mona Lisa (Lenny & La), Lady Chatterly's Lover (Dave & Frieda), Guernica (Pablo & Dora), 24 Preludes, (Fred & George), Tender Is The Night (Scotty & Zelda), Tropic of Cancer (Hank & Anaïs), Mahler's 5th Symphony (Gus & Alma), Die Götterdämmerung (Dicky & Cosima), Look Homeward, Angel (Tom & Aline), Ulysses (Jim & Sylvia), Frankenstein (Mary & Percy), Triumph of the Will (Adolf & Leni )176s1 and, of course, Morons Awake! (Mordi & Jayne).

177 A sum which, in those Great Depression times, was equal to what an average urban wetback like Escobar could earn in his miserable lifetime—if, that is, he was "lucky" enough to continue slaving away 18 hours every day of a 6day work week for the next 30 years.

178 Spanish for "Mister Fox."

179 Although according to the editoress "Doris Darlinge's relevance to this exposé of the Klutz Affair couldn't be more marginal once we dismiss the Platinum Blonde Sexgoddess motif for what it really is—the flimsiest excuse for dignifying a dirty old author's lecherous proclivities by putting them in print,"179s1—the truth, my dear reader, is this: Because of her intimate relationship with me and mine to the Klutz Affair every trace of Doris' aborted career as a second Jean Harlow has been expunged from the annals of those turbulent times by the conspiracy to discredit Morons Awake! as, among other things, "a vicious pack of literary lies," "the cruelest kind of utopian hoax," "apocalyptic claptrap," "a compendium of pseudointellectual hog wash," "the delusionary ravings of a (not so neo)fascist crackpot," "an antidemocratic diatribe" and "the most non of all nonfiction novels."
     Accordingly, the only real reason for Alejandro Escobar's being in this chapter was to help me fill the factual void left behind when The True History Of How Gone With The Wind Became The Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made was rewritten without a single reference to the leading role Doris Darlinge (inadvertently) played in bringing about that most "momentous" turn of moviemaking events. Were Morons Awake! an ordinary novel—even of the "Great American" variety —a minor character like Escobar would only be mentioned in passing (if at all) as "The Latino security guard who was taking one of his predawn siestas when Doris Darlinge disappeared from her Malibu Beach house." However, since this is a book upon which the future of Western Civilization itself hinges I can leave no stone unturned in removing any doubts you might still have concerning its authenticity as a Divinely Inspired Revelation of Biblical stature. Hence a man of Escobar's unimportance—who would otherwise have remained a (more or less) perfect nobody—will be remembered forever as the literary linchpin by which this "extremely dubious chapter" (in our editoress' words) turns into one that has a good chance of convincing you it is the true story of how the film version of Margaret Mitchell's trashy civil war potboiler came to occupy its exalted position in America's topsyturvy sociocultural scheme of things.
     It's also SOP among ordinary bestselling novelists that once an "expendable" character has done his duty he exits unceremoniously without leaving the reader a clue as to any future he might—or mightn't—have. Much like Escobar himself did (or seemed to do) just now in the main text. This careless rubbishing of fictional "canon fodder" has always struck me as being unnecessarily inhumane. And while such barbarous acts can to some extent be justified by the "practicalities" of writing a less than telephonedirectorysized novel I remain convinced that: An author should do everything he can to ameliorate the shabby treatment received by these unsung "expository" heroes and heroines. Which is what this footnote is attempting to do. And, ironically, in Escobar's case the life he went on to lead following his release from prison (and those 15 (in)famous minutes he spent in L. B. Mayer's office) was one worthy of far more than a mere footnote. In point of publishing fact Escobar wrote an entire book of his own devoted to that very subject. His 1978 autobiography—Happy Ending: The Memoirs Off A Man Who Didn't Deserve The Raves He Occasionally Received As A Hollywood Character Actor, sold surprisingly well despite its offbeat (and -putting) title.179s2

Subfootnotes
176s1 Whether we like it or not, ladies, this foulest of Faustian partnerships resulted in what some film critics have argued is "the most stupendous motion picture ever made."
179s1 Notwithstanding my repeated protests, Miss Playne persists in the mistaken belief that "the less than bombshell dimensions of her maidenly bosom" isn't necessarily unenticing to a man with my "typically quantitative tastes in appreciating the finer points of a female's anatomy."
179s2 Although out of print for some years now, what few copies could be found have all been confiscated (and presumably destroyed) pursuant to the aforementioned conspiracy against me and my exposé of the Klutz Affair. Fortunately Escobar sent Doris an autographed copy as "A token of my undying gratitude for so miraculously crossing what would otherwise have been my path to oblivion," which, thank God, she managed to keep from falling into Ballbraker's foul clutches. Without her cooperation—she couldn't have been "happier" (or braver!) to share its photocopied contents with me—I would have been forced to invent those factual details about Escobar which make this chapter (seem) so eminently plausible. It is from these memoirs we learn that one day, several weeks after the Doris Darlinge Disappearance dust had settled, MGM's Legal Department received the following letter:

MONTOYA, ALVAREZ & ZAPATA
Attorneys-at-law
"No case is too large or small"

645 Spring Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
Tel. MA-4889

Mr. Louis B. Mayer, President,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.
Culver City, Calif.

Dear Mr. Mayer;

On or about July 9, 1937 you entered into an employment contract (a copy of which is attached hereto) with our client, Mr. Alejandro Escobar.

This is to inform you that so far Mr. Escobar has failed to receive any of the weekly $200 payments specified in said contract. Moreover, since Mr. Escobar has been and remains ready, able and willing to render the services required by said contract we are forced to put you on notice that, as things now stand, said lack of payments constitutes a breach of said contract on your part.

While we continue to believe said breach of said contract is probably the result of an oversight we are obliged to protect our client's interests by reminding you of your legal obligations, which we set forth as follows:

     (a) Commence making the weekly payments to Mr. Escobar immediately—for which, we remind you, he is more than ready, willing and able to work;

     (b) Pay Mr. Escobar the full amount ($31,200) of the contract to extinguish your rights therein, or;

     (c) Defend a breach of contract lawsuit for the damages specified in paragraph (b) and any and all legal costs incurred as a result thereof.

Confident that, with your reputation for "honoring even the worst of your bad bargains," this matter can be settled amicably I remain,

Yours Faithfully,

Miguel Montoya

     When Mayer learned Escobar was seriously trying to cash in on what was, by even Hollywood's strictest caveat emptor standards, a $30,000 misunderstanding, he hit the roof. "Over my dead body!" was his reaction to the Legal Department's "considered opinion it would be cheaper to settle Escobar's breach of contract suit than fight it on the theory Mayer's signature had been procured under fraudulent (without specifying who was attempting to defraud whom) circumstances.  "Even if it bankrupts us," he roared more thunderously than the MGM lion, "we will litigate this socalled 'breach of contract case' of his all the way to the goddamned Supreme Court before Louis B. Mayer pays one lousy dime to this double crossing chiseler and his cholo shyster cronies!" After fuming over what became known throughout the studio as the "Escobar Matter" for a few more days the cooler of Mayer's vindictive passions finally prevailed and he gave his Presidential blessings to a compromise plan whereby "Escobar would be put on MGM's payroll in some suitably inconspicuous acting capacity that would legally fulfill the studio's contractual obligation and prevent the little shit from obtaining a complete windfall as a result of his sleazy shakedown scheme."

     "O.K., but only with this clear understanding," Mayer warned his sycophantic flunkies with an authoritarian style that never failed to chill even their reptilian blood, "which is: That this Hispanic asshole slaves his cojones off from dawn to dusk 7 days a week for every red cent of those 200 smackers we pay the conniving sonofabitch!"

     Which is precisely what Escobar did for the first few months of his employment. With the doubly ironic result that: Not only did he acquire the acting skills it would normally have taken him several years to develop as one of MGM's rookie contract players; he added something Hollywood's "classiest studio" didn't know it lacked until this rankest of amateurs arrived on the Culver City moviemaking scene with his shifty "Aztec" eyes, the menacing shock of jet black hair draped Hitlerstyle across his Neanderthal brow ridge, his pockmarked, duelingscarred and permanently 5 O'clock shadowed cheeks, his sardonic smile and his macho swagger, namely—a resident allpurpose "ethnic" character actor who, at the drop of a directorial hat, could play everything from an Italian mobster, a Barbary pirate, a Spanish buccaneer, a Mongolian warlord, a renegade redskin, an Arab slave trader, a Puerto Rican pimp, an Egyptian tomb robber, a Burmese opium trafficker, a Greek pedophile and a Jewish usurer to, least surprising of all perhaps, the most sinister of Mexican banditos. Escobar ended his book with this suggested epitaph:

—HERE LIES ALEX S. COBAR—179s2ss1

While, until the day he died he believed his long and—or more often than not—happy life was a reward for the faith he so blindly put in the virtue of honesty during those darkest of his premoviestar hours, he recognized the possibility that, in the final existential analysis, these fickle fates of ours might be governed by nothing more profound than that superstitious statement of resignation we heard expressed so often at our mothers' knee, amigos—"Que sera, sera"

These rather unconventional words of funereal wisdom can be found (by those willing to look for them) inscribed on his modest gravestone in that section of Forest Lawn cemetery reserved for such other unsung antiheroes (or "heavies") as Barton Maclain], Helmut Dantine, Laird Cregar, Bruce Cabot, Conrad Veit, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre who played Hollywood's Nazis, convicts, sex perverts, gangsters sociopaths, ghouls, bloodsuckers, monsters and homicidal maniacs. And most of whose names never seem to make it past the tied tonguetips of those who watch their movies on latenite TV. If it were possible for him to do so, I think Cobar might add this posthumous postscript to his epitaph:

—P. S —
Because his wayward path was briefly crossed by a starstruck coffeeshop waitress from Moronia whose own lifeline later intersected (off and on) with that of the man divinely ordained to write the Greatest Of All American Novels, Alex S. Cobar played a leading role in the verisimilitudinization of one chapter in a book that is destined to reverse the decline of Western Civilization.
Accordingly, amigos: Ficklefatewise our lives might not be the que sera, sera crapshoot we sometimes think they are after all!

Which, I think, says all that needs to be said as we now bid our final "thanks and adios, amigo" to Alejandro Escobar (aka Alex S. Cobar).

Subsubfootnotes
179s2ss1 The stage name by which Escobar was known in the more than 700 pictures he made for MGM. Among his fellow character actors he was affectionately hailed as "the poor man's Anthony Quinn."

Glossary
priapic also priapean adjective 1.) Of, relating to, or resembling a phallus; phallic. 2.) Relating to or overly concerned with masculinity. [From PRIAPUS.]
lickerish adjective 1.) Lascivious; lecherous. 2.) Greedy; desirous. 3.) a. Archaic. Relishing good food. b. Obsolete. Arousing hunger; appetizing. [Middle English likerous, perhaps from Old French lecheor, lekier. See LECHER.] - lickerishness noun