?So Groc ran! And Groc today is where? Falling upward? with
At the far end of the long table, Doc Phillips had come back. He advanced no further but, with a sharp jerk of his head, indicated that he wanted Groc to follow.
Groc took his time tapping his napkin on his little rosebud smile, took another swig of cold milk, crossed his knife and fork on his plate, and scrambled down. He paused and thought, then said, ?Not
?Why,? said Roy, after a moment, ?did he make up all that guff about manatees and woodcarving??
?He?s good,? said Fritz Wong. ?Conrad Veidt, small size. I?ll use that little son of a bitch in my next film.?
?What did he mean by Ozymandias?? I asked.
16
All the rest of the afternoon Roy kept shoving his head into my office, showing me his clay-covered fingers.
?Empty!? he cried. ?No Beast!?
I yanked paper from my typewriter. ?Empty! Also no Beast!?
But at last, at ten o?clock that night, Roy drove us to the Brown Derby.
On the way I read aloud the first half of ?Ozymandias.?
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert? Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
Shadows moved over Roy?s face. ?Read the rest,? he said. I read:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
?My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!?
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
When I finished, Roy let two or three long dark blocks pass. ?Turn around, let?s go home,? I said.
?Why??
?This poem sounds just like the studio
?Bushwah,? was Roy?s comment.
I glanced over at his great hawk?s profile, which cleaved the night air, full of that optimism that only craftsmen seem to have about being able to build a world just the way they want it, no matter what.
I remembered that when we were both thirteen King Kong fell off the Empire State and landed on us. When we got up, we were never the same. We told each other that one day we would write and move a Beast as great, as magnificent, as beautiful as Kong, or simply die.
?Beast,? whispered Roy. ?Here we
And we pulled up near the Brown Derby, a restaurant with no huge Brown Derby on top, like a similar restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, five miles across town, capped with a derby large enough to fit God at Easter, or any studio bigwig on Friday afternoon. The only way you knew this Brown Derby was important was by the 999 cartoon-caricature portraits on every wall inside. Outside was quasi-Spanish nothing. We braved the nothing to step in and face the 999.
The maitre d? of the Brown Derby lifted his left eyebrow as we arrived. A former dog lover, he now only loved cats. We smelled funny.
?Of course you have no reservations?? he observed, languidly.
?About
That rippled the fur on the maitre d?s neck, but he let us in anyway.
The restaurant was almost empty. People sat at a few tables, finishing dessert and cognac. The waiters had already begun to renapkin and reutensil some of the tables.
There was a sound of laughter ahead, and we saw three women standing near a table, bending toward a man who was obviously leafing out cash to pay the night?s bills. The young women laughed, saying they would be outside window-shopping while he paid up, then, in a flourish of perfume, they turned and ran past me and Roy, who stood nailed in place, staring at the man in the booth.
Stanislau Groc.
?God,? cried Roy. ?You/?
Groc?s eternal flame snapped shut.
?What are you doing here?? he exclaimed.
?We were invited.?
