A Graveyard for Lunatics

With stiff, mechanical movements, Roy covered the clay head. ?I didn?t??

?You did! You want that on the screen? Pervert! Pack your things! Get out!? Manny shut his eyes, shuddering. ?Now!?

?You demanded this!? said Roy.

?Well, now I demand you destroy it!?

?The best, my greatest work! Look at it, dammit! It?s beautiful! It?s mine!?

?No! The studio?s! Dump it! The film is scrubbed. You?re both fired. I want this place empty in an hour. Move!?

?Why,? asked Roy, quietly, ?are you overreacting??

?Am I??

And Manny plowed across the stage, his shoes tucked under his arm, smashing miniature houses and scattering toy trucks as he strode.

At the far stage door he stopped, sucked air, glared at me.

?You?re not fired. You?ll get a new job. But that son of a bitch? Out!?

The door opened, let in a great Gothic-cathedral spray of light, and slammed shut, leaving me to survey Roy?s collapse and defeat.

?My God, what?ve we done! What the hell?? I shouted to Roy, to myself, to the red clay bust of the Monster, the discovered and revealed Beast. ?What!??

Roy was trembling. ?Jesus. I work for half a lifetime to do something fine. I train myself, I wait, I see, at last I really see. And the thing comes out of my fingertips, my God, how it came! What is this thing here in the damn clay? How come it gets born, and I get killed??

Roy shuddered. He raised his fists, but there was no one to strike. He glanced at his prehistoric animals and made an all-sweeping gesture, as if to hug and protect them.

?I?ll be back!? he cried hoarsely to them and wandered off

?Roy!?

I followed as he blundered into daylight. Outside, the late-afternoon sun was blazing hot, and we moved in a river of fire. ?Where you going??

?Christ knows! Stay here. No use you getting dumped on! This is your first job. You warned me last night. Now I know it was sick, but why? I?ll hide somewhere on the lot so that tonight I can sneak my friends out!? He looked longingly at the shut door behind which his dear beasts lived.

?I?ll help,? I said.

?No. Don?t be seen with me. They?ll think you put me up to this.?

?Roy! Manny looked as if he could kill you! I?m calling my detective pal, Crumley. Maybe he can help! Here?s Crumley?s phone number.? I wrote hastily on some crumpled paper. ?Hide. Call me tonight.?

Roy Holdstrom leaped into his Laurel and Hardy flivver and steamed toward the backlot at ten miles an hour.

?Congratulations,? someone said, ?you silly goddamn son of a bitch!?

I turned. Fritz Wong stood in the middle of the next alley. ?I yelled at them and at last you have been assigned to rewrite my lousy film God and Galilee. Manny just ran over me in his Rolls. He screamed your new job at me. So??

?Is there a monster in the script?? My voice trembled.

?Only Herod Antipas. Leiber wants to see you.?

And he hustled me along toward Leiber?s office.

?Wait,? I said.

For I was looking over Fritz?s shoulder at the far end of the studio alley and the street outside the studio where the crowd, the mob, the menagerie gathered every day, forever.

?Idiot!? said Fritz. ?Where are you going??

?I just saw Roy fired,? I said, walking. ?Now I need to get him rehired!?

?Dummkopf.? Fritz strode after me. ?Manny wants you now!?

?Now, plus five minutes.?

Outside the studio gate, I glanced across the street.

Are you there, Clarence? I wondered.

20

And there indeed they stood.

The loonies. The jerks. The idiots.

That mob of lovers worshiping at studio shrines.