These Curious Pleasures Read online

  The phones started all ringing at once, so Judy got up and went back to her own office. The calls were the usual garbage. When would Happy be in the office and had he said anything to me about this or that deal? Yes, Happy had told me to tell you all to go to hell and no, I wasn't going to let them know I knew anything about their business. That was my job. To be gracious and noncommittal. It was always, "I'll have Mr. Broadman call you when he comes in." He wouldn't, of course. Not unless they were real important or one of his drinking buddies, that is.

  Silence. From nowhere, as if somebody had suddenly put a deadener on the telephone. It was always like that. Either everybody called at once or there were no calls at all. So I drew doodles.

  One-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon in February of 1961 and I was working in the office of one of the biggest television producers and agents in New York. What was I doing there? Making money, naturally. But there was more to it than that. I wanted to write plays and I figured that an office like Harold Broadman's could teach me a lot about the techniques of production and also give me a chance to meet people who could help me once I'd gotten a good script ready. Also, I like to eat, and there are more obnoxious ways of making a living.

  The office was on Central Park South which, in case you don't know, is one of the poshiest streets in this burg. Posh was the word to describe everything about the place.

  The office cost fifty thousand dollars to decorate and it looked it. Everything was sleek and beautiful. Like a gorgeous scabbard that looks great on the outside but is really concealing a knife. A rusty one at that.

  I was part of the decor. A manifestation of Happy Broadman's aesthetic taste. Happy had taste in women, I'll admit that, if you go for faces like masks with nothing behind them. I was one of the other group. One of his office women. Strictly hands off and I intended to keep it that way. But still he liked women in his office who looked like somebody he'd be giving the big rush to.

  I answered the phone and entertained people in the reception room while Happy kept them waiting for hours. That was the easy part. The hard part was keeping all his women contented. Ignorance is bliss they say and Happy lived by that motto. As long as none of his women knew about the others he thought everything was fine. He should have heard some of the things they said about him to me.

  So I lied to them. I hate lying. It does something to me inside every time I do it. But I was just following the boss' orders. Doing my job—what a crock of you-know-what that is.

  Judy, Happy Broadman's secretary, was the only female he respected. Maybe that was because she had never slept with him. And she could handle Happy better than I could. He bellowed orders at her just as he did at me. But she yelled back at him. I'm not that way. I don't go for breaking the sound barrier when a normal tone of voice will do as well. Three weeks in that office and I still didn't sound like an air raid siren but I knew it wouldn't last. The atmosphere would get me and I'd scream like the rest of them soon.

  Judy had worked for Happy for ten years. They adored each other. You could tell by the way they insulted one another.

  Steve Callas and Jack Fenton also worked for Happy Broadman. They got big salaries but they sweated for it. Most people think an actor's agent just sits back and collects his ten percent. Jack and Steve were the proof that they're wrong. There were no set working hours for them. Sometimes they worked until after midnight and then had to be at a rehearsal the next morning at eight. They had to be prepared for anything. An actor's agent has to be a combination psychiatrist, mother, business manager, press agent, nurse and friend.

  The elevator door opened directly into the reception room so I had to be prepared for just about anything to suddenly burst in upon me and it did around four that afternoon. Amy Ferguson came swishing in, scattering self-importance around the place like rose petals. Salaam everybody, Happy's little breadwinner is paying us a call. "Hello, Sloane, how are you today?" Amy asked me. I want you to understand that I'm not one of those goons who goes all out for the glamour bit. People are just people to me and somebody who has achieved fame is particularly interesting to me only because I like to try to figure out how they managed to get ahead of the rest of the pack. But I have to admit that Amy Ferguson floored me. I would have done anything for that woman. That's the effect she has on lots of people. I guess it's because she's kind of real in a business where reality is a kitchen set on a low budget show. She asked me how I was and she really wanted to know. Even if I had been sick she'd want to know about it. Not in a sticky way like somebody's grandmother who wants to exchange her troubles with you, but because Amy Ferguson knows that the people you meet on your way up are likely to be the ones you'll meet your way down. So she doesn't dismiss any of us just cause we're not a Josh Logan or somebody. I hated to tell her that Mr. Broadman wasn't in. For someone like her he should have been there. She made more money for him than all of his other clients put together.

  Amy Ferguson is the idol of the flannel nightgown set. Millions of housewives all over the country lay off thinking of things to bitch about to their husbands when Amy's afternoon program comes on. She talks to them in their language. Not gooey and gushy like most of the broads you see on television, but simple and direct. She's warm and she's friendly and you feel like she's talking to you directly right out of the screen. She seems to be telling all those women that she knows their husbands are ungrateful slobs but here is the way to keep the brute so happy that he'll stay out of your hair for a while. She doesn't use sarcasm to put it across but you get her message.

  That's what I call talent. Not the sort of thing that would make me watch her program, but artistry in her chosen field. What more can you ask from a human being? Besides, she wasn't one of those clients who made a habit of dropping in when they didn't have an appointment and making Happy hop around like a jack rabbit for his ten percent. It was a big deal when Amy Ferguson stopped by to see her agent on the way to the studio. Happy should have been there.

  She went around the office saying hello to everybody and was just about to leave when Happy came in. "Any calls? Hello," he said.

  "Amy Ferguson's in there," I whispered and gestured toward Judy's office.

  His hangover dropped off him like clothes off a strip-teaser. No wonder he was such a big success. Not everybody can live up to a nickname like Happy when they've got an ulcer eating away half their stomach. He was all smiles while he escorted Amy into his office.

  My desk faced his office so I could look right in the door and see just what was going on in there. It came in handy. I saw him mixing them both drinks. That's one of the things I'd have to get used to. Liquor is right when the situation is tight in this business and it doesn't matter what time it is.

  Amy took her drink over to the couch and Happy sat down next to her. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I watched them. Her. She's really a good-looking woman. Even offstage without all the make-up. Must be pushing fifty by now but she's got a figure that I'd like to have. The platinum blonde hair is out of a bottle but with that face and figure she'd look silly with grey hair.

  Suddenly Amy slammed her fist down on the coffee table. The moment of polite conversation was over. I relaxed back in my chair. No need to strain hard now. They'd both be bellowing so loud at each other now that you could hear them all the way down to the Plaza.

  "Happy, I just can't take it any longer."

  "Easy, darling, we've been through this before. We've always been able to work out something." Happy was doing his understanding father bit.

  "No, this is it. I won't put up with that man any longer. Why should I? I support him. I get jobs for him. What does he do for me? I'll tell you what he does for me. He drives me out of my mind, that's what he does."

  So that's why she was here. She was having trouble with her husband again. Amy Ferguson, symbol of happy motherhood to half of America, can't stand her husband. Can't blame her. She married him when they were both bit players in the theater. Now she's a star and he resents h
er success. Makes life miserable for her because he knows he's a nothing.

  "I know what you're putting up with," Happy said. "I sympathize with you. But you don't have to put up with it, you know. Just ignore him. What can he do to you?"

  "Happy, I want to divorce him."

  "We've been through this before, Amy. You can't do that. Think what it would mean to your career."

  "To hell with it! To hell with all those bitches! What do they care about me? I've got a right to my life, Happy. I'm not just Amy Ferguson, proof that a woman can be an actress and still have a happy marriage!" She was crying now. Happy had won.

  It always ended up that way. Amy came there to blow off steam. She knew that it would amount to nothing. She might as well give up her whole career as get a divorce. Once she had appeared on her program without the ever present diamond brooch that her husband had given her on their first wedding anniversary, and the housewives had flipped. Letters poured in wanting to know why she hadn't worn the brooch. You'd have thought that they'd found out that superman was a homosexual from the way they carried on in their letters.

  Amy left in a slosh of tears and promises to try to get along with her slob of a husband.

  Then Happy started bugging me in his inimitable way. He could dial a number as easily as I could, but he had to call out to me to get a number for him. And if the line was busy or someone didn't answer, it was my fault!

  The phones kept me busy for the next hour. It was always that way in the office. Everybody who hadn't called already and some of those who had phoned between five and six. Most of them just called to say hello to Happy, Jack or Steve. That's the way it is in show business. You keep in touch with each other because if you don't, they forget that you're alive.

  At six sharp I turned off the switchboard. If I hadn't I never would have gotten out of there. Besides, the really important people had Happy's unlisted number and could call him on his private phone.

  I was home in a half hour and immediately didn't want to be there. No sooner did I close the door behind me than the walls started whispering again. Very limited walls. They only knew how to say one word. Marilyn.

  Where could I go with no money? There was no help for it. I had to stay in the apartment alone and try to think about something else besides Marilyn. I didn't succeed.

  Did you ever see a woman's face in a can of beans? Hear her voice calling to you in the sound of running water? Marilyn was everywhere. Everywhere except where I wanted her. In my arms.

  I gave into it after supper and put some soft music on the radio, lay down on the couch and let the memories come...

  After that first night I frequently stayed with Marilyn all night. That was easy to arrange. I said that we got more work done that way. My parents were proud of the way I was working so hard and still keeping up my marks in school.

  As the months went by I stopped seeing all my other friends. I had no time for them. When I wasn't seeing Marilyn I had to catch up on my studies. I didn't know then that she planned it that way. That that was the way she always worked it.

  I saw no one but Marilyn. She became my whole world. I didn't need anyone else. Nobody wanted me around anyway. I was irritable and critical of everyone. They weren't Marilyn and so they were unbearable to me.

  Even my mother and father noticed the change. But they thought that working too hard had exhausted me and that I'd get over it as soon as the project I was supposedly helping Marilyn with was completed. Then I could get more sleep.

  I loved Marilyn. God, how I loved her. She was so good to me in other ways that I didn't mind the way she bossed me around. I even liked it, in fact. I couldn't find enough ways to express my love.

  I suppose that Marilyn is the kind of hot-pants school teacher that they tell dirty jokes about. To me her incessant appetite for love-making was wonderful. Sometimes I'd be so exhausted that I thought I'd never be able to make it again. But a few caresses from Marilyn and desire would flame anew within me.

  We went on that way for seven months. Seven months of the greatest happiness I've ever known. Then one night Marilyn told me that she had decided to go straight. The proclamation came from nowhere. No preparation. Nothing. She never even mentioned the possibility that we wouldn't be together for the rest of our lives.

  I pleaded with her but it didn't do any good. She said that she had lost all interest in women. She was going to find a man and get married.

  "I'm not really gay," she kept repeating. "It was just a neurotic need that I've grown out of."

  So there I was with egg on my face—and an ache in my heart and a need in my loins that only Marilyn could fulfill and she didn't want any part of it. She even refused to see me any more as friends. She said it would be kinder to me in the long run that way.

  There are no words to describe the next month. Let it go that I was in such a state of despair I didn't care whether I lived or died.

  Then I heard that Marilyn had moved in with the Dean of Women. One look at "Muscles" Hagerty (as the Dean was called behind her back) and I knew what going straight meant to Marilyn. Straight to another woman.

  So I ran. I wanted to get away from that town. I was afraid that if I ever saw Marilyn again I'd kill her. I wouldn't have, but I had to strike back at somebody. So I took it out on myself.

  I moved to New York. I found a crummy little hole of a room in Greenwich Village and set about trying to forget. It wasn't long before I found people who were trying to do the same thing. We were quite a crew.

  None of us had a steady job. We'd work for a couple of days to make drinking money and then quit. Living the way I did doesn't take much money. Lunch, breakfast and dinner consisted of coffee and a hamburger or a hot dog. There are still places in the Village that I can't go to because they remind me of that period. I used to sit in them for hours over a cup of coffee because I had no place else to go.

  I was kicked out of my room for making too much noise when I was drunk. Some nights I would sleep with a friend who had a pad of her own. Other nights I picked up a girl in a gay bar and stayed with her. Don't ask me who I slept with. I didn't ask for names and if they told them to me I was too drunk to remember.

  I killed a whole year that way. Nearly killed myself in the process. It finally caught up with me one night a couple of months after my grandfather died. He hadn't left much money but I was the sole inheritor. I got a thousand dollars and spent it all in two months. Who knows how. Ask the multitude of friends I suddenly found myself with every time I went into a bar.

  All I know is that one day I woke up and there was this prune-faced woman standing beside the bed. No matter how drunk I had been, I couldn't have picked her up. Then I dug the uniform. She was a nurse. I was in Bellevue. I had everything you can think of that comes from too much liquor and not enough food and the proper rest.

  Later I found out that I had passed out in a bar and the cops had brought me there.

  I nearly flipped when my mother came to see me. Why did she have to be dragged in on this whole ugly mess? But I was under-age and the hospital had notified her as a matter of routine.

  I was in the hospital for two months. Not one of my so-called friends came to visit me. It was just as well. I didn't want the other patients and the hospital staff to see the hair-cuts on some of the girls. I was wearing my hair short but you should have seen them. Most men let their hair grow longer than that. Lots of them didn't even own a skirt.

  When I got out of the hospital my mother came to New York to stay with me for a month. She was great. She didn't ask any questions. All she knew was that I was hurt and needed her. As if I had broken a leg or something.

  We found an apartment for me on the East Side in the Eighties. The furniture came mostly from the Salvation Army. We got some pretty nice things there for very little money.

  Mom stayed with me until I found a job. It was a sweat-shop but I didn't care. I just wanted to get some order in my life. I was feeling better than I had in years. I wanted to wri
te again and to make a nice home for myself.

  After Mom left there was a change. I couldn't go back to my old ways but I was restless all the time. During the day I was all right. I did my job well and they liked me. But nights I couldn't stay alone in the apartment. I had to be with people. So I started going down the Village again. I didn't even feel like drinking very much. Just enough so I could stay in the bars and cruise the girls.

  I met some pretty nice ones. Good-looking girls around my own age who could talk about something besides the weather. I went home with them and sexed it up for a couple of weeks until they began to bore me. They weren't Marilyn. Funny, I was lonely as hell but I wouldn't let anyone get close to me.

  Then one of the girls invited me to a straight party. I went just to see what it would be like. I didn't know if I still remembered how to act with a man outside of a business relationship.

  Judy Symonds was at the party. We got to talking and she told me about her job with Happy Broadman. I said that I'd give anything to work in a place like that but I had no experience in show business. Judy said that she was looking for a new receptionist and I could have the job. Just like that. She didn't even ask for references.

  There was a chance that Judy had been drunk when she made the offer but I didn't think so. I took the chance and quit my job. Five days later I started working for Harold Broadman, Inc.

  The job was better but the nights were the same. It killed me to be alone.

  This night was no different. Remembering was driving me out of my mind. I could forget only when I was at work or making a play for some woman.