“You don’t judge talents by rules, lady! Okay—so I haven’t acted. And why? Because people like you won’t give me a chance. You see what I mean?” It was W. C. Field’s voice.
Alice Tanner opened her mouth to interrupt him, but Toby never gave her the opportunity. He was Jimmy Cagney telling her to give the poor kid a break, and James Stewart agreeing with him, and Clark Gable saying he was dying to work with the kid and Cary Grant adding that he thought the boy was brilliant. A host of Hollywood stars was in that room, and they were all saying funny things, things that Toby Temple had never thought of before. The words, the jokes poured out of him in a frenzy of desperation. He was a man drowning in the darkness of his own oblivion, clinging to a life raft of words, and the words were all that were keeping him afloat. He was soaked in perspiration, running around the room, imitating the movement of each character who was talking. He was manic, totally outside of himself, forgetting where he was and what he was here for until he heard Alice Tanner saying, “Stop it! Stop it!”
Tears of laughter were streaming down her face.
“Stop it!” she repeated, gasping for breath.
And slowly, Toby came down to earth. Mrs. Tanner had taken out a handkerchief and was wiping her eyes.
“You—you’re insane,” she said. “Do you know that?”
Toby stared at her, a feeling of elation slowly filling him, lifting, exalting him. “You liked it, huh?”
Alice Tanner shook her head and took a deep breath to control her laughter and said, “Not—not very much.”
Toby looked at her, filled with rage. She had been laughing at him, not with him. He had been making a fool of himself.
“Then what were you laughing at?” Toby demanded.
She smiled and said quietly. “You. That was the most frenetic performance I’ve ever seen. Somewhere, hidden beneath all those movie stars, is a young man with a lot of talent. You don’t have to imitate other people. You’re naturally funny.”
Toby felt his anger begin to seep away.
“I think one day you could be really good if you’re willing to work hard at it. Are you?”
He gave her a slow, beatific grin and said, “Let’s roll up our sleeves and go to work.”
Josephine worked very hard Saturday morning, helping her mother clean the house. At noon, Cissy and some other friends picked her up to take her on a picnic.
Mrs. Czinski watched Josephine being driven off in the long limousine filled with the children of the Oil People. She thought, one day something bad is going to happen to Josephine. I shouldn’t let her be with those people. They’re the Devil’s children. And she wondered if there was a devil in Josephine. She would talk to the Reverend Damian. He would know what to do.
9
Actors West was divided into two sections: the Showcase group, which consisted of the more experienced actors, and the Workshop group. It was the Showcase actors who staged plays that were covered by the studio talent scouts. Toby had been put with the Workshop actors. Alice Tanner had told him that it might be six months to a year before he would be ready for a Showcase play.
Toby found the classes interesting, but the magic ingredient was missing: the audience, the applauders, the laughers, the people who would adore him.
In the weeks since Toby had begun classes, he had seen very little of the head of the school. Occasionally, Alice Tanner would drop into the Workshop to watch improvisations and give a word of encouragement, or Toby would run into her on his way to class. But he had hoped for something more intimate. He found himself thinking about Alice Tanner a great deal. She was what Toby thought of as a classy dame, and that appealed to him; he felt it was what he deserved. The idea of her crippled leg had bothered him at first, but it had slowly begun to take on a sexual fascination.
Toby talked to her again about putting him in a Showcase play where the critics and talent scouts could see him.
“You’re not ready yet,” Alice Tanner told him.
She was standing in his way, keeping him from his success. I have to do something about that, Toby decided.
A Showcase play was being staged, and on the opening night Toby was seated in a middle row next to a student named Karen, a fat little character actress from his class. Toby had played scenes with Karen, and he knew two things about her: she never wore underclothes and she had bad breath. She had done everything but send up smoke signals to let Toby know that she wanted to go to bed with him, but he had pretended not to understand. Jesus, he thought, fucking her would be like being sucked into a tub of hot lard.
As they sat there waiting for the curtain to go up, Karen excitedly pointed out the critics from the Los Angeles Times and Herald-Express, and the talent scouts from Twentieth Century-Fox, MGM and Warner Brothers. It enraged Toby. They were here to see the actors up on the stage, while he sat in the audience like a dummy. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to stand up and do one of his routines, dazzle them, show them what real talent looked like.
The audience enjoyed the play, but Toby was obsessed with the talent scouts, who sat within touching distance, the men who held his future in their hands. Well, if Actors West was the lure to bring them to him, Toby would use it; but he had no intention of waiting six months, or even six weeks.
The following morning, Toby went to Alice Tanner’s office.
“How did you like the play?” she asked.
“It was wonderful,” Toby said. “Those actors are really great.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “I see what you mean when you say I’m not ready yet.”