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Then when he reached the Coast he learned that a recommen–
dation from Maurice Venice was the kiss of death. Venice was in
more need of help and charity than he, Wilhelm, had ever been.
A few years later when Wilhelm was down on his luck and working
as an orderly in a Los Angeles hospital, he saw Venice's picture in
the papers. He was under indictment for pandering. Closely following
the trial Wilhelm found out that Venice had indeed been employed
by Kaskaskia Films but that he had evidently made use of the con–
nection to organize a ring of call girls. Then what did he want with
me? Wilhelm had cried to himself. He was unwilling to believe
anything very bad about Venice. Perhaps he was foolish and un–
lucky, a fall-guy, a dupe, a sucker. But you didn't give a man fifteen
years in prison for that. Wilhelm often thought that he might write
him a letter to say how sorry he was. He remembered the breath of
fate and Venice's certainty that he would be happy. Nita Christen–
berry was sentenced to three years. Wilhelm recognized her although
she had changed her name.
By that time too Wilhelm had taken a new name. In California
he became Tommy Wilhelm. Dr. Adler would not accept the change.
Today, he still called his son Wilky, as he had done for more than
forty years. Well, now, Wilhelm was thinking, the paper crowded in
disarray under his arm, there's really very little that a man can change
at will. He can't change his lungs, or nerves, or constitution or temper–
ament. They're not under his control. When he's young and strong
and impulsive and dissatisfied with the way things are he wants to re–
arrange them to assert his freedom. He can't overthrow the govern–
ment or be differently born; he only has a little scope and maybe a
foreboding, too, that essentially you can't make changes. Nevertheless,
he makes a gesture and becomes Tommy Wilhelm. Wilhelm had al–
ways had a great longing to be Tommy. He had never, however, suc–
ceeded in feeling like Tommy, and in
his
soul had always remained
Wilky. When he was drunk he reproached himself horribly as Wilky,
and said to himself that it was a good thing perhaps that he had not
become a success as Tommy, since that would not have been a genuine
success. Wilhelm would have feared that not he but Tommy had
brought it off, cheating Wilky of his birthright. Yes, it had been an
absurd thing to do, but it was his imperfect judgment at the age of
twenty which should be blamed. He had cast off his father's name,
