382
PARTISAN REVIEW
speed. It improved. Then disagreements flared once more. Some–
body was fired. Somebody quit.
As the movie changed, gradually becoming the thing for which
no more could be done, I went down to L.A. less frequently, then
finally stopped. I missed hanging out at the Formosa bar after work,
and eating dinner at the Chianti, the Rose, and Joe Allen's. I missed
the glaring nighttime anxiety of Sunset Boulevard and the languid
sweep of Santa Monica Boulevard from Hollywood through the im–
perial quietude of Beverly Hills and on to the grandeur of the
Pacific, and also the deep mystery of San Vincente, how it bends
and thrusts from lovely neighborhoods to eery desolation. A dozen
times I got lost and had to ask for help.
"You're looking for Melrose? It's right around here. It used to
be somewhere else, but listen, baby, I moved a couple of years ago."
Avenues and streets were a gigantic nervous system, flashed
with excitements, congealed with neurotic atmospheres or dull dry
oppressive peacefulness . I missed L.A. like an old strange friend.
One of the reviewers said he went to see
The Men's Club
with his
girl, and he was laughing, enjoying himself, telling her that this is
what men are "really like." She hissed, "Slime!" He writes that he sat
quietly weighing her insight, then cried,
"Pig slime!
Winning her
respect, certainly. In the movie, as in life, bitch-wimp relations end
in marriage. I wished him happiness and I supposed, among its sad
flaws, the move is more true than correct. With a few exceptions,
reviews were bludgeoningly bad.
Ten days after the movie opened, Howard phoned.
"The movie is dead."
"That's depressing."
"Nobody can feel worse than I do."
I thought I could. When he said goodbye, I would feel lonely,
abandoned to reviewers, like a rape victim who not only suffers the
opinions of cops but also feels guilty. I tried to keep talking, not let
him hang up. It was no use. He managed a closing line.
"Well, we had some fun , didn't we?"
