The Hollywood Trilogy Read Online Free Page B

nearly everybody crazy, especially Karl. Right now he was telling me in his soft, well-mannered Ivy League voice that this time was different, Jim wasn’t any of the places he usually was, he was really missing, and Karl wondered if I had heard from him or knew where he might be.
    I had made it clear a long time ago that I would not be responsible for Jim, and he would not be responsible to me, and so I said no and told Karl not to worry. Then he wanted to take me to dinner at Ray Stark’s house, and I begged off because I was tired, and then he offered to introduce me to a girl, an actress friend of his who happened to be staying at the hotel, and I begged off that, too, although I wouldn’t have minded, but I tried not to take favors from Karl, and again I told him I was very tired and would see him on the lot tomorrow, and finally got off the phone. “I Love Lucy” was just getting rolling when the phone rang again, this time Karl’s gopher, telling me that my appointment with Karl would be at ten-fifteen at his office, if that suited my convenience, and I said it did, and hung up the phone, walked down to the lobby to the Coke machine and got a couple of Cokes, passed a little time with the desk clerk, when he said, “You got a call, why don’t you take it over in the booth,” and I said, “Maybe I’m not here,” and he said, “I think you want this one,” so I went to the little phone booth across the lobby and picked up the phone:
    â€œHello,” said Jim.
    â€œHello,” I said back to him. I waited. There was a little crackling on the line. Long Distance.
    â€œWhere are you?” I finally asked him.
    â€œI’m up at your place,” he said. “On the mountain.”
    â€œThat’s funny,” I said. “I’m down here in Hollywood.”
    â€œI know.”
    I waited. More crackling. Finally I said, “How’s everybody up there?”
    â€œJust fine,” he said. “All but me.”
    I made noises like a violin but he broke in:
    â€œHey can you come up? I want to talk.” After a little pause, he said, “I really feel bad, man.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” I said.
    â€œOh, shit, I’ll come down there. I’m acting like a goddamn baby.”
    â€œNo, it’s okay, let me come up there . . .”
    So it was all a waste of time, me driving down alone. Every year it’s something.

    WHEN I flew back to the ranch all my relatives except Grandpa had pulled out. Whether from some kind of Okie delicacy or just because they all wanted to go to Laguna Seca and watch the automobile races, I don’t know, but when the taxi pulled up at last in front of the ranchhouse there were unfinished projects everywhere in sight, piles of sheetrock, bags of cement and an old broken-down cement mixer from some previous tenant, a couple of the cars opened and spread about in mid-operation, several cans of paint and brushes left to soak. My relatives could rush into the middle of a project faster than anybody I ever saw, but then the pace would get leisurely, consultations would begin, and after a while everybody would be up on the porch in the shade of the house, sitting on the cushioned redwood outdoor furniture or on kitchen chairs dragged outside and brought back in at supper time, smoking and talking about their various projects. Grandpa alone failed to join these afternoon board of directors meetings. He spent most of his time out in the heat, cultivating the ground to get it ready for a second crop, having missed the first crop because I was up here alone at planting time and didn’t plant anything. Grandpa went ahead and planted, after he had conditioned the soil, and then of course the rest of the summer would be spent in warfare. But usually I only heard about these things over the telephone, when Cousin Harold or somebody else would answer the phone (most of my relatives, including Grandpa,