The tour lasts only two nights. It never progresses further than Oakland.
He and Vera get through the first night without excessive drama, although the appetite of the Audience for Russian folk songs proves limited, even if they are being performed well.
Which they are not.
Vera takes this as a personal rejection.
Which it is.
By the second night, Vera is inebriated before the curtain rises. He cannot prevent her from going on stage—without her, they have no singer—but he makes it clear that bad reviews here will affect the prospects for bookings elsewhere.
A lot of people are watching to see how this works out, he tells Vera. Some of them would be happy to see us fail.
—I think that you would be happy to see me fail.
He assures Vera that this is not the case, but he knows Countess Sonia has been pouring poison in Vera’s ear: Countess Sonia, and the Dancing Master. He sees and hears them, these strange courtiers, whispering and plotting in the recesses of his home.
I think that you are trying to sabotage my career, says Vera.
—I don’t have to sabotage your career. You’re more than capable of doing that unassisted. But I won’t have you sabotage mine along with it.
—What career? Show me this career. You don’t have a career. You are nothing, a fucking nobody. Go lick Chaplin’s boots. Go talk to Chaplin of this career. Maybe Chaplin will give you a nickel for it.
Vera moves to pour herself another glass of liquor. He tries to stop her. They struggle; they fight. Vera strikes him, over and over, but he does not return a blow. He will not. He has brought this upon himself, and if the reparation required for his failings is to be here in Oakland, wrestling with a drunk over a bottle, then let it be made, and made in full, so that the debt may be cleared.
This, he thinks, is as low as he can descend.
Vera leaves, and does not return.
Finally, he is purged of her.
In February 1939, Vera is arrested for singing anti-Communist songs at the Balalaika Café on Sunset Strip while intoxicated. Vera also accuses the California state liquor administrator, George M. Stout, who happens to be in the Balalaika at the time, of being a Bolshevik.
He would find this diverting were it not for the fact that Hal Roach has responded to his lawsuit by accusing him of a breach of the morals clause in his contract through his behavior with Vera.
It’s smoke and mirrors, Ben Shipman tells him. Hal wants you back. Babe wants you back. But your wife is the problem. Hal can’t risk any more bad publicity. Frankly, neither can you.
In March, Vera sues for alimony, and Hal Roach offers him a new contract contingent upon a full and complete separation from his wife, which is hardly the most onerous or unwelcome of conditions. The news is made public in April. He and Babe are to be reunited. He would have a drink to celebrate, but he is trying to keep away from alcohol.
Babe calls. He asks Babe about Harry Langdon. He does not want to see Harry Langdon on Poverty Row over this.
Harry’s okay about it, says Babe. Hal is giving him a contract as a writer.
—And you?
—I’m okay with it, too.
That month, the latest alimony hearing commences. Lois, his first wife, is dragged into the proceedings. Testimony is offered to the court by Vera’s attorney of the proposed honeymoon cruise with Lois to Catalina Island, of evenings he has spent with Lois at her home, reminiscing and regretting. He cannot deny any of this. He is still in love with Lois.
He was in love with Lois when he was fucking Alyce Ardell.
He was in love with Lois when he was married to Ruth.
He was in love with Lois even when Lois was suing him for inflated child maintenance, which he could not afford to pay.
But then, he has never claimed to be a rational man.
He settles out of court. He instructs Ben Shipman to agree a property arrangement with Vera. He wishes only for her to be ejected from his life. And Vera will aid him in this regard by being arrested and rearrested; by conforming to her image as a drunk; by being ordered to leave Hollywood, and later the state of California itself, on pain of imprisonment. In time Vera will vanish into the dark of the night, Countess Sonia in tow, and both will die and he will take no cognizance of their passing.
On May 1st, 1939, he is back on the lot with Babe for A Chump at Oxford. Hal Roach has given them a four-picture contract. Better yet, their pictures are to be in a new form: forty minutes in duration, longer than a short, shorter than a feature—“streamliners,” to use Hal Roach’s term for them.
For this new chance he thanks Hal Roach in person on the first day of filming. He is sincere in his gratitude. Hal Roach may have vilified him in the press, called him a lush, spread falsehoods about his willingness to work, but to each accusation he added substance by his own behavior.
It was just business, says Hal Roach. Nothing personal.
This, he knows, is not true, but he allows it to pass. Hal Roach’s office is less grand than once it was. Perhaps he has failed to notice its deterioration before now. The furniture, where damaged, has not been repaired or replaced. The dead animals carry a patina of dust.
Or maybe he imagines it all, and it is only a manifestation of his own slow decline that he perceives.
I understand, he says.
—That Illeana, she did a job on you.
—I helped where I could.
—I never met a man who didn’t.
—Even you?
—Even me. Go on, get out of here. Make me a good picture.
He will try, but as he leaves Hal Roach’s office he observes the approach of evening. The sun loses its warmth, and the lot fades around him as he walks, its buildings losing their solidity, its people turning to ghosts. He calls to them, but they are already departed.
Until at last he is alone.