At the Oceana Apartments, he counts off the dead on his fingers.
On May 10th, 1939. Jimmy Parrott dies. Jimmy Parrott is a drunk and a drug addict, but Jimmy Parrott was once much more. Jimmy Parrott kills himself, but the studio labels his passing as heart disease and peddles the lie to the papers.
On June 1st, 1940, Babe’s half-sister, Emily Crawford, dies. She is a supervisor at the Orphans Home, a gentle woman who teaches for no salary. Babe pays her funeral expenses.
On June 20th, 1940, Jimmy Parrott’s brother, Charley Chase, who is a drunk but not a drug addict, dies of a heart attack. Charley Chase also dies by his own hand, drowning himself in liquor, but they don’t call it suicide if you do it slowly enough.
On March 17th, 1941, Marguerite Nichols, the wife of Hal Roach, dies from pneumonia. She was an actress, once.
Formerly in pictures.
But then there are so many dying in those years.
And as the dead fall away, he watches Babe’s body contract and then swell again, diets working and diets failing. He sees Babe’s face grow redder. He listens as Babe struggles to catch his breath.
Let them all die, he adjures, every one.
But not this man.