He sees less of Babe in these years.
He does not feel slighted. As a man who has built his own high wall against the world, he knows that only by sequestering himself with Lucille can Babe deal with the pressures weighing on him: the poverty of these films they are forced by necessity to make; his ongoing torment by Myrtle, who seems consumed by a kind of madness that manifests itself in the pursuit of money to which she is not entitled; and the not unconnected attentions of the IRS, which also seeks money, but without the excuse of madness.
All this, Babe has brought upon himself.
I made a mistake, Babe tells him. With the divorce from Myrtle.
Babe, it emerges, forgets to collect the final decree. It languishes for years, until Babe requires it in order to marry Lucille. The IRS takes this to mean that Babe and Myrtle were still married and domiciled during this period, and therefore Babe is required to pay their joint taxes, all while Myrtle drags Babe back into court, over and over, so often that Ben Shipman suggests they club together and buy a bench.
I don’t understand why Myrtle is doing this to me, Babe tells him.
He has no answer. He thinks of all the years Babe spent cleaning up Myrtle’s shit and piss, of the bars and the sanitariums. He thinks of Babe’s refusal to abandon Myrtle until she left him with no choice. He thinks of Babe’s guilt and Babe’s loneliness.
He thinks the alcohol may have damaged Myrtle’s brain.
—You’re happy, and she’s not. Perhaps it’s just as simple as that.
But he knows that even this may not entirely be true. Babe’s sadness runs deep, even deeper than his own. He sees it when Babe looks in a dressing-room mirror and takes a great wad of flesh in hand, like some version of Shylock seeking his own reduction. He sees it when Babe reads of Walter Brennan and Victor McLaglen, of Henry Travers and Charles Coburn, and imagines a career of roles that might have been. Even Lucille speaks of it sometimes, on those rare occasions when he and Ruth socialize with them.
When Babe is sad, Lucille whispers, I hear him call himself a fat old man. Babe asks me why I love him. And I always reply: how could I not?
And he understands, because he loves Babe also.
How could he not?