Pity Him Afterwards

A man of about thirty-five, prematurely balding, very tall and lean, harried-looking, dressed in blue polo shirt and gray slacks, a yellow pencil behind one ear, sat at a desk and talked desperately on the telephone. He was the only one in the office. He said, “But I need that sofa. We paid for that ottoman, Mr. Gregory... I understand that, Mr. Gregory, but...”

It went on that way. Mel cleared a stack of programs off a chair, put them on a table, and sat down. The man on the phone didn’t acknowledge his presence at all. Mel waited a few minutes, listening to half the conversation and trying to guess at the other half, and then lit a cigarette. Immediately the man on the phone shoved an ashtray toward him. He nodded his thanks, and settled back to wait.

Finally it ended. They weren’t going to get the sofa. The man hung up, looked at Mel, shook his head, and said, “It’s the same thing every year. You’re Daniels, I guess.”

“That’s right.”

“Actors are idiots, Daniels.” He didn’t sound angry or sarcastic, only long-suffering. “I don’t know why I have anything to do with them. One sends me his roommate’s picture by mistake, one shows up a day late — I just don’t know.”

“I guess you’re Mr. Haldemann.”

“I guess I am. I’m not sure any more. Mary Ann get you settled?”

“She told me to come in here first.”

“Oh. Well—” He scrabbled through the mess on his desk. “As long as you’re here—” He opened desk drawers. “There’s some forms to fill out. Withholding, and—” He kept opening drawers. “I don’t suppose you have a pen.”

“They won’t let me have anything sharp.”

“Uh? Oh. Actors are idiots? Nothing personal, Mel. Mel?”

“Mel.”

“That’s right. Bob. I mean me, I’m Bob.”

“Hello.”

“Mm. Here we go. Just clear off a space on that table there. This won’t take long.”

There was a form for the theater’s records, and a form for Equity, and the withholding form for taxes. He did the withholding form last and looked over at Bob Haldemann to say, “On this tax form. Stage name or real name?”

“What? Legal name.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

He wrote it out carefully: Melvin D. Blum. Which brought back to mind his argument with his father over the name-change. “Dad, listen. Can you see it? In great big lights on Broadway, that brand-new star, Mel Blum. Forget it.” “And what about Shelley Berman?” “Berman is Berman, Blum is Blum.” “A son of mine, to be ashamed of his heritage, is—” “What ashamed? Listen, do you know what Cary Grant’s real name is?” “Cary Grant is Jewish?” “No, he’s English. And his name is Archie Leach. You see what I mean? It isn’t heritage, it’s you got to have a good-looking name. You think anybody’s really named Rock Hudson?” “How am I supposed to hold my head up, I produced a son to change his name?” “It’s a stage name, for Christ’s sake. Everybody does it.” “Shelley Berman—”

It got so you could hate Shelley Berman.

He finished the last of the forms, and brought them over to Bob Haldemann, who was laboriously writing on yellow note-paper with a stubby pencil. He took the forms and the pen and said, “Sit down a minute, Mel.”

Mel sat down.

Bob Haldemann held the stubby pencil in both hands and, watching the pencil, said, “This is your first season of stock, am I right?”

“Right.”

“Your experience—” He riffled through the papers on his desk again. “I don’t have your résumé here. But you’ve been in a few off-Broadway shows, isn’t that it?”

“That’s it.”

“No other experience?”

“I toured with an Army show, I was in Special Services.”

“Oh?” He seemed surprised. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“No college?”

“I’m going to CCNY, part time.”

“Ah. And you’re serious about acting.”

“Sure.” He said it easily, but who knew? He didn’t know yet what he was serious about, but why rush it? He liked acting, and it put him close to girls, and if he could make a living at it, why not?

Bob Haldemann was still studying that pencil. He said, “If you’re at all like most of the young actors we get here, you aren’t particularly interested in this theater or this season. You’re here for two things, a good time with the girls and an Equity card at the end of the season.”

That about summed it up, but it would probably be bad politics to admit it. Mel sat silent, and waited.

“I don’t blame you, Mel. At your age, in your position, I’d feel the same way. But I want you to get interested in this theater, and I want you to get interested in this season. I want total commitment from you, Mel, for the next eleven weeks. We have an impossibly tough schedule here, a new play every week. You’ll have a major role in only four or five of them, but you’ll be working in all of them. You’ll be a stagehand, or you’ll run the flies, or you’ll work props. You’ll help build sets, and you’ll help strike them. You’ll work a seven-day week, and you’ll work a fourteen-hour day most of the time. You can’t do that and last the season if you don’t give a damn about what’s happening here.”

Mel grinned. “I guess I can’t be doing it for the money.”