LITMIR.BIZ

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would pull the new Packard’s door right off its hinges.

      Meyers elbowed me again. “Stand up, you idiot! Can’t you see? This gorilla wants to kill me!”

      Up until that instant I always thought of myself as peaceful. I still do. I’ve always seen myself as a lover, not a fighter. But when the gravity of that situation finally sunk in, I realized I didn’t have any choice. I opened the Packard’s passenger door and swung my legs out onto the pavement. Slowly, I unwound all four hundred pounds of me.

      The chauffer stared up. I watched his clenched-for-battle jaw unhinge. Judging by the look of disbelief and terror on his face, he must have thought ten feet of titanic muscle and bone was glaring down at him from the sidewalk. Along with the blood, the enraged expression on the chauffeur’s face had drained, replaced by what I can honestly say was a look of pale panic. He spun around, fled to his wounded limo, jumped in and sped away, burning the rubber of his rear tires. I bet that poor fellow messed his pants in the process.

      When I got back in the car, Meyers looked shaken. “Whew, that was a close call,” he said. “Thank you, Jake. I owe you big time!” He took a linen hanky out of the front pocket of his blazer and wiped his brow. I smiled to myself. Maybe there is something to this giant stuff, after all, I thought.

      I believe that was one of the first times I was genuinely happy to be as big as I am. As you’ll hear, that was not the last time a bully who crossed my path got his due. Looking back on it, I think I must have experienced what a huge Great Dane puppy does after his first full-grown bark. But as pleased as I felt, I was still worried about Stern.

      “If you don’t mind, Jake, let’s cut the tour short. I need a drink,” Meyers said.

      At the next intersection, we made a U-turn and headed back to the restaurant. Prohibition had been in full swing for three years and I wondered where and how he’d get the hooch.

      XXXX

      With its bubbly crowd, mahogany paneled walls, and luscious menu, Musso and Frank would eventually become one of my favorite haunts. Although it was only a little past noon on a Saturday, the place was already jumping.

      My friend took two long snorts from the leather covered flask he carried in the inside pocket of his sport coat as soon as we sat down in our booth. “Look over there, Jake; by the door.” I turned my head and saw a portly young man that was dressed to the nines talking to the host. “That’s Roscoe Arbuckle, better known as Fatty Arbuckle. In the old days before the scandal he acted in some of Fred Fishbach’s pictures at Century. Two years ago the guy even signed a million-dollar deal. That was before this fickle town tried to crucify him. But people don’t know the real scuttlebutt.”

      “What are you talking about?” I asked.

      “Well, I’m sure you read about the drunken party in San Francisco and the starlet who supposedly died after Arbuckle raped her.”

      I nodded. Even though I was just fourteen when all that happened, and my parents tried their best to shield me from such things, that story got a lot of play in the papers, even in a small town like El Paso.

      “Well, that’s not what happened,” Meyers continued. “That girl died as a result of a female medical procedure.”

      “A female medical procedure?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

      “Do you know what an abortion is, Jake?”

      “That girl had an abortion?” I asked. My big brother had told me about abortions but that was the first time I ever heard of anyone actually having one.

      “She had a botched abortion that led to an awful infection that killed her. And rather than bring that to light, they sold Roscoe down the river. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

      I looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of him being seated at a table. Despite believing I knew the score, I was still pretty naive in those days, so I was stunned to hear about the dark side of Hollywood. I kept glancing at the fallen star but doing my best to not stare.

      “People forget Arbuckle was acquitted. To the public and many people in this business, he’s still guilty as sin. One more thing: at the trial, your director, Fred Fishbach, was the only one in this town with balls enough to testify for Arbuckle as a character witness,” Meyers continued.

      I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that about Fishbach’s character. You could just feel how solid he was by working with him. I wanted to work with him again soon. I’m sad to tell you that within a few years, Fishbach, who was only thirty-six, died from cancer.

      Meyers and I sat in silence for a few minutes.

      “I feel like a tourist,” I admitted, unabashedly excited to spot a famous movie actor, albeit one with a tarnished reputation.

      “Jake, if you look down this row to the booth at the very back of the restaurant, there’s Charlie Chaplin and Paola Negri sitting together,” Meyers said, picking up on my comment.

      Nonchalantly, I turned around and, in the far corner of the room, saw a non-descript man with curly brown hair sitting with a woman whose features were obscured by a cloche.

      “Chaplain; wow! Ever since I saw him in The Little Tramp, I’ve been a big fan.” I was tempted to get up, walk over, and ask the funny man for his autograph. I can’t wait until I tell Ben and Myer about this. They’ll never believe it. In all my years in Hollywood I don’t think I ever totally got over being starstruck.

      “I just love this place,” Meyers said as he took another drink of gin. “Bottoms up,” he added, knocking back what was left in the flask. I took a swig of my root beer. “The studio is having a party at the end of the month at the Ambassador. Once you’ve got two more pictures under your belt, you’re sure to be invited.”

      “I’m . . . I’m not so sure . . .”

      I wasn’t at all certain I’d be in Hollywood long enough for that to happen. First off, I wasn’t convinced there would be a second movie. And if I was to really have a career in pictures, the very thought of going to an adult Hollywood party caused me skyrockets of forbidden fantasy and guilty crash landings. Visions of too much whiskey, wild flappers dancing on top of pianos, and a late-night phone call to Mama and Papa from the Hollywood Police filled my head.

      “We have your son in solitary confinement,” the imaginary officer said in an Irish brogue. “It took a division of our best to bring him in. He’s looking at thirty to life.”

      A waiter in a white waist-length coat put a delicious-looking hamburger and hash browns in front of me and a plate with parsley-covered Dover sole and scalloped potatoes in front of Meyers. I was thankful to be awakened from my daydream by a luscious-looking lunch.

      You may have noticed that I talk about food a lot. That may have come from having parents who grew up so impoverished they never had enough to eat. Then again, it may be because I was raised in west Texas at the turn of the century in a family that could barely make ends meet. For us, eating in fancy restaurants was something we just didn’t do. That’s not to mention that my appetite was fueled by the fact that I was growing like crazy.

      You can see why I picked up that scrumptious hamburger like it was a fragile thing of beauty, but after I savored the taste of just one bite, I put the burger back on my plate. I was surprised, but at that moment something was more important than eating. I couldn’t wait any longer; I had to talk about Stern’s comment.

      “Mr. Meyers . . . ”

      “Come on, Jake . . . call me Zion.”

      “Okay, Zion, I think . . . I think,” I stuttered nervously, “I think we’re putting the cart before the horse.”

      “What do you mean?” asked Meyers as he put down his fork.

      “Well, before the accident I told you that I was worried about Stern. Is he . . . is he . . . is he going to fire me?”

      Meyers listened

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