A Stranger in the Mirror

Chapter 9

Actors West was divided into two sections: the Showcase group, which consisted of the more experienced actors, and the Workshop group. It was the Showcase actors who staged plays that were covered by the studio talent scouts. Toby had been put with the Workshop actors. Alice Tanner had told him that it might be six months to a year before he would be ready for a Showcase play.
Toby found the classes interesting, but the magic ingredient was missing: the audience, the applauders, the laughers, the people who would adore him.
In the weeks since Toby had begun classes, he had seen very little of the head of the school. Occasionally, Alice Tanner would drop into the Workshop to watch improvisations and give a word of encouragement, or Toby would run into her on his way to class. But he had hoped for something more intimate. He found himself thinking about Alice Tanner a great deal. She was what Toby thought of as a classy dame, and that appealed to him; he felt it was what he deserved. The idea of her crippled leg had bothered him at first, but it had slowly begun to take on a sexual fascination.
Toby talked to her again about putting him in a Showcase play where the critics and talent scouts could see him.
"You're not ready yet," Alice Tanner told him.
She was standing in his way, keeping him from his success. I have to do something about that, Toby decided.
A Showcase play was being staged, and on the opening night Toby was seated in a middle row next to a student named Karen, a fat little character actress from his class. Toby had played scenes with Karen, and he knew two things about her: she never wore underclothes and she had bad breath. She had done everything but send up smoke signals to let Toby know that she wanted to go to bed with him, but he had pretended not to understand. Jesus, he thought, fucking her would be like being sucked into a tub of hot lard.
As they sat there waiting for the curtain to go up, Karen excitedly pointed out the critics from the Los Angeles Times and Herald-Express, and the talent scouts from Twentieth Century-Fox, MGM and Warner Brothers. It enraged Toby. They were here to see the actors up on the stage, while he sat in the audience like a dummy. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to stand up and do one of his routines, dazzle them, show them what real talent looked like.
The audience enjoyed the play, but Toby was obsessed with the talent scouts, who sat within touching distance, the men who held his future in their hands. Well, if Actors West was the lure to bring them to him, Toby would use it; but he had no intention of waiting six months, or even six weeks.
The following morning, Toby went to Alice Tanner's office.
"How did you like the play?" she asked.
"It was wonderful," Toby said. "Those actors are really great." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I see what you mean when you say I'm not ready yet."
"They've had more experience than you, that's all, but you have a unique personality. You're going to make it. Just be patient."
He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'd be better off forgetting the whole thing and selling insurance or something."
She looked at him in quick surprise. "You mustn't," she said.
Toby shook his head. "After seeing those pros last night, I - I don't think I have it."
"Of course you have, Toby. I won't let you talk like that."
In her voice was the note he had been waiting to hear. It was not a teacher talking to a pupil now, it was a woman talking to a man, encouraging him, caring about him. Toby felt a small thrill of satisfaction.
He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, anymore. I'm all alone in this town. I have no one to talk to."
"You can always talk to me, Toby. I'd like to be your friend."
He could hear the sexual huskiness come into her voice. Toby's blue eyes held all the wonder in the world as he gazed at her. As she watched him, he walked over and locked the office door. He returned to her, fell on his knees, buried his head in her lap and, as her fingers touched his hair, he slowly lifted her skirt, exposing the poor thigh encased in the cruel steel brace. Gently removing the brace, he tenderly kissed the red marks left by the steel bars. Slowly, he unfastened her garter belt, all the time telling Alice of his love and his need for her, and kissed his way down to the moist lips exposed before him. He carried her to the deep leather couch and made love to her.
That evening, Toby moved in with Alice Tanner.
In bed that night, Toby found that Alice Tanner was a pitiful lonely woman, desperate for someone to talk to, someone to love. She had been born in Boston. Her father was a wealthy manufacturer who had given her a large allowance and paid no further attention to her. Alice had loved the theater and had studied to be an actress, but in college she had contracted polio and that had put an end to her dream. She told Toby how it had affected her life. The boy she was engaged to had jilted her when he learned the news. Alice had left home and married a psychiatrist, who committed suicide six months later. It was as though all her emotions had been bottled up inside her. Now they poured out in a violent eruption that left her feeling drained and peaceful and marvelously content.
Toby made love to Alice until she almost fainted with ecstasy, filling her with his huge penis and making slow circles with his hips until he seemed to be touching every part of her body. She moaned, "Oh, darling, I love you so much. Oh, God, how I love this!"
But when it came to school, Toby found that he had no influence with Alice. He talked to her about putting him in the next Showcase play, introducing him to casting directors, speaking to important studio people about him, but she was firm. "You'll hurt yourself if you push too fast, darling. Rule one: the first impression you make is the most important. If they don't like you the first time, they'll never go back to see you a second time. You've got to be ready."
The instant the words were out, she became The Enemy. She was against him. Toby swallowed his fury and forced himself to smile at her. "Sure. It's just that I'm impatient. I want to make it for you as much as for me."
"Do you? Oh, Toby, I love you so much!"
"I love you, too, Alice." And he smiled into her adoring eyes. He knew he had to circumvent this bitch who was standing in the way of what he wanted. He hated her and he punished her.
When they went to bed, he made her do things she had never done before, things he had never asked a whore to do, using her mouth and her fingers and her tongue. He pushed her further and further, forcing her into a series of humiliations. And each time he got her to do something more degrading, he would praise her, the way one praises a dog for learning a new trick, and she would be happy because she had pleased him. And the more he degraded her, the more degraded he felt. He was punishing himself, and he had not the faintest idea why.
Toby had a plan in mind, and his chance to put it into action came sooner than he had anticipated. Alice Tanner announced that the Workshop class was going to put on a private show for the advanced classes and their guests on the following Friday. Each student could choose his own project. Toby prepared a monologue and rehearsed it over and over.
On the morning of the show, Toby waited until class was over and walked up to Karen, the fat actress who had sat next to him during the play. "Would you do me a favor?" he asked casually.
"Sure, Toby." Her voice was surprised and eager.
Toby stepped back to get away from her breath. "I'm pulling a gag on an old friend of mine. I want you to telephone Clifton Lawrence's secretary and tell her you're Sam Goldwyn's secretary, and that Mr. Goldwyn would like Mr. Lawrence to come to the show tonight to see a brilliant new comic. There'll be a ticket waiting at the box office."
Karen stared at him. "Jesus, old lady Tanner would have my head. You know she never allows outsiders at the Workshop shows."
"Believe me, it'll be all right." He took her arm and squeezed it. "You busy this afternoon?"
She swallowed, her breath coming a little faster. "No - not if you'd like to do something."
"I'd like to do something."
Three hours later, an ecstatic Karen made the phone call.
The auditorium was filled with actors from the various classes and their guests, but the only person Toby had eyes for was the man who sat in an aisle seat in the third row. Toby had been in a panic, fearful that his ruse would not work. Surely a man as clever as Clifton Lawrence would see through the trick. But he had not. He was here.
A boy and girl were on stage now, doing a scene from The Sea Gull. Toby hoped they would not drive Clifton Lawrence out of the theater. Finally, the scene was finished, and the actors took their bows and left the stage.
It was Toby's turn. Alice suddenly appeared at his side in the wings, whispering, "Good luck, darling," unaware that his luck was sitting in the audience.
"Thanks, Alice." Toby breathed a silent prayer, straightened his shoulders, bounced out on stage and smiled boyishly at the audience. "Hello, there. I'm Toby Temple. Hey, did you ever stop to think about names, and how our parents choose them? It's crazy. I asked my mother why she named me Toby. She said she took one look at my mug, and that was it."
His look was what got the laugh. Toby appeared so innocent and wistful, standing up there on that stage, that they loved him. The jokes he told were terrible, but somehow that did not matter. He was so vulnerable that they wanted to protect him, and they did it with their applause and their laughter. It was like a gift of love that flowed into Toby, filling him with an almost unbearable exhilaration. He was Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, and Cagney was saying, "You dirty rat! Who do you think you're giving orders to?"
And Robinson's, "To you, you punk. I'm Little Caesar. I'm the boss. You're nuthin'. Do you know what that means?"
"Yeah, you dirty rat. You're the boss of nuthin'."
A roar. The audience adored Toby.
Bogart was there, snarling, "I'd spit in your eye, punk, if my lip wasn't stuck over my teeth."
And the audience was enchanted.
Toby gave them his Peter Lorre. "I saw this little girl in her room, playing with it, and I got excited. I don't know what came over me. I couldn't help myself. I crept into her room, and I pulled the rope tighter and tighter, and I broke her yo-yo."
A big laugh. He was rolling.
He switched over to Laurel and Hardy, and a movement in the audience caught his eye and he glanced up. Clifton Lawrence was walking out of the theater.
The rest of the evening was a blur to Toby.
When the show was over, Alice Tanner came up to Toby. "You were wonderful, darling! I..."
He could not bear to look at her, to have anyone look at him. He wanted to be alone with his misery, to try to cope with the pain that was tearing him apart. His world had collapsed around him. He had had his chance, and he had failed. Clifton Lawrence had walked out on him, had not even waited for him to finish. Clifton Lawrence was a man who knew talent, a professional who handled the best. If Lawrence did not think Toby had anything...He felt sick to his stomach.
"I'm going for a walk," he said to Alice.
He walked down Vine Street and Gower, past Columbia Pictures and RKO and Paramount. All the gates were locked. He walked along Hollywood Boulevard and looked up at the huge mocking sign on the hill that said, "HOLLYWOODLAND." There was no Hollywoodland. It was a state of mind, a phony dream that lured thousands of otherwise normal people into the insanity of trying to become a star. The word Hollywood had become a lodestone for miracles, a trap that seduced people with wonderful promises, siren songs of dreams fulfilled, and then destroyed them.
Toby walked the streets all night long, wondering what he was going to do with his life. His faith in himself had been shattered and he felt rootless and adrift. He had never imagined himself doing anything other than entertaining people, and if he could not do that, all that was left for him were dull, monotonous jobs where he would be caged up for the rest of his life. Mr. Anonymous. No one would ever know who he was. He thought of the long, dreary years, the bitter loneliness of the thousand nameless towns, of the people who had applauded him and laughed at him and loved him. Toby wept. He wept for the past and for the future.
He wept because he was dead.
It was dawn when Toby returned to the white stucco bungalow he shared with Alice. He walked into the bedroom and looked down at her sleeping figure. He had thought that she would be the open sesame to the magic kingdom. Not for him. He would leave. He had no idea where he would go. He was almost twenty-seven years old and he had no future.
He lay down on the couch, exhausted. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city stirring into life. The morning sounds of cities are the same, and he thought of Detroit. His mother. She was standing in the kitchen cooking apple tarts for him. He could smell her wonderful musky female odor mingled with the smell of apples cooking in butter, and she was saying, God wants you to be famous.
He was standing alone on an enormous stage, blinded by floodlights, trying to remember his lines. He tried to speak but he had lost his voice. He grew panicky. There was a great rumbling noise from the audience, and through the blinding lights Toby could see the spectators leaving their seats and running toward the stage to attack him, to kill him. Their love had turned to hate. They were surrounding him, grabbing him, chanting, "Toby! Toby! Toby!"
Toby suddenly jerked awake, his mouth dry with fright. Alice Tanner was leaning over him, shaking him.
"Toby! Telephone. It's Clifton Lawrence."
Clifton Lawrence's office was in a small, elegant building on Beverly Drive, just south of Wilshire. French Impressionist paintings hung from the carved boiserie, and before the dark green marble fireplace a sofa and some antique chairs were grouped around an exquisite tea table. Toby had never seen anything like it.
A shapely, redheaded secretary was pouring tea. "How do you like your tea, Mr. Temple?"
Mr. Temple! "One sugar, please."
"There you are." A little smile and she was gone.
Toby did not know that the tea was a special blend imported from Fortnum and Mason, nor that it was steeping in Irish Baleek, but he knew it tasted wonderful. In fact, everything about this office was wonderful, especially the dapper little man who sat in an armchair studying him. Clifton Lawrence was smaller than Toby had expected, but he radiated a sense of authority and power.
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate your seeing me," Toby said. "I'm sorry I had to trick you into - "
Clifton Lawrence threw his head back and laughed. "Trick me? I had lunch with Goldwyn yesterday. I went to watch you last night because I wanted to see if your talent matched your nerve. It did."
"But you walked out - " Toby exclaimed.
"Dear boy, you don't have to eat the entire jar of caviar to know it's good, right? I knew what you had in sixty seconds."
Toby felt that sense of euphoria building up in him again. After the black despair of the night before, to be lifted to the heights like this, to have his life handed back to him -
"I have a hunch about you, Temple," Clifton Lawrence said. "I think it would be exciting to take someone young and build his career. I've decided to take you on as a client."
The feeling of joy was exploding inside Toby. He wanted to stand up and scream aloud. Clifton Lawrence was going to be his agent!
"...handle you on one condition," Clifton Lawrence was saying. "That you do exactly as I tell you. I don't stand for temperament. You step out of line just once, and we're finished. Do you understand?"
Toby nodded quickly. "Yes, sir. I understand."
"The first thing you have to do is face the truth." He smiled at Toby and said, "Your act is terrible. Definitely bottom drawer."
It was as though Toby had been kicked in the stomach. Clifton Lawrence had brought him here to punish him for that stupid phone call; he was not going to handle him. He...
But the little agent continued. "Last night was amateur night, and that's what you are - an amateur." Clifton Lawrence rose from his chair and began to pace. "I'm going to tell you what you have, and I'm going to tell you what you need to become a star."
Toby sat there.
"Let's start with your material," Clifton said. "You could put butter and salt on it and peddle it in theater lobbies."
"Yes, sir. Well, some of it might be a little corny, but - "
"Next. You have no style."
Toby felt his hands begin to clench. "The audience seemed to - "
"Next. You don't know how to move. You're a lox."
Toby said nothing.
The little agent walked over to him, looked down and said softly, reading Toby's mind, "If you're so bad, what are you doing here? You're here because you've got something that money can't buy. When you stand up on that stage, the audience wants to eat you up. They love you. Do you have any idea how much that could be worth?"
Toby took a deep breath and sat back. "Tell me."
"More than you could ever dream. With the right material and the proper kind of handling, you can be a star."
Toby sat there, basking in the warm glow of Clifton Lawrence's words, and it was as though everything Toby had done all his life had led to this moment, as though he were already a star, and it had all happened. Just as his mother had promised him.
"The key to an entertainer's success is personality," Clifton Lawrence was saying. "You can't buy it and you can't fake it. You have to be born with it. You're one of the lucky ones, dear boy." He glanced at the gold Piaget watch on his wrist. "I've set up a meeting for you with O'Hanlon and Rainger at two o'clock. They're the best comedy writers in the business. They work for all the top comics."
Toby said nervously, "I'm afraid I haven't much mon - "
Clifton Lawrence dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Not to worry, dear boy. You'll pay me back later."
Long after Toby Temple had left, Clifton Lawrence sat there thinking about him, smiling to himself at that wide-eyed innocent face and those trusting, guileless blue eyes. It had been many years since Clifton had represented an unknown. All his clients were important stars, and every studio fought for their services. The excitement had long since gone. The early days had been more fun, more stimulating. It would be a challenge to take this raw, young kid and develop him, build him into a hot property. Clifton had a feeling that he was really going to enjoy this experience. He liked the boy. He liked him very much, indeed.
The meeting took place at the Twentieth Century-Fox studio on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles, where O'Hanlon and Rainger had their offices. Toby had expected something lavish, on the order of Clifton Lawrence's suite, but the writers' quarters were drab and dingy, located in a small wooden bungalow on the lot.
An untidy, middle-aged secretary in a cardigan ushered Toby into the inner office. The walls were a dirty apple-green, and the only adornment was a battered dart board and a "PLAN AHEAD" sign with the last three letters squeezed together. A broken venetian blind partially filtered out the sun's rays that fell across a dirty brown carpet worn down to the canvas. There were two scarred desks, back to back, each littered with papers and pencils and half-empty cartons of cold coffee.
"Hi, Toby. Excuse the mess. It's the maid's day off," O'Hanlon greeted him. "I'm O'Hanlon." He indicated his partner. "This is - er - ?"
"Rainger."
"Ah, yes. This is Rainger."
O'Hanlon was large and rotund and wore horn-rimmed glasses. Rainger was small and frail. Both men were in their early thirties and had been a successful writing team for ten years. In all the time that Toby was to work with them, he always referred to them as "the boys."
Toby said, "I understand you fellas are going to write some jokes for me."
O'Hanlon and Rainger exchanged a look. Rainger said, "Cliff Lawrence thinks you might be America's new sex symbol. Let's see what you can do. Have you got an act?"
"Sure," Toby replied. He remembered what Clifton had said about it. Suddenly, he felt diffident.
The two writers sat down on the couch and crossed their arms.
"Entertain us," O'Hanlon said.
Toby looked at them. "Just like that?"
"What would you like?" Rainger asked. "An introduction from a sixty-piece orchestra?" He turned to O'Hanlon "Get the music department on the phone."
You prick, thought Toby. You're on my shit list, both of you. He knew what they were trying to do. They were trying to make him look bad so that they could go back to Clifton Lawrence and say, We can't help him. He's a stiff. Well, he was not going to let them get away with it. He put on a smile he did not feel, and went into his Abbott and Costello routine. "Hey Lou, ain't you ashamed of yourself? You're turnin' into a bum. Why don't you go out and get yourself a job?"
"I got a job."
"What kind of job?"
"Lookin' for work."
"You call that a job?"
"Certainly. It keeps me busy all day, I got regular hours, and I'm home in time for dinner every night."
The two of them were studying Toby now, weighing him, analyzing him, and in the middle of his routine they began talking, as though Toby were not in the room.
"He doesn't know how to stand."
"He uses his hands like he's chopping wood. Maybe we could write a woodchopper act for him."
"He pushes too hard."
"Jesus, with that material - wouldn't you?"
Toby was getting more upset by the moment. He did not have to stay here and be insulted by these two maniacs. Their material was probably lousy anyway.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. He stopped, his voice trembling with rage. "I don't need you bastards! Thanks for the hospitality." He started for the door.
Rainger stood up in genuine amazement. "Hey! What's the matter with you?"
Toby turned on him in fury. "What the fuck do you think is the matter? You - you - " He was so frustrated, he was on the verge of tears.
Rainger turned to look at O'Hanlon in bewilderment. "We must have hurt his feelings."
"Golly."
Toby took a deep breath. "Look, you two. I don't care if you don't like me, but - "
"We love you!" O'Hanlon exclaimed.
"We think you're darling!" Rainger chimed in.
Toby looked from one to the other in complete bafflement. "What? You acted like - "
"You know your trouble, Toby? You're insecure. Relax. Sure, you've got a lot to learn, but on the other hand, if you were Bob Hope, you wouldn't be here."
O'Hanlon added, "And do you know why? Because Bob's up in Carmel today."
"Playing golf. Do you play golf?" Rainger asked.
"No."
The two writers looked at each other in dismay. "There go all the golf jokes. Shit!"
O'Hanlon picked up the telephone. "Bring in some coffee, will you, Zsa Zsa?" He put down the phone and turned to Toby. "Do you know how many would-be comics there are in this quaint little business we're in?"
Toby shook his head.
"I can tell you exactly. Three billion seven hundred and twenty-eight million, as of six o'clock last night. And that's not including Milton Berle's brother. When there's a full moon, they all crawl out of the woodwork. There are only half a dozen really top comics. The others will never make it. Comedy is the most serious business in the world. It's goddamned hard work being funny, whether you're a comic or a comedian."
"What's the difference?"
"A big one. A comic opens funny doors. A comedian opens doors funny."
Rainger asked, "Did you ever stop to think what makes one comedian a smash and another a failure?"
"Material," Toby said, wanting to flatter them.
"Buffalo shit. The last new joke was invented by Aristophanes. Jokes are basically all the same. George Burns can tell six jokes that the guy on the bill ahead of him just told, and Burns will get bigger laughs. Do you know why? Personality." It was what Clifton Lawrence had told him. "Without it, you're nothing, nobody. You start with a personality and you turn it into a character. Take Hope. If he came out and did a Jack Benny monologue, he'd bomb. Why? Because he's built up a character. That's what the audiences expect from him. When Hope walks out, they want to hear those rapid-fire jokes. He's a likeable smart-ass, the big city fellow who gets his lumps. Jack Benny - just the opposite. He woudn't know what to do with a Bob Hope monologue, but he can take a two-minute pause and make an audience scream. Each of the Marx Brothers has his own character. Fred Allen is unique. That brings us to you. Do you know your problem, Toby? You're a little of everybody. You're imitating all the big boys. Well, that's great if you want to play Elks smokers for the rest of your life. But if you want to move up into the big time, you've got to create a character of your own. When you're out on that stage, before you even open your mouth, the audience has to know that it's Toby Temple up there. Do you read me?"
"Yes."
O'Hanlon took over. "Do you know what you've got, Toby? A lovable face. If I weren't already engaged to Clark Gable, I'd be crazy about you. There's a naive sweetness about you. If you package it right, it could be worth a fucking fortune."
"To say nothing of a fortune in fucking," Rainger chimed in.
"You can get away with things that the other boys can't. It's like a choirboy saying four-letter words - it's cute because you don't believe he really understands what he's saying. When you walked in here, you asked if we were the fellows who were going to write your jokes. The answer is no. This isn't a joke shop. What we are going to do is show you what you've got and how to use it. We're going to tailor a character for you. Well - what do you say?"
Toby looked from one to the other, grinned happily and said, "Let's roll up our sleeves and go to work."
Every day after that, Toby had lunch with O'Hanlon and Rainger at the studio. The Twentieth Century-Fox commissary was an enormous room filled with wall-to-wall stars. On any given day, Toby could see Tyrone Power and Loretta Young and Betty Grable and Don Ameche and Alice Faye and Richard Widmark and Victor Mature and the Ritz Brothers, and dozens of others. Some were seated at tables in the large room, and others ate in the smaller executive dining room which adjoined the main commissary. Toby loved watching them all. In a short time, he would be one of them, people would be asking for his autograph. He was on his way, and he was going to be bigger than any of them.
Alice Tanner was thrilled by what was happening to Toby. "I know you're going to make it, darling. I'm so proud of you."
Toby smiled at her and said nothing.
Toby and O'Hanlon and Rainger had long discussions about the new character Toby was to be.
"He should think he's a sophisticated man of the world," O'Hanlon said. "But every time he comes to bat, he lays an egg."
"What's his job?" asked Rainger. "Mixing metaphors?"
"This character should live with his mother. He's in love with a girl, but he's afraid to leave home to marry her. He's been engaged to her for five years."
"Ten is a funnier number."
"Right! Make it ten years. His mother shouldn't happen to a dog. Every time Toby wants to get married, his mother develops a new disease. Time Magazine calls her every week to find out what's happening in medicine."
Toby sat there listening, fascinated by the fast flow of dialogue. He had never worked with real professionals before, and he enjoyed it. Particularly since he was the center of attention. It took O'Hanlon and Rainger three weeks to write an act for Toby. When they finally showed it to him, he was thrilled. It was good. He made a few suggestions, they added and threw out some lines, and Toby Temple was ready. Clifton Lawrence sent for him.
"You're opening Saturday night at the Bowling Ball."
Toby stared at him. He had had expectations of being booked into Ciro's or the Trocadero. "What's - what's the Bowling Ball?"
"A little club on south Western Avenue."
Toby's face fell. "I never heard of it."
"And they never heard of you. That's the point, dear boy. If you should bomb there, no one will ever know it."
Except Clifton Lawrence.
The Bowling Ball was a dump. There was no other word to describe it. It was a duplicate of ten thousand other sleazy little bars scattered throughout the country, a watering hole for losers. Toby had played there a thousand times, in a thousand cities. The patrons were mostly middle-aged males, blue-collar workers idulging in their ritual get-together with their buddies, ogling the tired waitresses in their tight skirts and low-cut blouses, exchanging dirty jokes over a shot of cheap whiskey or a glass of beer. The floor show took place in a small cleared area at the far end of the room, where three bored musicians played. A homosexual singer opened the show, followed by an acrobatic dancer in a leotard, and then a stripper who worked with a somnolent cobra.
Toby sat at a table in the back of the room with Clifton Lawrence and O'Hanlon and Rainger, watching the other acts, listening to the audience, trying to gauge its mood.
"Beer drinkers," Toby said contemptuously.
Clifton started to retort, then looked at Toby's face and checked himself. Toby was scared. Clifton knew that Toby had played places like this before, but this time was different. This was the test.
Clifton said gently, "If you can put the beer drinkers in your pocket, the champagne crowd will be a pushover. These people work hard all day, Toby. When they go out at night, they want their nickel's worth. If you can make them laugh, you can make anyone laugh."
At that moment, Toby heard the bored MC announce his name.
"Give 'em hell, tiger!" O'Hanlon said.
Toby was on.
He stood on the stage, on guard and tense, appraising the audience like a wary animal sniffing for danger in a forest.
An audience was a beast with a hundred heads, each one different; and he had to make the beast laugh. He took a deep breath. Love me, he prayed.
He went into his act.
And no one was listening to him. No one was laughing. Toby could feel the flop sweat begin to pop out on his forehead. The act was not working. He kept his smile pasted on and went on talking over the loud noise and conversation. He could not get their attention. They wanted the naked broads back. They had been exposed on too many Saturday nights to too many talentless, unfunny comedians. Toby kept talking, in the face of their indifference. He went on because there was nothing else he could do. He looked out and saw Clifton Lawrence and the boys, watching him with worried expressions.
Toby continued. There was no audience in the room, just people, talking to one another, discussing their problems and their lives. For all they cared, Toby Temple could have been a million miles away. Or dead. His throat was dry now with fear, and it was becoming hard to get the words out. From the corner of his eye, Toby saw the manager start toward the bandstand. He was going to begin the music, pull the plug on him. It was all over. Toby's palms were wet and his bowels had turned to water. He could feel hot urine trickle down his leg. He was so nervous that he was beginning to mix up his words. He did not dare look at Clifton Lawrence or the writers. He was too filled with shame. The manager was at the bandstand, talking to the musicians. They glanced over at Toby and nodded. Toby went on, talking desperately, wanting it to be over, wanting to run away somewhere and hide.
A middle-aged woman seated at a table directly in front of Toby giggled at one of his jokes. Her companions stopped to listen. Toby kept talking, in a frenzy. The others at the table were listening now, laughing. And then the next table.
And the next. And, slowly, the talking began to die down. They were listening to him. The laughs were starting to come, long and regular, and they were getting bigger, and building. And building. The people in the room had become an audience. And he had them. He fucking had them! It no longer mattered that he was in a cheap saloon filled with beer-drinking slobs. What mattered was their laughter, and their love. It came out at Toby in waves. First he had them laughing, then he had them screaming. They had never heard anything like him, not in this crummy place, not anywhere. They applauded and they cheered and before they were through, they damned near tore the place apart. They were witnessing the birth of a phenomenon. Of course, they could not know that. But Clifton Lawrence and O'Hanlon and Rainger knew it. And Toby Temple knew it.
God had finally come through.
Reverend Damian shoved the blazing torch into Josephine's face and screamed, "O God Almighty, burn away the evil in this sinful child," and the congregation roared "Amen!" And Josephine could feel the flame licking at her face and the Reverend Damian yelled out, "Help this sinner exorcise the Devil, O God. We will pray him out, we will burn him out, we will drown him out," and hands grabbed Josephine, and her face was suddenly plunged into a wooden tub of cold water, and she was held under while voices chanted into the night air, beseeching the Almighty One for His help, and Josephine struggled to get loose, fighting for breath, and when they finally pulled her out, half-conscious, the Reverend Damian declared. "We thank you, sweet Jesus, for your mercy. She is saved! She is saved!" And there was great rejoicing, and everyone was raised in spirit. Except Josephine, whose headaches became worse.