The Autograph Man Read online

  “I’m sorry? I don’t under—”

  “Look, if you don’t want to do business in my fashion, then we don’t need to waste each other’s time, do we? I thought I made that clear on the telephone yesterday.”

  Alex was as intimidated as he could ever remember being. He shrank in his chair and discreetly clutched the tablecloth. “No, you misunderstand—”

  “I like,” she said, firmly, “to get the jokes and the curiosity out of the way before the business starts, because when I do business I do not enjoy comedy.”

  Honey brought back her chair, looking him dead straight in the eyes, like a cowboy. Alex had the sense that she had made all these gestures, in the same order, many times before. Either that, or she had seen them in a film.

  She said: “So before you ask, the answers are: about average; cut; he approached me, twenty-five dollars for the whole thing; and no, I never made much money out of it in the end. Why the hell would I be doing this if I did? As for this, I always been a movie fan, and I just kind fell into autograph work, and here I am. So. Business now?” she asked wearily, lifting a large black folder from her lap. “I’m sure the other guys have already told you, but the rules are, One, no touching any of the product, unless you’re wearing gloves, which I can provide to you; Two, if you give me cash that you’ve touched with your hands, which I’m presuming you have, I’ll have to spray it, and if it’s a lot of cash, I’d appreciate it if you helped me; Three, when I’m handling your items—”

  She stopped and lifted her eyes from the spot on the table where she had been encircling her points with a rubber finger. Alex was nodding in that meek English way, quickly and about nothing.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  Alex opened his mouth, couldn’t think where to begin, and closed it again.

  “Hey. Ohhh . . .”

  She raised an eyebrow as her face passed rapidly through suspicion, to recognition, to something like humorous regret. “You got no damn idea who I am. Am I right?”

  “You’re Ms. Richardson,” said Alex slowly. It was his even-toned voice, designed for the deaf, disabled, insane, irretrievably foreign. “I sold you a Flowers McCrae—a two-reeler contract she signed, dated 1927? Last month, I think it was. And some cigarette cards featuring the Wheelerettes. And a lot of different things last October. I’m Alex-Li Tandem.” He reached for his card. “I hope that’s not—I mean, oh Jesus,” he said, rising in his chair, instantly red at the possibility that it was he and not she who had a problem, “tell me I’m at the right table—”

  She opened her eyes wide, smiled, took his card and motioned for him to sit.

  “You’re fine, you’re fine. I know who you are. See, I forget,” she said, looking across the room and hailing a waiter with a quick finger, “that not everybody spends all their damn lives reading the papers. I’m gonna order us an English tea. I’m sorry I was so . . .”

  The sentence got lost in a movement of her hands, a quiet bouncing gesture, as if she were weighing two identical packets of flour.

  “Anyway, anyway,” she said, almost to herself. She picked up a bottle of water and filled both their glasses. “Damn. We should start again. I’m Honey and you’re Alex-Li. Hello, Alex-Li.”

  She smiled. She had a lot of teeth. She offered him the black rubber again. He shook it.

  “Just, it’s usually the English who’re the worse. One woman I met in Mar Lee Bone—is that how you say it? I always get those tube things mixed up—Mary-Lee Bone?”

  Alex corrected her. She tried it out twice, gave up with a little sigh.

  “However you say it, but I was there on business, minding my own damn business, too—this bitch spat right in my face. In the middle of the street.”

  “Christ—I’m sorry,” said Alex, and concluded that he had just had a long and unusually opaque conversation about racism. It was at this point he began to feel more comfortable. It was like reaching the twenty-seventh minute of a French film, the point at which he usually began to have some hazy idea of what was going on.

  “What you sorry about?” said Honey with a frown, and opened the folder. “You didn’t do nothing. Shall we?”

  Honey pushed an Erich von Stroheim towards him, a good studio portrait, signed boldly, in excellent condition, a quality autograph item. It was the first thing Alex had truly understood since he sat down. He moved to touch it, but she snatched it away. “Let me explain again. You can’t touch nothing of mine, until it’s definitely yours. If you want this, and you’re sure, then take it, but if you change your mind I’ll have to spray it, which is a little tiresome, you know?”

  Alex didn’t know.

  “If you’re worried about germs or something—” he began, amazed; she cut him short with a low growl.

  “I know, I know, you ain’t got cooties, right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Everybody’s; got cooties. You better take these gloves.”

  It was a bewildering hour. Whenever he decided on an item, she would take the cash and leave with it, heading for the bathroom. When she returned, the money seemed to glisten—it had a funny smell. At one point Alex’s forearm brushed Honey’s. She leapt from her chair. It was twenty minutes before she came back, smelling like a hospital corridor and with a wild, exhausted look in her eye.

  “I guess you know,” she said, on her return from the bathroom, holding his freshly slick money, “the definition of a movie producer.”

  “Uh-uh, no. Tell me.”

  “A man who knows what he wants but don’t know how to spell it.”

  “That’s good, funny,” said Alex, laughing through a mouthful of scone. She had that disinterested charm that Alex envied in people whenever he came across it. The talent of not caring what is thought of you. He watched his own new rubber hands reaching up to his face as if someone else were feeding him.

  “Hmm, it’s okay. My favorite’s Sam Goldwyn, though. He had all the zingers. This one time, he had some foreign actress in his office, and she was hassling him about making more political movies—”

  “Look, sugar,” broke in Alex, accent and everything, “pictures are for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union. I like that one, too. I’m sure it’s apocryphal.”

  “Come again?” Honey was glaring at him as if he had broken a trust between them. “You’re sure it’s what?”

  “No—sorry—all I meant was—he probably never said it . . . like a, you know, Play it again, Sam—just a saying, that’s all.”

  “Oh . . .”

  She lowered her head and looked up from beneath her brow—a soulful, penetrating stare, like a blues singer finding her note.

  “Why don’t you just say that, then? I hate people who talk like they swallowed a dictionary.”

  “Me too. Sorry. Point taken.”

  “See her?”

  She pointed to one from the pile Alex had just sold her—a box full of random items he had picked up at Jimmy’s Antiques and barely looked through. Just put a $500 tag on it and called it a collection.

  “Know who she is?”

  “Theda . . . Bara,” said Alex, and he had to dig for the name. “Vamp? Silent vamp?”

  “Yeah, that’s it—her name was like Arab Death, but all switched around—what do you call that again?”

  “An anagram?”

  “Yes, Mr. Dictionary, anagram. And she was born in the shadow of the Sphinx, weaned on serpent’s blood. According to the publicity. She was supposed to be sex on legs. Hard to believe.”

  Together, they looked at the photo. A plain, big woman with heavily kohled eyes and pudgy arms. A suffocating asp pressed to her bosom.

  “Her real name was Theodosia Goodman,” said Honey, perfectly deadpan. “The woman was from Cincinnati. She was fat-faced, with bad circulation. When her folks in Ohio heard she was born by the Nile, they were pretty damn surprised.”

  Alex laughed gleefully.

  “See? I know things too. And Miss Beavers here”—Honey poi
nted to the photo of Louise Beavers, whom Alex dimly recognized as the black maid from a dozen movies—“she wasn’t fat naturally, so she had to eat all the time, you know, to get fat? She wasn’t Southern, either, so she had to fake a Southern accent, and when she played Aunt Delilah someone had to teach that poor bitch to make flapjacks.”

  “Really?” said Alex, truly beginning to enjoy himself. “Seems a lot of work. Couldn’t they have just hired a fat black Southern woman? I mean, if that’s what they wanted.”

  “Wasn’t about what they could get, it was about what people’ll do to be famous. It’s about humiliation. That’s nothing on Stepin Fetchit.”

  “Who?”

  “Rolling eyes, usually saying Yessuh in an elevator or a cotton field or su’in like that? Every person in Hollywood turned up with some nasty old name and the studios change it: Frances Gumm, Archibald Leach, Lucille LeSueur, Phyllis Isley—they all got nice new names, everybody did. Black man turns up in Hollywood by the name of Lincoln Theodore Monroe Perry they rename him Stepin Fetchit. It’s tiring, you know?”

  This thought seemed to take away her laughter. She stared despondently at her fingers.

  “Makes me want to throw up my hands and say MU! to the whole thing. MUUUU!”

  Alex looked quickly about the restaurant, but there was no one to be embarrassed but him.

  “That’s a Buddhist word,” said Honey, retrieving her hands from the air, placing them neatly on her lap. “It’s how I let go of things.”

  “You’re a Buddhist?”

  “In my own way. Why? That so strange? What the hell are you?”

  Alex retracted his turtle head. “Er . . . nothing, really. Jewish. I mean, by birth.”

  Honey made a sound of satisfaction. Alex made it back at her.

  “You’re fairly confrontational for a Buddhist, that’s all I meant. No offense.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s in my own way, like I said. I’m far from satori, that’s the truth. So. I’m learning, it’s a long road, next question.” She leant in towards him, expectant. “Come on, come on—you so full of questions—nothing else you wanna know?”

  Her face was a brazen challenge, the kind no woman in England ever wears unless drunk and talking to her mother.

  “Look, I haven’t got any other questions. “Man,” said Alex, folding his arms, “You’re very . . . you know? I mean . . . you’re quite . . .”

  Honey smiled hugely, so that Alex was shown every one of her claret gums. “Yeah, I am, ain’t I?” She patted his hand, “I’m just kidding with you, Alex-Li, really. I’m just a little up-front. That’s the word you’re looking for. Know who that is?” she said, pointing to a picture that lay between the two of them, a bosomy girl with a tower of dark hair. Alex identified her correctly.

  “Right,” said Honey, “An’ I’m a little like Gypsy. Her real name was Louise Hovick, by the way—but that’s all she lied about. She never pretended she wasn’t what she was. That’s like me.”

  Alex, who had no idea what they were talking about again, nodded amiably and started collecting up his things. As she began to do the same, a piece of hair from her bun fell into her face, and suddenly she was familiar all over again.

  “Do I . . . ?” began Alex, bringing up his bag from the floor and placing it on the table.

  “Do you what?”

  “Nothing—I just. . . . Do I . . . recognize you? Or . . . ?”

  “I don’t know,” said Honey flatly. “Do you?”

  It seemed very quiet. Alex searched for an appropriate facial gesture but could find nothing suitable.

  “We better get going,” said Honey, looking away from him. “We’re done here. And it’s time.”

  “Right, right,” said Alex, and put a hand up for the bill. He peeled off the gloves she had given him, but she wouldn’t have them back so he shoved them in his bag. Outside, a riot of car horns started up. As Honey looked out, a waiter passed, and Alex fumbled with the tea tray trying to pass it to him. He tilted to one side, the waiter tried to steady things. Accidentally, Alex touched Honey’s arm again.

  She sprang from her chair once more and headed for the bathroom, and over Alex’s flurried apology she called out, over her shoulder, “You go in, go on, go in. I’ll see you in there. Don’t worry about it. Shit happens. That’s Buddhism too. Nice doing business with you, Alex-Li Tandem.”

  2.

  The tiny blonde at the threshold furnished Alex with a name tag and a plan of the venue. With a high-mooned nail, she pointed out the must-see rooms at Autographicana this year: the Jedicon Room (in which minor players from the popular films held court), an Apollo Astronauts Room (an undistinguished mission that Alex had never heard of and suspected had never taken place), and an alcove where one might queue for the autographs of two of the men who had blown up Hiroshima, here again for the second year running. These all came off the main room, the Rothendale Hotel’s huge, airless “Miami Dream” ballroom. Plastic palms, murals of tropical scenes (the Rothendale was very big on murals), a timetable of events. Tomorrow Autographicana had to make way for Lorna Berkowitz’s bat mitzvah. There were a hundred stalls or more. There were at least a thousand Autograph Men, milling. In their bad trousers. Alex’s first instinct was to turn and run, screaming MUUUUUUUUU through the streets of the city.

  ONLY THERE WERE THINGS in here he wanted. Things which worked on him at a subterranean level, far beneath his rational mind: he needed them. So. Welcome to the twentieth century in miniature. Castro’s signature, Oswald’s shirt, Connery’s check stubs, Streisand’s concert program, the AT-AT (still in its original box), Ali’s gloves, an envelope Joyce forgot to post, a photo of Darth signed by both the voice and the body, Dorothy’s ruby slippers (rhinestones, but as expensive as rubies now), Kennedy’s Christmas card, Himmler’s exercise book—

  “Himmler’s exercise book?” repeated Alex, craning forward.

  Karl and Anna, the pleasant young German couple whose stall it was, smiled. Anna brushed some dust from the plastic flyleaf.

  “Oh, yes,” said Karl, shrugging. “Very rare. He was fifteen. This is where he did his workings, you see? And here he got one wrong, you see? Very funny when people see this, you know?” Karl laughed, as if demonstrating what laughter sounds like. “They like this in a way because it is more personal, you know, like this. And the price on it is about fourteen hundred dollars, you know? Rare, rare.”

  “Some people have a problem with this,” said Anna, smiling. “But we do not.”

  “Right,” said Alex.

  “Some people, you know,” said Anna although Alex did not know, “some people make a rule so they say, you know, no Nazis and no serial killers. But . . .”

  Anna smiled again. She had the kind of wholly symmetrical face for which smiling is ill-advised. The more she did it, the closer the resemblance to an advert for home insurance.

  “History is history,” said Karl decisively, and turned the page. There, pressed between plastic, was a napkin Sinatra had signed.

  “Right,” said Alex.

  Karl turned the page again. There, pressed between plastic, was Hitler’s tiny signature under a routine policy document. Karl frowned.

  “Sinatra’s in the wrong section,” he said. “Should be in Fifties Crooners.”

  “Don’t you think—” began Alex, but then came a terrific thud at his back. It was Lovelear.

  “Hey, hombre, see anything you like?”

  They began to amble around the room, Autograph Men lost in a crowd of their fellows. As a survival technique, Alex persisted with the idea that he was not one of them. That he walked among them, but was not of their nature.

  “Lovelear . . .”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “How do you feel about . . . I don’t know . . . about stuff like Himmler’s exercise book. . . . assorted Nazis. Lot of Nazi stuff this year. You know? It’s like it’s the year of the fascists or something.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Lovelear, earnestly. “And who knew
? I had Göring ten years ago but nobody’d take it off me, everybody made me feel bad about it. . . . Finally I sold it for, like, nothing. You know how much that’s worth now? Goes to show you, man, these things go in cycles.”

  Alec hugged himself. He felt nauseous. The air conditioning kept coming despite the snow outside. He felt himself breathing the artificial air of a chiller cabinet, like he was being refrigerated, artificially preserved for something. He could feel himself growing hysterical. And they just keep on collecting! As if the world could be saved this way! As if impermanence were not the golden rule! And can I get Death’s autograph, too? Have you got a plastic sheath for that, Mr. Autograph Man?

  “Dove’s still in line for the Hiroshima guys,” said Lovelear, cheerfully; he had just discovered a muffin in his pocket. “Pretty nice guys, actually. Golfers. That’s not where the action is, though. Hey, Tandem, you’re hurting my arm! Jesus. Chill out a little—it’s not so bad. It’s kind of fun. No, the action is in the Playboy corner. Trust me, they’re pretty ripe, but they’re signing pictures of back in the day for twenty-five bucks a pop. You wanna meet Miss January 1974? I just met her, man. Samantha Budnitz. She’s a little leathery but she looks pretty good still.”

  THEY QUEUED FOR THE Bunnies who no longer looked like themselves. They queued for the accidental agents of mass destruction. They queued for the five ancient astronauts, heartbreaking in their bright bomber jackets. A nervy woman with Republican hair made everybody write their names on Post-its, which were then passed to the astronauts, who, with watery eyes, looked from the Post-it to the person, back and forth, waiting for the alchemy of cognition, too near-sighted to read the names. . . . In the Jedicon Room, Lovelear had a fight with an Ewok over an obscure scrap of dialogue while Alex watched the Ewok’s ten-year-old daughter, Lo (already a head taller than her father), do a bored cross-eyed tongue-out headstand against the wall in her little white socks. A disgruntled Ewok told Alex that he made only twenty-five percent of the retail price of a signed picture because Ewoks had to buy the pictures in the first place, off the studio. Another told Alex that personally, as a person of restricted growth, yes as a ha ha, yes it’s okay, you can say it, as a midget, he considered the popular cinema director George Lucas to be one of the great liberators of his people.