Hollywood and Levine Read Online Free PDF Page B

a pass.”
    He inserted one of the orange slips under the windshield wiper.
    â€œAll right, Mr. LeVine,” he said. “You will find Mr. Adrian in the Writer’s Building. Just go straight up, take your second left and then another and you’ll double back to the Writer’s Building. It is roughly parallel to where we are right now.”
    â€œHow late do you folks stay open?” I asked.
    He grinned. “Always and forever. That’s what movies are all about.” He pointed. “That’s two lefts.”
    I followed his directions and arrived in a small parking lot occupied by perhaps a half-dozen cars, very large and elaborate cars. The lot was adjacent to a three-story white building, inevitably stucco and red-roofed. This was the un-imposing lair of Warners’ writers. The modesty of the building was a blind; inside, there were guys typing in cubbyholes who pulled down five grand each and every week. A lot of them had gone home; half the windows in the place were dark. On the bottom floor I could see a couple of men arguing in a medium-sized office. They were drinking highballs and making a lot of sweeping hand gestures; the younger of the two men was pacing back and forth. It appeared to be a friendly argument. Finally, the older guy, a bald man in horn-rimmed glasses and a v-neck sweater that revealed a patch of graying chest hair, broke into peals of unfelt laughter. He arose from his chair and slapped the younger man on the back, then led him out of the office with his arm draped around his shoulder. Without knowing the particulars, I was pretty sure that the younger man was getting the raw end of it.
    I walked inside and headed down a long corridor lined with offices on both sides. Each door was marked with a shingle bearing someone’s name. I didn’t recognize the names. A woman in her forties was locking up an office at the far end. She observed me wandering aimlessly about.
    â€œMay I help you?” she asked.
    â€œI’m looking for Walter Adrian’s office.”
    She pointed to a set of double doors.
    â€œHe’s upstairs.”
    He wasn’t upstairs. When I got to Adrian’s office, the door was open and the lights were on, but the chair behind the desk was empty. There was a piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up and saw that my name was on it. “Jack—Am on the Western Street at far tip of back lot. Blocking out some action for overdue rewrite. Meet me there. Best, Walter.” It must have blown on the floor. I dropped the note in my pocket and left Adrian’s office in a foul temper. I had been running ever since disembarking from the plane, and every time I got someplace it turned out to be nowhere at all.
    I was further delighted to learn that I was nearly a half-mile from the Western Street. A maintenance man directed me to follow the main center strip of Warners down to the end, and then hang every conceivable right.
    The back lot began at the terminus of the main studio drag. It was quite a show. At seven-thirty on a warm Wednesday night in Southern California, I stood in a replica of my childhood, surrounded by the tenements and store fronts of the Lower East Side. It was fraud, deceit, and gross tampering with my emotions. As anxious as I was to see Adrian, I walked very slowly down this street, savoring the Hebrew signs, the Italian grocery stores and bakeries, the stoops and iron railings and chalk-scrawled pavements. It was as empty as a midnight graveyard on what a signpost said was Hester Street. My old sweet Hester Street, lovingly duplicated but chillingly unpopulated. It was post-atomic war Hester Street. I stood at a dead lamppost and lit a cigarette and, yes, I felt like George Raft. With a hitch of my shoulders, I continued on down the street, my shoes thunderous on the pavement. I anticipated the razzing of the Dead End Kids, or a tip of the cap from patrolman Ward Bond, and I wished—as I have always