Authors: Jerry Stahl
The niggling detail Brady successfully suppressed: Rumwell had not only performed an illegal autopsy, but removed Virginia's internal organs and disposed of them. In return for Brady letting the Wakefield Sanitarium stay in the abortion business, all its director, Doc Rumwell, had to do was not mention that he'd just given Virginia Rappe an abortion—and tried to hide it by slicing out her parts. Something he was understandably happy to do.
I almost wished my own attorney had not seen fit to tell me these details. It drove me crazy, sitting there for an entire trial, knowing the one fact that could spare me was not going to be mentioned:
Virginia Rappe would have died anyway.
With or without coming to my party. She'd been fatally penetrated before our paths ever crossed.
But I'm leapfrogging again. Barkeep, a shot of lead and a bicarbonate of soda.
Fatty Behind Bars
Thank God I knew how to juggle. Every time one of the inmates tried to sneak up and steal my shoes—handmade, ostrich and soft leather—I'd grab three of whatever was handy and start throwing them in the air. One time I even punched myself in the head, which had my fellow reprobates roaring. I'd played to harder crowds in Tucson.
Despite the DA's edict to the contrary, Dominguez pulled enough strings to get himself into the jail for a meeting. We used a laundry room, which smelled about like I did after 36 hours in the same socks and boxers. Checking the door to see if we were monitored, Dominguez laid out the abortion situation. Maybe I
was
a little cheered to hear about Virginia's illegal surgery. I'm not without feeling, but it now seemed clear that she walked into the St. Francis a dead woman, victim of Rumwell's butchery.
Again and again I wanted to know why we couldn't use the abortion info in court. "Because," my good Catholic lawyer kept explaining, "we bring up the girl's misfortunes—shame a dead girl publicly—it makes us look heartless, like we're exploiting her. We'd lose whatever sympathy we got."
"B-but . . . but it's
truel"
I could hear myself sputter, trying to keep from tearing open the two Baby Ruths Dominguez had smuggled past the guards. I'd have preferred a couple of short dogs, but the warden frowned on that.
"Doesn't matter, Roscoe." Dominguez was a patient man. "They already think you're a brute. You go with she-just-had-an-abortion as your defense, it's gonna make you sound more brutal. If Virginia was pregnant, then that means you murdered a girl in
a family way\"
"But that proves I
didn't
murder her!" My brain felt like a jar full of flies.
"Defense has a different strategy," Dominguez shrugged.
"And what's that?"
But just then the warden broke in and said it was time to wrap things up. "This ain't a rooming house for famous blubber-guts," he cackled, yukking it up at his own joke. Everybody was a comedian.
Except, at this point, me.
Zombie Wisdom
Let me admit something right here. I marched through the days after my arrest—through all three trials, actually—like Ten Carat Carmichael in
Zombie Island.
I think that was his name. Maybe it was Two-Carat Louie. At this point, I can't remember Jack, so don't hold me to it if I'm wrong. (What are you going to do, throw me in Fact Jail?) I never had much truck for zombie pics. But now I understood 'em better: zombies were people whose lives had gotten so agonizing, the only way to keep living was to ape the dead. As the days wore on, each one bringing more had news, more stinging displays of public hate, I continued to walk and talk but inside I was numb. I was a junior zombie, waiting for his wings.
Speaking of zombies, I'd like to thank the safecrackers who gave me moonshine my second night in stir. You want to get zombified, jailhouse hooch is your ticket. The prune-juice-and-paint-thinner left me fairly ding-dong the next morning, but I was almost glad of the hangover. Compared to the pain and sadness, the betrayal and surprise and flat-out scared-dripless insanity of what was happening, a pruno headache was pleasant—like a neighbor you never liked, but are glad to bump into in Siberia.
Since my rearrival in San Francisco, after all, I'd suffered a nonstop stream of awfulness. A Venom Marathon. The only time people opened their mouths to me, it was to say something hellacious. I'd hardly ever heard the word "pervert" before; now people shouted it in my face. Even some inmates shunned me. A guy who'd flim-flammed widows out of their pension money actually called
me
scum. Worse than the insults, though, was having to listen to the list of heinous new developments.
"Fatty, you hear about them cowpokes up in Wyoming? 'Bout ISO of'em, in a town called Thermopolis, busted into the movie house and shot up the screen where one of your films was playing."
This from the same malicious screw who slipped me news that the MPTO, Motion Picture Theater Owners of Southern California, had banned my movies, from now until Jesus Christ came back in a gas mask and Panama hat.
In the midst of it all, I did have one chuckle. An Irish rummy in my cell realized I was famous, but was too soused to figure exactly what I did to get that way. "You're Leroy Haynes, aintcha!" he kept saying. "Boy who sat on a flagpole for 18 days in Denver?" The other fellows had a guffaw over that. Imagine my meat wagon fitting on top of a flagpole for two minutes, let alone a record-breaking two and a half weeks.
It really hurt that nobody came to see me in jail but my lawyer. I didn't know Zukor and Lasky had talked to the other studio heads, that they'd issued a decree forbidding any actor from visiting.
I
may have been done for, but they were gonna make damn sure no other talent brought down the wrath of Hollywood haters by taking my side. Not knowing this, all I could figure was the obvious. Everybody in the known universe thought I did it. Cheery thought.
Hell doesn't always wait for you to die before it invites you inside. Sometimes it wants your life above ground to get so bad you bang on the gates to get let in early.
Expect the Worst, You Won't Be
Disappointed
I knew from the papers, and the ever-helpful guards, that my films had been pulled. And I'd gotten a telegram from Zukor saying I was in breach for pulling a no-show on
The Melancholy Spirit.
This way he could suspend my salary until the matter at hand was cleared up. But Dominguez and Cohen kept telling me that was just window dressing, part of a plan. At three in the morning, listening to the snores and Mommy-whines of the other prisoners, I'd think,
Maybe Zukor's plan is to keep me from spouting off about what a cesspool of drugs and debauchery Paramount and Famous Players-Lasky are . . . Maybe my own lawyers aren't on my side . . . Maybe they're getting pressure from Zukor and Lasky.
But presure to do what? Then, just so I could let myself sleep, I'd entertain the zaniest thought of all:
Maybe Zukor and company are actually men of honor. Maybe those boys will come to the aid of a friend and colleague who's made them all more rich and powerful than they were when we met
. . .
I just had to believe. 'Cause, like I said, deep down I'm just a wide-eyed optimist.
Mostly, I confess, I just wasn't used to accommodating such weighty matters between my ears. The constant fretting and figuring blew some fuse in my brainpan. Shorted me out. Take it from me, being thrown in jail is almost more than your mind can accommodate. See, it's not where you are that's so disorienting. It's where you're
not.
Namely, in your own life.
Your home, your work, the view out your back door—all the things you never even think about, they're gone. You're now
in another
life. Another world you didn't even know existed, let alone see coming. If this happens to you, get ready. The suddenness of the drop from movie star to slammer—from the planet you take for granted to one you never imagined—will give anyone the bends.
Absorbing the shock of what was happening to my body was ordeal enough. The damp, the cold, the grubs in the oatmeal. Grasping the savagery being done to my name and my career was more than I could begin to contemplate.
I'd be lying if I said I remembered the chronological details of this period. You don't remember the chronology of an earthquake—you remember flashes, moments, random heart-grabbing impressions. The time between and during my trials is a jagged blur: endless minutes and weeks when just walking into a diner or stepping out of a car in front of the courtroom was like having your skin flayed. Reporters, haters, baiters, more reporters, and always the police. Brady kept me surrounded by cops, so it looked like I was Public Enemy Number One—someone from whom the God-fearing citizens of his decent city required protection.
The days and nights bleed together like eggs cracked over a skillet. Still, even in my haze during that first week of confinement, I was aware enough to know Dominguez was killing me by not letting me tell my story. The shame and terror were still novelties then. So I remember my shock, my sense that Brady—this will sound so corny—
was not playing fair!
Every other word out of the DA's mouth at the deposition was "murder." All I could do was listen and try not to fly out of my chair and pound my fists on the floor when he said it.
The whole strategy felt wrong—but everything was so wrong I thought I had to let my lawyer tell me what to do. Dominguez was hanging everything on getting Maude Delmont in front of the grand jury. He kept saying that's how we were going to get her. The problem was, Brady finessed him every time, going so far as to insist that the subject of "forced and violent intercourse" was not one on which any lady should be asked to ruminate, let alone one as refined and delicate as Maude Delmont.
Even with my bug-juice hangover, I almost laughed. If the wannabe governor had seen Lady Maude gallivanting in Lowell Sherman's unbuttoned pajamas, he might have had to rethink his notion of "refined."
Here's something else from the early days of my damnation. Have I told you about the warden yet? Listen to this. The man was a Bible-reading teetotaler in a string tie who told me he hated my "kind" and poked me in the stomach with a shoehorn the first time we met. "Your type are ruining this country, but not for long!"
"My type?" I managed to ask him. "You mean fat guys?"
"Owff!"
Another poke with that ivory shoehorn.
I'd wondered why the goons who marched me up to the Warden's office shoved me so far forward I almost butted heads with the guy. Now I understood. He wanted the screws to drag me into shoehorn range.
After he jabbed me in the breadbasket, the warden snickered. "Whatever you were out there, Two-Ton, in here rat turds got more value than you."
Every few hours, for my entire state vacation, the warden visited my cell, popping his waxy face between the bars to remind me that no one was coming to my defense. That I was the most hated man since the Kaiser. Warden Meers is the one who told me about Grauman. When Zukor and Lasky announced that the studio was suspending my salary, pending the outcome of my trial, the warden cackled at that, too. "See, you get in a Jew business, you're going to get jewed."
The esteemed warden took great delight in showing up with a folded newspaper, key passages circled carefully in red ink. I thought he might keel over from delight the day he told me I'd been condemned by the League of Nations. Seems the ambassadors were gathered in Geneva to discuss the White-Slave traffic, and the Danish delegate declared that Fatty's party contributed to a steep rise in the business of sex. On top of everything else, I was now banned in Switzerland, Denmark, and England. The French, on the other hand, ordered more prints of my movies.
In between the international news, the Warden reeled off all those juicy quotations from Lehrman. Who'd have expected to see Pathé's pointy kisser on anything but a mug shot? But there it was, slapped on front pages from Bangor to San Berdoo. I was in the prison barbershop receiving my regulation snippage when Meers pushed his way in between two Dempsey-sized bulls and told me he had something I'd want to hear.
The barber kept trimming, for which I was unaccountably grateful. But I can still smell the Warden's rancid aftershave. In close quarters he gave off the scent of lavender soaked in bacon grease.
If I close my eyes, I can still hear the Warden's reedy, wheedling voice—not unlike my old man's—as he held his bifocals over the page and read to me from Lehrman's rant:
"For a year and a half I was Arbuckle's director. He is merely a beast. He made a boast to me that he had torn the clothing from a girl who sought to repulse his attentions. This is what results from making idols and millionaires out of people that you take from the gutter. Arbuckle was a spittoon cleaner in a barroom when he came into the movies."
Here the Warden looked up from his dramatic reading, smiled, then resumed, savoring Lehrman's last sentence:
"I would kill him if I had the chance."
He smiled with glee. "Well,
he
won't get to do it, Fatty boy, but I will. Your fat ass is gonna get the gas."
"After five days of jail food, my ass already has gas," I responded, and let loose a clapping fart that just happened to be sitting idle in my guts, waiting for the go-ahead. The Warden was so shocked he dropped his bifocals. But the convict barber laughed and I told him to resume his ministrations. It probably wasn't the wisest move: cracking wise and risking the wrath of the man who had my life—not to mention my bodily comforts—in his hands. But nature provided the punch line, and I used it.
By way of retaliation, the Warden produced yet another newspaper, and recited a list of cities: "Fresno, Memphis, Toledo, Medford, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Butte, Montana, Des Moines . . ." And so on. He then proceeded to tell me that these were cities whose theaters had canceled my films.
Gasoline Gus
was pulled at once. And my next one,
Crazy to Marry,
was canceled while it was still in the can.