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“Ah, God,” she said at last “That’s no hospital It’s where great elephant ideas go to die A graveyard for lunatics”
“That’s over the wall, Constance”
“No You die here first, you die over there last In between—” She held to the sides of her skull as if it o in there, kid”
“Why?”
Constance rose slowly to stand over the steering wheel and cry havoc at the gate that was not yet open and the night s that were blind shut and the blank walls that didn’t care
“First, they drive you crazy Then when they have driven you nuts they persecute you for being the babbler at noon, the hysteric at sunset The toothless olf at the rising of the moon
“When you’ve reached the precise moment of lunacy, they fire you and spread the word that you are unreasonable, uncooperative, and uniinative Toilet paper, imprinted with your nareat ones can chant your initials as they ascend the papal throne
“When you are dead they shake you awake to kill you again Then they hang your carcass at Bad Rock, OK Corral, or Versailles on backlot 10, pickle you in a jar like a fake embryo in a bad carny film, buy you a cheap crypt next door, chisel your name, misspelled, on the tolory: Nobody reood years Who recalls the screenwriters for Rebecca? Who remembers rote Gone With the Wind? Who helped Welles become Kane? Ask anyone on the street Hell, they don’t even knoas president during Hoover’s administration
“So there you have it Forgotten the day after the preview Afraid to leave home between pictures Who ever heard of a film writer who ever visited Paris, Rouls will forget theet them, hell, they never knew them Hire whatchamacalit Get me whatsisname The name above the title? The producer? Sure The director? Maybe Remember it’s deMille’s Ten Coerald’s The Great Gatsby? Smoke it in the Men’s Snuff it up your ulcerated nose Want your na type? Kill your wife’s lover, fall downstairs with his body Like I say, that’s the flickers, silver screen Remember, you’re the blank spaces between each slot-click of the projector Notice all those pole-vault poles by the back wall of the studio? That’s to help the high jumpers up across into the stone quarry Mad fools hire and fire ’em, dime a dozen They can be had, because they love filives us the power Drive therab the bottle, hire the hearse, borrow a spade Maxiraveyard And, oh yeah, for lunatics”
Her speech over, Constance re as if the studio walls were a tidal wave about to fall
“Don’t go in there,” she finished
There was quiet applause
The night police and clapping his hands
“I’ll only be in there a while, Constance,” I said “Another month or so, and I’ll head South to finish my novel”
“Can I come with you? One o, alht, ha, no, you in raggedy shorts”