Yes, this is Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, California. It’s about 5 o’clock in the morning. That’s the homicide squad, complete with detectives and newspaper men.
Well, this is where you came in, back at that pool again, the one I always wanted. It’s dawn now and they must have photographed me a thousand times. Then they got a couple of pruning hooks from the garden and fished me out… ever so gently. Funny, how gentle people get with you once you’re dead.
The poor dope – he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.
So they were turning after all, those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.
The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis – out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.
You don’t yell at a sleepwalker – he may fall and break his neck. That’s it: she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.
Then I talked to a couple of Yes men at Metro. To me, they said No.
Sometimes it’s interesting to see just how bad – bad writing can be. This promised to go the limit.
The plain fact was she was afraid of that world outside. Afraid it would remind her that time had passed.
Come think of it, the whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis… out of beat with the rest of the world… crumbling apart in slow motion. There was a tennis court… or rather the ghost of a tennis court… with faded markings and a sagging net… And of course she had a pool. Who didn’t then? Mabel Norman and John Gilbert must have swum in it ten thousand midnights ago… It was empty now. Or was it?
It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in “Great Expectations”. That Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world, because she’d been given the go-by.
I just had to get out of there. I had to be with people my own age. I had to hear somebody laugh again. I thought of Artie Green. There was bound to be a New Year’s shindig going on in his apartment down in Los Palmas. Writers without a job. Composers without a publisher. Actresses so young they still believe the guys in the casting office. A bunch of kids who didn’t give a hoot.
By this time, the whole joint was jumping. Cops. Reporters. Neighbors. Passers-by. As much hoop dee doo as we get in Los Angeles when they open a supermarket.
I was way ahead of the finance company. I knew they’d be becoming around and I wasn’t taking any chances. So I kept it across the street in a parking lot behind Rudy’s shoeshine parlour. Rudy never asked any questions about your finances… he’d just look at your heels and know the score.
After that, I drove down to headquarters. That’s the way a lot of us think about Schwab’s Drug Store. KInd of a combination office, coffee clutch, and waiting room. Waiting. Waiting for the gravy train.
Finally, I located that agent of mine – the big faker. Was he out digging up a job for poor Joe Gillis? Huh. He was hard at work at Bell-Air making with the golf sticks.
As I drove back towards town, I took inventory of my prospects. They now added up to exactly zero. Apparently, I just didn’t have what it takes. And the time had come to wrap up the whole Hollywood deal and go home.
She’d sit very close to me and she’d smell of tuberoses – which is not my favorite perfume. Not by a long shot. Sometimes as we’d watch, she’d clutch my arm or my hand, forgetting she was my employer. Just becoming a fan. Excited about that actress up there on the screen. I guess I don’t have to tell you who the star was. They were always her pictures. That’s all she wanted to see.
The others around the table would be actor friends. Dim figures you may still remember from the silent days. I used to think of them as your wax works.
They’re pretty hot about it over at Twentieth. Except, I think Zanuck’s all wet. Can you see Ty Power as a shortstop? You got the best man for it right here in this lot – Alan Ladd. It’d be a good change a pace for Ladd.
There it was again – that room of hers, all satin and ruffles, and that bed like a gilded rowboat. The perfect setting for a silent movie queen. Poor devil, still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.
