Little Me Page 23

  “Let’s,” Eugene said.

  The next thing I knew it was twelve hours later. I was lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood—my blood! Two officers of the law, and an extremely ill-bred policewoman, were shaking me roughly. There was the hotel manager saying something about “running a decent place” and the frustrated old spinster who occupied the room beneath mine repeating, needlessly, that it might have been “a blessing” had a “wanton woman” such as I been “allowed to die.” A reporter and a cameraman kept firing questions at me and another woman—a real fury—kept shouting accusations in my ear.

  When my wounded wrist was bound up and the flow of blood stemmed, I was yanked rudely to my feet and thrust out into my poor little bedroom. I saw Eugene, his clothing wildly dishevelled, being very ill into a wastebasket. The “fury” kept caressing him and then dashing back to shriek imprecations into my ear.

  “Please,” I said, mustering what dignity I could, “leave my room, all of you.”

  “You’re comin’ with us, Delilah,” the policewoman said crudely.

  The next thing I knew I was on Tenth Street, in Greenwich Village, being incarcerated at the Women’s Detention Home! Eugene, supported by the voluble “fury” who still screamed hysterically, was with me. The woman turned out to be none other than his famous “Mom.” The charge on which I was “booked” was one so vile, so vicious, so vituperative that I can barely bring myself to repeat it—“contributing to the delinquency of a minor! ”

  SOME TIME LATER, my wrist grudgingly seen to by an unsympathetic nurse, I was given an ill-fitting uniform and thrown into a cell. In the gray dawn and, weak from shock and loss of blood, I could not focus very well. I knew that

  The Women’s Detention Home

  there was another occupant in my cell, but I was in no “mood” for social intercourse. Exhausted and shivering with the cold, I flung myself onto an unyielding cot. I was aware only that some other person had placed a blanket over me and “tucked me in.” Then I fell into a deep, agonized slumber from which I hoped I would never awake.

  But awaken I did the following day when the unfeeling wardress came around to inspect our cells. I was shaken awake and cursed at.

  “Why ain’t you up? Made yer bed? Doncha know the regulations?”

  “No. She don’t,” a deep voice said. “She just came in last night.”

  “Well, show her the ropes,” the wardress said and marched out.

  I glanced at the person who shared my cell with me. She was handsome, rather than pretty—or she could have been, with a few cosmetics, something done to her short, coarse hair and, of course, a more becoming frock than the uniform she was wearing. “Hi, kid,” she said bluntly. “ ‘Billie,’ ‘Billie’ Divine. Put ’er there.”

  Wanly, I extended my hand and breathed my name.

  “What the hell!” she said. “Whaddaya know. Belle Poitrine. Why, I used to have a real crush on you. Saw all your movies, had three scrapbooks filled with your pictures. And to think . . .”

  And to think, indeed! To think that I, Belle Poitrine, once the idol of America, had come to this. Why couldn’t I simply have died?

  My roommate, Miss “Billie” Divine, who had visited the Women’s Detention Home on two previous occasions, described the routine of the institution, gave me valuable “tips” on some of the personalities on the staff and explained the reason for her present visit. She had, it seems, been having a quiet drink with a woman friend in a Greenwich Village bar popular with working girls when, for no reason at all, the “paddy wagon” had been summoned and the establishment emptied. And we speak of Civil Liberties! “Billie,” however, had been blameless and expected to be given her freedom momentarily.

  Surreptitiously “Billie” extracted a reeking old cigar “butt” from her bedding, lighted it and puffed clouds of smoke out of the high, barred window. Although I have always loved the smell of a fine cigar, this one made me a little ill. I wanted a drink desperately, but something told me that it would be foolish to order one.

  “Billie” spoke quite frankly about her “checkered” career. A woman of nearly forty, she had grown up in the midst of the depression. She had come to New York, moved into a tiny flat in the “Village” and had turned her hand to all sorts of things. She had been a waitress, a clerk in a bookshop, had worked for a female veterinarian and had even driven a truck! She had become an artistes’ representative, dealing exclusively in the field of entertainers. As her clients, she now “handled” three young actresses, a soprano, a ballerina and a small all-girl band. She said, tentatively, once or twice, that she would be delighted to “handle” little me, as well. But in my bleak desolation, I fully expected to die in that prison cell—rather hoped that I would, in fact!

  Late in the afternoon, however, a “reprieve”—of sorts—arrived. It was a letter from Eugene (one I shall always treasure) and I quote it here:

  Dear Miss Poitrine,

  I sure feel terrible and suppose you are the same.

  I brought your suitcase to the jail because the hotel don’t want you to come back there when you get out. I have been discharged. That is o.k. as I want to go back to high school.

  The inclosed clippings sure prove that your still a “headliner”. Page 16 in the Daily News and p. 8 in the Mirror. It isn’t true that you was going to cut your wrist. You were shaving under your arms and the razor slipped. Accidents will happen.

  Also Mom is not going to bring those charges against you. She was excited is all. I finally was able to explain to her what could there be betweenyou and I. Me just a kid bellhop and you a lovely lady even older than Mom. She understands now but made me promise never to drink another drop.

  Your friend,

  Eugene.

  I was terribly, terribly touched. There are some good people in the world, after all!

  A few minutes later I was given my bag and released, at the same time “Billie” Divine was set free. I paused for a moment on the wintry street, not knowing exactly which way to turn. The thought of another cold, impersonal, cheap hotel; of being all alone again; of having no one to turn to. I wondered what the temperature of the river was at that time of year.

  “Uh, listen, kid,” she said hesitantly, “if you’ve got no place to bunk . . . well, my apartment’s not very far from here. It’s got a woodburning fireplace. Maybe we could have a drink together and kind of talk over your maybe thinking of going back into show biz?”

  I paused for a moment while “Billie” stood there eagerly gazing at me. In her slacks, béret and trench coat she did have a certain style. She was strong and resilient whereas I . . . “Very well,” I said, “but just for a day or two. I wouldn’t dream of imposing.”

  “Good for you, kid,” she said. “First let me buy some decent cigars.”

  At last, after so many years of fear and loneliness, I had someone to lean on.

  I was dismayed, at first, to glimpse the exterior of “Billie’s” residence. It was a “grim,” scaling old loft building that made some of the “dumps” I had recently occupied look like the Beverly Hills Hotel, by comparison! But, once having been helped up the steep, dark stairway, I was most pleasantly surprised by “Billie’s” apartment.

  It contained a large combination living room-and-office, tastefully furnished in extremely modern furniture, most of which “Billie” had designed and made with her own two hands! There was a large, sunny bedroom in tweed and leather (all hand-tooled by “Billie”) and a modern kitchen and bath, which “Billie” had created from the most “primitive” beginnings by being her own electrician, carpenter, mason and plumber! In the middle of the flat was a large room which housed “Billie’s” work bench, her lathe, tools and the scrap metal and blowtorch she used in her sculpture as well as a complete little “gym.” “Billie”—a great one for physical fitness—exercised strenuously every day with bar bells, punching bag, rowing machine and electric “bike.” (Some days later I expressed a half-hearted wish to regain what had t
ruly been an amazing figure. Although I had been only “lukewarm,” “Billie” was adamant. She made me “work out” for hours in her “gym” and then pummelled me on the massage table until I begged for mercy.) Also in the apartment were two female boxer bulldogs whose facial resemblance to their owner was often laughable.

  “Billie” lighted the fire, poured drinks and grilled spareribs on the scarlet coals, but I don’t believe that I ever got around to eating. I closed my eyes and when I opened them it was morning. I had been undressed and put to bed, only to be aroused from my slumbers by the vision of “Billie,” in a Charvet dressing gown, appearing with a hearty breakfast of steak, potatoes and “flapjacks.”

  I knew that I could not impose for too long on the generous hospitality of this unusual woman and felt that I should move on to yet another dreary hotel. But, each time I suggested it, “Billie” would “invent” an errand or some light household task as a “delaying action.” She had already put me on the “1-2-3 System” of drink reduction. (One drink before luncheon, two before dinner and three during the evening.) Although “Billie” drank considerably more herself, I found that after a few weeks, six drinks a day seemed plenty for someone of my delicate constitution. She kept me so busy exercising in the “gym” or posing for her Statues (the torso, “Earth Mother,” won Honorable Mention in the Washington Square Art Exhibit that year) that I had little time to brood or feel sorry for myself.

  Although I never met any of her clients, she seemed to be an efficient and forceful artists’ representative and I was impressed to observe how a girl like “Billie,” with very little formal education, could handle nightclub owners, producers and the like over the telephone. After each conversation, “Billie” would slam down the receiver, puff furiously at her “stogie” and growl, “Men! How I hate ’em!”

  She was so very masculine herself that I could never understand this. I have always revelled in the company of males, enjoying to the utmost their sense of “give-and-take.” “Billie,” I decided, must have been terribly hurt by some boy back in her childhood to feel as she did.

  Nor was life with “Billie” always “rosy.” She was possessive and jealous by nature and would go into “fits” of blind fury over nothing—such as the time she caught me joking with the old gentleman who ran the delicatessen, inquiring after the dry cleaner’s wife (who suffered with dropsy) or simply being civil to the “counter man” at the Jefferson Diner. She indulged in public “scenes” and once she even struck me! When the shoe was on the other foot, however, that was a different matter entirely! Many was the night I stayed at home alone, with the liquor under lock and key, not knowing where “Billie” was or when she would return. Her invariable excuse was always “business” with a “client.” But about my feelings she seemed to care little.

  Yet “Billie” had so many endearing qualities that I could forgive her a few little faults. As I have always said, “Nobody is perfect!” And it was through dear, kind-hearted, generous “Billie”—rather inadvertently—that the whole course of my life changed radically.

  “Billie” had installed her own “hi-fi” and she had a great collection of female vocalists—Hildegarde, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Keller, Spivy, Mabel Mercer and dozens of other supper club chanteuses . Every night she was at home we would have a little “concert” and then “Billie” would discuss the possibilities of my making a “comeback” as a fashionable night club singer.

  I had but little heart for such a notion. My confidence had been too terribly shattered by the many cruel blows I had been dealt since the war. On the other hand, I realized that I could not go on living on “Billie’s” bounty indefinitely so there seemed to be no question about doing as my benefactor suggested. It was either “sing for your supper” or starve.

  With my health and my looks more or less restored, I began working up a repertoire that would be suited to what remained of my voice. (Once the possessor of a sweet, true coloratura, hardship and the passing years had left my voice with a “husky” quality, not unattractive to hear, but difficult to “fit” with melody.) Eventually I settled on “I Love Life,” “Stout-Hearted Men,” “The

  Song of the Open Road” and “Ole Man River.” “Billie” was very firm in “vetoing” these selections. “Men,” she said, “are so depraved that when they go to a night club they want a lot of ‘sex’ for their money. Since you’re supposed to be a movie queen, make those cheap bastards think of all that phony Hollywood glamour! Now get busy!”

  Cut to the quick, I did a lot of research, bought a great deal of sheet music, changed a few notes to fit my range and, after much “trial and error,” created a program entirely built around “Music from the Movies.” I began with Janet Gaynor’s “If I Had a Talking Picture of You.” Then I went into Gloria Swanson’s “Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere,” Marlene’s “Falling in Love Again,” Pola’s haunting “Paradise” (from A Woman Commands) and, finally, my own “Hooray, Hooray for the Scarlet A,” which I had first sung in The Scarlet Letter. As an encore, if called upon to grant one, I planned to sing Musetta’s “Waltz” from Puccini’s lovely La Bohème. “Billie” said, albeit grudgingly, that she “supposed” my repertoire “would do” and ordered me back into the steam cabinet.

  I had rather imagined that I would make my supper club début at the Plaza, the Pierre, the St. Regis, the Waldorf—in all of which I had been an honored guest—or, if not in one of the great hotels, at a place famed for the chicté of its entertainment such as Versailles or the Blue Angel. When I suggested these, “Billie” only scoffed. “You’ll be lucky if you can get a booking in the Minetta Tavern,” she said.

  After tense days of waiting, of listening to “Billie’s” telephone conversations, an opportunity presented itself. It was not in New York, but “Billie” assured me that it was a very smart rendezvous for the “horsey” set in the country. Located in Hohokus, New Jersey, it was an intime establishment, of the French persuasion, called Le Baiser de Mort. “Billie” gave me some money—a “piddling” amount—told me to go out and buy a new brassière, a decent dress, get my hair done and “lay off the liquor until opening night.”

  Some of her instructions were easier to follow than others. At Klein’s, “On the Square,” I was able to purchase a sleek one-piece foundation garment which did the utmost for my figure. In a Madison Avenue “re-sale” shop, I secured a handsome brocade ball gown said once to have been in the personal wardrobe of the fabulous Mrs. Byron Foy. It did not fit perfectly, but, as I was gifted with the needle, I knew that I could alter it into a “custom-made” creation in a “jiffy.” The Trifles and Treasures Thrift Shop offered up a very passable “bunny” cape (which I made more “authentic” with the addition of some used ermine tails) and a pair of “opera length” kid gloves that were hardly soiled at all.

  I rather regretted the ministrations of the “beauty school” student who had attempted a “perm” and a strawberry blond “rinse.” If only, I thought, staunch Endive Kissner could be overseeing my coiffure and if loved ones, such as Momma and Baby-dear, could be at my side to “root” for little me through this ordeal! But for the brusque “Billie,” who tended to “pooh-pooh” my many qualms, I again had to “go it alone.”

  Of all “Billie’s” instructions, the hardest to obey was “lay off the liquor.” I had, by now, completely overcome my dependence on the “glass crutch” and was perfectly satisfied with my six drinks a day—on Sundays even less! But to face a challenge such as Le Baiser de Mort and to find the liquor cabinet locked and padlocked was, indeed, a blow. “Billie” continued drinking in my presence, but no amount of begging would induce her to share a drop with me and she kept me so short of money—doling out exactly what I would need each day for subway fare, demanding a careful accounting of each penny spent and even taking over my meager bank account!—that I could not even afford a glass of beer. My nerves were terribly frayed.

  The night of my opening was raw, damp and penetrating. “Billie” h
ad consumed an entire steak by herself, telling me that it was bad to eat before a performance and that I would be fed something “between shows.” Driving through the cold New Jersey night in “Billie’s” old “rattletrap” of a Chevrolet, I developed the “shakes” and shivered uncontrollably. “Shut up and sit still, dopey” was all the comfort I received from my manageress, Miss Divine.

  In my naïveté I had pictured Le Baiser de Mort as a chic country supper club, along the lines of “Bill” Miller’s old Riviera at the Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge. I was aghast, however, when “Billie” braked the car and turned into a dark, nearly deserted parking lot. Le Baiser de Mort was nothing more or less than a barnlike roadhouse set down in a tawdry neon “oasis” of “discount” houses, garages, garden furniture stores and cheap clothing shops, literally “in the middle of nowhere”! I had been given “star billing,” but then I was the only attraction, save for a discordant six-piece dance “band.” My heart sank as I was rudely ushered to my dressing room. It was a crude tar paper “lean-to,” mercilessly exposed to the elements and containing a rickety bentwood chair and a disgusting dressing table pitted with cigarette burns.

  “Nervous?” my friend “Billie” growled.

  “Terrified and freezing to death,” I said through chattering teeth. “Do you think I could have a drink?”

  “I know you couldn’t. Now fix your fat face and stop looking so glum. I went to a lot of trouble to get you this booking.” That was all the help and comfort I received from her !

  Somehow or another I got through the nine o’clock show. The place was practically empty and my audience—three or four tables of two, some “teenagers” who couldn’t have been old enough to attend my last film, a family wedding anniversary party of some sort and a very drunken, lone gentleman—was polite, if little more.

  “How was I?” I asked “Billie,” hopefully, on returning to the dressing room.