While every studio looked different, the guards were all the same. In fact, I began to feel that they were all the same man.
I want to be a writer. Who do I see?
Do you have an appointment?
No.
You don’t see anybody.
Hollywood was a cabaret, and I was hungry. But I was outside looking in, and all the doors were locked.
I was running out of my short supply of funds, but worse than that, I was running out of time.
When I was not haunting the studios, I was in my room, working on stories on my old battered portable typewriter.
One day, Gracie made an unwelcome announcement. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but from now on there will be no more breakfasts.”
No one had to ask why. Most of us were behind in our rent and she could no longer afford to keep carrying us.
I woke up the next morning, starving and broke. I had no money for breakfast. I was trying to work on a story, but could not concentrate. I was too hungry. Finally, I gave up. I went into the kitchen. Gracie was there, cleaning the stove.
She saw me and turned around. “Yes, Sidney?”
I was stammering. “Gracie, I—I know the new rule about—about no breakfast, but I was wondering if—if I could just have a bite to eat this morning. I’m sure that in the next few days—”
She looked at me and said, sharply, “Why don’t you go back to your room?”
I felt crushed. I walked back to my room and sat in front of my typewriter, humiliated that I had embarrassed both of us. I tried to go back to the story but it was no use. All I could think of was that I was hungry and broke and desperate.
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door. I walked over and opened it. Gracie stood there, holding a tray, and on it was a large glass of orange juice, a steaming pot of coffee, and a plate of bacon and eggs with toast. “Eat it while it’s hot,” she said.
That may have been the best meal I ever had. Certainly the most memorable.
When I returned to the boardinghouse one afternoon, after another futile day making the rounds of the studios, there was a letter from Otto. In it was a bus ticket to Chicago. It was the most depressing piece of paper I had ever seen. His note read: We will expect you home next week. Love, Dad.
I had four days left and nowhere else to go. The gods must have been laughing.
That evening, as Gracie’s group and I sat around the living room, chatting, one of them said, “My sister just got a job as a reader at MGM.”
“A reader? What does that mean?” I asked.
“All the studios have them,” he explained. “They synopsize stories for producers, which saves them the trouble of reading a lot of trash. If the producer likes the synopsis, he’ll take a look at the full book or play. Some studios have staffs of readers. Some use outside readers.”
My mind was racing. I had just read Steinbeck’s masterpiece, Of Mice and Men, and—
Thirty minutes later, I was skimming through the book and typing a synopsis of it.
By noon the next day I had made enough copies on a borrowed mimeograph machine to send to half a dozen studios. I figured that it would take a day or two to deliver them all and I should hear back about the third day.
When the third day came, the only mail I received was from my brother, Richard, asking when I was going to send for him. The fourth day brought a letter from Natalie.
The next day was Thursday, and my bus ticket was for Sunday. One more dream had died. I told Gracie that I would be leaving Sunday morning. She looked at me with sad, wise eyes. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
I gave her a hug. “You’ve been wonderful. Things haven’t worked out as I hoped they would.”
“Never stop dreaming,” she told me.