“I’m sure you could.”
“They’ll be doing books on Castile someday. This period… the sex films… will be just one small, if interesting, part of his oeuvre. He’ll go on to do other films, initially simple genre pieces, I’m sure, but whatever he does, he’ll remain one thing, essentially.. Castile.”
“And a director.”
“Yes! A director. Might I say… an auteur?”
“You might.”
“I’m glad you understand what I’m getting at. It’s so frustrating to talk to someone like… like Harry, who just can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“It’s hard, in a snowstorm.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling solemnly, nodding, finding several layers of meaning below the surface of my flip remark. If I’d said it before, when I was some guy knocking at the door, he’d have called me “smart-ass” and let it go at that; now that I was with Oui, I was suddenly deep.
He leaned in close to me, across the plastic tabletop; he was wearing cologne that smelled like fruit, and I resisted the temptation to look for any layers of meaning in that. “Harry doesn’t understand,” he said, “what a rare privilege it is to work with a director of Castile’s standing. And this particular film is particularly important.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s Castile’s last sex film, and as such is, well, historic.”
“Then I take it you don’t have the reluctance to have your name seen in print, regarding this film, that your friend Harry has.”
“Not at all. The name is Richard Hudson. H-u-d-s-o-n.”
“Is that your real name?”
“Legal name. I had it changed.”
“From what?”
“From,” he said, coyly, “something I didn’t like.”
I let that pass, asked, “If Castile is such a meticulous filmmaker, why is he working with such a small crew?”
“Well, we did have some other actors here, but they finished their scenes and left yesterday. And actors, on a film like this, assuming they aren’t superstars like a Frankie Waddsworth, will often help with the technical side of things, when they aren’t in a scene. But this is a small crew… normally, a picture like this would probably require, oh, twice as many people… but the difficulties of lining up good people, in Chicago, willing to work on a film like this, well
… it limited Mr. Castile. But then he has a reputation for working with a smaller crew than most. Does a lot of his own camerawork… all the hand-held stuff. That’s how he helps retain control, puts his personal stamp on every frame of film. He even does his own cutting and editing as well. Part of his reputation comes from the quality he has been able to achieve on very low budget productions. He’s doing quality comparable to Radley Metzger… the hardcore films Metzger has done he’s done as ‘Henry Paris’… and Castile’s budgets are far smaller, perhaps a third as big.”
“And that’s one reason the Hollywood people want him.”
“Yes. You, obviously, can see what this could mean, working with Castile, and at this point in his career… but Harry can’t seem to grasp it. He doesn’t see how this could open so many doors. If Mr. Castile should happen to like my work, or Harry’s for that matter, we could be in California shooting film, in a matter of months, weeks, days! We could leave commercials, industrial films, pornography, all the demeaning shit behind, and do real films.”
For a moment I wondered what happened to the triumph of style over subject matter, but never mind.
“Harry’s a good friend of yours, I take it. His opinions seem to mean a lot to you.”
“I’m not afraid to tell it like it is.”
“That’s admirable. What is it?”
“I’m… bisexual. A lot of people in the arts are.”
“There’s a lot of it going around.”
“Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I didn’t say there was.”
“I don’t mean to be… defensive. I didn’t imagine you’d be terribly shocked by my admission.”
No, nor interested. But I said, “We run pictures of women together, in Oui. People are getting more open-minded on the subject,” and hoped that would mollify him.
“Harry and I met through our work… we both work for the same agency, doing, as I said, commercials and industrial films and so on. And despite his Archie Bunkerish exterior, Harry is a sensitive man, intelligent, and a little enigmatic. We’ve been… together… for six months now. But he’s very possessive.”
“Is that right?”
“He’d even be upset if he saw us talking. He’s that small.”
“Size isn’t everything.”
“Last night, I… well, I got a little something going with Frank. You know… Frankie Waddsworth, the star of the picture.”
“Frankie Waddsworth likes boys?”
“And girls. Bi — sexual. Bisexual. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I still didn’t say there was.”
“That’s good, because there isn’t. And there’s nothing wrong with
… having a little interpersonal relationship now and then, is there?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned.”
“I mean, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but, as I said, I tell it like it is… and if you want to print it in your magazine, so be it. I won’t try to stop you.”
“Thanks.”
“So Frankie and I, we were kind of fooling around, and things got out of hand, and Harry butted in. Made a scene. It was ugly, I don’t mind telling you. Can’t he understand? Frankie Waddsworth isn’t just anybody. He’s a superstar.”
“Superstar?”
“He’s been in movies with every major porno actress. And after all of that, he still had time for me. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”
“Not exactly.”
“And, so, now Harry is angry with me. I wish I could make him understand.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“No. Not with Harry and me. Though he’s always been the possessive type. That’s hard to cope with, sometimes, and anyway, who can resist a superstar?”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Then Janet appeared, with a platter of sandwiches, which she set on the bar, and everyone-except Frankie Wadds- worth-appeared to get something to eat. With the arrival of Harry, Richie and I parted company, so as to not further aggravate the situation, although later I saw Richie sneaking off with some extra sandwiches tucked under his arm, probably going up to serve Waddsworth his supper in bed.
Janet and I shared a booth. The sandwiches were good. They were on rye and mine was corned beef and Swiss cheese. There was beer, too. Olympia and Budweiser. I chose Oly, which is Clint Eastwood’s favorite. Who can resist a superstar?
Castile was sitting with his wife. His brown-tinted goggle type glasses were gone, now. Apparently that was part of his directing costume that he discarded when shooting for the day suspended. He was still wearing the DIRECTOR sweatshirt, though.
I had to get him alone and talk to him. Soon. Before Turner beat me to him.
20
After everyone had had their fill of the sandwiches and beer, Castile disappeared upstairs with his wife. I was starting to think there was no way to get him by himself, and I couldn’t say what I had to say in front of his wife.
There were several small lounge areas on the first floor, most of them living rooms on the order of the sunken one, though without fireplaces, and dominated by the large windows that were standard throughout the lodge. The windows were draped, but looking behind the drapes you could see frost and nothing much else.
Castile or someone had turned on the heat, but it was still a little chilly. I told Janet that everybody seemed to have guessed that she and I had a natural rapport, and so she consented to share a couch with me, and we snuggled together, there, in a cooperative effort to battle the cold and watch some television.
Castile came in, after a while, sat in a soft chair near the couch, asking if we minded the intrusion: the movie we were watching was His Girl Friday, one of his all-time favorites. Howard Hawks directed it, he said. I was tempted to go looking for Richie to tell him.