Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert by Roger Ebert Read Free Book Online Page A

said. Whistle! Pop! "My ex-wife had something about Playboy when I read it."
    "Playboy exploits women," Michelle said. "Women's liberation is against Playboy."
    "Against Playboy?" Marvin said. "Whyever more?"
    "It exploits women," Michelle said. "It presents women as sex objects."
    "Why not?" Marvin said. "Take a snatch away from a broad and what's she got left?" Marvin spread his legs and breathed deeply. "Oh me oh my, why must I be a sex symbol? Why won't they let me act?"
    LaBoo snorted in his sleep, waking himself. He stood up, made a circle, lay down again and closed his eyes.
    The telephone rang. LaBoo growled with his eyes closed. Michelle went to answer it.

    "Who's calling?" Marvin said.
    "Meyer Mishkin."
    "Tell him nothing for you today, Meyer, but call back tomorrow." Marvin finished his Heineken, turned it upside down, watched a single drop fall out. "My agent," he said. "He keeps wanting to know if I've read any more scripts. Fuck scripts. You spend the first forty years of your life trying to get in this fucking business, and the next forty years trying to get out. And then when you're making the bread, who needs it?
    "Newman has it all worked out. I get a million. He gets a million two, but that includes $200,ooo expenses. So, if that's the game . . ." Marvin shrugged. "I never talked to Newman in my life. No, I talked to him on Park Avenue once. Only to give him a piece of advice. This fifteen-yearold girl wanted his autograph. He told her he didn't give autographs, but he'd buy her a beer. Paul, I said, She's only fifteen. I don'tgive a shit, he said."
    Marvin whistled. "I think it shows," he said. "With Newman, it shows. Cut to an old broad in Miami Beach looking at his picture in Life magazine. A Gary Cooper he ain't."
    Marvin took another beer from Michelle. "I'm waiting for some young guy to come along and knock me off so I can go to the old actors' home and talk about how great we were in nineteen-you-know. Am I waiting for him? I'd hire guys to knock him off. Something the other day really brought it home. . . "
    He rummaged in a stack of magazines and papers next to his chair.
    "I lost it."
    Michelle held up a book.
    "No," he said, "the other one. Yeah, here it is. The United States Marine Corps in World War II. Wake Island. Let's see." He produced a pair of glasses and put them on. "This cat in command. Let's see here . . ." He paged through the book, looking for something. "This cat-yeah, here it is. He was defending the island. When the brass asked the defender of the island if there was anything to be done for them, the cat wired back. Yes. Send us more Japs."
    Marvin whistled and squinted down at the page in wonder.
    "Send us more Japs. Well, Japs were the last thing we needed at the time. Cut to John Wayne: Yes, send us more Japs! The bitch of it is, not un til years later did it come out that it's the decoder's job to pad messages at the beginning and the end. So all the world was applauding this bastard's nerve, and what the world took as a gesture of defiant heroism was merely padding."

    Marvin got up and went into the kitchen. "Something good about the Duke, I gotta admit," he called back over his shoulder. "When he's on, he's on. Send us moreJaps."
    There was a rattle of bottles from the kitchen. "You stole all the beer! Michelle? You drank it all?"
    "We're out," Michelle said.
    "Make the call," Marvin said, coming back into the living room.
    "It'll take them two hours to get here," Michelle said.
    "Make the call. Make the call, or I may have to switch to the big stuff."
    "I have other plans for you this afternoon."
    "No-not that!" Marvin fell back in his chair. "Anything but that!" Horrified.
    "It's such a foggy, gray old day," Michelle said. "We ought to just sit in front of the fire and drink Pernod. I like foggy, gray days ..."
    "Can the dog drink Pernod?" Marvin asked. "Now why the hell did I ask that? The dog gets no Pernod in this house." He stood up and looked through the window at