The Deer Park by Norman Mailer

discipline,” Barrantine repeated. “I got a star, I won’t mention her name. She came to me, she knew that in two months we were starting production on a really big vehicle for her, and you know what she had the gall to say? ‘Mr. Barrantine, my husband and I, we’re going to have a baby. I’m six weeks along.’ You’re going to have a baby?’ I said, ‘where in hell’s your loyalty? I know you, you’re selfish. You can’t tell me you want the heartache of bringing up an infant.’ ‘Mr. Barrantine, what should I do?’ she bawled to me. I gave her a look and then I told her. ‘I can’t take the responsibility for advising you what to do,’ I said, ‘but you damn well better do something.’ ”
    “She’s going to be in the picture, I hear,” Eric Haislip said.
    “Of course she’s going to be in the picture. She’s an ambitious girl. But discipline and consideration. Do any of them have that?”
    Eric Haislip was looking at me. “Who are you? What do you want here, kid?” he asked suddenly, although he had been aware of me for several minutes.
    “I’ve been invited,” I said.
    “Did I invite you to sit on my lap?” Mac Barrantine said.
    “You’d be the first,” I muttered.
    To my surprise, Teppis said, “Leave the boy alone. I know this boy. He’s a nice young fellow.”
    Barrantine and Haislip glowered at me, and I scowled back. We all stood nose to nose like four trucks meeting at a dirt crossroad. “The youth, the young people,” Teppis announced. “You think you know something? Listen to a young fellow’s ideas. He can tell you something. This boy has a contribution.”
    Barrantine and Haislip did not seem particularly enthusiastic to hear my contribution. Conversation ground along for several minutes, and then they left on the excuse of filling their drinks. “I’ll call the maître dee,” Teppis offered. They shook their heads. They needed a walk, they announced. When they were gone, Teppis looked in a fine mood. I had the suspicion he had come to my defense in order to insult them. “First-rate fellows,” he said to me. “I’ve known them for years.”
    “Mr. Teppis,” I said irritably, “why did you invite me to your party?”
    He laughed and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a clever boy,” he said, “you’re quick-tongued. I like that.” His hoarse thin voice drew a conspiratorial link between us whether I wanted it or not. “You take the desert,” he confided to me, “it’s a wonderful place to make a human being feel alive. I hear music in it all the time. A musical. It’s full of cowboys and these fellows that live alone, what do you call them, hermits. Cowboys and hermits and pioneers, that’s the sort of place it is. Fellows looking for gold. As a young fellow, what do you think, wouldn’t you like to see such a movie? I like history,” he went on before I could answer. “It would take a talented director to make such a story, a fellow who knows the desert.” He poked me in the ribs as though to leave me breathless and therefore honest. “You take Eitel. Is he still hitting the booze?” Teppis said suddenly, his small flat eyes studying my reaction.
    “Not much,” I said quickly, but my look must have wandered because Teppis squeezed my shoulder again.
    “We got to have a long talk, you and me,” Teppis said. “I like Charley Eitel. I wish he didn’t have such a stain on his character. Politics. Idiotic. What do you think?”
    “I think he’s going to make the best movie of his life,” I said with the hope I could worry Teppis.
    “For the art theaters,” Teppis stated, and he pointed a finger to his brain. “It won’t be from the heart. You’re too fresh for your own good,” he continued with one of his fast shifts, “who’s interested in your ideas? I’ll tell you what the story is. Eitel is through.”
    “I disagree,” I said, cheered to realize I was the only one at this party who did not have to be polite to