The Irresistible Henry House Part 24

"Hah."

"Not almost twenty?"

"You look like you drew that beard on," she said, and tapped the eraser of her pencil against his jawline, then back onto her order pad. "What'll you have?" she asked.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE TRYOUT BOOK was to move a cartoon character from one pose to another. In the first drawing, Donald Duck stood on a pitcher's mound. In the second, he watched a fly ball soar above his head. There might need to be as many as eight drawings in between, and in fact, the position for which Henry was applying was known as in-betweener. In-betweeners were considered animators, but just barely. They didn't invent characters or create backgrounds or come up with story points or even bits of business. Their job was merely to fill in: Donald eyes the hitter, then looks over his left shoulder. Donald raises his right leg, then lowers it. Donald torques his body, then releases the ball. Point A to Point B, Point B to Point C. Basic. An in-betweener's job would put Henry on the bottom of the ladder-just above the lowly inkers and painters who were known as "the girls."

Henry understood from the moment he picked up his pencil that he would have no problem with this. It took him only till dessert-a slice of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream-to decide on his strategy, and by the time the waitress brought him the check, he had made the first of his sketches and learned that her name was Cindy. Two hours later, he was back in Morrow's office, basking in Morrow's surprise at his speed; watching, this time with both pride and terror, as the pages of his work were turned.

"Natural-born Duck Man," Morrow said.

"I'm going to hope that's a good thing," Henry said.

Morrow smiled. "Well, you've got your tryout," he said-and for a moment, Henry thought he could almost see those words, soaring around the ceiling, not unlike a ribbon of Disney bluebirds.

HENRY FOUND A ROOM in a hotel apartment complex called the Tuxedo. It was located on the improbably named South Sparkle Street, which was ten long blocks from the studio. By bicycle, it took him fifteen minutes.

The Tuxedo had stucco walls, both inside and out, a number of large potted palm trees drooping slightly in the entryway, a pool that seemed never to be used or skimmed, and a faint but constant odor of raw fish. Henry's apartment was a poorly lighted studio, a box just thirty feet by thirty feet. It had a full-size bed, a desk chair, a desk, a bureau, and a kitchenette in which every appliance was at most half its customary size. There was one large and terrible landscape painting above the bed, which Henry took down and put at the back of the closet. Even with the bare walls, the dim light, and the briny smell, Henry considered it by far the best place he had ever lived.

Over that first weekend, he shaved his beard, bought ties and short-sleeved, b.u.t.ton-down shirts, and the first pots, pans, dishes, towels, and sheets he'd ever gotten to choose for himself.

WORK HAD BEGUN ON Mary Poppins Mary Poppins long before Henry arrived at Disney, so there was already the bustle and flow of a studio in full swing. Henry loved the way people were always rushing around with items that, juxtaposed in any other context, would have seemed totally perplexing: a cage full of rabbits, a rolling shelf of cymbals and drums, ballet skirts, large sheets of tin, a golf shoe. It was a world in which it seemed that the real purpose of all things was to be transformed into other things. long before Henry arrived at Disney, so there was already the bustle and flow of a studio in full swing. Henry loved the way people were always rushing around with items that, juxtaposed in any other context, would have seemed totally perplexing: a cage full of rabbits, a rolling shelf of cymbals and drums, ballet skirts, large sheets of tin, a golf shoe. It was a world in which it seemed that the real purpose of all things was to be transformed into other things.

The live action for Mary Poppins Mary Poppins was being filmed on every one of the studio's soundstages. The animation, as usual, was being done on the main floor of the Animation Building, a three-story, double-H-shaped mini-factory that could hold up to nine hundred artists at a time. was being filmed on every one of the studio's soundstages. The animation, as usual, was being done on the main floor of the Animation Building, a three-story, double-H-shaped mini-factory that could hold up to nine hundred artists at a time.

The more senior the animator, the closer he sat to a north-facing window and thus to the best available light. The room to which Henry was a.s.signed was a large bullpen and had virtually no natural light at all. But every man had his own desk, complete with a strong lamp, a large wooden drawing board, and a mirror in which to pose the expressions that he was trying to capture. It was not unusual to walk into the room and encounter a row of mirrored faces trying out sadness, levity, shock, awe, confusion, rage: as distinctive and outlandish as a row of Snow White's dwarfs.

There were nine other men with Henry in this bullpen, and when they were not feigning cartoon emotions, they were trying to conceal their real ones. Some of them had professional experience; others had degrees from three-dimensional art schools; all of them wanted the job, and though they'd been told that in theory all of them might be hired, they understood how unlikely that was. They tried, despite this, to project a sense of calm. Much had been made to them, even on the first day, about the studio's spirit of collaboration, about how the Old Man couldn't stand petty politics and had always insisted the artists learn from one another. Henry figured there would be time for happy collaboration later. For now, even if quietly, he sought every advantage.

On his third evening of the tryout, for example, Henry decided to attend the weekly drawing cla.s.s taught by a Disney veteran named Mark Harburg. The cla.s.ses were three hours long and were open to all current animators and would-be in-betweeners. They were held in a vast, barnlike room, where easels, huge rolls of paper, and several alarming human skeletons stood in shadow around the periphery, and a model-waiting for the cla.s.s to begin-stood on a raised, well-lighted platform in the middle, wearing nothing but a man's cardigan. Artists' benches, each made of smooth wood, formed a large square around her. Henry scanned the room and tried not to stare at the model for fear of seeming unprofessional. None of the other would-be in-betweeners had come. But he noticed a sort of swagger as the other men took their places; they came into the studio joking loudly, and they swung their legs over the benches, mounting them as if they were steeds.

"Five-minute poses," Harburg said. "This is Annie. Pencil or charcoal. Go."

Annie took the cardigan off and tossed it to Harburg. She had a pale, thin, but muscular body whose only apparent imperfection was a disparity in the size of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She was young, with short, fine auburn hair; blank, gray eyes; and an eerie, Sphinx-like face. Neither shy nor proud, she struck her first pose, putting her left hand on her left shoulder and her right hand on her right hip. Henry spent the first thirty seconds of the pose just trying to fight the enthusiastic chaos of longing that she had provoked in him. He tried to concentrate on her eyes for a moment, and then was fl.u.s.tered to realize that the artists on either side of him were drawing quick sketches of her body, ignoring her face completely.

Harburg, meanwhile, walked slowly around the benches, leaning in over one man's shoulder to point out something on his pad. His threatened approach only made Henry more nervous. But then Harburg looked at his watch.

"Next pose," he said, and Henry was relieved to turn to a fresh page.

Annie twisted her torso this time, as if she had just been startled by something behind her. Henry sketched. Four lines. Five. The arc of her back. Henry knew he could draw-as long as someone told him what to draw-and here was the a.s.signment: Draw this woman; make her real. She bent her right knee. There was a dimple on her backside, where the b.u.t.tock met the thigh. Henry sketched, and the familiar habit took over: the habit of putting one line after another, adding a shadow, shaping a curve, bringing this thing into being; there was the compulsion, once it was started, to finish-and this kept him from feeling intimidated by the other artists. He sketched. She bent over. He sketched. She reached up. It was apparent from this pose that she had a scar just under her left breast; it was a dime-size indentation that even at this distance seemed to radiate pain.

"Hey, Annie," one of the guys said. "Is that new?"

"No," she said, not changing her expression.

"How'd you get it?"

"Next pose," Harburg said.

Henry thought she would conceal the scar with her next pose, but she merely reached to her other side.

"Annie?"

"None of your business," she said, but sounded more playful than angry when she said it.

"I've got a scar like that," another man said. "I got it when I fell off Mr. Toad's Wild Ride."

Everybody laughed.

"I've got st.i.tches on my arm," another man said.

"From what?"

"Broke it when I was a kid."

They went around the room, talking about their scars and imperfections, and all the while they looked up at Annie, then down at their drawings; up at Annie, then back down, as if they were following a vertical game of tennis.

By the time Harburg came around again, Henry had conquered his nervousness and desire, and he was solely bent on getting the lines right.

Harburg stood behind Henry's bench for a moment and watched him sketch.

"Too accurate," he finally said.

"What?"

"You're being too literal," Harburg said. "That looks exactly like her."

"I thought that was the point."

"I don't want you to copy her. I want you to extract the point of her. Come away with something you could give to Goofy. Or Donald. Do you see what I mean?"

Henry nodded.

"You have no idea what I mean," Harburg said.

"You want a caricature," Henry said.

"I want an essence," Harburg said. "What you're trying to draw here is the world going by."

"Going by," Henry repeated.

"Annie," Harburg said, without looking at her.

"Yes?"

"One-minute poses."

"One minute!" Henry said.

Her movements became almost fluid now, as she changed from pose to pose.

A dark, a.s.sertive charcoal in his hand, Harburg reached over Henry's shoulder and drew what he had in mind: bold, quick strokes that suggested a motion but not really a person. A lunge, a reach, a retreat, a mood. Her gender became irrelevant; her age, her hair, her eyes. She became a body in motion, nothing more. As the pages and poses flew by, Henry drew with increasing speed and freedom. By the middle of the second hour, he had at least three sketches that, partly because of the speed with which he had drawn them, conveyed a sense of motion that nothing he'd ever drawn had conveyed.

"That's more like it," Harburg said. He called for a break, draping his cardigan over Annie's shoulders again, patting her shoulders paternally.

The men lit new cigarettes, stood up to stretch, sharpened their pencils with pocketknives.

Annie slowly walked around the drawing benches, seeing whatever images of her last pose were still uncovered. Her face remained impa.s.sive, almost shy. When she came to Henry's bench, he instinctively reached to flip to a fresh page and cover up his most recent drawing. She eyed him and smiled kindly.

"It's your first time here, isn't it," she said.

"Yes."

"And you're doing the tryout?"

"Yes."

"My name is Annie."

"I know. I'm Henry."

"Have you you got any scars?" she asked. got any scars?" she asked.

He laughed. "They're all internal," he said.

Her eyes softened further. "Really? Your heart's already been broken?"

He thought of the look on Mary Jane's face when she told him no. "Don't be ridiculous," she had said. Henry looked at Annie, inviting her to find out more.

She touched his elbow. Just a tiny touch. A little gesture, far too quick to capture, not even the length of a one-second pose, but Henry felt sure that, later that night, he would have no trouble drawing it from memory.

IT WAS A WORLD OF MEN, a world of fathers, cousins, and brothers, as clearly male and paternal as the practice house had been its opposite. Though there were certainly women at the studio-secretaries, a.s.sistants, inkers, and painters-they were virtually banned from the Animation Building and thus irrelevant to the real work.

Henry saved thinking about the women for the nights. He had two of them already in his mind: Cindy, with her amazing balloon-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s and matching carnival spirit; and Annie, who seemed so much more fragile, and thus provoked in him an eager, protective urge.

At night, Henry watched Jack Benny Jack Benny or or The Fugitive The Fugitive or or The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone on TV. He tried to imagine which of the two women would be better to invite over first. On the surface, Cindy seemed a surer bet. No work to get her at all, and probably not much more to keep her. But something about Annie held promise for him, too: he pictured her gripping him tightly, and the need he imagined in her was somehow more compelling than the need he felt in himself. He didn't know why he wanted it, but he let himself imagine that, for the first time, it might be nice to have a girlfriend whom he allowed to need him. on TV. He tried to imagine which of the two women would be better to invite over first. On the surface, Cindy seemed a surer bet. No work to get her at all, and probably not much more to keep her. But something about Annie held promise for him, too: he pictured her gripping him tightly, and the need he imagined in her was somehow more compelling than the need he felt in himself. He didn't know why he wanted it, but he let himself imagine that, for the first time, it might be nice to have a girlfriend whom he allowed to need him.

THE ONLY WOMAN HENRY THOUGHT ABOUT during the workday was Mary Poppins. Emem had read the book to Henry when he was six or seven. It was a strange book, Henry had thought even then. In it, four British children-Jane and Michael and a pair of twins-were tended to by a nanny who was blown onto their doorstep, took them on all sorts of magical adventures, and then-in chapter after chapter, with what Henry had sensed as increasing cruelty-simply pretended that nothing magical had happened after all.

Martha had kept the book among Henry's favorites, but she was the one who had liked it. The fact that the main character was a better mother to the children than their real mother was not something Henry would notice until later, and then he would find other similarities between Mary Poppins and Martha. Both of them were stern and precise, both of them were convinced they were right, and both of them were dishonest.

None of that mattered now. Henry would not have cared if the main character of this film was a phone book. But he gathered quickly that Disney's Mary Poppins Mary Poppins was a different story entirely. In the movie, Mary Poppins was more predictable in her goal: She came to fix a family, and she left when the family was fixed. There was also a certain cuteness to things. For one thing, the waiter who in the book had tended to Mary and Bert had been replaced by a team of four cartoon penguins. was a different story entirely. In the movie, Mary Poppins was more predictable in her goal: She came to fix a family, and she left when the family was fixed. There was also a certain cuteness to things. For one thing, the waiter who in the book had tended to Mary and Bert had been replaced by a team of four cartoon penguins.

Among those overseeing the required animations were two of the legendary studio veterans whom Walt had dubbed "the nine old men" long before they were old. Henry was asked to report to Ollie Johnston, whom he found at a wooden drawing board in a private office.

"Penguins or horses?" Johnston asked, as if he were offering weapons in a duel.

"Whatever you need," Henry answered, as if he was sure he could do anything.

"Let's see your penguin," Ollie Johnston said.

Henry reached into his back pocket for his sketch pad and whipped the pencil from its spiral binding. Within seconds, he had drawn the beginnings of a cheerful penguin.

"No, no, not that way," Johnston said.

Mortified, Henry looked back at his drawing, trying to find the error.

"No. I mean your penguin," penguin," Johnston said and, c.o.c.king his hands at right angles to his sides, demonstrated for Henry the most ridiculous, the most graceful, the most convincing penguin dance it was possible to imagine. Johnston said and, c.o.c.king his hands at right angles to his sides, demonstrated for Henry the most ridiculous, the most graceful, the most convincing penguin dance it was possible to imagine.

Henry laughed. "Oh," he said. "My penguin." penguin."

"It's even better when Frank and I do it together," Johnston said.

He made one last little shuffle and glide, then sat back in his chair.

"Good luck, kid," he said. "See you around, maybe."

HENRY LOVED THE WARM, TROPICAL MAGIC of California: the strange, contradictory foliage, the odd quiet, the sameness of the sky. He loved the white, green, and rust of the landscape, the pink and beige houses, the surprise of the hills. Above all, he loved the distance he had come from every place he had ever lived and, with only one exception, every person he'd ever known.

He felt almost too free to be angry anymore. When he thought about Betty and Martha, it was mostly with grim satisfaction that he was no longer dependent on either of them. And when, exactly four weeks after Henry started his tryout, Morrow told him that he would be hired as a full-time Disney employee, it was the first time since his arrival that he had felt the impulse to share his news with someone from his former life. He was tempted by neither Martha nor Betty, and he was still too wounded by Mary Jane. But as he bicycled home from the studio late in the evening, he realized that he wanted Charlie and Karen to know.

There was a faint tone of retaliation in the letter he wrote that evening, a none-too-subtle suggestion that he didn't need them after all. He wrote the letter on Disney Studio stationery and punctuated it with details of the animation world and samples of drawings and many mentions of the "nine old men" and how some of them would be working on Mary Poppins Mary Poppins and teaching him what they knew. and teaching him what they knew. Teaching Teaching was obviously a word that Henry chose with much precision and little subtlety. was obviously a word that Henry chose with much precision and little subtlety.

He enclosed an old paper face mask of Donald Duck that he'd found in his bottom desk drawer, a souvenir of whatever in-betweener had had the desk before him.

"I know Mabel is still probably a little young for this," Henry wrote. "But maybe she will enjoy it when she gets a little older."

He closed by drawing a sketch of a plump diapered baby wearing the Donald Duck mask, with her arms outstretched in glee.

HE WANTED TO CELEBRATE getting the job, and he decided that he wanted the celebration to be with Annie. In the break during the next drawing cla.s.s, while she circled the wooden benches, Henry quickly altered his drawing so that when she came over to look, she found a picture of herself, fully clothed, with a flower in one hand and a sc.r.a.p of paper in the other. On the paper was Henry's phone number.

She laughed when she saw it.

"Really?" she said.

"Come out with me tonight," he said. He grinned. He gave her his best eyes: green and golden, sweetness and mischief, a promise of fun and attention.

The cla.s.s ended at nine, and by nine-thirty they were riding their bikes, side by side, through the warm night, toward the Tuxedo.

"This is where you live?" she asked him as they pulled up. The oval swimming pool glowed green in the night, gaudy as a gem.

"It's called the Tuxedo," he said.

"I thought we were going to get something to eat." She was still straddling her bicycle.

"We're going to," he said.