The Deer Park by Norman Mailer Page A

the dirt and the filth. If anybody saw me talking to you, I’d be ashamed.”
    “You should be,” Eitel said. “Lulu was; a fine American girl, and you let me turn her into a common whore.” His voice was cool, but I could sense it was not easy for him to talk to Teppis.
    “You have a dirty mouth,” Herman Teppis said, “and nothing else.”
    “Don’t speak to me this way. I no longer work for you.”
    Teppis rocked forward and back on the balls of his feet as if to build up momentum. “I’m ashamed to have made money from your movies. Five years ago I called you into my office and I warned you. ‘Eitel,’ I said, ‘anybody that tries to throw a foul against this country ends up in the pigpen.’ That’s what I said, but did you listen?” He waved a finger. “You know what they’re talking about at the studio? They say you’re going to make a comeback. Some comeback. You couldn’t do a day’s work without the help of the studio. I let people know that.”
    “Come on, Sergius, let’s go,” Eitel said.
    “Wait, you!” Teppis said to me. “What’s your name?”
    I told him. I gave it with an Irish twist.
    “What kind of name is that for a clean-cut youngster like you? You should change it. John Yard. That’s the kind of name you should have.” He looked me over as if he were buying a bolt of cloth. “Who are you?” said Teppis, “what do you do? I hope you’re not a bum.”
    If he wanted to irritate me, he was successful. “I used to be in the Air Force,” I said to him.
    There was a gleam in his eye. “A flier?”
    Standing in the doorway, Eitel decided to have his own fun. “Do you mean you never heard of this boy, H.T.?”
    Teppis was cautious. “I can’t keep up with everything,” he said.
    “Sergius is a hero,” Eitel said creatively. “He shot down four planes in a day.”
    I had no chance to get into this. Teppis smiled as if he had been told something very valuable. “Your mother and father must be extremely proud of you,” he said.
    “I wouldn’t know. I was brought up in an orphanage.” My voice was probably unsteady because I could see by Eitel’s change of expression that he knew I was telling the truth. Iwas sick at giving myself away so easily. But it is always like that. You hold a secret for years, and then spill it like a cup of coffee. Or maybe Teppis made me spill it.
    “An orphan,” he said. “I’m staggered. Do you know you’re a remarkable young man?” He smiled genially and looked at Eitel. “Charley, you come back here,” he said in his hoarse voice. “What are you flying off the handle for? You’ve heard me talk like this before.”
    “You’re a rude man, Herman,” Eitel said from the doorway.
    “Rude?” Teppis put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Why, I wouldn’t even be rude to my doorman.” He laughed and then began to cough. “Eitel,” he said, “what’s happened to Carlyle? Where’d he go?”
    “He didn’t tell me.”
    “I don’t understand anybody any more. You’re a young man, Johnny,” he said, pointing to me as if I were inanimate, “you tell me, what is everything all about?” But long before I could answer that question, he started talking again. “In my day a man got married, and he could be fortunate in his selection, or he could have bad luck, but he was married. I was a husband for thirty-two years, may my wife rest in peace, I have her picture on my desk. Can
you
say that, Eitel? What do you have on your desk? Pin-up pictures. I don’t know people who feel respect for society any more. I tell Carlyle. What happens? He wallows. That’s the kind of man my daughter wanted to marry. A fool who sneaks around with a chippie dancer.”
    “We all have our peculiarities, Herman,” Eitel said.
    This made Teppis angry. “Eitel,” he shouted, “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but I make an effort to get along with everybody,” and then to quiet himself down, he made a point of looking me over very