Free Everything Happened to Susan by Barry Malzberg

level of performances are not what they should be. Needless to say, it is hard to find and develop a good level of talent in this kind of film. Nevertheless, there are standards and we try to meet them.”
    “Well, I tried — ”
    “They are not good at all and in particular you are not acting up to your potential. I hear unhappy news about you. I am extremely disappointed.” Phil rubs his hands together, looks at her for the first time, lowers his eyes and switches the gears of his rhetoric so that once again he talks as he did when she first met him. “This can’t be,” he says. “We got to keep up to standards. You are a particular disappointment because you begged me for this chance.”
    “I didn’t beg you.”
    “Don’t argue with me!” Phil says and waves his arm with a flourish. A glass of water is upset. Two waitresses, murmuring, appear from the sides to wipe up the water. He says nothing, sits sullenly, hands folded until they are gone. “Trouble is we can’t teach you kids nothing these days,” he says. “You think you know it all.”
    “I’m tired. I’m so tired — ”
    “Don’t give me your problems! I got problems; I got to get this thing out. The hell with it,” Phil says. “I could tell you things that would make you sit up straight but your whole generation is so selfish that you won’t even listen. What do you care? All you can do is take your clothes off and get in front of a camera. You think that’s acting? I’ll tell you what acting is. Incidentally, I’m not trying to put the make on you. Get that right out of your mind, if you think that that’s why I’m seeing you tonight. There is nothing going that way at all because I got other plans. This is purely business and, to tell you the truth, I’m not so hot to put the make on you, if you know what I mean. Of course, if you want to come up to my place to talk — ”
    “Please,” Susan says. She feels that her personality is slowly being pulverized under his weight. She has the peculiar feeling of seeing oneself running out like water upon the table. Of course her father used to make her feel that way; so she has some familiarity with the sensation. “I’m just so tired — ”
    “I didn’t force you to come along. If you don’t want to go up to my place, that’s perfectly all right; it doesn’t make any difference to me at all. Of course I don’t know how long we can keep you going in this film. You don’t even show any interest in getting advice. You can’t even take direction. How long can we ride with you? So it’s your decision,” Phil says and takes his wallet out of his pocket, beginning to lay bills upon the table. He stops at three, looks at the clock behind them and stands. “So I guess that’s it,” he says. “You come around tomorrow morning and we’ll see if we got anything for you or not. Of course if we don’t, we can’t guarantee any pay for today because we’ll have to scrap everything in which you’ve appeared; it would be ridiculous to have an actress in a couple of scenes who wasn’t woven through the film. I can’t tell you people how to live; it’s a wholly different life-style.”
    “You remind me of my father,” Susan says. “In many ways, you’re just like him.”
    “That’s an old problem. It don’t mean nothing to me.”
    “I didn’t say you were.”
    “I got no time to lose,” Phil says standing ponderously, weaving behind the table. “I got things to do so you got to make your move now and not later.”
    “All right,” Susan says. “All right. I’ll go to your place if you want me to.”
    “Not exactly my place,” Phil says, putting his arm on her. “No, not my place. There are reasons I can’t take you there. We’re going to the same place as the other time, the hotel. But I think of it as my place because I’ve had that room for years and I even sleep in it sometimes and once for three months I even lived there due to certain circumstances which I