A Few Words on Hollywood from F. Scott Fitzgerald

A negro man came along the shore toward them, collecting the grunion quickly, like twigs, into two pails. They came in twos and threes and platoons and companies, relentless and exalted and scornful, around the great bare feet of the intruders, as they had come before Sir Francis Drake had nailed his plaque to the boulder on the shore.

“I wish for another pail,” the negro man said, resting a moment.

“You’ve come a long way out,” said Stahr.

“I used to go to Malibu, but they don’t like it, those moving picture people.”

A wave came in and forced them back, receded swiftly, leaving the sand alive again.

“Is it worth the trip?” Stahr asked.

“I don’t figure it that way. I really come out to read some Emerson. Have you ever read him?”

“I have,” said Kathleen. “Some.”

“I’ve got him inside my shirt. I got some Rosicrucian literature with me, too, but I’m fed up with them.”

The wind had changed a little, the waves were stronger further down, and they walked along the foaming edge of the water.

“What’s your work?” the negro asked Stahr.

“I work for the pictures.”

“Oh.” After a moment he added, “I never go to movies.”

“Why not?” asked Stahr sharply.

“There’s no profit. I never let my children go.”

Stahr watched him, and Kathleen watched Stahr protectively.

“Some of them are good,” she said, against a wave of spray; but he did not hear her. She felt she could contradict him and said it again, and this time he looked at her indifferently.

“Are the Rosicrucian brotherhood against pictures?” asked Stahr.

“Seems as if they don’t know what they are for. One week they for one thing and next week for another.”

Only the little fish were certain. Half an hour had gone, and still they came. The negro’s two pails were full, and finally he went off over the beach toward the road, unaware that he had rocked an industry.

From Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western

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