by Howard Fast
For a long, long moment, the son and the father stared at each other, Leonard sick that he had said what he said, Richard Cromwell groping through eternity until he managed to say, “I don’t give a damn about that. You’re my son. I love you, and we’re going to find a way to beat it.” The senator moved close to Leonard. “Do you believe me?”
“I’m trying. You won’t turn on me because I’m gay?”
“Stop that!” The senator enclosed him in a bear hug. Then he remembered his wife. “I’m going to send them away. The dinner’s off.”
“Oh, no—don’t do that. You’d have to tell Mother.”
“Yes, I have to.”
“But not today, please. Not while her folks are here. I can’t go through it with them.”
“Lenny, she’ll know. Does Elizabeth know?”
“Yes.”
“Poor kid—that’s why she’s so quiet.”
“You can handle it,” Lenny pleaded. “I don’t want to face Gramps and Grandma. That’s too much.”
“I don’t know whether I can handle it.”
“You can. Look at me—just telling me that you’re with me—it’s like giving life back to me. I thought you’d hate me, and that would have been worse than having Aids. Can’t you do it—please?”
“Are you all right?” the senator insisted. “Are you in pain of any kind?”
“No. I’m all right now. Look at me.”
“And you really feel that you can go through with this?”
“The way I feel now.…” He shook his head, groping for words. “I feel good,” he said quietly. “I’m all right.
“Then, since you want to, we’ll go through with it.”
“Sure. Don’t tell Mother today. This is going to hurt her so much.”
The senator was thinking that his son was dying and yet his son was protective. He was trying to understand that, and at the same time still reacting to the sentence of death, numbed inside, sick inside, screaming inside against the fate that was taking his son away from him. His son came to him and embraced him. “I’m all right, Dad.” The arms were protective and the voice was cool. In one day he had been Father and Pop and Dad and Daddy. “I’m a homosexual,” but Richard Cromwell had known that all along. There was the wall that had grown up between them, and why could he see it only now when he had known for so long? Why did it take this cold horror to bring them together? Words and memories stabbed at his mind, like fire from a gun that shot cold slivers of pain, and somewhere in that far away part of the brain called remembrance a voice screamed, Would God that I had died for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son. Now, not minutes ago, it came through to him. His son was dying.
“Oh, Jesus, Dad, don’t take it that way.”
The senator nodded, his face full of loose flesh that had lost the will to stay together and be a face. Leonard drew back, but the senator clutched for him.
“God damn it,” Leonard said sharply. “Don’t do that. You’re leaving me alone. I don’t want any fucking grief. I want love.”
The senator nodded, still unable to speak.
“Don’t go away from me. Your grief takes you away. Don’t you understand?”
Death was new to the senator; it was old to Leonard.
“Father,” Leonard said gently, “do you know what I tell myself? I tell myself that this thing must come to all men, sooner for me, later for others. But it comes, and we must face it. Sit down, please.” He led the senator to a chair, which the senator dropped into, still a man in a waking coma.
Leonard went to his desk and took a piece of paper out of a drawer. “I wrote you a letter.”
The senator came awake. “Oh, God, no! You don’t take your own life. I said we’ll fight this. I meant it!”
“Not suicide—I love this thing called life so much I’ll fight and scrabble for every minute of it. But I didn’t know how to say this—I didn’t have the courage to say it.” He read from the letter. “I’m facing an awful thing, and I won’t make it unless you can tell me that you love me. If you can’t, crumple this up and throw it away.…” He crumpled it and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Stupid letter. I wouldn’t have finished it. Please, come on, be my friend.”
“Always,” the senator whispered.
“You look like hell,” Leonard said, smiling at his father. “Some cold water on your face and comb your hair,” pointing to his bathroom, “and then we’ll go to meet the foe.”
The senator went into the bathroom. Someone rapped at the door. Leonard opened it, and there was Elizabeth who said, “Is Daddy with you?”
“In the bathroom.”
“They’re here. Big stretch caddy, and two fat S.S. men in front.”
“Just now?”
“Five minutes ago. Funny thing to see them face to face, like seeing a cartoon character walk out of the strip.” In heels, with her pale brown hair piled high on the top of her head, Elizabeth was almost as tall as her brother. She wore a white voile dress with a full, many-layered gathered skirt, white kidskin shoes, and a single long strand of pearls her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.
“What a beautiful woman you are,” Leonard said.
“You noticed.”
“I always noticed.”
“What happened?”
“I told him,” Leonard said.
“Did you? Lenny, was it terrible?” she said, whispering now.
“Quite terrible.”
“Is it all right now? I mean, is anything all right?”
“It’s as all right as it could ever be.”
She kissed his cheek, lightly. “I’m downstairs.”
“No word to Mother—remember.”
She nodded and fled. Leonard closed the door and turned to his father, who had just stepped out of the bathroom. “How do I look?” he asked.
“Good. That was Liz. They’re here.”
“Let the bastards wait. One thing, Lenny—your friend, Jones, does.…” He let the word hang. He couldn’t go on. He thought about it, and the whole order of things collapsed.
Nodding, Leonard clutched for words. “Yes. He says no, because he doesn’t want me to carry the guilt. He can’t weep, he can’t let his terror out of him.…” His eyes filled. “I don’t like to talk about that. It’s just too fucken terrible.”
He wiped his eyes. The senator took his arm, and they walked out of the room together.
TWENTY-NINE
MacKenzie told his wife that her trouble stemmed from the fact that she was not political. He had told her this before, informing her that she was not properly conscious of being a black woman, to which she replied that if being black and being a woman did not make her properly conscious of being a black woman, she would turn to MacKenzie whenever she required information on the subject. He brought it up again this evening before he left the kitchen to take his place at the front hallway.
“That is all right,” Ellen said. “I am tired to death of being a black woman, so when you look at me tonight, just you see a white woman, and that solves the problem and I am busy.” Then she added, “Too busy to quarrel.”
“No quarrel,” MacKenzie assured her. “No way.” He spread his arms, and Ellen had to admit that he made a handsome figure, six feet and one inch tall, quite impressive in his white jacket and creased black trousers. “But just suppose you have to explain this to your kids, which I will. We had a lot of dinner guests in our time, but this is different, very, very unique. These two gentlemen run the United States foreign policy which just makes them two of the most important folk in the world.”
“Senator’s more important,” Ellen said flatly.
“No way. I wish, but no way. These two make the decision and run things. Oh, I’m sure they wake up the president now and then. Mr. President, here’s what happens past two days. They read it off and then he goes back to sleep.”
“Will you stop bothering me. I got work to do. Furthermore, you get up there in front or they will come and just be left stand
ing at the door.”
“Also,” MacKenzie said slowly and judgmentally, “they do not like blacks.”
“For heaven’s sake, this country is full of people don’t like blacks. Now will you get out of here.”
As he marched through to the hallway with its wide curving staircase and its rich old Persian rug, MacKenzie saw Augustus and his wife descending the staircase. He ushered them into the sitting room, where Nellie, bright and perky in her starched, freshly pressed white uniform dress, awaited them. Augustus eyed her with appreciation, while Jenny said, “You do look handsome tonight, Mac.”
“Trying my best,” he said. He went back to the front door, where he had a full view of the driveway, and at exactly half past seven, a long, black stretch Cadillac came down the driveway and pulled up in front of the house. A Secret Service guard leaped out of it almost before it had stopped moving, snapped his glance here and there, on the house, the doorway, the ornamental taxus and rhododendron, as if behind each bush in the lovely evening sunlight an assassin crouched; doubled around the car, and then opened the rear door. The driver of the car, also a large man, the size of his partner, and displaying the same wide, expressionless face as his partner, the same black suit and white shirt and black four-in-hand tie as his partner, leaped out of his side of the car and took a position between the house and the guests, so that he might have a clear line of fire should the terrorists attack.
No terrorists attacked, and in the early twilight a rose hue fell on the old, rambling Colonial house, turning the white clapboards pink and violet. The four passengers were caught by a trick of light that enveloped them in a golden glow, and being human, they reacted with pleasure.
“So that’s the old homestead,” William Justin said. “It’s a pretty place,” dropping a small compliment toward a man he did not actually like. Justin was a small man, not terribly small, five feet and seven inches in height, but giving an impression of being shorter because of his bald head. It was his pride that he would not wear a toupee, and it worked for him since he was the only one of his contemporaries who did not hide his weakness under a rug. He had tiny, gimlet eyes, very dark, and he gave no impression of being either young or old—although he was, in fact, forty-nine years of age. The media never referred to him as either Young Bill Justin or Old Bill Justin, bowing to his agelessness. Like the ferret, he was compulsively driven to triumph and to kill, wearing his marine background like a medal of honor. His wife, Winifred Lackover Justin, came of a Louisiana family that had once owned one of the huge, ostentatious Mississippi river houses with the Greek-revival columns and numerous slaves. A blue-eyed, blonde southern girl, she had turned sour over the years as she came to realize that the presidency would never be within her husband’s reach. Not only was he woefully non-photogenic, but in his past there was the shadow, true or not, of an unwed grandmother.
Webster Heller, the secretary of state, was out of a different world, a world of new and very oily money. A Texan, he was tall, gaunt, with eyes so cold that the blue was almost white. The senator felt that there was nothing behind those eyes, no soul, no heart, only a brain that was not unlike the very best of computers. In height, he matched Augustus, but without Augustus’s bulk and wide muscular chest; he was a long, lean man in the Gary Cooper tradition. His wife was an odd contrast. Heller was sixty-three, his wife eleven years younger, white haired, full breasted, with a timid, apologetic smile and a thin, diffident voice. She could have posed for the pictures they put on frozen apple pies, boxes of cake mix, and tins of cookies. It was bruited about that she existed in permanent panic, but no one really knew much about her except that she chattered. Her prissy, printed silk frock appeared perfectly proper for her, although on anyone else it might have looked ridiculous. But it retreated in utter defeat before the ruby red silk gown that enveloped Winifred Justin.
MacKenzie took the ladies’ wraps and then ushered the four guests into the living room. It was a beautiful room, with its eighteen-foot silk Chinese rug, gray-green walls and white woodwork. A courtly and restful room, the evening light slanting through the windows vying with the lamps. MacKenzie disposed of their wraps, saw that Dolly had the situation in hand, and then sped outside. The two Secret Service men were sitting obediently in the front seat of the stretch Cadillac.
“Follow the driveway around to the back of the house,” MacKenzie told them. “You can park just outside the garage, and you’ll see the kitchen door, and then over a ways on the right, there’s a screened-in porch. You can make yourself comfortable on the porch, and Mrs. MacKenzie will have your dinner brought to you there.”
“What about security?”
“Oh? What about it?”
“There’s the front door.”
“We got a German shepherd. I can tie him up out here, you want me to.”
“Mister, are you putting me on?”
“My goodness, no,” MacKenzie protested. “You mean terrorists and such?”
“I mean security.”
“Well, I can lock the front door.”
“You know, Mister, you are beginning to be a pain in the ass.”
The other Secret Service man said to his partner, “Take it easy.” And to MacKenzie, “I think we better keep our station right here. If we can have bathroom facilities?”
“I’ll leave the front door open.”
“No! You don’t do that. We’ll go around to the back if we need a bathroom.”
MacKenzie said to himself, What you mean is that you’ll piss on the grass once it’s dark. He stalked back into the house, full of anger, calming himself as he entered the living room. Dolly’s eye signals said, For heaven’s sake, get them drinking. He poured the Pavillon Blanc for Winifred and accepted Frances Heller’s request for a Perrier, while Dolly hissed to Elizabeth, “Will you run upstairs and get them down here!” Frances was explaining to MacKenzie, “I don’t drink anymore—oh, I’ll have a glass of wine at dinner, but not real drink. Mr. Heller is very secretive, and when I drink, I can’t be secretive.” The pink apple-pie face smiled up at him, and though it was quite insane, MacKenzie had the feeling that the plump little lady with the white hair was coming on to him. Heller and Augustus both had Scotch and soda, and Justin had a wine cooler. The thought of diluting the Château Margaux with soda water horrified MacKenzie. When he turned to Dolly, she whispered, “I’ll wait. Mac, where are they?”
“Shall I go?”
“Oh, no. No. I sent Liz.”
“It looks to me,” Augustus boomed from across the room, “like a couple of barely ambulatory Republicans have driven my son-in-law to cover.”
Heller protested that he still got onto a golf course at least once a week.
“Riding the cart or walking?”
Justin insisted that he himself walked. Heller confessed to getting on and off the cart. Mrs. Heller was admiring the wallpaper. “It looks real,” she said to Dolly, who wondered what she could possibly mean by that.
“It is real,” Dolly said lamely.
“She means blocked,” said Winifred. “But your house isn’t that old, is it?”
“Oh, no. Mother built the house. It’s simply a passable reproduction.” The kitchen and the pantry are the remains of a very old house, but modernized as they are, they can hardly claim antique vintage.”
“If you can think of a reproduction as being passable?”
“Well, perhaps not with houses,” Dolly agreed with Winifred. “Certainly not in terms of face lifts and such. But furniture can be almost perfect.”
It was a stiletto into a very tender spot, and Dolly would have swallowed her tongue to have the words back. It was not the kind of thing she would ordinarily have done—smack in the face of the two bouts of surgery that Winifred was said to have had, and whose small, hardly hidden scars about the ears bore witness to.
“Yes, yes indeed,” Winifred agreed, smiling thinly. “Just as some women are almost perfect. I have heard it said about Joan Herman, but I don’t think she’s qu
ite that perfect—I mean, being a tall blonde doesn’t forgive all sins.”
“Touché,” Dolly murmured. “It’s a long evening. Shall we be friends?”
“One tries.”
“I always try,” Frances Heller said. “You know, it’s basic to the practice of politics.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ll never need it—unless I go on some dismal diet—which I have no intention of doing.”
“What won’t you need?” Dolly asked, and once again wished she could gulp the words back.
“A face lift.”
“Of course, darling,” Winifred said acidly, “you’re too lovely.”
But Frances Heller, too high for acid to touch her, simply smiled and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. When she was six, her mother had told her never to contest it when anyone said she was beautiful, but accept it and say thank you. “Frank Bixbee says that a little pudge keeps the lines and creases away. Does Frank do your hair, Winnie?” There was no contrived bitchiness in Frances. She was still the six-year-old whom everyone said was so very pretty.
“Pudge?” Dolly wondered.
“Fat,” Winifred said flatly. “No. I don’t use Frank. Seventy-five dollars for a haircut is beyond my fantasies.”
“I would perish without Frank. Do you, Mrs. Cromwell?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dolly confessed. “When it gets too long, Ellen takes a pair of shears and lops it away.”
Elizabeth entered the room now, and Dolly realized she was too young and too beautiful for the moment, putting the older women on the defensive, making them unhappily aware of themselves. It was not going to be a good evening. Elizabeth whispered to her mother, “They’ll be right down.”
“Nothing wrong?”
“Oh, no. All systems go.” Lies. How could she lie to her mother in this fashion? The sorrow would pile up. The sorrow was something that belonged to all three of them; it was wrong to separate it, cut it apart, save it so to speak. How could she or her father live through the remaining hours of the day? But she couldn’t deal with this question; she was still trying to comprehend that her brother was dying, and the decisions belonged to her father. She was amazed by the manner of her pretense. Was she born to deceit? Who was it who had said that “only a woman could properly engage in deceit”?