Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  Jay McGown walked past, hesitated, and came back to whisper into his ear.

  Red and green lights splashed across the voting boards and a faint riffling sound was heard as the automatic computers went to work on the tally. Roy leaned over and pressed his switch. A young man strode past, watching the board, holding one finger above his head; another member followed a few steps behind, signaling with two fingers. The young men glared at each other and separated. The midday sun gleamed chalk-white through the windows, and two flags flapped dismally in the torpid heat outside. Roy wondered how the carp were biting.

  “You’re all set, then?” Jay said to him.

  Roy nodded. “You got any new converts?” he asked.

  “Few foot-draggers giving us trouble,” Jay said. “Some of the fascists.” They both smiled at the word; it seemed almost archaic. Jay said: “They’re shaken — a few of them — about you managing the bill. They think something’s wrong.”

  “There probably is,” Roy said. “Wish I knew what it was.”

  Jay moved on. Roy repeated to himself: I wish I knew. What it was. What in hell did Fenstemaker expect of him? He could nearly hear it now … Behold, my friend, I have gone and set the land before yew. Go in there yourself now and possess it, as I have already sware it unto yew and your children and their seed after them … He began to tremble slightly, the way it had been at one time with girls, or the time with his father, leveling gunsights on the Kodiak bear. It must’ve been the size of an upright Model-T, the bear, and he’d had one of the old Fords once, trembling even then, the first time he had propped himself mile-high at the steering wheel. The bear was bloodied and poorly killed, and the T-Model nearly impossible to stretch out with a girl in.

  He heard the Speaker’s voice droning from the rostrum, and then he was on his feet and plodding along in crazy slow movements, feeling monstrous and obtrusive, even in the stadium-sized chamber, toward the front microphone. He stared round the big room, took a deep breath, blinked in the stark light. He laid out his notes and the reference books and the speech Jay had written for him, gaped foggily once again at all his thieves and princes and rapscallions, and began, finally, to talk about the bill. He talked for a quarter of an hour, shifting from his notes to the prepared text and back again to the notes. Then he stood there revealed, waiting for the others to start in. He answered most of the questions right off, and when he couldn’t pull it out of his head, he turned through the thick pages of the reference books to find answers before questions were half out of mouths. A succession of amendments were proposed, defeated, proposed again in different form and beaten again. He accepted some minor changes, after pausing to reflect and in one instance straining to see Jay McGown nodding approval at the back of the hall. Alfred Rinemiller got to the back microphone and talked for ten minutes on his liberalizing amendment. Roy did not comment, but moved immediately for a vote; and Rinemiller was beaten badly. Roy motioned Huggins to the front microphone to relieve him while he went to haggle with someone at the back about obscure points of law in administering funds. When he was finished there, he turned to see Huggins in furious, full-wind debate with an old man, a member of twenty years standing, who had risen to decry the whole concept of such legislation. The old man hooted at the top of his voice, shaking his gnarled fist, charging that an unholy alliance had been formed between Fenstemaker and “minorities.” Fenstemaker and people such as Huggins, the old man claimed, were leading them all down the road to government control and socialism. Huggins stood there at the front microphone for a moment, amazed. “I ain’t even talked to the Governor about this bill,” he said finally. “I just thought it looked all right to me.”

  “You think it’s all right, that’s enough to convince me it’s all wrong,” the old man said, waving his hands and looking about him for agreement from the others. Roy came down the center aisle and stood next to Huggins.

  “Don’t argue with the old bastard,” he said. “Ignore him.”

  “What?” Huggins said. “We can’t do that, can we? He’s misstated the whole thing — he’s even invented stuff about it. Godalmighty, you can’t let it go unanswered.”

  “He’s just an artless old man,” Roy said. “Let it go … Forget it. It ought to be obvious to everyone. He’s got a reputation for it. But you get into an argument with him — hell that’s what he wants — he’ll have you defending every point in the bill for the next two hours. He can go all day on something like this. I’ve seen him. So’ve you. Ignore him. Otherwise, all our support might take a walk to the washroom. Don’t answer him. Just nod and sit down.”

  “You’re the straw boss,” Huggins said. He walked off and sat at his desk, looking unhappy.

  The debate resumed. Roy stood silent at the front microphone and let the opposition talk. Finally, with critics repeating themselves, their forensic gone dreary and uninspired, there were complaints from all around them for a vote. Roy made the motion then, and the Speaker banged the gavel and Fenstemaker’s bill was up for passage. Roy walked back to his desk and the lights began blinking on the big boards. He pushed the switch at his desk and heard one of his opponents say with satisfaction, “It looks like a red board.” Someone else said: “Mebby not. It’s too close to tell.” Roy looked at the boards and then across the chamber. Arthur Fenstemaker had appeared at the back, and Roy saw him there, slumped against a marble column, hands in pockets, staring up at the board. Then the Governor’s eyes focused on him and Roy got to his feet. He moved toward Fenstemaker; he could hear the noise of the electric computers and then the click and a sudden shout from all around. Fenstemaker’s face beamed. Roy turned to look. The red and green lights had vanished and the totals had been flashed. Fenstemaker had his arm and was roaring in his ear: “Ten votes! How ’bout that, my friend. You got home with money in the bank! Ten goddam votes!”

  He clapped Roy on the back and pulled him toward the marble column. Huggins was on his feet down toward the rostrum, requesting confirmation. There were some late votes being cast, but not enough to change the outcome. “You did good job, Roy,” the Governor said.

  “I just followed instructions.”

  “You did real good job … Pretty goddam remarkable demonstration for just a few days’ homework. Hah? How you like those skids bein’ greased?”

  “I like it fine,” Roy said. They walked outside together. Jay McGown joined them, and then Willie. Fenstemaker suggested they all go to his office and have a drink.

  They walked down the halls together and through the reception room and into the Governor’s office. Fenstemaker got out the whiskey and Jay made drinks. Hoot Gibson came in and stood around grinning for a time until Jay gave him a glass of whiskey; then he told Willie a long, incoherent story about bringing Henry Busse and his orchestra to the college for a dance fifteen or twenty years before. Willie said he thought he remembered Henry Busse. Roy sat in one of the big chairs and closed his eyes, thinking distractedly of Alfred Rinemiller and what would happen to him. Nothing, possibly. It all seemed to depend on so many people. Fenstemaker was flushed and grinning. He waved his glass as in a toast.

  “Then, my friends, then we did beat them as small as the dust of the earth …”

  Roy got up and excused himself for a moment. He found a phone in one of the back offices and dialed the number. The baby sitter answered, announced that Ouida had gone off to the ranch for the weekend and asked if there would be a message. Roy said no — no message he could think of.

  “You wawn talk to Mister Fielding? He’s right here.”

  Before he could answer, Earle Fielding’s voice came on.

  “Roy? That you Roy …?”

  He broke the connection and wandered out the door, down a stairway and into the afternoon heat. On the way home he stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of whiskey. He would either drink from it straight on his way to the ranch or mix a few sours with which to brace the late afternoon on the front porch of the cabin. It seemed like another awful decision
to make.

  Twelve

  IT WAS ONLY A half-hour’s drive out into the country. He knew the way nearly by instinct. Four or five years before, toward the end of what they now called the crypto-fascist era in politics, when the young people were just beginning to stir about, there had been parties at the ranch almost every week, all during one session of the Legislature. They were only a small group of them, the first organized liberal activity since the years of the plague. They’d driven out to Earle’s place once or twice a week to talk and plan and play and get drunk. He knew the route by heart; he’d driven it all that year, in one direction or another, and half the time he’d been drunk. He was drunk now, like old times. He had brought along a pint of whiskey for the express purpose of retaining the glow of well-being achieved earlier in the evening.

  He swung the car easily through the front gate and headed up the hillside toward the big house. Lights shone through the bastard Gothic windows. She would be waiting up for him. His heart pounded exquisitely, painfully, as he sat hunched over the steering wheel, staring at the house. He took a deep breath and wiped his face and had one last swallow from the pint bottle. Then he got out and banged confidently on the front door.

  “My God!” Ouida said, standing away for a moment and regarding him.

  “You see?” he said, smiling. “I did come …”

  “Yes,” Ouida said. “Well … Come on in. Where are the others? Anyone else coming out early?”

  “They were talking about it,” Rinemiller said. “Don’t know if they ever reached a decision. I had to get out of there — we were having dinner at Mack the Knife’s — I had to get out or Earle would’ve had me flying him up so he could make a jump for your rooftop …”

  He walked inside, set his small bag down on the gaudy tile of the entranceway, and looked around, examining the imitation hand-hewn beams that supported the walls, the bare timbers stretching across the ceiling; staring up at the balcony that led off to the bedrooms on either side. There was a bidet in one of the baths; he remembered that much — and wagon wheels for chandeliers: all in the worst possible taste of first-generation wealth. It was a perfect barn of a place for weekend parties.

  “Looks just the same,” Rinemiller said with satisfaction. He could not quite meet her eyes just yet. He stared round the room, commenting on one object and another.

  “Is Earle back on one of his parachute obsessions?” she said. “I thought — hoped — all that had maybe passed.”

  “He was on it tonight,” Rinemiller said. “And neither of us was in any condition to fly.” Finally he managed to let his eyes come to rest on her. She looked splendid: dark cotton tennis shorts, blue oxford cloth shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, white sneakers — it all seemed to strike just the right note of reverse elegance, high-grade licentiousness.

  He moved over next to her. Ouida touched his arm and then let it go and then backed off and came close again. It was as if each was testing the other’s reactions. Ouida stood in the center of the room, next to Alfred, looking round in an effort to find something — anything — to comment on. The place seemed notably absent of stage props and conversation pieces.

  “We’ll have a drink,” she said.

  “I have a case of whiskey in the car.”

  “No … There’s plenty here.”

  They walked into the kitchen. Ouida found the bottles; Alfred struggled with the ice trays.

  “Early in the morning,” Ouida said, “the man comes to fix the automatic icemaker. It always freezes up when there’s no one here …”

  “The house looks fine,” Alfred said. His voice banged around inside the kitchen, sounding idiotic. He tried to get control of himself and think of something to say.

  “Did you have much to do?”

  “The help was here till an hour ago,” she said.

  “They’re just down at the bottom of the hill?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just down the hill.”

  They sipped their warm drinks and looked at each other.

  “Since you’re the first,” she said, “you can have the pick of the rooms … On the boy’s side of the house, of course.”

  “I thought being first would entitle —” Rinemiller broke off midway, changing his mind; he searched his head desperately for something else with which to complete the statement.

  Ouida did not seem to notice. “Get your bag and I’ll show you around upstairs,” she said.

  “… Entitle me to more priority than that.”

  What the hell? he thought. If she didn’t want to play this particular game, he should think of something else. Their conversation had always bordered on the ribald, anyhow. After a couple of drinks they’d both be able to ease off and accept one another.

  They climbed the stairs, paused for a moment next to the balcony rail, looking down the well at the great center room. “Who was it swung out on the chandelier that night?” he said.

  Ouida thought a moment, trying to remember. She shook her head. “I recall the face — a friend of somebody’s. See up there …? The bolts are still pulled halfway out. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill himself.”

  “Earle had to pull him back to the rail with the net from the swimming pool.”

  Ouida laughed. “We should’ve left him hanging there. Had him stuffed and bronzed. You know? Like baby shoes. There’d be a conversation piece.”

  They moved in and out of several bedrooms. “This one’s fine,” Alfred said.

  “No towels,” Ouida said, looking about the room. “Go ahead and unpack. I’ll get some.”

  She left the room and walked down the hall, circling round the balcony and reaching her own room at the other end of the hall. She looked at herself in a full-length mirror and then sat at her dresser and applied fresh lipstick. This, she told herself, was doing a lot of good. She looked at herself, make-up half applied. Am I going to discourage Alfred by making myself pretty? No, she thought. But at least she felt better. Damn you Roy. She said it again. Damn you! This could all have been avoided if he’d only … And now there was the problem of keeping Alfred off her spoor for the rest of the night. And probably the morning. Perhaps the whole hideous weekend. I’ll swing, she said to herself, out on that chandelier. And hang there all night long. She finished applying her make-up, humming a few bars of an old song, found some towels and walked back toward the other end of the house.

  Downstairs again, they mixed fresh drinks. This time Alfred poured the whiskey and made it doubles. Ouida stirred ice with her finger, put the glass to her lips, swallowed and made a face. But she did not protest. I’ll need it, she decided. Get little tight, think something.

  They sat on one of the big sofas and listened to phonograph music, and it was not so bad — not really. It was rather pleasant for a fact. The thought made her feel better. They sat smoking cigarettes, their heads lolling from side to side, talking about some of the weekend parties of years past. Ouida began to talk perhaps too volubly about her early marriage. “God! he was something,” she said. “You don’t know. I was a sophomore and completely dazzled. He’d just graduated and he’d been everything — just everything — summa cum all that stuff, president of his club, a boxing champion. He’d even won the short story prize — he’d written this story, first time in his life, don’t think he’s written anything since, and won the college prize. He was a second lieutenant and on his way to Korea and we had met at this party during the holidays in New York. We had a week. My God! I felt like Susan Hayward and Edna St. Vincent Millay. There he was in that uniform, gorgeous, going off to write me sonnets and be killed. I got it in my head he had to leave me pregnant. I wanted to leave him something and he would leave me something. Fantastic. And you know Earle — he insisted we get married. One week. It was a lovely week, though …”

  Rinemiller leaned sideways and kissed the corner of her mouth. Ouida held his hand and looked off toward the empty fireplace. “We were both just too spoiled and self-indulgent and nutty and i
ncapable of forgiveness. Absolution.” She lay back in his arms, feeling a sense of great happy release. She had never in her life succeeded in looking at herself so objectively. It was wonderfully therapeutic — she thought idly of going to an analyst. She smiled, thinking next time she saw her priest they would have a cocktail together. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling was gone, passed in the night, and she was plunged into melancholy; impatience and restlessness nagged at her, imperiled what little there was left in life of pleasure and tranquillity. It was all so damn tragic, she thought, and she began to cry …

  Rinemiller had been battling lassitude and wishing he had not drunk so much. He pitched sideways for a moment and then struggled upward, holding on to Ouida, one hand on her breast, hoping he was not going to be sick. Her wet cheeks were against his for the first time, and he pulled back to look.

  “Hey …” he said. He had been with women who cried, but he had never regarded Ouida as one of that sort.

  “What is it?” he said.

  Ouida sat up straight on the sofa, brushing at her cheeks with thin fingers. “Nothing,” she said. “Really. Excuse me a minute …” She walked very calmly up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom. There, she blotted at her face with tissue and touched up her eyes with dark make-up. She stared at herself in the mirror for a time; her cheeks were scarlet, but the high color was growing faint. She walked across the room and sat on the bed and picked up the telephone. He deserved it, she thought to herself; it would serve him what for, or something, in kind, the selfish, low-geared … Just like Earle with his parachutes and lyric poems and aimless politicking all over the country. Even Alfred, sprawled out on the sofa downstairs, groaning about his future and how it was for him as a small boy, wanting to play Governor and do his lousy good works, all of them so sexy and panting and hirsute and trying desperately to palm off their manhood. Or find it. She’d tell Roy something all right — she’d give him hell. How’d he like to know she was spending the night alone in the big country house with none other than —