Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  “But why,” said Roy, “… why would he come to you with that tape one day and then turn right around and try to buy off somebody else on the next?”

  “Coonass,” the Governor said. “Coonass operator’s all he is. First he tries to sweat me into doin’ somethin’ for him — tries to bargain with me for Jesus sake. Gets the idea I’m just a coonass tradin’ politician. That I’d make a little deal just to keep the boat from bein’ rocked. He never once thought I’d try to haul Rinemiller in before a grand jury. He thought I’d rather have that tape to hold over Rinemiller’s head. He figured me for a cheap pol — that son of a bitch just doesn’t know cheap pols — figurin’ I’d want Rinemiller runnin’ around loose and ready to do what I told him to do more than Rinemiller stuck off in prison for a few years … Ah, goddam. All the time he was goin’ right on tryin’ to bribe himself some more votes … Ain’t he in for a kick-in-the-pants surprise now!”

  Giffen was coming back down the path carrying a tray of bottled drinks and glasses.

  “What about Rinemiller?” Roy said quickly. “What are you going to do about Rinemiller?”

  “I’m not sure,” the Governor said, rolling off the hammock to greet George.

  “Hey, you needn’t of done that,” he said. “One of the girls could do the servin’.”

  Giffen set the tray down, smiling, silent. The Governor poured drinks for them. Roy sat back in the canvas chair; he watched the hills change color; he picked burrs and dartweed off his socks and from inside his trouser legs. There were no more heroes, he thought. There were only the fallen clergymen like Rinemiller, honest and simple people like Giffen, and the pretenders like himself. And the Fenstemakers, of course, who couldn’t care less. Heroic attitudes didn’t amount to much for the Fenstemakers. They were fakirs, medicine men, illusionists — making miracles with mirrors and sleight of hand and finding, suddenly, that their dross was somehow incredibly turned to gold. What an act! Who the hell needed a hero?

  He finished off the drink and got to his feet. The Governor talked with Giffen, rattling on implausibly, without relevance, indulging himself: the witch doctor in repose.

  “It’s damn good Scotch whiskey,” Fenstemaker was saying. “The best there is …”

  “I’d like to try some in a snifter at room temperature,” Giffen said.

  That was giving the old man what for … Now where in heaven had George ever heard an expression like that? His liquor salesman possibly. Room temperature? The whole goddam planet was cooling off to room temperature. Fenstemaker’s cosmic sleight of hand. No more heroes; not even any real sinners; sin was simply dullness and bad faith; heroism an empty gesture.

  “It’s really the fusel oil in whiskey that gives you a hangover,” Giffen went on learnedly. “The alcohol insufficiently distilled …”

  “It’s that goddam fusel oil all right,” the Governor said. “It must’ve been what ruined so many cedar choppers out here in these hills. Years ago. Jesus I remember that busthead stuff they distilled … Insufficiently as you say … It nearly crippled you … Poor boy’s gout was what it was …”

  Eighteen

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK when he started back. The color was gone off the hills, blurred hummocky outlines dividing the gray sky from the blacked-out lower slopes and the featureless plain. Then the sky itself was shrouded in gloom as boiling stormclouds gathered in the distance, piling up in bunches, sailing over the valleys and small plateaus. He steered the roadster along the narrow road, picking up speed, the first drops of rain exploding against his forehead. A breath of cold enveloped him like a sudden chill; lightning flashed behind, reflections bouncing off the small windshield and exaggerating the slag-heap shape of hills on either side. The air expanded and there was a clap of thunder that made him jump. The collapsed convertible top flapped like a windsock in his ear.

  Beyond the next rise the big ranch house lit up the sky, windows gleaming. He raced the car ahead of the downpour. His face and shoulders were drenched, the rest of him scarcely damp at all. There were more cars in front; he had to search for a parking space. The property suddenly resembled a huge, fashionable road-house — a gambling hall — all it needed was a checkered canopy extending out from the entrance, searchlights, a parking attendant, a uniformed doorman.

  Lights shone through every window. Or nearly every window. There was the place down the hall Ouida had mentioned: the empty bedroom no one seemed aware of. He wondered if it was still available. And was Ouida? Perhaps he should have left a note, sent up a signal flare from Fenstemaker’s blue-dappled pool. But there was really no point in feeling obligated. It was she, after all, who owed him a thing or two. Was he going to be stuffy about that business with Rinemiller? Yes he was — he was going to insist on it, in fact. He thought about what kind of love those two had contrived to make. Their dark bare writhing shadows fouled his vision. And what, he thought, of Rinemiller in the light of day? I’m not sure, Fenstemaker had said. If Fenstemaker wasn’t sure, who in hell was? What could be constant, aside from the earth’s inexorable cooling (down to room temperature), if not Arthur Fenstemaker? Sure he was sure. It was unthinkable …

  Music rumbled from inside the house: neither phonograph records nor tinkling off-key piano, but the live sounds of stringed instruments and accordion. Someone had even thought to hire a hillbilly band. He ran along the drive and up the front steps as the raindrops beat down on his head. The door was wide open. Hell of a lot more people than in the afternoon. The musicians were off in a corner; he could see only the top of the bass fiddle; there were dancing couples in between and clusters of people strewn along the walls, clogging doorways, lining the balcony overhead. No one really noticed his entrance, or even cared; he wondered if his absence had left any kind of gap at all.

  Possibly Willie, just possibly his friend Willie had missed him. And Ouida — she would remember his broken engagement. Or had that idea been abandoned even as her season of heat began to turn with the planet’s relentless cooling to room temperature?

  Someone touched him on the back and pushed a drink into his hand. He was there — suddenly, officially — recognition come at last. He was identified, set apart, brought miraculously to life. He put the drink to his mouth, swilling fusel oil, and looked about. Across the room he could see Willie and Cathryn; they sat together on a couch talking with some others. He looked closer and saw that they were with Harris and his tennis partner and Ellen Streeter. They all sat there, defining one another. He looked round for Ouida. She was nowhere in sight, and this seemed to inflate her value to him. He searched for Rinemiller’s face, and found it, with relief, suspended in the doorway to the kitchen. Alfred stood there talking with Earle and Frank Huggins, plotting grand strategy for some mythical campaign for the governorship. Just everyone was there — and scads of others. Kermit and his red beard floated past; he had his arm round a stunning, high-hipped colored girl. Kermit sang a little song:

  Got a date with a Negress

  And I’m filled with elation …

  I’m a liberal who’s vig’rous

  Fav’rin misceg - ahnation …

  Someone pawed at Roy’s back. He turned to face Jay McGown; one of the Governor’s pretty secretaries held on to Jay’s arm.

  “Ah.”

  “Ah.”

  They made noises of recognition; everybody was coming to life. Jay introduced the girl. Roy said: “I’ve been out to see your boss.”

  “I heard,” Jay said. “He called here little while ago. To talk to Willie. Said he wanted to give Willie first crack at the story because he rescued Giffen.”

  “That’s good. Giffen was nearly ecstatic. I’m glad Willie got to him early. Otherwise … The Governor say anything to you about Rinemiller?”

  “No,” Jay said. “And I didn’t press him about it. I thought you’d know something.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Roy said. “I’m beginning to wonder if I ever did.”

  “I gave up long time ago,” Jay said
.

  Roy reached across for another drink as a tray passed by his head. He watched the high-hipped Negro girl move through the crowd alongside Kermit. His father once had told him of seeing a lynching in his youth, around the turn of the century, the scarred, black naked body dangling from a flagpole outside a downtown office building. His father had taken one look and run all the way home to hide under the house. Roy remembered a time when he was nine years old, playing games with a colored boy who followed his mother to work occasionally, the mother working as a domestic in a big home the next street over. Make him call you Mr. Roy, some neighbor had advised. And he had — the idea struck him as altogether perfect. The boy had called him Mist’ Roy all one day. Except on the next he’d only said it when Roy was close by; when there was a distance between them he’d stand off and call him just plain unprefixed Roy. Then a chase would ensue, and when he’d been overtaken, the boy would collapse, giggling, out of breath, repeating Mist’ Roy, Mist’ Roy, Mist’ Roy … Smart-alec nigger, the neighbor had observed …

  Jay went on: “You did real well yesterday. You ought to be out front more often. These people need some leadership. You and Huggins ought to get them organized …”

  “I couldn’t organize a crap game,” Roy said.

  “The hell you couldn’t. Get up front and let ’em just look at you if nothing else.”

  “I don’t even campaign back home,” Roy said. “The elections are foregone conclusions. It’s in the family. All they do is send the Mexicans into town with their poll tax receipts and tell them where to mark the ballot.”

  “Here comes Rinemiller,” Jay said.

  Alfred approached them, weaving slightly. He extended his hand toward Jay. “How’s the Governor’s wiper?” he said, smiling to assure them it was a joke.

  “Bought and paid for,” Jay said.

  Rinemiller turned to Roy and said: “George Giffen around here? You went riding with him this afternoon, didn’t you? You seen him since then?”

  Roy couldn’t resist it. Rinemiller would find out soon enough, anyhow.

  “George is over at the Governor’s,” he said.

  Rinemiller’s jaw went slack for an instant. Then he hauled it back up, like a drawbridge. “Fenstemaker’s ranch?” he said, controlling his voice. “What’s he doing there?”

  “I can’t say. I just know he’s there.”

  “How come? What’s he got that’s so important to Fenstemaker?”

  Roy shook his head. Alfred looked around. Jay and the secretary shrugged.

  “He coming back soon? I need to talk with him.”

  “I don’t know,” Roy said. “There was some mention of his spending the night.”

  “You were there? What’s it all about?”

  “I really don’t know,” Roy said. “All I did was show him the way …”

  “… Fantastic …” Rinemiller said, shaking his head. He turned without formality and strode off across the room.

  “Got to go,” Jay said.

  “You leaving now?”

  “Governor wanted us out there with him. Big party. Dinner on the ground with the District Attorney … See you later.”

  Jay and his girl moved on through the crowd toward the front of the house. Willie came over.

  “You know anything I don’t know?” he said.

  They exchanged information on Fenstemaker and George Giffen.

  “He’s even said he’ll try to get the prosecutors to sit on all this a few days until I can get a press run started,” Willie said. “I might have to put out a two-page edition to keep from being skunked by the dailies on my own story. But old Fenstemaker is being very cooperative.”

  “What about Rinemiller?” Roy said. “What’s going to be done about him?”

  “He wouldn’t go into it,” Willie said. “But he did say something strange.”

  “What was that?”

  “He asked me what ought to be done. He said he realized my little publication might be ruined. Rinemiller being on the board of directors and all. He asked me. As if it were my decision …”

  “Well …”

  “Well.”

  They looked at each other in confusion. Willie caught sight of Rinemiller moving across the room. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “It’s not just that it would mess up my operation — but it could defeat some good people at the next election. Force some of them out and keep some others from getting in … Son of a bitch … Why couldn’t he have said hell no, the way Giffen did?”

  They were silent for a moment. Roy said: “He had more imagination than Giffen. And not as much discipline. He had a larger conception of himself — he wants to go farther, faster, than the rest of us … If you accept the premise that a politician’s first obligation is to get elected, or re-elected — and I’m inclined to; perhaps because I’ve never really had to work at getting anything — if you accept this, then you could probably see Alfred justifying what he’s done. Every step of the way. He believes in himself. He thinks he can do some good. But he knows it’s impossible — it’s entirely hopeless — if he loses. He took a good look at himself and decided he had everything but money. He’s as able as Earle Fielding, but Earle’s got plenty of money and sources for even more. So Alfred sets out to solve his most immediate problem …”

  “You’re too damned easy on him,” Willie said.

  “Sure I am. But I was just trying to see it from his point of view. The everyman politician with a cause. Most politicians accommodate themselves this way. One damn self-administered absolution after another — ends and means. But there’s a limit to how far you can go. The good ones know this. They realize — certainly Alfred must have been at least aware of it — that you can only go so far. If you carry your justifications any farther, it’s a risk and it’s wrong. I mean if you’re Rinemiller, you know it’s a risk. If you’re Giffen, you just know it’s wrong. If you’re Fenstemaker … well. The good ones know there are limits. The really great ones don’t even have to think about it — it’s instinctive. There’s really no decision involved, because there’s none required, nothing to decide …”

  “Now you’re being too hard on Fenstemaker,” Willie said. “I can’t believe any of his problems are easy to solve. You can’t just write it off to instinct …” He smiled and added: “If you accept the premise, of course, that he’s one of the great ones.”

  “Mahatma Gandhi and Rasputin,” Roy said. “The Prince of Darkness and the goddam Mystic Angel. If I ever back off from Fenstemaker, it won’t be because I lost faith. Just the reverse. Because I might put so much faith in him I’d stop believing in myself. Can’t have that. Matter of self-preservation.”

  “Well,” Willie concluded, looking back at Rinemiller, “there’s something to be said for politicians. I can’t think of what it is right offhand, but …”

  They gave it up at that point. The hillbilly band had begun to make a music to which it was nearly possible to dance, and people moved into the middle of the room, taking hold of one another in a stuporous clutch. Roy and Willie walked out of the way and stood next to the wall. Cathryn found them there. She appeared suddenly out of the crowd and took Willie’s arm.

  “I’m hungry,” Cathryn said, putting her head against Willie’s shoulder. “I’m drunk and I’m hungry.” She closed her eyes.

  “We’ll go to the kitchen,” Willie said. “Some Southern fried chicken for my Southern fried lady love.”

  They moved off through the crowd. In the kitchen they helped Cathryn onto a high stool and brought the food to her. She chewed on a wing and said:

  “I may be fried; I suppose I’m Southern, but this chicken is neither. It’s barbecued.”

  “They have a Mexican who does it,” Willie said. “He knows how to barbecue a Southern fried chicken.”

  “This barbecued chicken,” Cathryn said, “is fraught with ambiguity.”

  “Yes,” Roy said. “I have the feeling that if you could somehow break through that deceptive crust of skin yo
u would find peace. Perhaps even God …”

  “I dreamed I found God … at the Mixed Doubles Tennis,” Cathryn said.

  “I knew I loved her the instant I set eyes on it,” Willie said.

  “What?”

  “The chicken … That symbolist chicken.”

  “I feel better,” Cathryn said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. She held Willie’s hand. “Let’s take a walk along the river.”

  “Shall we bring a six pack?”

  “A two pack will do,” Cathryn said. “I feel better, but not sober. And some cigarettes. I’m out of cigarettes.”

  Willie looked at Roy. “Two pack,” he said. “I suppose that pretty well excludes you …”

  “I suppose,” Roy said. He raised his hand. “Bless you, children. I hope I’ve helped show you the Way.”

  Willie and Cathryn left through the side door without looking back. Roy sat on the stool and took a bite of chicken. Presently Willie reappeared at the kitchen door. He looked through the screen and then stepped inside. “It’s wet out there,” he said. “You suppose there’s a blanket available?”

  Roy put his piece of chicken down and thought. “We can take a look around,” he said. They walked toward the stairs; Roy hesitated and then said he’d heard someone mention a bedroom on the ground floor. They went back in the direction of the hall.

  They found it at the very end of the hall, after looking into doors along the way that revealed nothing more than storage space for linens, china, silver, and a few bath and beach towels. The last door swung open and Roy reached round the corner and switched on the light. Ouida rolled over on the bed, propped herself on one elbow, shielding her eyes.

  “Pardon,” Roy said. “Thousand pardons.”

  It was really a very old bed. A chenille spread was bunched at the foot; intricately carved posts, painted yellow, rose from each corner; Ouida’s clothes were hung on one of the posts. She sat up on the bed in her cotton underwear, rubbing her eyes. She made no attempt to cover herself, so they stood there looking.