Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  Roy said: “You’re not going to stop him — and I couldn’t if I wanted to. He’s going to get that story out. He’d do it even if he had to run it off on a mimeograph.”

  “He’s a damn fool, then,” Rinemiller said. “He’s really pulling a rock. Why the hell — just why? I’ll never figure out.”

  “He thinks you’re guilty,” Roy said. “And I know damn well you are.”

  “You’re a whore — you’re both whores. You and Willie both,” Rinemiller said. “Fenstemaker’s bought you off and I’m not really much surprised. You’ve been ready for the sellout. You’ve never been with us. You’ve never had the guts to stand up and —”

  “Oh shut up and go away,” Roy said.

  “Never in your life — not once …”

  “Go away,” Roy repeated. “It’s early in the morning and I’ve got to spend the day trying to figure how to prevent you from hauling everybody else down the abyss with you … Go on home, Alfred … Go badger some more of your witnesses. You stink. You’re a god damn sewer.”

  “I just wish I could prove you had something to do with this story,” Rinemiller said. “I’d sue. If Willie had any money, I’d sue him.”

  “Wish I had had something to do with it,” Roy said. He sat down on the bed and smoked a cigarette. Through the window he could see the rain beating on the lake surface, but beyond the hills there was a faint break in the overcast, a wisp of improbably blue sky. Some crazy college students sped past, moving upriver in a large outboard, towing a water skier. Rinemiller continued to stand in the middle of the room, fixed on the damp spot. He stared round the room, looking impatient and slightly wall-eyed.

  “You got any coffee?” he said.

  He was insane, Roy thought. In just a minute he’ll give me his fraternity grip and call me a whore again. He said: “What the hell were you going to do with all that money, Alfred?”

  “What the hell you think?” Rinemiller said. “Buy myself a new blazer jacket and join the Book-of-the-Month. Go to hell.” He walked into the small kitchen, found a clean tumbler, and drew a glass of water from the tap.

  “Have you heard yourself on tape?” Roy said. “You didn’t do too badly. Though you really ought to work on your diction. You tend to slur —”

  “I haven’t had that privilege,” Rinemiller said, setting the glass down. “I wasn’t invited to the premier in Fenstemaker’s office … I’m going to get that son of a bitch, too. One way or another. Never thought of asking me. Never give a man a chance at all. Face his accusers. Never thought of getting my side of it. Just invited people in to hear his lousy tape recordings … I’ll bet he’s had some second thoughts since yesterday.”

  “Imagine he has,” Roy said. “Probably wishes he’d left Willie and me out of this and handled it all himself. I don’t think he’d ever have let you get off so easy.”

  They both jumped a little when the phone rang. Roy walked over and picked up the receiver.

  “Roy, dearest …” Ouida’s voice was weak and full of exhaustion.

  “How are you?” The question sounded ridiculous in his head, but he could think of nothing else to say to her.

  “Do you love me?” she said. “Do you care anything at all about me?”

  “I imagine so,” he said. “There’s certainly that possibility.”

  “I thought I was going to die the night you took me to the hospital. And I really didn’t care. Not till you came by. We didn’t know each other very well then. I needed you, though — someone — to lean on.”

  “You sure did,” Roy said. “Otherwise you’d have sat there all night, watching the television and bleeding to death.”

  Rinemiller glanced up, frowning, from the kitchen. He had a small coffeepot from the cupboard and was trying to measure with a teaspoon. He drew water and then put the pot on an open burner. He began to rinse a cup and saucer.

  “Do you love me, Roy?” Ouida repeated.

  “Yes,” Roy said.

  “Say it.”

  “It’s … hard. It’s damned difficult. I’m trying to learn how.”

  “When did you know?” Ouida said. “How long … do you think you’ve loved me?”

  “Off and on,” Roy said, “for three or four hours.”

  Rinemiller came into the room, rubbing the cup with a dishtowel. “Don’t you ever wash your goddam dishes?” he said.

  “Who was that?” Ouida said.

  “It was just Ellen Streeter,” Roy said. “Ellen spent the night here with me.”

  “Who was it?” Ouida said. “Who’s there with you? It sounded like Alfred.”

  “A legislator of note,” Roy said. “A famous recording artist.”

  Rinemiller made a wicked gesture with his hand. Roy made it back.

  “Is it Alfred? Is he there?” Ouida said.

  “Yes,” Roy said. “You have hit the nail on the hammer.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Ouida said. “That’s what I called you about. I’ve been trying to get Alfred on the phone since seven o’clock this morning. I need to talk to him …”

  Roy held the receiver out for Rinemiller and said it turned out the call was for him. Rinemiller got to his feet and reached for the instrument. Roy pulled it back at the last instant and said into the mouthpiece, “I love you, this is goodbye.”

  Then he gave the phone to Rinemiller and walked over next to the screen door and stood there looking out, scratching his bare chest, attempting to listen to what was said and understand what was happening to him that morning, while all the time the bits and pieces of the dream kept coming back from his interrupted sleep. He had been stopped by police while out driving late at night and taken to the station because he had no identification on him and was wearing only pajama bottoms. The police were coarse and impatient with him. He did not seem able to explain why he was what he was. They wouldn’t believe it when he emphasized he was a solid, respectable, responsible citizen. With important connections, moreover. Who just happened to be riding through the city in pajama bottoms. They pushed him around, but the abuse wasn’t so annoying as the fact they just didn’t understand. Then Arthur Fenstemaker appeared, coming through the station house shaking hands, moving from one officer to another, gripping everyone. And he had thought, here, at last, was someone who could help. But the Governor had only looked over at him, winked an eye, and strode on out of sight. Toward the end of the dream the police were getting more abusive and it appeared he would never be given an opportunity to make that one phone call. And he was uncertain, for that matter, just who he might have called …

  Someday … he thought … Someday I will be alone and in trouble and inadequate for the moment. The more I will rage, the more I will be pushed around by the law. Arthur Fenstemaker will be out campaigning for re-election, flapping his huge arms, gold teeth gleaming in the Kleig lights, quoting from Isaiah, and the authorities in some perverse sequence of events will be singularly unimpressed by the power catchwords I will have thrown out to them.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, watching the coffee boil. Alfred Rinemiller had hung the phone up and was now sitting across from him, beginning to cry. It was horrible to see the big, handsome, bushy-haired man cry that way. Alfred’s face was swollen and inflamed, and he sat across from Roy blowing his nose, repeating over and over again, “God damn her soul … God damn her soul …”

  After a few minutes, he seemed to have got control of himself. He straightened and even managed to show a little of his old arrogance. “Earle will stick with me,” he said. “I’ll fix that bitch with Earle, and he’ll back me up. He’ll remember what I told him Thursday night. He’ll testify to what I told him Thursday night …”

  Roy sat watching in wonder. It was fantastic. He really believed what he was saying; he’d convinced himself.

  “You didn’t tell Earle anything Thursday night.”

  “Who says? Who the hell says?” Rinemiller seemed prepared to debate the point endlessly.

  “You weren’t eve
n with Earle Thursday night,” Roy said.

  “Who says?”

  “You were with Ouida Thursday night. You were shacked up with Ouida Thursday night.”

  “Who says?” Rinemiller repeated, his voice high and shrill and breaking slightly. He began, once again, to cry. His expression gave way and was twisted then into an awful distortion. After another minute he got up to leave.

  “Hold on,” Roy said. “Wait up. Sit down and I’ll tell you what you ought to do. I’ll give you my counsel — no fee involved. I don’t hardly ever give it away, either. Not often even for money.”

  Rinemiller sat back down.

  “Incline your ear to wisdom,” Roy said. “I quote the Governor of our state, who reads the Good Book … Bend your heart to understanding …”

  Twenty-Four

  RINEMILLER LIVED IN A huge, shapeless apartment building, a fawn-colored structure with a façade of dwarfed porticos, in a neighborhood of abandoned manses and old-time grandeur very near the Capitol. The building ran the length of a block and then doubled back, serpentine fashion, ranging over alleyways and between parking lots in an arrangement of small courtyards, interior gardens. Enormous windows looked down on the gardens, which were spotted with occasionally sunless and frequently overfed shrubs. There were rows of azalea and jasmine and bloomed-out mimosa, with a cluster of bulb plants set in the middle, struggling against the changing season. Roy walked between the shrubs and flowers, staring at the ground-floor entrances, trying to distinguish one from another, until he found Alfred’s rooms.

  He had visited here once before, late one election night, the apartment full of people drinking and whooping and falling silent on the quarter hour to listen to returns coming in on the radio. Now — empty and unclaimed, with its gruesome blend of modern and ranchstyle — it could have been mistaken for a furniture showroom. Except for the few books and magazines strewn about and the stacks of freshly laundered shirts and underwear on the bed. Roy stood in the bedroom and stared at the pictures on the wall. He’d seen hundreds like them, mostly in hotels and apartments: Paris street scenes, Impressionist imitations, fuzzy pastels. There were some books on the night table; he thumbed through them without interest — the Ickes Diaries, the Addresses and State Papers of James Stephen Hogg, a volume on the German General Staff, two political biographies, a paperback on anthropology. The bedspread was pulled tight and squared on the ends, military fashion. Draperies hung motionless in the heat of the room; a scarlet water bird, three feet tall, gawked at him from the shower curtain, spotted with mildew.

  But where was Alfred? Was this all there was of him — just a few irrelevant scraps, not even the print of his big head on the machine-tooled pillowslip? It was depressing that a man should leave so little behind. There ought to have been more. Alfred owed it to himself to leave more than this. Or were they all meant to wander pointlessly in a vacuumed world of fresh-pressed linen, handy blade dispensers, and Gideon Bibles? There wasn’t even a ring in the tub.

  He began gathering up things, the books and laundry, sheets and towels and washcloths and old magazines, stuffing them into one of the pillowcases. When he had picked up all the loose ends, he sat for a time on the front-room sofa and wondered why he had ever let himself get involved. Am no gentleman’s gentleman, he thought, no stormtrooper floorwalker come to set things right. It wasn’t all that important — the others could take care of themselves. Willie could have; and Ouida, she would have managed somehow. Old Fenstemaker made his compromises, surely, an endless succession of them. Was there a point on his scales where mere convenience left off and necessity queered the balance? He wished one of Caesar’s divines were available to show him where.

  He stood and walked outside and wandered through the courtyard gardens. The inside of the car was like a chicken roost at midday. He began to perspire almost immediately, and he pushed along at a faster rate of speed, the blast of hot air searing eyelids and nostrils. He bought a bottle of beer at a drive-in grocery and then drove slowly toward the hospital.

  He could hear their laughter in the perfumed corridor. The sounds, high and puckish, echoed off the vinyl floor. Nurses and dark-skinned attendants soft-shoed back and forth, pacing off their disapproval. Roy ignored the looks they gave him and headed toward the point of disturbance.

  They were all there, most of them, and Earle was happy and loquacious. His friends had finally come and thought enough about him to bring a drink. Ellen Streeter, Huggins, Harris McElhannon, a half-dozen of the others, crowded round the hospital bed, clutching their paper cups of gin like front-row tickets. Earle sat amid the disordered bedsheets and examined a new bottle of brandy. They all looked up and gave a little cheer when Roy came in the room.

  They’d driven into town to begin another party. The one at the ranch was a shambles; they’d never even got around to playing the finals of the tournament. Too many bugged out: first Earle, transported to the hospital; Roy and Alfred and Ouida and Willie and Cathryn. And Giffen. No one knew what happened to George Giffen — he’d come and gone and come back again and now he was vanished still again, clean out of sight. This morning they’d simply given up on all pretense and formality and got stoned before noon and presented the winners’ trophies to the Mexican kids down the hill. And now they were back in town searching for a party, a beginning. Was there anyone willing to offer up a house or apartment as a point for starting?

  There was none.

  Roy considered Rinemiller’s place, but then thought better of it. Couldn’t desecrate holy ground. And besides, Alfred might be there; lying in state on the striped bedspread.

  The floor supervisor came into the room to say they must be quiet or leave. So they decided to leave, promising to come back with more to drink if Earle needed any. All he had to do was give the word. Send up a signal. They’d call in on the hour. Roy stood near the picture window and examined the room. They’d decorated it for Earle. There were fewer flowers, but now there were mobiles suspended from the light fixture on the ceiling; there were books and magazines and a Picasso print and half a roll of pink toilet paper strung like bunting round the end of his bed. There was a new martini pitcher, stacks of greeting cards, a bedpan with Earle’s name stroked in gold along the side, a feather fan, an embroidered cushion. Someone had even brought a pair of hamsters, they explained, but they hadn’t been successful in smuggling them into the hospital.

  Ellen Streeter came over to say goodbye to Roy. Her cheek was still discolored, but she’d done an amazing job with her make-up. She looked very pretty, suntanned and somehow rested. She asked if he would join them later, and Roy said it was just barely possible.

  “We’ll be at all the obvious places,” she said. “At one time or another … We’ll leave a little trail for you to follow.”

  “Maybe we’ll cross paths,” he said.

  “I know all about that,” she said. “Like ships in the night. Quit squandering your lousy radiance and focus on someone who needs it.”

  “Needs what?”

  “Help.”

  He did not reply but only looked closely at her mauve-painted eyes. She repeated: “I need help. From the no-good man that ruined me. You could come by my house later. I’ve got a new record — Jelly Roll Morton. He introduces some of his own work. ‘Creepy Feeling.’ And some others. This tune, he says, was wrote ’bout nineteen-two. The album’s all hermetically sealed. Like a virgin girl. Can you come listen?”

  Before he could answer, Harris and Frank Huggins moved past and took her by either arm, guiding her toward the door. He got one last look at her spoiled face before they disappeared down the corridor. For a moment he thought of going after her, but he knew it wasn’t just a question of giving help — it was no doctor-patient relationship; rather one of fever victims struggling to breathe a healing into each other’s mouths. He hadn’t the strength; he doubted, moreover, if he had any help to give to anyone. But he had to see. Did his splendid emotion amount to anything more than good intentions? He tur
ned to face Earle, who was preoccupied for the moment with all his gifts. The tinseled mobile spun above their heads, moving in the blast of an air duct. Earle opened his bottle of brandy and poured a little into two sterilized glasses.

  “Let’s have some of this stuff, Roy,” he said. “Sure glad you came by.”

  “Where’s Ouida?” Roy said.

  “Home with little Earle. Baby-sittin’ problem on Sundays.”

  “I got everything from your hotel room,” Roy said. “I checked you out and paid the bill.”

  “Damn good. That’s great,” Earle said. He raised his glass to Roy and took a swallow. “You seen Alfred today? I thought he’d sure come around, but he hasn’t yet.”

  “I saw him this morning,” Roy said. “We had coffee together. He didn’t tell me his plans, though.”

  “You hear about that crazy story? That one about Alfred. He told me about it yesterday. Hell of a goddam note.”

  Roy nodded and said: “That’s what we talked about this morning. Alfred was in a sweat about Willie’s story.”

  “Hell of a goddam note,” Earle repeated. “What’s Willie tryin’ to do? Everybody knows Alfred couldn’t be bribed.”

  “You seen Willie’s story?” Roy said.

  “No.”

  “You heard about the tape recording?”

  “No. What recording is that?”

  “The one the lobbyist made when he offered the bribe to Alfred. When Alfred accepted. It goes into a lot of detail …”

  Earle was silent, watching the mobile twirl.

  “You didn’t know about the recording?” Roy said.

  “Alfred might have mentioned it,” Earle said. “He was pretty excited when we talked.”

  “When did he first mention this to you? Yesterday?”

  “Yesterday,” Earle nodded, “and earlier in the week. Right after the lobbyist made the offer.”

  “When was that?”

  Earle waved his hand with assurance. “I don’t remember exactly. I still got a little fuzziness about last week.”