Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  “He must be a great guy,” Jake said.

  “He is, he is,” said the Unknown. He turned to Stanley. “I envy you. I envy the hell out of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Working for Neil. He’s a great guy, great guy, just a prince of a guy …” The appearance of Andrea in the kitchen temporarily ended that train of thought for the young man. He stood with his mouth open, staring at her. “Jesus,” he said under his breath.

  “Hello, Stanley. Have you seen Neil?”

  “He was here earlier.”

  “I know.”

  “I took a nap and when I woke up he was gone.”

  “When was that?”

  “I’m not sure. Around two.”

  “He must have gone home to bed.”

  “He must have …”

  Mr. X turned his back on Andrea and made as if he were mixing a new drink. He looked at Stanley and mumbled something inaudible. Then he hissed through his teeth: “Who-is-she? Who’s she?” Stanley ignored him.

  “Have you met Jake? Jake, do you know Stanley?” Andrea said. Jake and Stanley said they did, indeed, know each other. The other stood off and watched the three of them.

  Andrea said: “Was he all right?”

  “Who?”

  “Neil. He was awfully tired when I saw him earlier.”

  “He was drunk,” Stanley said, smiling. “He was awfully drunk when I saw him earlier.”

  “Well I suppose —”

  Kermit appeared in the kitchen with two Negro girls, one on each arm. They were both a little terrified, and Kermit made an extra-serious effort to introduce them in a civilized way. Everyone was polite. But no one knew quite what ought to be said. It would take years, Stanley thought; years and years. They had grown so used to seeing these people — and not seeing them — behind counters and at the back sections of public conveyances, sullen faces peering from tumbled shacks; unseen, unaware of them even in college classrooms, that it would take years to get any contact established. Even for the young people here who were desperately striving to learn one another.

  “These two,” Kermit said, “are my models. My first two models for the Renaissance Gallery. We’ll have life drawing classes. They have absolutely exquisite figures.” He turned to his frightened charges. “We’ll make a mint, won’t we girls?”

  Mr. X stood close to one of them, looking as if he would like to take a bite of her. Kermit turned toward him suddenly.

  “You dig, man?”

  “Wh-at?” He seemed entirely out of breath.

  “You dig? This is Rose. She’s a real swingin’ chick. Earns her bread for college as a dancer. And a model. Take her in there and dance with her, man. It’s like … It’s like, well, like scorin’, man.”

  “Kermit!” Andrea said.

  “That’s all right, Andy. They’re used to me, these girls. They know me a lot better than My Own People.” He laughed and bent down and kissed one of the girls on the throat.

  The unknown young man took one of the girls into the other room to dance. Kermit said: “Why’d you let that Good Doctor cut out of here?”

  “What?”

  “Neil — how come you let him split with that Middle East cunt —”

  “Kermit!”

  “I mean that girl. Hey, Stanley, you know that girl? She’s nearly as dark as this one right here.”

  “Who did he leave with?” Andrea said.

  “With Elsie,” Stanley said. “He took Elsie home. I brought her, but I was too passed out at the time to assume my responsibilities.”

  “Oh.”

  They began to move into the other rooms.

  Stanley stood in a corner and talked with one of the Negro girls. The other was dancing. Stanley and the girl talked about books. The folk singer appeared; she had got rid of her guitar somewhere. She listened for a moment and then said: “Do you like Langston Hughes? I like him very much.”

  “No,” said the girl.

  “I don’t either,” Stanley said.

  “You’re a white supremist,” Kermit said.

  “I like Baldwin,” Stanley said. “Won’t liking Baldwin clear me, for Chrissake?”

  “I like Orval Faubus,” someone said. All of them who had been listening roared with laughter.

  Kermit talked with Andrea.

  “He’s a Good Doctor. Neil’s a Good one. And John Tom, too. The best.”

  “Did you know John Tom very well?” Andrea said.

  “Oyez. We dug each other right off.”

  Andrea was silent. Then, half to herself, she said. “I wish I had caught Neil before he left. I was wornout when we got here.”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “No, no. There’s still a party. And you’ve got your friends.”

  “Take my car then. There’re plenty cars. Take mine.”

  “Well …” She looked around as if making a decision about something.

  “Come on. It’s right out front. You know it? It’s that green heap. Here the keys.”

  He dangled them in front of her.

  “How would you get it back?”

  “I’ll be out that way tomorrow. Or tonight sometime, before dawn at least. Just leave the keys in the car. Nobody’d take that machine. Somebody’ll drop me off out that way later.”

  “You sure it’s all right, Kermit?”

  “Oyez.”

  Years before, in a more lucid stage in his development, he had once served as Clerk of the State Supreme Court. Andrea remembered seeing him during his first year out of college, standing and announcing the sessions at the top of his voice as the black-robed Justices filed into the chamber: Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of this State; are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save this State and this Honorable Court … She wondered if Kermit remembered; she rather doubted it.

  “I’ll find the car — that’s all right.”

  She got her wrap and started for the door. Jake moved over and held it open for her.

  “Where you going?”

  “Home. I’m exhausted.”

  “I’ll take you. I’ll get a car.”

  “I’ve got a car.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  “No … Really …”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m fine. And I just don’t think you ought to …”

  “All right.” He walked outside with her. Kermit’s car was an ancient sedan with ruptured seat cushions and flaking paint and a terrible interior smell.

  “You sure you can drive this thing?”

  “Yes … Wait … Can you get it started for me?”

  He slid in beside her, switched on the ignition and found the starter on the floorboard. The engine groaned horribly until the oil began to circulate. Then he reached over and put his arms out.

  “No. No, Jake …”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to go, really. Dammit …”

  She finally let him kiss her and then pulled away, but then he was coming at her again and she relaxed and they thrashed around convulsively in the front seat of the old car for a period of time.

  “Enough …”

  “No.”

  “Get out of the car, Jake, or I’ll get out and start walking …”

  He opened the door and stepped outside.

  “What the hell’ve I been eating?”

  “I’ve just got to get home. Don’t you understand?”

  “All right. When do I see you?”

  “Call.” She gunned the motor; the old car lurched ahead, slowed, gasped, and moved on down the street.

  It was a really very old automobile. The smell was not so bad once she had got started and turned the air vents on her face, but she could barely see over the dashboard and the hood seemed enormous, stretching out and up to a fantastic length like the nose of an airplane. The seats were littered, front and back, and she could not bring herself to ex
amine any of the refuse. A fading, years-old Adlai sticker clung to the inside of the yellow windshield and flapped in the breeze. Something fell down in her lap from the sun visor, and it made her jump. Paintbrushes. Oils. John Tom, she thought. “John Tom,” she said aloud.

  A block ahead of her was the old house they had shared for a studio. She slowed and stopped in front of it; a half-dozen rental agents’ signs were tacked on the door and windows and splintered columns. It was just an old shell of a house — three rooms — but there had been a skylight and the floors had not been in any imminent danger of collapse. They had shared the studio for several months prior to his leaving town. It had not taken long at all — the memory of it always seemed to amaze her. It was almost like a party; neither had ever taken the other very seriously. Stop looking, like that, he had said. Stop looking at me that way. But she could not really stop — she had no intention of stopping — and the first time, before anyone had even arranged to have the bathroom cleaned or the old furniture covered, they had ended on that awful sofa, or davenport was what he called it, and it had taken her forever to wriggle out of those paint-spattered denim slacks.

  Oyez, we dug each other right off!

  How come you let that Good Doctor cut out?

  Well how come?

  You went off and got yourself killed? ’Cause that old house had a cuckold’s haunt. Zat all? They’re so serious, the both of them, always taking themselves so serious. He’d of never, my Neil’d never, and if you’d only hung around the old place and let us run our course I wouldn’t be half so bitched up now and groaning about your being gone and not coming back and painting your goddam picture all the time, yours and Neil’s …

  She sat looking at the old house until the smell from the seat cushions caused her to drive on down the street. A mile from home, halfway up one of the hills, the old car began to slow. She accelerated, but there was only a pulling-air sound in response. After it had rolled to a stop, she tried for several minutes to get the car started again, stretching her nice legs — such nice brown legs — toward the button on the floorboard. She ground the starter until the dashlights grew dim, and just before they faded completely she could see that the gas gauge registered empty.

  “Kermit — you son of a bitch,” she said.

  She sat for a moment and then took the keys and stepped out into the street. There wasn’t a sound, not even another car droning in the distance. In the eastern sky there was just a faint coloring, the barest suggestion of Sunday morning. She began to walk up the hill. Before she had covered a block the tears were streaming down her face, and she stumbled along the empty streets with the faint light of the dawn at her back. Walking across the graveled drive toward the house she could see that Neil’s car was missing, and then it occurred to her — struggling with the front door latch, fumbling with the keys, Kermit’s and her own — that her roadster had been left parked someplace in the city. She could not recall where: some boozy vale. Perhaps it had been turned back into a pumpkin. She lay in her upstairs bed with the light coming in through the windows and the sweet party dress stuck against her feverish skin. She was overtaken by an irresistible weeping, but there was no one in the big house who could hear.

  Sixteen

  “WHAT WAS THAT RUMBLE?”

  “My death rattle, honey …”

  “Perhaps it was thunder … What did you say?”

  “I like your saxophone player.”

  “Isn’t he nice? You think it was thunder? He’s often out there.”

  “Every night?”

  “Nearly every night I’m here to listen.”

  “Always in the alley?”

  “Yes. Always. I’ve never seen him in the street. He’s crippled.”

  “Is that why he stays in the alley?”

  “What?”

  “Is it always ‘Roses of Picardy’?”

  “If that’s what it is. Always.”

  They played John Tom’s old records on the phonograph. She had a marvelous figure, and moved back and forth, to the phonograph and to retrieve the sherry bottle, easy and unembarrassed. It was not so easy for Neil; though he felt better after he had got his underwear back on. He lay on a rollaway bed. He remembered helping John Tom pick it out at the Sears Roebuck store. It was about three-quarter width, and with the cheap bolsters it was an adequate studio couch for the back part of the shop. He lay there watching the girl. In a few years she would be getting thickish through the middle and in the upper part of her legs, but none of it had really begun to show. It was a pleasure to watch her, and even more a pleasure to see a woman with large breasts and a big behind who had not yet begun to fatten and decay. So many of those college girls …

  “I think you will like this.”

  She sat next to him and they shared the glass of sherry. He tasted it.

  “Very good … It’s always ‘Roses of Picardy?”

  “The same every night.”

  “There was a song …”

  “What?”

  “I had a record of it once. Sidney Bechet.”

  “Bechet?”

  “Yes. Perhaps someone will bring it back and record it. With a beat. And a hipster choir in the background. Let’s hope so.”

  “Yes.”

  They lay nearly sideways together, his head up against her breasts. He turned and kissed the flat of her stomach. She said something — Yiddish or Arabic — he could not tell what.

  “Hmmn?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think it’s translatable.”

  “Do you like John Tom’s records?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Do you have any of your own?”

  “Yes. But you might not like them.”

  “Ah! Let’s see. Petrouchka. Prokofiev … Vaughn Williams?”

  “No. They’re mostly sixteenth century.”

  “And you’ve been reading Thomas Hardy.”

  “Only the poetry.”

  “You’re unhealthy — that’s what you are. You’re not falling into any of the recognizable patterns for the healthy, American brain-girl fresh from …”

  “Healthy? I’m unhealthy?”

  “No. Not how you think.”

  He turned on his front side and rested his chin along the curve of her middle. Then he pulled himself up toward her face and they kissed for a time. There was still some easy responsiveness between them. It had not been a spectacular thing; she was neither matter-of-fact nor especially fevered about it. But it was something out of the ordinary, and he guessed, like everything else, it could be attributed to her being a foreigner. A function, a need fulfilled. With some poetic imagery to sustain the illusion.

  “Is this old couch often put to such uses?”

  “What? This couch …?”

  “Have you any lovers?”

  She thought a moment. “I don’t think so.” And then: “Oh! The couch. No … And not this way. I’ve spent some nights here. And kissed men here.”

  He felt unaccountably, queasily jealous. Did those juices ever stop flooding the darkened pools of the ego? He was overwhelmingly assaulted by vague notions of crime. It was a tyranny, and he felt somehow unmanned.

  “I’m sick,” he said.

  “You’re feeling badly?”

  “In the head.”

  She stroked his temples. He supposed it was as good a therapy as one could find. It was miraculous how much better he felt already. He got his face down between her breasts.

  “Ah!”

  “All right?”

  “Wait … There.”

  The mechanism ground along, resuming, slowly at first, undemanding, nearly aimless, and then the dark passages loomed up ahead of them and they were lost for a few moments in glimpses of each other and the dawn coming through the windows at the far side of the room. His thoughts were incoherent and all out of context: remembering the crippled saxophone player in the alley and the feel of Owen Edwards’ damp backend and an edifice of triteness used to describe somebody’s one-man sho
w — the one posthumously staged by Andrea in John Tom’s behalf — “the palette caked, the brushes dry …”

  He slept for a little while. When he awoke she was still next to him, her head propped against one of the bolsters, smoking a cigarette.

  “Do you like this?” he said.

  “Of course I like this. Don’t you like this?”

  “Yes. Perhaps I just need reassuring.”

  “Strange … Do you feel better?” She did not smile; she was altogether serious.

  “Yes.”

  “I may come to Washington.”

  “Really? That would be very nice.”

  “Stanley asked me.”

  “Stanley’s very nice.”

  “He said he could find me a job.”

  “I imagine he could. You marry Stanley, by the way — or anyone for that matter — and your problems are ended.”

  “What an odd thing to say.”

  “Why?”

  “Americans are always trying to end all their problems. When the trick is to use them to some advantage.”

  “I mean the passport, the citizenship business.”

  “Oh yes … I suppose they would be.”

  He dozed for a moment, his face resting against her dark shoulders. He heard her talking.

  “What?”

  “I wouldn’t want to do that, though. For a while at least. Stanley is a very good person and I would want to live with him and no one else …”

  He was dimly aware that she was articulating some kind of fundamental approach to life, but he fell to sleep again while she was talking and he could never remember the rest of it. He came awake again about an hour later, and Elsie was now sleeping soundly beside him. He got to his feet and dressed and then stood for a few minutes looking at the girl. He found an old yellow bedspread in a closet and covered her before turning to leave.

  The sun was well advanced. The tower clock at the college chimed a half hour, and he looked up to see the time. There were lowlying clouds circling the horizon in the east and they lit up the sky with streaks of amber and blue and fading browns. Driving toward home he began to pass cars crowded with people in Sunday dress and occasional good citizens on foot, and as he approached a church he had to stop for a procession of children, fresh-faced and beautiful in vibrantly colored smocks and gowns and vestments. They passed by, strung out in ones and twos, not talking though irresistibly tempted, vastly excited by the hour and the promise of an Easter Sunday. A pair of scrubbed and faintly smiling nuns tagged along. He thought about his two little girls and how he would have to start in immediately upon his arrival at the house to hide all their beautifully colored eggs. For no reason — and only for a few seconds, really — he began to cry.