Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  “I’m disappointed actually. I’d rather hoped for a portcullis or at least a moat … Try to imagine one right over …”

  They strolled on toward the house. “Mine will definitely have a moat …”

  “Yours?” Jay said.

  “Yes. I’ll go back and build one on the desert, a cheap imitation of the Governor’s, doing him one better. Mine will be an imitation of the Governor’s which was an imitation of one he saw in Virginia which was possibly a mutation of something someone saw in Europe or possibly out of Walter Scott’s books, both of which were probably imitations. This is all very sad. Am I making you people sad?”

  “Oh yes,” Sarah said gaily.

  “Good.”

  Jay moved ahead of them, quickening his step on a signal from the Governor.

  “I’m really feeling much better,” Sarah said to Greg.

  “Why is that?”

  “Away from the desert and those terrible trailers.”

  “I thought it was Vicki who intimidated you out there.”

  “How did you know? I mean — Well she’s still with us, but I’m feeling better. It was the trailers, I think, the whole place, confining the spirit.”

  “It never seemed to confine Vicki’s, did it?”

  “Perhaps she’s just irrepressible, is that it? That’s being nice … I’m looking forward to the party. Like Vicki, I can’t wait until the party begins.”

  “Will there be any women? I mean enough women.” The others were far ahead of them now, past the entrance to the house and beyond, standing in the graveled driveway.

  “Lots of women. All sorts of women. Women and girls, sisters and mothers and daughters and just all kinds.”

  “I like all kinds. That’s the kind I like best.”

  “Oh … Oh … Steel yourself.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The organized activities are about to get underway …”

  A stripped-down Army command car had appeared from behind the house. Jay steered it out of the driveway and pulled up next to the others. The Governor turned and motioned for Sarah and Greg.

  “Organized activities?” Greg said to her.

  “Yes. First you’ll take a long ride across the ranch. He’ll show you the cattle and horses and irrigated farmland and maybe even the old fish hatchery. Then you’ll come back and take a swim or play shuffleboard or badminton and then you’ll go in for drinks before dinner and afterwards he’ll insist you try the brandy and then there’ll be some more drinking and then a hell of an awful long walk out into the woods and back again and by then …”

  “That’s enough,” Greg said, raising his hand. “Couldn’t we just take a ride on that vibrator, instead, just you and me?”

  “It’s too late,” Sarah said. “Here they come … And I just remember I’ve got some work to do. Besides, I’ve been on this tour.” She waved at the others and left Greg Calhoun standing there; she walked quickly toward the back of the house.

  Inside, the place smelled of damp stone and stale air, reminiscent of something from her childhood, she could not remember, not entirely, searching for pillbugs possibly, in the cool dark earth beneath the front steps of her home. Lying under the steps, herself against the ground, Chinamen underneath if you dig deep enough, watching the dust motes rise and fall, searching for pillbugs and doodlebugs and dirtdobbers’ nests, I found one here, watch out for snakes and scorpions, I found one, too, right here, right where? Right here. No go away no I don’t want to see you no and you haven’t been circum — No I haven’t one and no yes maybe yes I want to feel yes, someday I’ll have breasts and you won’t and maybe you can feel.

  The servants had arrived from town early, and now they moved quietly through the big rooms, dusting the furnishings, mopping the insides of ashtrays. From the kitchen she could smell the steaks cooking. Up the carpeted stairway, past the enormous tapestries, she paused finally at the entrance to the bedroom where the little girl lay sleeping. Victoria Anne’s eyes fluttered and she looked up in heavy-lidded pleasure.

  “Hello Sarah.” She smiled and closed her eyes and opened them again. “Where are all the others?”

  “Out for a ride. Jay and I will take you for a ride later. All right?”

  “Yes …”

  “Have you ever hunted for pillbugs, Annie?”

  “Pillbugs … What’s a —”

  “Never mind, sweetheart. Finish your nap and we’ll take a ride or go for a swim when you wake up.”

  “All right.”

  She smoothed the covers on the bed and left the room quietly. In the privacy of her own bedroom she unpacked her bags and then lay down and closed her eyes. She thought of Jay next to her; not grabbing or feeling but next to her, not breathing or talking but just the two of them in love together, next to one another, each to each, all others excluded. Would there ever be such a time, such a place, and could there ever be beauty and ease and grace? How did it go? How did the phrase go? Convention and tradition work blindly for the preservation of the normal type and for the extinction of … Well who were the normal types? Extinction of … Extinction of … Where was beauty and grace? Where was it? She had asked Arthur Fenstemaker just the week before, on an evening following that business in Jay’s apartment; where was it, she asked him; would there ever be beauty and ease and grace?

  My dear, he began, and hesitated, and she half expected some dumb German farmer lecture on sweat and toil and sorrow. Sweetheart, he began, and hesitated, moving toward his window, looking out, his back to her, over the darkened Capitol grounds. You have to look for it, he said finally, you have to look for it. Look out here, he said, pointing toward the trees and beneath them, an old Negro woman bent in ancient pain, standing alone and calling to the birds … cheeree … chee-ree … she sang, and the birds sang back. You have to look for it, he said.

  Was that all? Was that really all there was? The rest an illusion and a monstrous joke. If Jay would only — If Jay only … Jay could be sweet; Jay could be proud and resolute and sweet when he wanted to, when the other wasn’t on his mind, he could be a dear sweet dear the way it was at his apartment; it had all seemed so fine, the two of them in the room, in beauty and grace, Jay next to her, his cool hands on her skin, and I want to yes I want to and then the other. Those awful Vicki pictures in the magazine, Vicki pictures was what they were, like the books hidden under the front porch with the pillbugs, and the scalding thought that it was Vicki, not her but Vicki, not her but any transferable female would do, on the bed with him, naked and alone with him in beauty and ease and grace.

  “I’m ready, Sarah,” the little girl said, standing in the doorway in her bathing suit, “I’m ready for the swim.”

  Sarah stood and moved toward Victoria Anne and put her arms around her. “Do you like it here, sweet?” Sarah said. “Do you like it here with Jay and me?”

  “Yes, yes,” the little girl said, holding onto her neck. “I like it here with you and Jay … I want you to come sleep with me sometime. Daddy slept with me last night; I remember he came in and slept with me until Mommy came and they fussed and he left. Will you sleep with me tonight, Sarah?”

  Sarah was trying to hold back the sobs from her voice … “If I can, Annie, if I can …” She took her suit and undressed quickly in the bathroom. There was a faint, last summer’s line of darkness running round her and she wondered if the new suit would —

  “You’re beautiful, Sarah,” the little girl said in awe, standing half into the bathroom with her great sad eyes staring. “You’re so pretty all over.”

  Sarah smiled back, but then she had to turn her head as the tears flooded her eyes.

  Twelve

  JAY MOVED AMONG THE crowds of visitors, nodding his head, clasping hands, gripping arms, the names of near-strangers falling from his lips and Fenstemaker’s wisdom rattling round inside his head: For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb and her mouth is smoother than oil … He repeated it, trying to keep the words arranged as
they had come to him, first from Hoot Gibson and then the Governor … But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death and take hold in hell …

  The party is begun, he thought. At last, finally, begun. All these gay enchanting people, marvelous people, all come together, salt of the earth. It’ll be a nice party. Nass potty. What was it Sarah said? Be a man, Jay. Be a man, for God’s sake, don’t whimper — wipe your nose — like that. Be one like Arthur. There … he goes with another carful. Of people. Nass people. I’m upset. That you won’t get hold of yourself (people are looking). All these nice people are looking, Jay. Be a man!

  But Sarah I forgot. I forgot how. Seems I used to know — why’d it slip my mind? All those places. Misplaced it. She’s just never been there with me in all those dark places. She just don’t know. What it’s like. I’ll tell you Sarah what it’s like, it’s — Well it’s — Well it’s really not so bad sometime, all cool and luminous. Like vaults and cellars and basement rooms. I lived in a place once, ancient bloodbrick downstairs crypt in Frisco; had a job at a dry cleaner’s just round the corner where I learned Oh God about the two-bath system for treating blue serge. Lived down there nights thinkin’ of Miss Vicki and the girl. It smelled awful, smelled of sewage, and you know what?

  You get used to it. The smell, I mean. The other not at all. Be a man? She’s got that right — yes — that’s the trick — But not too large a one, and hulking. Otherwise it’s difficult to slip back into the womb of this gay-mad reminiscence. I should take Sarah sometime. We’ll go there, stroll down memory lane and — It’s all cool and mossy down there like I said and it could be made into a really gay place for the right sort of people. Look!

  Here they come again in that old command car, they’re having a time.

  What a time!

  Lust not after her beauty. Neither let her take thee with her eyelids …

  Let’s have a drink on that before this party gets too far gone, we’ve only seen the first of these nice people. Very earliest arrivals. Let’s get Greg and Shavers and Hoot Gibson, and there’s Mrs. Fenstemaker — hah yew, Miz Fenstemaker, me tew Miz Fenstemaker — and have a drink here beside the pool before the crowds make it impossible and Victoria Anne’s still sleeping upstairs. You know she damn near drowned today? Damn near. While all of us were inside drinking in that crazy solarium, I heard screams. Godalmighty they were awful. The screams. You ever heard child scream? Like death? She’d sneaked off for a swim and I was sitting there drinkin’ with all those nice people and trying to figure what’s on the Governor’s mind (he’s got a problem, I can tell, I got a gift) and I kept hearing them. The screams. And not certain what exactly it was, thinking it was just maybe the usual clangin’ in my head, I put my drink down and went quietly to see. Very quietly. Not wanting to be obtrusive, understand. Or panic. Or believe they were screams. And she was half drowned when I got there, damn near, and we stood sopping wet on that phony alabaster and had a good cry. Just the two of us. Hope it doesn’t give her the trauma, you think it might? Her teeth were chattering and she was still blue with cold when I put her into bed. I love her … And her love is better than wine … whine …

  Ah, here comes that grand lady again — Nice time, Miz Fenstemaker? Jus’ fine, Miz Fenstemaker — and here oh boy come the Mariachis with the guitars and all that spangled stuff. Those spics are really — That old Mexican, wettin’ in the rain. Whatever happened to that fellow? I should ask sometime. But I know, I remember now, he picked cotton on my daddy’s farm and amassed a great fortune and went back across the river and bought the Emperor’s Palace. Old Max’s place. Including Carlotta’s mirrors. And all the silverware. And a purple swimming pool. Like Fenstemaker’s. I’ll have to tell Annie that story sometime, next time we sit shiverin’ together next to the three-meter board.

  Here comes Sarah again — there she goes — thumping my jukebox heart. You’d like it down there Sarah, you really would, all green and grassy. We’ll leave tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll take the limousine or maybe that old stripped-down Army command job, and you and I and Annie we’ll remove, cut out, encamp elsewhere. Arthur won’t mind. Least he could do for young lovers. Leave this vale of tears. You like that? Nice phrase? I got a gift, honey, such a gift. So many gifts; so many tears (be a man!). I remember once how it used to be when (what was that old-fashioned expression?) I was a leader of men, way back the way it was when all of us were so goddam sure of ourselves. We were going to … Let’s see. Going to (oh, yes) usher in the new age of ecu … ecumenical progress and peace. How’s that Kermit? You heard any good applause lines lately? You been out hustling milk for the slum kids? And end the cold war, too, that’s right. Old Kermit. You old mad dog you, why’d you go off that way and hang yourself for? All bah yersef. You should’ve waited for the rest of us, or better still we should’ve found you a place here, a productive place in society as they say, shaved off that awful beard and cleaned your nails and got you some cordovans and some soft white button-downs. You’d have loved it, I know you would, you old mad dog, got used to it, adjusted, the way it was with me and that smell of sewage.

  Those Mariachis! Hot damn see what you’re missin’, man they’re great and I’m going to dance cha-cha, if I can only (let’s see) where’s Sarah gone. Let’s — There she goes, too bad, all squared away with that Gregory person, old Gregory what’s-his. Well let’s see. Lots of people. Lots and lots of nice people. Niz pipple. And such a gay party, fabulous gay place really, and look there goes the actress, what’s her name (what bubes!), and there goes that wretch of her husband, estranged you know, he’s very estranged and very down and very out and the Governor’s wiper what’s more. The world owes him a living — one of those birds — and he doesn’t care for the one it has come up with currently. The living. Is easy. I’ll ask her, by God, I’ll ask her once more and dance with her not too close and perhaps, just possibly maybe perhaps she’ll act sensible about this divorce business and … my God! she smells good, the way it was the first time … For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with the tongue … I could very nearly forget the way it was afterwards, remembering the first time, with those paper lanterns coming on now and the sun all violet in the hills and Vicki’s sweet face suspended here for a moment. Poignant. I can’t stand it. Poinnnyant. Like that. Mischiefs of whoredom! Yea, on every hill and under every green tree she lay down … Let her breasts satisfy thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Be thy ravished always with her love … Where did it go, oh Jesus where did it all go? How did we lose beauty and honesty and innocence, and who the hell substituted this carrion of strident heat and human parts on us? It was Vicki who … It was Vicki she … Was it me? My own upper lip all these years? No matter. What matters is now, so look here and now Vic and be sensible about our mutual misunderstandings and — what’d she say? Grow up love and talk about something else (isn’t this a nice party?) and enjoy it while there’s time. Grow up? Now she’s on it too, and is everyone here a thousand years old or something? The hell with all that, I’m going back down to my vault, my crypt, my basement room. It’s cool and glossy down there like I said: green and mossy, with a river of old hope running through. I’ll go find Sarah, she’ll want to come, and Victoria Anne: we’ll take that stripped-down Army job and — Where is she, where’s she wandered off to? Where? With that Greg, with that nice people. Here beside me on the dance floor just a mile ago, last week at the apartment her dark skin burning … There they go, I see them there, just ducking into the arbor behind the wisteria blooms, those two together, I see them now, revealed just barely in the pastel light of the lanterns. Old Greg. Maybe he’s me! It ought to be. Beside her in the honeyed air. I ought to leave them there, my man arms pressing Sarah’s flesh. They ought to be left alone, those two, Sarah and me, but I like the picture of them together, her gray eyes lifted toward mine, favoring the kisses … I re
ally can’t stand here gawking, though. I hear the little girl screams again; I’d better move along. Don’t they hear them? The screams? I’m coming, love, jus’ tread water or something while I wander through these crowds of niz people without causing too much commotion, I’m coming, like I promised, like the last time, so don’t stop screaming or I’ll know you’ve gone. Under. I can’t seem to get under this fence. Or through the field of bamboo shoots and new mown hay … the way … they photographed your momma in the nude. There’s a creek near here, I remember it as a boy of twenty-six, just over this rise and down — Ah! Home at last! Damn near broke my neck but I made it and it’s not such a bad place as mud flats go and a southeast breeze in summer. You can’t beat that, and it’s really very awfully nice to be back, and finally find myself.

  Thirteen

  “WE’LL GO SEE DEAD Man,” Arthur Fenstemaker said. “That’s it. I knew there was something I hadn’t shown you. Dead Man. Good Old Dead Man.”

  The party ranged around them, people filling the downstairs rooms of the main house, pushing out into the softness of the night, trampling the carpet grass and slipping off into the fishpond, their numbers multiplying on the promenade and in the garden. Arthur Fenstemaker and his friends sat closely together on a second-story balcony overlooking the pulsing scene. Something had brought them together here in the middle of the evening — the Governor, Shavers, Vicki, Sarah, and Greg Calhoun — as old and good friends pulled toward each other to recount all those happy times of some forgotten year. Sarah thought of Mr. Thurber’s moth: “Who flies afar from the sphere of sorrow is here today and here tomorrow.” There seemed no escape from this time, this place, these people.