‘Oh, come on.’ Mike laughed. ‘He’s a raging queen!’
‘My dear,’ Robert said, ‘he is indeed. And what’s wrong with that, I might ask. You may have noticed that all three of us chaperones at the Country Club had at least one thing in common, did we not? Just think about it and you’ll see it makes sense: if the sultan leaves someone in charge of his harem, he doesn’t want anyone who’ll be tempted to dip his hand in the honey pot, if you’ll pardon my revoltingly mixed metaphor. In olden times the preference was for eunuchs but they come a little expensive nowadays, so we’re the next best thing. Voilà!’
‘And do you do much walking yourself?’ Mike asked, fascinated by the thought of a hidden network of gay men escorting the wives of the rich and powerful through Washington society.
‘Oh no, it’s merely a sideline – I’m much too busy with Ron. And anyway, it’s people like Jerry the ladies really want – much older and grander than we are, reeking of eau de cologne from red silk handkerchiefs and wearing perfect toupees on their perfectly bald old heads, but willing to take them to fashion shows and society balls and advise them on hair colour and make-up and shoes and handbags and lingerie and the pros and cons of HRT. Jerry’s squawky and surly, a scold and a snob; he’s waspish and persnickety and they all love him and fear him. He’s the closest they’ll ever get Oscar Wilde and they’re wild about him. Get the picture?’
‘Yeah, I do,’ said Mike. ‘But what I don’t get is how guys like that survive and prosper around the Reagans. I thought this was the president who excoriates homosexuality and sends all gays to hell.’
‘Oh no, my dear fellow; I think you must have some other Ronald Reagan in mind. This Ronald couldn’t give a damn what people get up to in the privacy of their bedrooms. He and Nancy cut their teeth in Hollywood, don’t forget, and all their actor friends are gay. Why, some of them come and stay at the White House – it’s Jerry Zipkin who advises on the guest lists, you know. Just last year when they had the place remodelled, they had their designer Ted Graber spend the night there with his lover Archie Case – and a lovely couple they were too. Ron’s not a closet bigot, he’s a closet tolerant.’
Robert’s tone was bantering, but Mike didn’t laugh.
‘OK, so why does he kowtow to the bigots? Why does he let Falwell and Robertson and Buchanan speak on behalf of the party?’
‘Hey, I know what you’re saying. But it’s the old problem of politics and the Faustian bargains these guys have to make to get elected. Sure, Ron talks the gay-bashing talk, but trust me: he doesn’t walk the walk.’
Robert was inviting him to drop the subject, but Mike didn’t.
‘Well, just answer me one thing, then: how come this administration has presided over the biggest threat to the lives of gay men this country has ever known and not lifted a finger to do anything about it? How come Reagan employs people like Gerry Hauer and Bill Bennett to block funds for research and information campaigns? If that’s not walking the walk, then I don’t know what is!’
Robert’s face fell.
‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ Mike said. ‘I know it’s not your fault – it’s not you I’m yelling at. It’s just, this whole thing has got me scared. It’s got me in a panic and I don’t know what to do.’
‘You and millions of us, Mike. All we can do is stay calm and be safe.’
Mike nodded. ‘One other thing you and I can do is stay in touch and share what we hear,’ he said, spotting an opening to keep in contact with Robert. ‘You get information at your end and I get information at mine, so why don’t we pool what we know?’
‘Now that sounds like a fine idea,’ Robert agreed, ‘and an even better one if we do it over a good lunch or dinner, wouldn’t you say? Are you going to Dallas for the convention next month?’
‘Sure. The RNC runs the show, so I’ll be there – the president’s boring old legal adviser while you and Mike Deaver do the important things like arranging the flowers and keeping his nose powdered. Sounds like a winning combination, don’t you think?’
Dallas was hot and sticky at the end of August, and the hundreds of officials who flew down to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s nomination ran from air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned auditorium to air-conditioned hotel rooms. Mike had gone ahead with an advance party to oversee arrangements in the Reunion Arena, where the convention was being staged. By the time Reagan arrived on the morning of the 22nd proceedings had been under way for two days and Mike was feeling frazzled. With the rest of the Republican National Committee he was ferried downtown to Loew’s Anatole Hotel to greet the presidential party and was mildly chagrined to see Robert behind Ron and Nancy looking his usual immaculate, unflustered self.
‘Well, I’m pleased to see someone’s had a relaxing day, ’ he whispered as Reagan made his arrival remarks to the staffers.
Robert smiled smugly. ‘It was champagne and caviar all the way. Ron’s in fine fettle and it’s so nice to have him unchallenged for the nomination and a shoo-in for re-election, don’t you think? I might even be free for dinner. The boss will be taking a nap and watching the speeches on TV, I suspect.’
Mike laughed dryly. ‘It’d have to be a late dinner. I’m gonna be in the Arena until the last of the speeches and the roll-call of the states. It could be midnight before I’m done. Why don’t we make it breakfast instead?’
But the next morning Robert was preoccupied with arrangements for the president’s speech and media coverage and they had little time to chat. Reagan was in fine form in the evening, emerging on stage to roars from the hall and deafening chants of ‘Four more years!’ and ‘Reagan, Reagan, U-S-A!’
His acceptance address lambasted the Democrats over their plans for the economy, foreign policy and family values. ‘For us, words like faith and family are not slogans to be dragged out of the closet every four years,’ he said in a choice of words that Mike noted with a grimace. ‘They are values to respect and to live by every day. May God bless you, and may He continue to bless our beloved country.’
Ron and Nancy both came to the staff celebration afterwards, and the party went on long after the first couple retired to bed. Mike drank so much that in the early hours he walked straight into a glass door and was knocked out cold. Robert Hampden found him with his face covered in blood and took him to ER. He needed seven stitches in a head wound and flew back to Washington the next day feeling shaky and unsettled.
TWELVE
1984–5
Mike took little pleasure in the landslide that Reagan won in November or in the festivities of the January Inaugural. It was as if the incident in Dallas and the shedding of his blood had startled him into an agonized recognition of his own vulnerability. Pete felt the gloom but did not know the cause. His cautious enquiries were met with rebuffs. It seemed to Pete that Mike was feeling frightened and somehow guilty – at times he would glare at Pete with hostility in his face; at others his look would be full of concern and pity.
The gloom did not dissipate until the spring, when Mike came home from work one evening with a bottle of champagne and a bunch of blood-red peonies. Suddenly, unexpectedly he was back to his former self, full of energy and enthusiasm, planning for the future as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve had the best idea. I think we should throw an Easter party at the Shepherdstown house. You know how we always talked about Easter vigils when we were little – church and prayers and serious stuff? Well, I think we should have an Easter vigil that’s totally fun. We could get everyone over on the Saturday night and just party on through to the morning. Then we all go to Mass on Easter Sunday and chill for the rest of the weekend. How does that sound?’
All their old friends came: Mark O’Connor, Ben Kronfeld, John Clarkson, Susan Kavanagh; Robert Hampden brought his wealthy, older boyfriend, who was one of the capital’s leading property developers; Sally Shepherd came, along with their other Shepherdstown acquaintances; and they even invited some of t
he West Virginia mudflowers, the name they gave to the local gay set – because if you cleaned them up, they might be kind of cute.
Dinner began at eleven in the evening and went on until two in the morning. Then the rugs were rolled back, the music cranked up and the dancing started. By the early hours half the guests were asleep in armchairs and the others were playing pool at the table in the back room. At nine o’clock Mike announced it was time to go to Easter Mass. There were objections from the Jews and Baptists, and a sudden crop of self-proclaimed atheists, but Mike insisted and the whole group trooped off to church. Afterwards, he and Pete went to Easter lunch at Sally’s parents and came back in mid-afternoon to join the remaining guests before they left to go back to DC.
In the evening the two of them sat alone amid the chaos of the devastated house.
‘You were magnificent, Mike,’ Pete whispered. ‘You cooked and DJ’d just like in the old days. You know, you’ve been so down recently that I thought I’d never see you happy again.’
Mike squeezed his arm.
‘I know I haven’t been . . . the easiest person to live with these past months. I’m really sorry for that. There was something I should have told you . . . Maybe I was too afraid to tell you. You remember Harry Chapman, the guy up in New York? Well, he died.’
Mike took a deep breath.
‘Just before he went, he wrote me to say he had AIDS . . . and maybe I had it too.’
Pete said nothing.
‘I know, I know. But let me finish. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. It just ate away at me that maybe I was going to lose you and the happiness we’ve found together . . . to lose everything. But last month they started these serum tests that let you find out if you’re positive or negative, so I went for one . . . and they gave me the all-clear!’
Pete let out a gasp and Mike’s eyes filled with tears.
‘It’s amazing how different everything suddenly looks, Pete. It’s like I dodged the bullet and I’ve got a whole new life ahead of me. But the worry and the stress were so awful . . . I don’t want ever to go through that again. I’m so sorry for . . . for what I’ve put you through.’
Pete shook his head. Mike had kept something secret that could have had dire consequences for him too, but he forced himself not to dwell on that. The future was what mattered now.
‘I’m glad you told me, Mike. I was wondering what was going on with you, but I understand now. Thank God you’re all right.’ Pete got up to wipe his eyes. ‘I’m so happy we got this out of the way,’ he called through from the bathroom as he splashed cold water on his face. ‘It’s like we can start all over again – a clean slate.’ He returned to the sofa. ‘You do promise, though, don’t you? The leather stud thing, the bondage boy stuff and the crazy sex . . . that’s all in the past, right? The biker gear’s just for your image. There’ll be no more lost weekends and no more sex with strangers?’
Mike looked him in the eye and nodded.
‘I promise, Pete. You’re all I need now.’
THIRTEEN
1985–6
By 1985 Michael Hess was an established figure in the Republican Party. The Indiana gerrymandering suit, Davis v. Bandemer, was about to come before the Supreme Court and the RNC was relying on Mike’s strategy to win the case. Pete was still working at the National Restaurants Association but was steadily building up his own marketing business. They began looking around for somewhere in DC to buy and found the perfect place.
The Methodist Building on Capitol Hill was a grand 1930s Renaissance-style block in white limestone that had long served as the Church’s headquarters in the nation’s capital. Alone among all the buildings on the Hill, it had a residential wing with fifty-five private apartments, many occupied by senators, representatives and Supreme Court judges. Al Gore Senior was the block’s elder statesman and the place was the epitome of establishment Washington. When an apartment came on the market, Mike and Pete bought it and move d in at once. The apartment was not large, but they decorated it in style, with beige walls and dark grey carpet. They filled the rooms with antique cherrywood furniture and leather armchairs, a Chinese chest and African wooden sculptures. Side tables were arranged to show off little knick-knacks – alabaster eggs in a wicker basket, a golden pineapple, a sculpted-metal hand, antique pieces of ivory and whalebone. A beautiful washed-out golden screen stood in one corner of the main room and African spears in the other. On the walls they hung prints by Picasso and Matisse, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs of male nudes. From their window they could see the Capitol and the Supreme Court.
Like a lot of his friends, Mike was a big fan of Doris Day. He loved her musicals and the romantic comedies she had made with Rock Hudson. His favourite was Pillow Talk, particularly the scene where the manly Hudson pretends to be gay to trick the beautiful but coy Day into his arms.
‘Oh, you know,’ he tells her, ‘there are some men who, well, you know, they’re very devoted to their mothers – you know, the type that likes to collect cooking recipes or exchange bits of gossip . . .’ It was a line that made Mike rock with laughter and he was delighted when the networks ran the movie as a prelude to Day’s new TV series, in which Hudson was scheduled to appear as her first guest.
When Doris Day’s Best Friends aired on 15 July Mike and the rest of the viewing public were shocked. Hudson was no longer a sleek, muscular hunk; his face was gaunt and ashen, his speech was slurred and he seemed painfully thin and frail. He was fifty-nine but looked seventy. Mike and Pete watched the news bulletins in the days that followed and wondered at the explanations that were advanced – liver cancer or severe influenza – until Hudson’s spokesman put an end to the speculation by acknowledging that Rock was gay, that he was suffering from AIDS and had known about it for over a year.
Many Americans were appalled that the man they had admired for his masculinity had been faking all along. Ronald Reagan, who had been one of Hudson’s closest colleagues, called him to express his personal sympathy but still said nothing and did nothing about the epidemic that was sweeping the country he led.
In the weeks before his death Hudson, along with hundreds of other American men, flew to Paris to be treated with the experimental antiretroviral drug HPA-23. The Americans were in Paris because their own country had no similar anti-AIDS programme and had not issued a licence for the French drug to be used in the US. Over 20,000 US citizens were diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, and for nearly every one of them the diagnosis was a death sentence. Rock Hudson included in his will a bequest of a quarter of a million dollars to set up the American Foundation for AIDS Research, to be chaired by his old friend Elizabeth Taylor. The unspoken message was that if the government wouldn’t do it, then gay men would have to do it for themselves.
Ronald Reagan was in hospital the evening the Doris Day show aired, receiving treatment for intestinal polyps. For ten days he ran the country from his bed, with his newly appointed chief of staff, Don Regan, liaising between him and Vice President Bush.
The president had been back in the White House for little more than a month and still looked pale and drawn when Mark Braden and Mike were summoned to the Oval Office. Don Regan had clearly prepared him well because Reagan glanced at a briefing note and launched into an impassioned, seemingly impromptu speech in the style of Henry V at Agincourt.
‘It’s been thirty years since we Republicans controlled the House of Representatives,’ he said, looking almost accusingly at his visitors from the RNC, ‘and that’s too long, guys. It makes life a misery for a Republican president and it stymies some of our best legislation. More than that, it’s simply not fair. The Democrats have a stranglehold because the electoral rules are slanted in their favour. Now I know this Bandemer case won’t solve things overnight – I know it’s just a start – but we need to win it to give ourselves the precedent we can use to unravel the injustices in other states. As you can see, I’m just an old wreck sitting here on my butt right now, so I’m counting on you guys t
o go to the Supreme Court and win this thing for me. Will you do that, guys? Will you go win one for the Gipper?’
Reagan smiled without a hint of self-consciousness at his performance. Mike had been thinking he should use his audience with power to raise the scandal of the administration’s inaction on AIDS, but his good intentions melted away as he shook the man’s hand.
‘We’ll give it our best shot, Mr President, you can count on that.’
Rock Hudson died on 2 October 1985. Five days later Mike appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States to present the Republican Party’s testimony in the gerrymandering test case of Davis v. Bandemer. In his pocket he had a message of good luck from the White House.
Having heard the arguments from attorneys on both sides of the dispute, Chief Justice Burger announced that he and his fellow justices would consider the issues involved and produce their ruling at the end of the court session, probably in June.
In the middle of June 1986 the Statue of Liberty in the Bay of New York was reopened after two years of extensive renovation. The monument was rededicated in a televised ceremony attended by dignitaries from the US and abroad. In the broadcast the Reagans could be seen in the audience, sitting next to President François Mitterand of France and his wife Danielle. Onstage, Bob Hope was entertaining the distinguished guests and cracking jokes about France, the US and their shared statue.
‘I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS,’ Hope was saying with a knowing smirk, ‘but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.’
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