“I’ve got to,” Ellen said. “Here that girl is already out of college and teaching — and I thought she was just some defenseless little freshman about to be seduced by Harris.”
“I will … I will!” Harris assured them.
“Harris is a real snake,” Ellen said. “You know that, Willie? He took me out one night and I was nearly deflowered. It all happens before you know it. He’s a snake — honest to God he is.”
“I’m passionate,” Harris said.
The two of them got up to dance, and Willie sat alone again. George Giffen and the new girl, Cathryn, returned to the garden, appearing almost simultaneously with Roy and Ouida. There was terrible confusion for a moment while introductions were made. Giffen leaned over and kissed Ouida. He explained how he had just taken Cathryn for a ride.
“Tell them how it goes, honey,” he said.
“Like a bomb,” Cathryn said. She thought a moment and added: “I forget how it corners.”
Harris and Ellen Streeter returned from the dancing slab, and there was another great shifting about while an effort was made to introduce everyone and find additional table space. When they were settled, Ellen Streeter sat across from Ouida and began to talk:
“I saw Earle today. I thought he looked a lot better.”
“Everybody saw Earle today but me,” Ouida said.
“You haven’t seen him yet?” Ellen said. “Heavens! You’d think a man would want to see his family the minute he got into town.”
Conversations sagged a little all around them; people left off in mid-sentence, struggling in the gathering silence to find words — any words — with which to crutch the moments. Even the inanimate world seemed to connive at focusing attention on the one clearly understood conversation at the table: one record expired on the jukebox and another was not immediately put to vibrating the evening air. Ellen Streeter went on: “I suppose you’re meeting him here, then? He told me at lunch he was coming out.”
Willie searched his empty head for some subject with which to engage Ellen Streeter in conversation. Roy turned in his chair and considered retreat to the men’s room. The new girl, Cathryn Lemens, not yet among the cognoscenti, was almost immediately aware, all the same, of unease at the table. She tried to think of something to say, but she could only join the others, mute and disabled, her mind gone blank even as concerned sports car capabilities. She looked at Harris, who was beginning to smile fiercely in anticipation. Harris had no favorites — it was just that he liked to go with winners, and Ellen Streeter at the moment seemed far and away ahead of the others. Alfred Rinemiller’s was the last voice going at full volume, and now even the intensity of his remarks began to flag. He ended one of his favorite political stories and attempted to begin another, but no one was listening.
“He’s coming here, is he?” Ouida said.
Ellen Streeter laughed with wonderful assurance. “Oh yes,” she said. “Did he tell you about his plan?” She looked at the others. “Earle wants to have a tennis tournament while he’s in town. Out at the ranch over the weekend. He was calling it the Egghead Mixed Doubles Invitational Tennis Tournament and Civil Rights Conference. He didn’t tell you any of this?”
“Not that I recall,” Ouida said.
“Well you’ll hear all about it tonight. He’s all excited.” She paused for a moment, considering, and then went on: “He’ll be pleased Roy brought you out — he’s been so busy all day.”
It seemed at first that Ouida was addressing someone else at the table. “I remember,” she said, “a really weird experience we had in Europe. Earle had fallen in love with this lady parachutist, and we were separated for about a month and we were talking about a divorce. So he called me for lunch one day and brought the girl. She was English and jolly and all and something of a bum. She talked constantly at lunch, patting Earle’s hand and giving me the business. ‘Dearie,’ she would say. ‘Dearie, I know this is terribly difficult for you, and I’ve been worried whether you’re having any fun. I mean are you really doing anything — alone as you are in a strange country.’ I tried to remember how all those brave women look in the television soap operas, and finally I said, ‘Oh, yes, Dearie, there’s lots to do. There’s the swimming and the tea dances and the parachute jumps and the Red Cross work, and of course there’s still Earle. Earle and I screw every Wednesday at noon …’ ”
There was a gasping for air all round the table, and then things started up again. A record came on and a singer whooped about the romantic problems of sixteen-year-olds. Cathryn Lemens began to giggle; Willie sat back in his chair, positioned in a half-sprawl, head lolling, staring at the treetops and smiling; Harris McElhannon laughed and beat the table with the palm of his hand and showed his good white teeth. Rinemiller began another story and George Giffen smiled wanly. Giffen had not quite understood the point of Ouida’s remarks, but he cared deeply for Ouida and knew enough to smile. Roy stared at Ouida for a long moment, grinning, vastly pleased. Willie still could not think of anything to say, but he succeeded in getting Ellen Streeter away from the table by asking her to dance with him. A waitress arrived and they all ordered steaks.
Ouida smiled back at Roy. “Let’s all dance,” she said. “Let’s do a mambo or the dirty boogie.”
Five
THEY MOVED ROUND IN the small space of the concrete dancing slab, holding each other lightly. Willie danced with Ellen Streeter; Roy with Ouida. Harris came along and asked Ellen if she would go out back and neck with him, and Ellen said she supposed she might, and Willie went to the tables and returned with the new girl named Cathryn. The music was harsh, thumping in their ears. Occasionally, they could hear Rinemiller’s laughter from across the garden. George Giffen skulked about the edges of the dancing space, telling himself this was the way life really was. They did some crazy steps and changed partners and then changed back again. They were all a little tight, stiff-tongued and slack-jawed; aggressiveness sagging into an uncharacteristic sentimentality. They changed partners again, perspiring a little in the warm evening air. Willie danced with Ouida; she seemed uncompromisingly happy.
“You and Roy …” Willie began.
“What?” Her warm breath was in his face, smelling faintly of spearmint gum and expensive cosmetics. The interruption muddied his thoughts, and for a moment he forgot what it was he had started to say. Then he remembered.
“… are my favorite people. All-time favorites.”
Ouida smiled and kissed him on the mouth. “Me too,” she said. “I am my all-time favorite. Then Roy, then you.”
“Am pleased,” Willie said. “Happy and content by that ranking.”
“Why is he so low-geared?” Ouida said. She had her eyes on Roy, but Willie had to ask to make sure.
“Who?”
“Roy —” she said, “how come he’s so low-geared?”
“We’re just good friends,” Willie said. “I never inquired about his gears.”
“I mean he could practice law or help in his family’s business or run for an office that would keep him busy the year round,” Ouida said. “Is he a good politician?”
“I think he’s pretty good,” Willie said. “It’s not a compulsion with him like with some of the really good ones. He practices law occasionally. He gets on the phone once a week and tells his brother how, at least, and he takes a case sometimes on holidays. He tried one last Easter. Or maybe it was Palm Sunday — I forget.”
He stopped talking and concentrated on the dancing. Ouida had her arm up over his shoulder and her hand touching the back of his neck: an intimacy which rendered him nearly inoperative. Harris and Ellen Streeter returned and began to dance: in the small space of the slab they constituted lethal objects. Harris barreled past Willie and Ouida, singing to himself: “Chantilly lace and uh prutty face an’ uh pony tail an’ uh everthang …” Willie and Ouida steered away from Harris and changed partners with Roy and the new girl named Cathryn.
Willie danced with Cathryn, taking her hand and placing it
at the back of his neck. “Do that,” he said. He held on to her and they moved round the slab; he negotiated variations on the box step he’d learned in junior high.
“You’re a terrible dancer,” Cathryn said.
“I’ve got a natural rhythm,” Willie said. He kissed her lightly on the mouth and then wondered if he were infected with George Giffen’s illness.
“Harris is still ignoring me,” Cathryn said. She watched Harris and Ellen Streeter dancing but did not seem really to mind.
“He senses how I feel about you,” Willie said. “He’s leaving us alone.”
“Is he successful with women?”
“Success comes to Harris with depressing regularity.”
They danced in silence for a time. The absence of talk made Willie nervous. He said: “Ask me some stupid questions.”
“All right,” the girl said. “What do you want out of life?”
Willie thought a moment. “Nothing,” he finally said. “I got everything.”
“Everything?”
“Almost. Except for a few accessories. Like reasonable clothing and clean shirts every day. And a couple of mutton chops waiting for me in the evenings. Grilled without condiments — you like that? And pie with a piece of Stilton, and pulled bread and a pint of Club Médoc. A good fire in the grate. A comfortable woman to keep me warm in bed and to brush my bowler and fold my umbrella in the mornings.”
The girl looked ill. She had drunk several glasses of beer and then switched to someone else’s gin and tonic. She stared at Willie desperately.
“And a London tailor,” Willie said. “And a charge account at the Colony.”
“I don’t feel well,” the girl said. “Can we sit down?”
They returned to the table. Roy and Ouida had already given up the dancing, and now they sat at the table looking bored with everyone. Willie wished they would leave before Earle Fielding arrived — if he did arrive — though he was unable to explain why he should feel this way: Roy could take care of himself; all of them could. Willie decided he was growing impatient with the rich and near-rich and deadbeat and dependent — all of them — his hipster pols.
Steaks were served, crackling in iron plates, and conversations nagged as people got serious over dinner. Alfred Rinemiller approached from the other end and sat across from Roy and Ouida. Roy nodded, picking at his food. “Hello, Alfred,” Ouida said. He was a large, handsome man with an oversized, vaguely leonine head. He pushed hair back from his eyes and gave Ouida his rogue’s look. He had necked with her for a quarter of an hour once, two years before, on a hotel bed during a political convention with friends wandering in and out and her husband Earle sick on the floor of the bathroom. Rinemiller was certain that Ouida still remembered this with pleasure.
Giffen sat close by, looking strained, spreading himself too thin. It was difficult trying to keep track of the conversations all around him, but Giffen was there, giving his best, shifting ceaselessly from one group to another. He looked at Ouida and clapped Rinemiller’s shoulder.
“You-all hear about Alfred runnin’ for the Speakership?”
Ouida nodded. She started to answer, but Giffen’s attention was already shifted to conversations elsewhere, and they were left to deal alone with the beached and flopping wet fish of Rinemiller’s ambition. “Nice to know about,” she managed to say.
Rinemiller shrugged and said something about ventures and gains. He turned to Roy and said: “Appreciate your support, Good Buddy.”
“You’ll probably get it,” Roy said without enthusiasm.
“How about right now, though?” Rinemiller said. “I need as many pledges as possible to get this thing off the ground. How about it, Roy?”
Willie interrupted, and Roy gave his pledge in silence — to do something extraordinarily nice for Willie one of these days.
“I heard you had an audience,” Willie said.
“What’s that?” Rinemiller said.
“I heard you and Fenstemaker had a little visit.”
“That’s right,” Rinemiller said. “How’d you hear about it. You hear too much. Don’t understand how you birds …”
“Best tradition of a free and independent and fearless press,” Willie said. “I walked into his reception room and looked at his engagement book … I tell you, it took guts.”
Giffen’s face came near again. He redraped an arm round Rinemiller’s shoulder. “How ’bout that, hah?” he said. “Ole Alfred’s gonna be our next Speaker … ’Bout time the Liberals in the Lower Body had a man on whom they can depend … on …” Giffen’s remarks were ignored by the others now. His voice faded as he lost track of his own thoughts.
“What passed between you two old pros?” Willie was saying to Rinemiller.
“We just visited,” Rinemiller said.
Giffen looked at Roy and whispered: “Who’re they talkin’ about? Who’s Alfred been visitin’?”
When Roy did not respond, Ouida explained to Giffen.
“Was there a laying on of hands?” Willie said.
“No comment to the press,” Rinemiller said.
Willie thought a moment. He could not push Rinemiller too far. Rinemiller was one of the original board members of the corporation organized for establishment of the weekly newspaper; was, indeed, the one member most responsible for securing the editorship for Willie England.
“Not even to your own press?” Willie said. “You ought to take advantage of your sympathetic correspondents before our little non-profit organization folds.”
“Anything comes of it, you’ll be the first to know,” Rinemiller said. “I believe in that business about rewarding friends and giving those who aren’t as bad a time as possible.”
Roy wondered what Rinemiller and Fenstemaker had really talked about and whether the Governor had spent the day rousing young people in support of his programs. If there was a threat implicit in Rinemiller’s remarks, it did not disturb Roy: he was more immediately concerned with the possibility of having to work with Rinemiller on the Governor’s public school legislation. He remembered Rinemiller’s imitation of the Governor earlier in the evening and now he hoped it hadn’t been just a performance for the others.
The new girl named Cathryn pulled on Willie’s arm. “Mencken,” she said, “talked about gay fellows who tossed dead cats into sanctuaries … See? I memorize … What’re they talking about?”
Willie started to answer, but Kermit’s strident voice came from directly behind them: “Trouble is, there’s no more sanctuaries. They been overrun by all them moneychangers.”
Crazy Kermit still had his young friend named Jobie in tow. They stood behind Willie and Cathryn, the two of them in identical black shag sweaters and soiled back-buckle khakis. They swayed slightly, together.
“Here he is, Jobie,” Kermit said. “You met him while ago, but you didn’t really know who he was. Willie — Jobie’s got something for you. Give it to my Good Doctor Willie, Jobie.”
The young man named Jobie began removing sheets of yellow typescript from a manila folder.
“What is it?” Willie said. He stuffed bits of meat and potato into his mouth, hoping the spectacle of his eating might hold the visitors to as brief a transaction as possible. He knew all about the boys from the college with their yellow typescripts.
“It’s called No Way Out — The Dilemma of the Modern Radical,” Jobie said.
Willie continued to eat. Harris, sitting nearby, looked up startled.
“No Way Out,” the young man repeated. “Our culture is ossifying. We are become a nation of conformists — automatons if you will — with backyard barbecue pits and corporate security …”
“Wish I had some corporate security,” Willie said.
“… smug and complacent, terrified, in reality, by the awful reality of …”
Someone else interrupted to order fresh ice and setups. Jobie went on.
“… of … today’s window dressing world. There’s no way out,” he emphasized. “There�
��s only hope for the young — the radical young — those few not yet corrupted and housebroken by the pressures of conformity in modern society. They have got — these young — to make an affirmation in the dead and empty air.”
Harris looked up, drowsy with food and beer. “Make a what?” he said amazed. He held a large piece of beefsteak in front of him on the end of a fork.
“An affirmation, man,” Kermit said. “Dig those people, yes!”
“Goddam right,” Harris said moodily. “We’re all dyin’ of the fallout.” He regarded his piece of beefsteak for a moment and then poked it into his mouth.
“That’s fine,” Willie said. “That’s real good.” He reached out for the typescript. “I’ll take a look at it at the office tomorrow.”
The young man held on to the papers. “I’d prefer,” he said, “to bring it by myself and be present when you read it. There are some allusions, references, that might need to be explained.”
“Fine,” Willie said. “Bring it by.” Jobie started to speak, but Willie anticipated the next question. “Bring it by tomorrow after lunch. I’ve got an hour then,” he said.
Kermit and Jobie wandered off to another table. It was nearly closing time now, and the waitresses were moving about, picking up empties, urging customers to finish their beer before curfew. Huggins came down to the end of the table with a gaunt, moist-eyed girl alongside him. The girl carried a guitar.
“Where’ll we go?” he said. It was always a terrible decision to face at the midnight closing.
“We could all go home,” Roy said. “There’s a new place.”
“Whose home?” Huggins said, grinning.
They discussed people’s homes — other people’s homes, mostly. No one volunteered shelter for the party.
“How about Harris’s apartment?” Huggins said.
“How about yours,” Harris said.
“It’s a mess there,” Huggins said. “And my phonograph’s broke.”
“I’m tired of Thelonious Monk, anyhow,” Willie said. “I think he’s basically a reactionary.”
Some of the others joined them from the other end to discuss housing prospects. The girl with Huggins hung the guitar round her neck and struck a few chords. The jukebox was turned off inside and customers moved out of the garden. The girl began to sing as the others discussed places to go. The girl sang in a flat, unhappy voice about slaves following the Big Dipper north to freedom. Waitresses gathered up glasses and pitchers and bottles and stood just inside the building, next to the bar, looking out at the young people grouped round the main table and the girl playing guitar.
Gay Place Page 6
