Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  “You’ll use it then?” Jobie said.

  “I imagine so,” Willie said. “It’s a bit long — forty pages — but —”

  “Plus the footnotes …?”

  “Yes … Well … We’ve got to be realistic about space. We’re necessarily limited to …”

  Roy sat down in the wicker chair and read an old issue of the newspaper. He knew Willie would carry Jobie’s article in one form or another, possibly in installments of several weeks. Life for Willie had become a progressively desperate, never-ending struggle to get the pages of the little journal filled and sent to the printers. There was never any advertising that amounted to much: an occasional beer ad, an “institutional” endorsement from one of the unions, legal notices sent over from sympathetic lawyers. Those eight to twelve pages each week yawned at Willie like a voracious sea monster, a scavenger, swallowing up everything, meat and vegetables, gold and dross, whole or in part, whatever garbage and flotsam was washed close by. Roy sat in the wicker chair and turned through the pages, glancing over an article written by Kermit, the Mad Doctor, entitled Radical Pacifism — A Way Out.

  Out of what, Roy was not able to determine on so brief an examination, but he did note that Willie had managed to stretch Kermit’s “monograph” over three pages, breaking up the gray spaces with line drawings clipped out of a 1934 issue of the old Scribner’s Magazine. He looked up, wanting to commend Willie as a newsman in the best tradition, but Jobie was still talking fiercely.

  “You have an art critic?” the young man wanted to know.

  Willie shook his head and said he had never exactly given any thought to the possibility of carrying art criticism. “But we’re certainly not bound by precedent,” Willie added. “You have anyone in mind?”

  “You might want to look at some small things I’ve done,” Jobie said. “Lately I’ve been very much interested in the idea of the mot juste in art — have you ever thought of that? The painter striving much as Flaubert to arrive at …”

  “Yes …” Willie said, jerking his head up and down.

  Roy got to his feet and said: “That’s the wonderful thing about this newspaper …” Jobie looked at Roy, delighted. “It is a wonderful thing,” Jobie agreed.

  “Any work,” Roy went on, Willie giving him a grateful look, “any work that is honest and genuine — anything of a special lyric or human quality, as primitive as it might seem to the academician, as bewildering as it might appear to the, uh, working class type, will nonetheless have great appeal to Willie as art … a folk art that is indigenous to the region …”

  Jobie strode round the workbench, waving his arms. “That’s it! That’s exactly what I had in mind! There are some revolutionary things being done here … In the arts … This is a frontier … You won’t find such vitality in … anywhere else. This is where new things are being done. I have a friend experimenting with ceramic murals, using the native soils to produce a tile painting that will reflect not only the images of the region but its very fundament as well …”

  “I hope you’ll excuse me for breaking in,” Roy said. “Willie and I have an appointment downtown.”

  “I do some painting myself,” Jobie said.

  “We’re supposed to be at the Capitol in fifteen minutes,” Willie said. He looked at Roy. “That right?”

  “Though I’m normally a writer,” Jobie said. “I’ve had some shows.”

  “It’ll take us ten minutes to get there,” Roy said.

  “Of course sculpture is really the most exciting, the most plastic of …”

  “Play the recorder?” Willie said suddenly.

  “Pardon?” Jobie got his eyes in focus and looked at them.

  “Clock’s out of order. You have the time?” Willie said.

  “Nearly eleven.”

  “We’ve got to leave.”

  They climbed out of the window and walked down the fire escape, blinking in the sunlight, trying to keep their balance so as to avoid holding on to the metal railing which rubbed off, dusty and black oxidized, on the hands. They dropped the young man off near the college and headed the car toward the Capitol grounds.

  Eight

  THEY CLIMBED THE GREAT stone steps and headed down the main corridor of the Capitol building, taking a back elevator that let them off at a third-floor passageway near the Executive Offices. They sat waiting for a few minutes, watching the nice-legged secretaries moving back and forth. Occasionally, the Governor’s voice could be heard through the thick walls, a little like Grand Opera from a great distance. Jay McGown passed through the reception room, looking gloomy and efficient. He stopped and talked with them.

  “He ought to be ready for you,” Jay said, looking back toward the Governor’s conference room. His attitude was not so much one of anxiety; Jay had more the quality, characteristic of those constantly exposed to Arthur Fenstemaker, of having peered steadily at the scene of an accident, experienced a revelation, seen death and redemption, God and Lucifer staring back, and somehow, incredibly, survived.

  Jay started off toward the pressrooms down the hall. Almost immediately the Governor came banging out of his office, one arm draped round the shoulder of a state senator. The senator grinned at everyone, eyes glazed, the Governor leading him as a blind man toward the door. Then Fenstemaker turned, a great happy smile on his face. “Come on in, you two,” he said.

  They got to their feet to follow him inside. Fenstemaker had already collapsed in his chair, stretching out, neck and spine resting against the leather cushions. They sat across from him and stared. Fenstemaker pinched his nose, moved a big hand over his face as if probing for minute flaws in a piece of pottery. He rubbed his eyes, sucked his teeth, punched holes in a sheet of bond paper with a gold toothpick. He stood and paced about the room and stared out the windows and scratched himself. “Well goddam and hell …” he said. It was like a high mass, a benediction.

  “Let me do you a favor, Willie,” he said.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “I don’t know. Anything you ask. I just want to get you obligated,” the Governor said, grinning and winking at Roy.

  “Don’t know of anything I want offhand,” Willie said.

  “Think of something.”

  “How ’bout some more of that Scotch whiskey then — the smoky twenty-five-year-old stuff you served me last month.”

  Fenstemaker smiled, showing his shark’s teeth. “Hell and damn,” he said. “That’s no favor.” He swung round in the big chair and opened a side panel of the desk. There was the sound of ice clacking in metal tumblers, and he pushed drinks across to them. “Look at this,” the Governor said, setting a seltzer bottle on the desk top. “Damndest things … Used to see ’em in the movies when I was growin’ up. When I could afford a movin’ picture show.” He held the bottle in one hand and pressed the lever, sending a spray of water across the room. For a moment there was a fine mist suspended in the air between Roy and Willie and the sunlit windows. A lovely rainbow appeared.

  “You’re a mean sonofabitch,” the Governor said, staring at the seltzer bottle. Roy wondered if he was talking about the bottle or his guests, until he repeated himself. “You’re a mean sonofabitch, Willie,” he said, still smiling.

  “I’m lazy and no-account,” Willie said. “But not mean, especially.”

  “You ever think about old Phillips?” He referred to a minor state official now serving a term in the penitentiary who was convicted on several counts of theft and conspiracy from evidence developed in Willie’s news columns.

  “I think of him,” Willie said. “I keep thinking how I wish he’d come back and do it all over again. I’m running out of people to expose.”

  The Governor spun round in his swivel chair, grinning. “Well you keep tryin’, Willie,” he said. “You keep tryin’. What’s your circulation now?”

  “About the same as it was. About ten thousand. But only about six of it paid. We give away a hell of a lot of copies.”

  “That’s not mu
ch,” the Governor said. “Ten thousand’s not much.”

  “No.”

  “How much money you losin’?”

  “Lots.”

  “I imagine so,” the Governor said.

  “I try not to think about it,” Willie said. He looked unhappy for a moment, thinking about it.

  “Where’s the money come from?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “You got to say now,” Fenstemaker said. “I give you that Scotch whiskey.”

  “Various sources,” Willie said, raising his glass as in a toast. “I don’t know who-all. Rinemiller helped raise the original amount. Got it from people like Earle Fielding … Some others … Hell! You probably know who they all are.”

  The Governor laughed and leaned toward them. “But it’s not your circulation, Willie — it’s the quality of your goddam readership.”

  “Suppose they can all read,” Willie said.

  “Now goddam I mean it,” Fenstemaker said. “Anybody who really cares about politics subscribes to your little paper, even if they don’t necessarily subscribe to your point of view. People who shape thinkin’ — policy makers, lobbyists, lawyers, judges, smalltime politicians.”

  “There’s been no one else printing a lot of this stuff,” Willie said. “I suppose something’s better than nothin’.”

  Fenstemaker looked delighted. “Exactly!” he said. “Whole basis my philosophy!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Somethin’s better than nothin’.”

  “Half a loaf?”

  “Slice of goddam bread, even,” Fenstemaker said. He changed moods suddenly. “Now about these hospitals …”

  “What …?” Roy and Willie leaned forward, trying to follow the course of Fenstemaker’s conversation.

  “Hospitals,” the Governor said. “You care about the hospitals?”

  “Sure.”

  “They’re a God-awful mess.”

  “Worse than that,” Willie said.

  “I got this little bill …”

  “I know,” Willie said.

  “I got the votes,” Fenstemaker said. “At least I think I got them. It’s not much of a bill — not half enough of an appropriation — but it’ll close up some of the worst places and build some new ones and bring in a few head doctors. And this little bill can pass is the main thing. I’ll put it through next week if I don’t get everyone all stirred up and worried about taxes and socialism and creepin’ statesmanship. You gonna help me, Willie?”

  “How can I help?”

  Fenstemaker slapped his desk and showed his teeth. “Oppose the goddam bill!” His face beamed. “But just a little bit, understand?” he said. “Don’t get real ugly about it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Willie said.

  “Those fellows in the Senate — they think this is all I want, they’ll give it to me. But if somebody’s runnin’ round whoopin’ about how good this is, settin’ precedents and havin’ a foot in the door and braggin’ on how much more we’ll get next year, then all my support’ll get skittish and vanish overnight.”

  “I see.”

  “Only don’t oppose it too much, either. You raise hell and your bunch won’t go along. They’ll introduce their own bill askin’ for the goddam aurora borealis. I need their votes, too. Just oppose it a little bit — oppose it on principle!”

  The Governor paused a moment and considered the problem. “I want,” he said, beginning to laugh quietly, his sad eyes blinking, “I want unanimous consent and dead silence!” He roared his laughter at them.

  Willie stirred and looked at Roy. Then he looked at Fenstemaker and said: “That all you wanted? We taking up too much of your time?”

  “Oh, no!” Fenstemaker said. “Hell no. I got you two here for somethin’ else altogether. Just a minute.” He leaned across his desk and punched a button. A girl’s voice came on the speaker.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Hah yew, honey?”

  “Just fine …”

  “Jay in there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him to get that machine of his and bring it in. Tell him I’m ready for a little transcribed soap opera.”

  He leaned back in the chair, resting on his spine, looking as if he were in great pain. “How you get to be one of those goddam elder statesmen?” he said.

  Nine

  IT WAS SUCH AN improbable story it had to be true. If it were simply some hoked up yarn designed to discredit an enemy, old Fenstemaker’s inventiveness would have served him better; there would have been some style, some magic, a sense of possibilities. Fenstemaker didn’t insult a man’s intelligence — you could nearly always count on that — and this story here was so coarse and bumptious there had to be something to it. Otherwise, the Governor would have devised a folktale with source material for his own amusement. Fenstemaker would have invented a better story.

  Willie sat listening, trying to set bits and pieces to memory, wondering if he should take notes. The Governor was sprawled in his big chair, looking out the window, beyond the granite ledge where two bizarrely plumed pigeons clucked and strutted, flapping their wings for balance in the careless wind. Roy sat like a bronze figure, cigarette ash spilled down the front of his dark jacket, and Jay McGown stood next to the machine with his hands on the switches. They played the recording all the way through, listening in silence, and then once again, stopping and backing up the tape and commenting on the undecipherable sections before proceeding.

  “Once again, Jay,” the Governor said, and Jay McGown spun the reels like a scientist at the controls. There was scarcely any doubt — the voice, one of the voices, was Alfred Rinemiller’s; the other identified by Fenstemaker as a lobbyist for a group of loan companies. They sat and listened all the way through one more time …

  — Who’d you say?

  — Huggins. He’s chairman of the committee and a good friend.

  — And you think you could change his mind …?

  — I think so. I could work on him. I’ve done him favors and he knows it.

  — Well listen … We got to be damn sure. There’s a lot ridin’ on this. We got to be absolutely certain about it — that’s why I’m down here. Our future’s at stake — there’s a whole pot of money we could lose with just a change of a few percentage points on the usury limitation …

  — Then you understand it’s going to cost you money to save money.

  — We know that. We’ve done business down here before. It’s just we want to be dead sure. We can’t afford to go throwin’ it around. We can’t afford it. We’ve been burned before.

  — I’m just telling you you’ve got my word. Ask anybody. You can depend on it. I can keep the bill in committee, but — hell — you understand — you got considerations.

  — How many?

  — There’s a lot of sentiment this year for some kind of legislation in the field.

  — How many considerations?

  — I don’t know. There’s Huggins …

  — He’s a rich boy. What the hell’s he need —

  — Rich family. He only gets a limited amount from them, and he spends most all of it. And he likes women …

  — We’ve all got our weaknesses …

  — That’s his. Women. And he’s known only the inexpensive ones. I can get a couple who …

  — Hell! You do, hah? Whyn’t you get ’em up here, then. We’ll have a little party.

  — You pay?

  — Only kidding. Listen — how much now? You got yours. I thought that would be enough. You realize how much you got there?

  — Yes.

  — How much? Count it.

  — I believe you.

  — Go ahead … count it …

  — It’s all here.

  — How much.

  — Seven-fifty. Just like you said.

  — Now you goin’ to deliver the goods just like you said?

  — You’ve got my vote. I have a good deal of influence on t
he committee. Enough to stop the thing from being reported out. But it’s going to take some work. I expect more for that work. And it’ll cost me some hard cash to bring it off.

  — How much, goddamit?

  — Five thousand.

  — You’re crazy.

  — Take it or leave it.

  — You’re out of your mind.

  — You want your money back? Here …

  — No, dammit, I want your vote. But you bring up this subject yourself of what you can do for us in workin’ on the others. And then you say five thousand for Chrissake. I could buy up control of the Senate for that much.

  — Fat chance … All right then. What’s your offer?

  — Half.

  — Half? Half of what?

  — Half of five … That’s twenty-five hundred. And I tell you, mister, we’ve never thrown money around like that in the history of this organization.

  — It’s not enough.

  — The hell it isn’t!

  — All right.

  — And we want to be damn sure.

  — You can count on it.

  — I mean damn sure. You’re gettin’ only a thousand of it now.

  — What?

  — And the balance when we’re certain the bill’s dead for this session.

  — Well now how can I be sure I’ll get the rest of it?

  — You can count on it, my friend.

  — There’s no assurance.

  — What assurance you give us? And besides — I haven’t got that kind of money. Not that much. I’ll have to go tap our directors, and that’ll be a touchy business. They’ll think I’m gettin’ to them. Puttin’ the money in my own pocket.

  — All right. But they’d better come across. Otherwise, they’re liable to find this legislation looking right at ’em again next session. And I’m the boy who can make sure it passes. Think that one over …

  — Well now it seems you have a very good point there.

  — Yes.

  — So we’re all protected.

  — That’s right.

  — How ’bout a drink?

  — Fine.

  — Bourbon?

  — Anything else?

  — No. Just bourbon. Like I said, we’re a small outfit. Five thousand! Why godalmighty, man, that’s half my salary for a year.