Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

“I know, I know. Tonight … Tomorrow … Sunday. I’ll be sure by then.”

  “Well how do you feel? As of now.”

  “I feel that perhaps I’ll lose … That I’ll be murdered. I don’t much like that feeling.”

  “Nobody does,” the Governor said happily. “But nothing ventured, nothing by God gained! And you can take that bastard. I know you can. Hell! I just didn’t pick you in a lottery. Hell and damn! I looked all over for someone I thought could take that sonofabitch. He ran against me once, you know. And by God he was the favorite in the early polls. But I stuck him — I harpooned him. And I think you can. He panics in the stretch.”

  “But everybody knows him. And nobody knows me. After ten months as Senator I’m still just a cipher to most people. Who knows me?”

  “I know you. A lot of ’em do — more than you think. You using your frank?”

  “About four hundred times a day.”

  “Good … Good … You get those lists I sent you? Those mailing lists are worth a goddam fortune. It took me ten years to put those names together. Even I couldn’t afford to buy them now.”

  “Yes sir, I got them.”

  “You got some speeches coming up?”

  “A couple tomorrow. A few more next week if I decide to get into this. So I’ve got to decide by Sunday. Otherwise, I’m just wasting my time in public.”

  “You stick with it, son. You’re doin’ just fine. You got a good press. The reporters like you — I can tell. And I can goddam well take care of the publishers.”

  “You don’t think he’s hurting me? I think he’s hurting me.”

  “With a few people, a few people. But listen — he’s been beating you over the head with a talisman — a goddam good luck horseshoe. It’s perfect! You couldn’t ask for anything more. He’s puttin’ your name right up there. You’re somebody! You’d be nothin’ without him. By their enemies ye shall …”

  “You think so? I feel like I’m already on the defensive.”

  “Listen — You just play it cool. Give them that boyish, air-conditioned smile of yours on the television once a week, for a while and don’t pay attention to the extremists. That’s what he is — an extremist. Goddam I’d like to get a liberal in there, some wild man at the opposite end, and let him give you hell too. I just might find one — I’ll try. But listen — you remain aloof from all that whoopin’ and hollerin’. You just give them the old smile and the image of the wholesome young man trying to do good job, and keep makin’ those pretty speeches. Who’s doin’ those speeches for you?”

  “A friend of mine named —”

  “Listen … You just stay above it all. You just keep doin’ your job up there. Fly home couple times next month, make some speeches, film some for the television, and then stay out of it. Ignore the campaign. Tell ’em you’re not coming back until the last week. You can tear all over the state in four or five days and accomplish more that last week than you ever thought possible.”

  “Then I shouldn’t debate him? Neither of us has even filed yet, and he’s already challenging me to debate him.”

  “Oh hell no. You’re above all that now. You’re too busy workin’ for the folks.”

  “All right.”

  “Never get into a pissin’ contest with a polecat.”

  “Well … That’s wonderful. You’ve put it beautifully — your characteristic eloquence.”

  “Damn right …”

  The Negro woman was calling to him from upstairs. He tilted the decanter to his mouth and finished the sherry.

  “I have to hang up,” he said. “I’ll talk with you tomorrow. I’ve got to say goodnight to my little girls.”

  “Fine. They’re beautiful children. And Andrea! You ought to have them up there with you. You ought to get them on the television sometime.”

  “Well I don’t know about that …”

  “Well … I don’t blame you. You’ll be by tomorrow, then? Nine in the morning too early for you?”

  “No … That’s perfect. I’ve got to make this speech in the early afternoon at —”

  “I’m talkin’ to the same people tomorrow night. I’ll give you a plug. Hell! I’d talk about you forty-five minutes if you’d make your announcement in the afternoon. That would be a perfect —”

  “Maybe I’ll know something by then. Right now … I’m just … not sure. I’ve really got to go …”

  “Fine. That’s fine … Senator. You like the sound of that? You think about what I’ve said …”

  He set the phone down and increased the volume on the phonograph. He turned the records over. The maid called him a second time, and he headed up the stairs.

  The girls were in their beds, giggling against the pillows. Their cheeks were flushed, and they were so lovely — there was so much of their mother’s vitality and abundant good looks in them — that he had to sit there speechless between the beds for a moment, reaching out to touch their bare shoulders.

  “Read us a story … A sto-ree.”

  He read Winnie the Pooh. It seemed to have an oddly therapeutic effect on him. The girls were notably unmoved. They wanted to know if he would watch Tom Terrific in the morning. They remembered Tom Terrific as one of his favorites. He told them he would be able to watch part of it. And that, of course, was always the best part.

  “Which part?”

  “That part. It’s my favorite part. My all-time favorite part.”

  “Which part is that, Daddy?”

  “The part I always watch. Which part do you think I could possibly mean? I’ve never seen the other part.”

  “I like the other part best,” the younger one said smugly.

  “I like Daddy’s part best,” said the older.

  “Go to sleep,” he said to them. They kissed him fiercely.

  The maid was finishing the dishes when he got back downstairs. She talked with him for a moment about her daughter who was in law school at the college. She wondered where in the world a colored girl would ever be able to practice law. He said he would give it some thought. Then he wondered if he could possibly risk putting the girl on his staff. He decided he couldn’t — he would get her a job in the Government. Justice Department. Or Internal Revenue. She could hide out in one of the agencies and send huge sums of money home to help get the other brothers and sisters through college. But then he had to remind himself that he might not be in any position to help. It depended on whether he decided to stay on — and on whether he could win if he did.

  The big old Negro woman, complaining of her corns, vanished into a bedroom off the kitchen. She had seven children in her own home across town. They always seemed able to take care of themselves.

  He poured another whiskey and sat in the overstuffed chair in the front room. Once he got to his feet and studied the painting closely. The face was all bright colors; the rest of it somber grays and browns. He returned to the chair; then almost immediately he was up again and heading toward the kitchen; back in a moment with the whiskey bottle. He slumped in the chair, quiet for a period of time before he was conscious of a voice in the room. He did not immediately recognize it as his own.

  No more these pure oases:

  These bubble-cups are burst.

  Neither fables nor faces

  Can appease my thirst.

  Fables nor faces? How ’bout feces? He edited the line mentally. And then:

  Songster, my crazy drouth

  For thy daughter craves —

  Hydra without a mouth

  That saps and enslaves.

  He rather wished they were his own lines, but he should not be a perfect ass about it. Wasn’t it enough that he could remember them? Whose were they then? His dead brother’s? No. That late fellow only quoted them. We are all such quoters and poseurs. Whatever happened to the old-time manufacturers of such lines? The inventors, the innovators, the real genuine aboriginals? Out of the business, gone out of the business — it’s the way things are in this welfare state, gentlemen. No incentive to wri
te lines like that any more. Now we are all sewn from some miracle fabric spun out of test tubes. Better living through chemistry …

  He dialed for information; then he dialed the number of Stanley’s hotel. They put him through, but there was no answer there. Or anywhere. No answers. Only the low mournful signal of some distant distress. He put the receiver in the cradle, and almost immediately it rang back at him. He picked it up again, put it to his ear …

  “Big Emma, honey, you’ve really got to stop using the phone so much, so long. I’ve been trying to get through every fifteen minutes and — Just a sec — I know. I’m coming, you louse, but I’ve got to make this phone call. Don’t you understand some people in this great happy world have got respon — Hello. Emma? Big Emma? Listen —”

  “Is it lice or louse?” Neil said.

  “What …? Who —”

  “Who-what?” Neil said.

  “I’m sorry I must have the wrong — Who is this talking please?”

  “David McNeil Christiansen. It’s the full name, you see. It sounds good and the visual image is really very nah —”

  “Neil? Neil, talk nonsense to me, sweet … Go ahead.”

  “I … I … got in about seven. The girls are lovely. They really are. Perfectly delightful. Why is it you’re such a good mother?”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No.”

  “Because I spend all the day with them. We invent games. We put on plays. We put dresses on the dog and wear lipstick and paint our toenails and —”

  “Next week they learn the cha-cha. And the week after, feminine hygiene?”

  “Oh Neil. You never let me know … Are you going to bed, going out, waiting up … What?”

  “I’ll probably stay around here.”

  “All right. I’ll be home shortly.” There was a note of impatience, of disappointment in her voice. “Do you want me to come home?”

  “Yes.” He did not know why. But he rather imagined he really did.

  “All right. Goodbye …”

  He began to lower the receiver, but then he heard a clicking and another voice on the line. It was getting to be like a party. Just everyone was there. So many nice people on the phones. The voice was insistent, a little irritated.

  “Yes … Yes … Yes …?

  “What?” Neil said.

  “Yes sir? Can I help you sir?” It was a prissy voice, he decided.

  “Where am I,” Neil said. “I haven’t had the pleasure of —”

  “This is the night clerk, sir.”

  “What?”

  “This is … Oh, I’m sorry. You must be calling in. I thought you were the party in … I’m really very —”

  “What am I calling?”

  “The Skyliner, sir …”

  He broke the connection and poured himself another drink. One of the girls cried out in her sleep from upstairs. “No!” she was insisting to some unknown accuser. He sat on the edge of the chair for a moment, listening, but she did not sound another protest. “No!” he said to himself, aloud in the empty room. Lee Wiley was singing about the old ace in the hole on the phonograph, and there was the scent of gardenia mixed with nextdoor roses on the heavy, honeyed evening air …

  Five

  HE WAS AWAKENED BY the absence of sound. He stirred in the chair, his eyes still closed. Something was wrong, hideously wrong, the evening all out of joint. For a moment he was unable to isolate the disturbance in his head. Then it came to him that there was no sound in the room, not even the usual roaring in the ears. He opened his eyes and looked at Andrea. She was standing next to the phonograph; she had turned down the volume.

  “Get some music on the f.m.”

  She punched buttons and spun the radio dial. He wondered if he ought to rise and kiss her — if he could kiss her — but before he was able to move she walked past him and seated herself in a sling chair.

  She was breathtakingly pretty. How was it? How come the romantic image persisted? Why didn’t the ankles swell, the calves collapse, the sweet mouth sag? Here was Andrea — altogether more desirable than at any time in his experience; never farther away from him, never more unattainable, than at this moment. She smiled.

  “How long will you be here?”

  She was wearing a loose-fitting cotton knit dress, bare-armed and open round the throat. The pumps were linen, some kind of Paisley print. There was a notable absence of jewelry and she still apparently disdained cosmetics except for the eyes and mouth. She was slim and nearly flat-chested and he sat there gaping at her.

  “Well?”

  “I … don’t know yet. It all depends on what I decide.”

  “Decide? Decide what?”

  “Whether to keep this job — or try to keep it.”

  “Oh. Well, if that’s what you want …”

  “That’s the point. If I knew what I wanted, there wouldn’t be —”

  She got to her feet suddenly and stood looking through the open glass doors onto the terrace. “God! The weather has been wonderful. Little showers in the afternoon and then the evenings are just unbelievable. I thought I might drive to the beach with the girls next week … Unless you’re still here.”

  “Perhaps we can all drive down together if I’m still here,” he said. But then it occurred to him he ought to be making speeches, public appearances, at every opportunity, if … “The girls really are fine,” he said.

  “Aren’t they. I’ve never enjoyed them so much as these last few months.”

  “Would you like a drink? I’ll make you one.”

  She turned to him, not really looking; their eyes did not meet. “Yes,” she said. “Some kind of gin — I’ve been drinking gin.” She stared at the new painting.

  “How about that stuff in the freezer?”

  “No … Emma should have thrown that out a week ago. Just tonic. Tonic will be fine.”

  He got to his feet and went into the kitchen. She was sitting in the sling chair when he returned with the drink. She took a long swallow. “The bank called me this week,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The bank. The vice-president at the bank. He called this week. Very discreet. He sounded like a god damned undertaker, he was so discreet. He knew it was just an oversight on our part — these things happen to everyone at one time or another. Oh he was very discreet and understanding and circumspect …”

  “What is all this?”

  “We were strapped. The account was overdrawn.”

  “Oh Christ … How much?”

  “I forget … Several hundred. I got some of my bonds out of the box and put them up to cover the overdraft. But we’re still strapped.” She sat there smiling at him. She kicked off her shoes, unfastened her hose and slid them off her dark legs. She pointed at him with her feet. “Isn’t that something? Like the first year we were married.”

  He sat looking at her pretty arched insteps. He decided he was getting funny about insteps.

  “Well, they’re mailing my check here this weekend. Go down Monday and get your bonds back.”

  “If we’re overdrawn that means we’ll probably be short again before the end of next month,” she said.

  “I know … I’ll take care of it.” He had no idea how he would take care of it. Unless he arranged to borrow it from Arthur Fenstemaker. The Governor had money — endless amounts of money. He could always say he needed some pre-campaign funds. Pre-campaign funds and no campaign. He could sell his brother’s bookshop. It was the bookshop, John Tom’s bookshop, that was draining them. John Tom had always managed to make a little profit. But for more than a year now the bookshop had been a steadily losing proposition. A few dollars, a hundred dollars, and then a few hundred dollars a month. That was the famous missing few hundred dollars. How the hell did you sell an interest in a bookshop? What were they worth? All those books, those obscure volumes. Twenty thousand? Fifty thousand? More than that? Who’s to judge? He would have to find an appraiser. Where did you find an appraiser, and bett
er still, a buyer? Of rare books. He would have to ask someone at the college. Or he would apply for a small business loan, keep the bookshop for sentiment’s sake. All that sentiment. He would pass a special bill in the Congress for sentimental owners of small, marginal bookshops.

  “I could get some help from Dad,” Andrea said. “He’d be more than —”

  “No, no, I won’t need it,” Neil said. Not, for God’s sake, old man Baker. He had managed to avoid doing anything so desperate as that up to now. He’d never been able to keep Mrs. Baker out of the picture — she insisted on the house in this neighborhood and arranged through friends to have Andrea hooked up with that Junior League crap and had even got them into the Country Club years ago. Years ago. But they had survived without the old man’s money up to now. He had just about killed himself trying to avoid it. Up to now. He had run for the legislature while he was still in law school to prevent it. He had by God to excel if only to keep the old man off his back. He had turned down a good job with a good firm to go into private practice. For the same reasons. Private practice. Very private and not really much practice: just a few retainers for occasionally visiting old friends in the State House and explaining the really significant aspects of legislation. He probably knew less about the law now than during his senior year. Hell! He would pitch over in a faint if he had to try a case. Or brief some hotshot trial attorney who was going to court.

  He tried to think of ways of making a living if he did not hold on to the Senate seat. Right back into very private practice: not so much practicing the law as practicing on the law. Or he could go into the rare books business. If he really set his mind to it and worked like the devil, why he could probably clear a cool three-four hundred a month from the bookshop. Enough to pay the rent and keep them in gin. They could just let the other obligations slide until the sheriff came after him with a net, or a shroud.

  “Well I’ll just let you handle it, then,” Andrea said.

  They were silent for a time. The radio stations in town went off the air; the big speakers began to sputter, and he stood and switched on the phonograph again. He asked Andrea about friends of theirs. Well how are these and those and them? She told him all the news that flowed on in endless alternations of attraction and reaction, gossip and event … He did not know what possessed him to ask the next question. It just came blurting out of him.