Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer

  By the late afternoon Neil and Andrea had gone off walking in the sand and never returned. John Tom loaded their gear in the LaSalle, shaking sand out of his sleeping bag. “The hell with him,” he said. “Neil can take care of himself.” He told Stanley a story about how Neil had once deserted him on a trip to Biloxi. John Tom had been fourteen years old at the time.

  “We’d swiped this old car and it had broken down somewhere in Alabama. I forget where. Neil got out and started walking. Down the road I could see a pickup truck stop for him. He never did come back for me. What happened was that there was a girl driving the truck. It was a Saturday afternoon and they’d gone on into town and had an ice cream at the goddam corner drug and watched some double-feature Western and later passed the evening at the roller rink. All that time I was waiting for him in that broken-down car. The highway patrol finally picked me up next morning. Lucky for Neil he didn’t come back. I was fourteen and got off with a lecture and a week in the Juvenile Home. Neil was old enough that he’d have drawn a stretch if they’d wanted to be uncivilized about it …”

  So they had driven off from the beach in the LaSalle, heading north and west toward the college. Neil didn’t appear for three more days. Stanley heard him rattling the window blinds in the quonset hut at five o’clock on Wednesday morning. He was undressing and staring out the window, smiling to himself.

  “Hello out there,” he said to nobody. “Hello you goddam rosy-fingered dawn.”

  He padded round the room in his bare feet, whistling softly. It was “Heartaches” — wasn’t “Heartaches” popular that year? He was trying to sound like the fellow who whistled with Ted Weems’ band, only softly, sometimes in just a light rush of air, and rather badly, too. It was as if he was aware that people were sleeping all over the city, and he didn’t want to wake them. But he just by God had to whistle. In a few minutes he took his toothbrush and wandered into the bathroom.

  Stanley was wide awake by then, and he got his toothbrush and followed. Neil was immersed in bath water; he lay there with his eyes closed, groaning and hissing to himself, his expression oddly beatific. He looked up, smiling.

  “What got you up so early, Stanley?”

  “I dreamed Elmo Tanner was in the room whistling that awful song.”

  “Light me one of those cigarettes, will you?” He lay back in the water. “I feel gorgeous.”

  John Tom appeared at the doorway, filling most all the space. “I hope you didn’t take that little girl across any state lines,” he said.

  “We drove up to the Hill Country, to a summer place of her family’s,” Neil said. He soaped his arms and chest and continued to smile. He didn’t look much like a war hero. He was slender, with not much hair on his body, and about average height. John Tom had looked twice his size; he seemed enormous there in the small room. But there was a definite resemblance in their soft faces. John Tom moved inside and sat down.

  “What was it like?” John Tom said.

  “Horses,” Neil said. “We rode horses. I met the foreman and watched a hog being slaughtered and chased cattle in a jeep. It was like the army again. But mostly we rode horses.”

  “All little girls go through a horsy stage,” John Tom said.

  “And all little boys go through a baby-fat stage. You look like the Goodyear Blimp.”

  “I feel like the Hindenburg,” John Tom said. “Stately. Plump and stately. With a sense of impending disaster.”

  “I’ll offer up a toast,” Neil said, holding the bar of soap toward them. “To you, John Tom. May all your movements be regular …”

  John Tom withdrew, lumbering down the hall, talking to himself … “All of us standing around at five in the morning, laughing and chatting like we were at a cocktail party at the English Speaking Union. I’m going back to bed …”

  Stanley had stood there with toothpaste smeared all over his mouth; then he followed Neil back to the bedroom. Neil sat at his desk, looking up at a cartoon John Tom had drawn for him several months before. It was a picture of two young men standing in front of a fraternity house of fantastic size. “But you’ve got to pledge, man,” one of them was saying. “It’s like an Officers’ Club.” The cartoon was an enormous favorite. When there wasn’t much else on his mind, Neil would just sit and stare at the cartoon.

  “How did you get back?”

  “She brought me. She has some friends here she visits.”

  “You plan to see her again?”

  “Tomorrow. She’s leaving tomorrow. Afraid I’m going to be wearing out that old motorcycle on weekends.”

  “Go to work and buy a new one. They need some kitchen help at the Swede’s. I heard —”

  “I got enough of that before and during the war. And all you’re fed is cold leftovers. I think I’ll get into politics. Run for the Legislature.”

  “Where in hell could you run for anything?”

  “All over. I’ve lived all over. And I might as well try to get something out of those medals. I’ll just pick me a county — a district. We’ve got plenty of counties and districts. I’ll be the goddamdest war hero you ever saw. We’ll just pick a county the way those Englishmen used to buy constituencies.”

  “Be careful you don’t pick one with a blind man or a double amputee running for the same office.”

  “First consideration,” Neil said, “first consideration. Got to pick your opponent, too … wonder which of my hometowns? They must have heard something about me in a few of them. I put down so many hometowns when I enlisted, the Air Corps P.I.O. went wild sending out stuff on my heroics to all those little newspapers …”

  “I think you’re out of your mind.”

  “Your family was always in politics.”

  “They sort of played at it — that’s all.”

  “Fine! You can run the campaign. I’ll put you to work. Think of all that patronage after we’re elected …”

  “You’re crazy. Listen — you’re not going to make any money. The pay is something like ten dollars a day.”

  “Well. There’s nothing wrong with that. And when they’re not in session I’ll be able to get me a good job. No goddam dishwashing. Hell! Being a State Representative ought to recommend you for something better than that. I might sell real estate … book bands — I might —”

  He crawled into bed and pulled the sheet up round his shoulders. “And you’ve missed the point entirely, Stanley. It’s not the motorcycle — it’s the girl. I’ve got to do all this if I expect to marry the girl.”

  “Listen,” Stanley had said to him. “If you ever managed to marry the girl, you wouldn’t have to work. Her father owns hotels or something.”

  “Stanley, Stanley. You just don’t understand. It’s my principles — principles running out my ears. I couldn’t marry her for her money. It’s the money that actually complicates things. If she didn’t have any money, I could put her to work downtown in some dime store. She could work my way through law school. It’s being done all over. It’s very big this year. It’s these hotels that are messing things up for me …”

  He lay back in the bed and closed his eyes. Stanley had wanted to ask him about the girl, but he didn’t know how to put the questions. He wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to know. And he was afraid it might get him started on that political stuff again. He must have been very drunk the night before. Neil and the girl getting tight driving in from the hills, sipping the family’s best wine from paper cups, laughing over the old jokes that had passed between them, stopping the car on the side of the country road occasionally and holding on to each other. Stanley could see her saying goodbye to him on the front steps of some nice home in town, flushed and breathless, with the mist falling on her bare shoulders. The idea struck him as extraordinary. Extraordinary that he should even have such an idea. He’d never done anything of the sort in his life.

  Through the blinds that morning he could see the sky all mauve and milk-colored and hear the voices of a few young people on their way to seven o
’clocks …

  Seven

  THE BELLBOY WAS NOT entirely sure of his ground. Sleepy-eyed and merely sullen in the beginning, an expression of concern and vast bewilderment soon clouded his face as if he half suspected the great joke being played on him.

  “Mistah Diz-ray Lee?”

  “What?” Stanley stood in his oversized shorts, staring at the boy through the doorway.

  “Ben Diz …”

  “Ben Diz-ray-lee, sir. Are you Mistah Diz-ray-lee?”

  “No, for Chrissake. What’s all —”

  It was some horrible mistake, some monstrous joke played on the young man … by the town drunk, maybe, at two in the morning. The bellboy backed off, making apologies.

  “Wait a minute,” Stanley said. “Hold it a second.” He stepped round the corner of the room and reached for a pack of cigarettes. He had not been really asleep — just partly mesmerized by the Mexican music on the radio, lying on the bed and wondering if he ought to switch off the lights. The bellboy had been knocking for only a minute or so. Stanley returned to the doorway.

  “Now … What’s all this again?”

  “I’m sorry. Hope I didn’t wake you. The radio — I could hear the radio, and I thought —”

  “That’s okay … What were you saying? Just now.”

  “I had a message for Disray Lee. Or a Ben Raylee … It was supposed to be this room. He insisted it was this room and he wouldn’t let me call. Gave me two bucks to deliver the message personal.”

  “Okay. What’s the message.”

  “Are you Mistah —”

  “No. But what’s the message? Who’s it from?”

  “He wants you to meet him outside. He wouldn’t come in. He’s parked out front. He said he couldn’t come up. He didn’t have any shoes on. And he was wearing Bermuda shorts.”

  “Wait a minute now. Who wants me to come downstairs?”

  “His name was Stevenson.”

  “Stevenson?”

  “He said he wanted to show you his hair.”

  “Oh! Ah! I’ll have to dress …”

  “Yessir.” The boy continued to stand in the doorway.

  “You said he gave you two dollars?”

  “Yessir. I’ll give him the message.” The boy began backing off again …

  “Wait a minute,” Stanley said. “Come on in here.”

  The boy followed him into the room. Stanley gathered up the newspapers.

  “Give him these while he’s waiting.”

  “All right.”

  “And this. Can you carry this?”

  Stanley poured half a glass of whiskey and handed it to the boy. Then he cleared the top of the desk of change. The bellboy had both hands full, and Stanley dropped the coins into the boy’s jacket pocket. Then he began dressing.

  The hotel lobby was deserted. Stanley moved between potted palms and Grecian spittoons, the bottle under his arm and the speech folded inside his coat pocket. The desk clerk did not look up and the bellboy was nowhere in sight. The little red car was parked directly in front; Neil was slumped in the seat with the newspapers spread out against the steering wheel. Stanley moved through the revolving doors and stepped out into the warm air.

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Out of the habit.” Neil folded the papers without looking up and started the little car. At the first stoplight Stanley refilled the glass and they passed it back and forth.

  “You read the stories?”

  “Yes,” Neil said. “There any later editions? This stuff is okay — what there is of it — but it looks like it got chopped off right in the middle. And there aren’t any pictures. They took a lot of pictures.”

  “There ought to be a morning edition about now,” Stanley said. “I guess that’s where all the newsboys are. You want to go to pick ’em up wet off the presses?”

  “Yes,” Neil said. “I’m an egomaniac.” They drove off in the direction of the rail yards. Trucks and motor scooters and bicycles were parked at the rear of the old building. There did not seem to be any urgency about getting the news out onto the streets at that hour. The presses made an awful din, but the men and boys moved without enthusiasm, loading the bundles onto trucks, talking quietly. Stanley vanished inside the building and was back in a moment with two newspapers. They drove on a short distance and stopped under a streetlight.

  “This is better,” Stanley said.

  Neil was silent, bent down, squinting in the bad light.

  “It’s a good picture,” Stanley said. “Except that you look like a high school debate champion. Let’s start powdering your hair. And painting lines in your face. You look like Andy Hardy breaking into the bank at Bayonne, New Jersey.”

  Neil grunted. “You see what the Governor did?”

  There was a separate story on the Governor. He had apparently called the wire services sometime after his conversation with Neil, announcing that a “Draft Neil Christiansen” committee was being formed and friends of “David McNeil Christiansen” had already paid the $1500 filing fee. “I talked with Senator Christiansen tonight,” the Governor was reported to have said. “He wouldn’t give us any encouragement. But he didn’t say no. We’re hopeful we can get a commitment from him before his return to Washington …”

  “Who is David McNeil Christiansen?” Stanley said.

  “An invention of the Governor’s,” Neil said. “About as authentic as that committee … I wonder where he got $1500? I could have used it — I’ve got an overdraft at the bank.”

  “Well don’t advertise it, for God’s sake. You need some money? I’ve got a few hundred.”

  “That’s your few hundred for going around the world.”

  “I’ll never go,” Stanley said. “I never seem to get enough ahead.”

  “I wonder how far it would get me?” Neil said.

  “Owen Edwards finds out you’re overdrawn, he’ll be going around saying you can’t even balance your own budget …”

  Owen Edwards, the State Senator, was also mentioned in the paper. He had made a speech in another city about the need for a return to constitutional government. Tax and tax, spend and spend; the people bled white by foreign giveaways; the courts rewriting the laws; rabble invading our shores. “And our unelected representative in Washington never raising his voice in protest …” He mentioned the confirmation of an Under-secretary of State, a housing bill, a supplemental appropriation for one of the Mutual Security programs — all of which Neil had supported.

  “Thrashing machines,” Stanley said. “He’s back on thrashing machines for India and India not having anything to thrash.”

  Neil folded the papers and drove on, heading up into the hills above the city and the winding river, higher even than those better neighborhoods with their Tudor-Gothic circus fronts. Then they circled round and re-entered the city near the campus. Neil tried unsuccessfully to find the old trailer park where years ago they had planted the quonset hut, but half of it was now overgrown in jungle and the other had become an intramural football field. He wondered if the quonset hut was hidden in the jungle or dismantled for bonfire kindling. Neil parked the roadster in a little clearing between the football field and the tangle of trees and vines and weeds now grown man-high. They sat there for a time, passing the glass of whiskey back and forth. Stanley produced two cigars from his jacket pocket and they sat quietly, smoking and occasionally swatting at the insects that came at them in great droves from the jungle.

  “This is making me very melancholy,” Stanley said. “Except that something’s missing. There ought to be a creek running through. I don’t recall one, actually, but I feel there ought to have been a creek — a place where the wives of all those ex-servicemen beat their Monday wash against the rocks. Like native women …”

  “You’re getting your images confused,” Neil said. “It was John Tom. He used to do his washing around here somewhere. With a tin tub and a washboard.”

  Again they were silent. Stanley said: “I’ve got your speech.�
��

  “Will I have to rewrite it?”

  “No. This time I got the mixed tones licked. I wrote two speeches. One with all the right things in it, and one with all the wrong things. You won’t have to go through separating one from the other.”

  “I’ll take both of them,” Neil said. “I may want to give the wrong one.”

  At that remote hour the clear sound of young men’s voices came to them suddenly from across the campus, soft and melodic, a serenade to a sorority house.

  “Oh God,” Stanley said. “I may cry … My lost youth …”

  “I remember bringing Andrea out here once,” Neil said. “I showed her around and asked if she could live in one of the hutments until I finished law school.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said yes — if we could run off to her family’s summer place up in the hills on weekends. So she could use the automatic washer there and have someone do the cooking.”

  The singsong voices faded and then rose again, like an old radio receiver picking up a distant signal. Stanley remembered that Neil and Andrea had not really lived in one of the hutments. Stanley and John Tom had stayed on in the little room with busy wallpaper during the last two years, but Neil had won a seat in the Legislature on his second attempt, and he and Andrea were married a few months afterwards. They had honeymooned at the country place, while Andrea’s mother had come to search the better sections of the city for a suitable apartment. A carriage house next to one of those phony Norman mansions was made available when the newlyweds came down out of the hills …

  Neil remembered the endless long distance telephone conversations and the weekend motorcycle trips to the summer house.

  “I knew it was you,” she would say to him. “I had vibrations. I ruined a pair of stockings getting to the phone.”