Gay Place (51 page)

“You want me …”

“To talk to those people. You can do a sellin’ job for me. They’ll listen to you.
Explain
it to ’em for Jesus sake.”

“All right. I’ll try. They might understand.”

“Yes … I wish the hell I understood.”

“Understood what?”

“Just what the hell my part is in all this,” the Governor said, standing to go. “I got no business. I just jumped in like a damn fool. I don’t even know why. Right reasons or wrong reasons — who the hell can say?”

He stood and began to walk toward the front of the house, then stopped abruptly and turned back to Neil. The vitality so noticeable on his arrival had nearly leaked away; his face sagged and his eyes were clouded over.

“You think this is the right thing to do?” he said. “I’ve searched my head and …”

Before Neil could reply, or even begin to search his own head, the Governor’s expression firmed.

“The hell with all that,” he said. “I can’t worry about motives. Let the rest of them worry about that … They’ll have me doing the right thing for the wrong reasons anyhow. You do what you have to do.”

He turned and took another step and then faced Neil again.

“What’d that fellow want?”

“Who?”

“The Mex … Henry … He call you yet?”

Neil told about the telephone conversation.

“Well it could’ve been worse. And you said the right thing. He’s a bandit, like I said, but he’s honest and he’ll do what he says. Let him take old Edwards for a ride. I’d prefer to see the money go that way. Edwards’ll be lucky to get a vote for every five dollars he throws around. And he hasn’t got much to throw.”

“You think those people you’ve talked to will stay with me all the way? Even if I begin to sag a little?”

“Who knows?” the Governor said. “They’re
all
a bunch of bandits when you get right down to it. We could win without their money. But this way it’s easier. You can go back up to Washington and vote that economic aid and lower the interest rate and maybe even get a nigger bill through. You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you? Like it a lot better than rampagin’ around here tryin’ to outtalk Edwards and bein’ something you ain’t?”

“Yes,” Neil said. Then he put the question to the Governor.

“You know where Edwards got all that information — on John Tom and Elsie and Stanley?”

Fenstemaker began unwrapping a cigar and looking for a wastebasket in which to throw the cellophane. Not finding one, he stuffed the wrapper in his pocket, stared blandly at Neil, and said: “From me.”

“Why? Why in the world would you —”

“I did it because old Edwards was pokin’ around all over town, asking questions. He’s a crazy goddam campaigner, but he’s good at that sort of thing. He would’ve got all of it sooner or later, and I felt as long as I had some control over how and where he’d use it you wouldn’t get hurt any. I passed the word along to a few people he was talkin’ to, and it worked. You
weren’t
hurt. The poor dumb bastard fired all his barrels and brought down the house. It was a good performance — funny as hell — but only that. He didn’t even
touch
you. Otherwise … How’d you like to go through this campaign pickin’ out buckshot from your behind?”

He smiled, and then said: “Talk to those people up there for me, will you? They’ll believe
you.
You obviously got no guile …”

Then he was gone, through the main room with an extravagant wave toward the others, striding down the driveway to his limousine. Neil stood at the door and watched him go.

It should have been John Tom, he thought. John Tom would have been far more successful at this business — he could have been the epic poet-politician, with a knowing, no-nonsense approach to how things were and how they ought to be and a compensating awareness of the terrible underpinnings of the system that supported them. He never took himself too seriously, and yet he had been one of the few serious persons he had ever known. A very Good Doctor. He had made a speech to a bunch of them one night at one of the parties in the big spanishy house across town, standing there, lecturing them, the vitality coming to him as all of Neil’s began to drain away: “Bums, hacks, medicine show evangelists …” he said. “Liberals! You’re all hysterical Tories at heart — Wobblies playing the bond market. Simpering, powdered old pros from Flitville — worrying about bad breath and lip hair while the world caves in. Go ahead! Get right with your Zen-Buddha! Walk softly and carry a goddam badminton racquet …”

The trouble was, they had no stomach for it — John Tom’s awful compulsion to look at reality — they could not bear to watch for too long a time. Stanley still carried a little of it with him; it was what he called his mixed tones. But all the others couldn’t possibly stare the truly monstrous in the face …

The afternoon wore on. Stanley and the girl went out for a ride in the hills. Andrea and her parents sat talking about a summer trip to Taos or Acapulco. Neil talked incessantly on the phone and stood around waiting for the children to come awake. When they finally wandered down the stairs, cross and perspiring, he attempted to engage them in conversation. But it was about as brittle and meaningless as cocktail party patter, and they soon grew bored with him and followed their grandmother outside to chase insects.

Toward evening, Stanley returned with Elsie and began transferring his luggage from one car to the other. Neil stuffed clothes in his bag upstairs. Andrea brought him some freshly laundered shirts. They sat quietly, talking about the house and the children and their personal finances, trying obliquely to recapture a little of the magic that had just barely passed them by earlier in the afternoon. Clouds gathered and a noisy rain began to fall.

“Perhaps the flights will be canceled,” she said.

“We’ll have to go out and wait, in any event.”

There was one last phone call. The pretty little girl who had accompanied them on the flight down wanted to know if he would like a ride back the following morning. He told her no, wanting desperately to stay one last evening with Andrea and the children but certain at the same time there would be her parents and possibly one last unavoidable party getting in the way. It could get a lot worse, he thought, before it got any better. The girl’s singsong voice droned on interminably, rising and falling. Listen, he wanted to tell her, Listen … Quit trying to be something you’ve invented. Forget about your Village parties and your folk dancing and those contrived plans to romance with Negroes and Senators and misunderstood artists. Get out of those goddam bulky skirts and those awful quarter-heel shoes … Put your hair up sometime; get it out of your face. Quit chewing your nails and take a bath every night and keep your underwear laundered. Ease off all that
posturing
and wait for something really
genuine
to happen.

He told her thanks-very-much and give-his-best-to-her-father and have-a-good-trip-back.

Then he left the phone off the hook and got his bags from upstairs, kissed his children and left a twenty-dollar bill in an envelope for Fat Emma the maid. It had been like a weekend with friends in some gay country house spooked by forgotten assignations. They loaded the bags in the back of the car and drove slowly through the gleaming streets toward the airport.

They stood on the ramp, rain falling all around, rattling the shed above their heads. Andrea watched Stanley and the girl talking and then bending toward each other to kiss. She wavered a moment, looking up at Neil who seemed either half asleep or in a mild state of shock. She put her arm through his and their shoulders touched lightly and finally they were able to turn their faces to each other and kiss. They mumbled insane, insensible goodbyes and then Neil and Stanley made a run for the plane. The folding stairway swallowed them up and the big motors began to groan. She and Elsie looked at each other glumly and turned to leave. Her name came across the public address — there was a number to call. She dialed the number from a booth and Kermit’s voice shrieked at her.

“Hey, Miss Lady, where’s that car of mine? Old Jake and I are out here at your digs, and somebody’s split with my heap.”

She told him what had happened with his car. He found this unimaginably funny.

“It’s the
gas
gauge, Miss Lady. I never think to look. Listen — old Jake and I are giving a little party tonight at my new Renaissance Gallery and we got absolutely to have you with us …”

She began to feel a little better and promised to meet them there for a drink.

H
E SAT IN THE
huge leather chair, head back, hands clasping armrests, spine brushing somebody’s Great Seal, spinning round slowly, unobtrusively, in ponderous half circles, following the debate, the dark voices, the magpie deliberations that filled the fluted chamber. Lights, faces, shone above his head — the voices raged on below and around him. Occasionally, he read from a pamphlet. He wheezed a little song under his breath, tapping his foot:
You feet’s too big … Don’ wawncha ’cause you feet’s too big … Mad atcha ’cause you feet’s too big … Ah really hate ya cause
—

(The United States Senate meets in a Chamber of quiet dignity and rich tradition. Details of the renovated Chamber are much like the original, but every effort has been made to make this one a model of perfection in lighting, acoustics, comfort and convenience …)

He wondered how long. The voices seemed to fade, droning, like slave minstrels, like fraternity serenades, rising and falling.

He banged on the big desk and mumbled some-some-sumpin’ … “will be in order …”

If he weren’t, he thought, stuck up there on the throne and forced to rule, he could have slipped inside the cloakroom for a drink. That was where the others were — he could hear their occasional laughter through the swinging doors. Could he risk a vodka? Right out here in the open? A watered vodka with a couple ice cubes. Who would know?

I’d try it, he thought, I’d try so hard, like she said. You do what you
have
to do, mah boy — and Gov’nahr Ah just
have
to have a watered vodka. The Very Junior Senator needs relief. What the hell is this? Pledgeship or something? Where’d all those other Juniors go?

Am no presiding officer.

Wasn’t meant to be.

I’m the goddam
Prince!
An easy tool.

You Pro-Tern there or you Mister Leader — hey fellas! — get me down off here, look in that back room and round up some more Juniors.
Doan wawncha cause you feet’s too big. …
Where was Stanley? Where was old Stanley, my old Junior? Out counting returns? He was supposed to be back — he was definitely supposed (after the mail was signed, the office locked tight) … definitely supposed to be back here to —
There
he is, raht above mah head, up there with that lovely dark girl with the hair that smelt so good last evening. Knew you’d make it, boy. Happy you could bring a friend. She hasn’t changed much — your girl, yours and mine — still pushing the myth of herself: black-eyed and unlipsticked with that batch of hair pulled over the little ear that might have been sculpted right out of creamery butter.
Hey, Stanley you lump!
Git down heah and fetch youah Massah a vodka-water. With a handful of that little lady’s hair to paste over my heart. Can’t seem to catch his eye. Got hers — not his — got hers, we’re exchanging looks in this great gilded chamber. All this quiet dignity … rich tradition … Get me a pint of Quiet Dignity, kid … hundred proof.

(… Senators elected to America’s highest legislative body conduct their part of the Nation’s affairs against a background of cream and dark-red marble, gold silk damask walls and the rich gleam of mahogany desks …)

Well it is — it certainly is, gentlemen. That’s gold silk damask if I ever saw gold silk damask, and it goes real pretty next to that little girl’s rich mahogany face up there and I’ll stake my reputation on
that.
Soon’s I’m legally elected to this highest legislative body. Hey Stanley! Get me some returns. Don’t just sit there rubbing bums with that girl — push the clock up, close the polls, stuff a ballot box. Gimmie a vote and a vodka and a deep-froze butterfly for my children. Give a little attention, for God’s sake, to your presiding
officer …

(… As President of the Senate, the Vice-President sits behind the mahogany desk on a rostrum at the north of the Senate floor …)

Well, now. This the north side, is it? Something to tell my grandchildren, my children’s children … Girls … you won’t believe this, but … your granddad used to keep the Vice-President’s chair warm. Warm as could be.

(… Framing the Vice-President’s rostrum is a background of red Levanto marble pilasters centered by a heavy blue velvet drape embellished with a gold embroidered border …)

Now what in hell’s a pilaster? Let’s see here … let me just … There.
Structurally a pier but architecturally a column.
So. So? Sounds phony to me, but those draperies are definitely blue — they got that right. Now … if I can just go get myself pilastered —

(Directly behind the Vice-President himself is a huge, silk American flag …)

Roger. But where’s Himself and why don’t he come back here and give me some relief. Goddam Republicans …

(… The motto
E Pluribus Unum
… is carved in Hauteville cream marble above the rostrum …)

Take their word for it. I turned round to look, somebody might pass a bill or call a quorum or clear the calendar and then where’d
I
be? Examining Hauteville cream marble, that’s where. So they ought to get me down off here before I let our Doomed Republic slip right through my fingers.
Ten
parliamentarians couldn’t help … Where’s that party? Those party? What’s doing at the Embassies? Lost track with these night sessions.
Excuse
me, Countess — thought that was my wife I was goosing …

(… here sit the official reporters of all proceedings … During a spirited debate these reporters have to move from place to place, taking notes while they walk or find a seat near the Senators engaged in the discussion …)

All right, Official Reporters of All Proceedings! Get up off your rusties! Don’t you know a spirited debate when you hear one? What was it that fellow said earlier? About these parlous times?
My constituents, Mr. President, are pissing Strontium 90.
Well now I wonder if in putting the facts together or the statement together that my distinguished and dear friend just made (his feet’s
too big),
in what I think is rather a partisan manner, he has considered a few points of interest, among which is the fact that I happen to be of a generation that was permitted — and was proud to do so — to serve some time in the service of my country, during which time our generation — which is now the succeeding generation — and you, my friend, are, of course, talking about another generation — is the generation that made no profit from the war — and was proud to do so — and, well, my friend, my high-spirited friend …