Gay Place (61 page)

“We went riding,” Vicki said. “We got as far as the highway and I discovered the record machine. We decided to come back and dance … Will you dance with me, Governor?” She had her head thrown back and was moving to the music, her bare feet sliding softly in the sand, her hips shifting in rhythm, circling round the others.

“In a minute, Miss Vicki, in a minute. I’m going to have a little drink first. Then we’ll dance the rest of the goddam night.”

Vicki danced with Hoot Gibson, who swung her over the sand. He had his shoes off and his pants legs rolled up and was very light on his feet. “Smooooth,” Vicki hummed.

There was a silence while another record fell on the turntable.

“Allright, Jay,” Vicki said. She had planted herself in front of him, her legs apart, her hands on her hips. “S’ure duty dass with your wife. Dass with me, Jay.”

He stood and danced with her. They moved through several numbers, the others sitting quietly, looking up at them occasionally. Hoot Gibson stood around in his bare feet, sorting through records, waiting his turn. Vicki had both arms around Jay, and they danced close together.

“What are you trying to do?” he finally said to her.

“You like that? Hoot Gibson did.”

“I’ll bet he did.”

“Wait till I get hold th’ Governor.”

Sarah and Greg Calhoun returned at that moment; Jay stood away from Vicki and then led her back to Hoot Gibson. He moved to Sarah’s side, but she did not speak. There had been the agonizing silences since the morning, from the time he had greeted Hoot Gibson at the entrance to the shack, waking Vicki and carrying the little girl out to the waiting limousine where Sarah and Greg Calhoun were waiting.

No one had missed them until well after sunup, when those at the camp were awakened for the shooting of the Governor’s scene. They had even sent Mexicans on horseback out looking for them then. Sarah sat quietly in back, holding the little girl in her arms, while Vicki described the long walk the night before and asked about the reaction at the camp when the three of them had not returned.

Sarah had sat quietly, holding the girl, and there had been nothing he could really say to her since the morning. It was impossible to explain or to make righteous assertions of his innocence. Had it all been an innocence? There was something that Sarah sensed between Vicki and himself — some vague, voluptuous aura that she could not identify. It was as in a dream, or waking from a dream, and being haunted by the unreality that lingered afterwards between the dreamer and those dreamt about. It had taken him most of the day to rebuild any aggression toward Vicki. At first he had felt only softness and acceptance. They had lain in each other’s arms half the night: Now it all seemed a monstrous infidelity which both possessed and repelled him. The whole memory of it was an awful poetry compounded of innocence and blasphemy. How was he to explain this to Sarah or even to himself?

Now he sat next to Sarah in the sand, watching Vicki dance with Hoot Gibson and Greg Calhoun. He kissed the exquisite curve of her arm. “We need to talk,” he said.

“The Governor wants us to go into town with him soon,” she said.

“Let’s take a walk.”

“I’m tired of walking. I just got back from walking. I nearly walked myself to death last night … Seems you should’ve had enough too. If all you did was walk.”

“Isn’t there any place we can go?”

“Well, there’s that shack. I wonder if you could find that shack again. I wonder —”

“All right, forget about it.” He stood and moved to one of the wooden picnic tables where the bar had been set up. He returned with drinks for the two of them.

“Are you uncomfortable here,” she said to him, “with Vicki caterwauling around? Is that it? Is that —”

“I said forget it. I’m sorry I even —”

“What is it — you jealous? Or perhaps a little itchy yourself. You weren’t jealous of me, though. It’s not very flattering.”

“Jealous of you? What about?”

“Damn you Jay! You’re so wrapped up in yourself — you and all you like you …”

“Why should I be jealous?”

“… with your aimless, selfish, introspective agonies. ‘Oh God save me — all life is a despair.’ Bunk!”

Vicki and Greg Calhoun approached, holding their drinks and dragging folding chairs across the sand. Vicki was breathing hard and there was a glow of perspiration on her face and shoulders.

“How about a little rabbit hunt, hah?” Greg Calhoun said.

“Let’s leave the rabbits to their own amours tonight,” Sarah said. “It’s a small comfort for them in this awful place.”

“What have you two been talking about?” he said.

“Jay’s been telling me how depressed he is. It’s his way with girls.”

“Now wait a minute — that’s not —”

“He’s right. You are all a depressed generation. You may quote me.”

“Let’s not talk intellectual talk,” Vicki said.

“We shouldn’t,” Sarah said. “But it’s
such
a lovely, lofty plain we’re on.”

“
De
pressed,
re
pressed,
op
pressed,
sup
pressed. All that analysis stuff. I believe in acting natural. I just want to be myself.”

“Normal as blueberry pie, Vic,” Greg Calhoun said. “Stay as sweet as you are.”

“You’re very nice. But I can’t be as nice to you. You got problems, Gregory.”

“Have I got problems,” he said, lowering his eyes. “It’s because I’m a mystic. I am concerned with the human condition, the human situation.” He opened his eyes. “I’m very strange and tropical to be perfectly frank, Vicki … I will show you death in a handful of bust.” He reached for her, but she brushed him aside.

He turned suddenly toward the others. “What about you, Sarah? You say Jay’s depressed. Aren’t you depressed?”

“Never going to get depressed again. All I have to do is look at the sad faces of the men; that’ll cheer me up.”

“Not
all
the men, Sarah. Surely there must be a few who —”

“But only a few,” Sarah said. “Just a few — men like Shavers over there …”

“And the Governor. Don’t forget the Governor.”

“The Governor most of all,” Sarah said. They’re the proud, exceptional types. The rest of us are just hanging on for dear life.”

“Watch it, now,” Jay said. “You’ll be saying all of life’s a despair in a minute and —”

“Did someone mention my name? We heard someone mention our names.” The Governor was approaching, with Shavers and Mrs. Fenstemaker close behind. “I’m fortified for that dance now, Miss Vicki.” Vicki stood and took his arm, but he was not yet ready to go. “Who mentioned our names? What have you young people been talking about?”

“We were just saying,” Sarah began, and hesitated …

“That men like you and Ed Shavers are the proud, resolute individuals of our time,” Greg said, “and that the rest of us are just along for the ride. At least that’s Sarah’s theory.”

“Sarah is being both kind and ungracious, then,” the Governor said. “I just don’t know what I’d do without the people around me. I couldn’t do without Sarah, for instance. Or Jay. Or my Sweet Mama Fenstemaker here …”

“Don’t forget your Vibrator, dear,” Mrs. Fenstemaker said with a little laugh. “What would you do without the Vibrator?”

“Damned sexy vibrator,” the Governor observed. “How ’bout you, Ed. What would you do without Vicki and Greg here — and all these people helping you make pictures?”

“It’s nice to think that I could,” Shavers said.

“Could what?” Vicki said.

“Get along without you, sweetheart … Will you dance with me later?”

“… the night away,” she said in a singsong, pulling the Governor toward the dancing space near the limousine.

The others sat quietly for a time; then Greg asked Sarah to dance, and Shavers danced with Mrs. Fenstemaker. Jay was left alone, except for the company of Hoot Gibson. Hoot Gibson strolled round the circle of dancers, singing to himself: “Ah covah th’ watah
frawnt …
”

Jealous of whom? Jay thought. What was she talking about? Because she had taken a walk with Greg Calhoun or because Arthur Fenstemaker was some kind of father image to her — to them all? She thinks she knows, but she could not possibly; she had never sunk so low as to comprehend the horror that possessed him. But couldn’t she at least appreciate the relativity of the thing? The responses she expected in him were all out of proportion to the nightmare of his experience. How could she think anything so thin and insubstantial could — It was as if she had asked the drug addict if the needle hurt.

The moon passed behind a bank of clouds, and the flapping of the tents nearby signaled a change in the wind. A chill came into the night air, and Jay was seized by a near paroxysm of trembling, a thing that had begun faintly in his chest, in the beat of his heart, and, swelling inside him, pounding in his head, expanding finally to every part of his body. Weak in sickness and in terror, he stood and watched the others for a moment: they seemed not to notice him or anything around them. Then he fled toward Vicki’s trailer where the little girl lay sleeping.

She lay there in the middle of Vicki’s enormous bed, pink and defenseless and incredibly beautiful, part of him on the bed, the best of him, sprung from the womb of some benign and beatific monster. What part was him? How much of himself had he given — to the little girl lying there or to Sarah or Vicki or to any of the others? To that old Mexican relieving the pressure of his insides in the headlights of the Chrysler — had there been a little girl lying on the mud floor inside the thatched hut? He had not stopped to see.

He crawled across the bed, still trembling, whimpering quietly to himself, and laid his man hands on her shoulders. She came into his arms, pulling the bedclothes with her, and she remained with him, not waking, while the mad thumping in his chest subsided until at last he could trace the convulsions from his limbs to his heart and finally to the tiny pulsebeat in the little girl’s wrists. After a time the rain began and he rose to close a window, listening to the sounds of the others scurrying in the sand toward the car; heard them calling for him in the dark. He returned to the bed and lay beside the little girl, hoping they would not find him, concentrating on their not discovering where he fled. There was the sound of the limousine pulling away, and he began to fall swiftly to sleep.

The rain was falling with more intensity now, with a volume of sound that filled the room. It had not been more than a few minutes since the others had departed, and he had come awake conscious of Vicki’s presence. He could see her shadow against the window, pulling off her clothes, and then she was next to him in the bed, her arms around him, consuming him.

“Oh Jay, Jay, I wanted you to be here, I love you so much, Jay, hold me like that …” Her voice was muffled for a moment as she got his shirt front open and buried her face against his chest. “Oh it’s so good you’re so good to be with here Jay hold me like that, you’re coming with us aren’t you love, coming back with Victoria Anne and me …”

“I don’t know, I don’t know …”

“You’ve got to Jay, I’ll die without you love, hold me close closer I’m going to die love I’m going to die right here I’m …”

He could not breathe and his head was spinning with the length of her against him and great convulsive sobs begun inside him. She lay tense and electric against him and said, “Don’t move just yet, don’t move love, but in a moment we’ll go into Shavers’ room and we won’t wake Victoria Anne and we can be in there together, only don’t move just yet, just hold me like that while I die a little and say you’ll come with me say yes you’re coming back with me, Jay, say yes … yes …”

“… Yes … Yes …” he began, and “… Yes … No, I — no … God help me no! I can’t I won’t I never will.” She still held onto him, but he began to pull himself from the bed, and she had not heard him clearly yet, her arms following his movements, Vicki rising with him, holding on to his waist, and mumbling … “Ed’s bed in there he won’t mind.”

“I’ll just bet he won’t,” Jay said. “Has anyone ever really cared in whose bed you landed? Have you? You ought to know that one in there pretty good by now, and what about the others …”

“Others …” Vicki mumbled.

“Gregory, for instance, or whatever well-muscled, suntanned ditch-digger happens to pass outside the trailer …”

“Gregory … I never, I …”

She still held on to him. “Jay … I … Jay, please say …” The weight of her had pulled him off balance and now they sat collapsed in a heap on the carpeted floor beside the bed.

“All I want,” he began softly, “all I want is Victoria Anne. If a divorce is too much let me have Victoria Anne. She can come live with me, and you’ll have all that freedom, away from responsibility completely. You don’t need her; you never see her …”

“Oh I do, I do, and I need you Jay, the three of us together.”

“No you don’t. No. I don’t understand what it is all about with me, but if you’re suddenly that way again I’m sorry. You practically held the door the first time I left. But now all of a sudden — I want her, Vic. I can take good care of her, give her love and attention, a lot of things that —”

“I need her, too. I can give her all those things and more — advantages that …”

“Do you care? Do you really care?”

“Of course, love, believe me, love, I need her and I need you, please Jay hold me like that again …”

He sat and looked at her loveliness for a moment, seeing her clearly in the soft shadows; then leaning forward he kissed her lightly on the lips and helped her to her feet. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll talk about all of this tomorrow, about you and me and Victoria Anne. I’ve got to go.”

She slipped under the bedcovers and lay silent, watching him as he turned and headed out of the room.

He stood for an instant at the door and then raced across the open area, with the huge raindrops pounding the sand like the bludgeons in his head, toward the trailer he shared with Sarah. The sound of the rain falling lulled him to sleep before the others returned, and he did not awake until Sarah knocked on his door the next morning.

She was in her dressing gown and stood at the door, regarding him coolly. “You’d better get dressed and get your bag packed,” she said. “We’re leaving in an hour.”