Gay Place (2 page)

“You need a stewpot?” Roy said suddenly.

The Mexican was jerked back as if suspended by a coil spring. His face twitched, but he managed to smile and mumble an incomprehensible something in Spanish.

“Stew pot,” Roy repeated. “Fine piece of workmanship … You need one? For free …
por nada … Tiene usted una stew pot-to
?”

The old Mexican gasped in alarm, altogether mystified. Roy climbed out of the car and opened the back door, pointing to the soot-covered vessel. It was very much like the ones in which neighborhood washerwomen had boiled clothes during his childhood. He loved the stewpot. But now he knew he must
make the gesture.
It was part of being a public figure. He addressed the Mexican: “Here … You want it? Desire you the stew pot?”

Roy struggled with the pot; it was big as a washtub. The old man accepted it on faith, smiling as if vastly pleased. He bowed politely and turned toward the truck, carrying the stewpot with great dignity. The children in back greeted him with strident questions. Roy sat in the front seat of the car and watched, wondering if he ought to make a speech. They’d never understand a word, but he could make pleasant sounds. It was no matter. His Mexicans back home never understood anything, either. You just paid their poll taxes and showed them where to mark ballots when election time came round. He’d made a speech the night before. One of his best. Parked alongside a narrow river, he and the girl had lain on a picnic blanket and finished the last of the wine and the chicken. Then he had climbed a huge magnolia tree and plucked a great white bloom from the top, before descending to one of the lower limbs to make the presentation speech. He’d never been in better form. Though there had been some difficulty about addressing the girl. Using her name seemed to take all the fire out of the occasion. “Ladies …” he had said in the beginning, but it wasn’t quite right. Nor “Fellow ladies …” He’d made a number of attempts: “Dear Lady” and “Most High and Mighty Ouida, Bride of My Youth, My Rock, My Fortress, My Deliverance, Horn of My Salvation and My High Tower …” But that had been too excessive for what, basically, was meant to be a ceremony of some dignity and restraint. He’d finally called her “My Dear Miss Lady Love …”

He thought he might step outside the car and possibly stand on the Orange Crush dispenser, addressing the Mexican children briefly, but after a moment the truck started up with a great thrashing sound and began backing out of the driveway. Roy sat for a moment, rubbing his eyes, and then he got his own car started and proceeded slowly down the main street of the city behind the truck carrying the cotton pickers. After a block or so, he grew impatient with the business of waving at the children, and nodding, and blinking his lights, and waving again; and finally he raced the car’s engine and passed them by. A noisy, high-pitched cry came from the children; their flapping arms caught his vision briefly through the side windows. He grinned oafishly, studying his face in the mirror. “I have a way with crowds,” he said aloud to himself. “I have gifts of rare personal magnetism …” He listened to the dying cheers from in back, and he thought he detected a clanging in the midst of it, a series of bell tones, deep and dull and flattish, metal on metal. My old iron stewpot, he thought …

Arthur Fenstemaker heard the cheers and the children’s laughter and the groan of the truck’s motor blended with the blows struck on the stewpot. He lay in his bed on the second floor of the Governor’s mansion and listened thoughtfully. He was reminded for a moment of an old International he’d driven in the oil fields years before. The Mexicans were blocks away now, and he opened his eyes, still wondering over the sound from the street below. He reached for cigarettes and matches. After a moment he lay back in the bed, gasping for breath. He left the cigarette burning in a tray and pulled himself closer to Sweet Mama Fenstemaker. His right arm was pressed under his own huge weight, but he did not want to turn away just yet. Sweet Mama smelled goddam good; she nearly always perfumed herself at bedtime.

The Governor lay like that for several minutes, listening for sounds in the house or from the street, pressing his big nose against his wife’s skin, until the kitchen help began to arrive downstairs. Then he rolled off the bed and went to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and smoked another cigarette; he swallowed pills and massaged his scalp and began to stalk about the second floor of the mansion. He looked in on his brother: Hoot Gibson Fenstemaker lay sleeping quietly, knotted in bedclothes. The Governor turned back to his dressing room and stared at himself in a full-length mirror, sucking in his stomach, shifting from side to side. He slipped on gartered hose and shoes and a robe, and again stood listening, leaning over a stairwell and cocking his head. Soon he could hear the limousine being eased into position on the concrete drive. Fenstemaker strode down to the end of the hall and opened a casement window. A highway patrolman circled the car, examining tires, polishing chrome. The Governor put his head through the window and yelled: “Hidy!”

The patrolman looked up, squinting against the sun, trying to smile.

“Hah’r yew, Mist’ Fenstemaker,” he said.

“Nice mornin’,” the Governor said, looking around.

“Hassah!” the patrolman said.

The patrolman stood on the concrete apron, gazing up at the Governor. He kicked a tire with the heel of his shoe; he patted a fender of the car. He stared at the Governor, and finally added, “… Sure nice one …”

Fenstemaker turned his head, looking over the city from the second-story window. The mansion was constructed along Georgian lines and was situated on a small rise that placed it nearly level with the Capitol dome and some of the office buildings downtown. Mist blurred the hilltops to the west, and occasionally, a mile or more away, lake water flashed in the sun. The smell of flowers, blooming in profusion in the backyard garden, was fused with the harsh bouquet of compost heaps and kitchen coffee. Fenstemaker pinched his big nose and took deep breaths. The patrolman continued to gawk at him.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere right off,” Fenstemaker said.

He pulled his head back inside and rang for his coffee. He sat at a desk in his study and shuffled through papers. The butler arrived with a small coffeepot, dry toast, juice, and a half-dozen newspapers.

“You had your breakfast?” Fenstemaker said. “You had your coffee?”

“Yessir,” the butler said.

Fenstemaker sipped his coffee and shuffled papers.

“I hope it was better than this,” he said. “Siddown and have some more.”

The butler poured himself a cup and stood blowing on it, waiting.

“Siddown for Christ sake,” Fenstemaker said.

“Yes sir.”

“Goddam.”

“Sir?”

“I’m just goddammin’.”

“Yes sir.”

“Let’s get a new brand of coffee,” Fenstemaker said. He made a face.

“I’ll tell the cook.”

“Nothin’ tastes like it used to,” Fenstemaker said. “Not even vegetables.”

“Sweet potatoes especially,” the butler said.

“Not even goddam sweet potatoes,” Fenstemaker said.

The two of them sipped coffee. The Governor turned through the newspapers, talking but not looking up. “You think it’s gettin’ better?”

“What’s that?”

“Bein’ a colored man. You think it’s any better?”

The butler looked at him desperately. “I got a good job,” he said.

The Governor did not seem to pay attention. He went on talking and turning pages. “Maybe little better, I guess … Discussions goin’ on. … Least
that’s
not like it used to be. Hell! I remember old Pitchfork Ben Tillman — the things he said …” Fenstemaker broke off momentarily, peering at the newsprint, then went on: “Of course bein’ better still don’t make it very good. I was thinkin’ yesterday, signin’ my mail, how I’d feel if I wrote a public official about, you know, my rights? I was lookin’ over what I’d been sayin’. ‘Well now this sure is a problem, involvin’ grave emotional questions, and we can’t tolerate havin’ second-class citizens in this free country and I’m sure gonna do what I can … Try to make reasonable progress toward a solution … Sure keep your views in mind …’ Why
God damn!
Some cornpone Buddha say that to
me,
I’d set a bomb off under him.”

The butler grinned. “I think most colored people vote for you,” he said. “Even when you don’t say things exact …” He began gathering cups and saucers.

“I’m a damned good politician,” Fenstemaker said. “I know how good I am and I ain’t doin’ much, so what about the others not so good? Goddam and hell!”

“You want another pot?” the butler said.

“Yes,” the Governor said. “Switch to that ersatz stuff — I think it’s probably better than this … And some fruit. They got any watermelon down there?”

“I’ll see,” the butler said. “They don’t, we get you some.”

The Governor’s brother, Hoot Gibson Fenstemaker, appeared at the door. He rubbed his eyes and smiled, looking deranged. “You get me some coffee, Jimmy?” he said. The butler nodded, carrying the tray. Hoot Gibson stepped inside.

“Mornin’ Arthur.”

“You enjoy that party last night?” the Governor said.

“Sure did. I like parties here.”

“I think you danced with every lady.”

“I think I did,” Hoot Gibson said. “I liked that orchestra, too. It was like Wayne King.”

“I remember at college you had some Wayne King records,” the Governor said, looking up from the papers. “And Henry Busse. What in hell ever happened to Henry Busse?”

“He dead?” Hoot Gibson said. He thought a moment. “
Hot Lips!
I booked old Henry Busse once for the gymnasium. A dance. Made two hundred dollars promoting old Henry Busse …” Hoot Gibson’s eyes went cloudy, thinking about Henry Busse. He sipped from his brother’s coffee cup.

Fenstemaker looked up patiently. “Don’t make that noise,” he said. Hoot Gibson gripped the cup with both hands and stared at the coffee. The Governor read the papers. Hoot Gibson picked up one of the sheets and glanced over the headlines. “I think I got a hangover,” he said.

The Governor cleared his throat but did not comment.

“I might go back to bed awhile,” Hoot Gibson said.

“Take some aspirin and sleep another hour,” the Governor said.

Hoot Gibson stood and stretched and scratched himself. He loosened the drawstring on his pajamas and retied it. “I think I’ll do that,” he said. “… You got anything for me today?”

The Governor looked up and said: “You remember that fellow talkin’ to me and Jay last night? Up here — out on the screen porch?”

“That new lobbyist?”

“That’s the one.”

“I know him. He’s workin’ the Capitol nearly every day now.”

“Well suppose you keep an eye on him,” the Governor said. “Follow him around. Or get someone to do it for you. Find out where he goes, who he’s seein’. Do that today and tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Don’t for God’s sake let him know he’s bein’ watched. Give me a report — and don’t come around
tellin’
me about it. Write it up.”

Hoot Gibson looked vastly pleased. He vanished down the hall, humming to himself.

The Governor signed some papers. He looked at the clock — it was nearly seven; nearly nine in the East. He reached for the phone and got the long distance operator, making notes of persons he could call in the Eastern time zone. He talked with an economist in New York. They discussed investments; Fenstemaker asked questions about the stock market; he complained that none of the big investors seemed interested in municipal bonds. “I got some mayors in trouble,” he said. “They need help. You got any ideas?” He listened to the economist’s ideas. They complained to each other about the goddam Republican high interest rates.

Fenstemaker rang off and placed more calls; he talked with his two Senators, a union official in Philadelphia, a college professor in Boston. The professor was a nephew whom he’d put through college a half-dozen years before. “Listen,” the Governor said, “those are wonderful speeches you been sendin’ down — especially if I was runnin’ in Oyster Bay or Newport. But I’m not, happily. Try to remember I’m way the hell down here in coonass country … You forget your beginnin’s? You need a little trip home? Might do you good … I need some ideas … You got good ideas … But I want ’em in speeches that sound like Arthur Fenstemaker and not some New goddam England squire …”

He completed the calls and turned back to the papers on his desk. An assistant had left him a note attached to a hand-written letter:
“This may interest you, though I advise against reading it when you’re trying to shake off a low mood. It is very sad.”

He read the letter attached:

Sirs:

We the people of the 9th grade Civics class at Hopkinsville feel that you the people of the Government should try to conquer the world here before you try to conquer outer space. We feel that there may be some kind of gas on the moon that is under the surface and if a rocket hit it, it may open the surface of the moon and these gases may escape and get into our own environment and kill us. So we feel that you should leave well-enough alone. We feel that if the Good Lord had wanted us to conquer outer space he would have put here on earth instruments instead of people. We would like to know what you think about this issue.

Sincerely,

THE 9TH GRADE CLASS

Fenstemaker rubbed the back of his neck and pulled on his nose and sat staring at the names of the 9th Grade Class at Hopkinsville. He put the letter down and reached for the phone.

“Jay …”

Jay McGown’s voice came to him feebly; then it got stronger. There was music being played on the radio in Jay’s room. The music ended and an announcer talked about a cure for piles.

“Sir?” Jay was saying. “… Sir?”

“What in hell’s goin’ on there?”

“Sir?”

“You think we got a chance on that school bill?”

“School bill? Sure we got a chance,” Jay said.

“I got your note and that letter,” the Governor said.

“Ah.”

“Let’s take a run with that bill this week,” Fenstemaker said.

“You think this week’s really the best time?” Jay said. “Old Hoffman’s still in the hospital. We’d need him. He wrote the damn thing. At least his name’s on it.”