Gay Place (66 page)

There was Victoria Anne. He would call old Victoria Anne, Annie, his sweetheart, his love, his unquestioning lover. Light a little candle, Annie, say a little prayer for me. He put the call through.

“Yes?” said Shavers. Jay wondered why anyone would possibly say “Yes?” in answering a telephone ring. The thought of it evoked a vague antagonism in him.

“Why should anyone possibly …” Jay began, and then hesitated.

“Yes?” said Shavers irritatedly.

“Victoria Anne McGown, please,” Jay said.

“Who?”

“Annie. My little girl. Part of me … The best of me.”

“Who is … Jay? Jay is that you?”

“Ed! Ed Shavers! How in the world are you? How’s Victoria Anne.”

“She’s fine, Jay, we’re both fine. Just been in a couple of hours. Doing a little baby-sitting. She’s taking a nap. Just a minute and I’ll —”

“No. No. Don’t wake her. I just … I was just … wondering if you got in okay.”

“Fine. Everything’s fine.”

“When are you expecting Vicki?”

“Well don’t you know?” Shavers said. “Haven’t you talked to her?”

“Haven’t seen her,” Jay said.

“Oh. Well. Say … you been thinking about that offer, what I talked with you about last night?”

“All day long, Ed. Thought about nothing else all day long.”

“Good! Good! What did you decide?”

“I’ll tell you, Ed, it’s … it’s …”

“Yes?”

“It’s somehow slipped my mind what I was going to tell you, Ed. Call you back when I remember.” He broke the connection.

He sat in the Governor’s leather chair and drank the whiskey. Be a man! What was it Sarah said? “Even if it’s a cheap imitation of one, be one. Can’t you get a little of it through osmosis or something?” He sat in the Governor’s chair, rubbing the seat of his pants against the soft leather, thinking about osmosis. Could you make a love, manufacture an emotion, the same way?

The nice phone rang for him.

“Yes?”

“Speak louder I cain’t heah yew, who zis speakin’?”

“Dead Man! How are you, Dead Man!”

“Speak louder. Who zis speakin’?”

“It’s me! It’s me, Dead Man!
Jay
! Jay McGown!”

“Yew th’ one that called?”

“Yes! That’s right, Dead Man! I’m the one!”

“Yew bettah get out heah.”

“What’s the trouble, Dead Man? What did you —”

“Yew bettah get out heah, boy …”

T
HESE DREAMS … LIKE WHITESHROUDED
men carousing through me, like great fat bears. Pursue me, through me, purple and swollen. I always forget on waking. Get up now (right now) and put it all down the way the psych prof told me (hold me!) else it will vanish in the light. Extract a lungful and impale the stuff on some exhibit board. For the authorities to see. All there is of me. Big bears and snails and tornado tails. And don’t forget the small dogs sniping with teeth like barracuda. Who’ll come to look? There’s a charade. Who in the whole wide world qualifies as my interpreter after it’s put down in black and white? These lapdogs munching and spangled wishbones growing from my breast? There’s Arthur, he’d know, he knows everything. I’ll write him a letter. I’ll lie here and write him a good one … I lie here now on my cushioned ledge, composing. Where to begin? Begin at the beginning — a little description first. It’s pleasant here, very
très
and very gay, my high blue vaulted room with the white stalks of wornout sunshine coming — No. At the beginning. Farther back, try to remember. There was this place some time ago, somewhere west of my love, those dreary wastes those trackless sands … How was that? Best I can do. I lie here now on my snug soft silken ledge, myself beside inside me. Sometimes I am like this and sometimes the other, straddling the ledge, my skirt pushed up, my navel showing. That’s when they come; I think they are several people, burrowing in the luxuriant folds of me, like bugs and slugs the way it was when we were digging toward China under those lovely latticed porch steps. Sometimes I feel down there and I am all soft and mossy, so pretty all over like the little girl said. When they come they come very softly, cats on fat bear’s feet; they’re very quiet about it and nice in a way and I only cried out once. And that was in the beginning. It was funny how I got here, I don’t think I’ve ever told myself. I’m on the ledge mostly, my clothes pushed up over my head, but sometimes I get down and walk around. Some. Times. There were times I remember thinking Jay would come with the others but he never found the ledge. Such a nice place really, a really lovely ledge with a view of the lake and the olive farms and bluebonnets painted on the ceiling. There was this sweet man brought me here; he’s beside me now as I write; I feel the length of him against my legs. He always goes first before the others. And he’s the only one who ever really gets inside, crawling back on his hands and knees, gasping for air, like a nice baby. I remember Jay used to try. But he never had such a nice ledge as this one and there were always people watching. I’ll bring Jay up here with me sometime soon and hold him against my breast, my heart thumping like the first time, and he won’t have to know about the other; this other, he must be leaving soon, taking the bears and lapdogs with him. Sometimes I get down and walk around and mix myself a gin, but this other doesn’t. He just lies here next to me, sleeping. He’s been strangely inarticulate of late. Perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to be, (I’m not sure; I’m new around here like I said). I’m wide awake. Those dreams. I don’t remember any now and I was going to write them down, pulsing through me, inside-out me, all those scattered buttends. I recall a little of the first time. There was that blond girl, she wanted up here with him I know, the way she was hanging around, and he chose me and was nice, the way I know Jay would be if he could only find himself a ledge. It’s very quiet now; I can hear this old house groaning and a night bird outside my window, serene and peaceful, and feel the silk pajamas against my skin, my skin all Vicki-perfumed. You have to look for it, Arthur told me, you have to look for beauty and grace, and I tried, I tried so hard with my eyes closed and the sweet taste of somebody at the corners of my mouth …

T
HE DRIVE THROUGH THE
hills seemed interminable. Jay sat hunched over the steering wheel, his eyes straining into the darkness. He raced ahead on the straight stretches and braked the big car hard on the turns. The night was moonless, and the headlights revealed little of the gloom. He had to look carefully for the cutoffs, and even with the extra effort he missed the first one and had to come toward the Governor’s house from a backroad that took him by Dead Man’s shack. Dead Man stood leaning on the gate, looking toward the Federalist mansion that was black against the hills. Jay stopped and called to him through the car window.

“What’s the trouble, Dead Man? What happened?”

“Go see fah yosef,” the old man said. “I nevah been ’round theah all day long.” He turned and moved to his porch.

Jay sped toward the darkened house, the wheels of the car slipping and losing traction on the graveled road. Halfway there the limousine spun off into a culvert and crashed along crazily with the right fender churning up topsoil for a hundred feet. Jay accelerated the big engine for a moment, but then turned the ignition off when he smelled the rubber of the tires burning against the sides of the culvert.

He pushed one door free and ran the remaining distance to the house. Folding chairs and aluminum picnic tables were stacked neatly on the stone porch. Only the paper lanterns, strung along the promenade, floating in the evening air, gave an evidence of the party the night before. The house was open and he moved quickly through the downstairs rooms switching on lights.

Servants had worked until dawn that day, cleaning up; save for an empty gin bottle in the middle of the enormous dining table, there was no sign of disorder. The house seemed as lifeless and undisturbed as some Etruscan tomb, silent with the gods. Jay stood for a moment in the dining room, remembering his first visit here in the early weeks of the Governor’s campaign. They had been served an incredible meal, and Arthur Fenstemaker sat in the big chair, stretching and talking: “This is what you have to watch out for, Jay. Remember it. You sit here in these carpets up to your ankles with a fire crackling in a corner and these black men serve you red wine and rare roast beef — and there’s crêpes suzettes comin’ later — and tell me, now. Can you get all wrought up about the poor folks?”

Jay turned and took the steps of the elegant staircase two at a time, turning on the first landing and feeling along the damask walls for the light switch. White fluorescence flooded the broad hallway, and he hesitated for an instant, listening for a sound, a merest whisper, the rustle of window blinds in one of the bedrooms. He moved down the hall toward the sound, and then, fumbling for the lights once more, the pile of clothes alongside the bed caught his feet and he slipped against the mattress, his hands coming down on Arthur Fenstemaker’s cool flesh and jerked back as in a spasm. The gasp of unfamiliar terror caught in his throat. He finally got the lights on.

Arthur lay on the bed, covers bunched down at his feet. He wore red silk pajama bottoms, pulled tight against his thick waist; the sparse hair on his chest was speckled gray and black, and there was a faint stubble of beard under his neck and along the jawline. His expression was no expression — neither peace nor pain — although a mild annoyance might have been suggested by his scarcely parted lips. He seemed an insane shade of powder blue; perhaps it was the fluorescent light against the tanned flesh.

Jay felt for a pulse, but the utter lack of warmth in the body discouraged even this gesture. Lifting the wrist he could see the whole length of arm responding to the pressure. He sat on a leather hassock and smoked a cigarette, looking at the man on the bed.

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” he finally said. “Goddammit to hell I’m sorry.”

He went into the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. The vial of Vicki’s perfume was on the dressing table. He picked it up and looked in amazement. He examined the bathroom closely and then moved into an adjoining bedroom and found Vicki’s overnight case near the door. He sorted through the jars and bottles and small boxes to be sure, and then in a rush he searched through the empty closets. He returned to Arthur’s room and sat down again. Then he stood and moved to the opposite side of the bed and found a half-slip on the floor, a thin-wispy wad of silk lying at his feet. The rumpled bedclothes smelled of Vicki’s perfume, and he could make out the impress on the vacant pillow where her pretty head had lain. He walked back round the bed and sat on the hassock.

“Well I’m still sorry,” he said to the dead man. “Sorry as hell. You should’ve stayed with that vibrator.”

He walked downstairs and poured himself a drink, and then carrying the bottle with him, he returned to sit with the Governor. There were the telephones — the Governor had two of them in his room — those nice phones. He sat and thought for a moment and then dialed the rural operator. It took some time to get her out of bed and on the line.

“Yes?” She’s been talking to those fashionable California people, Jay thought.

“You have a sheriff or a deputy or a justice of the peace you can send out here? This is the Fenstemaker place.”

“You want all three? What’s wrong?”

“Any one of them or all three — I don’t care. Just send ’em out here,” Jay said.

“Don’t you want to talk to ’em?”

“I could but I don’t. Just send somebody out here, it’s —”

“I’m not supposed to do that. I’m —”

“Just do it for me, will you please? It’s an emergency.”

“All right.”

“And get me this number in town …”

Mrs. Fenstemaker’s voice came on the line in a moment.

“Jay? Have you heard anything? I’ve been worried so …”

“Is anyone there with you, Mrs. Fenstemaker?”

“A few friends, yes. They’re just leaving. We’ve been sitting out on the front gallery all evening.”

“Could I speak to one of the men?”

“There
aren’t
any men, Jay … Just some girl friends of mine.”

“Well one of the ladies, then.”

“What is all this about, Jay? What’s wrong?”

“Well …”

“Is it …”

“He’s dead, Mrs. Fenstemaker … I’m sorry. He died out here sometime today … I’m at the country place. I’m sorry, Mrs. Fenstemaker. It looks like a heart attack of some kind.”

“Who, Jay? Not Arthur, you don’t mean Arthur do you? You’re not sure are you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You sure he’s dead, you sure he’s not just —”

“Yes ma’am, I’m sure. I’m sorry.”

“Oh oh oh oh. Oh Jay! Oh, what …”

“I’ll take care of everything. I just want someone there with you. Can your friends stay?”

“Yes, of course, yes. Oh oh oh. Where was he, Jay, where did you find him — no don’t tell me, I don’t want …” Her voice trailed off and he could hear the mumbling of her girl friends, and then one of them came on and he explained what needed to be done. “Don’t call anyone. Don’t tell anyone. We’ll announce what’s happened in the morning when everything’s settled. Otherwise, we’ll have news people running through the house out here and calling Mrs. Fenstemaker at the mansion all night long.”

He put the receiver down and thought for a minute. Then he stood and began cleaning the room, picking clothes off the floor and smoothing the bed; he locked Vicki’s overnight case in the linen closet. He returned once again to the telephone table.

“Did you get someone sent out here?”

“Yes. The constable and the jaypee. What’s happened? Can’t you tell —”

“Now I want to call California,” Jay said.

“Just a minute,” the operator said. “I’ve got a call comin’ in on my other line. It may be for you …”

Mrs. Fenstemaker’s voice came to him again: “Jay? Jay? Do you know anything yet? Do you know anything about —”

“No, nothing at all. There’s a justice of the peace coming out. And a doctor. We’ll need a doctor — I forgot that … You call a doctor, too, Mrs. Fenstemaker, or one of your friends call. You ought to have a sedative.”