The Dinner Party (22 page)

“Come on in,” Leonard said.

The senator entered, closing the door behind him. He stood awkwardly, clearing his throat. Leonard, dressed except for his white jacket, which was draped over the back of a chair, was sprawled on his bed. He rolled over now and got to his feet.

“You know, Lenny,” the senator said, “the way I feel.…” No, that wouldn't wash. Why in God's name couldn't he speak to his son, straightforward and direct, and say what he meant and nothing else?

“Lenny, I've been a rotten father,” he said straight out.

Leonard stared at him, as if the senator had come naked into his room.

“You know,” the senator went on, “I'm no great shakes at anything. If I weren't a senator, I don't know whether I could earn a decent living.”

“No, Pop!”

“Let me tell the truth for once in my foolish life. I love you. I haven't said it since you were a kid. I was never able to. I go around with my head on the Hill in Washington, and I don't see you. I don't see anything. I don't see your mother. I don't see you, and I never had the guts before to ask you to forgive me.” Then he stood forlorn.

Leonard, his eyes filling with tears, asked himself, Why now? Why does he give me something that has to be taken away? He moved to his father and put his arms around him, tentatively at first and then clutching him in desperation; and in turn the senator held his son to him, the first time since Leonard had been a small child, feeling his ribs, the bony vehicle of his trunk, clutching at his bones, his life, his flesh, his spirit, for now Leonard was laughing through his tears.

“Are you all right?” the senator asked him.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Pop, I'm all right, I'm as high as a kite and I'm laughing and crying because I have to die and I don't want to die—I want to stay with you and work with you.”

The senator took his son by the shoulders, tenderly yet firmly, moving him away to arm's length. “What did you say?”

“I'm going to die,” the boy whispered. “I didn't want to tell you. I have to tell you. Please forgive me.”

“For what? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“Pop, I have Aids.”

“No. What are you trying to tell me?”

“That I have Aids. The disease—A-i-d-s,” spelling it.

“Oh, God, no—no, you're crazy, Lenny. You can't have Aids.”

“Why?”

“Come on. Don't toy with me.”

“Dad—”

“You look fine. You're not sick.…”

Leonard pulled loose from his father's grasp, dropped into a chair, raised one trouser leg and pushed down his sock. There was a small purple spot, the size of a blueberry. “That's it,” he said. “Kaposi's sarcoma. You can't turn it off, Pop. I have about six months, maybe a little more.”

Like a somnambulator, the senator moved to his son, knelt, and touched the small purple spot. “Does it hurt?” he asked inanely.

“Not much.”

It became harder for him to speak. “Lenny, you're telling me the truth? This isn't a punishment? If it is, all right, I deserve it.”

“It's the truth.”

Still kneeling, the senator put his face on his son's lap. He was crying uncontrollably now. Leonard stroked his hair and begged him to stop. “Please, please, Daddy.”

The senator climbed to his feet, nodding, his head shaggy with hair in every direction. Leonard rose and gave his father the handkerchief from his jacket pocket. The senator accepted it and rubbed his eyes.

“We don't leave it at that!” he said suddenly. “No, sir, we fight it right down the line. There has to be a way. We have enough money to really go at it, and we're going to lick it, Lenny, we're going to lick it.”

“Sure, Pop,” he agreed. “Both of us. You'll help me?”

“That's my life—from here on.”

“Thank God. That's the best thing I heard today. Oh, I was afraid that you'd be so angry with me.”

“Angry? How could I be angry? I'd give my life to help you.”

“Pop,” Lenny cried, almost in abandon, “Don't you understand—I'm a homosexual. I'm gay.”

For a long, long moment, the son and the father stared at each other, Leonard sick that he had said what he said, Richard Cromwell groping through eternity until he managed to say, “I don't give a damn about that. You're my son. I love you, and we're going to find a way to beat it.” The senator moved close to Leonard. “Do you believe me?”

“I'm trying. You won't turn on me because I'm gay?”

“Stop that!” The senator enclosed him in a bear hug. Then he remembered his wife. “I'm going to send them away. The dinner's off.”

“Oh, no—don't do that. You'd have to tell Mother.”

“Yes, I have to.”

“But not today, please. Not while her folks are here. I can't go through it with them.”

“Lenny, she'll know. Does Elizabeth know?”

“Yes.”

“Poor kid—that's why she's so quiet.”

“You can handle it,” Lenny pleaded. “I don't want to face Gramps and Grandma. That's too much.”

“I don't know whether I can handle it.”

“You can. Look at me—just telling me that you're with me—it's like giving life back to me. I thought you'd hate me, and that would have been worse than having Aids. Can't you do it—please?”

“Are you all right?” the senator insisted. “Are you in pain of any kind?”

“No. I'm all right now. Look at me.”

“And you really feel that you can go through with this?”

“The way I feel now.…” He shook his head, groping for words. “I feel good,” he said quietly. “I'm all right.

“Then, since you want to, we'll go through with it.”

“Sure. Don't tell Mother today. This is going to hurt her so much.”

The senator was thinking that his son was dying and yet his son was protective. He was trying to understand that, and at the same time still reacting to the sentence of death, numbed inside, sick inside, screaming inside against the fate that was taking his son away from him. His son came to him and embraced him. “I'm all right, Dad.” The arms were protective and the voice was cool. In one day he had been Father and Pop and Dad and Daddy. “I'm a homosexual,” but Richard Cromwell had known that all along. There was the wall that had grown up between them, and why could he see it only now when he had known for so long? Why did it take this cold horror to bring them together? Words and memories stabbed at his mind, like fire from a gun that shot cold slivers of pain, and somewhere in that far away part of the brain called remembrance a voice screamed, Would God that I had died for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son. Now, not minutes ago, it came through to him. His son was dying.

“Oh, Jesus, Dad, don't take it that way.”

The senator nodded, his face full of loose flesh that had lost the will to stay together and be a face. Leonard drew back, but the senator clutched for him.

“God damn it,” Leonard said sharply. “Don't do that. You're leaving me alone. I don't want any fucking grief. I want love.”

The senator nodded, still unable to speak.

“Don't go away from me. Your grief takes you away. Don't you understand?”

Death was new to the senator; it was old to Leonard.

“Father,” Leonard said gently, “do you know what I tell myself? I tell myself that this thing must come to all men, sooner for me, later for others. But it comes, and we must face it. Sit down, please.” He led the senator to a chair, which the senator dropped into, still a man in a waking coma.

Leonard went to his desk and took a piece of paper out of a drawer. “I wrote you a letter.”

The senator came awake. “Oh, God, no! You don't take your own life. I said we'll fight this. I meant it!”

“Not suicide—I love this thing called life so much I'll fight and scrabble for every minute of it. But I didn't know how to say this—I didn't have the courage to say it.” He read from the letter. “I'm facing an awful thing, and I won't make it unless you can tell me that you love me. If you can't, crumple this up and throw it away.…” He crumpled it and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Stupid letter. I wouldn't have finished it. Please, come on, be my friend.”

“Always,” the senator whispered.

“You look like hell,” Leonard said, smiling at his father. “Some cold water on your face and comb your hair,” pointing to his bathroom, “and then we'll go to meet the foe.”

The senator went into the bathroom. Someone rapped at the door. Leonard opened it, and there was Elizabeth who said, “Is Daddy with you?”

“In the bathroom.”

“They're here. Big stretch caddy, and two fat S.S. men in front.”

“Just now?”

“Five minutes ago. Funny thing to see them face to face, like seeing a cartoon character walk out of the strip.” In heels, with her pale brown hair piled high on the top of her head, Elizabeth was almost as tall as her brother. She wore a white voile dress with a full, many-layered gathered skirt, white kidskin shoes, and a single long strand of pearls her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

“What a beautiful woman you are,” Leonard said.

“You noticed.”

“I always noticed.”

“What happened?”

“I told him,” Leonard said.

“Did you? Lenny, was it terrible?” she said, whispering now.

“Quite terrible.”

“Is it all right now? I mean, is anything all right?”

“It's as all right as it could ever be.”

She kissed his cheek, lightly. “I'm downstairs.”

“No word to Mother—remember.”

She nodded and fled. Leonard closed the door and turned to his father, who had just stepped out of the bathroom. “How do I look?” he asked.

“Good. That was Liz. They're here.”

“Let the bastards wait. One thing, Lenny—your friend, Jones, does.…” He let the word hang. He couldn't go on. He thought about it, and the whole order of things collapsed.

Nodding, Leonard clutched for words. “Yes. He says no, because he doesn't want me to carry the guilt. He can't weep, he can't let his terror out of him.…” His eyes filled. “I don't like to talk about that. It's just too fucken terrible.”

He wiped his eyes. The senator took his arm, and they walked out of the room together.

TWENTY-NINE

M
acKenzie told his wife that her trouble stemmed from the fact that she was not political. He had told her this before, informing her that she was not properly conscious of being a black woman, to which she replied that if being black and being a woman did not make her properly conscious of being a black woman, she would turn to MacKenzie whenever she required information on the subject. He brought it up again this evening before he left the kitchen to take his place at the front hallway.

“That is all right,” Ellen said. “I am tired to death of being a black woman, so when you look at me tonight, just you see a white woman, and that solves the problem and I am busy.” Then she added, “Too busy to quarrel.”

“No quarrel,” MacKenzie assured her. “No way.” He spread his arms, and Ellen had to admit that he made a handsome figure, six feet and one inch tall, quite impressive in his white jacket and creased black trousers. “But just suppose you have to explain this to your kids, which I will. We had a lot of dinner guests in our time, but this is different, very, very unique. These two gentlemen run the United States foreign policy which just makes them two of the most important folk in the world.”

“Senator's more important,” Ellen said flatly.

“No way. I wish, but no way. These two make the decision and run things. Oh, I'm sure they wake up the president now and then. Mr. President, here's what happens past two days. They read it off and then he goes back to sleep.”

“Will you stop bothering me. I got work to do. Furthermore, you get up there in front or they will come and just be left standing at the door.”

“Also,” MacKenzie said slowly and judgmentally, “they do not like blacks.”

“For heaven's sake, this country is full of people don't like blacks. Now will you get out of here.”

As he marched through to the hallway with its wide curving staircase and its rich old Persian rug, MacKenzie saw Augustus and his wife descending the staircase. He ushered them into the sitting room, where Nellie, bright and perky in her starched, freshly pressed white uniform dress, awaited them. Augustus eyed her with appreciation, while Jenny said, “You do look handsome tonight, Mac.”

“Trying my best,” he said. He went back to the front door, where he had a full view of the driveway, and at exactly half past seven, a long, black stretch Cadillac came down the driveway and pulled up in front of the house. A Secret Service guard leaped out of it almost before it had stopped moving, snapped his glance here and there, on the house, the doorway, the ornamental taxus and rhododendron, as if behind each bush in the lovely evening sunlight an assassin crouched; doubled around the car, and then opened the rear door. The driver of the car, also a large man, the size of his partner, and displaying the same wide, expressionless face as his partner, the same black suit and white shirt and black four-in-hand tie as his partner, leaped out of his side of the car and took a position between the house and the guests, so that he might have a clear line of fire should the terrorists attack.