The Dinner Party (18 page)

Richard was awakened by Dolly's voice: “Good heavens—what time is it?”

He felt for his watch and found it. “Almost four.”

“Oh, Richard, I haven't even finished setting the table. I'm going to take a shower right here.”

He was awake now, embracing her body, touching, stroking. “Don't go away now.”

“Oh, darling. Genghis Khan and Attila will be here in three hours or so, and I have everything to finish downstairs and I have to get dressed—oh, no, don't,” she pleaded.

“The hell with those bastards.”

“Darling, no, no—”

“When?”

“Tonight. Tomorrow.”

“I will hold you to that,” he said.

TWENTY

M
acKenzie stalked into the kitchen and said sternly to his wife, “What do you think?”

“I don't think,” Ellen said. “I have fed seven people at lunch, and two useless drones, which means you and that lazy Nellie, and I'm trying to finish the salt sticks for tonight, and I had to find Miss Dolly, and I been through the house and no Miss Dolly until I got to the door of the senator's bedroom, and from the sounds coming out—well, what do you think?”

“Well, they was either having a fight or fucking.”

Ellen came to him, shaking her finger an inch from his nose. “MacKenzie—once more you use that filthy word, once more—”

“Well, how on earth do I say ‘fucking' if I can't say fucking?”

“You say ‘making love.' You know, you are a bum. You can take the bum out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the bum.”

“Well, it ain't always love,” MacKenzie said, grinning. “And you did not marry a bum. You married a dignified son of a people who were oppressed a damn sight more than the folks in Africa are oppressed by demented Dutchmen.”

“A dignified son. That'll be the day.”

“And I think it's beautiful.”

“Well, so do I, but not on a day we have eleven for dinner. And what do I think?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do you think?' How do I know what you think?” MacKenzie demanded.

“That's what you said. What do I think, when you come marching in like judgment day?”

“Oh. Well, I come by the door to Elizabeth's room, and the smell of pot is as thick as winter fog in Washington.”

“Nonsense. The kids haven't smoked for years.”

“After raising two of your kids, if I don't know the smell of pot I should be put out to pasture.”

“My kids!” Ellen exclaimed. “You insinuating they are not your kids?”

“All I said is I smelled pot, and I don't want to think that this here smartass lawyer from Harvard brought it with him.”

“Because he is black? You know, Momma was right. She said I could do better than some ignorant, musclebound colored man who never even finished high school.”

“You are going too far,” MacKenzie said sternly. “I am self-educated and a damn sight more educated than some of these college kids. And as far as your momma was concerned, she loved me. She said I was a natural gentleman. So you apologize for that, or I'll take a stick to you. There's always a first time.”

“Take a stick to me? Good heavens, no.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “I apologize, but don't never try to take a stick to me—no sir. Now get out of here. You still ain't finished with the silver. And send in that Nellie, and if them kids want to smoke pot, they ain't kids no more but adults. They got a right to do what they want to do.”

Dolly entered the kitchen as Ellen was speaking, and the black woman turned to her, disconcerted and embarrassed. MacKenzie slipped out of the room, and Dolly said, “I know. I walked past the door.”

“Mr. Augustus smells it, he will take a fit.”

“I know. It's Daddy's single moral persuasion.”

Ellen shook her head. “No way to talk about your daddy,” she murmured. “He's a good and generous man.”

“What's the strongest spray can you have?”

“Lysol, I guess.”

“Give it to me.”

Dolly took the can of Lysol upstairs and sprayed the hallway. Then she tapped on Elizabeth's door.

“Yes?”

Dolly said, “Open up, Liz. The hall stinks. I just sprayed it with Lysol, and I'm going to give you the can and with it an order to flush that junk down the toilet, open the windows, and spray the room with Lysol.”

“Mommy, it's harmless.”

“We'll discuss that after Grandpa leaves.”

The door opened and Elizabeth's face appeared. Dolly handed her the can. “We haven't touched the stuff for years,” Elizabeth said.

“I hope so.”

“You're angry?”

“Yes. You're too smart to be silly.”

“Just between us—please, Mommy?”

“If you wish. We'll talk later.”

“Thanks. You're a dear.” Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears.

“It's nothing to cry about,” Dolly said.

Elizabeth nodded and closed the door. Crying still, she picked up the dish with the three butts and took it into the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet. The boys watched her silently as she opened the windows and sprayed the room. She then went back to the bathroom and washed her face.

“I feel so empty,” she said. “I'm a pig to think about myself, but I feel so empty.”

Leonard and Jones sat in silence, and the silence dragged on until Elizabeth said in vexation, “Will one of you say something—anything.”

“While you were in the bathroom,” Leonard said, “Clarence here tells me that he must go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“I simply can't stay here,” Jones replied. “No way, Liz. I can't. At first, I thought that possibly I could. Maybe there's some way. It would be interesting. It wouldn't be interesting, it would be cute. I dress up in Lenny's clothes and pretend. I can't pretend. There's just no way I can sit at that dinner table tonight.”

“Are you scared?” Elizabeth wondered.

“Right on. Right to the point. Just ask the black boy—is he scared? I am the educated civilized product, not some junkie living and mugging on the streets of Harlem. I'm scared. I'm scared of what it could do to me. I'm scared that I'll stand up and talk nigger and say, you two mother-fuckers who run this country are as dirty and unredeemed as anything in South Africa, and my friend here next to me, my friend, Lenny, who is beautiful and sweet and never caused pain to anyone, is dying, and you malignant bastards who bring death to thousands in Africa and in Central America—you are sitting face to face with an innocent, with death, the same kind of death you bring to the ghettos where you squeeze my people—”

“Jonesy, Jonesy,” Leonard interrupted, “that's all mixed up, and I know how you feel and you wouldn't say it anyway.”

“I got to go away from here.”

“Please, please be reasonable,” Elizabeth begged him. “I'm putting a selfish thing on it, but how could we explain it if you went away? It's heavy. It would be like putting a knife into Daddy.”

“He'll survive that,” Jones said angrily.

“Why are you so mad?”

“You have to ask me that?”

“I do,” Elizabeth said.

“I'll tell you, Sis,” Leonard said. “It's me. Otherwise, it would be a great caper, and he could go back to school next year and tell everyone about how he had dinner with two white jackasses who are running the most powerful country on earth and who may just snuff all of us if the mood takes them. But he loves me. We are more than brothers; we are tied into one knot and it's full of death. You know what I am beginning to understand—I'm beginning to understand that I'm the only one who can face this. It's a fact of life—yes, death is a fact of life, and I am going to die and I can face that. You can't. He can't. You are beginning to learn about death, God help you. Until now, it was literature surrounded with all the shit words—nobility, heroism, selflessness, sacrifice, idealism—a whole Christian world staring at that figure of a poor, tortured Jewish kid, nailed on a cross and dying, and nobody knew what the fuck it was all about.”

“Right on,” Jones whispered, his eyes full of tears.

“Now I know. It's the first truth I ever knew.”

“God help us,” Elizabeth said.

“Not a chance. I need you next to me, Lizzie. Jones is going away. He's right. He has to. But this is going to be the damnedest night we ever had, and I want you next to me, standing on your two feet and not crying. You always were stronger. Don't cry, please, because you rip my guts out when you do. I love you so. What in hell do any of them know about love when they say a faggot can't love a woman? Love is love. It's all there is that makes any sense in this lousy world. I love both of you.”

“I have to wash my face again,” Elizabeth said, going into the bathroom.

“There are no planes tonight after eight,” Leonard said. “There's one at six.”

“It's a long drive, isn't it?” Jones asked.

“No matter.”

“How about a bus station in town? Is there one?”

Leonard nodded.

“Good enough.”

“I hate to see you ride a bus.”

“Hell, Lenny, I don't mind.”

“You're going home?”

“That's right. Momma and Daddy, they been asking and asking.”

Leonard grinned. Elizabeth came out of the bathroom and wanted to know what was funny.

“Jonesy here, the moment he began to talk about going home, his damn southern accent returned.”

“I don't have a southern accent. You have a northern accent.”

Leonard went to him and hugged him. Then he said to Liz. “I'm driving him to the bus station. You hold the fort.”

“All right.”

“No more than an hour.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Tell them I couldn't face it,” Jones said.

Elizabeth embraced him and kissed him.

“We are all beautiful,” Jones said. “We three, we are beautiful people.”

“Sure.”

“And you, Leonard Cromwell, you are not going to die.”

“Thank you.”

“They will find a cure. I tell you they will find a cure.”

Leonard smiled. “Why not? We lie to ourselves about everything else.”

“Drive carefully,” Elizabeth said. Suddenly she realized that Jones shared death with her brother, and there flashed into her mind a vague, fleeting picture of both her brother and Jones racing their car into a wall or a fence or a cliff or off a cliff; but there were no cliffs between here and town, and she knew that her brother had never been suicidal. He loved life too much. They both loved life.

And of course Jones had Aids. How could it be otherwise? Now, slowly, Elizabeth put it together, her tears for both of them, Clarence Jones the rock supporting Leonard, white man you can't do it alone, but I can, and I'll give you my own strength because death, the stranger to you, is my old friend, my people's friend; and then it came together and exploded and she cried out, almost a scream, “No, no, no. That's horse-shit! No one can carry that off. Animals die alone, not people.” She took a deep breath, wiped her tears, and thought, Please God, I'm wrong. He'll go home. That's why he left. He had to go home. Clarence had to go home.

The image of Jones at the table this night, classy ornament, testimony of fraudulent equality, well trained, well mannered, well spoken, framed itself in her mind, and she whispered, “Goodbye, Jonesy. You are wise. I'll think of you with love.”

TWENTY-ONE

M
acKenzie was in back of the house, at the herb garden, cutting a handful of sorrel, when Leonard drove by with Jones sitting beside him. After he had dropped the grass off at the kitchen, MacKenzie went up to the guest room Jones had occupied and confirmed his suspicion. Jones's small suitcase was missing, and drawers and the closet were empty. Since the large guest-suite was occupied by Augustus and his wife, Dolly had put Jones into what they called “the lady room,” as opposed to a larger guest room with twin beds and its own bathroom. She felt she had to consider the possibility that one or another of her dinner guests might have to stay the night. If both decided to, she would have to put Jones in Leonard's room on a camp bed. She had explained this carefully to Leonard, hoping that Jones would not be offended or put off by the contents of the small “lady's room,” the white rug, white Swiss bedspread, pink-and-white curtains and striped pink-and-white wallpaper. “It's very feminine, but we only have three guest rooms, and I must reserve the other.”