Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound however I sounded. The sad truth is, Mary, if I’d known the name of one homosexual in the department—I mean knew it for sure—I’d have given it to them.” She would have preferred the earlier look of pathetic pride to the expression of shame now sweeping his face. “I’ve seen Senator Fulbright,” she at last interrupted. “He and my daddy were Rhodes scholars together. I talked to him about my troubled feelings. I didn’t mention you specifically.” Sitting across from Jerry was worse than it had been sitting across from Fulbright, who’d seemed appalled that a well-brought-up Southern girl should be aware of such things, let alone bothering him with them. Jerry said nothing. He appeared to be waiting for the story’s climax, the miraculous news whose pleasure he had deferred. And she had nothing like that to give him. “He really just pursed his senatorial lips, Jerry. He said he might call Mr. Morton, my boss in CR, to ask one or two ‘concerned questions’ of a general nature.”