Beauty Queen

not," said Winkler. "But I find the word homosexual a little cumbersome, and I'm not going to waste any more energy saying it."
    "So there's going to be a funeral after all?" she said.
    "No. No viewing. A short service, and straight to the cemetery. No one but immediate family allowed. Masses said for his soul. And that's it. I gather a few policemen wanted to attend—not in uniform, of course. But the family said they didn't want anyone there. No reporters, nothing."
    Winkler gazed glumly out the window.
    Jeannie looked at him briefly, then switched her eyes back to the highway.
    "I think you're over-reacting to this whole thing," she said.
    "I am/' he said, looking back at her intently. "I think it's a disaster. Fortunately, you handled it as correctly as possible. But it's still a disaster. The voters will now remember you as someone whose political activities cause violence. And of course, deep down, I know damn well that you don't care about the kid's death at all."
    "Pooh," she said.
    He turned to face her on the seat, so agitated that he actually took his hand off the dashboard.
    "Jeannie, I think you're way out in left field with this gay thing. I think you're overdoing it. People are going to associate you with this alone, when they go to the polls. They are going to associate you with something that they think is ugly and distasteful."
    "I bet we can do a poll and prove you wrong. And I've always campaigned against things that are ugly and distasteful," she said sharply. "People are going to remember me for massage parlors and pornography. Is that so bad?"
    Winkler was almost yelling now, too.
    "Well, I'll tell you what I think, in case you're interested in my twenty years of experience running campaigns for people who hold much higher offices than you do!"
    "All right, tell me," she said sarcastically.
    "I think you ought to forget about this gay business, and start talking to the voters about the cost of living, and consumer problems, and taxes, and some other down-home issues. You got Intro Two defeated, what more do you want? Take my advice and drop it, Jeannie. If you get elected governor, you can try to get the laws against gays stiffened up, if that's what you want to do. But do it later, in a context of caring about the other concerns of voters. I don't think they are really truly concerned about it. They are
    concerned about putting their kids through college, and..
    "I disagree," she said sharply. "I think they are very concerned. I think the whole issue frightens them to death. I think it's a great way to get their attention."
    "But Jeannie, the big scare issues of yesterday ... where are they? What did they accomplish? Where are the people who raised those scare issues? Where is George Wallace? Where is Senator McCarthy? Where are they? Tell me."
    Jeannie was silent. She found she had no answer to Winkler's questions.
    "Jeannie, I believe in you," he said, lowering his voice a little. "I believe in your integrity and your energy and your toughness and your stubbornness and your intensity. I feel those are very marketable political products right now. But goddam it, you are also wrong-headed and fanatical and bigoted and you don't have too much common sense."
    "Thanks a lot," she said.
    "As of right now, I am taking more hold on this campaign. I have been giving you too much leeway. We're not running an anti-gay Ku Klux Klan here. We are running for governor. I am having some major speeches written for you that are going to put this whole thing back into perspective, and right now."
    She sighed.
    "All right," she said.
    "If it doesn't get back into perspective," he said, "then I won't feel like wasting my time on it. Do you understand, Jeannie?"
    She understood all too well. If she and her campaign manager had a falling out, and he went around saying things like that, it would be bad publicity.
    "All right, all right," she said.
    They reached the spot where 684 narrowed down and became old Route 22. After a discreet silence, one of the aides, a new kid named Burt Haddleigh who had worked for the mayor, spoke up from the back seat. He had an idea, he said, about something new that Jeannie could speak out against, that would get people's minds off the gay thing.
    "Tell me about it," said Jeannie, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
    "Well," said Haddleigh awkwardly, "er, you may think I am nuts... but Manny Schwartz of Brooklyn has introduced a bill in Albany that will put a ten-percent tax on