Excerpt from the New York Times obituary, April 29, 1989:
Margot O’Neill, former editor of Paris Vogue, Manhattan socialite, campaign manager and former wife of South Carolina Governor Carter Ridge, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 57...
...her ex-husbands, a sister, and her son, Giancarlo Galimberti, survive her.
July 2015, Corfu, Greece
“Mr. Mendel, so kind of you to have come all the way from New York, please come in,” Carter motioned from his chair.
Andros, Carter’s valet, ushered in the journalist to the interior patio garden, where a seated Carter dressed in a charcoal-grey suit and tie waited for him. He had a small pile of newspapers and magazines on the glass-topped table before him, with a vase of sunflowers in water in the center. Mendel walked in and took the chair that was offered next to Carter. A Venetian fountain gurgled by the far slate wall, and beneath the shade of the dark blue awning, the patio felt cool as a gentle breeze blew from the sea below the mountain they were on.
“I’m sorry for not getting up,” Carter said, “But I’m afraid my leg is giving me some problems these days. Andros usually helps me up.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem, sir,” Mendel said. He had a leather satchel that he placed on the tiled floor of the patio, and added, “I felt the same way when I finally arrived in Athens yesterday.”
Carter smiled absently, and asked if he would like something to drink. “Andros makes a wonderful mocha iced drink,” Carter said. Mendel assured him that would be fine.
“I wasn’t really prepared for the size of your think tank, Mr. Ridge. When I took the tour with your dean this morning, it surprised me. It’s like a small college campus down there.”
Carter began telling him how he had founded the Institouto in the late 1970s on this pearl of the Ionian Sea. “I had spent almost a decade living in Europe, between France and Italy. Back then there was a dictatorship here in Greece, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. But finally, democracy returned to this cradle of western civilization, and I created the Institute.”
Andros arrived with their iced coffees, and Mendel said, “When was the last time you sat with a journalist for an interview?”
Carter paused for a moment, and then said, “It must have been in 1964, during the Republican Convention. Not long after that, I retired.”
Mendel took a sip of his drink. “You didn’t just retire, you vanished into thin air. I’ve spent the past month researching your career, your legacy back in South Carolina and in the United States, sir, and after 1964 there is precious little out there for an intrepid journalist such as myself.”
“Yes, well.” Carter said, smiling to himself. “I suppose it was largely due to my own doing. I wanted my privacy. To live my own life away from the public eye.”
He fiddled with the stack of newspapers and magazines, and finding the one he wanted, pulled it out. The glossy cover was of the pop singer Mika, and Carter turned it so Mendel could see it.
“An attractive young man,” Carter said, “But what I found interesting was the article you wrote about him. To be honest I had no idea who he was before I began reading it, I’m more of a classical music and jazz enthusiast, but you really brought out the humanity in him. When I had finished reading your interview and story, I felt as if I knew him, as if I’d always known him.”
Mendel smiled politely, and Carter took a drink from his iced mocha.
“It’s not the first time you’ve had that effect, Mr. Mendel. I’ve been reading your profiles and stories since before you were at Vanity Fair,” he continued. “In fact, I first came across you when you were writing about the 2008 election on your, what do you call it, blog. Yes, even back then you knew how to draw the reader into your subject. So I’m a captive fan.”
“Thank-you, Mr. Ridge, I’m flattered.”
Carter squinted, appraising this geeky writer with curly hair and retro tortoiseshell glasses. “Tell me, what did you learn about our work here at the Institouto?”
Mendel pulled out his notebook and began reciting all of the various projects the research think-tank had funded, beginning with Sweden’s first free child-care pilot program in Gothenburg. Public policy theorists, in conjunction with progressive economists and social scientists, had seeded micro-projects in every corner of the world. All from this isolated campus on the island of Corfu, funded entirely by Carter’s private fortune. After reciting a litany of these private, targeted initiatives Carter said, “I see that the dean did a good job of walking you through our work here.”
“Yes, actually I had transcribed all of that from my voice recorder I used when we walked around and over lunch,” Mendel said. “But that’s not why you asked my editor for me to come here, is it?”
“No, I suppose not,” Carter said, and then seeing Andros approaching from inside the house, added, “Perhaps we could continue this conversation inside?”
Andros helped Carter up, and finding his cane, he made his way through the open sliding glass door into the carefully decorated minimalist house. Walking past the entryway they made their way to Carter’s study, where he sat back down behind his desk. A white orchid in full bloom sat on the horizontal shelf lining the pale green wall, alongside a series of framed black and white photos. On the wall behind a shield of protective glass hung a Schiele self-portrait. A piano concerto from Chopin played in the background.
“Efkaristo,” Carter said to Andros after sitting down. Once the young man had left, Mendel commented, “I’ve noticed that you like to surround yourself with beauty, whether it is artwork, music, architecture, and even your staff.”
Carter raised his eyebrow and said, “I hope that I’m not reduced to just an aesthete. I think that there is more of a moral underpinning to my life than just a deep appreciation for beauty. I still believe in truth, in equality, in making this world a better place.”
Mendel blushed and said, “I didn’t mean it as an offense, Mr. Ridge. If anything, it looks as if you are truly pursuing your vision of The Good Life you had detailed when you ran for governor back in 1962.” He put his voice recorder on the desk in front of him as he reached for his notebook, and pulled out a scanned copy of an old flyer.
“The Good Life,” Mendel began reading aloud, “For the family: a guaranteed job that pays a living wage, universal health care, universal free college education — let’s see, oh here it is, For the state: an investment in the arts, celebrating life through music, literature, architecture, and food. A Southern Renaissance.” He put it down, and smiled, “See, even back then you were preaching for a better way of living. It looks like you have found it.”
“As for Andros,” Carter said, and then hesitated. He looked at Mendel with a mischievous grin, and then said, “I’m an old shriveled shell of a man, long past my expiration date, sexually speaking. When I see myself in the mirror, I don’t really see me anymore. I just see this decrepit, wrinkled sack. But on the inside, in my soul, I still feel young, and when I dream, I am still that kid who was playing water polo in school, that passionate young man swimming naked in the Mediterranean at Cap d’Antibes. When I see Andros, I see the endless promise of youth, or hints of former lovers, or forgotten traces of my life, and it brings me joy.”
Mendel leaned in, and cleared his throat. He opened up his notebook again and took out a pen, then asked, “In what way?”
Carter crossed his arms on the top of the desk, and said, “When I approached your editor, it was because I sensed that you were sympathetic to gay equality. You’ve written so kindly about not only this Mika fellow, but also any number of celebrities and political figures over the years who are gay.” He paused and pushed his index finger on the polished desktop, as if making a line to the past, and said, “You know, we didn’t call ourselves homosexual back then, back in the 1950s. It was certainly something that we never talked about in the open, even amongst close friends really. It took me a long time for me to even contemplate it in my own life, I had tried so hard to repress it, to project this other image of myself. To act on it, to have sex, that was one thing. But to be truly free to be who I was, that was a difficult proposition.”
Mendel looked up from his note-taking, and asked, “I see. So here in Greece, you felt free to be who you really were?”
Carter nodded, and said, “I first came to Greece for a summer holiday in 1954. I came with a few close friends, all from New York City, including my former wife, Margot. We stayed the summer, renting a villa here on the island, down closer to the main town, and I fell in love with the country during that trip. The language. The culture. The weather, well, even today with that spot of rain we had, that glorious Greek sun came out again.”
“You mentioned your ex-wife, Margot.”
“Yes, Margot. She was an amazing woman. There will never be anyone as determined and creative as her. You know, for someone who is a genius, they have either one of two strong traits, whether it’s determination or creativity. Margot, she had both, overflowing in her. She was such a quick study. She sensed it in me, that I was gay, that I was different, almost immediately. So, yes, she knew about me. I wouldn’t say that she approved, she just accepted that it was a part of who I was, that it could be put away like some sort of recessive trait.”
Mendel turned to a few pages in his notebook, and said, “I interviewed some people back in South Carolina, who lived back during your time as governor.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, and there wasn’t any speculation by anyone that you were gay, nobody mentioned that at all,” Mendel said. “So when you abruptly retired from politics that summer of 1964, and then subsequently divorced Margot, it was because —”
Carter looked up from his pushing his finger across the desk, and said, “Because I had fallen in love with someone. With Gabriel.”
He glanced at Mendel, waiting for him to finish writing, and when he met his gaze, he added, “Which is why I wanted to have you come here, for this interview.”
A conversation in Greek could be heard in a nearby room. Someone was laughing, and soon footsteps sounded down a hallway towards Carter’s study. Carter looked up and smiled, “Ah, here he is now.”
Mendel turned to see who had entered the room.
“I was told the party was in here,” said the newcomer.
He laughed at his own joke, and extended his hand to Mendel, “Hello, I’m Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s eyes sparkled as he introduced himself, and despite his advanced age, was still spry and animated. He wore a white Izod polo shirt that offset his tanned arms, and a pair of khaki chinos. A tiny gold necklace hidden in his shirt hung from his neck.
“I wasn’t sure what time my class was finishing today, so I’m a bit early, sorry,” he said by way of apology, and came over to give Carter a quick kiss.
“We were just talking about you,” Carter said. “Come, sit with us.”
“Can I get anyone a cocktail, or a glass of something?” Gabriel asked. “Andros was putting together some hummus and pita bread for us to snack on.”
The three of them were soon settled in Carter’s study, with the wall of windows open to let in a late afternoon breeze to cool off the interior. Gabriel explained that although he was retired, he still taught a graduate degree course at the local university in Corfu town on mythology in the modern age. “It keeps me busy,” he explained after taking a sip of his Aviation cocktail. He reached over to spear a Kalamata olive from the bowl the three of them shared atop Carter’s desk. “I’m taking a course on Tuesday and Thursdays as well, the first time I’ve taken one in a few years. It’s on ancient music, and it’s fascinating. We’ve just begun the Hellenistic period, and how they were influenced by other cultures outside of the old Hellenic world.”
Mendel asked about their lives together, why they had left the United States. Gabriel explained that once Carter resigned as governor, that they realized they had no excuses anymore for not being together, truly living as a couple and building the life that neither one of them had dared think was possible. While living at Galanos back in Aiken, they felt as though they were limiting themselves, self-censoring their behaviors so as not to shock the mores of the locals.
“It’s not as if we were doing anything hedonistic, we just wanted to be able to go out and be seen in public without feeling like zoo animals, constantly looked at and the subject of gossip,” Carter said.
“Plus, this is the mid-sixties, mind you,” Gabriel added, “Pre-Stonewall. Carter and I didn’t have any radical gay agenda other than just keeping to our ourselves, and being able to travel together.”
“How did your families react?” Mendel asked.
Carter looked at Gabriel, and smiled, motioning for him to begin. “Mine were confused at first,” Gabriel said, laughing. “I mean, they knew who Carter was obviously, and they couldn’t quite make the leap from he was my boss, to being my lover. I told them in person that fall, back in 1964, after Carter quit and had sorted things out with Margot. I drove up to Spartanburg and said that now that I was out of school, I was going to live with Carter. ‘Well he’s not governor anymore are you sure he wants you around?’ my mother asked, and I said ‘oh, I’m pretty sure he wants me around.’” He laughed, and then continued, “I told them that I wasn’t going to be working for him, but that we were going to live together as a couple. I didn’t want to get into the mechanics about it all, but they went along with it. After several years, they just accepted it as normal. They would come down to Galanos or over to Europe and we’d all spend holidays together.”
Gabriel turned to look at Carter, “We were lucky in that aspect. Both of our families ended up coming around to it, which is rare for those of our generation.”
Mendel nodded and asked about Margot.
“She and I divorced amicably,” Carter said. “That flight back east from the San Francisco convention was very, very long. By then her anger had subsided enough for us to talk calmly about everything. She came to understand my decision to want to be with Gabriel, and how it would be impossible to keep something like that a secret in politics. If Senator Thurmond knew about it, that meant it would become a source of gossip and possible blackmail for me should I stay in office, or run for something after my term.”
“How seriously were you considering staying in politics,” Mendel asked after swallowing some pita and hummus. “Either as governor, or running for President?”
Carter reflected for a moment, and said, “I’ve always been very competitive — ”
“I’ll say,” Gabriel interrupted. “Try playing against him in canasta!”
They all laughed, and Carter continued, “I’ve always been competitive, especially in politics. It had an intoxicating effect on me when winning, which you have to believe you’re going to win otherwise, what’s the point. It’s probably like going into battle, in war, you have to psyche yourself up and think you’re going to conquer your enemy. So that rush of adrenaline is strong.” He looked at Gabriel and then said, “But the pull of love is even stronger. It can’t compare.”
Gabriel smiled back at Carter.
“It soon became apparent that we needed to have something to do other than, well, you know,” Gabriel said. “I wanted Carter to find a cause he could get involved in, because he has always been so passionate about equality, and civil rights. It’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with him,” he said touching Carter’s hand.
“Fast forward,” Carter said, “And after years of planning, and networking with public policy researchers, we launched the Institute in 1978 here in Greece. The birthplace of democracy.”
“And man on man sex!” Gabriel joked.
Carter rolled his eyes at Gabriel, and playfully chided him, “Be nice in front of Mr. Mandel, and let’s not shock him too much.”
Mandel laughed and said, “Oh, I don’t shock easily, don’t worry; and you can call me, Todd.”
“Well, Todd,” Carter said, “The reason why we approached your editor is because we want to get married back in South Carolina, now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of marriage equality. It would be nice to bring our story full circle, in this the deep winter of our lives.”
“I would be honored to report on your life, and especially on your wedding,” Todd said. “Congratulations.”
There was a saying in South Carolina, that love and marriage go together like grits and gravy. Gabriel was determined to rainbow-fy the adage to “like Sunday brunch and mimosas,” which Carter said was redundant, but didn’t stop Gabriel from invoking at any opportunity. Once Todd Mendel had agreed that reporting their story and writing about their marriage would be an assignment he would gladly accept, the two of them set the date for their nuptials in early December.
Whereas Carter’s marriage to Margot had been orchestrated by her, this was to be “their” wedding. Both Gabriel and Carter planned every aspect of their ceremony, down to the tiniest detail (the Didot font on the wedding invitation was a compromise). They were both adamant that it was to be a traditional, church wedding, although neither of them was what one would consider a fervent believer, they each had a strong religious tradition that guided their shared values, and reinforced their belief that their lives had meaning. Having the church sanctify their union, while not necessary from a perspective of faith for either, was nevertheless important for both of them that this most powerful of institutions, the Christian church, at last impart its blessing on the two of them. After all of the years of oppression this pillar of Southern tradition had wrecked upon the lives of blacks, of the gay community, to finally have the roles reversed with the church acknowledging their love, their vows of constancy for the other, would add a measure of justice at long last to the scales. It would be less a consecration, and more of a celebration that at long last, equality had perhaps arrived for them as well. With Gabriel having been raised Roman Catholic, they knew that even with the legalization of marriage equality in America that having a church wedding in a Catholic church would be problematic. So they decided to exchange their vows at the old parish church that Carter grew up in, where his parents had been married (and buried), at St. Thaddeus’ Episcopal Church in Aiken.
As the date approached, the weather turned unseasonably cold. “Usually it is mild and you only need to have a sweater on,” Carter assured Todd when he arrived at Galanos for the weekend of festivities.
“It’s actually colder here than it was in Brooklyn when I left this morning,” Todd said as he took off his winter coat.
The interior of the manor was already decorated for Christmas, with green ivy garlands outlining each of the grand windows facing the front, and Advent electric candles in wreaths hanging inside each window. Lining the pebbled drive up from their gate at Easy Street were a series of luminaries, brown paper lunch bags lit from the interior with votive candles, casting a glowing welcome to anyone arriving that late afternoon. A towering Douglas fir twenty feet high sparkled with hundreds of tiny white lights, imbuing the entire entryway and stairwell with the sweet scent of a mountain forest.
“Let me introduce you to some of the other guests,” he said as he took Todd’s coat and handed it to the housekeeper.
Walking into the two storied library in the back of the house, Carter found Gabriel standing at the piano talking with a couple, while several other couples were seated on a nearby sofa and lounge chairs. An older gentleman was playing the piano softly, singing to himself and anyone else who was within earshot.
“Here he is!” Gabriel said when he saw Todd approaching. They gave each other a hug, and Todd said, “Thank-you, Gabriel, for asking me to stay here at Galanos. It is stunning, just magnificent.”
Gabriel made the introductions for Todd, beginning with, “This is our good friend from Greece, George. Over here is Carter’s nephew, Arthur, and his lovely wife, Charlotte. Arthur’s the son of Carter’s brother, Carlton, who passed a few years ago. They live next door at the old Ridge estate and were kind enough to join us tonight,” he said. Turning to another couple seated at a pair of club chairs, he introduced his younger brother and his wife visiting from Spartanburg.
Carter motioned to some of the others standing and seated throughout the room, saying, “Todd, this is Darren Adams and his wife, Linabelle. Darren is my old chief of staff, and one of my oldest, dearest friends. And over there having a heated conversation is someone you should really meet.” He grabbed Todd by the arm to steady himself as he walked to the other side of the room without his cane.
“This is the young journalist I wanted to introduce you to,” Carter said when he came up to the small group of people. “Todd, this is Carolyn Masters Stewart. She was my photographer when I was running for governor.”
“And after,” she corrected him, smiling and extended her hand to Todd. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ve seen some of your photos of Carter from that period,” Todd said to her. “Iconic, you really have a great eye.”
“Thank-you, although that eye has become clouded a bit over the years,” she said, and motioned to the man next to her. “My husband, Raymond, and this is Carter’s great-nephew, CJ.”
The young man with short curly strawberry blond hair resembled the adolescent version of his namesake. Dressed in a plaid bowtie, he shook Todd’s hand, and said, “I like how you emphasized great-nephew! We were just arguing about something, maybe you can help resolve our disagreement.”
Carter chuckled, and said as an aside to Todd, “It’s always like this with him, he’s got an opinion on everything!”
CJ pointed in mock reproach to his uncle, and chided him teasingly, “Don’t give him any hints, Uncle Carter!”
George started playing a familiar Christmas song in the background, and the doorbell rang. CJ winked at Carolyn and then asked, “So, if you could have any super power, but —”
Carter chuckled and said to Todd, “I’m going to leave you to solve this one on your own.” He walked over towards the entryway to see who had arrived, and saw Gabriel returning with a familiar friend.
“My word! Look at you! Come here,” Carter said as he opened his arms for a big hug. “I was hoping you would be able to come down for the weekend.”
Bradford grabbed his old ally, and embraced him. They both had tears running from their eyes. “Brother, I wouldn’t miss this for anything!” he said into Carter’s ear. They pulled back from each other, and Carter saw again that young Bradford through the decades that separated them from that first instance they had met, up in the hot balcony of the Greenville courtroom for the Willie Earle lynching trial. Though both in their eighties, he saw in Bradford’s eyes those flashes of brilliance and fiery passion from their youth.
“Would you like to go for a walk?” Carter asked Todd the next morning following breakfast. “I can you show you around the neighborhood a bit.” Gabriel, who was sitting next to Carter facing Todd shook his head and mouthed “no” to Todd.
“Carter, why don’t we take the car, and go for a ride with Todd?” Gabriel suggested, and then took a sip of his coffee. He gave a wink to Todd.
“Yes,” Todd said, “I’d like to go for a car ride, it looks like it is still frosty outside.”
“Great!” Gabriel said, getting up. “I’ll go get the car.”
Carter Junior, or CJ as he preferred to be called, had come over for breakfast at Galanos for all of the houseguests, mainly because he loved being with his great uncle, but also because he knew he had a captive audience and he loved to entertain. He asked if he could come along, and soon the four of them were in the old Citroën, with Gabriel behind the wheel. He pulled out of the estate onto Easy Street towards Whiskey Road. Though it was late morning, the mist still hung low in the air, and many of the branches and fence lines were framed in a crisp white crust of frost from overnight.
“Well, at least the heating still works in this car,” Gabriel said to no one as he turned on the blinker to turn onto South Boundary. The live oak-canopied street was one of the most picturesque images of Aiken, and the fabled street still merited its glory, with the sun trying to break through the disjointed mosaic of leaves and tree limbs.
“I used to ride my bike up South Boundary as a kid,” Carter remarked as they drove slowly under the green-budded natural awning.
“They used to have bikes back in the olden days?” CJ joked from the backseat.
Gabriel turned off South Boundary onto one of the clay roads of the town’s equestrian quarter. Riders were out already on their horses, trotting down the lane from their stables. Occasionally glimpses of thoroughbreds being run on a track could be seen as they progressed down Magnolia back to Whiskey Road. Carter was silent, drinking in the scenery, remembering long since forgotten memories from when he was just a kid. This was Stax and Mookie’s house, he was about to say, but then realized that nobody would know these phantoms from his childhood, which would entail a long story about running around his parents’ front yard barefoot, throwing sand bombs at each other, playing Marco Polo for hours in the pool, and re-enacting episodes from the previous night’s episode of the radio serial The Shadow. Could that have been eighty years ago? Carter wondered to himself.
Suddenly a couple of heavy flecks of snowflakes fell onto the car’s windshield and melted. “Y’all, it’s snowing!” CJ said when he saw the effervescent display. Soon the view had transformed into a barrage of dainty, tumbling snow feathers, gradually billowing into a white winterscape of pointillist artistry. “Wow,” CJ whispered as they continued to creep along the road. Gabriel turned on the windshield wipers, which flung back and forth with a noticeable French insouciance. After doing a tour of the couple of streets that made up downtown, they headed back to Galanos for hot wine, and in CJ’s case, hot chocolate.
As they got comfortable back in the library, Gabriel started playing a Ray Conniff Singers Christmas album on the stereo and came back where the others were seated, nursing their hot drinks. Carter was silent, lost in his memories, until he said, “That little display of a Southern blizzard reminded me of my time as governor.” He took a sip of his hot wine, and added, “It was a beautiful spectacle, but it melted and evaporated immediately.”
Bradford, who had been reading the newspaper from the comfort of an adjacent sofa looked over, removed his reading glasses. “Really, Carter?” He shook his head, and put down the paper. “Carter, you may have been governor for only a couple of years, but your legacy is everywhere.”
Gabriel was about to say something, but Bradford continued, “Your ideas became a part of the conversation, you raised expectations, and thanks to you, we had that citizens caucus, and calmed everyone down about race. South Carolina was one of the few states in the South where integration came about without massive resistance.”
Gabriel nodded, and smiled at Carter, seated next to him. He grabbed Carter’s hand, and held it tightly.
“Now who do I have to talk to around here for one of them hot wines?” Bradford said, putting back on his glasses to continue reading the Aiken Standard.
Everyone laughed, and Gabriel started to get up, but CJ jumped up instead and said, “I’ll get it for you.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Gabriel said, getting back up. “I know you’re little tricks, young man.”
“Do you consider yourself to still be a Republican?” Todd asked. Bradford smiled broadly, and took off his glasses to watch Carter’s reaction.
“Absolutely,” Carter said without hesitation. “The ideals of the Republican Party that I joined were for the little man, for racial equality, and for investing in the future through infrastructure. It was for fighting fascism and building a peaceful alliance of democracies around the world. It was the party of Lincoln, Wendell Willkie, and Eisenhower.” He looked at Bradford and said, “You remember the many discussions you and I used to have about the Southern Democrats.”
Bradford nodded, and when Gabriel gave him his mug of hot wine, he took a sip. “Yes,” he said, “We had many debates about the Democrats over barbeque at Smokin’ Joe’s. Those were the good ol’ days.”
“Yes, they were,” Carter agreed. “I am still that same Republican, even if my party has gone and died. I guess I’m the last of my generation.”
“The last good Republican,” Bradford said.
“I suppose so,” Carter said.
The wedding was scheduled to begin at four in the afternoon. Since it was December, the shadows were already long and lingering across the lawn, and the sun had left for warmer climes, but for Carter this was his Magic Hour, the time when anything was possible. This day, what had once seemed improbable, if not impossible, was to at last come to pass. Marriage to Gabriel was the fulfillment of his life’s ultimate purpose. He felt nervous following their morning excursion in the snow, and remained pensive during lunch despite CJ’s animated performance.
With the rest of the house busily getting ready for the evening’s festivities, Gabriel came up to Carter from behind as he was seated on a chair struggling to get his shoelaces tied.
“I can’t seem to get this knot undone,” Carter murmured.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around him, burying his face into his back shoulder, and then said, “Let me get that for you.”
Carter chuckled, watching as Gabriel got on his knees next to Carter and worked on loosening the shoelace. He put his wrinkled hand onto Gabriel’s cheek and peered into his green eyes. A tear formed in his eye, and he said to Gabriel, “This is what life is all about someone I loved once told me.”
Gabriel kissed him on his lips, and as he felt his own tear wind down his time-worn face, said, “I remember. Geraldine.”
Gabriel wiped the tear from Carter’s face, and said simply, “I know, honey. You told me you wanted to live life helping others untie their knots, and we sure did.”
Carter finished straightening the knot in his tie, and said, “Yes, we sure did.”
They both stood up, looking at each other, and despite the half-century that had passed, Carter saw that same younger version of Gabriel. Gabriel finally grabbed Carter’s hand, and said, “Come on, Mr. Sawyers.”
“Come on, Mr. Ridge,” Carter said.
The End
Buck Jones is a native South Carolinian. Since 2006 he has been living in Paris, France, with his husband where together they have a slightly spoiled dog. He is the founder of the Club Littéraire du Marais which is the largest gay writers group in Paris. When not writing for numerous magazines and newspapers, he can be found at any number of sidewalk terrasses in Paris, enjoying a glass of rosé and planning his next trip.
Did you like this novel? How about using it at your next book club? There is a free downloadable The Last Good Republican — the Book Club pdf file with questions to stimulate conversation. Get it for free from the author’s website:
http://www.monsieurbuckjones.com
I want to thank my editors who gave me guidance in crafting this novel, without their help the story of Carter Ridge might have never been told and I owe a debt of gratitude for their insights and the massive revisions they recommended to bring together the various threads into a harmonious literary quilt. Thanks to Lisa Anselmo, Constance Renfrow, and Sue Laybourn.
The cover and interior design by David Provolo needs to be acknowledged. He’s a brilliant designer and I was thrilled when he agreed to take on this project to create a first impression that this was a work of gay literary fiction. My brief to him was to create something that was like a piece of mid-century art, and I think the result is gorgeous.
Finally, while I was writing the first draft of the original manuscript and doing my research on that period of South Carolina’s political history, I came across the intriguing story of an interesting man. Hastings Wyman was a Republican political strategist and former advisor to Senator Strom Thurmond who ran what is arguably the last overtly racist political campaign in South Carolina history. The 1970 gubernatorial race for the Republican candidate Albert Watson that Wyman managed was chronicled in a fascinating book by Randy Sanders entitled Mighty Peculiar Elections. I discovered that Wyman was originally from Aiken, my hometown, and not only that, but he was also gay. At the time of his political apex he was closeted, married, and the parallels to the story that I was trying to capture in my novel were amazing.
I continued reading about Wyman and discovered that he was indeed still alive, living in retirement in the Washington D.C. area, so I approached him and explained my project. He graciously agreed to be interviewed, not just once, but over a series of phone calls. We talked for several hours over the course of months; as I walked my dog at night in Paris along the back streets of my neighborhood in the Marais, I would ask him about the various political figures from that era — Strom Thurmond, Fritz Hollings, Richard Nixon, and a host of state political figures. I was also curious about his homosexuality, how it was for him as a closeted gay man in the South Carolina of the 1950s and 1960s.
So this novel could not have had the full tapestry of historical accuracy that it possesses without the help of those talks I had with Hastings Wyman. Much thanks to him for opening up his life to me.
Published by Turbigo Media LLC