“Is that what you did with Eliza?”
“OK, you have a point there.”
The next time she spoke to Walter, he finally asked her out on an actual movie-and-a-dinner date. The movie (this was very Walter) turned out to be a free one, a black-and-white Greek-language thing called The Fiend of Athens. While they sat in the Art Department cinema, surrounded by empty seats, waiting for the movie to start, Patty described her plan for the summer, which was to stay with Cathy Schmidt at her parents’ house in the suburbs, continue physical therapy, and prepare for a comeback next season. Out of the blue, in the empty cinema, Walter asked her if she might instead want to live in the room being vacated by Richard, who was moving to New York City.
“Richard’s leaving?”
“Yeah,” Walter said, “New York is where all the interesting music is happening. He and Herrera want to reconstitute the band and try to make it there. And I’ve still got three months on the lease.”
“Wow.” Patty composed her face carefully. “And I would live in his room.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be his room anymore,” Walter said. “It would be yours. It’s an easy walk to the gym. I’m thinking it would be a lot easier than commuting all the way from Edina.”
“And so you’re asking me to live with you.”
Walter blushed and avoided her eyes. “You’d have your own room, obviously. But, yes, if you ever wanted to have dinner and hang out, that would be great, too. I think I’m somebody you can trust to be respectful of your space but also be there if you wanted company.”
Patty peered into his face, struggling to understand. She felt a combination of (a) offended, and (b) very sorry to hear that Richard was leaving. She almost suggested to Walter that he had better kiss her first, if he was going to be asking her to live with him, but she was so offended that she didn’t feel like being kissed at that moment. And then the cinema lights went down.
As the autobiographer remembers it, the plot of The Fiend of Athens concerned a mild-mannered Athenian accountant with horn-rimmed glasses who is walking to work one morning when he sees his own picture on the front page of a newspaper, with the headline FIEND OF ATHENS STILL AT LARGE. Athenians in the street immediately start pointing at him and chasing him, and he’s on the brink of being apprehended when he’s rescued by a gang of terrorists or criminals who mistake him for their fiendish leader. The gang has a bold plan to do something like blow up the Parthenon, and the hero keeps trying to explain to them that he’s just a mild-mannered accountant, not the Fiend, but the gang is so counting on his help, and the rest of the city is so intent on killing him, that there finally comes an amazing moment when he whips off his glasses and becomes their fearless leader—the Fiend of Athens! He says, “OK, men, this is how the plan is going to work.”
Patty watched the movie seeing Walter in the accountant and imagining him whipping his glasses off like that. Afterward, over dinner at Vescio’s, Walter interpreted the movie as a parable of Communism in postwar Greece and explained to Patty how the United States, in need of NATO partners in southeast Europe, had long sponsored political repression over there. The accountant, he said, was an Everyman figure who comes to accept his responsibility to join in the violent struggle against right-wing repression.
Patty was drinking wine. “I don’t agree with that at all,” she said. “I think it’s about how the main character never had a real life, because he was so responsible and timid, and he had no idea what he was actually capable of. He never really got to be alive until he was mistaken for the Fiend. Even though he only lived a few days after that, it was OK for him to die because he’d finally really done something with his life, and realized his potential.”
Walter seemed astonished by this. “That was a totally pointless way to die, though,” he said. “He didn’t accomplish anything.”
“But then why did he do it?”
“Because he felt solidarity with the gang that saved his life. He realized that he had a responsibility to them. They were the underdogs, and they needed him, and he was loyal to them. He died for his loyalty.”
“God,” Patty marveled. “You really are quite amazingly worthy.”
“That’s not how it feels,” Walter said. “I feel like the stupidest person on earth sometimes. I wish I could cheat. I wish I could be totally self-focused like Richard, and try to be some kind of artist. And it’s not because I’m worthy that I can’t. I just don’t have the constitution for it.”
“But the accountant didn’t think he had the constitution for it, either. He surprised himself!”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a realistic movie. The picture in the newspaper didn’t just look like the actor, it was him. And if he’d just given himself up to the authorities, he could have straightened everything out eventually. The mistake he made was to start running. That’s why I’m saying it was a parable. It wasn’t a realistic story.”
It felt strange to Patty to be drinking wine with Walter, since he was a teetotaler, but she was in a fiendish mood and had quickly put away quite a lot. “Take your glasses off,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I won’t be able to see you.”
“That’s OK. It’s just me. Just Patty. Take them off.”
“But I love seeing you! I love looking at you!”
Their eyes met.
“Is that why you want me to live with you?” Patty said.
He blushed. “Yes.”
“Well, so, maybe we should go look at your apartment, so I can decide.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not tired?”
“No. I’m not tired.”
“How’s your knee feeling?”
“My knee is feeling just fine, thank you.”
For once, she was thinking of Walter only. If you’d asked her, as she crutched her way down 4th Street through the soft and conducive May air, whether she was half-hoping to run into Richard at the apartment, she would have answered no. She wanted sex now, and if Walter had had one ounce of sense he would have turned away from the door of his apartment as soon as he heard TV noise on the other side of it—would have taken her somewhere else, anywhere else, back to her own room, anywhere. But Walter believed in true love and was apparently fearful of laying a hand on Patty before he was sure his was reciprocated. He led her right on into the apartment, where Richard was sitting in the living room with his bare feet up on the coffee table, a guitar across his lap, and a spiral notebook beside him on the sofa. He was watching a war movie and working on a jumbo Pepsi and spitting tobacco juice into a 28-ounce tomato can. The room was otherwise neat and uncluttered.
“I thought you were at a show,” Walter said.
“Show sucked,” Richard said.
“You remember Patty, right?”
Patty shyly crutched herself into better view. “Hi, Richard.”
“Patty who is not considered tall,” Richard said.
“That’s me.”
“And yet you are quite tall. I’m glad to see Walter finally lured you over here. I was beginning to fear it would never happen.”
“Patty’s thinking of living here this summer,” Walter said.
Richard raised his eyebrows. “Really.”
He was thinner and younger and sexier than she remembered. It was terrible how suddenly she wanted to deny that she’d been thinking of living here with Walter or expecting to go to bed with him that night. But there was no denying the evidence of her standing there. “I’m looking for someplace convenient to the gym,” she said.
“Of course. Makes sense.”
“She was hoping to see your room,” Walter said.
“Room’s a bit of a mess right now.”
“You say that as if there were times when it’s not a mess,” Walter said with a happy laugh.
“There are periods of relative unmessiness,” Richard said. He extinguished the TV with an extended toe. “How’s your little friend Eliza?” he asked Patty.
“I told you that,” Walter said.
“I wanted it from the horse’s mouth. She’s a fucked-up little chick, isn’t she? The extent of it wasn’t immediately apparent, but, man. It became apparent.”
“I made the same mistake,” Patty said.
“Only Walter saw the truth from day one. The Truth About Eliza. That’s not a bad title.”
“I had the advantage of her hating me at first sight,” Walter said. “I could see her more clearly.”
Richard closed his notebook and spat brown saliva into his can. “I will leave you kids alone.”
“What are you working on?” Patty asked.
“The usual unlistenable shit. I was trying to do something with this chick Margaret Thatcher. The new prime minister of England?”
“Chick is a far-fetched word for Margaret Thatcher,” Walter said. “Dowager is more like it.”
“How do you feel about the word ‘chick’?” Richard asked Patty.
“Oh, I’m not a picky person.”
“Walter says I shouldn’t use it. He says it’s demeaning, although, in my experience, the chicks themselves don’t seem to mind.”
“It makes you sound like you’re from the sixties,” Patty said.
“It makes him sound Neanderthal,” Walter said.
“The Neanderthals reportedly had very large craniums,” Richard said.
“So do oxen,” Walter said. “And other cud-chewing animals.”
Richard laughed.
“I didn’t think anybody but baseball players chewed tobacco anymore,” Patty said. “What’s it like?”
“You’re free to try some, if you’re in the mood to vomit,” Richard said, standing up. “I’m going to head back out. Leave you guys alone.”
“Wait, I want to try it,” Patty said.
“Really not a good idea,” Richard said.
“No, I definitely want to try it.”
The mood she’d been in with Walter was irreparably broken, and now she was curious to see if she had the power to make Richard stay. She’d finally found her opportunity to demonstrate what she’d been trying to explain to Walter since the night they first met—that she wasn’t a good enough person for him. It was also, of course, an opportunity for Walter to whip off his glasses and behave fiendishly and drive away his rival. But Walter, then as ever, only wanted Patty to have what she wanted.
“Let her try it,” he said.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Walter.”
The chew was mint-flavored and burned her gums shockingly. Walter brought her a coffee mug to spit in, and she sat on the sofa like an experimental subject, waiting for the nicotine to take effect, enjoying the attention. But Walter was paying attention to Richard, too, and as her heart began to race she flashed on Eliza’s contention that Walter had a thing for his friend; she remembered Eliza’s jealousy.
“Richard’s excited about Margaret Thatcher,” Walter said. “He thinks she represents the excesses of capitalism that will inevitably lead to its self-destruction. I’m guessing he’s writing a love song.”
“You know me well,” Richard said. “A love song to the lady with the hair.”
“We disagree about the likelihood of a Marxist Revolution,” Walter explained to Patty.
“Mm,” she said, spitting.
“Walter thinks the liberal state can self-correct,” Richard said. “He thinks the American bourgeoisie will voluntarily accept increasing restrictions on its personal freedoms.”
“I have all these great ideas for songs that Richard inexplicably keeps rejecting.”
“The fuel-efficiency song. The public-transportation song. The nationalized-health-care song. The baby-tax song.”
“It’s pretty much virgin territory, in terms of rock-song content,” Walter said.
“Two Kids Good, Four Kids Bad.”
“Two Kids Good—No Kids Better.”
“I can already see the masses taking to the streets.”
“You just have to become unbelievably famous,” Walter said. “Then people will listen.”
“I’ll make a note to do that.” Richard turned to Patty. “How you doing there?”
“Mm!” she said, ejecting the wad into the coffee mug. “I see what you mean about the vomiting.”
“Try not to do it on the couch.”
“Are you all right?” Walter said.
The room was swimming and pulsing. “I can’t believe you enjoy this,” Patty said to Richard.
“And yet I do.”
“Are you all right?” Walter asked her again.
“I’m fine. Just need to sit very still.”
She in fact felt quite sick. There was nothing to be done but stay on the sofa and listen to Walter and Richard banter and joust about politics and music. Walter, with great enthusiasm, showed her the Traumatics’ seven-inch single and compelled Richard to play both sides of it on the stereo. The first song was “I Hate Sunshine,” which she’d heard at the club in the fall, and which now seemed to her the sonic equivalent of absorbing too much nicotine. Even at low volume (Walter, needless to say, was pathologically considerate of his neighbors), it gave her a sick, dready sensation. She could feel Richard’s eyes on her while she listened to his dire baritone singing voice, and she knew she hadn’t been mistaken about the way he’d looked at her the other times she’d seen him.
Around eleven o’clock, Walter began to yawn uncontrollably.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have to take you home now.”
“I’m fine walking by myself. I’ve got my crutches for self-defense.”
“No,” he said. “We’ll take Richard’s car.”
“No, you need to go to sleep, you poor thing. Maybe Richard can drive me. Can you do that for me?” she asked him.
Walter closed his eyes and sighed miserably, as if he’d been pushed past his limits.
“Sure,” Richard said. “I’ll drive you.”
“She needs to see your room first,” Walter said, his eyes still closed.
“Be my guest,” Richard said. “Its condition speaks for itself.”
“No, I want the guided tour,” Patty said, giving him a pointed look.
The walls and ceiling of his room were painted black, and the punk disorder that Walter’s influence had suppressed in the living room here vented itself with a vengeance. There were LPs and LP sleeves everywhere, along with several cans of spit, another guitar, overloaded bookshelves, a mayhem of socks and underwear, and tangled dark bedsheets that it was interesting and somehow not unpleasant to think that Eliza had been vigorously erased in.
“Nice cheerful color!” Patty said.
Walter yawned again. “Obviously I’ll be repainting it.”
“Unless Patty prefers black,” Richard said from the doorway.
“I’d never thought of black,” she said. “Black is interesting.”
“Very restful color, I find,” Richard said.
“So you’re moving to New York,” she said.
“I am.”
“That’s exciting. When?”
“Two weeks.”
“Oh, that’s when I’m going out there, too. It’s my parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary. Some sort of horrible Event is planned.”
“You’re from New York?”
“Westchester County.”
“Same as me. Though presumably a different part of Westchester.”
“Well, the suburbs.”
“Definitely a different part than Yonkers.”
“I’ve seen Yonkers from the train a bunch of times.”
“Exactly my point.”
“So are you driving to New York?” Patty said.
“Why?” Richard said. “You need a ride?”
“Well, maybe! Are you offering one?”
He shook his head. “Have to think about it.”
Poor Walter’s eyes were falling shut, he literally was not seeing this negotiation. Pat
ty herself was breathless with the guilt and confusion of it and crutched herself speedily toward the front door, where, at a distance, she called out a thank-you to him for the evening.
“I’m sorry I got so tired,” he said. “Are you sure I can’t drive you home?”
“I’ll do it,” Richard said. “You go to bed.”
Walter definitely looked miserable, but it might only have been his exhaustion. Out on the street, in the conducive air, Patty and Richard walked in silence until they got to his rusty Impala. Richard seemed to take care not to touch her while she got herself seated and handed him her crutches.
“I would have thought you’d have a van,” she said when he was sitting beside her. “I thought all bands had vans.”
“Herrera has the van. This is my personal conveyance.”
“This is what I’d be riding to New York in.”
“Yeah, listen.” He put the key in the ignition. “You need to fish or cut bait here. Do you understand me? It’s not fair to Walter otherwise.”
She looked straight ahead through the windshield. “What isn’t fair?”
“Giving him hope. Leading him on.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing?”
“He’s an extraordinary person. He’s very, very serious. You need to take some care with him.”
“I know that,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Well, so, what did you come over here for? It seemed to me—”
“What? What did it seem to you?”
“It seemed to me like I was interrupting something. But then, when I tried to get away . . .”
“God, you really are a jerk.”
Richard nodded as if he couldn’t care less what she thought of him, or as if he were tired of stupid women saying stupid things to him. “When I tried to get away,” he said, “you seemed not to want to take the hint. Which is fine, that’s your choice. I just want to make sure you know you’re kind of tearing Walter apart.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“Fine. We won’t talk about it. But you’ve been seeing a lot of him, right? Practically every day, right? For weeks and weeks.”
“We’re friends. We hang out.”
“Nice. And you know the situation in Hibbing.”
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