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.
“She’s not my friend anymore.”
“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