Page 74 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
“I’m not touching any of that. Ill-gotten gains.” He’d told Susan the same thing.
“What would you do?”
“Susan says I can get work as a session musician. She won’t want to work with me anymore when she finds out, but I think I could find work without her help. I was looking at the ads in theVillage Voiceand I think I can afford a room.”
“Do youwantto move out?”
“No! God, no. I’d stay forever, if I could.”
Finally, Patrick rolls to face Nathaniel. “Then why the fuck are you looking at the classified ads?”
“Because I’m not going to ask you to share your bed and your”—Nathaniel gestures around helplessly—“your wholelifewith someone who stood for the opposite of everything you love in the world.”
“I know who you are now. I don’t really care who you used to be.”
“Well, you should.”
“Maybe, but it’s too late. I love you, and I can’t just turn that off, you know?”
Of all the things he’s done, letting Patrick love him might be the worst. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
“You should be.”
“Stop telling me what to think. The dog needs a walk. Are you coming or not?”
Nathaniel throws on some clothes, even though he wants to give Patrick an alphabetized inventory of all the reasons he shouldn’t want to be around Nathaniel.
When they reach the sidewalk, they both squint at the sun. Walt looks over his shoulder, judgmental, when they don’t get a move on. Patrick’s hair is everywhere and he has a bruise on his neck from where Nathaniel kissed him. It’s like looking at something he stole in the dead of night.
“Cornelia or Barrow,” Patrick asks, naming the two directions for Walt’s quick morning walk.
“Cornelia,” Nathaniel says, and they turn right onto West Fourth. When they turn onto Sixth Avenue, the sounds of a basketball game—even at nine o’clock on a weekday morning—rise above the traffic.
Patrick buys a paper at the newsstand, sticking it under his arm without reading it. “I knew you did something you weren’t proud of. I already knew that. And it didn’t stop me from…”
So, Patrick isn’t going to say it again, isn’t going to repeat that he loves Nathaniel. It’s just as well.
“What were you hiding from when you came here?” Patrick asks as he’s unlocking the shop door and holding it open for Nathaniel.
“I copied some files. I was worried that they were going to make sure I didn’t show them to anyone.”
“And you aren’t worried about that anymore.”
“There are dozens of people who know the same secrets I do.” Nathaniel knows that what he’s telling Patrick is the truth, even though he isn’t sure it’s ever going to feel like the truth. “They might want to make sure I don’t sell my secrets to Moscow. Or to theNew York Times.” Nathaniel hadn’t intended to suggest that the agency considers Moscow and the paper of record equivalent threats, but that might not be inaccurate. “At worst, they’ll keep an eye on me.”
“What’s in these papers?”
Nathaniel swallows. “Proof that they’re spying on Americans they’ve decided are subversive.”
“And that was what made you quit?”
“That was the last straw.”
Patrick nods, like that’s in any way a satisfactory answer, and proceeds to oil his typewriter. As he’s loading a piece of letter paper, he mentions that he’s writing to a San Francisco collector who wants an 1880sLeaves of Grass, and who Patrick thinks might be willing to pay for that inscribed book he bought from Maud Dempsey’s estate. Nathaniel picks up takeout from the soul food restaurant on Grove Street for a late lunch, and they eat enough chicken and waffles to feel a little sleepy. It’s such a normal day, such a lovely and boring and typical day, and Nathaniel can feel his heart breaking. Patrick’s words, “it’s too late,” echo in Nathaniel’s ears.
That night, Patrick says, “If Michael came home, and he’d done terrible things, I’d have loved him, you know? Loving himwouldn’t have meant that I supported whatever it was he did over there. I’d be upset that he was put in a position—”
