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It was two years since Katz had heard from Walter. As the silence had lengthened, he’d begun to think that Patty, in a moment of stupidity or misery, had confessed to her husband what had happened at Nameless Lake. Walter, with his feminism, his infuriating reverse double standard, would quickly have forgiven Patty and left Katz alone to bear the blame for the betrayal. It was a funny thing about Walter: circumstances kept conspiring to make Katz, who otherwise feared nobody, feel lessened and intimidated by him. In renouncing Patty, sacrificing his own pleasure and brutally disappointing her in order to preserve her marriage, he’d risen momentarily to the level of Walter’s excellence, but all he’d gotten for his trouble was envy of his friend for his unexamined possession of his wife. He’d tried to pretend that he was doing the Berglunds a favor by ceasing communication with them, but mainly he just hadn’t wanted to hear that they were happy and securely married.
Katz couldn’t have said exactly why Walter mattered to him. No doubt part of it was simply an accident of grandfathering: of forming an attachment at an impressionable age, before the contours of his personality were fully set. Walter had slipped into his life before he’d shut the door on the world of ordinary people and cast his lot with misfits and dropouts. Not that Walter was so ordinary himself. He was at once hopelessly naïve and very shrewd and dogged and well-informed. And then there was the complication of Patty, who, although she’d long tried hard to pretend otherwise, was even less ordinary than Walter, and then the further complication of Katz’s being no less attracted to Patty than Walter was, and arguably
“Yeah, fuck that,” Katz said, eating gyro. But as soon as he’d replaced his appetite with a deep gastric unease about his means of satisfying it, he returned Walter’s call. Luckily, Walter himself answered.
“What’s up,” Katz said.
“What’s up with
“Yeah, really singing the body electric. Heady times here.”
“Tripping the light fantastic.”
“Exactly. In a Dade County jail cell.”
“Yeah, I read about that. What on earth were you doing in Florida anyway?”
“South American chick I mistook for a human being.”
“I figured it was all part of the fame thing,” Walter said. “ ‘Fame requires every sort of excess.’ I remembered we used to talk about that.”
“Well, fortunately, I’m past having to deal with it. I’ve stepped off the bus.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m building decks again.”
“Decks? Are you kidding? That’s crazy! You should be out trashing hotel rooms and recording your most repellent fuck-you songs ever.”
“Tired moves, man. I’m doing the only honorable thing I can think of.”
“But that’s such a waste!”
“Be careful what you say. You might offend me.”
“Seriously, Richard, you’re a great talent. You can’t just stop because people happened to like one of your records.”
“ ‘Great talent.’ That’s like calling somebody a genius at tic-tac-toe. We’re talking about pop music here.”
