Page 66 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
In the lobby of the apartment building, Nathaniel sticks close to Patrick in a way he hasn’t done in a while, like maybe proximity will soothe Patrick’s nerves as well as it soothes Nathaniel’s.
“Ten full stories of millionaires,” Patrick mutters. It’s the sort of building where the lobby has a golden chandelier and marble floors, and things seem to sparkle without any clear light source. The elevator operator has gold braid epaulets.
When Patrick introduces himself to the woman who answers the door—presumably someone from the lawyer’s office—she flicks a skeptical glance over both of them, finishing up with the most infinitesimal of raised eyebrows at Patrick. She’s about forty, wearing a black dress, three strands of pearls, and a little hat. Nathaniel, in his thrift store clothes, feels like a peasant. He’s met hundreds of women of this mold and even more of her male counterpart. A year ago hewasher male counterpart.
“She thinks I’m your kept man,” Nathaniel whispers when they’re alone in the library, a high-ceilinged room with a rolling ladder.
Patrick coughs to cover up his laugh. “I think it’s the other way around. The real substance of the insult was something along the lines of ‘you both seem pretty homosexual to me.’”
“How does she know?” Nathaniel, at this point, knows that he can seem gay when he lets it happen. But that’s an affect he can put on and off as he pleases, like Jerome swipes on his lipstick and wipes it off.
“I, well.” Patrick adopts his most innocent expression.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, who did you fuck this time?”
Patrick attempts again to cover a laugh with a cough. “I spent a weekend with Maud Dempsey’s grandson on Fire Island in 1965 after he stopped by the store to buy a present for his grandmother.”
“You fucked the next of kin,” Nathaniel says. “Naturally.” He’s pleased to note that Patrick seems much less nervous now than he had in the elevator.
“Here, look at this,” Patrick says a few minutes later, holding a leather-boundLeaves of Grass. Nathaniel is underwhelmed. At any given moment, there are never any fewer than a dozen copies ofLeaves of Grassin stock. But sometimes a collector will write in, asking for a particular volume—a certain year, a specific binding—and Patrick will sell it to them for a sum so staggering that it keeps the shop in the black for a month or more, so Nathaniel is well aware that these volumes are precious to the right people, however unremarkable they seem to him.
“Is it a first edition?”
“First of all, it’s enormously sweet that you think I’d be let within five city blocks of an actual 1855 first edition ofLeaves of Grass.”By now, Nathaniel knows this was barely more than a pamphlet of twelve poems, typeset by Whitman himself. Whitman added to the collection throughout his life. Patrick points at the flyleaf. “It’s a first edition of the 1881 edition.” On the fragile ivory paper, there’s a handwritten label with a man’sname and the wordsfrom the author. “I can’t make out the handwriting.”
“Looks like C.F. Blaylock.”
“Thanks. Obviously, someone could have pasted this label on at any time, but—”
“My grandmother said she bought it from a gentleman in New Jersey who used to dine with Whitman,” says the woman who’d let them into the apartment—apparentlynotfrom the lawyer’s office, then. “That’s how she got the letters, too.”
“I’d love to see these letters,” Patrick says.
By the time they leave, Patrick’s written a check for an indecent amount of money, but which he says he’ll make back from the sale of that one book alone.
Patrick arranges to have most of the books and letters delivered, but he insists on taking home the inscribed edition himself.
“You’re a little kid carrying her new doll home from the toy store,” Nathaniel tells him in the cab, because apparently this book is too good for subways. He puts his hand on Patrick’s knee, too low for the cabbie to see in the rearview mirror. “You’re still smiling. It looks good on you.” He pulls his hand back, but only after a moment.
Patrick opens the book gingerly. “Look, you can’t tell me that he writes this and every literate gay man in the countrydoesn’tseek him out,” he says, as if they’re continuing some earlier conversation. “At that point you effectively have a public homosexual for the first time in American history.”
Nathaniel doesn’t argue. He knows what’s coming next, because he’s heard it all before, but instead of being bored, he’s charmed; it’s an old song, and knowing the tune doesn’t make it any less worth listening to.
“Besides,” Patrick says, turning pages to find the engraving of Whitman that’s in virtually every edition. “I mean, seriously.”
In this engraving, Whitman has on a shirt that’s open at the neck, with what might be a glimpse of chest hair if you really put your imagination to work. No necktie, no waistcoat, no jacket. One hand is on his hip and the other is jammed in his trouser pocket. He has a beard and a rakishly tilted hat and an expression that Nathaniel sometimes sees directed at Patrick when they’re walking down Christopher Street.
“Let’s say you’re a queer man in 1855,” Patrick whispers, so the cabbie can’t hear him over the man on the radio who’s shouting about draft dodgers. “And you see this man’s picture in a book of fantastically gay poetry. You’re writing him a letter, right? You’re angling to meet him. You’re—”
“You’re horny for Walt Whitman.”
Patrick sinks lower in the cab seat, like maybe that’ll hide that fact that he’s blushing. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“What? You mean facts?”
“He wasn’t perfect,” Patrick says. “I mean, the things he said about—”
Nathaniel leans back against the vinyl seat and lets Patrick’s lecture wash over him.
