ATDDTA (6): An all-but-religious way, 179-182

[Paul Nightingale]

Returning to Denver Lew detects Nate's presence before seeing him, "from all
the way down the hall"; Nate is given up by "one of his trademark Key West
cheroots". Other knowledge is less easily established: the length of time
("how it could be a year already") since he last saw Nate, the identity of
the song "[d]own in the Anarchists' saloon". Another part of Lew's routine
is "the habit of dropping in for a sociable beer"; although this might well
be a pretext, given the presence of "any number of Anarchist chickadees".

If Lew has no faith in the paperwork swamping his office, we are reminded
here that Nate is a "desk operative with an irrational belief ..." etc
(180). In these lines, then, Nate--perhaps a return of the repressed--is
established as a kind of alter ego to Lew: I don't think this was a feature
of their scenes previously in Chicago. Moreover, Nate confirms that Lew's
presence here in Denver is nothing but a paper exercise for the benefit of
"the clients". So "answers [will] just reveal themselves"? Rather, "answers"
will be a construct imposed on the "endless heaps". Lew's endless movement,
his inability to stay still in one place (he isn't a "desk operative") is to
no end. To use the language of maths here, the equation has no solution,
there is no formula that will bring forth the "vision". Nate disappears as
suddenly as he appeared: if Lew's movement echoes that of Kit in the
previous chapter, perhaps Nate 'appears' as did Fleetwood.

Lew isn't the first character, of course, to "[understand] in an
all-but-religious way ..." etc (181). This section began by reminding us of
his shifting allegiance: he "little by little found himself being seduced in
a political ... way" (179). Given that there are no "answers" waiting to be
found, "he [decides] to go ahead on the assumption" that he has just met,
finally, the Kid: the "unfinished-business look" reminds us that the problem
has yet to be solved.

What is the status of the dialogue that ensues? There is no evidence that
the stranger is the Kid ("or whoever he was", 182); this is something that
Lew has decided for himself. Cf. the opening of this chapter, when he has to
"convince himself" that he is being followed by the Kid (171). The dialogue,
then, fits in with the concerns of this chapter thus far. Lew has been
seeking the Kid, his quest one of endless movement. He has had difficulty
making sense of much that he 'sees', although one might say scopophilia is
an end in itself. His decision that this is the Kid is as arbitrary as that
of Burke's brother (174).

Finally, "the Kid, or whoever he was, sort of faded into the mobility"
(182). Given the emphasis on movement here, the ambiguity that surrounds
"mobility" appears significant as the current section ends. The Kid has
moved away, leaving Lew behind (throughout the chapter, who is following
whom is a moot point). Anyway, cf. Kit's first glimpse of Fleetwood: "Far
down at the end of one of the corridors, he thought he saw a dark figure
receding into the invisible" (163).