He stands inside the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, being seen, and my brain pulls up from its cloudy nethers the second half of that “Speak of the devil” saying. Both the rest of the aphorism and the man himself seem conjured not from thin air but from its opposite—thick opaque substances: mud, sludge, primordial stuffs—like they were there all along, only dormant, lying in wait to rise up at the merest suggestion. We conjured Nathan Templeton by speaking of him. As usual, it feels all our fault, never mind that, as usual, there was no avoiding it and nothing we could do.
We have not seen him before, any of us, but there is only one man he can be. I suppose that’s why the saying isn’t “Speak of the devil, and some dude shows up with goat feet and a flaming pitchfork, and you’re all, ‘Who the hell are you?’” He is a clean bright light in Norma’s sticky dankness, and I see what Mab means. There is something strong about him—something whole, something sure and neat and well rested—that no one else in Bourne possesses. Nora literally recoils, and all the blood drains from Frank’s face, and everyone falls silent as snow.
“Norma’s Bar.” Nathan Templeton opens his arms into the gloaming. “No wonder everyone speaks fondly of this place. I can see I’ll be a regular.”
His smile is a lightbulb in the gloom. He looks around quite pleased—with himself for discovering such a gem of an establishment, with all of us for being in the know, with Nora and Frank for doing a fine job running the place—and not at all bothered that everyone’s staring at him. He ambles from door to bar slowly, stopping to shake hands with the few bewildered people dotting the tables in the middle of the room—both of his soft ones grasping one of theirs, looking into their eyes—and inserts himself on the empty stool between Zach and Tom.
He reaches out and puts one hand on one man’s shoulder, one on the other’s.
“Great to meet you guys.” He looks and sounds like he means it. “I’m Nathan Templeton.”
They nod mutely. Nora hasn’t closed her mouth in minutes.
“So”—Nathan picks up a menu and looks it over—“what’s good here?”
Zach considers the lately frozen neon wings before him. “Nothing?”
“Hey!” says Frank.
Nathan winks at Frank and laughs with Zach. “Now, I’m sure that’s not true…”
“Zach,” Zach supplies.
“Zach.” Knowing. Proud of him. Like Zach is a perfect name. Like Nathan is certain Zach must be a wonderful man to have such a wonderful name. “Pleasure.” He turns the other way. “How about you…”
“Tom.” Tom looks surprised to hear his own voice.
“So, Tom, you seem like a man of taste. What’s the best thing on the menu?”
“Beer?” Tom guesses.
Nathan laughs, loud and warm. “Isn’t it always? You’re a wise man, Tom.” He turns to Nora. “Beers for everyone, if you please, Madam Barkeep. This round’s on me.”
She stands there, frozen, and Nathan’s smile wavers just slightly.
“Nora,” Frank’s voice warns.
She shakes her head, blinks, shakes, and starts pulling each of the guys’ favorite beer. As she puts them on the bar, she leans in and whispers, “On the house.”
“No, hey,” Nathan protests, “let a guy buy another guy a beer. I’ll buy you one too, pretty lady.”
She takes in a breath deep as a sea trench. I watch her brain flip through thousands of clamoring options in search of where to start her response, but Frank leaps in first. “Frank Fiedler. Owner. Very generous of you.” They shake.
“And look!” Nathan crows. “It’s my main man—and yours—the great Omar Radison.” He comes down the bar and shakes Omar’s hand. “Good to see you again, man.” So I was wrong. None of us have ever seen this man before except Omar.
“We were just talking about you,” Omar admits.
“All good things, I hope,” Nathan says in a tone that suggests he’s never in his life doubted it. But as he turns to make his way back to his beer, he trips over my footrest.
It is normal to regard something you’ve tripped over with surprise. After all, if you’d known it was there, you would have walked elsewhere. But the look he gives me is less surprise than shock, shock verging on horror.
Which, to be honest, is interesting. It is probably true that people who use wheelchairs in the rest of the world get appalled looks and disgusted stares, but not here. Here, no one looks at me twice.