In Nate's office were a combination sideboard, bookcase, and filing cabinet with assorted bottles of whiskey, a bed-lounge over in the corner, a couple of cane-bottom chairs, a curtain desk with about a thousand pigeonholes, a window with a view of the German saloon across the street, local-business awards and testimonials on the dark-paneled walls, along with photos of notable clients, some of them posed with Nate himself, including Doc Holliday, out in front of the Occidental Saloon in Tombstone, Doc and Nate each pointing a .44 Colt at the other's head and pretending to scowl terribly.
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Pynchon really wanted the reader to visualize Nate's office, didn't he? I suppose it helps us learn a little bit about Nate like how he's not a reader but a drinker. He's also not much into dinnerware because he'd rather drink. Also, his filing cabinet only files whiskey, probably alphabetically, because he loves to drink. We learned all this because the only thing of note on the first large piece of furniture described is bottles of whiskey.
We know Nate often sleeps in his office because he has a bed-lounge in it. This is probably not because he's working so hard on his cases but because he drinks a lot. He just loves drinking. See the first paragraph.
Nate has a couple of chairs, possibly for clients to sit in while they describe their problems to him, and also possibly so he can sit and drink with his feet up. They are "cane-bottom" chairs which I can picture in my head because I've watched every episode of The Repair Shop.
His desk has "about a thousand pigeonholes" which I'm going to assume is a hyperbolic exaggeration of the actual facts. Maybe I shouldn't assume but also one should not exaggerate, so Pynchon and I are even on that score. Pynchon doesn't note whether they've got any messages or notes or papers in them. He also doesn't note they have whiskey bottles in them. He also also doesn't note that they don't have whiskey bottles in them, so I'm going to start assuming another thing. You can probably guess what that is because as I've proven, Nate loves to drink.
Nate's office window allows him the opportunity to constantly look at the saloon across the street and think about all the great drinking taking place inside. He probably sits leaned back in one of his cane-bottomed chairs, a tumbler of whisky held by two fingers in his dominant hand, a cigarette in his other, and just watches people stumble in and out of the saloon as he contemplates the current case he's working on. Because while it's tempting to think that all Nate does is drink, he does have awards and testimonials on his walls and pictures of clients (notable ones only, of course. Nobody wants new clients glancing at pictures of you with totally strange people and asking, "Who's that?", only to have no clever answer to give them).
The most notable client on Nate's wall (most notable because he's the only one mentioned. If there were a more notable client, Pynchon probably would have mentioned that one) is Doc Holliday (although, now that I've taken a moment's thought within this parenthetical reference, maybe Doc Holliday isn't the most notable but the most drunk and, so, is the one Pynchon mentions to continue with the drinking theme of this sentence). Everything I know about Doc Holliday I learned because I fell in love with the character played by Val Kilmer in Tombstone. This, unlike Doc as one of Nate's clients, isn't notable because everybody fell in love with that character. There wasn't a person in 1993 that wasn't drawling "I'm your huckleberry" in response to any piece of conversation directed at them. But I fell in love with him because of the moment one of the posse asks him why he's riding with Wyatt to help get revenge on his brother's death and Doc says, "Wyatt Earp is my friend." The other guy says, "Hell I got lots of friends." And Doc says, "I don't." Fucking breaks my heart just thinking about it.
So now you know the way into my heart! Just expose the most vulnerable and pathetic side of yourself while showing outstanding loyalty and love to a good friend. That's it! I'll love you forever!
Anyway, Doc Holliday is best known for being drunk all of the time. So maybe he wasn't even a client of Nates. It's probable that they just drank together.
I wish I hadn't read the upcoming sentence which follows this one because after reading this sentence, I might have said, "Doc Holliday should have been holding a shotgun!" But I did read it and now I'll never know if I would have come up with this critique of the photograph before I read Doc Holliday making the critique himself. Oh, whoops! I'm getting ahead of myself. That'll be in the next blog entry!
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