Walter Neff spends his life saying words he doesn't believe, pretending to care about claims that mean nothing to him, and selling people insurance they don't need. He's good at the lying and the posturing and the unsubtle deception of sales, and he knows it, but that doesn't improve anything. You could say Walter Neff doesn't like himself very much, and you'd be right.
+
The first time he touched Keyes, it was an accident. The whole thing had been a cliche: Working late, drinks on the desk, heads bowed over a police report, Keyes' voice beating out a steady, reassuring rhythm. He'd looked up, head cocked for emphasis, eyes alive with challenge and discovery, and Walter Neff had accidentally kissed him. Keyes stopped talking, briefly, when Walter Neff's lips were on his, then he nodded and started speaking right where he'd left off, as if not a thing had changed.
+
Walter Neff likes Phyllis Dietrichson even less than he likes himself. She lies to him and assumes he believes it, and it disgusts him that she thinks he's so easy to deceive. But he lets her think she's made a sale, and she examines him with her cold, angry eyes, and he smiles at her with his mouth but nothing else. They lie to one another, but at least it's not boring.
+
Walter Neff hardly knows Lola. Half the time, he doesn't remember her name, and he has to force himself to pay attention when she talks. She probably doesn't have any idea that his first name isn't "Mister". He doesn't like her, and doesn't think she likes him -- or anyone else, not really. But it's different, letting go. Not being in control of the moment, allowing himself to be pulled along by circumstances, letting himself float with the tide, pretending he doesn't know where it's taking him.
+
Walter Neff used to answer Keyes when he ranted, to solve his problems and ask questions about his theories and ideas. That ended a long time ago. Now he lets Keyes go, gets lost in the regular dropping of his words, the sound of his passion, the reassuring evidence of a mind, ferociously at work. It calms Keyes, too, to open his mouth and let his brain unspool.
It's a private thing, usually, just for them. Keyes will let others in when he has to, when he's angry and has a point to prove. His voice gets harsher and more insistent, more lecture than musing. Walter Neff can tell from down the hall when it's happening, and he knows when the audience is gone, Keyes will be rattled and keyed up and try to cover it by lighting a cigar and talking about the decline of the company and the world and everyone in it.
Walter Neff makes sure he has matches.
+
He doesn't want to hurt anybody, doesn't care about Phyllis or her husband or Lola. He never really thinks about their goal, but planning is a distraction. Meeting Phyllis in out of the way places is a distraction. Watching her attempting to blend in is a distraction. Calling attention to themselves as they whisper loudly across supermarket shelves is a distraction.
Sex is a distraction.
+
When he fucks Phyllis, it's a performance. She's all noise and drama and "Yes Walter, right there Walter." She rides him like a star, throwing her head back and showing off her good side, constructing the angles she read about in a magazine when she was fifteen. He holds her hips and calls her "baby" as she sways, always controlled, always composed. They watch one another and pretend they don't.
+
Once he got old enough to stop saying it by reflex, Keyes was the only person he ever looked at and said "I love you." Once he said it for the first time, he couldn't stop saying it. Three, four times a day, he still says "I love you," or "I love you, too" and Keyes picks up his cigar, pats his pockets in search of matches, and says "I know you do," and Walter Neff lights the cigar.
+
When they stop pretending is the first time Walter Neff likes Phyllis. He appreciates that she hates him enough to give up on the sale; she lets him see who she is because she despises him, and Walter Neff respects her for it. Even as he shoots her, he respects her for that moment honesty. No one is honest in LA, not a single person except Keyes.
+
Walter Neff met Keyes when he was 24, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. He told Keyes he'd convince him every bachelor's life would be improved by some efficient, regular suction around the house if only he could come in and give a demonstration, and Keyes choked and Walter Neff asked him if he was alright.
Walter Neff stayed for two hours, chest puffed out beneath his sharp lapels, shiny new wingtips pacing the bare floor as he enlightened Keyes about the wonders of technology and suction and cleanliness. Keyes listened with what looked like rapt attention, and Walter Neff was sure he'd made a sale.
Eleven years is a long time.
+
When he fucks Lola, he feels like a spectator. She squeals and gasps, and he pushes and pets and acts repentant while she pretends to be shocked. When she cries, he acts like he doesn't know the tears are full of rage, and holds her until she can't take the stillness anymore. She never looks at him after she leaves the bed, never says a word -- just collects her clothes, cleans up, and closes the door behind her.
+
"I hope you know what you're doing, Walter."
"I love you, Keyes."
+
He slept with Keyes once. It was awkward and uncomfortable and almost too intimate for him to take, but afterward Keyes couldn't find any matches and Walter Neff lit his cigar for him and everything was familiar again.
+
Walter Neff gives the world surface. Surface and bluster and easy lines and rakish smiles that snap into place with practiced ease. He gives the world what it wants, gives people what they expect, and they respond with their own constructions, never bothering to linger, never thinking there might be something under the surface. Except for Keyes. Keyes is the only person who doesn't accept that the surface is reality.
+
It's a relief to feel Keyes in the room, to know he's there. It's a relief to hear his simple judgement, to nestle into the familiar rhythms of his voice, to lean against his refusal to be shocked. It's a relief to see that Keyes is capable of lighting a match on his own but, most of all, it's a relief to know he'll never have to live without him.
