The Rules Of Attraction Part 18

'At Windham. Halloween party. Your roommate went as a Quaalude.' Norris picks up a copy of The Face that for some reason is on my side of the room. He flips through it thoroughly bored. 'Either that or a pastry. I can't tell.'

Tm taking a shower,' I tell him. I grab my robe.

Norris picks up the Peanut b.u.t.ter Cups. 'Can I have one?'

'No, don't open them.' I come out of my stupor.

'They're for Lauren.'

'Calm down, Bateman.'

'They're for Lauren.' I stumble toward the door.

'Relax!' he screams.

I head for the bathroom, dizzy, steadying myself as I 253.

make ray way down the hallway, and into the bathroom. Enter the cubicle, take off the robe, step into shower, lean against the wall before turning the shower on, think about pa.s.sing out. I shake my head: the feeling subsides, I turn the water on. It hits me weakly and I try to get the pressure up but the water, barely warm, keeps dribbling out of the rusty showerhead.

Sitting down on the floor of the shower I notice Ber-trand's Gillette razor lying in the corner next to a tube of Clinique shaving cream. I pick up the razor by its silver handle and stare at it for a long time. I move it down my wrist. I turn my hand over, palm up, and slowly move it up my arm, the blade catching some of the hair that covers the skin. I pull the blade away and wash the hair off it. Then move it back to my arm, this time bringing the handle up to the wrist, pressing it hard, trying to break the skin. But it doesn't. I apply more pressure, but it only leaves red marks. I try the other wrist, pus.h.i.+ng with all my strength, almost groaning with exertion, lukewarm water splas.h.i.+ng in my eyes. The blade is too dull. I press it down against the wrist, feebly, once more.

Through the sound of the falling water I can hear Morris calling out, 'Sean, how long are you gonna be?'

I stand up clumsily, leaning against the wall. 'In a couple of minutes.' The razor drops to the floor, clattering loudly.

'Listen, I'll be at the party, okay?'

Yeah. Okay.'

'Drop by.'

I wonder if Lauren will be there. I imagine walking into the living room at Windham, our eyes meeting, her face 254.

filled with regret and longing, coming towards me. The two of us embracing in the middle of the crowded room while everyone cheers and resumes dancing. The two of us just standing there, holding each other.

"Yeah. Okay, I will.' There's steam in the bathroom now, not because of the heat of the water but because of how cold it is in the dorm.

'See you there.' Norris leaves.

I stare at my wrists, then finger the disappearing hickey I on my neck.

I wash my hair twice, dry off and go back to my room where I throw the ripped tie away, along with the Actifed scattered all over the floor. I get dressed fast, excited, and . pick up the Peanut b.u.t.ter Cups, and, as I'm about to leave, Bertrand's pumpkin that's sitting on the windowsill, lit. I look into the lighted face of the jack-o'-lantern and since I just know that Lauren will get a kick out of it I have to swipe it. I'm so excited at the prospect of reconciling with her that I don't care if the Frog gets p.i.s.sed.

I leave the room without locking the door and move quickly across campus to her room, carefully walking across the wetness of Commons lawn so the candle in the pumpkin won't go out. Two guys dressed as girls and two girls dressed as guys pa.s.s by drunk, yelling 'Happy Halloween' and throw small pieces of hard candy at me. I open the back door of Canfield, bound up the darkened stairs to her room. I knock. There's no answer. I wait and knock louder, i stand there, cursing myself, someone brushes past me dressed as a joint and walks into the bathroom. My excitement at seeing her slowly starts to dissipate. She must be at the party, so I walk with the pumpkin, still lit, and the 255.

Peanut b.u.t.ter Cups, squished and melting in my back pocket, across Commons toward Windham.

The living room of Windham is bathed in this eerie dim orange light. An old Stevie Wonder song 'Superst.i.tion,' plays loudly. I walk up to the windows in front of the house. The living room is crowded with people in costume dancing. All the lightbulbs in the lamps and walls have been replaced by orange ones. Bertrand is there, as a Quaalude but he really looks like a circle. Getch as a pregnant nun. Tony as a hamburger. A couple of Madonna look-alikes. Rupert as Leatherface from The Texas Chain-saw Ma.s.sacre. A couple of Freshmen dorks as Rambo. I spot Lauren almost immediately, dancing in the middle of the floor with Justin Simmons, a tall pale blackhaired Lit major wearing black sungla.s.ses, black jeans, black T-s.h.i.+rt with a skull on the back of it. Her head is thrown back and she's laughing and Justin has both of his hands on her shoulders.

I moan softly, stepping away from the window.

I run back to Canfield and hurl Bertrand's pumpkin at the wall beside her door, and smear the Peanut b.u.t.ter Cups all over the door. Rip the pen that's hanging off her door from the string it's connected to and also a piece of paper and write 'f.u.c.k Off and Die' in big black letters. I place it next to the cracked pumpkin and the smashed, melted candy. I stalk away, down the stairs, out into the night.

Halfway across Commons lawn, glaring at Windham House, the party now louder than before, seeming to mock me, I stop and decide to take the note off the pumpkin. I walk back to Canfield, up the stairs to her door and lift the 256.

note off the jack-o'-lantem and carry it back with me. I reach the front door of Canfield and then redecide to leave the note where it was. I walk back up the stairs and stick the note back on the pumpkin. I stare at it. f.u.c.k off and die. I leave Canfield and walk back to my room.

I lie on my bed in the dark for close to an hour, drinking the last of Bertrand's six-pack of Grolsch and listening to 'Funeral for a Friend' and trying to play along with it on my guitar, thinking about Lauren. Something hits F me. I walk over to my desk in the dark and pick up the tube of Fun Blood I bought in town earlier. I sit in [' the chair, drunk, turn the Tensor lamp on and read the instructions. Since I don't have any scissors to cut the cap off with I bite it off instead, tasting a couple drops of the plastic-tasting liquid. I spit it out, wash the taste away with the warm Grolsch. Then I squeeze the tube, some of it onto my fingers. It looks very real and I hold my wrist out and squeeze a thick red line across it, the cool liquid slowly dripping off my wrist, onto the desk. I squeeze another line I across the other wrist. 'Funeral for a Friend' turns into 'Love Lies Bleeding.' I lift my arms up, both dripping Fun Blood, Fun Blood running down to my armpits. I sit back in the chair and squeeze more Fun Blood across my arms. I get up, go to the closet, and look at myself in the mirror. I bend my head back and squeeze a thick line across my neck. I feel relieved. Fun Blood runs down my chest, staining my s.h.i.+rt. I draw a thick line across my forehead. I move away from the mirror and sit on the floor, next to one - of the speakers, Fun Blood dripping from my forehead, past my nose down to my lips. I turn the volume up.

The door opens slowly and I can hear over the music, 257.

through the parachute, Lauren calling. 'I knocked, Sean. h.e.l.lo?' A hand parts the slit in the parachute.

'Sean?' she calls out. 'I got your . . . message. You're right. We have to talk.'

She steps through the parachute and looks over at my bed and then at me. I don't move. She gasps. But I can't help it and I start to crack up. I look over at her, slick with Fun Blood, drunk and smiling.

'You are so f.u.c.king sick,' she screams. 'You're so sick! I can't deal with you.'

But then she turns around before she slips through the parachute, and comes back into my room. She's changed her mind. She kneels in front of me. The music swelling to a crescendo as she wipes my face off delicately. She kisses me.

LAUREN Walk into The Pub. Stand near the cigarette machine. Out of order. Talking Heads are blasting out from the jukebox. Sean is standing near the bar wearing a police jacket and black T-s.h.i.+rt. Visiting punks are talking to him.

Walk over and ask him, 'Are you okay?' End up sitting with him, staring at the pinball machine, Royal Flush, while he sulks.

'I feel my life is going nowhere. 1 feel incredibly lonely,' he says.

'Do you want a Beck's?' I ask him. 'Yeah. Dark,' he says.

I cannot deal with this person one more minute. Brush past Franklin, who's leaning against the out-of-order cigarette machine. Smiles wanly. Push my way to the front of the bar and order two beers. Talk to that nice girl from Rockaway and her awful roommate. That weird group of Cla.s.sics majors stand by, looking like undertakers. Typical night at The Pub. People dressed in underwear, Drama majors still with make-up on. Brazilian guy who can't drink because he lost his I.D. Someone pinches my a.s.s but don't turn around to look.

Bring the beers back to the table. Sean has faint red stains on his face and I'm about to wet a napkin with Beck's to rub them off. But he starts complaining and he looks at me hard when he asks, 'Why don't you like me?'

I get up, walk to the bathroom, wait in line, and when I come back he asks me again. 'I don't know,' I sigh. 'I mean, what's going on?' he asks. Shrug and look around the room. He gets up to play pinball. 'This wouldn't happen in Europe,' someone in a surfer outfit - actually the boy from L.A. - says and of course Victor comes into mind and then oh s.h.i.+t, someone's kneeling next to my chair telling me about the first times they tripped on MDA, showing me the bottle of Cuervos 258.

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they smuggled into The Pub, and to my disappointment I'm interested. Sean sits back down and I just know we're going to fight.

I sigh and tell him, 'I like someone else.'

He plays pinball again. I go to the bathroom again hoping someone will take our table. I'm in line with the same people that I was in line with last time. When I come back to the table he's there. 'What's going on?'

'I like someone else,' I tell him.

Cute Joseph who Alex-nice-girl-from-Rockaway is sleeping with - walks in and hands the Brazilian boy something. Then I notice Paul. He's looking at Joseph, then the Brazilian. Paul has a new flattop which looks okay, s.e.xy in a goofy way and he looks over at me and I raise my eyebrows up and smile. He looks at Sean and then at me and waves tiredly. Then he looks back at Sean.

'I want to know you,' Sean whines.

'What?'

'Know you. I want to know you.' Pleading.

'What does that mean? Know me?' I ask him. 'Know me? No one ever knows anyone. Ever. You will never know me.

'Listen,' he says, touching my hands.

'Will you calm down,' I tell him. 'Do you want some Motrin?'

A fight starts over near the jukebox. Seniors want to put tapes on and unplug the jukebox. Freshmen don't want to and I try to concentrate on that. The Freshmen end up winning just because they're bigger than the Seniors. Physically bigger. How did that happen? 'Boys of Summer' comes on. Think of Victor. Sean gets up to play more pinball with an unhappy Franklin. Royal Flush is the name of the game. There's a King and a Queen and a Jack lit up, all looking straight at the person playing pinball and the I crowns on their respective heads blink off and on whenever I the player scores. It's amusing for a while.

I look back over at Paul across the crowded Pub. He looks miserable. He's looking at Sean. He's staring at Sean. Sean keeps looking over at me, like he knows Paul is looking at him, and then I'm looking over at Paul and Paul I is still staring at Sean. Sean catches this and, blus.h.i.+ng, rolls I his eyes up and turns back to the pinball machine. I look back at Paul. He crumples his plastic beer cup and looks away, agonized. And I'm starting to catch on to something and then I'm thinking no way, oh no way. Not that. I look back at Sean, semi-realization hitting me but then it leaves because he's not staring back at Paul. And then I get angry, start remembering how awful it was with Paul and Mitch.e.l.l. Paul denying everything, how pathetic I seemed, wondering how I was supposed to act when there was no real compet.i.tion. If it had been another girl with Paul that weekend on Cape Cod instead of Mitch.e.l.l, or another girl here in The Pub right now, mooning over Sean, that would have been fine, great, easy to 'deal with.' But it was Paul and it was Mitch.e.l.l and there was nothing I could do. Lower my voice? Casually mention I need to shave, Judy and I suggested, hysterical, one night last term, but in the end it wasn't really funny and we stopped laughing. Now the possibility hits that perhaps Mr. Denton is staring at me and not at Sean. 'Boys of Summer' ends, starts again.

Rupert sits down next to me wearing a David Bowie T-s.h.i.+rt and a fedora, still hasn't taken off the horrible mask 260.

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he's wearing, and offers me some of his c.o.ke. I ask him where Roxanne is. He tells me that she went home with Justin. Just smile.

VICTOR New York was a real ha.s.sle. I ended up staying with some girl who thought her mail was coming from Jupiter. She had no hips and was a Gitano jeans model from Akron, but still it was a drag. She caught me going out with Philip Gla.s.s's daughter anyway, and kicked me out. I stayed at Morgan's for a couple of nights and split without paying the bill. Then I stayed at some Camden grad's place on Park and unplugged all the phones since I didn't want the 'rents to know I was back in town. Tried to get a job at Palladium but some other Camden grad got the only job left: coat check. Got into a rock band, dealt acid, went to a couple of okay parties, went out with a girl who worked at Interview and who tried to enroll me into Hunter, went out with another model, one of Malcolm McLaren's a.s.sistants, tried to get back to Europe, but decided on a cold partyless night in November to head 262.

back to New Hamps.h.i.+re and Camden. Got a ride with Roxanne Forest, who was in town for some movie premiere or the opening of another Cajun restaurant and I stayed with her and Rupert Guest Drug Dealer at their place in North Camden, which was cool since he had unlimited supplies of great Indica pot and Christmas Tree bud. Besides that I also wanted to get in touch with Jaime. When I called Canfield, a girl with an unfamiliar voice answered the phone.

'h.e.l.lo? Canfield House.'

'h.e.l.lo?' I said.

There was this pause and then the girl recognized my voice and said my name, Victor?'

'Yeah? Who is this?' I asked, wondering if it was Jaime, p.i.s.sed off that she hadn't been in Manhattan when I got back.

'Victor,' the girl laughed. 'It's me.'

'Oh yeah,' I said. 'You.'

Rupert was on the floor trying to glue a beer bong he'd made back together, but he was wasted and kept cracking up instead. I started cracking up too, watching him and said to the voice on the phone, 'Well, how are you?'

'Victor, why haven't you called me? Where are you?' she asked. Either that or I was seriously tripping.

'I'm in New York City where the girls are pretty and life is kinda s.h.i.+tty and the birds are itty bitty -' I laughed, then noticed movement on Rupert's part. He jumped up and put Run D.M.C. on the stereo and started rapping along with them, singing into the Kirin bong.

'Give it to me,' I said, reaching for the bong. 'I've been . ..' the voice stalled.

263.

You've been what, honey?' I asked.

'I've missed you badly,' she said.

'Hey honey. Well, I've missed you too.' This girl was looney-tunes and I started cracking up again, trying to light the bong, but the pot kept felling out 'It doesn't sound like you're in New York,' the voice said.

'Well maybe I'm not,' I said.

The voice stopped talking after that and just breathed heavily into the phone. I waited a minute and then handed the phone over to Rupert, who made pig noises into it, then turned on the VCR all the while rapping to 'You Talk Too Much." He bent down and said, You never shut up,' into the receiver, then 'Sit on my face if you please.' 1 had to put my hand over the receiver to keep this girl from hearing me laugh. I pushed Rupert away.

He mouthed, 'Who is it?'

1 mouthed back. 'I don't know,'

1 get a hold on myself and then finally asked this girl what I called for in the first place, 'Listen, is Jaime Fields in? Room 19, I think,' The bong dropped against the table. I picked it up before it rolled off the table and shattered.

'You s.h.i.+thead! Be careful,' Rupert screamed., laughing.

The girl on the phone wasn't saying anything.

'h.e.l.lo? Anyone there?' I tapped the phone against the floor. Td like to buy a vowel, please,'

The girl finally said my name, really whispered it, and then hung the phone up, disconnecting me.

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LAUREN Drunk. Blur. His room. I wake up. Music blasting from upstairs. Stumble into hallway. Susie tried to kill herself earlier. Slit her wrist. Blood all over the door across the hall. Guy she likes. Use the bathroom, wearing his s.h.i.+rt, black s.p.a.ce, can't find a light, it's, freezing. My face so puffed from sobbing that I can barely open my eyes. Wash face. Try to throw up. Walk back to his room. Crying sound coming from phone booth. Probably Susie back from hospital. Walk by phone. Not Susie, but Sean. Kneeling, crying into the phone 'f.u.c.k you f.u.c.k you f.u.c.k you,' Go back to his room. Fall back on bed. Later he comes in, wiping his face sniffing loudly. Pretend to sleep while he packs, shoves some s.h.i.+rts into an old leather satchel and grabs his police jacket and leaves the door open. Expect him to come back. He doesn't. French guy who told me he loved me comes into the room drunk. Looks down at me lying on his roommate's bed. He laughs and falls on the bed next to me. 'je savais toujours que tu viendrais,' he says and pa.s.ses out.

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SEAN The last time I saw my father had been in March when I met him in New York for a long weekend to celebrate my twenty-first birthday. I remember the entire trip quite clearly which surprises me considering how drunk I was most of the time. I remember the look of the morning at an airport in New Hamps.h.i.+re, playing gin with some guy from Dartmouth., a rude stewardess. There was a meal at The Four Seasons, there was the afternoon we lost the limousine, the hours spent shopping at Barney's, then Gucci. There was my father, already noticeably dying: his face yellowish, his fingers as thin as cigarettes, eyes that were wide and always staring at me, almost in disbelief. I would stare back, finding it impossible to imagine someone that thin. But he acted as if this wasn't happening to him. He still held a certain degree of normalcy about him. He didn't appear scared, and for someone apparently quite ill had enormous amounts of stamina. We still saw a couple of lame musicals on Broadway, and we still had drinks in the bar at The Carlyle, and we still would go to PJ. Clarke's, where I played songs on the jukebox I knew he'd like though I don't remember why exactly this rush of generosity occurred, what brought it on.

It was also a weekend when two women in their mid-twenties tried unsuccessfully to pick up on my father and I. They were both drunk and due to the cold weather I had sobered up from whatever drinking binge I had been on, and my father had stopped drinking completely, and we lied to them. We told them we were oil barons from Texas and that I attended Harvard and came to Manhattan on weekends. They left whatever bar we had been at with us and we piled into the limousine which took us to a party 266.

someone my father knew at Trump Tower was having where we lost them. What was strange about that situation was not the pick-up itself, for my father had always been quite adept at casually picking up women. It was that my father, who would normally have flirted with these two, didn't this last March. Not in the bar, not in the limousine, not at the party on Fifth Avenue we lost them at.

My father also couldn't eat. So there were meals left wasted at Le Cirque, and Elaine's and The Russian Tea Room; drinks ordered and left untouched at 21 and the Oak Room Bar; neither of us talking, mutually relieved if the bar or restaurant we were at was particularly noisy. There was a dour lunch at Mortimer's with friends of his from Was.h.i.+ngton. A somber birthday dinner at Lutece with a girl I'd met at The Blue and Gold, Patrick and his girlfriend, Evelyn, who was a junior executive at American Express, and my father. This was two months after he had mother committed to Sandstone and the thing I most remember about that birthday was the fact that no one mentioned it. No one ever mentioned it except for Patrick, who, in confidence to rne, whispered, 'It was about time.' Patrick gave me a tie that night.

We went back to my father's place at The Carlyle after the gloomy birthday dinner. He went to sleep, giving me a disapproving look as I sat with the girl on the couch in the living room, watching videos. The girl and I had s.e.x later that night on the floor of the living room. I woke up sometime early that morning hearing moans coming from the bedroom. A light was on, there were voices. It started snowing that night, just before dawn. I left the next day. On the plane heading for New York and later in my 267.

father's place at The Carlyle, unpacking, pacing, drinking from a bottle of J.D., the stereo on, I think of the reasons why I came to New York and can only come up with one. I didn't come to see my fathei die. And I didn't come 1 argue with my brother. And 1 didn't come because I wante to skip cla.s.ses at school. And I didn't come to visit my mother. I came to New York because I owe Rupert Guest six hundred dollars and I don't want to deal with it.

PAUL Have you been in a worse mood lately?

The Freshman you have a crush on pa.s.ses by you down the stairs out of the dining halls and when you ask him where he's going he says, 'Hibachi.' You've forgotten your I.D. so they bother you about that but they let you in anyway. You get some coffee and for some perverse reason a bowl of Jell-O and walk to your table. It seems that Donald and Harry went to Montreal last night to visit the natives and got back this morning. '1 haven't m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed in eleven days,' Donald whispers as you sit down. 'I envy you,' you whisper back.

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And then there's Raymond who has brought Steve, nicknamed The Handsome Dunce in some circles, to the table. Steve is an economics major who 'dabbles in video.' Steve has a BMW. He is from Long Island. Now. Raymond has not slept with this guy (gay Freshmen - it's dawning on you - are an anomaly now) even though he did leave the party with him last night. But Raymond is eager still to let everyone think so. He laughs at every lame conversation attempt made by this idiot Steve and asks him constantly if he wants anything and brings him things (cookies, a disgusting funny salad, garnishes stolen from the salad bar) even if he has said no. It's so nauseating that you are about to get up and leave, sit somewhere else. What's even more nauseating is that you don't. You stay because Steve is hot. And this depresses you, makes you think, will you always be the quintessential f.a.ggot? Will you only pant after the blond-tan-good-body-stupid-goons? And will you always ignore the smart, caring, sensitive type, who might be four-foot-three and have acne on his back but who is still, essentially, bright? Will you always pant after the blue-eyed palooka who's majoring in Trombone Theory and ignore the loving Drama queer who's doing his thesis on Joe Orton? You want it to stop, but. . .

. . . then the tall blue-eyed Freshman, who doesn't even have a hint of interest in you, will ask for a cigarette and you'll be blown away. But the Freshmen, represented here by Steve, look so stupid, so desperate to please, trying so hard, nothing on their minds but partying, dressed like ads for Esprit sportswear. Fact remains however: they are better-looking than the Seniors.

'How was the party?' Harry asks.