The Rules of Attraction (28 page)

PAUL
At The Carousel I’ve started a conversation with a townie who, for a townie, is actually pretty good-looking. He works for Holmes Moving Storage in town and thinks that Fassbinder is a beer from France. In other words, he’s perfect. But Victor Johnson, who I’ve never much liked and who’s back in town for some reason, in the same condition—alcoholic—as he left, and he keeps pestering me about where everyone is, and I have to keep pushing him away. He eventually stands by the video machines in back with that obnoxious poet who used to be cute before he shaved his head, making faces at me. I ask the townie what he’s going to do after he quits Holmes (“labor problems,” he confides).

“Go to L.A.,” he says.

“Really?” I light his cigarette and order another Seabreeze. “Double,” I mouth to the bartender. I also buy the townie another shot of J.D. and a Rolling Rock. He actually calls me “Sir” as in “Thank you, sir.”

Lizzie, some awful girl from the Drama Division, comes over right when I’m telling the townie how great L.A. is (I’ve never been) and says, “Hi, Paul.”

“Hi, Elizabeth,” I say, noticing how the dumb townie looks Liz over; relieved when he turns back to his drink. Liz has been trying to get me into bed for a long time. If it happens it’s not going to be tonight. She directed the Shepard play this term and she’s not exactly ugly; in fact she’s fairly pretty for the fag-hag she is but still no thank you. Besides I’ve made it my prerogative to never sleep with Drama majors.

“You want to meet my friend Gerald?” she asks.

“What does that mean?” I say.

“We have some Ecstasy,” she says.

“Is that supposed to entice me?” I look back at the townie and then tell Liz, “Later.”

“Okay,” she squeals and skips off.

I look back at the townie, at his expression—there isn’t one—at the greasy T-shirt, and the ripped jeans, the long uncombed hair and the beautiful face, the strong tight body
and the roman nose, unsure. Then I turn away and put on my sunglasses, scope the room; it’s late and snowing out, and there’s no one else available. When I look back at the townie he gives me what I think is a shrug. But am I imagining something, did I make the shrug up? Was I taking each drunken gesture and molding it into what I wanted? Just because the guy is wearing an Ohio T-shirt doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s from Ohio State.

Yet, I make the decision to go home with the townie. I excuse myself and go to the restroom first. Someone’s written “Pink Floyd Rules” on the wall and I write underneath it. “Oh come on, grow up.” When I come out, waiting in line are Lizzie and Gerald, an actor who I’ve met a couple of times before. We were in a Strindberg play together two terms ago. Gerald: okay-looking, blond curly hair, a little too thin, nice suit.

“I see you’ve got a devastating townie over there,” Gerald says. “Wanna share him with us?”

“Gerald,” I say, looking him over; he waits expectantly. “No.”

“Do you know him?” he asks.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know,” I mumble, craning my neck to make sure the townie’s still where I left him. “Do you?”

“No,” Gerald says, “I know his girlfriend though,” and now he smiles.

There’s a long silence. Someone cuts in front of us and closes the door of the bathroom. New song on the jukebox. A toilet flushes. I stare at Gerald and then back at the townie. I lean up against the wall and mutter “Shit.” A girl townie has already taken my stool at the bar. So I join Gerald and the delightful Lizzie for drinks at their booth. Gerald winks at me when the townie leaves with the girl who sat next to him.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Gerald wants to go to the weight room,” Lizzie says. “But just to watch, of course.”

“Of course,” I say.

“What’s ‘racecar’ backward, Paul?” Gerald asks.

I stare at the floor as I try to figure it out. “Rakacar? Raka—I don’t know. I give up.”

“It’s ‘racecar,’” Lizzie squeals, excited.

“How clever,” I murmur.

Gerald winks at me again.

SEAN
After dinner at Jams, me and Robert go to Trader Vic’s. I’m wearing a paisley smoking jacket and a bowtie I found in my father’s closet at The Carlyle. Robert, who has just gotten back from Monte Carlo, is wearing a blue Fifties sports jacket and a green cummerbund given to him by his near-perfect girlfriend, Holly. He’s also wearing a bowtie he bought today when we went shopping but I don’t remember where it was he bought it. It could have been Paul Stewart or Brooks Brothers or Barney’s or Charivari or Armani—somewhere. Holly’s not back in town yet and we’re both horny and on the prowl. I fucked Holly once, while she was seeing Robert. I don’t think he knows. That, and both of us fucking Cornelia, are really the only things Robert and I have in common.

I went by the house in Larchmont late last night. It was for sale. Harold still lives in back. My MG was still mercifully kept in one of the garages, but my room upstairs was empty, and most of the furniture from the house had been
removed and taken someplace I forgot to ask about. The house itself was locked up and I had to break in through one of the French windows in back. The house still seems enormous, even larger to me now than when I was growing up in it. But there hadn’t been much time spent in the house. School was at Andover, holidays were usually spent elsewhere. The house brought back few, almost no memories to me, the ones I had weirdly enough included Patrick. Playing in the snow with him on the front lawn, which seemed to stretch out for miles. Getting high and playing Ping-Pong with him in the rec room. There was the pool no one was allowed to swim in, and the rules about no noise. That was all I could dredge up, since that place was a transient’s home for me. I found the keys to the MG in a panel in one of the garages, and I started the car hoping Harold wouldn’t hear me. But he was standing there at the end of the drive, in the middle of a cold, snowy November night, and he opened the gate for me, dutiful to the end. I put a finger to my lips—sshhh—as I drove past him.

Robert and I are sharing a scorpion bowl and smoking Camels. We’ve been staring at a table in back with four girls sitting at it—all very hot, all very blond.

“Riverdale,” I say.

“Nope. Dalton,” he says.

“Maybe Choate?” I suggest.

“Definitely Dalton,” Robert says.

“I bet you it’s Vassar,” I say, positive.

Robert’s working on Wall Street now and doesn’t seem to mind. Robert and I went to boarding school together. He went to Yale, and that’s where he met Holly. After I beat him at squash today at The Seaport, while we were drinking beers, he told me he’s dumping her, but I got the feeling that Holly dumped him in Monte Carlo and that’s why she’s not back.

We used to go to the Village, I vaguely remember now, sitting in Trader Vic’s, sniffing at the flower at the bottom of the barrel.

“Let’s do the coke,” Robert suggests.

“I’m okay,” I say, still on a rum high, trying to make eye contact with at least one of the girls.

“I’ll be in the bathroom,” he says, getting up. “Order me a St. Pauli Girl.”

He leaves. I smoke another cigarette. The four girls are now looking over at me. I order another one of these scorpion bowls. They suddenly all burst out laughing. The Polynesian bartender gives me a dirty look. I flash him a gold American Express card. He makes the drink.

I cross my legs and the girl I was making eye contact with doesn’t come over. But one of her friends does.

“Hi,” she says and giggles. “What’s your name?”

“Blaine,” I say. “Hi.”

“What’s going on, Blaine?” she asks.

“Not too much,” Blaine says.

“Great,” she says.

“Where have you been?” Blaine asks.

“Nowhere. Palladium,” she says. “How about you and your friend?”

“Just hanging,” I say. The bartender places the fresh new drink on the bar. I nod.

“This is going to sound really stupid,” she says.

“Go ahead.” I bet it is.

“But, is your friend Michael J. Fox?” she asks.

“Uh, no,” I say.

“Are you two gay or anything?” she asks, steadying herself.

“No,” I say. “Are you and your friends dykes?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Blaine thinks: forget this girl, even though he wouldn’t mind sleeping with her, but she smokes menthol cigarettes and looks a little overweight.

Michael J. Fox comes back and gives the girl a fuck-off look and he whispers something in my ear and hands me the vial. I tell him to deal with this girl and whisper back to him, “She thinks you’re Michael J. Fox.” I leave, head for the bathroom. “So, did you see
Back to the Future?
” he asks.

In the men’s room I sit in a stall and flush the toilet whenever I do a hit. I come out of the stall feeling better, actually feeling pretty good and I go over to the sink to wash my hands, make sure my nose is clean. I can hear someone throwing up in one of the other stalls as I stare at myself in the mirror carefully, wipe whatever residue there was under my nose off. I go back to the bar.

Michael J. Fox has talked the girls into coming out with us. So we take them to Palladium where we leave them on the dance floor and split for the Mike Todd Room where we hang out and get even more wasted. Somewhere along the line I lose my Concord quartz watch, make a rude comment about Bianca Jagger’s breasts to her face, and end up with some bimbo back at my father’s place at The Carlyle. Robert’s in the next room with some other bimbo, some Camden drop-out named Janey Fields, who I think he had an affair with. It always ends up this way. No Big Surprise.

LAUREN
End up with Noel tonight. Cute, long-haired post-punk, neo-hippie whose girlfriend Janet is in New York for the weekend and who’s really seeing Mary, this girl from Indiana. I had seen Janet’s old boyfriend Neal for a little while before Noel, who was Neal’s best friend, started seeing Janet. After driving to a Chinese restaurant in town in the snow in Noel’s dark blue Saab, and after
ordering food with all MSG removed and after checking out a bad party in Fels we go to Noel’s room, where he puts
2001
on the VCR that sits on a milk crate at the foot of his futon. Then we split a hit of Blue Dragon and watch the movie, waiting to trip. All I can think of is the night last term when Victor and I made out in Tishman while they were changing reels for the movie, and how it snowed so hard for April and we were drunk on sake and “The Unforgettable Fire” was playing and he smelled like Chap-stick…. But Noel gets excited and won’t stop leaving me alone, and I want to watch the movie which I can’t really concentrate on anyway—it’s too long and slow and scenes and shots go on forever. I need something clear and fast, and I’m not even sure if the acid is taking effect. Don’t understand what’s going on. Noel’s kissing my neck and rubbing the inside of my thigh and even though I have this urinary tract infection and have been taking horse pills to get rid of it, I let him do what he wants. When the movie snaps off, and he rolls over to put music on, I say, “But I hate the Beatles.”

He looks at me and he takes his Grateful Dead T-shirt off revealing a beautiful body I cannot resist, and pulling off his Reebok tennis shoes, says, “Hey, I hate the Beatles too.”

SEAN
I drive to New Hampshire and find myself back on campus, looking for Lauren, remember my mouth on her neck, her arms around me. I go to her room but she’s not there. Roxanne’s in the living room of Canfield and tells me that Rupert wants to talk to me, that he’s after my ass. I end up in The Pub but she’s not there either. Neither are too many other people, most of them probably at a party somewhere. I order a beer. There are around fifteen people in The Pub tonight, either sitting at tables or standing next to the video games, a couple of girls standing by the jukebox, two Freshmen sitting by themselves in the corner discussing movies. I pay for the beer and sit at an empty table near the video games. I realize with depressing crystal clarity that I have slept with three of the girls in The Pub tonight.

One of them is standing by the jukebox. Susan is standing at the bar. The other one is the girl Freshman sitting on the couch talking with her friend. And I tell myself that I’m going to avoid random one-night stands after Friday night parties, and drunken meaningless fucks on slow Saturday nights and I realize I don’t want anyone but Lauren. “Heaven,” sad Talking Heads plays from the jukebox. I get depressed. Susan walks over.

“Hi, Sean,” she says.

“Hi, Susan,” I say, hoping she won’t sit down.

“Going to the party?” she asks, smiling, not sitting.

“Yeah. Maybe,” I shrug. “After I finish this beer.”

She looks around the room. “Yeah. I hear it’s pretty good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Where’s Lauren?” she asks.

“Probably there. I guess.”

“Oh,” Susan says. “I heard you two were having some trouble.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Not at all. Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, around.”

“Well no,” I say. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

“Great.” I take a sip of beer and wonder how many people know about this; how many care?

“Well, I’ll see you at the party maybe later, okay?” she asks, standing there, dying to sit down, with me.

“Okay, sure,” I nod, can’t remember how it was with us, smile.

She stands there a while longer.

I look up and smile once more.

She finally walks back to her friend.

I hope Lauren and I never have a conversation like that: slight, depressing, hopeless. And I miss her so badly and want her back that the urge to hold and feel her stabs at me, blinding me momentarily and I finish the beer quickly, feeling better, since I’m sure she feels the same way. One of the guys playing Crystal Castles kicks the machine and growls, “Fuck you, bitch.” The song “Heaven” keeps playing.

There are things that I will never do: I will never buy cheese popcorn in The Pub. I will never tell a video game to fuck off. I will never erase graffiti about myself that I happen to catch in bathrooms on campus. I will never sleep with anyone but Lauren. I will never throw a pumpkin at her door. I will never play “Burning Down the House” on the jukebox.