Lunar Park Part 2

"So your refund for that s.h.i.t is unlikely?" he asked, opening the fresh packet. "Suck-ah!"

"That c.r.a.p's for wastoids who can't tell the difference-I just gave you the real stuff."

"You're so cheap," he muttered. He did two b.u.mps and flung his head back and then smiled slowly and said, "Now, that's much better."

"Anything for a bud."

"So, really, how is married life?" he asked, lighting a Marlboro and easing into c.o.ke chat. "The wife, the kids, the posh suburbs?"

"Yeah, the tragedy's complete, huh?" I laughed hollowly.

"No, really." Jay seemed mildly interested.

"Marriage is great," I said, opening my own packet again. "Unlimited s.e.x. Laughs. Oh yeah, and continuous companionship. I think I've got this down to a science."

"And the ubiquitous student in the bathroom?"

"Just part of the package here at Casa Ellis." I did another b.u.mp and then b.u.mmed a cigarette.

"No, seriously-who is she?" he asked, lighting it. "I hear today's college women are 'prodigious.' "

"Prodigious? Is that really what you heard?"

"Well, I read it in a magazine. It was something I wanted to believe."

"The Jayster. Always a dreamer."

"I am so relieved. I knew the whole suburban scene was a great idea for you. By the way," he said, gesturing at a plastic skeleton hanging from a rafter, "is this how the house normally looks?"

"Yeah, Jayne loves it."

He paused. "And you're still sleeping on the couch?"

"It's a guest bedroom and it's just a phase-but, wait, how did you know?"

He just inhaled on his cigarette, debating whether to tell me something.

"Jay?" I asked. "Why do you think I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom?"

"Helen told me that Jayne said something about you having bad dreams."

Relieved to have an out, I said, "I'm not having any dreams at all."

Jay's expression led me to believe that this was not all he'd been told.

"Look, we're in couples counseling," I admitted. "It helps."

Jay took this in. "You're in couples counseling." He considered this as I nodded. "After three months of marriage? That does not bode well, my friend."

"Hey, earth to Jayster! We've known each other for almost twelve years, man. It's not like we met last July and just decided to elope." I paused. "And how in the h.e.l.l did you know I'm sleeping in the guest room?"

"Um, Bretster, Jayne called up Helen." He stopped, did another b.u.mp. "Just thought I'd warn you."

"Oh, Jesus, why would Jayne call up your wife?" I tried to toss off this question casually but shuddered with c.o.ke-induced paranoia instead.

"She's worried that you're using again, and I guess"-Jay made a gesture-"she's wrong . . . right?"

"Haven't we outgrown all this tired irony? Weren't we supposed to give up acting twenty-two forever?"

"Well, you're wearing a marijuana T-shirt at your own Halloween party, where you just were making out with a coed in the bathroom, so the answer to that, my friend, is a definite nope."

Suddenly the dog had enough and started barking for us to vacate the garage.

"On that note," I said. "We're heading back to the party."

We reentered the labyrinth and weaving through the darkness I felt twitchy. The rooms seemed even more crowded than before, and outside people were swimming in the pool. Realizing that a lot of kids from the college had crashed I started worrying about what Jayne was making of all this. The hallways were so jammed that Jay and I had to walk through the kitchen to get to the living room for drinks and just then Joe Walsh's familiar opening riffs to "Life's Been Good" blasted me into a manic moment of air jamming. Jay looked suitably amused. The sweet aroma of pot began announcing itself in the living room. My heartbeat had doubled because of the cocaine, and I had acquired a new crystalline focus and wanted everyone to be friends. That's when I noticed Robby wandering around in a Kid Rock T-shirt and baggy jeans so I grabbed him roughly by the neck and pulled him toward us. "I bet it took a lot outta you, huh? Coming down all them stairs?" Robby shrugged, and I introduced him to Jay and then handed them both margaritas, which Robby took so reluctantly that I had to playfully smack him around, urging him to drink it. Robby and Jay started having the kind of inane conversations eleven-year-olds have with people approaching fifty. Robby had taken his usual stance when talking to an adult: You mean nothing to me. I noticed he was gripping a baseball designed to look like the moon.

And then more tugging on my guitar: Sarah again.

I rolled my eyes and muttered a curse under my breath. I looked down and sighed: she was wearing tiny white hot pants.

"These are the kids," I told Jay, gesturing at Robby and Sarah. "Her look is glam, and pink is very in on six-year-olds this season. Robby's wearing white hip-hop and is now officially a tween."

"A tween?" Jay asked, then leaned toward me and whispered, "Wait, that's not like a gay thing, is it?"

"No, it's a tween," I explained. "You know, someone who isn't a child or a teenager."

"Jesus," Jay muttered. "They've thought of everything, haven't they?"

Our conversation had not deterred Sarah.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, sweetie? Why aren't you up in bed? Where's Marta?"

"Terby's still mad."

"Well, who's Terby mad at?"

"Terby scratched me." She held out her arm, and I squinted in the purple darkness but couldn't see anything. This was exasperating.

"Robby-take your sister back upstairs. You know she needs her usual twelve hours and it's getting late. It is now officially bedtime."

"Then can I come back down?" he asked.

"No, you cannot," I said, noticing that half his margarita was gone. "Where's your friend?"

"Ashton took a Zyprexa and then fell asleep," Robby said blankly.

"Well, I suggest you take one too, buddy, because tomorrow's a school day."

"It's just Halloween. Nothing's going on."

"Hey, I said it's bedtime, buster. Jeez, kids demand so much attention."

"Daddy!" Sarah shouted again.

"Honey-you've got to get in bed."

"But Terby's flying. flying."

"Okay, well, you've got to put him to bed too."

Robby rolled his eyes anxiously and kept sipping from the margarita. Something got stuck in his teeth and he pulled a green spider out of his mouth and studied it as if it meant something.

"Terby's angry," Sarah whined, pulling on my guitar until I knelt down at her level.

"I know, honey," I said soothingly. "Terby sounds like he's a big mess."

"He's on the ceiling."

"Let's get Mommy. She'll get him down."

"But he's on the ceiling. ceiling."

"Then I'll get a broom and knock Terby off the ceiling. Jesus, where's Marta?"

"It tried to bite me."

"Maybe it wants you to brush your teeth and get into bed."

Suddenly Jayne was behind me and above me, talking to Jay, but I couldn't hear their conversation because of the music. They both looked down at me with accusatory expressions, and when I motioned to her she excused herself from Jay and, as I stood up, Sarah still clutching my hand, gave me a withering look. I suddenly realized I was waving a cigarette around and sweating profusely. The room was so packed with people that we were practically crushed together.

"Are you okay?" she said, but it was a statement, not a question.

"Sure, honey, why wouldn't I be okay?" I sniffed loudly. "This is one rockin' party. But your daughter-"

"You're very talkative and sniffly." She was glaring. "And you're sweating."

Sarah tugged on my arm again.

"That's because I'm having fun."

"And look, all around us, half the college showed up and is already inebriated to the point of unconsciousness."

"Honey, you've got to deal with your daughter-her doll's freaking out on her."

"People are complaining that the music's too loud," Jayne said.

"Only your friends, chica. chica." I paused. "Plus I can hear you perfectly fine."

"Chica? Did you just call me Did you just call me chica chica?"

"Look, if you don't want to be sociable and can't be tremendously cool about how to throw a party . . ." I found myself absently fondling a bowl of candy corn.

"There are students in our pool, Bret."

"I know," I said. "What? They're swimming."

"Jesus, Jay's wasted and so are you."

"Jay does calisthenics," I said indignantly. "He doesn't get wasted."

"What about you, Bret?" she asked. "Do you get wasted?"

"Look, being America's greatest writer under forty is a lot to live up to. It's so hard."

She gave me a scathing look. "I marvel at your courage."

"Will you deal with your daughter, please?"

"Why don't you deal with her?" she said. "She's holding your your hand." hand."

"But who's going to greet the mystery guests and-"

Jayne walked away midsentence and started talking to someone dressed as Zorro, who was in real life a runner-up on last season's Survivor. Survivor.

I dragged Sarah over to Jayne and said, "Listen-will you take Sarah back up to bed?" I asked, no joke.

"You do it," she said without looking at me.

A moment later, after noticing I was still there, she added, "Get lost."

But Sarah wouldn't go back to her room-she was too frightened, so Marta escorted her to ours. The cocaine was flowing through me as the Ramones were singing, "I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary/I don't wanna live my life again" and when I staggered through a mob of dancing students and saw the Patrick Bateman guy was still here, there was suddenly the sense that the party was verging out of control. Something in me dropped and exploded-a moment of pure, almost visceral despair-and I needed another line. I looked back into the crowd. Jay had drifted over to the celebrities-my wife and David Duchovny-and Robby had disappeared. So I walked up the curving staircase to the second floor to check out Sarah's room-using my investigation of the alleged Terby incident as an excuse to do more blow.

It was so quiet up there that you could barely hear the party downstairs; that's how large the house was. It was also freezing, and I shivered uncontrollably as I moved down the darkened hallway. I walked by Robby's room-his friend was zonked out in the huge king-sized bed, the Steven Spielberg movie 1941 1941 (which had been on a lot lately) glowing from the wide-screen TV, the only light in my son's room. I continued my walk down the hall and stopped at a huge expanse of window that looked out over the backyard: people were swimming in the heated pool and sprawled on chaise longues. A group of students had congregated in the mock graveyard, sharing a joint, and another group was crawling around each other through the headstones. And above the headstones I noticed the moon and a lunar light fanning over the field and there was actually a mist rolling in from the woods and drifting toward the house. I wanted suddenly to do another ma.s.sive line and join the students when something behind me flickered, then dimmed-it was a wall sconce, wrought-iron and gold-rimmed, one of many that lined the hallway walls about six feet up from the floor. Tonight, though, they'd all been switched off. (which had been on a lot lately) glowing from the wide-screen TV, the only light in my son's room. I continued my walk down the hall and stopped at a huge expanse of window that looked out over the backyard: people were swimming in the heated pool and sprawled on chaise longues. A group of students had congregated in the mock graveyard, sharing a joint, and another group was crawling around each other through the headstones. And above the headstones I noticed the moon and a lunar light fanning over the field and there was actually a mist rolling in from the woods and drifting toward the house. I wanted suddenly to do another ma.s.sive line and join the students when something behind me flickered, then dimmed-it was a wall sconce, wrought-iron and gold-rimmed, one of many that lined the hallway walls about six feet up from the floor. Tonight, though, they'd all been switched off.

But when I walked toward a sconce it lit up briefly and then dimmed as I pa.s.sed by. This happened at the second sconce I pa.s.sed, and then at the third. Each time I neared one it began glowing and then as I pa.s.sed the sconce it dimmed again, as if they were moving with me, lighting my way down the darkened hallway. I started giggling at what I thought was a brief hallucination, but since it kept happening with each sconce I approached my hope that this was a drug-induced vision no longer made any sense. So I concluded it had something to do with how complicated the electrical situation had become due to the party-all the purple lights and extension cables causing problems throughout the house. That was what I told myself as I made my way toward the darkness of Sarah's room.

The first thing I noticed was that her window was open, the curtains billowing in the hot night wind. I turned on the lights and moved through the faux French countrystyle room and looked out the window. The guitar was blocking me from getting a decent vantage point so I took it off and laid it gently on the cowhide carpeting that covered the floor. Below me, I could see the bouncers talking to two girls who were trying to crash the party, all four of them laughing and gesturing intimately at one another and I realized the girls had already been inside and were now just flirting with the guys guarding the door. I also noticed the number of cars crowding Elsinore Lane and then, moving among them, a tall figure dressed in a suit. I breathed in and stuck my head farther out the window to get a better look. The figure briefly turned as if he knew he was being watched, and I glimpsed the face of the guy who came to the party dressed as Patrick Bateman. I shuddered with relief that he was leaving-again, another reminder to boost myself up. (He was just a prank, I told myself; he was just the unexpected detail that materializes at every party, I told myself.) When I shut the window and turned around, whatever whimsy the room once held-cool, girly, Crayola-inspired-had inexplicably vanished.

The only real damage I initially noticed was that a small bookshelf had been overturned. I knelt down and pushed it back up against the wall and haphazardly piled books and toys into its shelves when I remembered something Sarah said and slowly looked up at the ceiling. There were marks directly above her bed. I couldn't be sure at first but as I neared them I noticed that these marks looked like scratches-as if something had been crawling along the length of the ceiling, hooking its claws into it. I began fumbling for the packet of c.o.ke in my jeans when I glanced at the bed. And that was the moment I saw the pillow. Something had torn the pillow open, clawing it in two (yes, that was the word that sprang to mind: clawing clawing) and scattering feathers all over the comforter. The pillow looked as if it had been, well, attacked, since the pillowcase was shredded, as if something had lunged at it continually, and when I touched the pillow, hesitantly, I recoiled, because the pillow was also wet. At that point-when my index finger came away slimed- slimed-I immediately wiped my hand on my jeans and decided to head downstairs and lock myself in the office for the duration of the night. I was going to let Jayne and Marta deal with this. My first thought was that Jayne's troubled daughter had caused this damage herself, and I would leave the pillow as evidence.

But as I turned to leave the room, there it was: the Terby. It was sitting innocently by the door. I had not remembered seeing it when I first entered the room and it just sat there, waiting, covered with its black and crimson feathers, its bulging yellow doll eyes and its sharp glistening beak. I realized, somewhat sickeningly, that I would have to pa.s.s the thing in order to get out of the room. Stepping forward, I neared it cautiously, as if it were alive, when suddenly it moved. It started wobbling on its claws toward me.

I gasped and backed away.

I was freaked out but only momentarily, since I realized someone had just left the thing on. So I composed myself and moved toward it again. Its movements were so clumsy and mechanical that I giggled at myself for having become so frightened. The gurgling noises it was now making sounded prerecorded and filled with static-nothing like the abnormal bird sounds I had expected.