Lunar Park Part 33

As I moved the pages around, I saw the Terby replicated a hundred times throughout a book I had written thirty years ago.

The Terby emerging from a coffin.

The Terby taking a bath.

The Terby nibbling the white petal of a bougainvillea flower.

The Terby drinking a gla.s.s of milk.

The Terby attacking a dog.

The Terby entering the dog and making it fly.

It was at this moment in L.A. on that Sat.u.r.day night in November-when I saw the children's book about the Terby and knew that a person named Donald Kimball did not exist-that I made a decision.

If I had created Patrick Bateman I would now write a story in which he was uncreated and his world was erased.

I would write a story in which he was killed.

I left the house on Valley Vista.

Driving back to Bel Air, I began formulating a story.

I began making notes.

I needed to write the story hurriedly.

It would be short and Patrick Bateman would be killed.

The point of the story: Patrick Bateman was now dead.

I would never find explanations.

(That's because explanations are boring, the writer whispered as I drove through a canyon.) the writer whispered as I drove through a canyon.) Everything would remain disguised and remote.

I would struggle to piece things together, and the writer would ultimately deride me for attempting this task.

There were too many questions.

This would always happen. The further you go, the more there are.

And every answer is a threat, a new abyss that only sleep can close.

No one would ever say, I will show you what happened and I will make everything perfect by taking you to the vacant places where you won't need to think of this anymore. I will show you what happened and I will make everything perfect by taking you to the vacant places where you won't need to think of this anymore.

Back at the hotel in Bel Air I slipped Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round into the DVD player, simply because it was the first credit on Harrison Ford's resume and I wanted background noise. It would wash out the distracting silence. into the DVD player, simply because it was the first credit on Harrison Ford's resume and I wanted background noise. It would wash out the distracting silence.

I sat down at the desk and opened my laptop and began writing as the movie played.

Formlessness quickly led to shape.

"Patrick Bateman stands on a burning pier . . ."

I sat motionless during the half hour it took to write the story.

The story was static and artificial and precise.

It wasn't a dream-which is what a novel should be.

But that was not the purpose of this story.

The purpose of the story was to let myself be carried into the past, advancing backwards and rearranging something.

The story was a denial.

Soon Patrick Bateman's voice was resonating faintly, whispering and scattered, until he flickered away and was void.

(But he was curious, and he l.u.s.ted, the writer argued. the writer argued. Was it his fault that he had abandoned his soul? Was it his fault that he had abandoned his soul?) Even as he is consumed by flames he says, "I am everywhere."

At the exact moment I was completing that last sentence, voices from the TV forced me to acknowledge them.

I turned in my chair to face the screen, because coming from the TV, thirty-three minutes into the movie, were the words "Paging Mr. Ellis. Paging Mr. Ellis. Paging Mr. Ellis."

An impossibly young Harrison Ford in a bellboy's outfit wanders through the bar of a hotel. He is looking for a guest. He has a message.

James Coburn is sitting at a table in the bar checking out waitresses when he glances over and says, "Boy?"

Harrison Ford walks over to James Coburn's table.

"Bob Ellis?" James Coburn asks. "Robert Ellis? Room 72?"

I spun around to the computer and clicked Save.

"No sir," Harrison Ford replies. "Charles Ellis. Room 607."

"Are you sure?" Coburn asks.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh."

And then Harrison Ford wanders deeper into the bar, calling out, "Paging Mr. Ellis. Mr. Ellis. Paging Mr. Ellis. Mr. Ellis?" until his voice disappears from the soundtrack.

When I looked at the clock above the TV, it was 2:40 a.m.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9.

29. the attack

Robert Miller had begun the cleansing on Thursday, November sixth, starting with the exterminator he always used in such cases, tenting the house at six o'clock that evening. On the following night of November seventh Miller's team set up their equipment in 307 Elsinore Lane and left, returning on Sat.u.r.day night-exactly twenty-four hours later-and once it was understood that the s.p.a.ce had been cleaned removed their equipment from the house. This was all relayed to me by Robert Miller in a phone call after my plane landed at the Midland Airport at 2:15 on Sunday afternoon as I was driving the Range Rover back into town. Miller felt confident that the house was "safe." He mentioned "specific changes" that had occurred after his team returned on Sat.u.r.day. He a.s.sured me that I would be pleased with these transformations. The damage that had occurred during the ISR was not "corrected" (the door that flew from its hinges; the hole punctured in the wall) but he insisted I would be gratified by the "physical differences" in the rest of the house. After this conversation, my need to see the house was overpowering. Instead of heading to the Four Seasons I drove to 307 Elsinore Lane.

The first thing I noticed-and I gasped at this as I pulled up to the house-was that the lily white paint had returned, replacing the pink stucco that had infected its exterior. I remember parking the Range Rover in the driveway and walking toward the house in awe, my hand clutching the keys, and the sheer relief washing through me caused my body to feel feel different. The regret that had been defining me lifted off, and I became someone else. I walked to the side of the house-now the same blank white that had been there in July-and I touched the wall and felt nothing except a sense of peace that, for once, I hadn't imposed upon myself. It was genuine. different. The regret that had been defining me lifted off, and I became someone else. I walked to the side of the house-now the same blank white that had been there in July-and I touched the wall and felt nothing except a sense of peace that, for once, I hadn't imposed upon myself. It was genuine.

Inside the house, I felt no fear; there was no trepidation anymore. I could sense the change; something had been freed. There was a new scent, a lack of pressure, a difference that was intangible but still able somehow to announce itself forcefully. I was surprised when Victor came loping out of the kitchen to greet me in the foyer. No longer in the bas.e.m.e.nt kennel at the hotel, he was wagging his tail and seemed genuinely excited by my presence. There was none of the usual glowering reluctance emanating from him whenever I entered his line of vision. But I couldn't concentrate on the dog for long, since the living room had changed miraculously. The green s.h.a.g had returned to a flat beige sheet, and the curtains from 1976 that were hanging from a window (only days ago) had disappeared, and the furniture was arranged as it had been when I moved in. I closed my eyes and thought: thank you. There was a future (though not in this particular home-I was already planning on moving elsewhere) and I could think about the future because after becoming so used to things not working out I now, for one moment, believed things could change. And the transformation of the house validated this.

Victor's licking of my hand caused me to reach for the cell phone in my pocket.

I dialed Marta.

(The following exchange was pieced together following a conversation I had with Marta Kauffman on Tuesday, November eighteenth.) "Marta?"

"Hey-what's up?" she said. "Are you back?"

"Yeah, I'm actually here at the house. I drove in from the airport to check it out." I paused as I moved into the kitchen.

"Well, everything's been pretty good-"

"What's Victor doing here? I thought I told you not to-"

"Oh yeah," Marta said. "We just brought him back this morning."

"Why did you bring him back?"

"He was freaking out in the kennels, and the hotel told me we had to get him out of there. And since you told me the house would be finished by Sunday, we dropped him off a couple hours ago. Is he okay?"

"Yeah . . . he's okay . . ."

At this point I had moved out of the kitchen and into the foyer.

I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and then, with no hesitation, I started climbing them.

"Well, he was completely unhinged over here," Marta said. "The cages were small, and he just wasn't happy and of course Robby and Sarah started getting upset. But once we dropped him off at the house he seemed fine. He totally relaxed and-"

"How are the kids?" I asked, cutting her off, realizing how unimportant Victor seemed to me.

"Well, Sarah's right here with me-"

"What about Robby?"

(Marta Kauffman later testified that I asked this with an "unnatural urgency.") "Robby went to the mall with some friends to see a movie."

("Who came back to the house when you dropped Victor off?" I do not recall asking this but according to Marta Kauffman's deposition on November eighteenth, I had.) "We all did." Marta paused. "Robby needed to pick up some stuff."

I do remember, however, that at this point I was heading toward Robby's door.

"Pick up some stuff for what?" I asked.

"He said he was going to spend the night at a friend's."

"What friend?"

"Ashton, I think." She paused. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he said Ashton."

(Before walking into the room I murmured something that neither I nor Marta Kauffman could recall on November eighteenth but was, according to the writer: "Why would Robby have to pick up stuff if Ashton lives next door?") "Bret, it's no big deal. It was just some clothes. He was in his room for ten minutes. Nadine Allen's picking them up from the mall, and he should be back at their place by four-"

"Can you give me his cell number?"

Marta sighed-which p.i.s.sed me off, I recall that flicker of rage-and gave it to me.

"I'm coming right back to the hotel," I said. "I'll see you guys in about twenty minutes."

"Do you want to talk to Sarah-"

After hanging up on Marta, I dialed Robby's number.

I waited by his door. There was no answer.

But I wasn't worried and I didn't leave a message.

Why would I?

He was at the Fortinbras Mall with friends and they were watching a movie and he had diligently turned off the phone once it began (a scenario impossibly distant from what actually happened that day) and then I would see him back at the hotel, and even though we were not checking out of the Four Seasons and returning to the house (that was never going to be an option), Robby could still spend the night at the Allens' (even though at that moment I had a shivery premonition about this being a school night) and Jayne would come back on Wednesday and our lives would move on as they were supposed to ever since I had accepted Jayne's offer and moved to Midland County in July. I thought expectantly about the upcoming holidays even while I stared at the gnawed, cracked door in front of me.

(I don't remember actually opening the door to Robby's room but-for some reason-I do remember the first thing that came to my mind when I walked in. It was something Robby had told me when he was pointing out things in the night sky at that picnic in Horatio Park over the summer: the stars you see in the night sky actually do not exist. the stars you see in the night sky actually do not exist.) The room was still in the same state it was left in on Wednesday night when we fled the house. An unmade bed, the dead computer, an opened closet.

I moved slowly to the window and looked out onto Elsinore Lane.

Another quiet Sunday, and everything felt okay with the world.

(Is that a sentence you ever thought you would actually write?) I stood in the room for a long time, taking inventory.

What I had not done: I had not turned around.

I had walked straight into the room. I had stood there. I had contemplated my son and his motives. I did not see what was behind me.

At first I didn't understand. It took a moment to grasp.

When I turned around I saw scrawled across the giant photomural of the deserted skate park, in ma.s.sive red lettering: D I ss a pE AR HE r e I breathed in but did not start panicking immediately.

I wasn't panicking because something on the floor caught my eye and momentarily replaced the panic with curiosity.

It was sitting next to the open door, off to the side.