The Rules Of Attraction Part 22

'Do you like being back?' I asked.

'1 like America.' He winked. 'But only from a distance.'

Oh please. Gerald had been watching the scene from a corner of the room and before he could come over and ruin it, I traded an REM ticket for a bag of mushrooms.

Now the familiar words - Hanna Barbera - flash on every so often and remind me of a time I used to want to wake up early on Sat.u.r.day mornings to watch cartoons 300.

The party's still happening at McCullough, and Gerald's talking about old boyfriends, GQ models, members of some unnamed crew team, lying shamelessly. I kiss him to shut him up. Then turn my attention back to the TV screen. An especially loud New Order song comes from the open windows at McCullough, Tour Silent Face.' Sean liked this song, so did Mitch.e.l.l in fact. Gerald says, 'Jesus, I really hate this song.' I kiss him once more. It turns out to be the last song of the party. It fades out, nothing replaces it.

Watching TV nothing makes sense. An Acutrim commercial is followed by a Snickers commercial followed by a Kinks video followed by In The News. My mom likes the new Kinks video. That depresses me even more than Gerald does.

'You b.u.mmed?' he asks.

I look at him. 'He likes him. He likes her. I think she likes someone else, probably me. That's all. No logic.'

'Hmmmmm,' Gerald says, checking his pockets. He brings out the napkin he had the mushroom in. There's nothing left, just mushroom crumbs.

'No one ever likes the right person,' I say.

'That's not true,' he says. 'I like you.'

That's not exactly what I meant or wanted to hear, but I ask him earnestly, 'Do you?'

There's a pause. 'Sure. Why not?' he says.

There's nothing worse than being drunk and disproven.

301.

LAUREN .The next week (or maybe it was a couple of days) seemed like a blur. Motel rooms, driving all night, getting stoned as his friend's MG raced through the snowy roads. Everything seemed speeded up, time moved faster. There was no conversation, we didn't speak to each other those days on the road. We had reached a point where there was simply nothing to talk about. We had pa.s.sed even the most elementary stages of conversation. There were not even polite 'How are you's' in the morning; simple questions like 'Can we stop at that gas station?' were discarded. Nothing was said. Neither of us spoke.

Though there were moments that week, even as we sat silently in that car zooming around, when 1 actually believed something was on his mind. He would slow the car down if we pa.s.sed anything that even remotely resembled a chapel, or a church, and stare at it, the motor still running. Then he'd speed off again and wouldn't stop until he found a suitable motel somewhere. And it was in these motel rooms where we started doing the cocaine he was carrying, and because of the cocaine the days, short already, seemed even shorter, and he'd drive faster, more recklessly, trying to get to some unknown destination. We would stay up all night in motels, the TV on, inhaling the cocaine, and if we needed something to eat later to keep us going, to fill our stomachs so we could do more c.o.ke without getting cramps, he'd leave the motel room and come back with cigarettes, cheeseburgers, and candy which he had bought with someone's American Express card since he carried no cash.

The cocaine, oddly enough, made neither one of us 302.

talkative. We would do a few lines and instead of babbling away insincerely, we'd watch the television set and smoke. never confronting each other, just sitting there, or in the MG, or in coffee shops, almost embarra.s.sed. He got thinner, more gaunt, as the amount of cocaine he was carrying dwindled down. More motels, more gas stations, another diner somewhere.

I would only eat candy bars and drink Diet c.o.ke. The radio was always on whether there were stations nearby or not. News would come on but there really wasn't anything to hear. Earthquakes, the weather, politics, ma.s.s death. It was all boring. I carried with me a photograph of Victor, and I would take it out and sit in the car, Sean next to me sniffing constantly, his sungla.s.ses kept on, covering gla.s.sy eyes, and I'd touch the photograph. It was black and white and Victor was shirtless, smoking a cigarette, half-leering into the lens of the camera, trying to look like an old-young faded movie star, his eyes half-lids, closed in s.e.xy parody. 1 liked Victor even more because of this photograph and the mystery it contained. But then I didn't, couldn't like him because he stayed with Jaime, and that was unforgivable. The only tape in the car was old Pink Floyd and Sean would only listen to 'Us and Them' and nothing else, rewinding it over and over, and the craggy rhythm would put me to sleep, which was probably what Sean wanted, yet then he would turn it up whenever the chorus would blast out "Haven't you heard, it's a. . .' and startled I would sit upright, my heart pounding and reach over and turn the volume down once his fingers left the control dial. The song would fade out, then he'd rewind it again. I said nothing.

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Sean would light cigarettes, toss the match out the window, take a drag, put the cigarette out.

SEAN All of the trees were dead. There were dead skunks and dogs and even an occasional deer by the sides of the roads, their blood staining the snow. There were mountains full of dead trees. Orange signs announced roadwork. The radio was only static, the tape player often broken, though when it wasn't Roxy Music loud and garbled would play. The road seemed endless. Motels. Buying food in malls. Lauren constantly throwing up. She wouldn't speak to me. I would just concentrate on the road or on people in other cars. When we could pick up a station there would only be Creedence Clearwater songs playing which made me sad but I didn't know why. In motel rooms her eyes were dumb and accusing; her body wasted and pathetic. She'd reach out - a plaintive touch and I'd tell her to get away from me. At a gas station in some place called Bethel, across the border and into Maine, I almost left her while she went to the bathroom to throw up. I put close to 2,000 miles on the car that week. I thought of Roxanne a lot for some reason. I thought of where I could go, but couldn't think of anyplace. There was just another motel or gas station. She would sit beside me, listless. She would break gla.s.ses in the motel bathrooms. She stopped wearing shoes. I drank a lot. I'd wake up the next morning, if I went to sleep at all, hungover and I'd look at her pitiful body in the bed next to mine and again think about leaving her. Without waking her up, stealing all her stuff, her make-up, which she had stopped wearing anyway, her clothes, everything, and split. She never took her sungla.s.ses off, not even if it was night and snowing hard. The snow was slushy and would fall heavily. It would get dark at four in the afternoon, the snow drifting over the rise and fall of the countryside. .. .

We came back to that gas station in Bethel - somehow we had made a full circle - and while she went to the restroom and was coming back, trudging through the snow, approaching the car, after throwing up, something clicked. The snow on the windshield started to melt. I reached over and turned on the radio but couldn't find anything. The Roxy Music tape was ruined. I eventually found another station that was playing faraway sounding Grateful Dead. I lit a cigarette even though the guy was still filling up the car. She opened the door and sat down. I offered her one. She shook her head, no. I paid the guy and drove out of the station. It was early morning and snowing hard. Back on the highway, without looking over at her, I said, Til pay for it,' then cleared my throat.

304.

305.

LAUREN He drops me off, waiting at the Dunkin' Donuts down the street.... It had been twelve weeks. I keep thinking it must have been that night with Paul. It had to have been that night with Paul. Forms to fill. They will not accept my American Express, only MasterCharge. Want to know my age, religion. An abortion in New Hampshire: my life reduced. I'm calm but it doesn't last Tense when I read the words: Hereby Authorize Terminate Pregnancy. Graffiti on the tables in the waiting room: Feminine chaos, End of the term - things only other girls from the college had written. Was Sara here? They give me Valium. Someone explains the operation to me. Laying on my back wondering vaguely if it's a boy or a girl. 'Okay, Laurie,' the doctor says. An examination of Laurie's uterus. Trie table rises. I moan. Lift the hips please. Something antiseptic. I can't help it and gasp. The nurse looks at me. She seems nice. Humming noise. My stomach starts heaving. Sucking noises. It's over. I sweat. I go to the recovery room. It doesn't matter. I pa.s.s by other girls, some crying, most of them not. Come out onto the street after Sean picks me up, forty-five minutes, an hour later. Two girls from the high school pa.s.s by. I'm thinking, I was once that young.

In the car driving back to campus, Sean asks, Truce?'

And I tell him, 'No way.'

306.

SEAN At the party I couldn't find the waitress I had picked up earlier at Dunkin' Donuts and who I had invited to the party, but I went crazy anyway, getting drunk and celebrating the end of term by f.u.c.king Judy again in her room - just grabbed her arm and we went - and then I made out with the hippie girl on the way back to Windham. Back at the party for a beer, I started feeling really good and still h.o.r.n.y, so I made it with Susan and finally around two went home with that Swedish girl. After that I came back to find the party still going and so I sat around with everybody who was waiting for someone to bring more beer, most of the Freshmen p.i.s.sed off because they wanted Lite beer. I was really drunk and I knew the beer wasn't going to arrive for a long time and The Pub had closed hours ago and I should have gone home, gone somewhere, maybe back to Susan's room, or maybe to visit Lauren, but I didn't want to. I was already worlds away from that s.h.i.t And suddenly looking around the living room of Windham, Roxy Music blasting, a fire roaring, a half-decorated Christmas tree covered with bras and panties tilted to one side in the comer, I hated these people, yet I wanted to stay here with them. Even with the guy who was a s.h.i.tty guitarist talking to the loudmouth alcoholic; even with the d.y.k.e from Welling; even with the waitress from Dunkin' Donuts who had showed up and was hanging on to Tim's arm; even Getch, who was loaded, sitting in the corner, crying, fondling a pony-keg. These were people I would never have spoken to out of this room, but here, at the party, I loathed them more than I thought possible. The music was loud and it was snowing lightly outside, dark in the room except for the fireplace and the lights on the Christmas tree in the 3D7.

corner flickering off and on. This was the moment that counted. This was when it all came together. This was where I wanted to be. Even the ex who was going to f.u.c.k Tony. Even her. All that mattered was that we were here....

The feeling sort of clicked off when the beer didn't come and the guys who had been trying to get it were arrested for drunk driving, Getch announced. But I was still in that room and we were still all together: two people I rejected, two people who had rejected me, one girl I had been rude to, but now it didn't matter. Tim left with the waitress from Dunkin' Donuts. I went back to the Swedish girl's room and knocked. But she had locked her door and was probably asleep. I trudged through the snow back to my house and a cold, empty room. My window was open. I had forgotten to close it.

LAUREN.

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309.

MITCh.e.l.l. I could sense it wasn't going to go well when I found out I had to drive with Sean Bateman to get a simple dime bag of pot. I didn't really know Bateman that well but I could tell from the way he looked what type of guy he was: probably listened to a lot of George Winston, ate cheese and drank white wine, played the cello. I was p.i.s.sed off that he had the nerve to come over to my room and tell me Ave had to go to that sc.u.mmy idiot Rupert's house, which I really wasn't keen on to begin with, but it was almost end of term and I needed some gra.s.s to take with me on the drive back to Chicago. I argued with him for a little while, but Candice was sitting there on my bed trying to finish an overdue paper and she told me to go and I-couldn't resist, even though all term I'd been planning to break up with her. I took a Xanax and got in his car and drove off-campus to North Camden where Rupert and Roxanne lived. The roads were slick and he was driving too quickly and a couple of times we came close to spinning out, but we made it there without losing any limbs or causing a major pile-up.

The house was dark and I mentioned maybe no one was home. There was a party going on across the street. I told him I'd wait in the car.

He said, 'No, it's okay. Only Roxanne's here.' 'What does that mean?' I asked. 'I don't want to go in.' 'Just come in,' he said. 'Let's get this over with.' I followed him up the walk to the door and he knocked apprehensively. There was no answer. He knocked again, then tried the door. Someone abruptly yanked it open. And there was Guest, grinning like an idiot. He told us to come in, then laughed ghoulishly.

310.

There were other townies in the darkened living room listening to Led Zeppelin. Someone had lit candles. I was getting suspicious.

Rupert was walking around the kitchen. 'So what are you here for, boys?'

The townies giggled from the living room. There were four or five of them. Something glinted against the light of a candle in the darkness.

I yawned nervously, my eyes started watering.

"Came over to pick up some stuff; Bateman said, innocently enough.

'Did you?' Rupert asked, moving in and out of the darkness, circling us.

'Where's Roxanne?' Bateman asked. 'You're impossible,'

'Where is my money G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Bateman?' Rupert roared as if he was deaf and hadn't heard Bateman. I couldn't believe this.

You're crazy,' Sean said, perplexed. 'Where's Roxanne?'

One of the townies had gotten up. He was mean looking: beer-belly, a crew-cut. He leaned against the kitchen door. I moved back and b.u.mped into a cabinet. I had no idea what the problem was, though it seemed clear to me that it had to do with money. I didn't know if Rupert owed Bateman or if Bateman owed Rupert, but something was clearly f.u.c.ked. Rupert was c.o.ked-up and trying to act tough, but the act was unconvincing and not very threatening. There was little light in the kitchen and where it was coming from 1 couldn't tell. Something flashed in the darkness and glinted again.

'Where's the money, you a.s.shole?' Rupert demanded.

'I'm waiting in the car,' I said. 'Excuse me,'

311.

'Wait,' Bateman said, holding me back.

'Wait for what, you a.s.shole?' Rupert asked.

'Listen,' Sean paused. Then he looked at me. 'He's got it.'

You've got it?' Rupert asked, calming down and seriously interested.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that one of the townies, big and drunk, was holding a machete. What in the h.e.l.l was a f.u.c.king machete doing in New Hampshire?

'Whoa, now wait a minute,' I said, raising my hands up. 'Now, I don't know what the h.e.l.l's going on. I just came for some bud. I'm leaving.'

'Come on Mitch.e.l.l,' Sean said. 'Give Rupert the money.'

'What in the f.u.c.k are you talking about?' I screamed. 'I'm waiting in the car.'

I started to make my way out but another townie had just gotten up and was blocking the exit. I could see the car sitting there behind him through the window, in the snow, the party behind it. I thought I could see Melissa Hertzburg and Henry Rogers, but I wasn't sure. I could hear Christmas music.

'This is absolute s.h.i.t,' I said.

'Do you really have it?' Rupert was asking me, coming closer.

'Do I have what?' I screamed again. 'Now wait, listen, this guy -'

'Does this guy have the money or not?' Rupert asked Bateman.

'Will you f.u.c.king tell him,' I yelled at Bateman.

It was silent. Everybody was waiting for Sean's answer.

312.

'Okay, he doesn't have it,' he admitted.

'What do you have for me?' Rupert asked him.

'I have this.' He reached into his pocket and handed Rupert something. Rupert inspected it. It was a vial. Rupert poured something onto a mirror. I a.s.sumed it was cocaine. He looked up at Sean, muttering how it better be good. The townies were now silent and interested in what was going on. But of course the stuff, wasn't good and a fight broke out. Rupert lunged across the table at Bateman. A townie grabbed at me. There was a scuffle. I was on my way out when I turned around and saw that Bateman had somehow grabbed the machete and was screaming 'Back off and jabbing it at the townies. I turned and ran out to the car, slipping on the driveway and falling hard on my a.s.s. When I got into the car and locked the door I could see that the townies were backing off. Sean kept swinging the sword until he was outside and shut the door to the kitchen, dropped the machete and jumped into the car.

The townies were slow but they made it to their pick-up truck as the MG peeled out of the driveway. Sean raced it down the street, skidded through a stoplight and swerved down the road back towards the college. I could not believe this was happening. I never thought I would die on a Friday. Any other night but a f.u.c.king Friday. Bateman was actually smiling and asking me, 'Wasn't that fun?'

The townies led by Guest were behind us, but never too dangerously close, though once I thought I heard a gunshot. They caught up to us on College Drive and sped into the other lane trying to push the MG off the road. The MG lurched and then leapt over a s...o...b..nk and skidded gently to a stop. The pick-up sped by and then slowed 3 1 3.

down and with difficult)' started to turn around. Bateman waited until they were coming toward us and suddenly reshifted, racing past the townies, and we drove the two miles to the Security gate without much -incident. But when I turned around I could see the headlights of the pick-up behind us as it sat there down the road, idling. Sean smiled at the guards and waved as they lifted the gate up. He drove me back to my house. It was then that I noticed his headlights were still off. I looked at him and just said, 'Jesus> Bateman, you're an a.s.shole.'

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, tightly tied dime bag and tossed it through the open window at me. I barely caught it. I didn't bother to ask him what was going on and when he had gotten this. Even if I had it wouldn't have mattered since he had already driven away.

VICTOR I went to the REM concert with Denton in Hanover. Rupert had already kicked me out of his house. He said there was some sort of problem happening and that 314.

I had to leave. I didn't have anything else to do so I went with Denton. The auditorium was big but there were no seats. Some lame band opened for them and 1 hung out in back, drinking beer I'd snuck in with Paul, watching the girls. Once they started playing I left Paul and made my way through the standing crowd up front and sat on one of the speakers with some other guy from Camden named Lars. We sat there staring out at the crowd, at all the young stoned proud sweaty Americans, looking up at the stage. Some were tripping and high, others had their eyes closed, moving their grotesque, well-fed bodies to the beat. This one girl who I had been watching most of the night stood squashed in the middle of the front row, and when she caught me looking at her, I gave her a smile. She made a gagging look and turned back to the band, swaying her head to the beat. And I got really disgusted and started thinking, what was this girl's problem? Why couldn't she have been nice and smiled back? Was she worrying about imminent war? Was she feeling real terror? Or inspiration? Or pa.s.sion? That girl, like all the others, I had come to believe, was terminally numb. The Talking Heads record was scratched maybe or perhaps Dad hadn't sent the check yet. That was all this girl was worried about. Her boyfriend was standing behind her, a total yuppie with Brylcreemed hair and a very thin tie on. Now what was that guy's problem? Lost I.D., too many anchovies on his pizza., broken cigarette machine? And I kept looking back at that girl - had she forgotten to tape her soap this afternoon? Did she have a urinary tract infection? Why did she have to act so f.u.c.king cool? And that's what it all came down to: cool. I wasn't being cynical about that b.i.t.c.h and her a.s.shole 315.

boyfriend. I really believed that the extent of their pitiful problems didn't exceed too far from what I thought. They didn't have to worry about keeping warm or being fed or bombs or lasers or gunfire. Maybe their lover left them, maybe that copy of 'Speaking in Tongues' was really scratched - that was this term's model and their problems. But then I came to understand sitting there, the box vibrating beneath me, the band blaring in my head that these problems and the pain they felt were genuine. I mean, this girl probably had a lot of money and so did her dumb-looking boyfriend. Other people might not sympathize with this couple's problems and maybe they didn't really matter in the larger realm of things - but they still mattered to Jeff and Susie; these problems hurt them, these things stung. ... Now that's what struck me as really pathetic. I forgot about her and the other geeks and did some more of the c.o.ke Lars was offering me. . ..

Afterwards I wanted to go to The Carousel but Paul told me it had closed down over the weekend; that no one went there much anymore except a couple of Seniors and graduates who never left North Camden. We drove by it anyway. Not that there had been a lot of fun at that place, but it still meant something to me. And it was depressing to see it dark on a Thursday night, the doorway covered with black paint, the path leading to the door covered with thick unshoveled snow.

3 1 6.

LAUREN I lose my keys the first time I leave my room in over four days. So I can't lock my door. It doesn't really matter, I've packed all my stuff, there's really nothing to take. 1 go to the post office to check the board to see about getting a ride tomorrow or the next day. Not a lot of rides. 'Lost My Pet Rock,' 'Ambitious Photography Major Looking for Imaginative Male to Pose in Cellophane,' 'Madonna Fan Club Starting Soon. Anyone interested? Box 207.' I tear that one down but the woman working behind the post office counter sees this and glares until I put it back up. 'Skateboarding Club Starting.' I want to tear that one down too. 'Jack Kerouac Fan Club Starting Next Term.' I hate the idea of having that one up since it looks so pathetic next to the others, so I tear it down. She doesn't say anything. Someone's put a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude in my box and 1 look inside to see if anyone's left a name or message. 'Really good book. Hope you like it -P.' But it doesn't look like it's been read, and I put it in Sean's box.

Franklin pa.s.ses by in the mob of people lining up for lunch. He asks me if I want to go to The Bra.s.serie. I've eaten lunch eight times today but I have to get off-campus. So we go into town and it's not bad at all. I buy a couple of tapes, and a frozen yogurt, and then at The Bra.s.serie I have a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary and take a Xanax. For the past week I have been hoping the job was botched; that maybe the doctor had somehow screwed things up, had left everything incomplete. But of course, he hadn't. They had done a good, thorough job. I have never bled so much before.

I stare out the window, at the snow. Jukebox plays 31 7.

depressing pop. I make a mental list of things I need to get done before I go to New York. Christmas presents.

'I screwed her,' Franklin says, sipping his drink and pointing at the waitress in back; some foul-mouthed b.i.t.c.h from campus who I think is hideous, who told her boyfriend that [ was a witch and he believed her.

The waitress disappears into the kitchen. A waiter takes her place. He sets something on the table next to ours. In a blinding moment of recognition I realize who the waiter is. He keeps looking at me, but there's no recognition on his face. [ start laughing, the first time in over a week.

'What's funny?' Franklin says. 'No, I really did screw her.'

'I screwed him,' I tell Franklin. It's the townie I lost my virginity to.

'Hey,' Franklin says. 'We are the world.'

ask about Rupert, though he knows that's why I'm leaving. From across the lawn Lauren is on her way to Commons. She waves. I wave back.

'Heard about Lauren,' Tim says.

'Already?' I ask, closing the trunk of the MG. * 'Yeah.' He offers me a cigarette. 'Already.'

CI don't know,' I say.

'What happened? Is she okay?' He laughs, 'Do you care?'

I shrug. I try to light the cigarette and to my amazement the match doesn't go out in the wind and light snow. "I liked her a lot.'

Tim's silent but then asks, Then why didn't you pay for it?'

He's not looking at me. I crack up.

'I didn't like her that much,' 1 say as I get into the car.

SEAN Tim helps me pack the next morning. I don't have a lot to take with me, but he has nothing else to do and he carries most of the stuff out to my car. He doesn't 31 8.