Lunar Park

4. the novel

I had started the outline for Teenage Pussy over the summer and a lot had been accomplished despite the hours playing Tetris on my Gateway and constantly checking e-mails and rearranging the endless shelves of foreign editions that lined the walls of my office. Today’s interference: I needed to come up with a quote for a banal and harmless book written by an acquaintance of mine in New York, yet another mediocre, polite novel (The Millipede’s Lament) that was bound to get a spate of respectful reviews and then be totally forgotten. The quote I ultimately devised was glib and evasive, a string of words so nonspecific that they could have applied to just about anything: “I don’t think I’ve probably come upon a work so resolutely about itself in years.” And then I turned to a short story by one of my students from the writing class and quickly went through it. In the margins I wrote question marks, I circled words, I underlined sentences, I corrected grammar. I felt I made some balanced decisions.

Before resuming work on Teenage Pussy I went through my e-mails. There were only two. One was from Buckley: something about a parent/ teacher night next week, with a pointed P.S. from the principal noting that Jayne and I had failed to make the one in early September. And then I sighed when I saw where the other e-mail came from (the Sherman Oaks branch of the Bank of America) and when it was sent (2:40 a.m.). I sighed again and clicked on it, and as usual was faced with a blank screen. I’d been receiving these e-mails since the beginning of October, unaccompanied by any explanation or demand. I had called the bank several times since I had an account at that branch (where my father’s ashes were still stored in a safe-deposit box) but the bank had no record of these sent e-mails and patiently explained that no one could possibly be working at that hour (i.e., the middle of the night). Frustrated, I let it go. And the e-mails kept coming, with a frequency that I simply became used to. But today I scrolled through my filing cabinet until I found the first one. October 3 at 2:40 a.m. The date seemed familiar, as did the time, but I couldn’t figure out why. Annoyed at my inability to piece this together, I clicked off AOL and eagerly went to the Teenage Pussy file.

The original title of Teenage Pussy had been Holy Shit! but Knopf (who’d shelled out close to a million dollars for the North American rights alone) assured me that Teenage Pussy was the more commercial title. (Outrageous Mike was considered briefly but finally deemed “noncontroversial.”) Knopf was going to call it a “pornographic thriller” in their catalogue, which excited me immensely, and told me privately that Alfred and Blanche Knopf would be rolling over in their graves when the thing was published. Since I realized I was creating an entirely new genre, my bout of writer’s block had vanished and I was working on the book daily, even though it was still only in the outline stage. The book was the story of Michael Graves and this young, hip Manhattan bachelor’s erotic life—a “guy who loves to give love and loves to get loved back” is what I promised my publishers—and I had envisioned a narrative that was elegantly hard-core and interspersed with jaunty bouts of my trademark laconic humor. It was going to contain at least a hundred sex scenes (“I mean, Jesus, why not?” I guffawed to my editor over lunch in the bar at Patroon while he idly checked his blood sugar) and you could read the novel as either a satire on “the new sexual obnoxiousness” or as the simple story of an average guy who enjoys defiling women with his lust. I was going to turn people on and make them think and laugh. That was the combo. Scatological humor intended and achieved. That was the plan. It seemed like a good one.

Teenage Pussy would contain endless episodes of girls storming out of rooms in high-rise condos and the transcripts of cell phone conversations fraught with tension and camera crews following the main characters around as well as six or seven overdoses (attempts on the girls’ part to win our lothario’s attention). There would be thousands of cosmopolitans ordered and characters camcording each other having anal sex and real-life porn stars making guest appearances. It was going to make Sodomania look like A Bug’s Life. Chapters were titled “The Facial,” “The Silicone Queen,” “The Porta-John,” “The Intrepid Threesome,” “Her Boobage,” “The Cliterati,” “The Getaway,” “Hairy Pinkish Tacos,” “Am I Too Big for You?,” “You Know, I Really Don’t Want a Girlfriend Right Now,” “Look, I Have to Catch an Early Flight, Okay?,” “Hey—Did You Get a Chance to Pick Up My Dry Cleaning?,” “I Am Probably Going to Be Quite Distant Now” and “Do You Mind If I Just Jack Off?”

Our hero, who calls himself the Sexpert, dates only models and carries around a large bag filled with various lubricants, ben-wa balls, vibrating clitoral stimulators and about a dozen strings of anal beads. Every girl he meets he makes wet with excitement. He has the cute habit of licking their faces in public and fingering them beneath tables at Balthazar while drugging their gimlets with OxyContin. He fucks one girl so hard that he breaks her pelvic bone. He fucks a semifamous TV actress in the greenroom minutes before she’s supposed to appear on Live with Regis and Kelly. He flashes his biceps and shows off his washboard abs (“Michael didn’t have a six-pack—he had a twenty-four-pack; a case!”) to anyone who might look. Women keep pleading with him to be more open and emotional, and they indignantly throw out lines like “I am not a slut!” and “You never want to talk about anything!” and “We should have gotten a room!” and “That was rude!” and “No—I will not have sex with that homeless man while you watch!” as well as my two favorites: “You tricked me!” and “I’m calling the police!” His usual answers: “Swallowing is about communication, baby” and “Okay, I’m sorry, but can I still come on your face?” A lot of his bad behavior is excused because in many respects Mike is an innocent, though it’s far more likely that forgiveness is always extended because he makes every girl he fucks multiorgasmic. But many women become so upset by his behavior that they have to be tranquilized before returning to their “lesbian pasts,” and then there’s the scandal involving videos Mike had made while having sex with various older married women that “suspiciously” started surfacing on the Internet. “What? You’re gonna fuck your way through life?” one of these older women (the wife of a wealthy industrialist) shouts at him. He stares at her as if she’s a ditz, then forces a gas mask onto her head. He also invents a variety of cocktails, including the Bareback, the Crotchless Pantie, the Raging Boner, the Weenus, the Double Penetration, the Shag Man and the Jizzbag.

His most recent conquest is—hence the title—a particularly vapid sixteen-year-old who thinks you can get pregnant from oral sex and contract AIDS from drinking a Snapple. She also talks to birds and has a pet squirrel named Corky, as well as a problem with silverware; at restaurants, when a waiter recites the specials, she always has to interrupt by asking oh so slowly: “Do you have to use a fork to eat that?” But Mike finds her innocence alluring and soon initiates her into his world, a place where he makes her wear flimsy clothes (transparent lace thongs are high on his list) and has her say, “Throw me a bone” before they have sex and “Who’s my daddy?” once he’s penetrated her. He applies cocaine to her clitoris. He forces her to read Milan Kundera paperbacks and makes her watch Jeopardy! They fly to L.A. for an orgy at the Chateau Marmont and buy sex toys at the Hustler Boutique on Sunset Boulevard and pile them into the trunk of his rented black Cadillac Escalade SUV while she giggles “amply.” He even charms her father—who had threatened to personally kick our hero’s nicely shaped ass if he didn’t stop dating his underage daughter. In a very tender moment, Mike buys her a fake ID. “She doesn’t mean to be that stupid,” he always apologizes to his aggravated friends, other bachelors living in the same lost world as Mike’s. One night he gets her so high on mushrooms that she is unable to locate her own vagina.

But beyond all this riotousness is the tragic ex-girlfriend who has done so much cocaine, her face has caved in on itself (“You damn Russian whore!” Mike screams at her in despair) and there are rooms filled with dead flowers and Mike loses almost all of his trust fund at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas and then attends yet another orgy (this one in Williamsburg—Brooklyn, not colonial) that descends into “utter depravity” and the novel ends sadly with an abortion and a tense Valentine’s Day dinner at Nello (a powerful scene). “How could you do that to me?” is the novel’s last line. The book was all about the hard sell (the million-dollar advance guaranteed that) but it was also going to be poignant and quietly devastating and put every other book written by my generation to shame. I would still be enjoying huge success and notoriety while my better-behaved peers were languishing on “Where Are They Now?” Web sites.

Today I was going through a list of all the sex “injuries” Mike was going to endure: rug burn on knees, back clawed until bleeding, intense muscle cramps, ruptured testicles, testicular hickies, broken blood vessels, bruises due to excessive suction, a penile fracture (“There was a loud pop, then excruciating pain, but Tandra wrapped crushed ice in a Ralph Lauren towel and drove Mike to the ER”) and, finally, just general dehydration.

The phone rang—my line lit up—and I screened the call while staring into the computer. It was Binky, my agent. I picked up immediately.

“How’s my favorite author?”

“Oh, I bet you say that to all your authors. In fact, I know you do.”

“Actually, I do, but please don’t tell any of them.”

“I promise. But it means something to hear you say it nevertheless.”

“In fact, one of my favorite authors called me today.”

“And who might that have been?”

“It was Jay.” Binky paused. “He said you had quite the blowout last night.”

“A kick-ass party indeed.” I also paused, realizing something. “And don’t believe anything Jay tells you.”

“Indeed,” she said ominously. “By the way, did you get that big royalty check for American Psycho from the Brits? I had it transferred to your New York account.”

“Yes, I got the statement. Excellent.” I did my Monty Burns.

“How’s Jayne? How are the kids?” She paused, then said blankly, “I can’t believe I just asked you that. I’ve known you for over fifteen years and never thought I would ask you a question like that.”

“I am now a committed father and husband,” I said proudly.

“Yes,” Binky murmured hesitantly. “Yes.”

I snapped her out of disbelief. “And I’m teaching.”

“Unbelievable.”

“It’s just one day a week at the college but the kids love me. Legend has it that more students tried to enroll in my writing class than for any other visiting writer who ever taught there. Or so I’m told.”

“How many students do you have?”

“Well, I only wanted three, but the administration said that wasn’t an acceptable number.” I breathed in. “So I have fifteen of the little bastards.”

“And how’s the book going?” Binky asked.

“Oh—so much for pleasantries?”

“Those were pleasantries?”

“I’m almost done with the outline and the book is moving along right on schedule.” I needed a cigarette and started looking through my drawers to find a pack. “I am no longer sweating the small stuff, Binky.”

“Well, would you have time for a detour?”

“But this is Knopf’s lead title for next fall, which means I need to finish it by January, no?”

“Well, Bret, you were the one who said you could write this thing in six months,” she said. “No one believed it but that due date is in your contract and the Germans running your publishing house are displeased by extensions.”

“You’re sounding coy, Binky,” I said, giving up on the cigarette. “You’re sounding very coy. And I like it.”

“And you sound like your allergies are acting up,” Binky said flatly. “I have a feeling we didn’t take our Claritin today. And I don’t like it.”

“My allergies are acting up like mad,” I protested, and then thought it through. “And don’t believe anything Jay tells you.”

“Seriously, Bret—allergies?”

“Do not mock my allergies. My nose is stuffed up and I am exceedingly wheezy. Because of . . . them.” I paused, knowing this wasn’t very convincing. “Hey—I actually do yoga and have a Pilates trainer. How’s that for rehabilitation?”

She let it go with a sigh. “Have you ever heard of Harrison Ford?”

“The very famous and once popular actor?”

“He liked the polish you did on Much to My Chagrin and wants to talk to you about writing something. You’d have to go out there and meet with him and his people in the next couple of weeks. Just for a day or two.” She sighed again. “I’m not sure if it’s such a great idea at this point. I’m just relaying the information.”

“And you did it so well.” I paused. “But why can’t they come here? I live in a perfectly nice town.” A longer pause. “Hello? Hello?”

“You’d have to go out just for a day or two.”

“What’s this thing about?”

“Something about Cambodia or Cuba. It’s all very vague.”

“And I suppose they want me—the writer—to figure it out, huh?” I asked indignantly. “Jesus.”

“I’m just relaying the info, Bret.”

“As long as Keanu Reeves is not costarring I would be more than delighted to take a meeting with Harrison.” Then I remembered certain stories I’d heard. “But isn’t he supposed to be this giant blowhard?”

“That’s why I think it would be a perfect match.”

“Um, Binky, what does that mean?”

“Listen, I’ve gotta run. It’s the day from hell.” In the background I heard an assistant calling out. “I’ll tell them you’re interested, and you can start figuring out the dates you can be in L.A.”

“Well, thank you very much for the call. I love our mock formality.”

“Oh, by the way . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Happy Halloween.”

And as we hung up I suddenly realized what had been bothering me about the e-mails that were coming from the Bank of America in Sherman Oaks. October 3. That was my father’s birthday. And that segued into another realization. 2:40 a.m. That was when, according to the coroner, he had died. I pondered this for about a minute—it was a disturbing connection. But I was hungover and exhausted and I needed to be on campus in thirty minutes so maybe it was just a coincidence and maybe I was giving it more significance than it deserved. When I got up to leave the office, I noted one more thing: the furniture had been rearranged. My desk was now facing the wall instead of the window, where the couch had been repositioned instead. A lamp had been moved to a different corner. Again, at that moment, I blamed it on the party, as I did everything else that day.