The Rules of Attraction

PAUL The last time I saw Mitchell before school started was in September. As usual, we were laying on my bed and it was early, perhaps twelve. I reached over him and lit a cigarette. The people next door were fighting. There was too much traffic on Jane Street, it was either that or something else that was making Mitchell so tense, clutching his wine glass. So much attention paid, so much detail studied, worked over so hard that he loses it all. What was I doing there, I kept wondering. My father worked with his father in Chicago and though their relationship depended more on what was happening over on Wall Street and what table the other could command at Le Français or The Ritz-Carlton, it still gave us the opportunity to meet each other. In New York we would meet at the apartment I lived in last summer. We could never meet at his place because of “roommate trouble,” he would gravely tell me. We would meet usually at night, usually after a movie or some bad off-off-off-Broadway play one of Mitchell’s endless supply of N.Y.U. Drama friends landed a part in, usually drunk or high, which seemed Mitchell’s constant state those last months, when I was breaking it off with someone else. Mitchell knew and didn’t care. Usually wild bouts of sex, clothed, early drink at Boy Bar, don’t ask.

Up on 92nd we sat at a cafe and cursed a waitress. Then taking a cab downtown we got into an argument with our driver and he made us get out. Twenty-ninth Street, hassled by prostitutes, Mitchell kind of enjoying it, or maybe pretending to. He looked kind of desperate those months. I always thought it would pass, but I was getting to the point where I knew it never would. Just a big night on the West Side and he’ll be out of it. Then something ridiculous like eggs benedict at three in the morning at P.J. Clarke’s. … Three in the morning. P.J. Clarke’s. He complains the eggs are too runny. I pick at a cheeseburger I ordered but don’t want, not really. I’m amazed that there are three or four out-of-town businessmen still at the bar. Mitchell sort of finishes his eggs, then looks at me. I look at him, then light his cigarette. I touch his knee, thigh, with my hand. “Just don’t,” he says. I look away, embarrassed. Then he says softly, “Just not here.”

“Let’s go back home,” I say.

“Whose?” he says.

“I don’t care. Let’s go to my place. Your place? I don’t know. I don’t feel like spending money on a cab.”

It’s now getting depressing and late. Neither of us moves. I light another cigarette, then put it out. Mitchell keeps touching his chin lightly, like there’s something wrong with it. He runs his finger through the dimple.

“Do you want to get stoned?” he asks.

“Mitch,” I sigh.

“Hmmm?” he asks, leaning forward.

“It’s four in the morning,” I say.

“Uh-huh,” he says, confused, still leaning.

“We’re at P.J.’s,” I remind him.

“That’s right,” he says.

“You want to get … stoned?” I ask.

“Well,” he stammers, “I guess.”

“Why don’t we…” I stop, look over at the businessmen, and look away, but not at Mitchell.

“Why don’t we…”

He keeps staring, waiting. This is stupid.

I don’t say anything.

“Why don’t we … why don’t we what?” he asks, grinning, leaning closer, lips curling, whites of teeth, that ugly dimple.

“There’s a rumor going around that you’re retarded,” I tell him.

In a cab heading toward my apartment, late, almost five, and I can’t even remember what we did tonight. I pay the driver and give him too big a tip. Mitchell holds the elevator door open, impatient. We get to my apartment and he takes off his clothes and gets stoned in the bathroom and then we watch TV, some HBO, for a little while … and then we went to sleep as soon as the sun started rising, and I remembered a party we were at back in school when Mitchell drunk and angry tried to set fire to Booth House in the early morning…. We look straight at each other right now, both breathing evenly. It’s morning now and we’re not sleeping and everything is pure and bright and clear and I fall asleep…. When I woke up, later that afternoon, Mitchell was gone, left for New Hampshire. But the ashtray by the bed was full. It was empty before. Had he watched me sleep during that time? Had he?