The Rules of Attraction

SEAN “It was the Kennedys, man…” Marc’s telling me while he’s shooting up in his room in Noyes. “The Kennedys, man, screwed it … up…. Actually it was J … F … K … John F. Kennedy did it…. He screwed it up … all up, you see….” He licks his lips now, continues, “There was this … our mothers were pregnant with us when we … I mean, he … was blown away in ’64 and that whole incident … screwedthings-up….” He stops, then goes on. “… in a really heavy duty way…” Special emphasis on “heavy” and “duty.” “And … in turn … you see, it jolted us in a really heavy duty way when we … were … in…” He stops again, looks at his arm and then at me. “Whatchmacallit…” Looks back at his arm and then at me, then at the arm again, concentrating as he pulls the needle out, then at me, still confused. “Their … um, primordial wombs, and, so, that is why we are … me, you, the narc across the hall, the sister in Booth, all the way we are…. Do you … understand? … Is this clear?” He squints up at me. “Jesus … think if you had a brother who was born in ’69 or something … They’d be … fucking bonkers….”

He’s saying this all real slowly (a lot of it I can’t even listen to) as he puts the eyedropper next to his new computer that’s humming, his friend Resin, who’s visiting from Ann Arbor, leaning up against the table, sitting on the floor, humming with it. Marc sits back, smiling. I thought Kennedy bit it a couple of years earlier but wasn’t sure and I don’t correct him. I’m kind of wired but still could use some sleep, since it’s late, sometime around four, but I like the familiarity of Marc’s room, the details I’m used to, the ripped Bob Dylan poster for Don’t Look Back, the stills from Easy Rider, “Born To Be Wild” always coming from the stereo (or Hendrix or Eric Burdon and The Animals or Iron Butterfly or Zep), the empty pizza boxes on the floor, the copy of an old Pablo Neruda book on top of the pizza boxes, the constant smell of incense, the yoga manuals, the band upstairs that’s always rehearsing old Spencer Davis songs all night (they suck). But Marc’s leaving soon, any day now, can’t stand the scene, Ann Arbor is where it’s at, Resin told him.

After I fucked Didi I came back to my room, where Susan was, alone, crying. I guess the Frog was in New York. I couldn’t deal with her so I told her to get out, then I drove to the Burger King in town and ate it on the way to Roxanne’s and had to deal with her new boyfriend, this big mean townie pusher named Rupert. That whole scene was a total joke. She was so stoned she actually lent me forty bucks and told me that The Carousel (where Rupert also bartends) is closing down due to shitty business, and that depressed me. I picked up the stuff from Rupert, who was cleaning his gun case, so coked up he actually smiled and let me do a line, and brought it back to campus. The drive was a cold, long drag, my bike almost kicking out near the college gates, and barely making it through the two-mile stretch of College Drive. I was too stoned and the Burger King food was making me sick and those two miles past the gate on that road at 3AM in the morning was creepy. I smoked some more pot in Marc’s room and now he’s finishing up. It’s no big deal. I’ve seen it all before.

Marc lights a menthol cigarette, and says, “I’m telling you, Sam, it was the Kennedys!” His arm’s bent up, resting on his shoulder, folded. He licks his lips. “This stuff…”

“I hear you brother,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes.

“This stuff is…”

“Is?”

“Is good.”

Marc was doing his thesis on The Grateful Dead. At first he had been trying to space the shots out so he wouldn’t get hooked, but it was sort of too late for that. I’d been scoring for him since September, and he had been slacking off on his payments. He had kept telling me that after “the Garcia interview” he would have some cash. But Garcia hadn’t been to New Hampshire in a long time and I was losing my patience.

“Marc, you owe me five hundred bucks,” I tell him. “I want it before you leave.”

“God, we use to have … wild times at this place….” (This is the part where I always start getting up.) “It’s so … different now…” (Blah Blah) “Those times are gone … those places are gone…” he says.

I stare at a piece of broken mirror next to the computer and the eyedropper and now Marc’s talking about chucking it all and heading for Europe. I look down at him, his breath reeks, he hasn’t showered in days, his hair is greasy and pulled back in a ponytail, stained dirty tie-dyed shirt. “… When I was in Europe, man…” He picks his nose.

“I gotta go to class tomorrow,” I tell him. “What about the cash?”

“Europe … What? Class? Who teaches that?” he asks.

“David Lee Roth. Listen, can I get the cash or what?”

“I dig it, I can dig it, sshhh, you’ll wake up Resin,” he whispers.

“I don’t care. Resin has a Porsche. Resin can pay me,” I tell him.

“Resin’s broke,” he says. “I’m good for it, I’m good for it.”

“Marc, you owe me five hundred bucks. Five hundred,” I tell the pathetic junkie.

“Resin thinks Indira Gandhi lives in Welling House,” Marc smiles. “Says he followed her from the dining hall to Welling.” He pauses. “Can you dig … that?”

He gets up, barely makes it to the bed and falls on it, rolling his sleeves down. He looks around the room, smoking the filter now. “Um,” he says, head rolling back.

“You’ve got money, come on,” I say. “Can’t you lend me a couple bucks?”

He looks around the room, flips open an empty pizza box, then squints at me. “No.”

“I’m a Financial Aid student man, I need some money,” I plead. “Just five bucks.”

He closes his eyes and laughs. “I’m good for it,” is all he says.

Resin wakes up and starts talking to the ashtray. Marc warns me that I’m fucking up his karma. I leave. Junkies are pathetic enough but rich junkies are even worse. Even worse than girls.