The Rules of Attraction

PAUL I tried to talk to Mitchell at the party at End of the World tonight. He was standing by the keg filling a plastic cup. I already had a beer and was standing alone, where The Graveyard started. I poured the beer out and walked over to the keg. “Hi, Mitch,” I said. It was cold and my breath steamed. “What’s going on?”

“Hi, Paul. Nothing much.” He was filling two cups. Couldn’t the helpless bitch get her own fucking beer? “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. Can we talk?” I took the tap from him.

He stood there holding the two beers.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked with that famous blank stare.

“Just about what’s going on,” I said, concentrating on the beer and foam coming out of the tap. A girl came by and waited. I gave her a look but she wasn’t looking at me, only at my hands, impatiently.

“I warned you, Paul. Remember that,” Mitchell said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said and laughed quickly. My cup wasn’t even half-full but I handed the girl the tap anyway. “Wait, you warned me about what?” I asked. I could see Candice standing by the edge of End of the World, behind her and down, the Valley of Camden, lights in the town. I didn’t understand how he could prefer that because Mitchell was, admittedly, too good-looking for her. It was beyond my comprehension. I took a gulp of beer.

“I warned you.” He started walking.

“Wait.” I followed him. He stopped by one of the speakers. The Pretenders were coming loudly from them. A small group of people were dancing. He said something I couldn’t hear. I knew what he was going to say, but I didn’t think he had the nerve to say it. Had I been warned? Probably, but not in any verbal way. In the way he would recoil if I touched him in public or after he came. Or if I bought him a beer at The Pub and the way he would throw a fit and tell me that he’d pay for it and push a dollar across the table. How all he would talk about was wanting to go to Europe, take a term off, and then how he would always add, stress, alone. I had been warned and I hated to admit it to myself. But I followed him over to where Candice stood anyway. He gave her the beer. She looked so trashy or maybe she looked pretty and I was having a hard time accepting this. Mitchell was wearing a T-shirt (was it one of mine? probably) and an Eddie Bauer sweater and he scratched at his neck nervously.

“You two know each other?” he asked.

“Yeah, hi,” she smiled and he held her beer while she lit a cigarette.

“Hi,” I smiled, genial as ever. Then threw her a severe look when she wasn’t looking, hoping that Mitchell would catch it, but he didn’t.

The three of us stood there at End of the World, past that came the slope that headed down toward the valley, and then the middle of Camden. It wasn’t steep but if I was to push her, accidentally say, inconspicuously, over the knee-high stone protector, it would cause more than slight damage. The Pretenders turned into Simple Minds and I was grateful because I could not have stood there if there had been no music. Parties are, in their own right, perfect grounds for confrontation, but not this one. I had lost this one. I had probably lost it a long time ago, maybe even that last night in New York. Someone had strung dim yellow lights up and they illuminated Mitchell’s face, making it seem pasty, and washed-out. He was gone. The scene of us standing there was too real and too pointless. I wandered away.