The Rules of Attraction

He doesn’t know it but I had seen Him over the summer. Last summer. I spent my summer vacation on Long Island, in the Hamptons with my poor drunken father. Southampton, Easthampton, Hampton Bays — wandering the island with other Gucci-clad nomads. I stayed with my brother one night and visited a recently widowed aunt on Shelter Island and I stayed in tons of motels, motels that were pink and gray and green and that glowed in the Hamptons light. I stayed in these havens of shelter since I could not bear anymore to look at my father’s new girlfriends. But that is another story.

I saw Him first at Coast Grill on the South Shore and then at this oh-so-trendy Bar-B-Que place whose delightful name eludes me at the moment. He was eating undercooked chicken and trying not to sneeze. He was with a female (a wench, definitely) who looked anorexic. Fag bartenders stood around them, looking bored, and I would order Slow Comfortable Screws to bother and tease them. “That’s made with rum?” they’d lisp, and I’d lisp back Yes because you can’t lisp No. Mouth-breathing waitresses came on to You, You, who were bronzed like a God, a GQ man, Your hair slicked back. I heard Your name called — a phone call. Bateman. They’d mispronounce it — Dateman. I was sitting, shrouded in darkness at the long sleek bar and I had just found out oh-so-discreetly that I had failed three out of four classes last term. Unfortunately I had forgotten to hand in, to even complete, the prerequisite “Some Papers,” before I left for Arizona and hit the Hamptons. And there You sat. The last time I had seen You was at a Midnight Breakfast; You hurled a balled-up pancake at a table of Drama majors. Now You lit a cigarette. You did not bother to light the wench’s. I followed You to the phone booth.

“Hey dude, like, didn’t you speak to the dean and like, uh, tell them how unwrapped I am?”

I assumed it was Your psychiatrist.

You yawned and said, “I am concerned.”

There was an indefinite pause and then You said, “Just refill the Librium.”

Another pause. You looked around, didn’t recognize me from school. Me, sunburned and stiff and trying to drink but oh-so-sober. “I’m all set,” You said.

You hung up. I watched as You nonchalantly threw bills on the table and walked out of the restaurant before the wench. The door closed on her, but she followed you anyway. You both sped away in a bright red Alfa Romeo and I got drunk and waited for Tonight.

Tonight. I’ve spent all afternoon in a bath full of scented water, preparing, cleansing, soaping, shaving, oiling myself for You. I have not eaten in two days. I wait. I am good at that. I listen to old soon-to-be-forgotten songs and wait for Tonight and for You. Wait for that final moment. A moment so filled with such expectance and longing that I almost do not want to witness its occurrence. But I’m ready. One fine day you’ll want me for your girl, my radio cries. That’s right. Tonight.