The Rules of Attraction

PAUL “It’s over, isn’t it?” I ask this, sitting in someone’s car Sean borrowed in the parking lot of McDonald’s.

It’s too cold to come on the bike, he said when I came over to his room. (His room was a mess. The bed was unmade, bracelets lay scattered on the table, the mirror had been taken down from the wall and placed on a chair, folded papers scattered on top of it, thin veneer of white dust covering it.) He said, and I was listening carefully, You can’t use the bathroom.

But I don’t want to use the bathroom.

Vomit all over, he said.

I don’t want to use the bathroom, I said calmly.

He shrugged. He said no to dinner.

I said, You don’t like me. You’re seeing someone else.

And he said, That’s not true.

And I said, Swear it.

And he said, I do.

I said, I don’t believe you.

He said, You can’t use the bathroom.

Finally, I talked him into McDonald’s and sitting here in the car, he spits out the window, finishes part of his Big Mac, throws the rest out and lights up a Parliament. He tries to start the car but it’s freezing even though it’s only October and the borrowed car (whose? is it Jerry’s?) won’t start.

“Well?” I ask. I can’t eat. I can’t even light a cigarette.

“Yeah,” he says. “Goddamnit,” he shouts, hitting the steering wheel. “Why won’t this fucker start?”

“I guess it’s not your fault you don’t feel the same way I do,” I tell him.

“Yeah. Not my fault,” he says, still trying to start the car.

“But it’s not going to change the way I feel,” I tell him.

“It should.” He mutters this, staring out the windshield. Cars drive by, drivers sticking their heads out of rolled-down windows, shouting orders, picking them up, moving on, replaced by more cars, more orders. I touch his leg and say, “But it doesn’t.”

“Well, it’s hard for me too,” he says, pushing my hand away.

“I know,” I say. How could I fall for such a moron? I thought, looking over his body, then his face, trying to avert my eyes from his crotch.

“Whose fault is this?” he shouts. Nervously he tries to start the car again. “It’s yours. You ruined our friendship with sex,” he says, disgusted.

He gets out of the car, slams the door and walks around it a couple of times. The smell of the food I ordered, in my lap, getting cold, uneaten, makes me slightly sick, but I can’t move, can’t throw it out. Now I’m standing in the parking lot. It gets suddenly very cold. Neither of us can stay still very long. He reaches up and turns the collar of his leather jacket up. I reach out and touch his cheek, brushing something off. He pulls his face away and doesn’t smile. I look away, puzzled. A car honks somewhere.

“I don’t like this arrangement,” I say.

Back in the car he says, without looking at me, “Then leave.”

Moral of the story?