The Rules of Attraction

SEAN The rest of my day.

Me and Norris are in Norris’s red Saab driving into town. Norris is tired and hungover (too much MDA, too much sex with various Freshmen). He’s driving too fast and I don’t say anything about it; only stare out the window at the gray clouds forming above red and green and orange hills, “Monster Mash” blaring on the radio bringing this morning back.

“Lauren found out about Judy,” I tell him.

“How?” he asks, opening the window. “Is my pipe in the glove compartment?”

I check. “No. Judy told her.”

“Cunt,” he says. “Are you kidding? Why?”

“Can you believe it? I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.

“Christ. Is she pissed?”

We pass a sexy townie girl selling tapestries and pumpkins near the high school. Norris slows down.

“Is who pissed?”

“Anyone,” Norris says. “I could’ve sworn my pipe was in there. Check again.”

“Yes. She’s pissed,” I say. “Wouldn’t you be pissed if the girl you loved fucked your best friend?”

“I guess. Heavy.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to talk to her.”

“Sure. Sure,” Norris says. “But she went to New York this weekend.”

“What? Who? Lauren?”

“No. Judy.”

That’s not who I was talking about but I’m relieved anyway. “Really?”

“Yeah. She’s got a boyfriend there.”

“Terrific.”

“He’s a lawyer. Twenty-nine. Central Park West. Name’s Jeb,” Norris says.

“What about Frank?” I ask, then “Jeb?”

“The guy knows Franklin,” Norris says.

Maybe it isn’t over with Lauren, I’m thinking. Maybe she will come back. Norris parks the Saab behind the bank on Main Street and looks for the pipe himself.

At the drug store. While Norris picks up a prescription for Ritalin, I browse through the porno magazine rack that’s placed next to the Oral Hygiene section. Open an issue of Hustler—typical — exclusive nude photos of Prince Andrew, Brooke Shields, Michael Jackson, all of them grainy, all of them in black and white. The magazine promises nude pictures of Pat Boone and Boy George next month. No. Put it back on the rack, open the October issue of Chic. The centerfold is of a woman dressed as a witch, her cape flung open, masturbating with a broomstick. She’s better looking than Lauren but in a sleazy way and it doesn’t excite me. Somehow the centerfold comes loose and slips to the floor, open, next to the feet of a blue-haired granny, who’s reading, not looking, not glancing, but fucking reading the back of a bottle of Lavoris. She looks down at the centerfold and her mouth falls open and she quickly moves away to another aisle. I leave it there and walk back over to Norris who’s at the checkout stand with his prescription and tell him, “Let’s get out of here.” I sigh and look over the racks of candy below the cashier’s station. I pick up a pack of Peanut Butter Cups, finger it guiltily and remember last night, but only vaguely. What was it we fought about? Was there any real emotion there? Any raised voices? Or was it just a general feeling of contempt and betrayal and incredulity? I ask Norris to buy the candy for me and a tube of Fun Blood. Norris pays and asks the shy, acne-scarred cashier if she knows who wrote Notes from the Underground. The girl, who’s so homely you couldn’t sleep with her for money, not for anything, smiles and says no, and that he can look in the bestseller paperbacks if he’d like. We leave the store and Norris sneers a little too meanly, “Townies are so ignorant.”

Then it’s The Record Rack. Norris pops some Ritalin. I stare at the cover of the new Talking Heads. Wasn’t that playing last night somewhere, during our talk? It doesn’t depress me, just makes me feel weird. I put it down and decide to buy her a record. I try to remember who her favorite groups are but we never talked about things like that. In vain I pick up an old Police record but Sting is too good-looking and I start looking for albums by groups with no good-looking guys in them. But then maybe the Peanut Butter Cups are enough, and I walk back to Norris who winks at me, purchasing some old Motown collection and he hands it over to the fat blond girl behind the counter who’s wearing a green ski-jacket and a.38 Special T-shirt. As she rings up Norris’s stuff, he asks her if she knows who wrote Notes from the Underground. She laughs at him with contempt (a Lauren laugh) and says “Dostoevsky” and gives Norris back the album and no change and the two of us drive back to campus, mildly surprised.

Sitting in class. It’s something called Kafka/Kundera: The Hidden Connection. I’m staring at this girl, Deborah, I think, who’s sitting across from me at the table. I cannot concentrate on anything and have only shown up in class because I don’t have any pot left. She has short blond hair, stylishly shaved in back and up the side, moussed, still has sunglasses on, leather pants, high-heeled police boots, black blouse, heavy silver jewelry (definitely rebellious Darien, Connecticut, material) and she reminds me substantially of Lauren. Lauren at lunch. Lauren not taking the shades off. Lauren’s peg pants high, the ankles showing sexy and golden, the low-cut V-neck blue and black sweater. Look at the essay, Xeroxed, in front of me but I can’t read it. I’m insatiably horny since I didn’t finish jerking off this morning. When’s the last time I have? Four days ago. The words I pretend to be interested in make no sense. I look back at the girl and start to fantasize about having sex with her, with her and Lauren at the same time, just her and Lauren naked, on top of each other, pressing their cunts together, moaning. I have to shift in the chair, my hard-on actually feeling not good, stretched tight against my jeans. Why does lesbianism turn me on?

The teacher, a large, friendly-looking woman (but not fuckable), asks, “Sean?”

Crossing my legs (no one can see, just a reflex) I sit up, “Yes?”

Teacher asks, “Why don’t you tell us what the last paragraph means.”

All I can say is “Um.” Look at the last paragraph.

Teacher says, “Just encapsulate it for us.”

I say, “Encapsulate.”

Teacher says, “Yes. Encapsulate.”

“Well…” and now I get the awful feeling that this girl in the sunglasses is laughing, smirking at me. I glance over at her quickly. She’s not. I look down at the essay. What last paragraph? Lauren.

Teacher’s losing patience. “What do you think it means?”

I skim the last paragraph. What is this? High school for Christ’s sake? I will drop out of college. I hope that if I stall long enough she’ll ask someone else and so I wait. People stare. Boy with cropped red hair wearing a “You’re Insane” button on his ratty black Nehru jacket raises his hand. So does the idiot at the end of the table who looks like he’s the lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. Even the blond dude from L.A. whose I.Q. has got to be in the lower forties manages to raise a tan arm. What in the hell is going on here? I will drop out of college. Was I learning anything?

“What is it about, Sean?” the teacher asks.

“It’s about his dissatisfaction with the government?” I ask, guessing.

The girl with the sunglasses raises a hand. Do you wear a diaphragm everywhere you go? I want to scream, but stop myself because the idea really excites me.

“Actually, it’s about the opposite,” the teacher, who has got to be a dyke, says, fingering a long string of beads. “Clay?” the teacher asks.

“Well, like, the dude was totally depressed because, well, the dude turned into a bug and freaked….”

I look down and want to shout out, “Hey, I think it’s a fucking masterpiece,” but I haven’t read it so I can’t.

That girl sitting across from me doesn’t remind me of Lauren. No one does. She puts a piece of gum in her mouth. I don’t feel excited anymore.

And leaving class during the break with the intention of not going back isn’t any better since I have to see my advisor, Mr. Masur, whose office is in the Barn. Otherwise known as Administration Row. And walking up the small graveled path I wonder what Lauren is doing right now, this second. Is she in her room at Canfield, or over with friends carving pumpkins and getting drunk in Swan? Up at the dance studio? Computer room? With Vittorio? No, Vittorio’s gone. With Stump? Maybe she’s just hanging around Commons talking to Judy or Stephanie or whoever the hell she knows, reading the Times, attempting Friday’s crossword. I pull my coat tighter around me. I’m nauseous. I walk faster. The Swedish girl from Bingham who I always thought was sort of good-looking (who’s also fucking Mitchell) is coming down the path, toward me. I realize that I am going to have to pass this Swedish girl and say something or smile. It would be too rude to not say anything. But she passes and smiles and says “Hi” and I don’t say anything. I’ve never said anything to the Swedish girl for some reason and I feel guilty and turn around and say “Hi!” loudly. The Swedish girl turns around and smiles, puzzled, and I start jogging toward the Barn, blushing, heavily embarrassed, feverish, walking in through the main entrance, wave to Getch who’s setting up some fossil exhibition, take the stairs up two at a time, and then it’s Masur’s office. I knock, winded.

“Come in, come in,” Mr. Masur says.

I enter.

“Ah, Mr. Bateman, it’s good to see you, every, what is it now? Month or so?” the sarcastic bastard asks.

I grin and plop myself down in the chair across from Masur’s desk.

“Where have you been? We’re supposed to meet every week,” Masur says, leaning back.

“Well…” Duh. “I’ve been real busy.”

“Oh, you have?” Masur asks, grinning. He runs a hand through his long gray hair, sucking in while lighting his pipe, like a true ex-boho.

“I got your note. What is it?” I know it’s going to be something bad.

“Yes. Well…” He shuffles through papers. “As you know it’s mid-term and it’s come to my attention that you are not passing three of your courses. Is this true?”

I try to look surprised. Actually I thought I was failing four courses. I try to guess which one I’m passing. “Um yeah well, I’m having trouble in a couple of classes.” Pause. “Am I failing Sculpting Workshop?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, you are,” Masur says, glancing ominously at a pink sheet of paper he holds up.

“I don’t see how,” I say innocently.

“It seems that Mr. Winters said that for your mid-term project, it seems to him that all you did was glue three stones you found behind your dorm and painted them blue.” Masur looks pained.

I don’t say a word.

“Also Mrs. Russell says that you have not been showing up to class regularly,” Masur says, eyeing me.

“What am I passing?”

“Well, Mr. Schonbeck says you’re doing quite well,” Masur says, surprised.

Who’s Mr. Schonbeck? I’ve never been to a class taught by a Schonbeck.

“Well, I’ve been sick. Sick.”

“Sick?” Masur asks, looking even more pained.

“Well, yeah, sick.”

“Ahem.” This is followed by an uncomfortable silence. The smell of Masur’s pipe nauseates me. The urge to leave hits hard. It’s also sickening that even though Masur is not from England he speaks with a slight British accent.

“Needless to say Mr. Bateman, um, Sean, your situation here is, shall we say, rather … unstable?”

“Unstable, yeah, well, um…”

“What are we going to do about it?” he asks.

“I’m going to fix it.”

“You are?” he sighs.

“Yes. You bet I am.”

“Well. Good, good,” Masur looks confused but smiling as he says this.

“Okay?” I stand up.

“Fine with me,” Masur says.

“Well, see you later?” I ask.

“Well, fine with me,” Masur laughs.

I laugh too, open the door, look back at Masur, who’s really cracking up, yet stupefied, and then I shut the door, planning my overdose.

In my room is Beba, Bertrand’s girlfriend. She’s sitting on the mattress beneath the wall-length blackboard that came with the room, the carved pumpkin in her lap, old issues of Details scattered around her. Beba is a sophomore and bulimic and has been reading Edie ever since she arrived last September. Bertrand’s phone is cradled in her neck, covered by shoulder length platinum blond hair. She lights a cigarette and waves limply at me as I pass through the slit in the parachute. I sit on my bed, my face in my hands, silent in the room except for Beba. “Yes, I was wondering about a cellophane tomorrow, say, around two-thirty?” The ripped tie is still hanging from the hook and I reach up, pull it off and throw it against the wall. I start rummaging through my room. No more Nyquil, no more Librium, no more Xanax. Find a bottle of Actifed, which I pour into my sweaty hands. Twenty of them. I look around the room for something to take them with. I can hear Beba hang up the phone, then Siouxsie and the Banshees start playing.

“Beba, does Bert have anything to drink over there?” I call out.

“Let me see.” I hear her turn down the music, tripping over something. Then an arm sticks through the parachute’s slit handing me a beer.

“Thanks.” I take the beer from the hand.

“Docs Alonzo still have any coke?” she asks.

“No. Alonzo went to the city this weekend,” I tell her.

“Oh god,” I hear her moan.

I wonder if I should leave a note. Some kind of reason for why I’m doing this, why I’m swallowing all my Actifed. The phone rings. Beba answers it. I lay down after taking five. I drink some more of the beer. Grolsch — what an asshole. Beba puts on another tape, The Cure. I take three more pills. Beba says, “Yes, I’ll tell him Jean-Jacques called. Right, ça va, yeah, ça va.” I start falling asleep, laughing — am I really trying to O.D. on Actifed? I can hear Bertrand open the door, laughing, “I am back.” I drift.

But Norris wakes me up sometime after nine. I’m not dead, just sick to my stomach. I’m under the covers but still in my clothes. It’s dark in the room.

“You slept through dinner,” Norris says.

“I did.” I try to sit up.

“You did.”

“What did I miss?” I try to unstick my tongue from the roof of a very dry, stale mouth.

“Lesbians in a fistfight. Pumpkin carving contest. Party Pig threw up,” Norris shrugs.

“Oh man I am so tired.” I try to sit up again. Norris stands in the doorway and flicks on a light. He walks over to the bed.

“There are Actifed scattered around you,” Norris points out.

I pick one up, toss it away. “Yes. There are.”

“What did you try to do? O.D. on Actifed?” he laughs, bending down.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I say, getting up. “I need a shower.”

“Just between you and me,” he says, sitting down.

“Where’s everybody?” I ask, taking my clothes off.

“At Windham. Halloween party. Your roommate went as a Quaalude.” Norris picks up a copy of The Face that for some reason is on my side of the room. He flips through it thoroughly bored. “Ether that or a pastry. I can’t tell.”

“I’m taking a shower,” I tell him. I grab my robe.

Norris picks up the Peanut Butter Cups. “Can I have one?”

“No, don’t open them.” I come out of my stupor. “They’re for Lauren.”

“Calm down, Bateman.”

“They’re for Lauren.” I stumble toward the door.

“Relax!” he screams.

I head for the bathroom, dizzy, steadying myself as I make my way down the hallway, and into the bathroom. Enter the cubicle, take off the robe, step into shower, lean against the wall before turning the shower on, think about passing out. I shake my head: the feeling subsides, I turn the water on. It hits me weakly and I try to get the pressure up but the water, barely warm, keeps dribbling out of the rusty showerhead.

Sitting down on the floor of the shower I notice Bertrand’s Gillette razor lying in the corner next to a tube of Clinique shaving cream. I pick up the razor by its silver handle and stare at it for a long time. I move it down my wrist. I turn my hand over, palm up, and slowly move it up my arm, the blade catching some of the hair that covers the skin. I pull the blade away and wash the hair off it. Then move it back to my arm, this time bringing the handle up to the wrist, pressing it hard, trying to break the skin. But it doesn’t. I apply more pressure, but it only leaves red marks. I try the other wrist, pushing with all my strength, almost groaning with exertion, lukewarm water splashing in my eyes. The blade is too dull. I press it down against the wrist, feebly, once more.

Through the sound of the falling water I can hear Norris calling out, “Sean, how long are you gonna be?”

I stand up clumsily, leaning against the wall. “In a couple of minutes.” The razor drops to the floor, clattering loudly.

“Listen, I’ll be at the party, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Drop by.”

I wonder if Lauren will be there. I imagine walking into the living room at Windham, our eyes meeting, her face filled with regret and longing, coming towards me. The two of us embracing in the middle of the crowded room while everyone cheers and resumes dancing. The two of us just standing there, holding each other.

“Yeah. Okay, I will.” There’s steam in the bathroom now, not because of the heat of the water but because of how cold it is in the dorm.

“See you there.” Norris leaves.

I stare at my wrists, then finger the disappearing hickey on my neck.

I wash my hair twice, dry off and go back to my room where I throw the ripped tie away, along with the Actifed scattered all over the floor. I get dressed fast, excited, and pick up the Peanut Butter Cups, and, as I’m about to leave, Bertrand’s pumpkin that’s sitting on the windowsill, lit. I look into the lighted face of the jack-o’-lantern and since I just know that Lauren will get a kick out of it I have to swipe it. I’m so excited at the prospect of reconciling with her that I don’t care if the Frog gets pissed.

I leave the room without locking the door and move quickly across campus to her room, carefully walking across the wetness of Commons lawn so the candle in the pumpkin won’t go out. Two guys dressed as girls and two girls dressed as guys pass by drunk, yelling “Happy Halloween” and throw small pieces of hard candy at me. I open the back door of Canfield, bound up the darkened stairs to her room. I knock. There’s no answer. I wait and knock louder. I stand there, cursing myself, someone brushes past me dressed as a joint and walks into the bathroom. My excitement at seeing her slowly starts to dissipate. She must be at the party, so I walk with the pumpkin, still lit, and the Peanut Butter Cups, squished and melting in my back pocket, across Commons toward Windham.

The living room of Windham is bathed in this eerie dim orange light. An old Stevie Wonder song, “Superstition,” plays loudly. I walk up to the windows in front of the house. The living room is crowded with people in costume dancing. All the lightbulbs in the lamps and walls have been replaced by orange ones. Bertrand is there, as a Quaalude but he really looks like a circle. Getch as a pregnant nun. Tony as a hamburger. A couple of Madonna look-alikes. Rupert as Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A couple of Freshmen dorks as Rambo. I spot Lauren almost immediately, dancing in the middle of the floor with Justin Simmons, a tall pale blackhaired Lit major wearing black sunglasses, black jeans, black T-shirt with a skull on the back of it. Her head is thrown back and she’s laughing and Justin has both of his hands on her shoulders.

I moan softly stepping away from the window.

I run back to Canfield and hurl Bertrand’s pumpkin at the wall beside her door, and smear the Peanut Butter Cups all over the door. Rip the pen that’s hanging off her door from the string it’s connected to and also a piece of paper and write “Fuck Off and Die” in big black letters. I place it next to the cracked pumpkin and the smashed, melted candy. I stalk away, down the stairs, out into the night.

Halfway across Commons lawn glaring at Windham House, the party now louder than before, seeming to mock me, I stop and decide to take the note off the pumpkin. I walk back to Canfield, up the stairs to her door and lift the note off the jack-o’-lantern and carry it back with me. I reach the front door of Canfield and then redecide to leave the note where it was. I walk back up the stairs and stick the note back on the pumpkin. I stare at it. Fuck off and die. I leave Canfield and walk back to my room.

I lie on my bed in the dark for close to an hour, drinking the last of Bertrand’s six-pack of Grolsch and listening to “Funeral for a Friend” and trying to play along with it on my guitar, thinking about Lauren. Something hits me. I walk over to my desk in the dark and pick up the tube of Fun Blood I bought in town earlier. I sit in the chair, drunk, turn the Tensor lamp on and read the instructions. Since I don’t have any scissors to cut the cap off with I bite it off instead, tasting a couple drops of the plastic-tasting liquid. I spit it out, wash the taste away with the warm Grolsch. Then I squeeze the tube, some of it onto my fingers. It looks very real and I hold my wrist out and squeeze a thick red line across it, the cool liquid slowly dripping off my wrist, onto the desk. I squeeze another line across the other wrist. “Funeral for a Friend” turns into “Love Lies Bleeding.” I lift my arms up, both dripping Fun Blood, Fun Blood running down to my armpits. I sit back in the chair and squeeze more Fun Blood across my arms. I get up, go to the closet, and look at myself in the mirror. I bend my head back and squeeze a thick line across my neck. I feel relieved. Fun Blood runs down my chest, staining my shirt. I draw a thick line across my forehead. I move away from the mirror and sit on the floor, next to one of the speakers, Fun Blood dripping from my forehead, past my nose down to my lips. I turn the volume up.

The door opens slowly and I can hear over the music, through the parachute, Lauren calling. “I knocked, Sean. Hello?” A hand parts the slit in the parachute.

“Sean?” she calls out. “I got your … message. You’re right. We have to talk.”

She steps through the parachute and looks over at my bed and then at me. I don’t move. She gasps. But I can’t help it and I start to crack up. I look over at her, slick with Fun Blood, drunk and smiling.

“You are so fucking sick,” she screams. “You’re so sick! I can’t deal with you.”

But then she turns around before she slips through the parachute, and comes back into my room. She’s changed her mind. She kneels in front of me. The music swelling to a crescendo as she wipes my face off delicately. She kisses me.