The Rules of Attraction

PATRICK The limousine should have picked him up any time between ten-thirty and ten-forty-five. He should get to the airport in Keene by at least ten to twelve, where the Lear will fly him into Kennedy, where his arrival time should be one-thirty or one-forty-five. He should have been at the hospital thirty minutes ago but, knowing Sean, he probably went to The Carlyle first to get drunk or smoke marijuana or whatever the hell it is he does. But since he’s always been so mindless about responsibility and about keeping people waiting I’m really not at all surprised. I wait in the lobby of the hospital checking my watch, making phone calls to Evelyn, who will not come to the hospital, waiting for the limousine to get him here. When it appears that he’s decided not to show, I take the elevator back to the fifth floor and wait, pacing, while my father’s aides sit by the door of his room conferring with one another, occasionally looking over at me nervously. One, earlier in the evening, congratulated me, with what I took to be heavy sarcasm, on the tan I had acquired last week in the Bahamas with Evelyn. He passes again, heading for the restroom. He smiles. I ignore him completely. I don’t like either one of these men and they will both be fired as soon as my father dies.

Sean walks down the darkened corridor towards me. He looks at me with pleasurable dislike and I back away, repelled. He motions silently with his arm if he can go into the room. I shrug and dismiss him.

He comes out of the room moments later and not with the white mask of shock I’d thought he’d be wearing, but with a simple and expressionless look on his face. No smile, no sadness. The eyes, bloodshot and half-closed, still manage to exude hatefulness and a weakness of character that I find abhorrent. But he’s my brother, and at first I let it pass. He heads toward the restroom.

I ask him, “Hey, where are you going?”

“The john,” he calls back.

The night nurse at her desk looks up from the chart she’s been going over, to quiet us, but when she sees me gesture at her, she relents.

“Meet me in the cafeteria,” I tell him, before the door to the restroom shuts. What he does in there is so pitifully obvious to me (cocaine? is he into crack?) that I’m ashamed at his lack of concern and at his capacity to tick me off.

He sits across from me in the darkened cafeteria, smoking cigarettes.

“Don’t they feed you up there?” I ask.

He doesn’t look at me. “Technically, yes.”

He plays with a swizzle stick. I drink the rest of my Evian water. He puts the cigarette out and lights another.

“Well … are we having fun?” he asks. “What’s going on? Why am I here?”

“He’s almost dead,” I tell him, hoping a shred of reality will break through to that wasted mindless head bobbing in front of me.

“No,” he says startled, and I’m unprepared for a millisecond at this show of emotion, but then he says, “What an astute observation,” and I’m embarrassed at my surprise.

“Where have you been?” I demand.

“Around,” he says. “I’ve been around.”

“Where have you been?” I ask again. “Specifics.”

“I came,” he says. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Where have you been?”

“Have you visited Mom lately?” he asks.

“That’s not what we’re talking about,” I say, not letting that one throw me off.

“Stop asking me questions,” he says, laughing.

“Stop deliberately misunderstanding me,” I say, not laughing.

“Deal with it,” he says.

“No, Sean.” I point at him, serious, no joke. “You deal with it.”

One of my father’s aides walks into the empty cafeteria and whispers something into my ear. I nod, still staring at Sean. The aide leaves.

“Who was that?” he asks. “C.I.A.?”

“What are you on now?” I ask. “Coke? Ludes?”

He looks up again with the same mocking contempt and laughs, “Coke? Ludes?”

“I put seven thou in your account. Where is it?” I ask.

A nurse passes by and he eyes her before answering. “It’s there. It’s still there.”

Nothing is said for three minutes. I keep looking at my watch, wondering what Evelyn is doing right now. She said sleeping, but I could hear faint music in the background. I called Robert. There was no answer. When I called Evelyn back her machine was on. Sean’s face looks the same. I try to remember when he started hating me, when I reciprocated the feeling. He plays with the swizzle stick some more. My stomach growls. He has nothing to say to me and I, in the end, have really nothing to talk about with him.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” He almost looks surprised.

“I mean, are you going to get a job?”

“Not at Dad’s place,” he says.

“Well, where then?” I ask him. It’s a fair question.

“What do you think?” he asks. “Suggestions?”

“I’m asking you,” I tell him.

“Because?…” He lifts his hands up, leaves them suspended there for a moment.

“Because you’re not going to last another term at that place,” I let him know.

“Well, what do you want? A lawyer? A priest? A neurosurgeon?” he asks. “What you do?”

“How about the son your father wanted?” I ask.

“You think that thing in there even cares?” he asks back, laughing, pointing a thumb back at the corridor, sniffing hard.

“He would be pleased to know that you’re taking, let’s call it, a leave of absence’ from that place,” I say. I consider other options, harsher tactics. “You know he was always upset about all the football scholarships you threw away,” I say.

He stares at me sternly, unforgiving. “Right.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Where are you going to go?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Utah,” he shouts. “I’m going to Utah! Utah or Europe.” He stands up, pushes himself away from the table. “I’m not answering any more of your frigging questions.”

“Sit down, Sean,” I say.

“You make me sick,” he says.

“You’re not getting out of this,” I tell him. “Now sit down.”

He ignores me and walks down the corridor, past his father’s room, past other rooms.

“I’m taking the limo back to Dad’s place,” he says, jabbing at the button for the elevator. There’s a sudden ping and the doors slide open. He steps in without looking back.

I pick up the swizzle stick he was bending. I get up from the cafeteria and walk down the hallway, past the aides who don’t even bother to look up at me. At the pay phone in the hall I call Evelyn. She tells me to call her back later, mentions that it’s the middle of the night. She hangs up and I stay there holding the phone, afraid to hang it up. The two men sitting by the door now interested, now watching.