The Rules of Attraction (Page 19)

SEAN I get up early, for a Saturday, sometime after breakfast. I take a shower and kind of remember about this tutorial I happen to be up in time for. I smoke a couple of cigarettes, watch the Frog sleep, pace. I can’t believe I have a roommate whose name is Bertrand. I go up to Tishman because there’s nothing else to do. Saturdays suck anyway and I’ve never been to this class so it can’t be all that boring. I get to Tishman but it’s the wrong building. Then I remember that it might be in Dickinson but I go to the wrong room but then I find the right room even if it looks like the wrong room. It’s the teacher’s office and there is no one here. I’m not that late either, and I wonder if maybe they’ve changed rooms. If they have, then I’m dropping this class, I’m not going to put up with that kind of bullshit. The office smells like pot though, so I stick around in case someone comes back with more. I sit at the desk, look for signs of what this class is all about. But I can’t find any. So I go back to my room. The Frog is gone. Maybe I’ll check out the AA meeting in Bingham, but it’s not there and after hanging out in the living room, waiting, smoking, pacing, I go back to my room. Maybe I’ll take a ride, go to Manchester. Saturdays suck.

I was in a class yesterday (terminable, because of you) and I noticed Fergus’s back (though if it had been your back I would have noticed it sooner) and I wrote to the person next to me (a person I had never seen or witnessed, a person who does not know and does not care about me, a person who would spread her legs for you—perhaps already has, everyone has, everyone has, to me—) that Fergus has a sexy back and she wrote something down and it said “Yeah … But look at his face.” The simple dumb cruelty of it all! That stupid response made me want to cry out and I thought of you. I left another note in your box, yet another tepid warning of desires in my heart. You probably think that I am a babbling insane creature but I am not. I repeat, I am not. I only want You. There must be something you want from me. If only You knew. These notes I leave are hard to compose. I have refrained desperately from spraying them with my perfume-trying to grab at any of your senses: aural, oral, nasal, etc. After I deliver these notes into your box I clench my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut, my hands feel like terrible claws, a patient in an eternal dentist’s chair. It takes courage though. An irritating and tugging courage. The touch of you, or my imagined touching, seems both repellent and oddly succulent. It stings. These feelings sting. My eyes are always ready for you. They want to grapple and lay you down in fluffy white sheets of linen, safe, in your arms, strong arms. I would take you to Arizona and have you meet my mother even. The seeds of love have taken hold and if we won’t burn together, I’ll burn alone.

PAUL I didn’t make it to Casa Miguel on that Saturday night for that first date in early October. I was in my room getting dressed, so unsatisfied with what I was wearing that I had changed four times in the space of thirty minutes. It was getting ridiculous and near seven and since I didn’t have a car I was going to call a cab. I changed once more, turned off the Smiths tape and was on the verge of leaving when Raymond burst into my room. His face was white and he was panting and he told me, “Harry tried to kill himself.”

I knew something like this was going to happen. I just had a feeling that there would be some obstacle, major or minor, that was going to prevent this evening from happening. I had a feeling all day that there would be something that would screw this night up. So I asked, “What do you mean Harry tried to kill himself?” I stayed calm.

“You’ve got to come to Fels. He’s there. Oh shit. Jesus, Paul. We’ve got to do something.” I had never seen Raymond so keyed-up. He looked like he was going to cry and he gave this event (a Freshman suicide? oh, please) a dimension of unwarranted emotion.

“Call Security,” I suggested.

“Security?” he yelled. “Security? What in the hell is Security going to do?” He reached for my arm and grabbed it.

“Tell them a Freshman tried to kill himself,” I told him. “Believe me, they’ll be there within the hour.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he shrieked, still grabbing at me.

“Stop it,” I said. “He’ll be fine. I have an appointment at seven.”

“Will you please come on!” he screamed and pulled me out of the room.

I grabbed my scarf off the coatrack and managed to close my door before I followed him down the stairs and over to Fels. We walked down Harry’s hallway and I started getting scared. I was nervous enough about the date with Sean (Sean Bateman—I had whispered the name to myself all day, chanting it almost, in the shower, in my bed, the pillow above my face, between my legs) and even more nervous that I was going to be late and ruin it. That put me in more of a panic than this alleged suicide: dumb Freshman Harry trying to off himself. How did he do it, I wondered, heading toward his door, Raymond making weird breathing noises next to me. Try to O.D. on Sudafed and wine coolers? What provoked him? C.D. player conk out on him? Did they cancel “Miami Vice”?