The Rules of Attraction (Page 55)
“Do you have any coke?” Richard asks:
A surge of irritation makes me grip the Heineken bottle tighter. I don’t say anything.
“There’s a lot of coke at Sarah Lawrence,” he says.
The video ends and another one comes on, but it’s not a video, it’s a commercial for soap and I look over at him.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“With me?” he asks.
“I guess,” I say. “Who else, idiot?”
“I don’t know,” Richard says. “I went out.”
“You went out,” I repeat.
“To a bar,” he sighs.
“Get lucky?” I ask.
“Would I be here with you if I had?” he says.
His crude attempt at the cutdown, if it was a cutdown, irritates me more than if he had come up with a real … what? scorcher?
“Are you drunk?” I ask, vaguely hoping that he is.
“I wish,” he moans.
“Do you?” I ask.
“Yes. I do,” he moans again, laying back on the bed.
“Quite a little scene you made at dinner,” I mention.
We watch another video or maybe it’s another commercial, I can’t tell, and then he says, “Fuck off. I don’t care.” After a moment’s thoughtful silence, he then asks, “Are they both asleep?” looking over at the wall that separates the rooms from each other.
“Yes.” I nod.
“I went to a movie,” he admits.
“I don’t care,” I say.
“It sucked,” he says.
He gets up and walks over to the cassette player and puts a tape in; hard punk music blasts out of the box and I jump up, completely startled and he makes a face and turns the volume down, then he starts to giggle mischievously and sits in the chair next to mine.
“What are you watching?” he asks. He’s holding the bottle of J.D. which somehow has magically reappeared and offers it to me as he unscrews the top. I shake my head and push it away. “Videos,” I say.
He looks at me, then gets up and stares out the window; he’s got that restless pre-fucking state about him; expectant nervous energy. “I came back because it started to rain.” I can hear him lighting a cigarette, start to smell the smoke. I close my eyes and lean against the chair, and remember a rainy afternoon sitting in Commons with Sean, both of us hungover, sharing a plate of French fries we got at the snack bar since we missed lunch. We were always missing lunch. It was always raining.
“Do you remember those weekends at Saugatuck and Mackinac Island?” he asks.
“No, I don’t. I only remember hellish weekends at Lake Winnebago. In fact I’ve never been to Mackinaw Island,” I say calmly.
“Mackinac,” he says.
“Naw,” I say.
“You’re being difficult, Paul,” he says sweetly.
“Shoot me.”
“Well, anyway, do you remember the Thomases would always come too?” he asks. “Remember Brad Thomas? Good-looking but a mega geek?”
“Mega geek?” I ask. “Brad? Brad from Latin?”
“No, Brad from Fenwick,” he says.
“I don’t remember Brad Thomas,” I say, even though I went to Fenwick with Brad and Richard. I had a crush on Brad in fact. Or was that Bill?
“Remember that Fourth of July when my father got you and Kirk and me so drunk on the boat and my mother had a fit? We were listening to the Top 100 countdown on the radio and someone fell off, right?” he says. “Remember that?”
“Fourth of July? On a boat?” I ask. I suddenly wonder where my father is tonight, and I’m mildly surprised that it doesn’t depress me because I sort of do remember my father’s boat, and I remember wanting badly to see Brad naked, but I can’t remember if anyone fell off a boat, and I’m too tired to even make a move toward Richard so I slump back in the chair and tell him, “I do remember. Get on with it. What’s the point?”
“I miss those days,” Richard says simply.
“You’re a jerk,” I say.
“What happened?” he asks, turning away from the window.
Well, let’s see, your father left your mother for another woman and Mr. Thomas if I remember correctly died of a heart attack playing polo and you became a drug addict and went to college and I became one too for a little while and went to Camden where I wasn’t a drug addict anymore in comparison and I mean what do you want to hear, Richard? Since I have to say something I just say, “You’re a jerk,” again, instead.