The Rules of Attraction (Page 64)

I am going to scream. I am going to scream. No I’m not.

“Sweet as nectar…” Vittorio mumbles again, and then pulls away, letting strands of her hair fall back into place.

“Oh, Vittorio,” Lauren says. “Please, stop.”

She loves it, I’m thinking. She f**king loves it.

“Nectar…” Vittorio says once more.

One of the editors, after a long silence, speaks up and says, “Mona was just telling us about some of the projects she was working on.”

Mona is wearing a white see-through blouse and tight faded jeans and cowboy boots, looking pretty sexy, curly blond hair piled up on her head, and a deeply tan face. Rumor has it that she hangs around Dewey offering Sophomore guys pot then screwing them. I try to make eye contact. She takes a big sip of her white wine spritzer before she says anything. “Well, basically, I’m freelancing now. Just finished an interview with two of the V.J.s from MTV.”

“Hah!” Stump exclaims. “MTV! V.J.s! How completely scintillating!”

“Actually it was quite…” Mona tilts her head. “Refreshing.”

“Refreshing,” Trav nods.

“In what way?” Stump wants to know.

“In the way that she really captured the sense of this monolithic corporate superstructure that’s bludgeoning and infecting the quote-unquote innocents of America by mind-fucking them with these … these essentially sexist, fascistic, blatantly bourgeois video films. Video killed the radio star, that type of stuff,” Trav says.

No one says anything for a long time until Mona speaks again.

“Actually, it’s not that … aggressive.” She takes a sip of her drink and tilts her head, looking over at Trav. “That’s more of what your book is about, Trav.”

“Oh yes, Travis,” one of the editors says, adjusting her glasses. “Tell us about the book.”

“He’s been working on it for a long time,” Mona chirps.

“Did you quit the job at Rizzoli’s?” the other editor asks.

“Uh-huh. Yep,” Trav nods. “Gotta get this book done. We left L.A., what?” He turns to Mona, who I think is flirting with me. “Nine months ago? We were in New York for two and now we’re here. But I gotta get this book done.”

“We know someone at St. Martin’s who’s really interested,” Mona says. “But Trav has got to finish it.”

“Yeah babe,” Trav says. “I do.”

“How long have you been working on it?” Stump asks.

“Not that long,” Trav says.

“Thirteen years?” Mona asks. “Not that long?”

“Well, time is subjective,” Trav says.

“What is time?” one of the editors asks. “I mean, really?”

I’m looking at Vittorio who’s sipping a glass of red wine and staring at Lauren. Lauren takes a pack of Camels from her purse and Vittorio lights the cigarette for her. I finish the Beck’s quickly and keep staring at Lauren. When she looks over at me, I look away.

Trav’s saying, “But don’t you think rock’n’roll killed off poetry?”

Lauren and Stump and Mona all laugh and I look over at Lauren and she rolls her eyes up. She looks at me and smiles, and I’m pitifully relieved. But I don’t, can’t, smile back with her sitting next to Vittorio, so I watch her inhale deeply on the cigarette Vittorio lit.

“Of course,” Stump practically shouts. “I learned more from Black Flag than I ever did from Stevens or cummings or Yeats or even Lowell, but my God, holy shit, Black Flag is poetry man.”

“Black Flag … Black Flag … who is this Black Flag?” Vittorio asks, eyes half-closed.

“I’ll tell you later, Vittorio,” Stump says, amused.

Trav takes in what Stump said and nods as he lights a cigarette.

Stump offers me an Export A. I shake my head and tell him, “I don’t smoke.”

Stump says, “Neither do I,” and lights one.

“Stump is … um, working on a very interesting … series of poems about…” Vittorio stops. “Oh, how can … how can I say this … um, oh my….”

“Bestiality?” Stump suggests.

I pull out a pack of Parliaments and light one.

“Well my … my, yes … I, suppose, that is it….” Vittorio mumbles, embarrassed.

“Yeah, I’ve been working on this concept that when Man f**ks animals, He’s f**king Nature, since He’s become so computerized and all.” Stump stops and takes a swallow from a silver flask he brings out of his pocket and says, “I’m working on the dog section now where this guy ties a dog up and is having intercourse with it because He thinks dog is God. D-O-G … G-O-D. God spelled backwards. Get it? See?”