The Rules of Attraction (Page 79)

It was also a weekend when two women in their mid-twenties tried unsuccessfully to pick up on my father and I. They were both drunk and due to the cold weather I had sobered up from whatever drinking binge I had been on, and my father had stopped drinking completely, and we lied to them. We told them we were oil barons from Texas and that I attended Harvard and came to Manhattan on weekends. They left whatever bar we had been at with us and we piled into the limousine which took us to a party someone my father knew at Trump Tower was having where we lost them. What was strange about that situation was not the pick-up itself, for my father had always been quite adept at casually picking up women. It was that my father, who would normally have flirted with these two, didn’t this last March. Not in the bar, not in the limousine, not at the party on Fifth Avenue we lost them at.

My father also couldn’t eat. So there were meals left wasted at Le Cirque, and Elaine’s and The Russian Tea Room; drinks ordered and left untouched at 21 and the Oak Room Bar; neither of us talking, mutually relieved if the bar or restaurant we were at was particularly noisy. There was a dour lunch at Mortimer’s with friends of his from Washington. A somber birthday dinner at Lutece with a girl I’d met at The Blue and Gold, Patrick and his girlfriend, Evelyn, who was a junior executive at American Express, and my father. This was two months after he had mother committed to Sandstone and the thing I most remember about that birthday was the fact that no one mentioned it. No one ever mentioned it except for Patrick, who, in confidence to me, whispered, “It was about time.” Patrick gave me a tie that night.

We went back to my father’s place at The Carlyle after the gloomy birthday dinner. He went to sleep, giving me a disapproving look as I sat with the girl on the couch in the living room, watching videos. The girl and I had sex later that night on the floor of the living room. I woke up sometime early that morning hearing moans coming from the bedroom. A light was on, there were voices. It started snowing that night, just before dawn. I left the next day.

On the plane heading for New York and later in my father’s place at The Carlyle, unpacking, pacing, drinking from a bottle of J.D., the stereo on, I think of the reasons why I came to New York and can only come up with one. I didn’t come to see my father die. And I didn’t come to argue with my brother. And I didn’t come because I wanted to skip classes at school. And I didn’t come to visit my mother. I came to New York because I owe Rupert Guest six hundred dollars and I don’t want to deal with it.

PAUL Have you been in a worse mood lately?

The Freshman you have a crush on passes by you down the stairs out of the dining halls and when you ask him where he’s going he says, “Hibachi.” You’ve forgotten your I.D. so they bother you about that but they let you in anyway. You get some coffee and for some perverse reason a bowl of Jell-O and walk to your table. It seems that Donald and Harry went to Montreal last night to visit the natives and got back this morning. “I haven’t masturbated in eleven days,” Donald whispers as you sit down. “I envy you,” you whisper back.

And then there’s Raymond who has brought Steve, nicknamed The Handsome Dunce in some circles, to the table. Steve is an economics major who “dabbles in video.” Steve has a BMW. He is from Long Island. Now, Raymond has not slept with this guy (gay Freshmen—it’s dawning on you—are an anomaly now) even though he did leave the party with him last night. But Raymond is eager still to let everyone think so. He laughs at every lame conversation attempt made by this idiot Steve and asks him constantly if he wants anything and brings him things (cookies, a disgusting/funny salad, garnishes stolen from the salad bar) even if he has said no. It’s so nauseating that you are about to get up and leave, sit somewhere else. What’s even more nauseating is that you don’t. You stay because Steve is hot. And this depresses you, makes you think, will you always be the quintessential faggot? Will you only pant after the blond-tan-good-body-stupid-goons? And will you always ignore the smart, caring, sensitive type, who might be four-foot-three and have acne on his back but who is still, essentially, bright? Will you always pant after the blue-eyed palooka who’s majoring in Trombone Theory and ignore the loving Drama queer who’s doing his thesis on Joe Orton? You want it to stop, but …

… then the tall blue-eyed Freshman, who doesn’t even have a hint of interest in you, will ask for a cigarette and you’ll be blown away. But the Freshmen, represented here by Steve, look so stupid, so desperate to please, trying so hard, nothing on their minds but partying, dressed like ads for Esprit sportswear. Fact remains however: they are better-looking than the Seniors.