(… no mail from Victor …)
But I like Franklin’s body and he’s good in bed and easy to have orgasms with. But it doesn’t feel good and when I try to fantasize about Victor, I can’t.
I go to computer class. I hate it but need the credit.
“Did I tell you I was strip-searched in Ireland?” Franklin will mention at lunch.
I will look straight ahead and avoid eye contact when he says things like that. I pretend I don’t hear him. He doesn’t shave sometimes and he gives me beard burns. I am not in love with him, I’ll chant under my breath at dinner, with him sitting across from me with other oily Lit majors all dressed in black and exhibiting a dry yet caustic wit and I’ll be blown away by how nondescript he is. But can you remember really what Victor looked like? No, you can’t, can you? It freaked him out badly that I put a note on my door that said “If my mother calls I’m not here. Try not to take a message either. Thanks.” I try to stop smoking. I forget to feed the cat.
“I want to trip with my father before he dies,” Franklin said at lunch this afternoon.
I didn’t say anything for a very long time and then he asked, “Are you high?” and I said “High” and lit another cigarette.
SEAN There is no way I’m driving the dude to the bus station. I can’t believe he even asked me. I’m hungover as hell and feel like I’m going to throw up blood and I woke up on the floor of someone’s room and it’s cold and I’m in a bad mood and I owe Rupert five hundred bucks. He’s pissed off supposedly, and has threatened to kill me. I can’t believe I’m up this early. I bought an onion bagel at the snack bar and it’s cold but I’m still wolfing it down. He’s standing there already, with his bag and sunglasses and long coat, reading some book. I mumble a good morning.
“Just get up?” he asks, smirking.
“Yeah. Missed my guitar tutorial. Shit.” I climb on the bike and try to start it. I hand him the onion bagel. I turn the ignition. I decide to just fake it; pretend the bike won’t start. He won’t be able to tell.
“You shaved,” I say, trying to make conversation; get his attention away from the bike.
“Yeah. I was getting a little scruffy there,” he says.
“Doing it for Mom? That’s real nice,” I say.
“Uh-huh,” he says.
“Nice,” I say.
“Can I have a bite of your bagel?” he asks.
No way. I don’t want to give him a bite of my bagel. I say, “Sure.”
I start the bike up, jiggle the keys, then let it die again. Put my foot on the accelerator; turn it off with a flick of the wrist. Then start it up again. The bike makes a sputtering sound, the engine dies.
“Oh shit,” I say.
I pretend to try it again. The bike, of course, just won’t start.
“Shit.” I get off the bike and lean down. He’s watching me closely.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I don’t know what to say so I say, “Needs a jumpstart.” Smile to myself.
“Jumpstart? Christ,” he mutters, checking his watch.
I get back on the bike and do the trick again. The bike just will not start.
“It’s not gonna start,” I tell him.
“What do I do?” he asks.
I sit there, look out over Commons, finish the cold bagel, yawn. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” he says.
He’s a liar. It’s only ten-forty-five. I go along with it. “Your bus leaves at eleven-thirty, right?”
“Right,” he says.
“That’s enough time to find someone who’ll give me a jumpstart.” I yawn again.
He’s looking at his watch. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll find someone. Getch’ll do it.”
“Getch has Music for the Handicapped now,” he tells me.
I knew that. “Does he?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “I didn’t know Getch took that.”
“I’m taking a cab,” he says.
Thank God. “Okay,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“Sorry guy,” I say.
“It’s all right.” He’s irritated. He gets off the bike and tucks the copy of the book he’s reading in the dufflebag, straightens his sunglasses.
“I’ll see you Sunday, okay?” he says, asks.
“Yeah. Bye,” I say.
Go back to my room and drink some Nyquil to get to sleep. I heard that junkies use the stuff when they can’t find any heroin or methadone. It does the job. The only problem is that I dream about Lauren, and she’s all blue.
PAUL It was a Friday morning and I was waiting by Sean’s bike in the student parking lot. It was only ten-thirty and the bus station in town was maybe a five minute drive from campus but I wanted to get there early. When I was sixteen I was supposed to meet my parents in Mexico. They had flown down the week before and told me that if I wanted to come I could get a ticket and meet them down in Las Cruces. When I got to O’Hare to catch the flight down to Mexico City I found out I missed it. When I went back to my car I found a parking ticket on the windshield. I stayed home and had a party and ruined the couch from Sloane’s and saw eleven movies and skipped school all that week. And that’s probably why I get so paranoid before going on a trip. Ever since then, I arrive at airports and train stations and bus terminals much earlier than needed. Even though it was ten-forty and I knew I’d probably make the bus to Boston, I still couldn’t concentrate on the copy of The Fountainhead I was reading or anything else. Last summer Mitchell told me I was an illiterate and that I should read more. So he gave me a copy of The Fountainhead and I began it, rather reluctantly. When I told Mitchell one day at some cafe that I didn’t like Howard Roark, he said he had to go to the restroom, and he never came back. I paid the check. I remember that my parents bought me a stuffed iguana and smuggled it through customs for me. Why?
Sean arrived and noticed that I’d shaved, flirting, like a bastard. His bike wouldn’t start, so I decided to take a cab to the bus station. He was nice about it and I felt sorry for him that his bike wouldn’t start, and he looked like he was really going to miss me and I decided that I would call him when I got to Boston. Then I remembered The Dressed To Get Screwed party and knew that he was going to get laid; that everyone does. By the time the cab brought me to the bus station I was chain-smoking and bending my copy of The Fountainhead so hard that it became permanently creased. But the bus was late anyway when it arrived at eleven-forty-five, so I had nothing to worry about in terms of making it. Myself, some young fat lady with a blue jacket with dice on the back of it and her blond dirty-faced little boy, and a well-dressed blind man were the only people getting on at Camden. Since there was no one else on the bus I took a seat in the smoking section, near the back. The fat woman got on with her son and they sat up front. It took a while for the blind man to get on and the driver helped guide him slowly to a seat. I hoped that the blind man wouldn’t sit next to me. He didn’t. I was relieved.
The bus pulled out of Camden and started up Route 9. I was glad that there was no one else on the bus today going to Boston. It would be a nice, calm trip. Opening the book, I stared out the window, and got the feeling that maybe this weekend in Boston wouldn’t be too awful. Richard would be there, after all. I was even a little interested in what my mother wanted to talk to me about. Her stolen Cadillac? It was probably a company car anyway. Easy to replace, nothing to worry about. It certainly didn’t merit a visit to Massachusetts though. I took off the sunglasses since it was overcast and lit a fresh cigarette, tried to read. But it was too nice out not to stare past the window at the mid-October countryside, still signs of fall everywhere. Reds and dark greens and oranges and yellows all passed by. I read some more of the book, smoked some more cigarettes, wished that I’d brought my Walkman.
After about an hour the bus pulled into some town and made a stop at a small station where an old couple got on and sat near
the front. The bus pulled out of the station and continued back on the highway for a mile or so and then stopped in front of a huge group of people, kids from the college nearby, standing in front of two green benches. I tensed up and realized as the bus slowed down and pulled close to the curb that these students were actually going to board the bus. I panicked for a moment and quickly moved to an aisle seat.
When the kids from the college got on, I took my sunglasses off and then put them on again and looked down at the book, hoping that they wouldn’t realize I was a student from Camden. Fifty or sixty of these kids piled into the bus and it got unbearably loud. Most of them were girls dressed in pinks and blues, Esprit and Benetton sweatshirts, snapping sugarless gum, Walkmans on, holding cans of caffeine-free Diet Coke, clutching issues of Vogue and Glamour, looking like they stepped out of a Starburst commercial. The guys, eight or nine of them, were mostly good-looking and they sat in the back, near me, in the smoking section. One was carrying a big Sony cassette player, the new Talking Heads blasting from it, issues of Rolling Stone and Business Week being passed back and forth. Even after all these Pepsi rejects got on, there was still no one sitting next to me. I started feeling completely self-conscious and thought, god I must look pretentious, sitting in the back, Wayfarers on, black tweed coat ripped at the shoulder, chain-smoking, faded copy of The Fountainhead in my lap. I must scream “Camden!” But I was still grateful that no one sat next to me.
But just as the bus pulled away I noticed The Boy, looking exactly like Sean, looking very out of place, standing near the front of the bus, trying to make his way to the back. He had tangled longish hair and a week’s growth of beard. He was wearing a Billy Squier T-shirt (oh my god) and holding a bulging pillow sack. I couldn’t get over the resemblance and my heart stopped, then skipped a little before it resumed its normal beat. I looked around the bus and got the awful feeling that this Sean look-alike, who also had grease-stained hands, holding a wrinkled copy of Motor Trend (did this guy go to Hampshire?) was going to have to sit next to me. The boy passed the empty seat I was sitting next to and looked around the back of the bus. One of the college boys, wearing a Members Only jacket and leafing through a Sports Illustrated, Hi-Tops kicked up on the seat in front of him, talking about how he lost his Walkman in Freshman Econ class, shut up, and when he did that all the guys looked over at The Sean Boy and snorted derisively rolling their eyes. I was thinking please don’t sit next to me…. He looked so much like Sean.
He knew the college boys were making fun of him and he moved over to me.
“Is that seat taken?” he asked.
And for a minute I wanted to say yes, but of course that would have been ridiculous, so I shook my head and swallowed hard and stood up to let The Boy sit down. The seats were close together and I had to move over to the edge of mine to accommodate us. He had the same color hair on his head and arms and he also had one eyebrow and tight ripped jeans. It was hard to deal with.
The bus pulled away from the curb before everyone was seated and hurled back onto the highway. I tried to read the book but couldn’t. It started to rain, the sound of the Talking Heads coming from the gleaming cassette player, the girls passing Diet Pepsi and nachos back and forth and trying to flirt with me, the incessant yapping from the college boys in back, smoking clove cigarettes, an occasional joint, talking about how some slut named Ursula was fucked by some guy named Phil in the back of some guy’s Toyota Nissan named Mark and how Ursula lied to Phil and said it wasn’t his baby but he paid for the abortion anyway and it was all so irritating I couldn’t even concentrate on anything. And by the time we were near Boston I was so angry with my mother for asking me to come that I just kept staring over at The Sean Boy, who, in turn, stared out the window, smoothing the creases out of his ticket with his grease-stained hands, his Swatch ticking loudly.
SEAN I get another note in my box today from Lauren Hynde. It says “I will meet you tonite—once the sun sets—E-L-O-V will no longer be spelled this way….” I can’t wait until the party, until “the sun sets” so I try to talk to Lauren at lunch. She’s standing, smoking a cigarette, by the desserts, with Judy Holleran (who I screwed last term and who I occasionally score for; she’s also really fucked-up, she’s been in psychological counseling forever) and I come up behind them slowly, and suddenly I want to touch Lauren, I’m about to touch her, gently, on the neck, but the Frog roommate, who I haven’t seen in days, excuses himself and reaches for a croissant or something and lingers. He notices me and says “Ca va.” I say “Ca va.” Lauren says “Hi” to him and she blushes and looks at Judy and Judy smiles too. He keeps looking at Lauren and then goes away. Lauren’s telling Judy how she lost her I.D.
“What’s going on?” I ask Judy, picking up a plate of melon.
“Hi, Sean. Nothing,” she says.
Lauren’s looking over the cookies, playing hard to get. It’s so obvious I’m embarrassed.
“Going to the party tonight?” I ask. “Once the sun sets?”
“Totally psyched,” Judy says, sarcastic as hell.
Lauren laughs, like she agrees. I bet, I’m thinking.
The geek from L.A. grabs an orange from the fruit tray and Lauren looks down, at what? His legs? They’re really tan and I’ve never seen him with his sunglasses off, big deal. He lifts his eyebrows in recognition. I do the same. I look back at Lauren and I’m struck by how great-looking she is. And standing here, even if it’s only for something like a millisecond, I overload on how great-looking this girl is. I’m amazed at how her legs affect me, the breasts, braless, beneath a “We Are the World” T-shirt, thighs. She looks over at me in what seems like slow motion. I can’t meet her blue-eyed gaze back. She’s too gorgeous. Her perfect, full lips locked in on this sexy uncaring smile. She’s constructed perfectly. She smiles when she notices me staring and I smile back. I’m thinking, I want to know this girl.
“I think it’s supposed to be a toga party too,” I say.
“Toga? Jesus,” she says. “What does this place think it is? Williams?”
“Where’s the party?” Judy asks.
“Wooley,” I tell her. She can’t even fucking look at me.
“I thought we already had one,” she says, and inspects a cookie. Her fingers are long and delicate. The nails have clear polish on them. Her hand, small and clean, scratches at her perfect, small nose, while the other hand runs through her blond, short hair and then back over her neck. I try to smell her.
“We did,” I say.
“A toga party,” she says. “You’ve got to be kidding. Who’s on Rec Committee anyway?”
“I am,” I say, looking directly at her.
Judy pockets an oatmeal cookie and takes a drag off her, Lauren’s, cigarette.
“Well, Getch and Tony are gonna steal some sheets. There’s a keg. I don’t know,” I say, laughing a little. “It’s not really a toga party,”
“Well, it sounds really happening,” she says.
She leaves abruptly, taking a cookie, and asks Judy, “I’m going into town with Beanhead, wanna come?”
Judy says, “Plath paper. Can’t.”
Lauren leaves without saying anything to me. Obviously embarrassed, flustered, by my presence.
Tonight, I think. I go back to the table.
“The weight room opened today,” Tony says.
“Rock’n’roll,” I say.
“You’re an idiot,” he says.
Once the sun sets, I’m thinking.
PAUL I got off the bus with the other college students and the blind man and the fat woman with the blond kid and got lost amid the flotsam in the large terminal in Boston. Then I was outside and it was rush hour and overcast and I looked around for a cab. There was a sudden tap on my shoulder and when I turned around I was confronted by The Boy Who Looks Like Sean.
“Yeah?” I lowered my sunglasses. I was experiencing an adrenaline rush.
“Man, I was wondering if I could borrow five bucks,” he asked.
&nbs
p; I got dizzy and wanted to say no but he looked so much like Sean that I fumbled for my wallet, couldn’t find a five and ended up giving him a ten.
“Thanks man,” he says, slinging the pillow case over his shoulder, nodding to himself, walking away.
I nodded too, an involuntary reaction, and started to get a headache. “I am going to kill her,” I whispered to myself as I finally wave down a cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Ritz-Carlton. It’s on Arlington,” I told him, sitting back in the seat, exhausted.
The driver turned his neck and looked at me, saying nothing.
“The Ritz-Carlton,” I tell him again, getting uneasy.
He still stares.
“On … Arlington…”
“I hear you,” the cab driver, an old guy, muttered, shaking his head, turning around.
Then what the fuck are you staring at? I wanted to scream.
I rubbed my eyes. My hands smelled awful and I opened a package of Chuckles I bought at the bus station in Camden. I ate one. The cab moved slowly through the traffic. It started raining. The cab driver kept looking at me in the rearview mirror, shaking his head, mumbling things I couldn’t hear. I stopped chewing the Chuckle. The cab had barely made it down one block, then turned and pulled over to the curb. I panicked and thought, Oh Jesus, what now? Was he going to kick me out for eating a goddamn Chuckle? I put the Chuckles away.
“Why have we stopped?” I asked.
The Rules of Attraction Page 11