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.
“Because we’re here,” the driver sighed.
“We’re here?” I looked out the window. “Oh.”
“Yeah, that’ll be one forty,” he grumbled. He was right.
“I guess I forgot it was … so, um, close,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” the driver says. “Whatever.”
“I hurt my foot. Sorry,” I pushed two singles at him and tripped in the rain getting out of the cab and I just know Sean’s going to fuck someone at the party tonight and I’m in the lobby now, soaked, and this just better be good.
He doesn’t know it but I had seen Him over the summer. Last summer. I spent my summer vacation on Long Island, in the Hamptons with my poor drunken father. Southampton, Easthampton, Hampton Bays — wandering the island with other Gucci-clad nomads. I stayed with my brother one night and visited a recently widowed aunt on Shelter Island and I stayed in tons of motels, motels that were pink and gray and green and that glowed in the Hamptons light. I stayed in these havens of shelter since I could not bear anymore to look at my father’s new girlfriends. But that is another story.
I saw Him first at Coast Grill on the South Shore and then at this oh-so-trendy Bar-B-Que place whose delightful name eludes me at the moment. He was eating undercooked chicken and trying not to sneeze. He was with a female (a wench, definitely) who looked anorexic. Fag bartenders stood around them, looking bored, and I would order Slow Comfortable Screws to bother and tease them. “That’s made with rum?” they’d lisp, and I’d lisp back Yes because you can’t lisp No. Mouth-breathing waitresses came on to You, You, who were bronzed like a God, a GQ man, Your hair slicked back. I heard Your name called — a phone call. Bateman. They’d mispronounce it — Dateman. I was sitting, shrouded in darkness at the long sleek bar and I had just found out oh-so-discreetly that I had failed three out of four classes last term. Unfortunately I had forgotten to hand in, to even complete, the prerequisite “Some Papers,” before I left for Arizona and hit the Hamptons. And there You sat. The last time I had seen You was at a Midnight Breakfast; You hurled a balled-up pancake at a table of Drama majors. Now You lit a cigarette. You did not bother to light the wench’s. I followed You to the phone booth.
“Hey dude, like, didn’t you speak to the dean and like, uh, tell them how unwrapped I am?”
I assumed it was Your psychiatrist.
You yawned and said, “I am concerned.”
There was an indefinite pause and then You said, “Just refill the Librium.”
Another pause. You looked around, didn’t recognize me from school. Me, sunburned and stiff and trying to drink but oh-so-sober. “I’m all set,” You said.
You hung up. I watched as You nonchalantly threw bills on the table and walked out of the restaurant before the wench. The door closed on her, but she followed you anyway. You both sped away in a bright red Alfa Romeo and I got drunk and waited for Tonight.
Tonight. I’ve spent all afternoon in a bath full of scented water, preparing, cleansing, soaping, shaving, oiling myself for You. I have not eaten in two days. I wait. I am good at that. I listen to old soon-to-be-forgotten songs and wait for Tonight and for You. Wait for that final moment. A moment so filled with such expectance and longing that I almost do not want to witness its occurrence. But I’m ready. One fine day you’ll want me for your girl, my radio cries. That’s right. Tonight.
PAUL I walk up to the register desk and stand there, the urge to flee, to go back to Camden, just walk the two blocks, in the rain, to the terminal, just get on the bus, and intercept Sean at The Dressed To Get Screwed party, overwhelms me and I just stand there staring blankly at the snotty, well-dressed men behind the desk until one glides over and says, “Yes, sir?” I’m tempted to leave, split, do it.
“Yes, sir?” he asks again.
I snap out of it. I looked at him. It was too late. It was all too late.
“I think my mother made reservations for the weekend. The name’s Denton.”
“Denton, very good,” the clerk said, looking me over dubiously before he checked the files. I looked down at myself, confused, then back at the clerk.
“Yes, Denton. Three days. That’s two rooms, right?” the clerk asked.
I guess.
“Could you please sign this?” The clerk handed me something.
I filled in the address of Camden but I didn’t know why. My hands were still wet. They stained the card.
“Will your mother be paying cash or with VISA, Mr. Denton?” the clerk asked.
I could have paid with my American Express but why the hell should I have done that? That would have been stupid; this whole thing was stupid. “VISA, I guess.”
“Fine, Mr. Denton.”
“I guess the rest of them are coming later.” And don’t call me Mister Denton. My name’s Paul, you fools, Paul!
“Fine, Mr. Denton. Is that the only baggage you have?”
I was standing there wet, my life ruined. It was over with Sean. Another one bites the dust.
“Sir?” the clerk persisted.
“What?” I blink.
“I’ll have someone take it up right away,” he said.
I didn’t even hear him, just “Thanks” and unbutton my coat and someone handed me a key and in a daze I walk into an open elevator and pushed a button for the ninth floor, no, someone else pushed it for me and some person walked me down a hallway and helped me find the two rooms.
I laid on the bed for a long time before I decided to get up. I open the doors that connected the suites and ponder which room looked better. I laid on one of the double beds in the other room and decide that the first room was more comfortable. I look at the other double bed, where Richard would sleep. I wondered if we’d fool around, since we had in high school, back in Chicago. I had almost gone to Sarah Lawrence because of him. He had almost gone to Camden, but then opted out and told me, “There’s no fucking way I’m doing time in New Hampshire,” and I had told him “I’d rather go to college in Las Vegas than Bronxville.” Richard was definitely very good-looking, but getting together was a bad idea and, except for leaving Sean, was my main reservation about Boston. I turned the TV on and laid down again and then took a shower, the phone kept ringing, I kept hanging it up, got dressed, watched more TV, smoked more cigarettes, waited.
LAUREN I’m dreaming about Victor. It’s a Camden relocation dream. People from school are milling about a salad bar on a beach. Judy is standing by the sea. The sea behind her is sometimes white, sometimes red, sometimes black. When I ask her where Victor is, she says, “Dead.” I wake up. For a long, painful moment, between the point at which I have the nightmare, and the moment at which, hopefully, it is forgotten, I lie there, thinking about Victor. A very common morning.