“Yeah,” Stump says. “Hunter S. Thompson.”
“Right,” she says. “This is Sean Bateman.”
“Hi, Stump?” I offer my hand.
“Yeah. Used to be Carcass but changed it.” He salutes instead of taking my hand.
“You … look familiar,” I say, taking a seat.
“Wine? Uh, vodka? Gin?” Vittorio asks, sitting in the chair next to Lauren’s, gesturing at the table we’re all “gathered” around. “You like gin, don’t you … Lauren.”
How the fuck does he know?
“Yeah, gin,” Lauren says. “Do you have any tonic?”
“Oh, of course, of course … I’ll make it,” Vittorio says in his soft, almost faggoty voice, reaching over Lauren’s knees to get to the ice bucket.
“I’ll just have one of those beers,” I say, but when Vittorio makes no move to get one I reach over and take one of the Beck’s.
It’s quiet. Everyone waits for Vittorio to make Lauren’s drink. I sit there, looking at Vittorio’s shaking hands, alarmed at how much gin he’s pouring into Lauren’s glass. When he turns around to hand the glass to her, he seems shocked, taken aback, and as she takes the drink from him he says, “Oh look … look at the sunlight, the sunlight … through your golden … golden hair….” His voice is trembling now. “The sunlight…” he murmurs. “Look how it glows … glows in the sunlight…”
Jesus Christ, this is really making me sick. She is making me sick. I grip the beer firmly, tear at the damp label. Then I look at Lauren.
The sun is still up and streaming through the large stained glass window and it does make Lauren’s hair glow and she looks very beautiful to me right now. Everyone’s giggling and Vittorio leans over and starts smelling her hair. “Ah, sweet as nectar … nectar,” he says.
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 fucking 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 fucks animals, He’s fucking 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?”
Everyone is nodding but me. I search the table for another beer. I grab a Beck’s and open it quickly, taking a long, deep swallow. I look at Marie, who, like me, has been silent for the duration of this nightmarish event.
“That’s weird that you mention that,” Lauren says. “I saw two dogs making love in front of my dorm this morning. It was really strange, but it was, admittedly, poetic in terms of erotic imagery.”
I finally have to say something. “Lauren, dogs don’t make love,” I tell her. “They fuck.”
“Well they certainly have no qualms about oral sex,” Mona laughs.
“Dogs don’t make love?” Stump asks me, incredulous. “I’d think about that if I were you.”
“Um, no … no … I do believe that dogs make love … um, yes they make love in the … in the sunlight,” Vittorio says wistfully. “In the golden, golden … sunlight, they make love.”
I excuse myself and get up, go through the kitchen, thinking it leads to the bathroom, then up the stairs and through Vittorio’s room to his bathroom. I wash my hands and look at my reflection in the mirror and tell myself that I’ll go back and tell Lauren that I don’t feel well and that we’d better go back to campus. What will she say? She’ll probably tell me that we’d only gotten here and that if I want to leave I can, and she’ll meet me back on campus. Did I actually say something about dogs fucking? Forget the coke, I decide, and open Vittorio’s medicine cabinet, more out of boredom than curiosity. Sea Breeze, Vitalis, Topol toothpolish, Ben-Gay, Pepto Bismol, tube of Preparation H, prescription of Librium. How hip. I take the bottle out of the cabinet and open it, pouring the green and black capsules into my hand and then popping one to calm myself, washing it down with a handful of water from the sink. Then I wipe my mouth and hands on a towel hanging over the shower stall and go back down to the living room, already cursing myself for leaving Lauren unattended with Vittorio for so long.