The Rules of Attraction

None of us said anything. I looked over at Raymond, who wasn’t looking too worried anymore, and he gave me a glance that said this-quack-is-a-fucking-lunatic-let’s-get-the-hell-out-of-here. Donald was still upset, his back facing us. The nurse was looking over the desk, disinterested.



“I don’t know what to tell you boys,” the doctor said. “But your friend is dead. He’s simply not alive.”



Harry opened his eyes and asked, “I’m not dead am I?”



Donald screamed.



“Yes, you are,” Raymond said. “Shut up.”



The doctor didn’t seem too shocked by Harry’s state and grunted as he knelt down next to Harry and took his pulse again. “I’m telling you, there’s no pulse. This boy is dead.” He was saying this even thogh Harry’s eyes were open, blinking. The doctor used his stethoscope once more. “I’m not getting anything.”



“Wait a minute,” I said. “Uh, listen. Doctor. I think we’re going to take our friend home, okay?” I approached him cautiously. I knew we were in Hospital Hell or somewhere similar. “Is that, like, okay, with you?”



“Am I dead?” Harry asked, suddenly looking better, cracking up.



“Tell him to shut up!” Donald screamed.



“I’m pretty sure your friend is dead,” the doctor grunted, a little confused. “Maybe you want me to run some tests.”



“No!” Raymond and I said at the same time. We stood there watching the supposedly dead Freshman, Harry, laugh. We said nothing. Even though Dr. Phibes kept insisting he wanted to run some tests on “your friend’s corpse,” we finally took the Freshman home, but Donald wouldn’t sit in the backseat with him. It was almost eight-thirty by the time we got back to campus. I had blown it.



SEAN Today, I hang out, ride my motorcycle into town, walk around, buy a couple of tapes, then come back to Booth and watch Planet of the Apes on Getch’s VCR. I love the scene where an ape bullet has made Charlton Heston mute. He escapes and frantically runs around Ape City and as the net closes over his head he is raised triumphantly by The Gorillas and he finds his voice and screams, “Get your stinkin’ hands off me you damn dirty apes!” I’ve always liked that scene. It reminds me of nightmares I had in elementary school or something. Then, when I’m about to take a shower, I find the Duke of Disease (gross grad of 78 or 79) doing his friggin laundry in my bathroom. And he doesn’t even go to school here. Just visiting an old teacher. I have to run after the ass**le with a can of Lysol. I get another note in my box after dinner tonight. They don’t say anything really except, like, “I love you” or “You’re Sexy,” stuff like that. I used to think they were jokes that Tony or Getch were putting in my box, but there’s been too many of them to take as a joke. Someone is seriously interested in me. My interest has definitely been aroused.



Then it’s back in Booth after dinner watching TV in Getch’s room and some tall greasy-haired hippie turned professional-college-student-type named Dan, who had been f**king Candice last term, is there talking to Tony. Anyway, it’s about eight-thirty and the room is cold and I feel feverish. Tony and this guy get into a heated argument about politics or something. It’s frightening. Tony, in a pre-drunken state, is pissed off that his point was lost, and Dan, smelling like some twenty-year-old unwashed rug, keeps referring to leftist writers and calling the N.Y.C. police force “Nazis.” I tell him that I was once beaten up by the city police. He smiles and says, “Here’s a case in point.” I was joking. I feel weird, my body aches. I watch people argue about Nazis. I enjoy it. Saturdays suck.



Now, I’m at the party and I can’t find Candice, so I hang around, by the keg, talk to the DJ. Go to the bathroom but some ass**le has thrown up all over the floor and I’m about to leave when I bump into Paul Denton, who’s walking down the hallway, and I vaguely remember talking to him last night, and I nod to him as I’m walking away from the vomit-covered toilet, but he walks up to me and says, “Oh, I’m so sorry about tonight.”



“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sorry.”



“Did you stay?” he asks me.



“Stay? Yeah,” I say. Whatever. “I stayed.”



“God, I’m really sorry,” he says.



“Listen, it’s okay. It really is,” I tell him.



“I’ve got to make it up to you,” he’s telling me.



“Okay. Sure,” I say. “I’ve gotta take a leak, okay?”