The Rules of Attraction
I’ve refrained all evening from smoking and am seriously dying of a violent nicotine attack and I eye Richard’s cigarette hungrily. I am trying to rip my napkin in half.
“My name’s not Richard,” Richard reminds her, quietly.
Mrs. Jared looks at my mother and then at Richard and asks, “Then, what is it?”
“Dick,” he says, making it sound like the filthiest name imaginable.
“What?” Mrs. Jared asks.
“Dick. You heard me.” Richard takes a long drag from the Marlboro and blows it across the table at me. I cough and sip my drink.
“No. Your name is Richard,” Mrs. Jared corrects.
“Sorry,” Richard shakes his head. “It’s Dick.”
Mrs. Jared pauses. She’s slipping. She has not eaten much and has been drinking steadily, even before dinner began, and now she calmly asks, “Well, Dick … how is school?”
“Sucks cock,” Richard says.
I’m sipping champagne when he says this and burst out laughing, spraying my plate. I quickly place the napkin I’m trying to rip apart over my mouth, attempt to swallow but start coughing instead, then choking. My eyes water and I breathe in, gasping.
“What are you taking … Dick?” Mrs. Jared asks, looking at me, trying to hold her composure, a stare of reprimand fixed on her face. I wipe my mouth and shrug.
“I don’t know. Gangbanging 111. Freebasing tutorial,” Richard shrugs, laughing, digging his foot even harder against my crotch. I cough again and grab at his foot beneath the table. “You like that?” he asks.
“What else?” Mrs. Jared is clearly trying not to act nonplussed, but her hand trembles as she finishes the rest of her drink.
“Oral Sex Workshop,” Richard says.
“My God,” my mother whispers, and she hasn’t said a word all night.
“What’s that like?” Mrs. Jared asks, still calm. Reverse psychology not working.
“I got a joke,” Richard says, still rubbing his foot against me, puffing on the cigarette. “You all wanna hear it?”
“No,” my mother and Mrs. Jared say at the same time.
“Paul wants to,” he says. “See, Julio Iglesias and Diana Ross meet at this party and they go back to Julio’s place and they f**k—”
“I do not want to hear this,” Mrs. Jared says, waving a passing waiter away after pointing at her empty glass.
“Neither do I,” my mother speaks again.
“Anyway, they f**k,” Richard continues, “and afterwards, Diana Ross, who’s come about fifty times and wants more of Julio’s dick, says—”
“I don’t want to hear this either,” my mother repeats.
“She says,” Richard goes on, getting louder, “‘Julio you gotta f**k my pu**y again, I loved it so much’ and Julio says ‘Okay baby, but I need to sleep for a leetle beet—’”
“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks.
“‘But, you must keep one hand on my c**k and the other on my balls’ Julio says, ‘and then after thirty minutes we f**k again, okay?’” Richard is getting animated and I’m just dying, tearing at the napkin.
“Oh my God,” my mother says, disgusted.
“And Diana says,” and now Richard does a really bad Diana Ross impersonation, “‘Why do I have to keep one hand on your c**k and another on your balls, Julio?’”
“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks, interrupting again.
Richard’s getting pissed off that she’s interrupting and his voice gets louder and I just slump down deeper into the chair, let go of the napkin and light a cigarette. Why not.
“And Julio says, ‘You wanna know why you have to keep one hand on my c**k and one hand on my balls?’” He says this with a fierce leer on his face.
“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared is shaking her head and I feel sorry for her, sitting in this dining room, being abused by her son, dressed in that ugly outfit she probably got at Loehmann’s.
Richard gets even angrier that she’s interrupting his joke and I know what’s coming and I don’t even care who Sean is f**king tonight, at this moment. I just want the punchline to be over with, and Richard, the ass**le, delivers it loud, staring at his mother: “‘Because the last time I f**ked a nigger she stole my wallet.’” And then he sits back, drained, but satisfied. The table becomes hushed. I look around the room and smile and nod at one of the old ladies at the table across from ours. She nods approvingly and smiles back.