The Rules of Attraction

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 f**k.”



“Well they certainly have no qualms about o**l s*x,” 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 f**king? 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.



They are all talking about a book I haven’t read. I sit back down on the chair next to Lauren and hear one of the editors say, “Seminal … seminal,” and another one say, “Yes, a landmark.” I open another beer and look back at Lauren who gives me this questioning, pleading look. I tip the bottle back and look over at Mona and her see-through blouse.



“The way she represented like the total earth mother figure was amazing, not to say audacious,” Mona says, nodding her head vigorously.



“But it wasn’t just the way she represented her,” Stump says. “It was the Joycean implications that blew me away.”



“So Joyce, so Joyce,” Mona agrees.



“Should I read this book?” I ask Lauren, hoping she’ll turn and face me; turn away from Vittorio.



“You wouldn’t like it,” she says, not looking at me.



“Why not?” I ask.



“It ‘doesn’t make sense.’” She sips her drink.



“Not only Joyce, but it reminded me a bit of Acker’s work,” Trav is saying. “Has anyone read by the way, Crad Kilodney’s Lightning Struck My Dick? It’s amazing, amazing.” He shakes his head.



“What does that mean?” I ask her.



“Figure it out,” she whispers.



I sit back, stifle a yawn, drink more of the beer.



Trav turns to Vittorio. “But Vittorio, let me ask you, don’t you think that the admittedly Bohemian punk outlaw scribblings of these wasted post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post- … hell, post-everything minstrels, is the product of a literary establishment bombasting a lost generation with worthless propaganda exploiting greed, blase sexual attitudes and mind-corrupting, numbing jejunosity and that’s why works like Just Another Asshole, a searing, searing collection of quote-unquote underground writing, become potent fixtures on the minds of this clan of maladjusted, nihilistic, malcontent, self-serving … well, hell, miscarriages, or do you think it’s all…” And now Trav stops, searches for the right word. “… bogus?”



“Oh Tra-av,” Mona says.



“Um … bogus?” Vittorio mumbles. “What is this bogus … you speak of? I have … not read the book … um…” He turns to Lauren. “Bogus? … mmm, did you like the book?”



“Oh yeah,” Lauren nods. “It was really good.”



“I … I have not read this … this book,” Vittorio says shyly, looking down at his drink.



I look over at Vittorio and suddenly sympathize with the man. I want to tell him that I haven’t read the book either, and I can see that Lauren feels the same way too, because she turns to him and says, “Oh Vittorio, I wish you would stay.”