The Rules of Attraction

He stares at me sternly, unforgiving. “Right.”



“What are you going to do?” I ask.



“I don’t know,” he says.



“Where are you going to go?” I ask.



“I don’t know.”



“Where?”



“I don’t know. Utah,” he shouts. “I’m going to Utah! Utah or Europe.” He stands up, pushes himself away from the table. “I’m not answering any more of your frigging questions.”



“Sit down, Sean,” I say.



“You make me sick,” he says.



“You’re not getting out of this,” I tell him. “Now sit down.”



He ignores me and walks down the corridor, past his father’s room, past other rooms.



“I’m taking the limo back to Dad’s place,” he says, jabbing at the button for the elevator. There’s a sudden ping and the doors slide open. He steps in without looking back.



I pick up the swizzle stick he was bending. I get up from the cafeteria and walk down the hallway, past the aides who don’t even bother to look up at me. At the pay phone in the hall I call Evelyn. She tells me to call her back later, mentions that it’s the middle of the night. She hangs up and I stay there holding the phone, afraid to hang it up. The two men sitting by the door now interested, now watching.



PAUL At The Carousel I’ve started a conversation with a townie who, for a townie, is actually pretty good-looking. He works for Holmes Moving Storage in town and thinks that Fassbinder is a beer from France. In other words, he’s perfect. But Victor Johnson, who I’ve never much liked and who’s back in town for some reason, in the same condition—alcoholic—as he left, and he keeps pestering me about where everyone is, and I have to keep pushing him away. He eventually stands by the video machines in back with that obnoxious poet who used to be cute before he shaved his head, making faces at me. I ask the townie what he’s going to do after he quits Holmes (“labor problems,” he confides).



“Go to L.A.,” he says.



“Really?” I light his cigarette and order another Seabreeze. “Double,” I mouth to the bartender. I also buy the townie another shot of J.D. and a Rolling Rock. He actually calls me “Sir” as in “Thank you, sir.”



Lizzie, some awful girl from the Drama Division, comes over right when I’m telling the townie how great L.A. is (I’ve never been) and says, “Hi, Paul.”



“Hi, Elizabeth,” I say, noticing how the dumb townie looks Liz over; relieved when he turns back to his drink. Liz has been trying to get me into bed for a long time. If it happens it’s not going to be tonight. She directed the Shepard play this term and she’s not exactly ugly; in fact she’s fairly pretty for the fag-hag she is but still no thank you. Besides I’ve made it my prerogative to never sleep with Drama majors.



“You want to meet my friend Gerald?” she asks.



“What does that mean?” I say.



“We have some Ecstasy,” she says.



“Is that supposed to entice me?” I look back at the townie and then tell Liz, “Later.”



“Okay,” she squeals and skips off.



I look back at the townie, at his expression—there isn’t one—at the greasy T-shirt, and the ripped jeans, the long uncombed hair and the beautiful face, the strong tight body and the roman nose, unsure. Then I turn away and put on my sunglasses, scope the room; it’s late and snowing out, and there’s no one else available. When I look back at the townie he gives me what I think is a shrug. But am I imagining something, did I make the shrug up? Was I taking each drunken gesture and molding it into what I wanted? Just because the guy is wearing an Ohio T-shirt doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s from Ohio State.



Yet, I make the decision to go home with the townie. I excuse myself and go to the restroom first. Someone’s written “Pink Floyd Rules” on the wall and I write underneath it. “Oh come on, grow up.” When I come out, waiting in line are Lizzie and Gerald, an actor who I’ve met a couple of times before. We were in a Strindberg play together two terms ago. Gerald: okay-looking, blond curly hair, a little too thin, nice suit.



“I see you’ve got a devastating townie over there,” Gerald says. “Wanna share him with us?”



“Gerald,” I say, looking him over; he waits expectantly. “No.”



“Do you know him?” he asks.



“Yeah, well, I don’t know,” I mumble, craning my neck to make sure the townie’s still where I left him. “Do you?”