"You were telling me about a joke you heard."
"That's right. You still want to hear it?"
"Hit me."
"These two southern belles - real fine gals with pretty dresses that have these lace frills, and they've got parasols to shade them from the heat of a South Carolina sun - these two southern belles are sitting on a wooden swing, and the blond on the left says to the brunette on the right, 'My daddy got me the most gorgeous pony, so that I could ride around the fields like a princess.' And the brunette simply says, 'My, my!' The blond pipes up again to say, 'My daddy also sent me to get my hands manicured and my feet pedicured so I'd be as pretty as that Marie Antoinette.' The brunette says again, 'My, my!' So the blond once again says something to the effect of, 'And my dearest daddy took me to see that new Chaplin movie.' The brunette --"
"My, my!"
"That's right! So the brunette says, 'My, my!' Then the blond says to her, 'What did your daddy ever do for you?' And the brunette declares, 'My daddy taught me to be polite and say, "My, my!" instead of "Fuck you."'"
I have only heard this joke once before, and it was before I left for Rhode Island last fall, though now the name of the jokester escapes me and I forget about it altogether. I am staring at the ceiling in my bed and it's one in the afternoon. I remember Cody dropping me off and leaving me with the bag of coke for free. We didn't fuck, I think, qualifying that it's just fine because he's my dealer, and it's probably for the best anyway.
I don't realize how painfully dry my mouth is until I unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth and swing my legs out from under my covers and quiver for a moment. The Richard Hell poster stares at me, and I think about buying his shades. He looks good in pants.
I hear "Eyes without a Face" emanating from one of my faceless, nameless sisters' rooms. I like Billy Idol, prefer it to the Crowded House playing on my stereo, so I shut it off, and that's when I hear the lawn mower going outside. My mother is home, and housework is being done. Somebody has probably had sex in the master bedroom, then, and I decide against making a show of it for fun. I do twenty pushups in my underwear and some sit-ups and I decide against the weights this morning, and I retire to the bathroom to take a shower and brush my teeth and contemplate my dick.
I get dressed and tarry downstairs where speak of the devil Mom is sipping vodka tonic and reading who gives a shit.
"What time did you get home?"
"One or two."
"Good."
"Probably one." I open the fridge and take out the orange juice and pour myself a glass. I sit at the table against my better judgment with my mother, but that's okay because she's mostly drunk and mostly vacant.
"How has school been?"
I don't look at her which is fine because she doesn't care to know, and I don't care to tell her. She drops the magazine to her lap and looks at me with a vapid smile. She whitened her teeth.
"You look sad." I am puzzled for a moment at her candidness. Uncharacteristic of Mom.
"You too," I tell her. She's wrong, unless she knows something I don't, but I'm right for the reason that she's a divorcee and we're her over-privileged children and she's an aimless alcoholic. She goes back to her article about fishnet stockings and I put on my sunglasses, and I wish they were the ones that Richard Hell wears.
-I meet Trent at the Chinese theatre in Hollywood. A homeless man on the sidewalk smells of urine and I despise the poor because they're everything I'm not, and I think about the things I don't deserve and smile because I secretly love it. Then I wonder why the twenty-something residents of Beverly Hills and Bel-Air and the Valley find Bohemianism fashionable. Reminds of me of Paris in the 20s and absinthe and whores, and I find Trent in the lobby of the theatre.
We sit in the matinee of Raging Bull and I think about how many times I should have been punched squarely in the nose. I've never met an Italian except on vacation in Milan where the only real Italians were buying bread and acting wholly not American. Trent looks at me. I still have my sunglasses on, and he thinks I'm sleeping.
"Stay the fuck up, man."
"I'm watching."
"I haven't sleep for two days, and you're staying up with me." He clips my shoulder and then puts his arm over my shoulder.
"Shut the fuck up!" I hear someone yell, but not to us. Trent is excited by commotion and he throws his popcorn at the screen and laughs because who gives a God damn and who's going to tell a kid whose car costs more than most peoples' houses to shut up. I think no one, and Trent says, "Let's bounce. I'm bored."
In his Porsche driving up Mulholland as per usual, we get to a Waffle House, and Trent takes delight in buying more than he can eat and throwing it away. I don't order anything but a water, and he makes quick work of a stack of four or five pancakes, but he won't keep any of the weight because he's lean and sinewy and dirty blond guys from the Hills don't get fat.
"You're awfully pale, dude. Back East ain't treating you well."
"Guess not," I say. "You have any cigarettes?" He gives me a cigarette from the case in his shirt pocket and continues eating.
"Not getting any sun, baby. Blair was wondering if you're going to Katie's party tonight. On the beach."
"Can't."
"You're not busy. Come on. Her dad rented A la Plage."
"Sure, yeah. I'll come. Not too late, though. I do have somewhere to be."
"Don't get soft on me, dick."
-I manage to dodge Blair at the party at Manhattan Beach, and, in fact, I think she's not here, but then again it's unlike her to miss a party. I think she's fucking other guys, and I hope that this is the case if only to have more reason to break it off. Katie is in the purple bikini that accentuates her boobs and I hint camel-toe through the shorts that are too small.
"Where's my man?" she jokes. I think she thinks she's being amiable, but she's mostly an idiot, and Trent loves her, but she's one girl that doesn't let him have his way with her. Domination vis-a-vis her vagina.
"Hey, Katie," Trent says. "I'm modeling now. My agent's gotten me in Esquire, and I'm flying to London next week for a shoot. Great, huh?"
Jess creeps up behind Katie and scares her by tickling her midriff.
"Bitch! Where have you been," Katie yells. I didn't notice the cup in her hand until now, and I ask her where the punch is.
"Trent's a model, Jess. Cool, huh? He's going to Paris next week."
"London."
"That's pretty cool. Do you get naked for the camera?" Jess also thinks she's funny. Most of them do.
"My contract has an affidavit against nudity."
"A what?"
"Trent's a lawyer now, Jess!" The drunken girls laugh, and I wonder if Trent really was a lawyer. He'd be good at it, theoretically, but he's gullible. "So Trent's afraid to get nak-ie! Come on Trent." She laughs hysterically at her nonsense.
"Fuck you," he says, taking off his shirt. I ditch them to find the punch. If I'm going to make conversation, I want to be drunk. By the punch bowl is a group of guys in Sundek shorts from high school. One of them goes to UCLA, I think. The other, USC.
"Kyle!" a few of them yell. I smile and say what's up and get fraternal and ask for a cup of punch.
"How's the East treating you?"
"How many Jews do you hit when you throw a rock?"
"Dude, you need to be at UCLA or just fucking get back here."
I appease their jibes with something clever, I think, but it makes no difference. Most of them are stoned or on X. "My, my," I hear in my ear, and I turn around and I see Evan or Alex or Chris.
"What?"
"Hey, I'm Troy."
"Have we met?"
"You were at Blair's party. So was I. You, uh, were in the bathroom for a long time. Something like that. I hear you have some coke. Want to bump?"
I ask Trent for his keys to get the coke that I brought. I don't remember Troy. I'd have remembered someone as tall as me with icy pupils and fair skin and a jaw like that. We get the coke from Trent's Porsche and then we take off to go to Haley's Comet downtown without Trent who's probably still trying to impress Katie who won't sleep with him.