Bret Ellis - Less than zero

We leave Chasen's and the streets are empty and the air's still dry and hot and the wind's still blowing. On Little Santa Monica, a car lays overturned, its windows broken, and as we pass it, my sisters crane their necks to get a closer look and they ask my mother, who's driving, to slow down and she doesn't and my sisters complain. We drive to Jimmy's and my mother brings the Mercedes to a stop and we get out and the valet takes it and we all sit on a couch next to a small table in the darkened bar area. Jimmy's is pretty empty; except for a few scattered couples at the bar and another family that sits across from us, there's nobody in the bar. A piano player's singing "September Song" and he sings softly. My father complains that he should be playing Christmas carols. My sisters go to the restroom and when they come back they tell us that they saw a lizard in one of the stalls and my mother says she doesn't get it.

I start to flirt with the oldest girl from the family across from us and I wonder if our family looks like this one does. The girl looks a lot like a girl I was seeing for a little while in New Hampshire. She has short blond hair and blue eyes and a tan and when she notices me staring at her, she looks away, smiling. My father requests a phone, and a phone with a long extension cord is brought over to the couch and my father calls his father up in Palm Springs and we all wish him a Merry Christmas and I feel like a fool saying, "Merry Christmas, Grandpa," in front of this girl.

On the way home, after dropping my father off at his penthouse in Century City, I keep my face pressed against the window of the car and stare out at the lights of the Valley, drifting up toward the hills as we drive onto Mulholland. One of my sisters has put my mother's fur coat on and has fallen asleep. The gate opens and the car enters the driveway. My mother presses a button that closes the gate and I try to wish her a Merry Christmas, but the words just don't come out and I leave her sitting in the car.

C hristmas in Palm Springs. It was always hot. Even if it was raining, it was still hot. One Christmas, last Christmas, after it was all over, after the old house was left, it got hotter than a lot of people could remember. No one wanted to believe that it could get as hot as it had become; it was simply impossible. But the temperature readings at the Security National Bank in Rancho Mirage would read 111 and 112 and 115 and all I could do was stare at the numbers, refusing to believe that it could get that hot, that hellish. But then I'd look across the desert and a hot wind would whip into my face and the sun would glare down so hard that my sunglasses couldn't keep the shine away and I'd have to squint to see that the metal grids in the crosswalk signs were twisting, writhing, actually melting in the heat, and I knew that I had to believe it.

The nights during Christmas weren't any better. It would still be light at seven and the sky would stay orange until eight and the hot winds would come through the canyons and filter out over the desert. When it got really dark the nights would be black and hot and on some nights these weird white clouds would drift slowly through the sky and disappear by dawn. It would also be quiet. It was strange to drive down 110 at one or two in the morning. There wouldn't be any cars out, and if I stopped by the side of the road and turned the radio off and rolled down the windows, I couldn't hear anything. Only my own breath, which was all raspy and dry and came in uneven gasps. But l wouldn't do this for long, because I'd catch a glimpse of my eyes in the rearview mirror, sockets red, scared, and I'd get really frightened for some reason and drive home quickly.

Early evenings were about the only time I'd go outside. I'd spend this time by the pool, eating banana popsicles and reading the Herald Examiner , when there was some shade in the backyard, and the pool would be totally still except for an occasional ripple caused by big yellow and black bees with huge wings and black dragonflies, crashing into the pool, driven mad by the insane heat.

Last Christmas in Palm Springs, I'd be lying in bed, naked, and even with the air conditioner on, the cool air blowing over me and a bowl of ice, some of it wrapped in a towel, next to the bed, I couldn't become cool. Visions of driving through town and feeling the hot winds on my shoulder and watching the heat rise up out of the desert would make me feel warm and I'd force myself up and walk downstairs out onto the deck by the lighted pool in the middle of the night and I'd try to smoke a joint but I could barely breathe. I'd smoke it anyway, just to get to sleep. I could only stay outside for so long. There'd be these strange sounds and lights next door, and I'd go back upstairs to my room and lock the door and finally fall asleep.

When I woke up in the afternoon, I'd come downstairs and my grandfather would tell me that he heard strange things at night and when I asked him what strange things, he said that he couldn't put his finger on it and so he'd shrug and finally say that it must have been his imagination, probably nothing. The dog would bark all night and when I'd wake up to tell it to be quiet, it would look freaked out, its eyes wide, panting, shaking, but I'd never go outside to see why the dog was barking and I'd lock myself back in my room and put the towel, damp, cool, over my eyes. The next day, out by the pool, there was an empty package of cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. No one smokes cigarettes in the family. The next day my father had new locks put on all the doors and the gates in back, while my mother and sisters took the Christmas tree down, while I slept.

A couple hours later, Blair calls. She tells me there's a picture of her father and her at a premiere in the new People. She also says that she's drunk and in the house alone and that her family is down the street at someone's screening room, watching a rough cut of her father's new film. She also tells me that she's nude and in bed and that she misses me. I start to walk around the room, nervous, while I listen to her. Then I stare at myself in the mirror in my closet. I spot this small shoebox in the corner of the closet and look through it while I'm on the phone with Blair. There are all these photographs in the box: a picture of Blair and me at Prom; one of us at Disneyland on Grad Nite; a couple of us at the beach in Monterey; and couple of others from a party in Palm Springs; a picture of Blair in Westwood I had taken one day when the two of us had left school early, with Blair's initials on the back of the photo. I also find this picture of myself, wearing jeans and no shirt and no shoes, lying on the floor, with sunglasses on, my hair wet, and I think about who took it and can't remember. I smooth it out and try to look at myself. I think about it some more and then put it away. There are other photographs in the box but I can't deal with looking at them, at old snapshots of Blair and me and so I put the shoebox back in the closet.

Light a cigarette and turn on MTV and turn off the sound. An hour passes, Blair keeps talking, tells me that she still likes me and that we should get together again and that just because we haven't seen each other for four months is no reason to break up. I tell her we have been together, I mention last night. She says you know what I mean and I start to dread sitting in the room, listening to her talk. I look over at the clock. It's almost three. I tell her I can't remember what our relationship was like and I try to steer the conversation away to other topics, about movies or concerts or what she's been doing all day, or what I've been doing tonight. When I get off the phone with her, it's almost dawn, Christmas Day.

It's Christmas morning and I'm high on coke, and one of my sisters has given me this pretty expensive leatherbound datebook, the pages are big and white and the dates elegantly printed on top of them, in gold and silver lettering. I thank her and kiss her and all that and she smiles and pours herself another glass of champagne. I tried to keep a datebook one summer, but it didn't work out. I'd get confused and write down things just to write them down and I came to this realization that I didn't do enough things to keep a datebook. I know that I won't use this one and I'll probably take it back to New Hampshire with me and it'll just lie on my desk for three or four months, unused, blank. My mother watches us, sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room, sipping champagne. My sisters open their gifts casually, indifferent. My father looks neat and hard and is writing out checks for my sisters and me and I wonder why he couldn't have written them out before, but I forget about it and look out the window; at the hot wind blowing through the yard. The water in the pool ripples.