Bret Ellis - Less than zero

At Kim's new house, in the hills overlooking Sunset, the gates are open but there don't seem to be too many cars around. After Blair and I walk up to the door and ring the doorbell, it takes a long time for anybody to open it. Kim finally does, wearing tight faded jeans, high black leather boots, white T-shirt, smoking a joint. She takes a hit off it before hugging both of us and saying "Happy New Year," then leads us into a high-ceilinged entrance room and tells us she just moved in three days ago and that "Mom's in England with Milo" and that they haven't had time to furnish it yet. But the floors are carpeted, she tells us, and says that it's a good thing and I don't ask her why she thinks it's a good thing. She tells us that the house is pretty old, that the guy who owned it before was a Nazi. On the patios, there are these huge pots holding small trees with swastikas painted on them. "They're called Nazi pots," Kim says.

We follow her downstairs to where there are only about twelve or thirteen people. Kim tells us that Fear's supposed to play tonight. She introduces Blair and me to Spit, who's a friend of the drummer's, and Spit has really pale skin, paler than Muriel's, and short greasy hair and a skull earring and dark circles under his eyes, but Spit's mad and after saying hi, tells Kim that she has to do something about Muriel.

"Why?" Kim asks, inhaling on the joint.

"Because the bitch said I looked dead," Spit says, eyes wide.

"Oh, Spit," Kim says.

"She says that I smell like a dead animal."

"Come on, Spit, forget it," Kim says.

"You know I don't keep dead animals in my room anymore." He looks over at Muriel, who's at the end of the long bar, laughing, holding a glass of punch.

"Oh, she's wonderful, Spit," Kim says. "She's just been taking sixty milligrams of lithium a day. She's just tired." Kim turns to Blair and me. "Her mother just bought her a fifty-five-thousand-dollar Porsche." Then she looks back at Spit. "Can you believe it?"

Spit says he can't and that he's going to try to forget about it and decide what albums to play and Kim tells him, "Go ahead," and then before he goes over to the stereo, "Listen, Spit, don't get Muriel down. Just keep quiet. She just left Cedar-Sinai and once she gets drunk, she's fine. She's just a little strung out."

Spit ignores this and holds up an old Oingo Boingo record.

"Can I play this or not?"

"Why don't you save that for later?"

"Listen, Kim-ber-ly, I'm getting bored," he says, teeth gritted.

Kim pulls a joint out of her back pocket and hands it to him.

"Just cool it, Spit."

Spit says thanks and then sits down on the couch next to the fireplace, with the huge replica of the American flag draped over it, and stares at the joint a long time before he lights it.

"Well, you two look fabulous," Kim says.

"So do you," Blair tells her. I nod. I'm tired and a little stoned and didn't really want to come, but Blair actually came over to my house earlier and we went swimming and then to bed and Kim called up.

"Is Alana coming?" Blair asks.

"No, can't make it." Kim shakes her head, taking another hit off the joint. "Going to the Springs."

"What about Julian?" Blair asks.

"Nope. Too busy fucking Beverly Hills lawyers for money," Kim sighs, then laughs.

I'm about to ask her what she meant by that when suddenly someone calls out her name and Kim says, "Oh, shit, the liquor guy just arrived" and walks off and I look out past the big lighted pool, out over Hollywood; blanket of lights under a neon purple sky and Blair asks me if I'm okay and I say sure.

Some young guy, eighteen or nineteen, brings in a large cardboard box and sets it on the bar and Kim signs something and tips him and he says, "Happy New Year, dudes" and leaves. Kim takes a bottle of champagne out of the box, opens it expertly and calls out, "Everybody take a bottle. It's Perrier-Jouet. It's chilled."

"You convinced me, you rat." Muriel runs over and hugs Kim and Kim gives her a bottle.

"Is Spit pissed at me or something? All I said was that he looked dead," Muriel says, opening her bottle. "Hiya, Blair, hi, Clay."

"He's just on edge," Kim says. "Wind's weird or something."

"He's such a moron. He tells me that, 'Well, I used to do well in school before they kicked me out.' Huh? What in the fuck does that mean?" Muriel asks. "Besides, the idiot uses a blowtorch to freebase."

Kim shrugs and takes another swallow.

"Muriel, you look wonderful," Blair says.

"Oh, Blair, you look gorgeous, as usual," Muriel says, taking a swallow. "And oh my God, Clay, you must give me that vest."

I look down while opening my bottle. The vest is just a gray-and-white argyle, one of the triangles dark red.

"It looks as if you got stabbed or something. Please let me wear it," Muriel pleads, touching the vest.

I smile and look at her and then realize that she's totally serious and I'm too tired to say no so I pull it off and hand it to her and she puts it on, laughing. "I'll give it back, I'll give it back, don't worry."

There's this really irritating photographer in the room and he keeps taking pictures of everybody. He'll walk up to someone and point the camera in their face and then take two or three pictures and he comes up to me and the flash blinds me for a second and I take another swallow from the champagne bottle. Kim starts to light candles all over the room and Spit puts on an X album and someone starts to pin balloons up to one of the bare walls and the balloons, only half blown up, just hang there, limply. The door that leads out to the pool and veranda is open and also has a couple of balloons pinned on it and we walk outside, over to the pool.

"What's your mom doing?" Blair asks. "Is she going out with Tom anymore?"

"Where did you hear that? The Inquirer ?" Kim laughs.

"No. I saw a picture of them in the Hollywood Reporter ."

"She's in England with Milo, I told you," Kim says as we get closer to the lighted water. "At least that's what I read in Variety ."

"How about you?" Blair asks, starting to smile. "Who are you seeing?"

"Moi?" Kim laughs and then mentions some famous young actor I think we went to school with; can't remember.

"Yeah, I heard about that. Just wanted you to verify."

"It's true."

"He wasn't at your Christmas party," Blair says.

"He wasn't?" Kim looks worried. "Are you sure?"

"He wasn't," Blair says. "Did you see him, Clay?"

"No, I didn't see him," I tell her, not remembering.

"That's weird," Kim says. "Must have been on location."

"How is he?"

"He's nice, he's really nice."

"What about Dimitri?"

"Oh, so what," Kim says.

"Does he know?" Blair asks.

"Probably. I'm not sure."

"Do you think he's upset?"

"Listen, Jeff is a fling. I like Dimitri."

Dimitri's sitting on a chair by the pool playing a guitar and is really tan and has short blond hair and he just sits in the chaise longue playing these strange, eerie chords and then starts to play this one riff over and over again and Kim just looks at him and doesn't say anything. The phone rings from inside and Muriel calls out, waving her hands, "It's for you, Kim."

Kim walks back inside and I'm about to ask Blair if she wants to go but Spit, still smoking the joint, comes over with some surfer to Dimitri and says, "Heston has some great acid," and the surfer with Spit looks at Blair and winks and then she pats my ass and lights a cigarette. "Where's Kim?" Spit asks when he doesn't get an answer from Dimitri, who just stares into the pool, strumming the guitar. He then looks over at the four of us standing around him and for a minute it looks like he's going to say something. But he doesn't, just sighs and looks back at the water.