Bret Ellis - Less than zero

This young actress comes in with some well-known producer, who I met once at one of Blair's father's parties, and they check out the scene and walk over to Kim, who's just gotten off the phone, and she tells them that her mother's in England with Milo and the producer says that last he heard she was in Hawaii and then they mention that maybe Thomas Noguchi might be stopping by and then the actress and the producer leave and Kim walks over to where Blair and I've stood and she tells us that it was Jeff on the phone.

"What did he say?" Blair asks.

"He's an asshole. He's down in Malibu with some surfer, some guy, and they're holed up in his house."

"What did he want?"

"To wish me a Happy New Year." Kim looks upset.

"Well, that's nice," Blair says hopefully.

"He said, 'Have a Happy New Year, cunt,' " she says, and lights a cigarette, the champagne bottle she holds by her side almost empty. She's about to cry or say something else when Spit comes over and says that Muriel locked herself in Kim's room and so Kim and Spit and Blair and I walk inside, upstairs, down a hallway and over to Kim's door and Kim tries to open it but it's locked.

"Muriel," she calls out, knocking. No one answers.

Spit pounds on the door, then kicks it.

"Don't fuck the door up, Spit," Kim says, and then yells out, "Muriel, come out."

I look over at Blair and she looks worried. "Do you think she's all right?"

"I don't know," Kim says.

"What's she on?" Spit wants to know.

"Muriel?" Kim calls out again.

Spit lights another joint, leans against the wall. The photographer comes by and takes pictures of us. The door opens slowly and Muriel stands there and looks like she's been crying. She lets Spit, Kim, Blair and the photographer and me into the room and then she closes the door and locks it.

"Are you all right?" Kim asks.

"I'm fine," she says, wiping her face.

The room's dark except for a couple of candles in the corner and Muriel sits down in the corner next to one of the candles, next to a spoon and a syringe and a little folded piece of paper with brownish powder on it and a piece of cotton. There's already some stuff in the spoon and Muriel wads the piece of cotton up as small as possible and puts it in the spoon and sticks the needle into the cotton and then draws it into the syringe. Then she pulls up her sleeve, reaches for a belt in the darkness, finds it and wraps it around her upper arm. I spot the needle tracks, look over at Blair, who's just staring at the arm.

"What's going on here?" Kim asks. "Muriel, what are you doing?"

Muriel doesn't say anything, just slaps her arm to find a vein and I look at my vest and it freaks me out to see that it does look like someone got stabbed, or something. Muriel holds the syringe and Kim whispers, "Don't do it," but her lips are trembling and she looks excited and I can make out the beginnings of a smile and I get the feeling that she doesn't mean it and as the needle sticks into Muriel's arm, Blair gets up and says, "I'm leaving," and walks out of the room. Muriel closes her eyes and the syringe slowly fills with blood.

Spit says, "Oh, man, this is wild."

The photographer takes a picture.

My hands shake as I light a cigarette.

Muriel begins to cry and Kim strokes her head, but Muriel keeps crying and drooling all over, looking like she's laughing really and her lipstick's smeared all over her lips and nose and her mascara's running down her cheeks.

At midnight Spit tries to light some firecrackers but only a couple go off. Kim hugs Dimitri, who doesn't seem to notice or care, and he drops his guitar by his side and stares off into the pool and eleven or twelve of us stand out by the pool and someone turns the music down so that we can hear the sounds of the city celebrating, but there's not a whole lot to hear and I keep looking into the living room, where Muriel's lying on a couch, smoking a cigarette, sunglasses on, watching MTV. All we can hear are windows breaking up in the hills and dogs beginning to howl and a balloon bursts and Spit drops a champagne bottle and the American flag that's hanging like a curtain over the fireplace moves in the hot breeze and Kim gets up and lights another joint. Blair whispers "Happy New Year" to me and then takes her shoes off and sticks her feet into the warm, lighted water. Fear never shows up and the party ends early.

And at home that night, sometime early that morning, I'm sitting in my room watching religious programs on cable TV because I'm tired of watching videos and there are these two guys, priests, preachers maybe, on the screen, forty, maybe forty-five, wearing business suits and ties, pink-tinted sunglasses, talking about Led Zeppelin records, saying that, if they're played backwards, they "possess alarming passages about the devil." One of the guys stands up and breaks the record, snaps it in half, and says, "And believe me, as God-fearing Christians, we will not allow this!" The man then begins to talk about how he's worried that it'll harm the young people. "And the young are the future of this country," he screams, and then breaks another record.

"Julian wants to see you," Rip says over the phone.

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"Did he say what for?" I ask.

"No. He didn't have your number and he wanted it and so I gave it to him."

"He didn't have my number?"

"That's what he said."

"I don't think he's called me."

"Said he needed to talk to you. Listen, I don't like to relay phone messages, dude, so be grateful."

"Thanks."

"He said he'll be at the Chinese Theater today at three-thirty You could meet him there, I guess."

"What's he doing there?" I ask.

"What do you think?"

I decide to meet Julian. I drive over to the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard and stare at the footprints for a little while. Except for a young couple, not from L.A., taking pictures of the footprints and this suspicious-looking Oriental guy standing by the ticket booth, there's no one around. The tan blond usher standing by the door says to me, "Hey, I know you. Two Decembers ago at a party in Santa Monica, right?"

"I don't think so," I tell him.

"Yeah. Kicker's party. Remember?"

I tell him I don't remember and then ask him if the concession stand's open. The usher says yeah and lets me in and I buy a Coke.

"The movie already began though," the usher tells me.

"That's okay. I don't want to see the movie," I tell him.

The suspicious-looking Oriental guy keeps looking at his watch, finally leaves. I finish the Coke and wait until around four. Julian doesn't show up.

I drive to Trent's house, but Trent isn't there and so I sit in his room and put a movie in the Betamax and call Blair and ask her if she wants to do something tonight, go to a club or see a movie and she says she would and I start to draw on a piece of paper that's next to the phone, recopying phone numbers on it.

"Julian wants-to see you," Blair tells me.

"Yeah. I heard. Did he say what for?"

"I don't know what he wants to see you about. He just said he has to talk to you."

"Do you have his number?" I ask.

"No. They changed all the numbers at the house in Bel Air. I think he's probably at the house in Malibu. I'm not too sure, though.... Does it matter? He probably doesn't want to see you that badly."

"Well," I begin, "maybe I'll stop by the house in Bel Air."

"Okay."

"If you want to do anything tonight, call me, okay?" I tell her.

"Okay. "

There's a long silence and she says okay once more and hangs up.

Julian's not at the house in Bel Air, but there's a note on the door saying that he might be at some house on King's Road. Julian's not at the house on King's Road either, but some guy with braces and short platinum-blond hair and a bathing suit on lifting weights is in the backyard. He puts one of the weights down and lights a cigarette and asks me if I want a Quaalude. I ask him where Julian is. There's a girl lying by the pool in a chaise longue, blond, drunk, and she says in a really tired voice, "Oh, Julian could be anywhere. Does he owe you money?" The girl has brought a television outside and is watching some movie about cavemen.