Bret Ellis - Less than zero

The psychiatrist I see tells me that he has a new idea for a screenplay. Instead of listening, I sling a leg over the arm of the huge black leather chair in the posh office and light another cigarette, a clove. This guy goes on and on and after every couple of sentences he runs his fingers through his beard and looks at me. I have my sunglasses on and he isn't too sure if I'm looking at him. I am. The psychiatrist talks some more and soon it really doesn't matter what he says. He pauses and asks me if I would like to help him write it. I tell him that I'm not interested. The psychiatrist says something like, "You know, Clay, that you and I have been talking about how you should become more active and not so passive and I think it would be a good idea if you would help me write this. At least a treatment."

I mumble something, blow some of the clove smoke toward him and look out the window.

I park my car in front of Trent's new apartment, a few blocks from U.C.L.A. in Westwood, the apartment he lives in when he has classes. Rip answers the door since he's now Trent's dealer, since Trent hasn't been able to find Julian.

"Guess who's here?" Rip asks me.

"Who?"

"Guess."

"Who?"

"Guess."

"Tell me, Rip."

"He's young, he's rich, he's available, he's Iranian." Rip pushes me into the living room. "Here's Atiff."

Atiff, who I haven't seen since graduation, is sitting on the couch wearing Gucci loafers and an expensive Italian suit. He's a freshman at U.S.C. and drives a black 380 SL.

"Ah, Clay, how are you, my friend?" Atiff gets up from the couch and shakes my hand.

"Okay. How about you?"

"Oh, very good, very good. I just got back from Rome."

Rip walks out of the living room and into Trent's room and turns MTV on and the sound up.

"Where's Trent?" I ask, wondering where the bar is.

"In the shower," Atiff says. "You look great. How was New Hampshire?"

"It was okay," I say, and smile at Trent's roommate, Chris, who's sitting at the table in the kitchen, on the phone. He smiles back and gets up and starts pacing nervously around the kitchen. Atiff is talking about clubs in Venice and how he lost a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage in Florence. He lights a thin Italian cigarette. "I got back two nights ago because I was told classes start soon. I am not sure when they do, but I hear that it is rather soon. " He pauses. "Did you go to Sandra's party at Spago last night? No? It wasn't very good."

I'm nodding and looking over at Chris, who gets off the phone and yells, "Shit."

"What is wrong?" asks Atiff.

"I had my guitar stolen and I had some Desoxyn hidden in it and I was supposed to give it to someone."

"What do you do?" I ask Chris.

"Hang around U.C.L.A."

"Enrolled in classes?"

"I think."

"He also writes music," says Trent, standing in the doorway, only wearing jeans, hair wet, toweling it dry. "Play them some of your stuff."

"Sure," Chris says, shrugging.

Chris goes to the stereo and puts a tape in it. From where I'm standing I can see the jacuzzi, steaming, blue, lit, and past that a weight set and two bicycles. I sit down on the couch and look through some of the magazines spread across the table; a couple of GQ 's, and a few Rolling Stones and an issue of Playboy and the issue of People with the picture of Blair and her father in it and a copy of Stereo Review and Surfer . Flip through a Playboy then start to space out and stare at the framed poster for the "Hotel California" album; at the hypnotizing blue lettering; at the shadow of the palms.

Trent mentions that someone named Larry didn't get into film school. The music comes out over the speakers and I try to listen to it, but Trent's still talking about Larry and Rip is cracking up hysterically in Trent's room. "I mean his father's got a fucking series that's in the fucking top ten. He's got his own steadicam and U.S.C. still doesn't let him in? Things are fucked up."

"They didn't let him in because he's a heroin addict," Rip calls out.

"What bullshit," Trent says.

"You didn't know that?" Rip laughs.

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"He practically eats it raw," Rip says, turning the volume on the television down. "He used to be normal."

"Oh shit, Rip," I call out. "What does normal mean to you?"

"No, I mean really normal."

"Shit, I never knew that about Larry," Atiff says.

"You're so full of shit," Trent calls out to the bedroom. "Oh, Trent, suck my dick," Rip yells.

"Take it out," Trent calls out, laughing, walking back to the bedroom. "Hey, who made the reservations at Morton's?"

Déjà vu passes through me and I open a GQ , faces from my sisters' walls come back to me. The music is loud and the songs sound like they're being sung by a little girl and the drum machine is too noisy, and insistent. The little girl voices sing out, "I don't know where to go/I don't know what to do/I don't know where to go/I don't know what to do/Tell me. Tell me..."

"Did you make the reservations?" Trent calls again.

"You have any meth?" Chris calls back to Trent.

"No," Trent calls back. "Who made the reservations?"

"Yes, I made them," Rip shouts. "Now shut up."

"Do any of you guys have any meth?" Chris asks.

"Meth?" Atiff asks.

"Look, we don't have any meth," I tell him.

The music stops.

"You gotta hear this next song," Trent says, pulling on a shirt.

Chris ignores him and picks up the phone in the kitchen. He dials and then asks whoever's on the other end if they have any meth. Chris pauses and hangs up, looking dejected.

"Some guy propositioned me today," Rip is saying, walking into the living room. "He just came up to me in Flip and offered me six hundred dollars to go to Laguna with him for the weekend."

"I'm sure you're not the only guy he approached," Trent says, coming out into the living room and opening the door that leads out to the jacuzzi. He bends down and feels the water. "Chris, do you have any cigarettes?"

"Yeah, in my room, on the bed stand," Chris says, dialing another number.

I stare back at the poster and wonder if I should do the coke I have in my pocket now, before we go to Morton's, or when we get there. Trent comes out of Chris's room and wants to know who's lying on the floor of Chris's room, sleeping.

"Oh, that's Alan, I think. He's been there for like two days."

"Oh, that's great," Trent says. "Just great."

"Just leave him alone. He has mono or something."

"Let's just go," Trent says.

Rip goes to the bathroom first and Atiff and I stand up.

Chris hangs up the phone.

"Are you going to be here when I get back?" Trent asks him.

"No. Gotta go over to the Colony. Look for some meth."

My dreams start out calmly. I'll be younger and walking home from school and the day will be overcast, clouds gray and white and some of them purple. Then it'll start to rain and I'll begin to run. After running through all this falling water for what seems to be a really long time, I'll suddenly trip into mud and fall flat on the ground and because the earth's so wet, I start to sink, and the mud fills my mouth and I start to swallow it and then it goes up through my nose and finally into my eyes, and I don't wake up until I'm completely underground.

It begins to rain in L.A. I read about the houses falling, slipping down the hills in the middle of the night and I stay up all night, usually wired on coke, until early morning to make sure nothing happens to our house. Then I go out into the damp, humid morning and get the paper, read the film section and try to ignore the rain.

Nothing much happens during the days it rains. One of my sisters buys a fish and puts it in the jacuzzi and the heat and chlorine kill it. I get these strange phone calls. Someone calls, usually late at night, and on my number, and when I answer the phone, the person on the other end doesn't say anything for three minutes. I keep count. Then I'll hear a sigh and the person hangs up. The street lights on Sunset get short-circuited, so a yellow light will be flashing at an intersection and then a green one will blink on for a couple of seconds, followed by the yellow and then the red and green lights will start to shine at the same time.