american psycho book

[GonorrhoeaGobbler]

AMERICAN


PSYCHO


A Novel by

Bret Easton Ellis

First published 1991 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House Inc.,
New York


Copyright © Bret Easton Ellis 1991


This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, incidents, and dialogue,
except for incidental references to public figures, products, or services, are
imaginary and are not intended to refer to any living persons or to disparage
any company's products or services.


for Bruce Taylor


Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course,
fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the composer of these Notes not
only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the
circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have
wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one
of the characters of our recent past. He represents a generation that is still
living out its days among us. In the fragment entitled "Underground" this
personage describes himself and his views and attempts, as it were, to
clarify the reasons why he appeared and was bound to appear in our midst.
The subsequent fragment will consist of the actual "notes," concerning
certain events in his life.


Fyodor Dostoevsky


Notes from Underground


One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only
the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be
expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about — doing it
in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went
wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which
people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization
there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be
killing one another.


Miss Manners (Judith Martin)


And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention


Talking Heads


April Fools


ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red
lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and
First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as
it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy
Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Misérables
on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and
twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him
five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver,
black, not American, does so.


"I'm resourceful," Price is saying. "I'm creative, I'm young, unscrupulous,
highly motivated, highly skilled. In essence what I'm saying is that society
cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset." Price calms down, continues to stare
out the cab's dirty window, probably at the word FEAR sprayed in red
graffiti on the side of a McDonald's on Fourth and Seventh. "I mean the fact
remains that no one gives a shit about their work, everybody hates their job,
I hate my job, you've told me you hate yours. What do I do? Go back to Los
Angeles? Not an alternative. I didn't transfer from UCLA to Stanford to put
up with this. I mean am I alone in thinking we're not making enough
money?" Like in a movie another bus appears, another poster for Les
Misérables replaces the word — not the same bus because someone has
written the word DYKE over Eponine's face. Tim blurts out, "I have a co-op
here. I have a place in the Hamptons, for Christ sakes."


"Parents', guy. It's the parents’.


"I'm buying it from them. Will you fucking turn this up?" he snaps but
distractedly at the driver, the Crystals still blaring from the radio.


"It don't go up no higher," maybe the driver says.


Timothy ignores him and irritably continues. "I could stay living in this city
if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs. Maybe the ODM III or ORC II


dynamic tuning systems?" His voice softens here. "Either one. Hip my
friend, very hip."


He takes off the expensive-looking Walkman from around his neck, still
complaining. "I hate to complain — I really do — about the trash, the
garbage, the disease, about how filthy this city really is and you know and I
know that it is a sty..." He continues talking as he opens his new Tumi
calfskin attaché case he bought at D. F. Sanders. He places the Walkman in
the case alongside a Panasonic wallet-size cordless portable folding Easa-
phone (he used to own the NEC 9000 Porta portable) and pulls out today's
newspaper. "In one issue — in one issue — let's see here... strangled models,
babies thrown from tenement rooftops, kids killed in the subway, a
Communist rally, Mafia boss wiped out, Nazis" — he flips through the pages
excitedly — "baseball players with AIDS, more Mafia shit, gridlock, the
homeless, various maniacs, faggots dropping like flies in the streets,
surrogate mothers, the cancellation of a soap opera, kids who broke into a
zoo and tortured and burned various animals alive, more Nazis... and the
joke is, the punch line is, it's all in this city — nowhere else, just here, it
sucks, whoa wait, more Nazis, gridlock, gridlock, baby-sellers, black-
market babies, AIDS babies, baby junkies, building collapses on baby,
maniac baby, gridlock, bridge collapses—" His voice stops, he takes in a
breath and then quietly says, his eyes fixed on a beggar at the corner of
Second and Fifth, "That's the twenty-fourth one I've seen today. I've kept
count." Then asks without looking over, "Why aren't you wearing the
worsted navy blue blazer with the gray pants?" Price is wearing a six-button
wool and silk suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, a cotton shirt with French cuffs
by Ike Behar, a Ralph Lauren silk tie and leather wing tips by Fratelli
Rossetti. Pan down to the Post. There is a moderately interesting story
concerning two people who disappeared at a party aboard the yacht of a
semi-noted New York socialite while the boat was circling the island. A
residue of spattered blood and three smashed champagne glasses are the
only clues. Foul play is suspected and police think that perhaps a machete
was the killer's weapon because of certain grooves and indentations found
on the deck. No bodies have been found. There are no suspects. Price began
his spiel today over lunch and then brought it up again during the squash
game and continued ranting over drinks at Harry's where he had gone on,


over three J&Bs and water, much more interestingly about the Fisher
account that Paul Owen is handling. Price will not shut up.


"Diseases!" he exclaims, his face tense with pain. "There's this theory out
now that if you can catch the AIDS virus through having sex with someone
who is infected then you can also catch anything, whether it's a virus per se
or not — Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, anorexia,
diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, dyslexia,
for Christ sakes — you can get dyslexia from pussy—"


"I'm not sure, guy, but I don't think dyslexia is a virus."
"Oh, who knows? They don't know that. Prove it."


Outside this cab, on the sidewalks, black and bloated pigeons fight over
scraps of hot dogs in front of a Gray's Papaya while transvestites idly look
on and a police car cruises silently the wrong way down a one-way street
and the sky is low and gray and in a cab that's stopped in traffic across from
this one, a guy who looks a lot like Luis Carruthers waves over at Timothy
and when Timothy doesn't return the wave the guy — slicked-back hair,
suspenders, horn-rimmed glasses — realizes it's not who he thought it was
and looks back at his copy of USA Today. Panning down to the sidewalk
there's an ugly old homeless bag lady holding a whip and she cracks it at the
pigeons who ignore it as they continue to peck and fight hungrily over the
remains of the hot dogs and the police car disappears into an underground
parking lot.


"But then, when you've just come to the point when your reaction to the
times is one of total and sheer acceptance, when your body has become
somehow tuned into the insanity and you reach that point where it all makes
sense, when it clicks, we get some crazy fucking homeless nigger who
actually wants — listen to me, Bateman — wants to be out on the streets, this,
those streets, see, those" — he points — "and we have a mayor who won't
listen to her, a mayor who won't let the bitch have her way — Holy Christ —
let the fucking bitch freeze to death, put her out of her own goddamn self-
made misery, and look, you're back where you started, confused, fucked...
Number twenty-four, nope, twenty-five... Who's going to be at Evelyn's?
Wait, let me guess." He holds up a hand attached to an impeccable


manicure. "Ashley, Courtney, Muldwyn, Marina, Charles — am I right so
far? Maybe one of Evelyn's ‘artiste’ friends from ohmygod the 'East' Village.
You know the type — the ones who ask Evelyn if she has a nice dry white
chardonnay—" He slaps a hand over his forehead and shuts his eyes and now
he mutters, jaw clenched, "I'm leaving. I'm dumping Meredith. She's
essentially daring me to like her. I'm gone. Why did it take me so long to
realize that she has all the personality of a goddamn game-show host?...
Twenty-six, twenty-seven... I mean I tell her I'm sensitive. I told her I was
freaked out by the Challenger accident — what more does she want? I'm
ethical, tolerant, I mean I'm extremely satisfied with my life, I'm optimistic
about the future — I mean, aren't you?"


"Sure, but—"


"And all I get is shit from her... Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, holy shit it's a
goddamn cluster of bums. I tell you—" He stops suddenly, as if exhausted,
and turning away from another advertisement for Les Misérables,
remembering something important, asks, "Did you read about the host from
that game show on TV? He killed two teenage boys? Depraved faggot.
Droll, really droll." Price waits for a reaction. There is none. Suddenly:
Upper West Side.


He tells the driver to stop on the comer of Eighty-first and Riverside since
the street doesn't go the right way.


"Don't bother going arou—" Price begins.
"Maybe I go other way around," the cabdriver says.


"Do not bother." Then barely an aside, teeth gritted, unsmiling: "Fucking
nitwit."


The driver brings the cab to a stop. Two cabs behind this cab both blare
their horns then move on.


"Should we bring flowers?"


"Nah. Hell, you're banging her, Bateman. Why should we get Evelyn
flowers? You better have change for a fifty," he warns the driver, squinting
at the red numbers on the meter. "Damnit. Steroids. Sorry I'm tense."


"Thought you were off them."


"I was getting acne on my legs and arms and the UVA bath wasn't fixing it,
so I started going to a tanning salon instead and got rid of it. Jesus,
Bateman, you should see how ripped my stomach is. The definition.
Completely buffed out...," he says in a distant, odd way, while waiting for
the driver to hand him the change. "Ripped." He stiffs the driver on the tip
but the driver is genuinely thankful anyway. "So long, Shlomo," Price
winks.


"Damn, damn, damned," Price says as he opens the door. Coming out of the
cab he eyes a beggar on the street — "Bingo: thirty" — wearing some sort of
weird, tacky, filthy green jump suit, unshaven, dirty hair greased back, and
jokingly Price holds the cab's door open for him. The bum, confused and
mumbling, eyes locked shamefully on the pavement, holds an empty
Styrofoam coffee cup out to us, clutched in a tentative hand.


"I suppose he doesn't want the cab," Price snickers, slamming the cab door.
"Ask him if he takes American Express."


"Do you take Am Ex?"
The bum nods yes and moves away, shuffling slowly.


It's cold for April and Price walks briskly down the street toward Evelyn's
brownstone, whistling "If I Were a Rich Man," the heat from his mouth
creating smoky plumes of steam, and swinging his Tumi leather attaché
case. A figure with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses approaches
in the distance, wearing a beige double-breasted wool-gabardine Cerruti
1881 suit and carrying the same Tumi leather attaché case from D. F.
Sanders that Price has, and Timothy wonders aloud, "Is it Victor Powell? It
can't be."


The man passes under the fluorescent glare of a streetlamp with a troubled
look on his face that momentarily curls his lips into a slight smile and he
glances at Price almost as if they were acquainted but just as quickly he
realizes that he doesn't know Price and just as quickly Price realizes it's not
Victor Powell and the man moves on.


"Thank god," Price mutters as he nears Evelyn's.
"It looked a lot like him."


"Powell and dinner at Evelyn's? These two go together about as well as
paisley and plaid." Price rethinks this. "White socks with gray trousers."


A slow dissolve and Price is bounding up the steps outside the brownstone
Evelyn's father bought her, grumbling about how he forgot to return the
tapes he rented last night to Video Haven. He rings the bell. At the
brownstone next to Evelyn's, a woman — high heels, great ass — leaves
without locking her door. Price follows her with his gaze and when he hears
footsteps from inside coming down the hallway toward us he turns around
and straightens his Versace tie ready to face whoever. Courtney opens the
door and she's wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt
and silk-satin d'Orsay pumps from Manolo Blahnik.


I shiver and hand her my black wool Giorgio Armani overcoat and she
takes it from me, carefully airkissing my right cheek, then she performs the
Same exact movements on Price while taking his Armani overcoat. The new
Talking Heads on CD plays softly in the living room.


"A bit late, aren't we, boys?" Courtney asks, smiling naughtily.


"Inept Haitian cabbie," Price mutters, airkissing Courtney back. "Do we
have reservations somewhere and please don't tell me Pastels at nine."


Courtney smiles, hanging up both coats in the hall closet. "Eating in
tonight, darlings. I'm sorry, I know, I know, I tried to talk Evelyn out of it
but we're having... sushi."


Tim moves past her and down the foyer toward the kitchen. "Evelyn?
Where are you, Evelyn?" he calls out in a singsong voice. "We have to
talk."


"It's good to see you," I tell Courtney. "You look very pretty tonight. Your
face has a... youthful glow."


"You really know how to charm the ladies, Bateman." There is no sarcasm
in Courtney's voice. "Should I tell Evelyn you feel this way?" she asks
flirtatiously.


"No," I say. "But I bet you'd like to."


"Come on," she says, taking my hands off her waist and placing her hands
on my shoulders, steering me down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.
"We have to save Evelyn. She's been rearranging the sushi for the past hour.
She's trying to spell your initials — the P in yellowtail, the B in tuna — but
she thinks the tuna looks too pale—"


"How romantic."


"—and she doesn't have enough yellowtail to finish the B" — Courtney
breathes in — "and so I think she's going to spell Tim's initials instead. Do
you mind?" she asks, only a bit worried. Courtney is Luis Carruthers'
girlfriend.


"I'm terribly jealous and I think I better talk to Evelyn," I say, letting
Courtney gently push me into the kitchen.


Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse,
a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d'Orsay pumps
Courtney has on. Her long blond hair is pinned back into a rather severe-
looking bun and she acknowledges me without looking up from the oval
Wilton stainless-steel platter on which she has artfully arranged the sushi.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry. I wanted to go to this darling little new Salvadorian
bistro on the Lower East Side—'


Price groans audibly.


"—but we couldn't get reservations. Timothy, don't groan." She picks up a
piece of the yellowtail and places it cautiously near the top of the platter,
completing what looks like a capital T. She stands back from the platter and
inspects it. "I don't know. Oh, I'm so unsure."


"I told you to keep Finlandia in this place," Tim mutters, looking through
the bottles — most of them magnums — at the bar. "She never has Finlandia,"
he says to no one, to all of us.


"Oh god, Timothy. Can't handle Absolut?" Evelyn asks and then
contemplatively to Courtney, "The California roll should circle the rim of
the plate, no?"


"Bateman. Drink?" Price sighs.


"J&B rocks," I tell him, suddenly thinking it's strange that Meredith wasn't
invited.


"Oh god. It's a mess," Evelyn gasps. "I swear I'm going to cry."
"The sushi looks marvelous," I tell her soothingly.
"Oh it's a mess," she wails. "It's a mess."


"No, no, the sushi looks marvelous," I tell her and in an attempt to be as
consoling as possible I pick up a piece of the fluke and pop it in my mouth,
groaning with inward pleasure, and hug Evelyn from behind; my mouth still
full, I manage to say "Delicious."


She slaps at me in a playful way, obviously pleased with my reaction, and
finally, carefully, airkisses my cheek and then turns back to Courtney. Price
hands me a drink and walks toward the living room while trying to remove
something invisible from his blazer. "Evelyn, do you have a lint brush?"


I would rather have watched the baseball game or gone to the gym and
worked out or tried that Salvadorian restaurant that got a couple of pretty
good reviews, one in New York magazine, the other in the Times, than have


dinner here but there is one good thing about dinner at Evelyn's: it's close to
my place.


"Is it okay if the soy sauce isn't exactly at room temperature?" Courtney is
asking. "I think there's ice in one of the dishes."


Evelyn is placing strips of pale orange ginger delicately in a pile next toa
small porcelain dish filled with soy sauce. "No, it's not okay. Now Patrick,
could you be a dear and get the Kirin out of the refrigerator?" Then,
seemingly harassed by the ginger, she throws the clump down on the platter.
"Oh forget it. I'll do it."


I move toward the refrigerator anyway. Staring darkly, Price reenters the
kitchen and says, "Who in the hell is in the living room?"


Evelyn feigns ignorance. "Oh who is that?"
Courtney warns, "Ev-el-yn. You did tell them, I hope."
"Who is it?" I ask, suddenly scared. "Victor Powell?"


"No, it's not Victor Powell, Patrick," Evelyn says casually. "It's an artist
friend of mine, Stash. And Vanden, his girlfriend."


"Oh so that was a girl in there," Price says. "Go take a look, Bateman," he
dares. "Let me guess. The East Village?"


"Oh Price," she says flirtatiously, opening beer bottles. "Why no. Vanden
goes to Camden and Stash lives in SoHo, so there."


I move out of the kitchen, past the dining room, where the table has been
set, the beeswax candles from Zona lit in their sterling silver candleholders
from Fortunoff, and into the living room. I can't tell what Stash is wearing
since it's all black. Vanden has green streaks in her hair. She stares at a
heavy-metal video playing on MTV while smoking a cigarette.


"Ahem," I cough.


Vanden looks over warily, probably drugged to the eyeballs. Stash doesn't
move.


"Hi. Pat Bateman," I say, offering my hand, noticing my reflection in a
mirror hung on the wall — and smiling at how good I look.


She takes it; says nothing. Stash starts smelling his fingers.
Smash cut and I'm back in the kitchen.


"Just get her out of there." Price is seething. "She's doped up watching
MTV and I want to watch the goddamn MacNeil/Lehrer report."


Evelyn is still opening large bottles of imported beer and absently mentions,
"We've got to eat this stuff soon or else we're all going to be poisoned."


"She's got a green streak in her hair," I tell them. "And she's smoking."
"Bateman," Tim says, still glaring at Evelyn.

"Yes?" I say. "Timothy?"

"You're a dufus."

"Oh leave Patrick alone," Evelyn says. "He's the boy next door. That's
Patrick. You're not a dufus, are you, honey?" Evelyn is on Mars and I move


toward the bar to make myself another drink.


"Boy next door." Tim smirks and nods, then reverses his expression and
hostilely asks Evelyn again if she has a lint brush.


Evelyn finishes opening the Japanese beer bottles and tells Courtney to
fetch Stash and Vanden. "We have to eat this now or else we're going to be
poisoned," she murmurs, slowly moving her head, taking in the kitchen,
making sure she hasn't forgotten anything.


"If I can tear them away from the latest Megadeth video," Courtney says
before exiting.


"I have to talk to you," Evelyn says.

"What about?" I come up to her.

"No," she says and then pointing at Tim, "to Price."

Tim still glares at her fiercely. I say nothing and stare at Tim's drink.


"Be a hon," she tells me, "and place the sushi on the table. Tempura is in the
microwave and the sake is just about done boiling..." Her voice trails off as
she leads Price out of the kitchen.


I am wondering where Evelyn got the sushi — the tuna, yellowtail, mackerel,
shrimp, eel, even bonito, all seem so fresh and there are piles of wasabi and
clumps of ginger placed strategically around the Wilton platter — but I also
like the idea that I don't know, will never know, will never ask where it
came from and that the sushi will sit there in the middle of the glass table
from Zona that Evelyn's father bought her like some mysterious apparition
from the Orient and as I set the platter down I catch a glimpse of my
reflection on the surface of the table. My skin seems darker because of the
candlelight and I notice how good the haircut I got at Gio's last Wednesday
looks. I make myself another drink. I worry about the sodium level in the
soy sauce.


Four of us sit around the table waiting for Evelyn and Timothy to return
from getting Price a lint brush. I sit at the head taking large swallows of
J&B. Vanden sits at the other end reading disinterestedly from some East
Village rag called Deception, its glaring headline THE DEATH OF
DOWNTOWN. Stash has pushed a chopstick into a lone piece of yellowtail
that lies on the middle of his plate like some shiny impaled insect and the
chopstick stands straight up. Stash occasionally moves the piece of sushi
around the plate with the chopstick but never looks up toward either myself
or Vanden or Courtney, who sits next to me sipping plum wine from a
champagne glass.


Evelyn and Timothy come back perhaps twenty minutes after we've seated
ourselves and Evelyn looks only slightly flushed. Tim glares at me as he
takes the seat next to mine, a fresh drink in hand, and he leans over toward


me, about to say, to admit something, when suddenly Evelyn interrupts,
"Not there, Timothy," then, barely a whisper, "Boy girl, boy girl." She
gestures toward the empty chair next to Vanden. Timothy shifts his glare to
Evelyn and hesitantly takes the seat next to Vanden, who yawns and turns a
page of her magazine.


"Well, everybody," Evelyn says, smiling, pleased with the meal she has
presented, "dig in," and then after noticing the piece of sushi that Stash has
pinned — he's now bent low over the plate, whispering at it — her composure
falters but she smiles bravely and chirps, "Plum wine anyone?"


No one says anything until Courtney, who is staring at Stash's plate, lifts her
glass uncertainly and says, trying to smile, "It's... delicious, Evelyn."


Stash doesn't speak. Even though he is probably uncomfortable at the table
with us since he looks nothing like the other men in the room — his hair isn't
slicked back, no suspenders, no horn-rimmed glasses, the clothes black and
ill-fitting, no urge to light and suck on a cigar, probably unable to secure a
table at Camols, his net worth a pittance — still, his behavior lacks warrant
and he sits there as if hypnotized by the glistening piece of sushi and just as
the table is about to finally ignore him, to look away and start eating, he sits
up and loudly says, pointing an accusing finger at his plate, "It moved!"


Timothy glares at him with a contempt so total that I can't fully equal it but
I muster enough energy to come close. Vanden seems amused and so now,
unfortunately, does Courtney, who I'm beginning to think finds this monkey
attractive but I suppose if I were dating Luis Carruthers I might too. Evelyn
laughs good-naturedly and says, "Oh Stash, you are a riot," and then asks
wotriedly, "Tempura?" Evelyn is an executive at a financial services
company, FYI.


"TIl have some," I tell her and I lift a piece of eggplant off the platter,
though I won't eat it because it's fried.


The table begins to serve themselves, successfully ignoring Stash. I stare at
Courtney as she chews and swallows.


Evelyn, in an attempt to start a conversation, says, after what seems like a
long, thoughtful silence, "Vanden goes to Camden."


"Oh really?" Timothy asks icily. "Where is that?"
"Vermont," Vanden answers without looking up from her paper.


I look over at Stash to see if he's pleased with Vanden's casually blatant lie
but he acts as if he wasn't listening, as if he were in some other room or
some punk rock club in the bowels of the city, but so does the rest of the
table, which bothers me since I am fairly sure we all know it's located in
New Hampshire.


"Where did you go?" Vanden sighs after it finally becomes clear to her that
no one is interested in Camden.


"Well, I went to Le Rosay," Evelyn starts, "and then to business school in
Switzerland."


"T also survived business school in Switzerland," Courtney says. "But I was
in Geneva. Evelyn was in Lausanne."


Vanden tosses the copy of Deception next to Timothy and smirks in a wan,
bitchy way and though I am pissed off a little that Evelyn doesn't take in
Vanden's condescension and hurl it back at her, the J&B has relieved my
stress to a point where I don't care enough to say anything. Evelyn probably
thinks Vanden is sweet, lost, confused, an artist. Price isn't eating and
neither is Evelyn; I suspect cocaine but it's doubtful. While taking a large
gulp from his drink Timothy holds up the copy of Deception and chuckles
to himself.


"The Death of Downtown," he says; then, pointing at each word in the
headline, "Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?"


I automatically expect Stash to look up from his plate but he still stares at
the lone piece of sushi, smiling to himself and nodding.


"Hey," Vanden says, as if she was insulted. "That affects us."


"Oh ho ho," Tim says warningly. "That affects us? What about the
massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Doesn't that affect us too? What about Sri
Lanka?"


"Well, that's a cool club in the Village." Vanden shrugs. "Yeah, that affects
us too."


Suddenly Stash speaks without looking up. "That's called The Tonka." He
sounds pissed but his voice is even and low, his eyes still on the sushi. "It's
called The Tonka, not Sri Lanka. Got it? The Tonka."


Vanden looks down, then meekly says, "Oh."


"I mean don't you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs
are killing like tons of Israelis there?" Timothy goads her. "Doesn't that
affect us?"


"Kappamaki roll anyone?" Evelyn cuts in cheerfully, holding up a plate.


"Oh come on, Price," I say. "There are more important problems than Sri
Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy is important, but there are
more pressing problems at hand."


"Like what?" he asks without looking away from Vanden. "By the way, why
is there an ice cube in my soy sauce?"


"No," I start, hesitantly. "Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow
down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a
strong national defense, prevent the spread of communism in Central
America, work for a Middle East peace settlement, prevent U.S. military
involvement overseas. We have to ensure that America is a respected world
power. Now that's not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally
important, if not more. Better and more affordable long-term care for the
elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up
environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality
of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on
crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure that college education is
affordable for the middle class and protect Social Security for senior


citizens plus conserve natural resources and wilderness areas and reduce the
influence of political action committees."


The table stares at me uncomfortably, even Stash, but I'm on a roll.


"But economically we're still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down
the inflation rate and reduce the deficit. We also need to provide training
and jobs for the unemployed as well as protect existing American jobs from
unfair foreign imports. We have to make America the leader in new
technology. At the same time we need to promote economic growth and
business expansion and hold the line against federal income taxes and hold
down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and
controlling mergers and big corporate takeovers."


Price nearly spits up his Absolut after this comment but I try to make eye
contact with each one of them, especially Vanden, who if she got rid of the
green streak and the leather and got some color — maybe joined an aerobics
class, slipped on a blouse, something by Laura Ashley — might be pretty.
But why does she sleep with Stash? He's lumpy and pale and has a bad
cropped haircut and is at least ten pounds overweight; there's no muscle
tone beneath the black T-shirt.


"But we can't ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people from
abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the
homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while
also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to
protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women's freedom of
choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to
encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and
violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly
we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young
people."


I finish my drink. The table sits facing me in total silence. Courtney's
smiling and seems pleased. Timothy just shakes his head in bemused
disbelief. Evelyn is completely mystified by the turn the conversation has
taken and she stands, unsteadily, and asks if anyone would like dessert.


"I have... sorbet," she says as if in a daze. "Kiwi, carambola, cherimoya,
cactus fruit and oh... what is that..." She stops her zombie monotone and
tries to remember the last flavor. "Oh yes, Japanese pear."


Everyone stays silent. Tim quickly looks over at me. I glance at Courtney,
then back at Tim, then at Evelyn. Evelyn meets my glance, then worriedly
looks over at Tim. I also look over at Tim, then at Courtney and then at Tim
again, who looks at me once more before answering slowly, unsurely,
"Cactus pear."


"Cactus fruit," Evelyn corrects.


I look suspiciously over at Courtney and after she says "Cherimoya" I say
"Kiwi" and then Vanden says "Kiwi" also and Stash says quietly, but
enunciating each syllable very clearly, "Chocolate chip."


The worry that flickers across Evelyn's face when she hears this is
instantaneously replaced by a smiling and remarkably good-natured mask
and she says, "Oh Stash, you know I don't have chocolate chip, though
admittedly that's pretty exotic for a sorbet. I told you I have cherimoya,
cactus pear, carambola, I mean cactus fruit—"


"I know. I heard you, I heard you," he says, waving her off. "Surprise me."
"Okay," Evelyn says. "Courtney? Would you like to help?"


"Of course." Courtney gets up and I watch as her shoes click away into the
kitchen.


"No cigars, boys," Evelyn calls out.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Price says, putting a cigar back into his coat pocket.


Stash is still staring at the sushi with an intensity that troubles me and I
have to ask him, hoping he will catch my sarcasm, "Did it, uh, move again
or something?"


Vanden has made a smiley face out of all the disks of California roll she
piled onto her plate and she holds it up for Stash's inspection and asks,


"Rex?"
"Cool," Stash grunts.


Evelyn comes back with the sorbet in Odeon margarita glasses and an
unopened bottle of Glenfiddich, which remains unopened while we eat the
sorbet.


Courtney has to leave early to meet Luis at a company party at Bedlam, a
new club in midtown. Stash and Vanden depart soon after to go "score"
something somewhere in SoHo. I am the only one who saw Stash take the
piece of sushi from his plate and slip it into the pocket of his olive green
leather bomber jacket. When I mention this to Evelyn, while she loads the
dishwasher, she gives me a look so hateful that it seems doubtful we will
have sex later on tonight. But I stick around anyway. So does Price. He is
now lying on a late-eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet drinking espresso
from a Ceralene coffee cup on the floor of Evelyn's room. I'm lying on
Evelyn's bed holding a tapestry pillow from Jenny B. Goode, nursing a
cranberry and Absolut. Evelyn sits at her dressing table brushing her hair, a
Ralph Lauren green and white striped silk robe draped over a very nice
body, and she is gazing at her reflection in the vanity mirror.


"Am I the only one who grasped the fact that Stash assumed his piece of
sushi was" — I cough, then resume — "a pet?"


"Please stop inviting your ‘artiste’ friends over," Tim says tiredly. "I'm sick
of being the only one at dinner who hasn't talked to an extraterrestrial."


"It was only that once," Evelyn says, inspecting a lip, lost is her own placid
beauty.


"And at Odeon, no less," Price mutters.


I vaguely wonder why I wasn't invited to Odeon for the artists dinner. Had
Evelyn picked up the tab? Probably. And I suddenly picture a smiling
Evelyn, secretly morose, sitting at a whole table of Stash's friends — all of
them constructing little log cabins with their french fries or pretending their
grilled salmon was alive and moving the piece of fish around the table, the


fish conversing with each other about the "art scene," new galleries; maybe
even trying to fit the fish into the log cabin made of french fries...


"If you remember well enough, J hadn't seen one either," Evelyn says.


"No, but Bateman's your boyfriend, so that counted." Price guffaws and I
toss the pillow at him. He catches it then throws it back at me.


"Leave Patrick alone. He's the boy next door," Evelyn says, rubbing some
kind of cream into her face. "You're not an extraterrestrial, are you honey?"


"Should I even dignify that question with an answer?" I sigh.


"Oh baby." She pouts into the mirror, looking at me in its reflection. "I
know you're not an extraterrestrial."


"Relief," I mutter to myself.


"No, but Stash was there at Odeon that night," Price continues, and then,
looking over at me, "At Odeon. Are you listening, Bateman?"


"No he wasn't," Evelyn says.


"Oh yes he was, but his name wasn't Stash last time. It was Horseshoe or
Magnet or Lego or something equally adult," Price sneers. "I forget."


"Timothy, what are you going on about?" Evelyn asks tiredly. "I'm not even
listening to you." She wets a cotton ball, wipes it across her forehead.


"No, we were at Odeon." Price sits up with some effort. "And don't ask me
why, but I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna cappuccino."


"Carpaccio," Evelyn corrects.


"No, Evelyn dear, love of my life. I distinctly remember him ordering the
tuna cappuccino," Price says, staring up at the ceiling.


"He said carpaccio," she counters, running the cotton ball over her eyelids.


"Cappuccino," Price insists. "Until you corrected him."
"You didn't even recognize him earlier tonight," she says.


"Oh but I do remember him," Price says, turning to me. "Evelyn described
him as 'the good-natured body builder.’ That's how she introduced him. I
swear."


"Oh shut up," she says, annoyed, but she looks over at Timothy in the
mirror and smiles flirtatiously.


"I mean I doubt Stash makes the society pages of W, which I thought was
your criterion for choosing friends," Price says, staring back, grinning at her
in his wolfish, lewd way. I concentrate on the Absolut and cranberry I'm
holding and it looks like a glassful of thin, watery blood with ice and a
lemon wedge in it.


"What's going on with Courtney and Luis?" I ask, hoping to break their
gaze.


"Oh god," Evelyn moans, turning back to the mirror. "The really dreadful
thing about Courtney is not that she doesn't like Luis anymore. It's that—"


"They canceled her charge at Bergdorf's?" Price asks. I laugh. We slap each
other high-five.


"No," Evelyn continues, also amused. "It's that she's really in love with her
real estate broker. Some little twerp over at The Feathered Nest."


"Courtney might have her problems," Tim says, inspecting his recent
manicure, "but my god, what is a... Vanden?"


"Oh don't bring this up," Evelyn whines and starts brushing her hair.


"Vanden is a cross between... The Limited and... used Benetton," Price
says, holding up his hands, his eyes closed.


"No." I smile, trying to integrate myself into the conversation. "Used
Fiorucci."


"Yeah," Tim says. "I guess." His eyes, now open, zone in on Evelyn.


"Timothy, lay off," Evelyn says. "She's a Camden girl. What do you
expect?"


"Oh god," Timothy moans. "I am so sick of hearing Camden-girl problems.
Oh my boyfriend, I love him but he loves someone else and oh how I
longed for him and he ignored me and blahblah blahblahblah — god, how
boring. College kids. It matters, you know? It's sad, right Bateman?"


"Yeah. Matters. Sad."
"See, Bateman agrees with me," Price says smugly.


"Oh he does not." With a Kleenex Evelyn wipes off whatever she rubbed
on. "Patrick is not a cynic, Timothy. He's the boy next door, aren't you
honey?"


"No I'm not," I whisper to myself. "I'm a fucking evil psychopath."
"Oh so what," Evelyn sighs. "She's not the brightest girl in the world."


"Hah! Understatement of the century!" Price cries out. "But Stash isn't the
brightest guy either. Perfect couple. Did they meet on Love Connection or
something?"


"Leave them alone," Evelyn says. "Stash is talented and I'm sure we're
underestimating Vanden."


"This is a girl..." Price turns to me. "Listen, Bateman, this is a girl — Evelyn
told me this — this is a girl who rented High Noon because she thought it
was a movie about" — he gulps — "marijuana farmers."


"Tt just hit me," I say. "But have we deciphered what Stash — I assume he
has a last name but don't tell me, I don't want to know, Evelyn — does for a
living?"


"First of all he's perfectly decent and nice," Evelyn says in his defense.


"The man asked for chocolate chip sorbet for Christ sakes!" Timothy wails,
disbelieving. "What are you talking about?"


Evelyn ignores this, pulls off her Tina Chow earrings. "He's a sculptor," she
says tersely.


"Oh bullshit," Timothy says. "I remember talking to him at Odeon." He
turns to me again. "This was when he ordered the tuna cappuccino and I'm
sure if left unattended would have ordered the salmon au lait, and he told
me he did parties, so that technically makes him — I don't know, correct me
if I'm wrong, Evelyn — a caterer. He's a caterer!" Price cries out. "Not a
fucking sculptor!"


"Oh gosh calm down," Evelyn says, rubbing more cream into her face.


"That's like saying you're a poet." Timothy is drunk and I'm beginning to
wonder when he will vacate the premises.


"Well," Evelyn begins, "I've been known to—"


"You're a fucking word processor!" Tim blurts out. He walks over to Evelyn
and bows next to her, checking out his reflection in the mirror.


"Have you been gaining weight, Tim?" Evelyn asks thoughtfully. She
studies Tim's head in the mirror and says, "Your face looks... rounder."


Timothy, in retaliation, smells Evelyn's neck and says, "What is that
fascinating... odor?"


"Obsession." Evelyn smiles flirtatiously, gently pushing Timothy away. "It's
Obsession. Patrick, get your friend away from me."


"No, no, wait," Timothy says, sniffing loudly. "It's not Obsession. It's...
it's..." and then, with a face twisted in mock horror, "It's... Oh my god, it's
Q.T. Instatan!"


Evelyn pauses and considers her options. She inspects Price's head one
more time. "Are you losing your hair?"


"Evelyn," Tim says. "Don't change the subject but..." And then, genuinely
worried, "Now that you mention it... too much gel?" Concerned, he runs a
hand over it.


"Maybe," Evelyn says. "Now make yourself useful and do sit down."


"Well, at least it's not green and I haven't tried to cut it with a butter knife,"
Tim says, referring to Vanden's dye job and Stash's admittedly cheap, bad
haircut. A haircut that's bad because it's cheap.


"Are you gaining weight?" Evelyn asks, more seriously this time.
"Jesus," Tim says, about to turn away, offended. "No, Evelyn."

"Your face definitely looks... rounder," Evelyn says. "Less... chiseled."
"I don't believe this." Tim again.


He looks deep into the mirror. She continues brushing her hair but the
strokes are less definite because she's looking at Tim. He notices this and
then smells her neck and I think he licks at it quickly and grins.


"Is that Q.T.?" he asks. "Come on, you can tell me. I smell it."
"No," Evelyn says, unsmiling. "You use that."


"No. As a matter of fact I don't. I go to a tanning salon. I'm quite honest
about that," he says. "You're using Q.T."


"You're projecting," she says lamely.


"I told you," Tim says. "I go to a tanning salon. I mean I know it's
expensive but..." Price blanches. "Still, Q.T.?"


"Oh how brave to admit you go to a tanning salon," she says.


"Q.T." He chuckles.


"I don't know what you're talking about," Evelyn says and resumes brushing
her hair. "Patrick, escort your friend out of here."


Now Price is on his knees and he smells and sniffs at Evelyn's bare legs and
she's laughing. I tense up.


"Oh god," she moans loudly. "Get out of here."


"You are orange." He laughs, on his knees, his head in her lap. "You look
orange."


"I am not," she says, her voice a low prolonged growl of pain, ecstasy.
"Jerk."


I lie on the bed watching the two of them. Timothy is in her lap trying to
push his head under the Ralph Lauren robe. Evelyn's head is thrown back
with pleasure and she is trying to push him away, but playfully, and hitting
him only lightly on his back with her Jan Hové brush. I am fairly sure that
Timothy and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting
person I know.


"You should go," she says finally, panting. She has stopped struggling with
him.


He looks up at her, flashing a toothy, good-looking smile, and says,
"Anything the lady requests."


"Thank you," she says in a voice that sounds to me tinged with
disappointment.


He stands up. "Dinner? Tomorrow?"
"T'll have to ask my boyfriend," she says, smiling at me in the mirror.


"Will you wear that sexy black Anne Klein dress?" he asks, his hands on
her shoulders, whispering this into her ear, as he smells it. "Bateman's not
welcome."


I laugh good-naturedly while getting up from the bed, escorting him out of
the room.


"Wait! My espresso!" he calls out.
Evelyn laughs, then claps as if delighted by Timothy's reluctance to vacate.


"Come on fella," I say as I push him roughly out of the bedroom. "Beddy-
bye time."


He still manages to blow her a kiss before I get him out and away. He is
completely silent as I walk him out of the brownstone.


After he leaves I pour myself a brandy and drink it from a checkered Italian
tumbler and when I come back to the bedroom I find Evelyn lying in bed
watching the Home Shopping Club. I lie down next to her and loosen my
Armani tie. Finally I ask something without looking at her.


"Why don't you just go for Price?"


"Oh god, Patrick," she says, her eyes shut. "Why Price? Price?" And she
says this in a way that makes me think she has had sex with him.


"He's rich," I say.

"Everybody's rich," she says, concentrating on the TV screen.
"He's good-looking," I tell her.

"Everybody's good-looking, Patrick," she says remotely.

"He has a great body," I say.

"Everybody has a great body now," she says.


I place the tumbler on the nightstand and roll over on top of her. While I

kiss and lick her neck she stares passionlessly at the wide-screen Panasonic
remote-control television set and lowers the volume. I pull my Armani shirt
up and place her hand on my torso, wanting her to feel how rock-hard, how


halved my stomach is, and I flex the muscles, grateful it's light in the room
so she can see how bronzed and defined my abdomen has become.


"You know," she says clearly, "Stash tested positive for the AIDS virus.
And..." She pauses, something on the screen catching her interest; the
volume goes slightly up and then is lowered. "And... I think he will
probably sleep with Vanden tonight."


"Good," I say, biting lightly at her neck, one of my hands on a firm, cold
breast.


"You're evil," she says, slightly excited, running her hands along my broad,
hard shoulder.


"No," I sigh. "Just your fiancé."


After attempting to have sex with her for around fifteen minutes, I decide
not to continue trying.


She says, "You know, you can always be in better shape."


I reach for the tumbler of brandy. I finish it. Evelyn is addicted to Parnate,
an antidepressant. I lie there beside her watching the Home Shopping Club
— at glass dolls, embroidered throw pillows, lamps shaped like footballs,
Lady Zirconia — with the sound turned off. Evelyn starts drifting.


"Are you using minoxidil?" she asks, after a long time.
"No. I'm not," I say. "Why should I?"
"Your hairline looks like it's receding," she murmurs.


"It's not," I find myself saying. It's hard to tell. My hair is very thick and I
can't tell if I'm losing it. I really doubt it.


I walk back to my place and say good night to a doorman I don't recognize
(he could be anybody) and then dissolve into my living room high above
the city, the sounds of the Tokens singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
coming from the glow of the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox (which is not as good


as the hard-to-find Wurlitzer 850) that stands in the comer of the living
room. I masturbate, thinking about first Evelyn, then Courtney, then Vanden
and then Evelyn again, but right before I come — a weak orgasm — about a
near-naked model in a halter top I saw today in a Calvin Klein
advertisement.


Morning


In the early light of a May dawn this is what the living room of my
apartment looks like: Over the white marble and granite gas-log fireplace
hangs an original David Onica. It's a six-foot-by-four-foot portrait of a
naked woman, mostly done in muted grays and olives, sitting on a chaise
longue watching MTV, the backdrop a Martian landscape, a gleaming
mauve desert scattered with dead, gutted fish, smashed plates rising like a
sunburst above the woman's yellow head, and the whole thing is framed in
black aluminum steel. The painting overlooks a long white down-filled sofa
and a thirty-inch digital TV set from Toshiba; it's a high-contrast highly
defined model plus it has a four-corner video stand with a high-tech tube
combination from NEC with a picture-in-picture digital effects system (plus
freeze-frame); the audio includes built-in MTS and a five-watt-per-channel
on-board amp. A Toshiba VCR sits in a glass case beneath the TV set; it's a
super-high-band Beta unit and has built-in editing function including a
character generator with eight-page memory, a high-band record and
playback, and three-week, eight-event timer. A hurricane halogen lamp is
placed in each corner of the living room. Thin white venetian blinds cover
all eight floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass-top coffee table with oak legs by
Turchin sits in front of the sofa, with Steuben glass animals placed
strategically around expensive crystal ashtrays from Fortunoff, though I
don't smoke. Next to the Wurlitzer jukebox is a black ebony Baldwin
concert grand piano. A polished white oak floor runs throughout the
apartment. On the other side of the room, next to a desk and a magazine
rack by Gio Ponti, is a complete stereo system (CD player, tape deck, tuner,
amplifier) by Sansui with six-foot Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers in
Brazilian rosewood. A downfilled futon lies on an oakwood frame in the
center of the bedroom. Against the wall is a Panasonic thirty-one-inch set


with a direct-view screen and stereo sound and beneath it in a glass case is a
Toshiba VCR. I'm not sure if the time on the Sony digital alarm clock is
correct so I have to sit up then look down at the time flashing on and off on
the VCR, then pick up the Ettore Sottsass push-button phone that rests on
the steel and glass nightstand next to the bed and dial the time number. A
cream leather, steel and wood chair designed by Eric Marcus is in one
corner of the room, a molded plywood chair in the other. A black-dotted
beige and white Maud Sienna carpet covers most of the floor. One wall is
hidden by four chests of immense bleached mahogany drawers. In bed I'm
wearing Ralph Lauren silk pajamas and when I get up I slip on a paisley
ancient madder robe and walk to the bathroom. I urinate while trying to
make out the puffiness of my reflection in the glass that encases a baseball
poster hung above the toilet. After I change into Ralph Lauren
monogrammed boxer shorts and a Fair Isle sweater and slide into silk
polka-dot Enrico Hidolin slippers I tie a plastic ice pack around my face and
commence with the morning's stretching exercises. Afterwards I stand in
front of a chrome and acrylic Washmobile bathroom sink — with soap dish,
cup holder, and railings that serve as towel bars, which I bought at Hastings
Tile to use while the marble sinks I ordered from Finland are being sanded
—and stare at my reflection with the ice pack still on. I pour some Plax
antiplaque formula into a stainless-steel tumbler and swish it around my
mouth for thirty seconds. Then I squeeze Rembrandt onto a faux-
tortoiseshell toothbrush and start brushing my teeth (too hung over to floss
properly — but maybe I flossed before bed last night?) and rinse with
Listerine. Then I inspect my hands and use a nailbrush. I take the ice-pack
mask off and use a deep-pore cleanser lotion, then an herb-mint facial
masque which I leave on for ten minutes while I check my toenails. Then I
use the Probright tooth polisher and next the Interplak tooth polisher (this in
addition to the toothbrush) which has a speed of 4200 rpm and reverses
direction forty-six times per second; the larger tufts clean between teeth and
massage the gums while the short ones scrub the tooth surfaces. I rinse
again, with Cepacol. I wash the facial massage off with a spearmint face
scrub. The shower has a universal all-directional shower head that adjusts
within a thirty-inch vertical range. It's made from Australian gold-black
brass and covered with a white enamel finish. In the shower I use first a
water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the
face an exfoliating gel scrub. Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at


getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne
pollutants and dirt that can weigh down hair and flatten it to the scalp which
can make you look older. The conditioner is also good — silicone technology
permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can
also make you look older. On weekends or before a date I prefer to use the
Greune Natural Revitalizing Shampoo, the conditioner and the Nutrient
Complex. These are formulas that contain D-panthenol, a vitamin-B-
complex factor; polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent for the scalp; and natural
herbs. Over the weekend I plan to go to Bloomingdale's or Bergdorf's and
on Evelyn's advice pick up a Foltene European Supplement and Shampoo
for thinning hair which contains complex carbohydrates that penetrate the
hair shafts for improved strength and shine. Also the Vivagen Hair
Enrichment Treatment, a new Redken product that prevents mineral
deposits and prolongs the life cycle of hair. Luis Carruthers recommended
the Aramis Nutriplexx system, a nutrient complex that helps increase
circulation. Once out of the shower and toweled dry I put the Ralph Lauren
boxers back on and before applying the Mousse A Raiser, a shaving cream
by Pour Hommes, I press a hot towel against my face for two minutes to
soften abrasive beard hair. Then I always slather on a moisturizer (to my
taste, Clinique) and let it soak in for a minute. You can rinse it off or keep it
on and apply a shaving cream over it — preferably with a brush, which
softens the beard as it lifts the whiskers — which I've found makes removing
the hair easier. It also helps prevent water from evaporating and reduces
friction between your skin and the blade. Always wet the razor with warm
water before shaving and shave in the direction the beard grows, pressing
gently on the skin. Leave the sideburns and chin for last, since these
whiskers are tougher and need more time to soften. Rinse the razor and
shake off any excess water before starting. Afterwards splash cool water on
the face to remove any trace of lather. You should use an aftershave lotion
with little or no alcohol. Never use cologne on your face, since the high
alcohol content dries your face out and makes you look older. One should
use an alcohol-free antibacterial toner with a water-moistened cotton ball to
normalize the skin. Applying a moisturizer is the final step. Splash on water
before applying an emollient lotion to soften the skin and seal in the
moisture. Next apply Gel Appaisant, also made by Pour Hommes, which is
an excellent, soothing skin lotion. If the face seems dry and flaky — which
makes it look dull and older — use a clarifying lotion that removes flakes


and uncovers fine skin (it can also make your tan look darker). Then apply
an anti-aging eye balm (Baume Des Yeux) followed by a final moisturizing
"protective" lotion. A scalp-programming lotion is used after I towel my
hair dry. I also lightly blow-dry the hair to give it body and control (but
without stickiness) and then add more of the lotion, shaping it with a Kent
natural-bristle brush, and finally slick it back with a wide-tooth comb. I pull
the Fair Isle sweater back on and reslip my feet into the polka-dot silk
slippers, then head into the living room and put the new Talking Heads in
the CD player, but it starts to digitally skip so I take it out and put in a CD
laser lens cleaner. The laser lens is very sensitive, and subject to
interference from dust or dirt or smoke or pollutants or moisture, and a dirty
one can inaccurately read CDs, making for false starts, inaudible passages,
digital skipping, speed changes and general distortion; the lens cleaner has a
cleaning brush that automatically aligns with the lens then the disk spins to
remove residue and particles. When I put the Talking Heads CD back in it
plays smoothly. I retrieve the copy of USA Today that lies in front of my
door in the hallway and bring it with me into the kitchen where I take two
Advil, a multivitamin and a potassium tablet, washing them down with a
large bottle of Evian water since the maid, an elderly Chinese woman,
forgot to turn the dishwasher on when she left yesterday, and then I have to
pour the grapefruit-lemon juice into a St. Rémy wineglass I got from
Baccarat. I check the neon clock that hangs over the refrigerator to make
sure I have enough time to eat breakfast unhurriedly. Standing at the island
in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a sliced Japanese apple-pear (they cost four
dollars each at Gristede's) out of aluminum storage boxes that were
designed in West Germany. I take a bran muffin, a decaffeinated herbal tea
bag and a box of oat-bran cereal from one of the large glass-front cabinets
that make up most of an entire wall in the kitchen; complete with stainless-
steel shelves and sandblasted wire glass, it is framed in a metallic dark
gray-blue. I eat half of the bran muffin after it's been microwaved and
lightly covered with a small helping of apple butter. A bowl of oat-bran
cereal with wheat germ and soy milk follows; another bottle of Evian water
and a small cup of decaf tea after that. Next to the Panasonic bread baker
and the Salton Pop-Up coffee maker is the Cremina sterling silver espresso
maker (which is, oddly, still warm) that I got at Hammacher Schlemmer
(the thermal-insulated stainless-steel espresso cup and the saucer and spoon
are sitting by the sink, stained) and the Sharp Model R-1810A Carousel II


microwave oven with revolving turntable which I use when I heat up the
other half of the bran muffin. Next to the Salton Sonata toaster and the
Cuisinart Little Pro food processor and the Acme Supreme Juicerator and
the Cordially Yours liqueur maker stands the heavy-gauge stainless-steel
two-and-one-half-quart teakettle, which whistles "Tea for Two" when the
water is boiling, and with it I make another small cup of the decaffeinated
apple-cinnamon tea. For what seems like a long time I stare at the Black &
Decker Handy Knife that lies on the counter next to the sink, plugged into
the wall: it's a sliver/peeler with several attachments, a serrated blade, a
scalloped blade and a rechargeable handle. The suit I wear today is from
Alan Flusser. It's an eighties drape suit, which is an updated version of the
thirties style. The favored version has extended natural shoulders, a full
chest and a bladed back. The soft-rolled lapels should be about four inches
wide with the peak finishing three quarters of the way across the shoulders.
Properly used on double-breasted suits, peaked lapels are considered more
elegant than notched ones. Low-slung pockets have a flapped double-besom
design — above the flap there's a slit trimmed on either side with a flat
narrow strip of cloth. Four buttons form a low-slung square; above it, about
where the lapels cross, there are two more buttons. The trousers are deeply
pleated and cut full in order to continue the flow of the wide jacket. An
extended waist is cut slightly higher in the front. Tabs make the suspenders
fit well at the center back. The tie is a dotted silk design by Valentino
Couture. The shoes are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni. While I'm dressing
the TV is kept on to The Patty Winters Show. Today's guests are women
with multiple personalities. A nondescript overweight older woman is on
the screen and Patty's voice is heard asking, "Well, is it schizophrenia or
what's the deal? Tell us."


"No, oh no. Multiple personalities are not schizophrenics," the woman says,
shaking her head. "We are not dangerous."


"Well," Patty starts, standing in the middle of the audience, microphone in
hand. "Who were you last month?"


"Last month it seemed to be mostly Polly," the woman says.


A cut to the audience — a housewife's worried face; before she notices
herself on the monitor, it cuts back to the multiple-personality woman.


"Well," Patty continues, "now who are you?"


"Well...," the woman begins tiredly, as if she was sick of being asked this
question, as if she had answered it over and over again and still no one
believed it. "Well, this month I'm... Lambchop. Mostly... Lambchop."


A long pause. The camera cuts to a close-up of a stunned housewife
shaking her head, another housewife whispering something to her.


The shoes I'm wearing are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni.


Grabbing my raincoat out of the closet in the entranceway I find a Burberry
scarf and matching coat with a whale embroidered on it (something a little
kid might wear) and it's covered with what looks like dried chocolate syrup
crisscrossed over the front, darkening the lapels. I take the elevator
downstairs to the lobby, rewinding my Rolex by gently shaking my wrist. I
say good morning to the doorman, step outside and hail a cab, heading
downtown toward Wall Street.


Harry's


Price and I walk down Hanover Street in the darkest moments of twilight
and as if guided by radar move silently toward Harry's. Timothy hasn't said
anything since we left P & P. He doesn't even comment on the ugly bum
that crouches beneath a Dumpster off Stone Street, though he does manage
a grim wolf whistle toward a woman — big tits, blonde, great ass, high heels
— heading toward Water Street. Price seems nervous and edgy and I have no
desire to ask him what's wrong. He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano,
a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace-
ups from Brooks Brothers. I'm wearing a lightweight linen suit with pleated
trousers, a cotton shirt, a dotted silk tie, all by Valentino Couture, and
perforated cap-toe leather shoes by Allen-Edmonds. Once inside Harry's we
spot David Van Patten and Craig McDermott at a table up front. Van Patten
is wearing a double-breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and
silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by
Gitman Brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from


Brooks Brothers. McDermott is wearing a woven-linen suit with pleated
trousers, a button-down cotton and linen shirt by Basile, a silk tie by Joseph
Abboud and ostrich loafers from Susan Bennis Warren Edwards.


The two are hunched over the table, writing on the backs of paper napkins,
a Scotch and a martini placed respectively in front of them. They wave us
over. Price throws his Tumi leather attaché case on an empty chair and
heads toward the bar. I call out to him for a J&B on the rocks, then sit down
with Van Patten and McDermott.


"Hey Bateman," Craig says in a voice that suggests this is not his first
martini. "Is it proper to wear tasseled loafers with a business suit or not?
Don't look at me like I'm insane."


"Oh shit, don't ask Bateman," Van Patten moans, waving a gold Cross pen
in front of his face, absently sipping from the martini glass.


"Van Patten?" Craig says.
"Yeah?"
McDermott hesitates, then says "Shut up" in a flat voice.


"What are you screwballs up to?" I spot Luis Carruthers standing at the bar
next to Price, who ignores him utterly. Carruthers is not dressed well: a
four-button double-breasted wool suit, I think by Chaps, a striped cotton
shirt and a silk bow tie plus horn-rimmed eyeglasses by Oliver Peoples.


"Bateman: we're sending these questions in to GQ," Van Patten begins.


Luis spots me, smiles weakly, then, if I'm not mistaken, blushes and turns
back to the bar. Bartenders always ignore Luis for some reason.


"We have this bet to see which one of us will get in the Question and
Answer column first, and so now I expect an answer. What do you think?"
McDermott demands.


"About what?" I ask irritably.


"Tasseled loafers, jerk-off," he says.


"Well, guys..." I measure my words carefully. "The tasseled loafer is
traditionally a casual shoe..." I glance back at Price, wanting the drink
badly. He brushes past Luis, who offers his hand. Price smiles, says
something, moves on, strides over to our table. Luis, once more, tries to
catch the bartender's attention and once more fails.


"But it's become acceptable just because it's so popular, right?" Craig asks
eagerly.


"Yeah." I nod. "As long as it's either black or cordovan it's okay."
"What about brown?" Van Patten asks suspiciously.
I think about this then say, "Too sporty for a business suit."


"What are you fags talking about?" Price asks. He hands me the drink then
sits down, crossing his legs.


"Okay, okay, okay," Van Patten says. "This is my question. A two-parter..."
He pauses dramatically. "Now are rounded collars too dressy or too casual?
Part two, which tie knot looks best with them?"


A distracted Price, his voice still tense, answers quickly with an exact, clear
enunciation that can be heard over the din in Harry's. "It's a very versatile
look and it can go with both suits and sport coats. It should be starched for
dressy occasions and a collar pin should be worn if it's particularly formal."
He pauses, sighs; it looks as if he's spotted somebody. I turn around to see
who it is. Price continues, "If it's worn with a blazer then the collar should
look soft and it can be worn either pinned or unpinned. Since it's a
traditional, preppy look it's best if balanced by a relatively small four-in-
hand knot." He sips his martini, recrossing his legs. "Next question?"


"Buy the man a drink," McDermott says, obviously impressed.
"Price?" Van Patten says.


"Yes?" Price says, casing the room.


"You're priceless."
"Listen," I ask, "where are we having dinner?"


"I brought the trusty Mr. Zagat," Van Patten says, pulling the long crimson
booklet out of his pocket and waving it at Timothy.


"Hoo-ray," Price says dryly.

"What do we want to eat?" Me.

"Something blond with big tits." Price.

"How about that Salvadorian bistro?" McDermott.


"Listen, we're stopping by Tunnel afterwards so somewhere near there."
Van Patten.


"Oh shit," McDermott begins. "We're going to Tunnel? Last week I picked
up this Vassar chick—"


"Oh god, not again," Van Patten groans.
"What's your problem?" McDermott snaps back.
"I was there. I don't need to hear this story again," Van Patten says.


"But I never told you what happened afterwards, " McDermott says,
arching his eyebrows.


"Hey, when were you guys there?" I ask. "Why wasn't I invited?"


"You were on that fucking cruise thing. Now shut up and listen. So okay I
picked up this Vassar chick at Tunnel — hot number, big tits, great legs, this
chick was a little hardbody — and so I buy her a couple of champagne kirs
and she's in the city on spring break and she's practically blowing me in the
Chandelier Room and so I take her back to my place—"


"Whoa, wait," I interrupt. "May I ask where Pamela is during all of this?"


Craig winces. "Oh fuck you. I want a blow job, Bateman. I want a chick
who's gonna let me—"


"I don't want to hear this," Van Patten says, clamping his hands over his
ears. "He's going to say something disgusting."


"You prude," McDermott sneers. "Listen, we're not gonna invest in a co-op
together or jet down to Saint Bart's. I just want some chick whose face I can
sit on for thirty, forty minutes."


I throw my swizzle stick at him.


"Anyway, so we're back at my place and listen to this." He moves in closer
to the table. "She's had enough champagne by now to get a fucking rhino
tipsy, and get this—"


"She let you fuck her without a condom?" one of us asks.


1


McDermott rolls his eyes up. "This is a Vassar girl. She's not from Queens.'
Price taps me on the shoulder. "What does that mean?"


"Anyway, listen," McDermott says. "She would... are you ready?" He
pauses dramatically. "She would only give me a hand job, and get this...
she kept her glove on." He sits back in his chair and sips his drink in a
smug, satisfied sort of way.


We all take this in solemnly. No one makes fun of McDermott's revelatory
statement or of his inability to react more aggressively with this chick. No
one says anything but we are all thinking the same thought: Never pick up a
Vassar girl.


"What you need is a chick from Camden," Van Patten says, after recovering
from McDermott's statement.


"Oh great," I say. "Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother."


"Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England," Price points out.


"Where's dinner?" Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled
on his napkin. "Where the fuck are we going?"


"It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases
and stuff," Van Patten says, shaking his head.

 

[Wexilarious]

Sigma

 

[andy321]

Dnr

 

[MLGS0LD1ERB0Y]

AMERICAN


PSYCHO


A Novel by

Bret Easton Ellis

First published 1991 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House Inc.,
New York


Copyright © Bret Easton Ellis 1991


This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, incidents, and dialogue,
except for incidental references to public figures, products, or services, are
imaginary and are not intended to refer to any living persons or to disparage
any company's products or services.


for Bruce Taylor


Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course,
fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the composer of these Notes not
only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the
circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have
wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one
of the characters of our recent past. He represents a generation that is still
living out its days among us. In the fragment entitled "Underground" this
personage describes himself and his views and attempts, as it were, to
clarify the reasons why he appeared and was bound to appear in our midst.
The subsequent fragment will consist of the actual "notes," concerning
certain events in his life.


Fyodor Dostoevsky


Notes from Underground


One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only
the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be
expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about — doing it
in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went
wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which
people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization
there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be
killing one another.


Miss Manners (Judith Martin)


And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention


Talking Heads


April Fools


ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red
lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and
First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as
it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy
Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Misérables
on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and
twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him
five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver,
black, not American, does so.


"I'm resourceful," Price is saying. "I'm creative, I'm young, unscrupulous,
highly motivated, highly skilled. In essence what I'm saying is that society
cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset." Price calms down, continues to stare
out the cab's dirty window, probably at the word FEAR sprayed in red
graffiti on the side of a McDonald's on Fourth and Seventh. "I mean the fact
remains that no one gives a shit about their work, everybody hates their job,
I hate my job, you've told me you hate yours. What do I do? Go back to Los
Angeles? Not an alternative. I didn't transfer from UCLA to Stanford to put
up with this. I mean am I alone in thinking we're not making enough
money?" Like in a movie another bus appears, another poster for Les
Misérables replaces the word — not the same bus because someone has
written the word DYKE over Eponine's face. Tim blurts out, "I have a co-op
here. I have a place in the Hamptons, for Christ sakes."


"Parents', guy. It's the parents’.


"I'm buying it from them. Will you fucking turn this up?" he snaps but
distractedly at the driver, the Crystals still blaring from the radio.


"It don't go up no higher," maybe the driver says.


Timothy ignores him and irritably continues. "I could stay living in this city
if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs. Maybe the ODM III or ORC II


dynamic tuning systems?" His voice softens here. "Either one. Hip my
friend, very hip."


He takes off the expensive-looking Walkman from around his neck, still
complaining. "I hate to complain — I really do — about the trash, the
garbage, the disease, about how filthy this city really is and you know and I
know that it is a sty..." He continues talking as he opens his new Tumi
calfskin attaché case he bought at D. F. Sanders. He places the Walkman in
the case alongside a Panasonic wallet-size cordless portable folding Easa-
phone (he used to own the NEC 9000 Porta portable) and pulls out today's
newspaper. "In one issue — in one issue — let's see here... strangled models,
babies thrown from tenement rooftops, kids killed in the subway, a
Communist rally, Mafia boss wiped out, Nazis" — he flips through the pages
excitedly — "baseball players with AIDS, more Mafia shit, gridlock, the
homeless, various maniacs, faggots dropping like flies in the streets,
surrogate mothers, the cancellation of a soap opera, kids who broke into a
zoo and tortured and burned various animals alive, more Nazis... and the
joke is, the punch line is, it's all in this city — nowhere else, just here, it
sucks, whoa wait, more Nazis, gridlock, gridlock, baby-sellers, black-
market babies, AIDS babies, baby junkies, building collapses on baby,
maniac baby, gridlock, bridge collapses—" His voice stops, he takes in a
breath and then quietly says, his eyes fixed on a beggar at the corner of
Second and Fifth, "That's the twenty-fourth one I've seen today. I've kept
count." Then asks without looking over, "Why aren't you wearing the
worsted navy blue blazer with the gray pants?" Price is wearing a six-button
wool and silk suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, a cotton shirt with French cuffs
by Ike Behar, a Ralph Lauren silk tie and leather wing tips by Fratelli
Rossetti. Pan down to the Post. There is a moderately interesting story
concerning two people who disappeared at a party aboard the yacht of a
semi-noted New York socialite while the boat was circling the island. A
residue of spattered blood and three smashed champagne glasses are the
only clues. Foul play is suspected and police think that perhaps a machete
was the killer's weapon because of certain grooves and indentations found
on the deck. No bodies have been found. There are no suspects. Price began
his spiel today over lunch and then brought it up again during the squash
game and continued ranting over drinks at Harry's where he had gone on,


over three J&Bs and water, much more interestingly about the Fisher
account that Paul Owen is handling. Price will not shut up.


"Diseases!" he exclaims, his face tense with pain. "There's this theory out
now that if you can catch the AIDS virus through having sex with someone
who is infected then you can also catch anything, whether it's a virus per se
or not — Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, anorexia,
diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, dyslexia,
for Christ sakes — you can get dyslexia from pussy—"


"I'm not sure, guy, but I don't think dyslexia is a virus."
"Oh, who knows? They don't know that. Prove it."


Outside this cab, on the sidewalks, black and bloated pigeons fight over
scraps of hot dogs in front of a Gray's Papaya while transvestites idly look
on and a police car cruises silently the wrong way down a one-way street
and the sky is low and gray and in a cab that's stopped in traffic across from
this one, a guy who looks a lot like Luis Carruthers waves over at Timothy
and when Timothy doesn't return the wave the guy — slicked-back hair,
suspenders, horn-rimmed glasses — realizes it's not who he thought it was
and looks back at his copy of USA Today. Panning down to the sidewalk
there's an ugly old homeless bag lady holding a whip and she cracks it at the
pigeons who ignore it as they continue to peck and fight hungrily over the
remains of the hot dogs and the police car disappears into an underground
parking lot.


"But then, when you've just come to the point when your reaction to the
times is one of total and sheer acceptance, when your body has become
somehow tuned into the insanity and you reach that point where it all makes
sense, when it clicks, we get some crazy fucking homeless nigger who
actually wants — listen to me, Bateman — wants to be out on the streets, this,
those streets, see, those" — he points — "and we have a mayor who won't
listen to her, a mayor who won't let the bitch have her way — Holy Christ —
let the fucking bitch freeze to death, put her out of her own goddamn self-
made misery, and look, you're back where you started, confused, fucked...
Number twenty-four, nope, twenty-five... Who's going to be at Evelyn's?
Wait, let me guess." He holds up a hand attached to an impeccable


manicure. "Ashley, Courtney, Muldwyn, Marina, Charles — am I right so
far? Maybe one of Evelyn's ‘artiste’ friends from ohmygod the 'East' Village.
You know the type — the ones who ask Evelyn if she has a nice dry white
chardonnay—" He slaps a hand over his forehead and shuts his eyes and now
he mutters, jaw clenched, "I'm leaving. I'm dumping Meredith. She's
essentially daring me to like her. I'm gone. Why did it take me so long to
realize that she has all the personality of a goddamn game-show host?...
Twenty-six, twenty-seven... I mean I tell her I'm sensitive. I told her I was
freaked out by the Challenger accident — what more does she want? I'm
ethical, tolerant, I mean I'm extremely satisfied with my life, I'm optimistic
about the future — I mean, aren't you?"


"Sure, but—"


"And all I get is shit from her... Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, holy shit it's a
goddamn cluster of bums. I tell you—" He stops suddenly, as if exhausted,
and turning away from another advertisement for Les Misérables,
remembering something important, asks, "Did you read about the host from
that game show on TV? He killed two teenage boys? Depraved faggot.
Droll, really droll." Price waits for a reaction. There is none. Suddenly:
Upper West Side.


He tells the driver to stop on the comer of Eighty-first and Riverside since
the street doesn't go the right way.


"Don't bother going arou—" Price begins.
"Maybe I go other way around," the cabdriver says.


"Do not bother." Then barely an aside, teeth gritted, unsmiling: "Fucking
nitwit."


The driver brings the cab to a stop. Two cabs behind this cab both blare
their horns then move on.


"Should we bring flowers?"


"Nah. Hell, you're banging her, Bateman. Why should we get Evelyn
flowers? You better have change for a fifty," he warns the driver, squinting
at the red numbers on the meter. "Damnit. Steroids. Sorry I'm tense."


"Thought you were off them."


"I was getting acne on my legs and arms and the UVA bath wasn't fixing it,
so I started going to a tanning salon instead and got rid of it. Jesus,
Bateman, you should see how ripped my stomach is. The definition.
Completely buffed out...," he says in a distant, odd way, while waiting for
the driver to hand him the change. "Ripped." He stiffs the driver on the tip
but the driver is genuinely thankful anyway. "So long, Shlomo," Price
winks.


"Damn, damn, damned," Price says as he opens the door. Coming out of the
cab he eyes a beggar on the street — "Bingo: thirty" — wearing some sort of
weird, tacky, filthy green jump suit, unshaven, dirty hair greased back, and
jokingly Price holds the cab's door open for him. The bum, confused and
mumbling, eyes locked shamefully on the pavement, holds an empty
Styrofoam coffee cup out to us, clutched in a tentative hand.


"I suppose he doesn't want the cab," Price snickers, slamming the cab door.
"Ask him if he takes American Express."


"Do you take Am Ex?"
The bum nods yes and moves away, shuffling slowly.


It's cold for April and Price walks briskly down the street toward Evelyn's
brownstone, whistling "If I Were a Rich Man," the heat from his mouth
creating smoky plumes of steam, and swinging his Tumi leather attaché
case. A figure with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses approaches
in the distance, wearing a beige double-breasted wool-gabardine Cerruti
1881 suit and carrying the same Tumi leather attaché case from D. F.
Sanders that Price has, and Timothy wonders aloud, "Is it Victor Powell? It
can't be."


The man passes under the fluorescent glare of a streetlamp with a troubled
look on his face that momentarily curls his lips into a slight smile and he
glances at Price almost as if they were acquainted but just as quickly he
realizes that he doesn't know Price and just as quickly Price realizes it's not
Victor Powell and the man moves on.


"Thank god," Price mutters as he nears Evelyn's.
"It looked a lot like him."


"Powell and dinner at Evelyn's? These two go together about as well as
paisley and plaid." Price rethinks this. "White socks with gray trousers."


A slow dissolve and Price is bounding up the steps outside the brownstone
Evelyn's father bought her, grumbling about how he forgot to return the
tapes he rented last night to Video Haven. He rings the bell. At the
brownstone next to Evelyn's, a woman — high heels, great ass — leaves
without locking her door. Price follows her with his gaze and when he hears
footsteps from inside coming down the hallway toward us he turns around
and straightens his Versace tie ready to face whoever. Courtney opens the
door and she's wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt
and silk-satin d'Orsay pumps from Manolo Blahnik.


I shiver and hand her my black wool Giorgio Armani overcoat and she
takes it from me, carefully airkissing my right cheek, then she performs the
Same exact movements on Price while taking his Armani overcoat. The new
Talking Heads on CD plays softly in the living room.


"A bit late, aren't we, boys?" Courtney asks, smiling naughtily.


"Inept Haitian cabbie," Price mutters, airkissing Courtney back. "Do we
have reservations somewhere and please don't tell me Pastels at nine."


Courtney smiles, hanging up both coats in the hall closet. "Eating in
tonight, darlings. I'm sorry, I know, I know, I tried to talk Evelyn out of it
but we're having... sushi."


Tim moves past her and down the foyer toward the kitchen. "Evelyn?
Where are you, Evelyn?" he calls out in a singsong voice. "We have to
talk."


"It's good to see you," I tell Courtney. "You look very pretty tonight. Your
face has a... youthful glow."


"You really know how to charm the ladies, Bateman." There is no sarcasm
in Courtney's voice. "Should I tell Evelyn you feel this way?" she asks
flirtatiously.


"No," I say. "But I bet you'd like to."


"Come on," she says, taking my hands off her waist and placing her hands
on my shoulders, steering me down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.
"We have to save Evelyn. She's been rearranging the sushi for the past hour.
She's trying to spell your initials — the P in yellowtail, the B in tuna — but
she thinks the tuna looks too pale—"


"How romantic."


"—and she doesn't have enough yellowtail to finish the B" — Courtney
breathes in — "and so I think she's going to spell Tim's initials instead. Do
you mind?" she asks, only a bit worried. Courtney is Luis Carruthers'
girlfriend.


"I'm terribly jealous and I think I better talk to Evelyn," I say, letting
Courtney gently push me into the kitchen.


Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse,
a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d'Orsay pumps
Courtney has on. Her long blond hair is pinned back into a rather severe-
looking bun and she acknowledges me without looking up from the oval
Wilton stainless-steel platter on which she has artfully arranged the sushi.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry. I wanted to go to this darling little new Salvadorian
bistro on the Lower East Side—'


Price groans audibly.


"—but we couldn't get reservations. Timothy, don't groan." She picks up a
piece of the yellowtail and places it cautiously near the top of the platter,
completing what looks like a capital T. She stands back from the platter and
inspects it. "I don't know. Oh, I'm so unsure."


"I told you to keep Finlandia in this place," Tim mutters, looking through
the bottles — most of them magnums — at the bar. "She never has Finlandia,"
he says to no one, to all of us.


"Oh god, Timothy. Can't handle Absolut?" Evelyn asks and then
contemplatively to Courtney, "The California roll should circle the rim of
the plate, no?"


"Bateman. Drink?" Price sighs.


"J&B rocks," I tell him, suddenly thinking it's strange that Meredith wasn't
invited.


"Oh god. It's a mess," Evelyn gasps. "I swear I'm going to cry."
"The sushi looks marvelous," I tell her soothingly.
"Oh it's a mess," she wails. "It's a mess."


"No, no, the sushi looks marvelous," I tell her and in an attempt to be as
consoling as possible I pick up a piece of the fluke and pop it in my mouth,
groaning with inward pleasure, and hug Evelyn from behind; my mouth still
full, I manage to say "Delicious."


She slaps at me in a playful way, obviously pleased with my reaction, and
finally, carefully, airkisses my cheek and then turns back to Courtney. Price
hands me a drink and walks toward the living room while trying to remove
something invisible from his blazer. "Evelyn, do you have a lint brush?"


I would rather have watched the baseball game or gone to the gym and
worked out or tried that Salvadorian restaurant that got a couple of pretty
good reviews, one in New York magazine, the other in the Times, than have


dinner here but there is one good thing about dinner at Evelyn's: it's close to
my place.


"Is it okay if the soy sauce isn't exactly at room temperature?" Courtney is
asking. "I think there's ice in one of the dishes."


Evelyn is placing strips of pale orange ginger delicately in a pile next toa
small porcelain dish filled with soy sauce. "No, it's not okay. Now Patrick,
could you be a dear and get the Kirin out of the refrigerator?" Then,
seemingly harassed by the ginger, she throws the clump down on the platter.
"Oh forget it. I'll do it."


I move toward the refrigerator anyway. Staring darkly, Price reenters the
kitchen and says, "Who in the hell is in the living room?"


Evelyn feigns ignorance. "Oh who is that?"
Courtney warns, "Ev-el-yn. You did tell them, I hope."
"Who is it?" I ask, suddenly scared. "Victor Powell?"


"No, it's not Victor Powell, Patrick," Evelyn says casually. "It's an artist
friend of mine, Stash. And Vanden, his girlfriend."


"Oh so that was a girl in there," Price says. "Go take a look, Bateman," he
dares. "Let me guess. The East Village?"


"Oh Price," she says flirtatiously, opening beer bottles. "Why no. Vanden
goes to Camden and Stash lives in SoHo, so there."


I move out of the kitchen, past the dining room, where the table has been
set, the beeswax candles from Zona lit in their sterling silver candleholders
from Fortunoff, and into the living room. I can't tell what Stash is wearing
since it's all black. Vanden has green streaks in her hair. She stares at a
heavy-metal video playing on MTV while smoking a cigarette.


"Ahem," I cough.


Vanden looks over warily, probably drugged to the eyeballs. Stash doesn't
move.


"Hi. Pat Bateman," I say, offering my hand, noticing my reflection in a
mirror hung on the wall — and smiling at how good I look.


She takes it; says nothing. Stash starts smelling his fingers.
Smash cut and I'm back in the kitchen.


"Just get her out of there." Price is seething. "She's doped up watching
MTV and I want to watch the goddamn MacNeil/Lehrer report."


Evelyn is still opening large bottles of imported beer and absently mentions,
"We've got to eat this stuff soon or else we're all going to be poisoned."


"She's got a green streak in her hair," I tell them. "And she's smoking."
"Bateman," Tim says, still glaring at Evelyn.

"Yes?" I say. "Timothy?"

"You're a dufus."

"Oh leave Patrick alone," Evelyn says. "He's the boy next door. That's
Patrick. You're not a dufus, are you, honey?" Evelyn is on Mars and I move


toward the bar to make myself another drink.


"Boy next door." Tim smirks and nods, then reverses his expression and
hostilely asks Evelyn again if she has a lint brush.


Evelyn finishes opening the Japanese beer bottles and tells Courtney to
fetch Stash and Vanden. "We have to eat this now or else we're going to be
poisoned," she murmurs, slowly moving her head, taking in the kitchen,
making sure she hasn't forgotten anything.


"If I can tear them away from the latest Megadeth video," Courtney says
before exiting.


"I have to talk to you," Evelyn says.

"What about?" I come up to her.

"No," she says and then pointing at Tim, "to Price."

Tim still glares at her fiercely. I say nothing and stare at Tim's drink.


"Be a hon," she tells me, "and place the sushi on the table. Tempura is in the
microwave and the sake is just about done boiling..." Her voice trails off as
she leads Price out of the kitchen.


I am wondering where Evelyn got the sushi — the tuna, yellowtail, mackerel,
shrimp, eel, even bonito, all seem so fresh and there are piles of wasabi and
clumps of ginger placed strategically around the Wilton platter — but I also
like the idea that I don't know, will never know, will never ask where it
came from and that the sushi will sit there in the middle of the glass table
from Zona that Evelyn's father bought her like some mysterious apparition
from the Orient and as I set the platter down I catch a glimpse of my
reflection on the surface of the table. My skin seems darker because of the
candlelight and I notice how good the haircut I got at Gio's last Wednesday
looks. I make myself another drink. I worry about the sodium level in the
soy sauce.


Four of us sit around the table waiting for Evelyn and Timothy to return
from getting Price a lint brush. I sit at the head taking large swallows of
J&B. Vanden sits at the other end reading disinterestedly from some East
Village rag called Deception, its glaring headline THE DEATH OF
DOWNTOWN. Stash has pushed a chopstick into a lone piece of yellowtail
that lies on the middle of his plate like some shiny impaled insect and the
chopstick stands straight up. Stash occasionally moves the piece of sushi
around the plate with the chopstick but never looks up toward either myself
or Vanden or Courtney, who sits next to me sipping plum wine from a
champagne glass.


Evelyn and Timothy come back perhaps twenty minutes after we've seated
ourselves and Evelyn looks only slightly flushed. Tim glares at me as he
takes the seat next to mine, a fresh drink in hand, and he leans over toward


me, about to say, to admit something, when suddenly Evelyn interrupts,
"Not there, Timothy," then, barely a whisper, "Boy girl, boy girl." She
gestures toward the empty chair next to Vanden. Timothy shifts his glare to
Evelyn and hesitantly takes the seat next to Vanden, who yawns and turns a
page of her magazine.


"Well, everybody," Evelyn says, smiling, pleased with the meal she has
presented, "dig in," and then after noticing the piece of sushi that Stash has
pinned — he's now bent low over the plate, whispering at it — her composure
falters but she smiles bravely and chirps, "Plum wine anyone?"


No one says anything until Courtney, who is staring at Stash's plate, lifts her
glass uncertainly and says, trying to smile, "It's... delicious, Evelyn."


Stash doesn't speak. Even though he is probably uncomfortable at the table
with us since he looks nothing like the other men in the room — his hair isn't
slicked back, no suspenders, no horn-rimmed glasses, the clothes black and
ill-fitting, no urge to light and suck on a cigar, probably unable to secure a
table at Camols, his net worth a pittance — still, his behavior lacks warrant
and he sits there as if hypnotized by the glistening piece of sushi and just as
the table is about to finally ignore him, to look away and start eating, he sits
up and loudly says, pointing an accusing finger at his plate, "It moved!"


Timothy glares at him with a contempt so total that I can't fully equal it but
I muster enough energy to come close. Vanden seems amused and so now,
unfortunately, does Courtney, who I'm beginning to think finds this monkey
attractive but I suppose if I were dating Luis Carruthers I might too. Evelyn
laughs good-naturedly and says, "Oh Stash, you are a riot," and then asks
wotriedly, "Tempura?" Evelyn is an executive at a financial services
company, FYI.


"TIl have some," I tell her and I lift a piece of eggplant off the platter,
though I won't eat it because it's fried.


The table begins to serve themselves, successfully ignoring Stash. I stare at
Courtney as she chews and swallows.


Evelyn, in an attempt to start a conversation, says, after what seems like a
long, thoughtful silence, "Vanden goes to Camden."


"Oh really?" Timothy asks icily. "Where is that?"
"Vermont," Vanden answers without looking up from her paper.


I look over at Stash to see if he's pleased with Vanden's casually blatant lie
but he acts as if he wasn't listening, as if he were in some other room or
some punk rock club in the bowels of the city, but so does the rest of the
table, which bothers me since I am fairly sure we all know it's located in
New Hampshire.


"Where did you go?" Vanden sighs after it finally becomes clear to her that
no one is interested in Camden.


"Well, I went to Le Rosay," Evelyn starts, "and then to business school in
Switzerland."


"T also survived business school in Switzerland," Courtney says. "But I was
in Geneva. Evelyn was in Lausanne."


Vanden tosses the copy of Deception next to Timothy and smirks in a wan,
bitchy way and though I am pissed off a little that Evelyn doesn't take in
Vanden's condescension and hurl it back at her, the J&B has relieved my
stress to a point where I don't care enough to say anything. Evelyn probably
thinks Vanden is sweet, lost, confused, an artist. Price isn't eating and
neither is Evelyn; I suspect cocaine but it's doubtful. While taking a large
gulp from his drink Timothy holds up the copy of Deception and chuckles
to himself.


"The Death of Downtown," he says; then, pointing at each word in the
headline, "Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?"


I automatically expect Stash to look up from his plate but he still stares at
the lone piece of sushi, smiling to himself and nodding.


"Hey," Vanden says, as if she was insulted. "That affects us."


"Oh ho ho," Tim says warningly. "That affects us? What about the
massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Doesn't that affect us too? What about Sri
Lanka?"


"Well, that's a cool club in the Village." Vanden shrugs. "Yeah, that affects
us too."


Suddenly Stash speaks without looking up. "That's called The Tonka." He
sounds pissed but his voice is even and low, his eyes still on the sushi. "It's
called The Tonka, not Sri Lanka. Got it? The Tonka."


Vanden looks down, then meekly says, "Oh."


"I mean don't you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs
are killing like tons of Israelis there?" Timothy goads her. "Doesn't that
affect us?"


"Kappamaki roll anyone?" Evelyn cuts in cheerfully, holding up a plate.


"Oh come on, Price," I say. "There are more important problems than Sri
Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy is important, but there are
more pressing problems at hand."


"Like what?" he asks without looking away from Vanden. "By the way, why
is there an ice cube in my soy sauce?"


"No," I start, hesitantly. "Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow
down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a
strong national defense, prevent the spread of communism in Central
America, work for a Middle East peace settlement, prevent U.S. military
involvement overseas. We have to ensure that America is a respected world
power. Now that's not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally
important, if not more. Better and more affordable long-term care for the
elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up
environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality
of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on
crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure that college education is
affordable for the middle class and protect Social Security for senior


citizens plus conserve natural resources and wilderness areas and reduce the
influence of political action committees."


The table stares at me uncomfortably, even Stash, but I'm on a roll.


"But economically we're still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down
the inflation rate and reduce the deficit. We also need to provide training
and jobs for the unemployed as well as protect existing American jobs from
unfair foreign imports. We have to make America the leader in new
technology. At the same time we need to promote economic growth and
business expansion and hold the line against federal income taxes and hold
down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and
controlling mergers and big corporate takeovers."


Price nearly spits up his Absolut after this comment but I try to make eye
contact with each one of them, especially Vanden, who if she got rid of the
green streak and the leather and got some color — maybe joined an aerobics
class, slipped on a blouse, something by Laura Ashley — might be pretty.
But why does she sleep with Stash? He's lumpy and pale and has a bad
cropped haircut and is at least ten pounds overweight; there's no muscle
tone beneath the black T-shirt.


"But we can't ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people from
abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the
homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while
also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to
protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women's freedom of
choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to
encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and
violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly
we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young
people."


I finish my drink. The table sits facing me in total silence. Courtney's
smiling and seems pleased. Timothy just shakes his head in bemused
disbelief. Evelyn is completely mystified by the turn the conversation has
taken and she stands, unsteadily, and asks if anyone would like dessert.


"I have... sorbet," she says as if in a daze. "Kiwi, carambola, cherimoya,
cactus fruit and oh... what is that..." She stops her zombie monotone and
tries to remember the last flavor. "Oh yes, Japanese pear."


Everyone stays silent. Tim quickly looks over at me. I glance at Courtney,
then back at Tim, then at Evelyn. Evelyn meets my glance, then worriedly
looks over at Tim. I also look over at Tim, then at Courtney and then at Tim
again, who looks at me once more before answering slowly, unsurely,
"Cactus pear."


"Cactus fruit," Evelyn corrects.


I look suspiciously over at Courtney and after she says "Cherimoya" I say
"Kiwi" and then Vanden says "Kiwi" also and Stash says quietly, but
enunciating each syllable very clearly, "Chocolate chip."


The worry that flickers across Evelyn's face when she hears this is
instantaneously replaced by a smiling and remarkably good-natured mask
and she says, "Oh Stash, you know I don't have chocolate chip, though
admittedly that's pretty exotic for a sorbet. I told you I have cherimoya,
cactus pear, carambola, I mean cactus fruit—"


"I know. I heard you, I heard you," he says, waving her off. "Surprise me."
"Okay," Evelyn says. "Courtney? Would you like to help?"


"Of course." Courtney gets up and I watch as her shoes click away into the
kitchen.


"No cigars, boys," Evelyn calls out.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Price says, putting a cigar back into his coat pocket.


Stash is still staring at the sushi with an intensity that troubles me and I
have to ask him, hoping he will catch my sarcasm, "Did it, uh, move again
or something?"


Vanden has made a smiley face out of all the disks of California roll she
piled onto her plate and she holds it up for Stash's inspection and asks,


"Rex?"
"Cool," Stash grunts.


Evelyn comes back with the sorbet in Odeon margarita glasses and an
unopened bottle of Glenfiddich, which remains unopened while we eat the
sorbet.


Courtney has to leave early to meet Luis at a company party at Bedlam, a
new club in midtown. Stash and Vanden depart soon after to go "score"
something somewhere in SoHo. I am the only one who saw Stash take the
piece of sushi from his plate and slip it into the pocket of his olive green
leather bomber jacket. When I mention this to Evelyn, while she loads the
dishwasher, she gives me a look so hateful that it seems doubtful we will
have sex later on tonight. But I stick around anyway. So does Price. He is
now lying on a late-eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet drinking espresso
from a Ceralene coffee cup on the floor of Evelyn's room. I'm lying on
Evelyn's bed holding a tapestry pillow from Jenny B. Goode, nursing a
cranberry and Absolut. Evelyn sits at her dressing table brushing her hair, a
Ralph Lauren green and white striped silk robe draped over a very nice
body, and she is gazing at her reflection in the vanity mirror.


"Am I the only one who grasped the fact that Stash assumed his piece of
sushi was" — I cough, then resume — "a pet?"


"Please stop inviting your ‘artiste’ friends over," Tim says tiredly. "I'm sick
of being the only one at dinner who hasn't talked to an extraterrestrial."


"It was only that once," Evelyn says, inspecting a lip, lost is her own placid
beauty.


"And at Odeon, no less," Price mutters.


I vaguely wonder why I wasn't invited to Odeon for the artists dinner. Had
Evelyn picked up the tab? Probably. And I suddenly picture a smiling
Evelyn, secretly morose, sitting at a whole table of Stash's friends — all of
them constructing little log cabins with their french fries or pretending their
grilled salmon was alive and moving the piece of fish around the table, the


fish conversing with each other about the "art scene," new galleries; maybe
even trying to fit the fish into the log cabin made of french fries...


"If you remember well enough, J hadn't seen one either," Evelyn says.


"No, but Bateman's your boyfriend, so that counted." Price guffaws and I
toss the pillow at him. He catches it then throws it back at me.


"Leave Patrick alone. He's the boy next door," Evelyn says, rubbing some
kind of cream into her face. "You're not an extraterrestrial, are you honey?"


"Should I even dignify that question with an answer?" I sigh.


"Oh baby." She pouts into the mirror, looking at me in its reflection. "I
know you're not an extraterrestrial."


"Relief," I mutter to myself.


"No, but Stash was there at Odeon that night," Price continues, and then,
looking over at me, "At Odeon. Are you listening, Bateman?"


"No he wasn't," Evelyn says.


"Oh yes he was, but his name wasn't Stash last time. It was Horseshoe or
Magnet or Lego or something equally adult," Price sneers. "I forget."


"Timothy, what are you going on about?" Evelyn asks tiredly. "I'm not even
listening to you." She wets a cotton ball, wipes it across her forehead.


"No, we were at Odeon." Price sits up with some effort. "And don't ask me
why, but I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna cappuccino."


"Carpaccio," Evelyn corrects.


"No, Evelyn dear, love of my life. I distinctly remember him ordering the
tuna cappuccino," Price says, staring up at the ceiling.


"He said carpaccio," she counters, running the cotton ball over her eyelids.


"Cappuccino," Price insists. "Until you corrected him."
"You didn't even recognize him earlier tonight," she says.


"Oh but I do remember him," Price says, turning to me. "Evelyn described
him as 'the good-natured body builder.’ That's how she introduced him. I
swear."


"Oh shut up," she says, annoyed, but she looks over at Timothy in the
mirror and smiles flirtatiously.


"I mean I doubt Stash makes the society pages of W, which I thought was
your criterion for choosing friends," Price says, staring back, grinning at her
in his wolfish, lewd way. I concentrate on the Absolut and cranberry I'm
holding and it looks like a glassful of thin, watery blood with ice and a
lemon wedge in it.


"What's going on with Courtney and Luis?" I ask, hoping to break their
gaze.


"Oh god," Evelyn moans, turning back to the mirror. "The really dreadful
thing about Courtney is not that she doesn't like Luis anymore. It's that—"


"They canceled her charge at Bergdorf's?" Price asks. I laugh. We slap each
other high-five.


"No," Evelyn continues, also amused. "It's that she's really in love with her
real estate broker. Some little twerp over at The Feathered Nest."


"Courtney might have her problems," Tim says, inspecting his recent
manicure, "but my god, what is a... Vanden?"


"Oh don't bring this up," Evelyn whines and starts brushing her hair.


"Vanden is a cross between... The Limited and... used Benetton," Price
says, holding up his hands, his eyes closed.


"No." I smile, trying to integrate myself into the conversation. "Used
Fiorucci."


"Yeah," Tim says. "I guess." His eyes, now open, zone in on Evelyn.


"Timothy, lay off," Evelyn says. "She's a Camden girl. What do you
expect?"


"Oh god," Timothy moans. "I am so sick of hearing Camden-girl problems.
Oh my boyfriend, I love him but he loves someone else and oh how I
longed for him and he ignored me and blahblah blahblahblah — god, how
boring. College kids. It matters, you know? It's sad, right Bateman?"


"Yeah. Matters. Sad."
"See, Bateman agrees with me," Price says smugly.


"Oh he does not." With a Kleenex Evelyn wipes off whatever she rubbed
on. "Patrick is not a cynic, Timothy. He's the boy next door, aren't you
honey?"


"No I'm not," I whisper to myself. "I'm a fucking evil psychopath."
"Oh so what," Evelyn sighs. "She's not the brightest girl in the world."


"Hah! Understatement of the century!" Price cries out. "But Stash isn't the
brightest guy either. Perfect couple. Did they meet on Love Connection or
something?"


"Leave them alone," Evelyn says. "Stash is talented and I'm sure we're
underestimating Vanden."


"This is a girl..." Price turns to me. "Listen, Bateman, this is a girl — Evelyn
told me this — this is a girl who rented High Noon because she thought it
was a movie about" — he gulps — "marijuana farmers."


"Tt just hit me," I say. "But have we deciphered what Stash — I assume he
has a last name but don't tell me, I don't want to know, Evelyn — does for a
living?"


"First of all he's perfectly decent and nice," Evelyn says in his defense.


"The man asked for chocolate chip sorbet for Christ sakes!" Timothy wails,
disbelieving. "What are you talking about?"


Evelyn ignores this, pulls off her Tina Chow earrings. "He's a sculptor," she
says tersely.


"Oh bullshit," Timothy says. "I remember talking to him at Odeon." He
turns to me again. "This was when he ordered the tuna cappuccino and I'm
sure if left unattended would have ordered the salmon au lait, and he told
me he did parties, so that technically makes him — I don't know, correct me
if I'm wrong, Evelyn — a caterer. He's a caterer!" Price cries out. "Not a
fucking sculptor!"


"Oh gosh calm down," Evelyn says, rubbing more cream into her face.


"That's like saying you're a poet." Timothy is drunk and I'm beginning to
wonder when he will vacate the premises.


"Well," Evelyn begins, "I've been known to—"


"You're a fucking word processor!" Tim blurts out. He walks over to Evelyn
and bows next to her, checking out his reflection in the mirror.


"Have you been gaining weight, Tim?" Evelyn asks thoughtfully. She
studies Tim's head in the mirror and says, "Your face looks... rounder."


Timothy, in retaliation, smells Evelyn's neck and says, "What is that
fascinating... odor?"


"Obsession." Evelyn smiles flirtatiously, gently pushing Timothy away. "It's
Obsession. Patrick, get your friend away from me."


"No, no, wait," Timothy says, sniffing loudly. "It's not Obsession. It's...
it's..." and then, with a face twisted in mock horror, "It's... Oh my god, it's
Q.T. Instatan!"


Evelyn pauses and considers her options. She inspects Price's head one
more time. "Are you losing your hair?"


"Evelyn," Tim says. "Don't change the subject but..." And then, genuinely
worried, "Now that you mention it... too much gel?" Concerned, he runs a
hand over it.


"Maybe," Evelyn says. "Now make yourself useful and do sit down."


"Well, at least it's not green and I haven't tried to cut it with a butter knife,"
Tim says, referring to Vanden's dye job and Stash's admittedly cheap, bad
haircut. A haircut that's bad because it's cheap.


"Are you gaining weight?" Evelyn asks, more seriously this time.
"Jesus," Tim says, about to turn away, offended. "No, Evelyn."

"Your face definitely looks... rounder," Evelyn says. "Less... chiseled."
"I don't believe this." Tim again.


He looks deep into the mirror. She continues brushing her hair but the
strokes are less definite because she's looking at Tim. He notices this and
then smells her neck and I think he licks at it quickly and grins.


"Is that Q.T.?" he asks. "Come on, you can tell me. I smell it."
"No," Evelyn says, unsmiling. "You use that."


"No. As a matter of fact I don't. I go to a tanning salon. I'm quite honest
about that," he says. "You're using Q.T."


"You're projecting," she says lamely.


"I told you," Tim says. "I go to a tanning salon. I mean I know it's
expensive but..." Price blanches. "Still, Q.T.?"


"Oh how brave to admit you go to a tanning salon," she says.


"Q.T." He chuckles.


"I don't know what you're talking about," Evelyn says and resumes brushing
her hair. "Patrick, escort your friend out of here."


Now Price is on his knees and he smells and sniffs at Evelyn's bare legs and
she's laughing. I tense up.


"Oh god," she moans loudly. "Get out of here."


"You are orange." He laughs, on his knees, his head in her lap. "You look
orange."


"I am not," she says, her voice a low prolonged growl of pain, ecstasy.
"Jerk."


I lie on the bed watching the two of them. Timothy is in her lap trying to
push his head under the Ralph Lauren robe. Evelyn's head is thrown back
with pleasure and she is trying to push him away, but playfully, and hitting
him only lightly on his back with her Jan Hové brush. I am fairly sure that
Timothy and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting
person I know.


"You should go," she says finally, panting. She has stopped struggling with
him.


He looks up at her, flashing a toothy, good-looking smile, and says,
"Anything the lady requests."


"Thank you," she says in a voice that sounds to me tinged with
disappointment.


He stands up. "Dinner? Tomorrow?"
"T'll have to ask my boyfriend," she says, smiling at me in the mirror.


"Will you wear that sexy black Anne Klein dress?" he asks, his hands on
her shoulders, whispering this into her ear, as he smells it. "Bateman's not
welcome."


I laugh good-naturedly while getting up from the bed, escorting him out of
the room.


"Wait! My espresso!" he calls out.
Evelyn laughs, then claps as if delighted by Timothy's reluctance to vacate.


"Come on fella," I say as I push him roughly out of the bedroom. "Beddy-
bye time."


He still manages to blow her a kiss before I get him out and away. He is
completely silent as I walk him out of the brownstone.


After he leaves I pour myself a brandy and drink it from a checkered Italian
tumbler and when I come back to the bedroom I find Evelyn lying in bed
watching the Home Shopping Club. I lie down next to her and loosen my
Armani tie. Finally I ask something without looking at her.


"Why don't you just go for Price?"


"Oh god, Patrick," she says, her eyes shut. "Why Price? Price?" And she
says this in a way that makes me think she has had sex with him.


"He's rich," I say.

"Everybody's rich," she says, concentrating on the TV screen.
"He's good-looking," I tell her.

"Everybody's good-looking, Patrick," she says remotely.

"He has a great body," I say.

"Everybody has a great body now," she says.


I place the tumbler on the nightstand and roll over on top of her. While I

kiss and lick her neck she stares passionlessly at the wide-screen Panasonic
remote-control television set and lowers the volume. I pull my Armani shirt
up and place her hand on my torso, wanting her to feel how rock-hard, how


halved my stomach is, and I flex the muscles, grateful it's light in the room
so she can see how bronzed and defined my abdomen has become.


"You know," she says clearly, "Stash tested positive for the AIDS virus.
And..." She pauses, something on the screen catching her interest; the
volume goes slightly up and then is lowered. "And... I think he will
probably sleep with Vanden tonight."


"Good," I say, biting lightly at her neck, one of my hands on a firm, cold
breast.


"You're evil," she says, slightly excited, running her hands along my broad,
hard shoulder.


"No," I sigh. "Just your fiancé."


After attempting to have sex with her for around fifteen minutes, I decide
not to continue trying.


She says, "You know, you can always be in better shape."


I reach for the tumbler of brandy. I finish it. Evelyn is addicted to Parnate,
an antidepressant. I lie there beside her watching the Home Shopping Club
— at glass dolls, embroidered throw pillows, lamps shaped like footballs,
Lady Zirconia — with the sound turned off. Evelyn starts drifting.


"Are you using minoxidil?" she asks, after a long time.
"No. I'm not," I say. "Why should I?"
"Your hairline looks like it's receding," she murmurs.


"It's not," I find myself saying. It's hard to tell. My hair is very thick and I
can't tell if I'm losing it. I really doubt it.


I walk back to my place and say good night to a doorman I don't recognize
(he could be anybody) and then dissolve into my living room high above
the city, the sounds of the Tokens singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
coming from the glow of the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox (which is not as good


as the hard-to-find Wurlitzer 850) that stands in the comer of the living
room. I masturbate, thinking about first Evelyn, then Courtney, then Vanden
and then Evelyn again, but right before I come — a weak orgasm — about a
near-naked model in a halter top I saw today in a Calvin Klein
advertisement.


Morning


In the early light of a May dawn this is what the living room of my
apartment looks like: Over the white marble and granite gas-log fireplace
hangs an original David Onica. It's a six-foot-by-four-foot portrait of a
naked woman, mostly done in muted grays and olives, sitting on a chaise
longue watching MTV, the backdrop a Martian landscape, a gleaming
mauve desert scattered with dead, gutted fish, smashed plates rising like a
sunburst above the woman's yellow head, and the whole thing is framed in
black aluminum steel. The painting overlooks a long white down-filled sofa
and a thirty-inch digital TV set from Toshiba; it's a high-contrast highly
defined model plus it has a four-corner video stand with a high-tech tube
combination from NEC with a picture-in-picture digital effects system (plus
freeze-frame); the audio includes built-in MTS and a five-watt-per-channel
on-board amp. A Toshiba VCR sits in a glass case beneath the TV set; it's a
super-high-band Beta unit and has built-in editing function including a
character generator with eight-page memory, a high-band record and
playback, and three-week, eight-event timer. A hurricane halogen lamp is
placed in each corner of the living room. Thin white venetian blinds cover
all eight floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass-top coffee table with oak legs by
Turchin sits in front of the sofa, with Steuben glass animals placed
strategically around expensive crystal ashtrays from Fortunoff, though I
don't smoke. Next to the Wurlitzer jukebox is a black ebony Baldwin
concert grand piano. A polished white oak floor runs throughout the
apartment. On the other side of the room, next to a desk and a magazine
rack by Gio Ponti, is a complete stereo system (CD player, tape deck, tuner,
amplifier) by Sansui with six-foot Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers in
Brazilian rosewood. A downfilled futon lies on an oakwood frame in the
center of the bedroom. Against the wall is a Panasonic thirty-one-inch set


with a direct-view screen and stereo sound and beneath it in a glass case is a
Toshiba VCR. I'm not sure if the time on the Sony digital alarm clock is
correct so I have to sit up then look down at the time flashing on and off on
the VCR, then pick up the Ettore Sottsass push-button phone that rests on
the steel and glass nightstand next to the bed and dial the time number. A
cream leather, steel and wood chair designed by Eric Marcus is in one
corner of the room, a molded plywood chair in the other. A black-dotted
beige and white Maud Sienna carpet covers most of the floor. One wall is
hidden by four chests of immense bleached mahogany drawers. In bed I'm
wearing Ralph Lauren silk pajamas and when I get up I slip on a paisley
ancient madder robe and walk to the bathroom. I urinate while trying to
make out the puffiness of my reflection in the glass that encases a baseball
poster hung above the toilet. After I change into Ralph Lauren
monogrammed boxer shorts and a Fair Isle sweater and slide into silk
polka-dot Enrico Hidolin slippers I tie a plastic ice pack around my face and
commence with the morning's stretching exercises. Afterwards I stand in
front of a chrome and acrylic Washmobile bathroom sink — with soap dish,
cup holder, and railings that serve as towel bars, which I bought at Hastings
Tile to use while the marble sinks I ordered from Finland are being sanded
—and stare at my reflection with the ice pack still on. I pour some Plax
antiplaque formula into a stainless-steel tumbler and swish it around my
mouth for thirty seconds. Then I squeeze Rembrandt onto a faux-
tortoiseshell toothbrush and start brushing my teeth (too hung over to floss
properly — but maybe I flossed before bed last night?) and rinse with
Listerine. Then I inspect my hands and use a nailbrush. I take the ice-pack
mask off and use a deep-pore cleanser lotion, then an herb-mint facial
masque which I leave on for ten minutes while I check my toenails. Then I
use the Probright tooth polisher and next the Interplak tooth polisher (this in
addition to the toothbrush) which has a speed of 4200 rpm and reverses
direction forty-six times per second; the larger tufts clean between teeth and
massage the gums while the short ones scrub the tooth surfaces. I rinse
again, with Cepacol. I wash the facial massage off with a spearmint face
scrub. The shower has a universal all-directional shower head that adjusts
within a thirty-inch vertical range. It's made from Australian gold-black
brass and covered with a white enamel finish. In the shower I use first a
water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the
face an exfoliating gel scrub. Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at


getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne
pollutants and dirt that can weigh down hair and flatten it to the scalp which
can make you look older. The conditioner is also good — silicone technology
permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can
also make you look older. On weekends or before a date I prefer to use the
Greune Natural Revitalizing Shampoo, the conditioner and the Nutrient
Complex. These are formulas that contain D-panthenol, a vitamin-B-
complex factor; polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent for the scalp; and natural
herbs. Over the weekend I plan to go to Bloomingdale's or Bergdorf's and
on Evelyn's advice pick up a Foltene European Supplement and Shampoo
for thinning hair which contains complex carbohydrates that penetrate the
hair shafts for improved strength and shine. Also the Vivagen Hair
Enrichment Treatment, a new Redken product that prevents mineral
deposits and prolongs the life cycle of hair. Luis Carruthers recommended
the Aramis Nutriplexx system, a nutrient complex that helps increase
circulation. Once out of the shower and toweled dry I put the Ralph Lauren
boxers back on and before applying the Mousse A Raiser, a shaving cream
by Pour Hommes, I press a hot towel against my face for two minutes to
soften abrasive beard hair. Then I always slather on a moisturizer (to my
taste, Clinique) and let it soak in for a minute. You can rinse it off or keep it
on and apply a shaving cream over it — preferably with a brush, which
softens the beard as it lifts the whiskers — which I've found makes removing
the hair easier. It also helps prevent water from evaporating and reduces
friction between your skin and the blade. Always wet the razor with warm
water before shaving and shave in the direction the beard grows, pressing
gently on the skin. Leave the sideburns and chin for last, since these
whiskers are tougher and need more time to soften. Rinse the razor and
shake off any excess water before starting. Afterwards splash cool water on
the face to remove any trace of lather. You should use an aftershave lotion
with little or no alcohol. Never use cologne on your face, since the high
alcohol content dries your face out and makes you look older. One should
use an alcohol-free antibacterial toner with a water-moistened cotton ball to
normalize the skin. Applying a moisturizer is the final step. Splash on water
before applying an emollient lotion to soften the skin and seal in the
moisture. Next apply Gel Appaisant, also made by Pour Hommes, which is
an excellent, soothing skin lotion. If the face seems dry and flaky — which
makes it look dull and older — use a clarifying lotion that removes flakes


and uncovers fine skin (it can also make your tan look darker). Then apply
an anti-aging eye balm (Baume Des Yeux) followed by a final moisturizing
"protective" lotion. A scalp-programming lotion is used after I towel my
hair dry. I also lightly blow-dry the hair to give it body and control (but
without stickiness) and then add more of the lotion, shaping it with a Kent
natural-bristle brush, and finally slick it back with a wide-tooth comb. I pull
the Fair Isle sweater back on and reslip my feet into the polka-dot silk
slippers, then head into the living room and put the new Talking Heads in
the CD player, but it starts to digitally skip so I take it out and put in a CD
laser lens cleaner. The laser lens is very sensitive, and subject to
interference from dust or dirt or smoke or pollutants or moisture, and a dirty
one can inaccurately read CDs, making for false starts, inaudible passages,
digital skipping, speed changes and general distortion; the lens cleaner has a
cleaning brush that automatically aligns with the lens then the disk spins to
remove residue and particles. When I put the Talking Heads CD back in it
plays smoothly. I retrieve the copy of USA Today that lies in front of my
door in the hallway and bring it with me into the kitchen where I take two
Advil, a multivitamin and a potassium tablet, washing them down with a
large bottle of Evian water since the maid, an elderly Chinese woman,
forgot to turn the dishwasher on when she left yesterday, and then I have to
pour the grapefruit-lemon juice into a St. Rémy wineglass I got from
Baccarat. I check the neon clock that hangs over the refrigerator to make
sure I have enough time to eat breakfast unhurriedly. Standing at the island
in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a sliced Japanese apple-pear (they cost four
dollars each at Gristede's) out of aluminum storage boxes that were
designed in West Germany. I take a bran muffin, a decaffeinated herbal tea
bag and a box of oat-bran cereal from one of the large glass-front cabinets
that make up most of an entire wall in the kitchen; complete with stainless-
steel shelves and sandblasted wire glass, it is framed in a metallic dark
gray-blue. I eat half of the bran muffin after it's been microwaved and
lightly covered with a small helping of apple butter. A bowl of oat-bran
cereal with wheat germ and soy milk follows; another bottle of Evian water
and a small cup of decaf tea after that. Next to the Panasonic bread baker
and the Salton Pop-Up coffee maker is the Cremina sterling silver espresso
maker (which is, oddly, still warm) that I got at Hammacher Schlemmer
(the thermal-insulated stainless-steel espresso cup and the saucer and spoon
are sitting by the sink, stained) and the Sharp Model R-1810A Carousel II


microwave oven with revolving turntable which I use when I heat up the
other half of the bran muffin. Next to the Salton Sonata toaster and the
Cuisinart Little Pro food processor and the Acme Supreme Juicerator and
the Cordially Yours liqueur maker stands the heavy-gauge stainless-steel
two-and-one-half-quart teakettle, which whistles "Tea for Two" when the
water is boiling, and with it I make another small cup of the decaffeinated
apple-cinnamon tea. For what seems like a long time I stare at the Black &
Decker Handy Knife that lies on the counter next to the sink, plugged into
the wall: it's a sliver/peeler with several attachments, a serrated blade, a
scalloped blade and a rechargeable handle. The suit I wear today is from
Alan Flusser. It's an eighties drape suit, which is an updated version of the
thirties style. The favored version has extended natural shoulders, a full
chest and a bladed back. The soft-rolled lapels should be about four inches
wide with the peak finishing three quarters of the way across the shoulders.
Properly used on double-breasted suits, peaked lapels are considered more
elegant than notched ones. Low-slung pockets have a flapped double-besom
design — above the flap there's a slit trimmed on either side with a flat
narrow strip of cloth. Four buttons form a low-slung square; above it, about
where the lapels cross, there are two more buttons. The trousers are deeply
pleated and cut full in order to continue the flow of the wide jacket. An
extended waist is cut slightly higher in the front. Tabs make the suspenders
fit well at the center back. The tie is a dotted silk design by Valentino
Couture. The shoes are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni. While I'm dressing
the TV is kept on to The Patty Winters Show. Today's guests are women
with multiple personalities. A nondescript overweight older woman is on
the screen and Patty's voice is heard asking, "Well, is it schizophrenia or
what's the deal? Tell us."


"No, oh no. Multiple personalities are not schizophrenics," the woman says,
shaking her head. "We are not dangerous."


"Well," Patty starts, standing in the middle of the audience, microphone in
hand. "Who were you last month?"


"Last month it seemed to be mostly Polly," the woman says.


A cut to the audience — a housewife's worried face; before she notices
herself on the monitor, it cuts back to the multiple-personality woman.


"Well," Patty continues, "now who are you?"


"Well...," the woman begins tiredly, as if she was sick of being asked this
question, as if she had answered it over and over again and still no one
believed it. "Well, this month I'm... Lambchop. Mostly... Lambchop."


A long pause. The camera cuts to a close-up of a stunned housewife
shaking her head, another housewife whispering something to her.


The shoes I'm wearing are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni.


Grabbing my raincoat out of the closet in the entranceway I find a Burberry
scarf and matching coat with a whale embroidered on it (something a little
kid might wear) and it's covered with what looks like dried chocolate syrup
crisscrossed over the front, darkening the lapels. I take the elevator
downstairs to the lobby, rewinding my Rolex by gently shaking my wrist. I
say good morning to the doorman, step outside and hail a cab, heading
downtown toward Wall Street.


Harry's


Price and I walk down Hanover Street in the darkest moments of twilight
and as if guided by radar move silently toward Harry's. Timothy hasn't said
anything since we left P & P. He doesn't even comment on the ugly bum
that crouches beneath a Dumpster off Stone Street, though he does manage
a grim wolf whistle toward a woman — big tits, blonde, great ass, high heels
— heading toward Water Street. Price seems nervous and edgy and I have no
desire to ask him what's wrong. He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano,
a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace-
ups from Brooks Brothers. I'm wearing a lightweight linen suit with pleated
trousers, a cotton shirt, a dotted silk tie, all by Valentino Couture, and
perforated cap-toe leather shoes by Allen-Edmonds. Once inside Harry's we
spot David Van Patten and Craig McDermott at a table up front. Van Patten
is wearing a double-breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and
silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by
Gitman Brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from


Brooks Brothers. McDermott is wearing a woven-linen suit with pleated
trousers, a button-down cotton and linen shirt by Basile, a silk tie by Joseph
Abboud and ostrich loafers from Susan Bennis Warren Edwards.


The two are hunched over the table, writing on the backs of paper napkins,
a Scotch and a martini placed respectively in front of them. They wave us
over. Price throws his Tumi leather attaché case on an empty chair and
heads toward the bar. I call out to him for a J&B on the rocks, then sit down
with Van Patten and McDermott.


"Hey Bateman," Craig says in a voice that suggests this is not his first
martini. "Is it proper to wear tasseled loafers with a business suit or not?
Don't look at me like I'm insane."


"Oh shit, don't ask Bateman," Van Patten moans, waving a gold Cross pen
in front of his face, absently sipping from the martini glass.


"Van Patten?" Craig says.
"Yeah?"
McDermott hesitates, then says "Shut up" in a flat voice.


"What are you screwballs up to?" I spot Luis Carruthers standing at the bar
next to Price, who ignores him utterly. Carruthers is not dressed well: a
four-button double-breasted wool suit, I think by Chaps, a striped cotton
shirt and a silk bow tie plus horn-rimmed eyeglasses by Oliver Peoples.


"Bateman: we're sending these questions in to GQ," Van Patten begins.


Luis spots me, smiles weakly, then, if I'm not mistaken, blushes and turns
back to the bar. Bartenders always ignore Luis for some reason.


"We have this bet to see which one of us will get in the Question and
Answer column first, and so now I expect an answer. What do you think?"
McDermott demands.


"About what?" I ask irritably.


"Tasseled loafers, jerk-off," he says.


"Well, guys..." I measure my words carefully. "The tasseled loafer is
traditionally a casual shoe..." I glance back at Price, wanting the drink
badly. He brushes past Luis, who offers his hand. Price smiles, says
something, moves on, strides over to our table. Luis, once more, tries to
catch the bartender's attention and once more fails.


"But it's become acceptable just because it's so popular, right?" Craig asks
eagerly.


"Yeah." I nod. "As long as it's either black or cordovan it's okay."
"What about brown?" Van Patten asks suspiciously.
I think about this then say, "Too sporty for a business suit."


"What are you fags talking about?" Price asks. He hands me the drink then
sits down, crossing his legs.


"Okay, okay, okay," Van Patten says. "This is my question. A two-parter..."
He pauses dramatically. "Now are rounded collars too dressy or too casual?
Part two, which tie knot looks best with them?"


A distracted Price, his voice still tense, answers quickly with an exact, clear
enunciation that can be heard over the din in Harry's. "It's a very versatile
look and it can go with both suits and sport coats. It should be starched for
dressy occasions and a collar pin should be worn if it's particularly formal."
He pauses, sighs; it looks as if he's spotted somebody. I turn around to see
who it is. Price continues, "If it's worn with a blazer then the collar should
look soft and it can be worn either pinned or unpinned. Since it's a
traditional, preppy look it's best if balanced by a relatively small four-in-
hand knot." He sips his martini, recrossing his legs. "Next question?"


"Buy the man a drink," McDermott says, obviously impressed.
"Price?" Van Patten says.


"Yes?" Price says, casing the room.


"You're priceless."
"Listen," I ask, "where are we having dinner?"


"I brought the trusty Mr. Zagat," Van Patten says, pulling the long crimson
booklet out of his pocket and waving it at Timothy.


"Hoo-ray," Price says dryly.

"What do we want to eat?" Me.

"Something blond with big tits." Price.

"How about that Salvadorian bistro?" McDermott.


"Listen, we're stopping by Tunnel afterwards so somewhere near there."
Van Patten.


"Oh shit," McDermott begins. "We're going to Tunnel? Last week I picked
up this Vassar chick—"


"Oh god, not again," Van Patten groans.
"What's your problem?" McDermott snaps back.
"I was there. I don't need to hear this story again," Van Patten says.


"But I never told you what happened afterwards, " McDermott says,
arching his eyebrows.


"Hey, when were you guys there?" I ask. "Why wasn't I invited?"


"You were on that fucking cruise thing. Now shut up and listen. So okay I
picked up this Vassar chick at Tunnel — hot number, big tits, great legs, this
chick was a little hardbody — and so I buy her a couple of champagne kirs
and she's in the city on spring break and she's practically blowing me in the
Chandelier Room and so I take her back to my place—"


"Whoa, wait," I interrupt. "May I ask where Pamela is during all of this?"


Craig winces. "Oh fuck you. I want a blow job, Bateman. I want a chick
who's gonna let me—"


"I don't want to hear this," Van Patten says, clamping his hands over his
ears. "He's going to say something disgusting."


"You prude," McDermott sneers. "Listen, we're not gonna invest in a co-op
together or jet down to Saint Bart's. I just want some chick whose face I can
sit on for thirty, forty minutes."


I throw my swizzle stick at him.


"Anyway, so we're back at my place and listen to this." He moves in closer
to the table. "She's had enough champagne by now to get a fucking rhino
tipsy, and get this—"


"She let you fuck her without a condom?" one of us asks.


1


McDermott rolls his eyes up. "This is a Vassar girl. She's not from Queens.'
Price taps me on the shoulder. "What does that mean?"


"Anyway, listen," McDermott says. "She would... are you ready?" He
pauses dramatically. "She would only give me a hand job, and get this...
she kept her glove on." He sits back in his chair and sips his drink in a
smug, satisfied sort of way.


We all take this in solemnly. No one makes fun of McDermott's revelatory
statement or of his inability to react more aggressively with this chick. No
one says anything but we are all thinking the same thought: Never pick up a
Vassar girl.


"What you need is a chick from Camden," Van Patten says, after recovering
from McDermott's statement.


"Oh great," I say. "Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother."


"Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England," Price points out.


"Where's dinner?" Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled
on his napkin. "Where the fuck are we going?"


"It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases
and stuff," Van Patten says, shaking his head.

Great, great book, a personal favourite

 

[GonorrhoeaGobbler]

to long whatever I'll put it into word

 

[walee]

AMERICAN


PSYCHO


A Novel by

Bret Easton Ellis

First published 1991 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House Inc.,
New York


Copyright © Bret Easton Ellis 1991


This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, incidents, and dialogue,
except for incidental references to public figures, products, or services, are
imaginary and are not intended to refer to any living persons or to disparage
any company's products or services.


for Bruce Taylor


Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course,
fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the composer of these Notes not
only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the
circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have
wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one
of the characters of our recent past. He represents a generation that is still
living out its days among us. In the fragment entitled "Underground" this
personage describes himself and his views and attempts, as it were, to
clarify the reasons why he appeared and was bound to appear in our midst.
The subsequent fragment will consist of the actual "notes," concerning
certain events in his life.


Fyodor Dostoevsky


Notes from Underground


One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only
the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be
expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about — doing it
in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went
wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which
people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization
there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be
killing one another.


Miss Manners (Judith Martin)


And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention


Talking Heads


April Fools


ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red
lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and
First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as
it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy
Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Misérables
on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and
twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him
five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver,
black, not American, does so.


"I'm resourceful," Price is saying. "I'm creative, I'm young, unscrupulous,
highly motivated, highly skilled. In essence what I'm saying is that society
cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset." Price calms down, continues to stare
out the cab's dirty window, probably at the word FEAR sprayed in red
graffiti on the side of a McDonald's on Fourth and Seventh. "I mean the fact
remains that no one gives a shit about their work, everybody hates their job,
I hate my job, you've told me you hate yours. What do I do? Go back to Los
Angeles? Not an alternative. I didn't transfer from UCLA to Stanford to put
up with this. I mean am I alone in thinking we're not making enough
money?" Like in a movie another bus appears, another poster for Les
Misérables replaces the word — not the same bus because someone has
written the word DYKE over Eponine's face. Tim blurts out, "I have a co-op
here. I have a place in the Hamptons, for Christ sakes."


"Parents', guy. It's the parents’.


"I'm buying it from them. Will you fucking turn this up?" he snaps but
distractedly at the driver, the Crystals still blaring from the radio.


"It don't go up no higher," maybe the driver says.


Timothy ignores him and irritably continues. "I could stay living in this city
if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs. Maybe the ODM III or ORC II


dynamic tuning systems?" His voice softens here. "Either one. Hip my
friend, very hip."


He takes off the expensive-looking Walkman from around his neck, still
complaining. "I hate to complain — I really do — about the trash, the
garbage, the disease, about how filthy this city really is and you know and I
know that it is a sty..." He continues talking as he opens his new Tumi
calfskin attaché case he bought at D. F. Sanders. He places the Walkman in
the case alongside a Panasonic wallet-size cordless portable folding Easa-
phone (he used to own the NEC 9000 Porta portable) and pulls out today's
newspaper. "In one issue — in one issue — let's see here... strangled models,
babies thrown from tenement rooftops, kids killed in the subway, a
Communist rally, Mafia boss wiped out, Nazis" — he flips through the pages
excitedly — "baseball players with AIDS, more Mafia shit, gridlock, the
homeless, various maniacs, faggots dropping like flies in the streets,
surrogate mothers, the cancellation of a soap opera, kids who broke into a
zoo and tortured and burned various animals alive, more Nazis... and the
joke is, the punch line is, it's all in this city — nowhere else, just here, it
sucks, whoa wait, more Nazis, gridlock, gridlock, baby-sellers, black-
market babies, AIDS babies, baby junkies, building collapses on baby,
maniac baby, gridlock, bridge collapses—" His voice stops, he takes in a
breath and then quietly says, his eyes fixed on a beggar at the corner of
Second and Fifth, "That's the twenty-fourth one I've seen today. I've kept
count." Then asks without looking over, "Why aren't you wearing the
worsted navy blue blazer with the gray pants?" Price is wearing a six-button
wool and silk suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, a cotton shirt with French cuffs
by Ike Behar, a Ralph Lauren silk tie and leather wing tips by Fratelli
Rossetti. Pan down to the Post. There is a moderately interesting story
concerning two people who disappeared at a party aboard the yacht of a
semi-noted New York socialite while the boat was circling the island. A
residue of spattered blood and three smashed champagne glasses are the
only clues. Foul play is suspected and police think that perhaps a machete
was the killer's weapon because of certain grooves and indentations found
on the deck. No bodies have been found. There are no suspects. Price began
his spiel today over lunch and then brought it up again during the squash
game and continued ranting over drinks at Harry's where he had gone on,


over three J&Bs and water, much more interestingly about the Fisher
account that Paul Owen is handling. Price will not shut up.


"Diseases!" he exclaims, his face tense with pain. "There's this theory out
now that if you can catch the AIDS virus through having sex with someone
who is infected then you can also catch anything, whether it's a virus per se
or not — Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, anorexia,
diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, dyslexia,
for Christ sakes — you can get dyslexia from pussy—"


"I'm not sure, guy, but I don't think dyslexia is a virus."
"Oh, who knows? They don't know that. Prove it."


Outside this cab, on the sidewalks, black and bloated pigeons fight over
scraps of hot dogs in front of a Gray's Papaya while transvestites idly look
on and a police car cruises silently the wrong way down a one-way street
and the sky is low and gray and in a cab that's stopped in traffic across from
this one, a guy who looks a lot like Luis Carruthers waves over at Timothy
and when Timothy doesn't return the wave the guy — slicked-back hair,
suspenders, horn-rimmed glasses — realizes it's not who he thought it was
and looks back at his copy of USA Today. Panning down to the sidewalk
there's an ugly old homeless bag lady holding a whip and she cracks it at the
pigeons who ignore it as they continue to peck and fight hungrily over the
remains of the hot dogs and the police car disappears into an underground
parking lot.


"But then, when you've just come to the point when your reaction to the
times is one of total and sheer acceptance, when your body has become
somehow tuned into the insanity and you reach that point where it all makes
sense, when it clicks, we get some crazy fucking homeless nigger who
actually wants — listen to me, Bateman — wants to be out on the streets, this,
those streets, see, those" — he points — "and we have a mayor who won't
listen to her, a mayor who won't let the bitch have her way — Holy Christ —
let the fucking bitch freeze to death, put her out of her own goddamn self-
made misery, and look, you're back where you started, confused, fucked...
Number twenty-four, nope, twenty-five... Who's going to be at Evelyn's?
Wait, let me guess." He holds up a hand attached to an impeccable


manicure. "Ashley, Courtney, Muldwyn, Marina, Charles — am I right so
far? Maybe one of Evelyn's ‘artiste’ friends from ohmygod the 'East' Village.
You know the type — the ones who ask Evelyn if she has a nice dry white
chardonnay—" He slaps a hand over his forehead and shuts his eyes and now
he mutters, jaw clenched, "I'm leaving. I'm dumping Meredith. She's
essentially daring me to like her. I'm gone. Why did it take me so long to
realize that she has all the personality of a goddamn game-show host?...
Twenty-six, twenty-seven... I mean I tell her I'm sensitive. I told her I was
freaked out by the Challenger accident — what more does she want? I'm
ethical, tolerant, I mean I'm extremely satisfied with my life, I'm optimistic
about the future — I mean, aren't you?"


"Sure, but—"


"And all I get is shit from her... Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, holy shit it's a
goddamn cluster of bums. I tell you—" He stops suddenly, as if exhausted,
and turning away from another advertisement for Les Misérables,
remembering something important, asks, "Did you read about the host from
that game show on TV? He killed two teenage boys? Depraved faggot.
Droll, really droll." Price waits for a reaction. There is none. Suddenly:
Upper West Side.


He tells the driver to stop on the comer of Eighty-first and Riverside since
the street doesn't go the right way.


"Don't bother going arou—" Price begins.
"Maybe I go other way around," the cabdriver says.


"Do not bother." Then barely an aside, teeth gritted, unsmiling: "Fucking
nitwit."


The driver brings the cab to a stop. Two cabs behind this cab both blare
their horns then move on.


"Should we bring flowers?"


"Nah. Hell, you're banging her, Bateman. Why should we get Evelyn
flowers? You better have change for a fifty," he warns the driver, squinting
at the red numbers on the meter. "Damnit. Steroids. Sorry I'm tense."


"Thought you were off them."


"I was getting acne on my legs and arms and the UVA bath wasn't fixing it,
so I started going to a tanning salon instead and got rid of it. Jesus,
Bateman, you should see how ripped my stomach is. The definition.
Completely buffed out...," he says in a distant, odd way, while waiting for
the driver to hand him the change. "Ripped." He stiffs the driver on the tip
but the driver is genuinely thankful anyway. "So long, Shlomo," Price
winks.


"Damn, damn, damned," Price says as he opens the door. Coming out of the
cab he eyes a beggar on the street — "Bingo: thirty" — wearing some sort of
weird, tacky, filthy green jump suit, unshaven, dirty hair greased back, and
jokingly Price holds the cab's door open for him. The bum, confused and
mumbling, eyes locked shamefully on the pavement, holds an empty
Styrofoam coffee cup out to us, clutched in a tentative hand.


"I suppose he doesn't want the cab," Price snickers, slamming the cab door.
"Ask him if he takes American Express."


"Do you take Am Ex?"
The bum nods yes and moves away, shuffling slowly.


It's cold for April and Price walks briskly down the street toward Evelyn's
brownstone, whistling "If I Were a Rich Man," the heat from his mouth
creating smoky plumes of steam, and swinging his Tumi leather attaché
case. A figure with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses approaches
in the distance, wearing a beige double-breasted wool-gabardine Cerruti
1881 suit and carrying the same Tumi leather attaché case from D. F.
Sanders that Price has, and Timothy wonders aloud, "Is it Victor Powell? It
can't be."


The man passes under the fluorescent glare of a streetlamp with a troubled
look on his face that momentarily curls his lips into a slight smile and he
glances at Price almost as if they were acquainted but just as quickly he
realizes that he doesn't know Price and just as quickly Price realizes it's not
Victor Powell and the man moves on.


"Thank god," Price mutters as he nears Evelyn's.
"It looked a lot like him."


"Powell and dinner at Evelyn's? These two go together about as well as
paisley and plaid." Price rethinks this. "White socks with gray trousers."


A slow dissolve and Price is bounding up the steps outside the brownstone
Evelyn's father bought her, grumbling about how he forgot to return the
tapes he rented last night to Video Haven. He rings the bell. At the
brownstone next to Evelyn's, a woman — high heels, great ass — leaves
without locking her door. Price follows her with his gaze and when he hears
footsteps from inside coming down the hallway toward us he turns around
and straightens his Versace tie ready to face whoever. Courtney opens the
door and she's wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt
and silk-satin d'Orsay pumps from Manolo Blahnik.


I shiver and hand her my black wool Giorgio Armani overcoat and she
takes it from me, carefully airkissing my right cheek, then she performs the
Same exact movements on Price while taking his Armani overcoat. The new
Talking Heads on CD plays softly in the living room.


"A bit late, aren't we, boys?" Courtney asks, smiling naughtily.


"Inept Haitian cabbie," Price mutters, airkissing Courtney back. "Do we
have reservations somewhere and please don't tell me Pastels at nine."


Courtney smiles, hanging up both coats in the hall closet. "Eating in
tonight, darlings. I'm sorry, I know, I know, I tried to talk Evelyn out of it
but we're having... sushi."


Tim moves past her and down the foyer toward the kitchen. "Evelyn?
Where are you, Evelyn?" he calls out in a singsong voice. "We have to
talk."


"It's good to see you," I tell Courtney. "You look very pretty tonight. Your
face has a... youthful glow."


"You really know how to charm the ladies, Bateman." There is no sarcasm
in Courtney's voice. "Should I tell Evelyn you feel this way?" she asks
flirtatiously.


"No," I say. "But I bet you'd like to."


"Come on," she says, taking my hands off her waist and placing her hands
on my shoulders, steering me down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.
"We have to save Evelyn. She's been rearranging the sushi for the past hour.
She's trying to spell your initials — the P in yellowtail, the B in tuna — but
she thinks the tuna looks too pale—"


"How romantic."


"—and she doesn't have enough yellowtail to finish the B" — Courtney
breathes in — "and so I think she's going to spell Tim's initials instead. Do
you mind?" she asks, only a bit worried. Courtney is Luis Carruthers'
girlfriend.


"I'm terribly jealous and I think I better talk to Evelyn," I say, letting
Courtney gently push me into the kitchen.


Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse,
a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d'Orsay pumps
Courtney has on. Her long blond hair is pinned back into a rather severe-
looking bun and she acknowledges me without looking up from the oval
Wilton stainless-steel platter on which she has artfully arranged the sushi.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry. I wanted to go to this darling little new Salvadorian
bistro on the Lower East Side—'


Price groans audibly.


"—but we couldn't get reservations. Timothy, don't groan." She picks up a
piece of the yellowtail and places it cautiously near the top of the platter,
completing what looks like a capital T. She stands back from the platter and
inspects it. "I don't know. Oh, I'm so unsure."


"I told you to keep Finlandia in this place," Tim mutters, looking through
the bottles — most of them magnums — at the bar. "She never has Finlandia,"
he says to no one, to all of us.


"Oh god, Timothy. Can't handle Absolut?" Evelyn asks and then
contemplatively to Courtney, "The California roll should circle the rim of
the plate, no?"


"Bateman. Drink?" Price sighs.


"J&B rocks," I tell him, suddenly thinking it's strange that Meredith wasn't
invited.


"Oh god. It's a mess," Evelyn gasps. "I swear I'm going to cry."
"The sushi looks marvelous," I tell her soothingly.
"Oh it's a mess," she wails. "It's a mess."


"No, no, the sushi looks marvelous," I tell her and in an attempt to be as
consoling as possible I pick up a piece of the fluke and pop it in my mouth,
groaning with inward pleasure, and hug Evelyn from behind; my mouth still
full, I manage to say "Delicious."


She slaps at me in a playful way, obviously pleased with my reaction, and
finally, carefully, airkisses my cheek and then turns back to Courtney. Price
hands me a drink and walks toward the living room while trying to remove
something invisible from his blazer. "Evelyn, do you have a lint brush?"


I would rather have watched the baseball game or gone to the gym and
worked out or tried that Salvadorian restaurant that got a couple of pretty
good reviews, one in New York magazine, the other in the Times, than have


dinner here but there is one good thing about dinner at Evelyn's: it's close to
my place.


"Is it okay if the soy sauce isn't exactly at room temperature?" Courtney is
asking. "I think there's ice in one of the dishes."


Evelyn is placing strips of pale orange ginger delicately in a pile next toa
small porcelain dish filled with soy sauce. "No, it's not okay. Now Patrick,
could you be a dear and get the Kirin out of the refrigerator?" Then,
seemingly harassed by the ginger, she throws the clump down on the platter.
"Oh forget it. I'll do it."


I move toward the refrigerator anyway. Staring darkly, Price reenters the
kitchen and says, "Who in the hell is in the living room?"


Evelyn feigns ignorance. "Oh who is that?"
Courtney warns, "Ev-el-yn. You did tell them, I hope."
"Who is it?" I ask, suddenly scared. "Victor Powell?"


"No, it's not Victor Powell, Patrick," Evelyn says casually. "It's an artist
friend of mine, Stash. And Vanden, his girlfriend."


"Oh so that was a girl in there," Price says. "Go take a look, Bateman," he
dares. "Let me guess. The East Village?"


"Oh Price," she says flirtatiously, opening beer bottles. "Why no. Vanden
goes to Camden and Stash lives in SoHo, so there."


I move out of the kitchen, past the dining room, where the table has been
set, the beeswax candles from Zona lit in their sterling silver candleholders
from Fortunoff, and into the living room. I can't tell what Stash is wearing
since it's all black. Vanden has green streaks in her hair. She stares at a
heavy-metal video playing on MTV while smoking a cigarette.


"Ahem," I cough.


Vanden looks over warily, probably drugged to the eyeballs. Stash doesn't
move.


"Hi. Pat Bateman," I say, offering my hand, noticing my reflection in a
mirror hung on the wall — and smiling at how good I look.


She takes it; says nothing. Stash starts smelling his fingers.
Smash cut and I'm back in the kitchen.


"Just get her out of there." Price is seething. "She's doped up watching
MTV and I want to watch the goddamn MacNeil/Lehrer report."


Evelyn is still opening large bottles of imported beer and absently mentions,
"We've got to eat this stuff soon or else we're all going to be poisoned."


"She's got a green streak in her hair," I tell them. "And she's smoking."
"Bateman," Tim says, still glaring at Evelyn.

"Yes?" I say. "Timothy?"

"You're a dufus."

"Oh leave Patrick alone," Evelyn says. "He's the boy next door. That's
Patrick. You're not a dufus, are you, honey?" Evelyn is on Mars and I move


toward the bar to make myself another drink.


"Boy next door." Tim smirks and nods, then reverses his expression and
hostilely asks Evelyn again if she has a lint brush.


Evelyn finishes opening the Japanese beer bottles and tells Courtney to
fetch Stash and Vanden. "We have to eat this now or else we're going to be
poisoned," she murmurs, slowly moving her head, taking in the kitchen,
making sure she hasn't forgotten anything.


"If I can tear them away from the latest Megadeth video," Courtney says
before exiting.


"I have to talk to you," Evelyn says.

"What about?" I come up to her.

"No," she says and then pointing at Tim, "to Price."

Tim still glares at her fiercely. I say nothing and stare at Tim's drink.


"Be a hon," she tells me, "and place the sushi on the table. Tempura is in the
microwave and the sake is just about done boiling..." Her voice trails off as
she leads Price out of the kitchen.


I am wondering where Evelyn got the sushi — the tuna, yellowtail, mackerel,
shrimp, eel, even bonito, all seem so fresh and there are piles of wasabi and
clumps of ginger placed strategically around the Wilton platter — but I also
like the idea that I don't know, will never know, will never ask where it
came from and that the sushi will sit there in the middle of the glass table
from Zona that Evelyn's father bought her like some mysterious apparition
from the Orient and as I set the platter down I catch a glimpse of my
reflection on the surface of the table. My skin seems darker because of the
candlelight and I notice how good the haircut I got at Gio's last Wednesday
looks. I make myself another drink. I worry about the sodium level in the
soy sauce.


Four of us sit around the table waiting for Evelyn and Timothy to return
from getting Price a lint brush. I sit at the head taking large swallows of
J&B. Vanden sits at the other end reading disinterestedly from some East
Village rag called Deception, its glaring headline THE DEATH OF
DOWNTOWN. Stash has pushed a chopstick into a lone piece of yellowtail
that lies on the middle of his plate like some shiny impaled insect and the
chopstick stands straight up. Stash occasionally moves the piece of sushi
around the plate with the chopstick but never looks up toward either myself
or Vanden or Courtney, who sits next to me sipping plum wine from a
champagne glass.


Evelyn and Timothy come back perhaps twenty minutes after we've seated
ourselves and Evelyn looks only slightly flushed. Tim glares at me as he
takes the seat next to mine, a fresh drink in hand, and he leans over toward


me, about to say, to admit something, when suddenly Evelyn interrupts,
"Not there, Timothy," then, barely a whisper, "Boy girl, boy girl." She
gestures toward the empty chair next to Vanden. Timothy shifts his glare to
Evelyn and hesitantly takes the seat next to Vanden, who yawns and turns a
page of her magazine.


"Well, everybody," Evelyn says, smiling, pleased with the meal she has
presented, "dig in," and then after noticing the piece of sushi that Stash has
pinned — he's now bent low over the plate, whispering at it — her composure
falters but she smiles bravely and chirps, "Plum wine anyone?"


No one says anything until Courtney, who is staring at Stash's plate, lifts her
glass uncertainly and says, trying to smile, "It's... delicious, Evelyn."


Stash doesn't speak. Even though he is probably uncomfortable at the table
with us since he looks nothing like the other men in the room — his hair isn't
slicked back, no suspenders, no horn-rimmed glasses, the clothes black and
ill-fitting, no urge to light and suck on a cigar, probably unable to secure a
table at Camols, his net worth a pittance — still, his behavior lacks warrant
and he sits there as if hypnotized by the glistening piece of sushi and just as
the table is about to finally ignore him, to look away and start eating, he sits
up and loudly says, pointing an accusing finger at his plate, "It moved!"


Timothy glares at him with a contempt so total that I can't fully equal it but
I muster enough energy to come close. Vanden seems amused and so now,
unfortunately, does Courtney, who I'm beginning to think finds this monkey
attractive but I suppose if I were dating Luis Carruthers I might too. Evelyn
laughs good-naturedly and says, "Oh Stash, you are a riot," and then asks
wotriedly, "Tempura?" Evelyn is an executive at a financial services
company, FYI.


"TIl have some," I tell her and I lift a piece of eggplant off the platter,
though I won't eat it because it's fried.


The table begins to serve themselves, successfully ignoring Stash. I stare at
Courtney as she chews and swallows.


Evelyn, in an attempt to start a conversation, says, after what seems like a
long, thoughtful silence, "Vanden goes to Camden."


"Oh really?" Timothy asks icily. "Where is that?"
"Vermont," Vanden answers without looking up from her paper.


I look over at Stash to see if he's pleased with Vanden's casually blatant lie
but he acts as if he wasn't listening, as if he were in some other room or
some punk rock club in the bowels of the city, but so does the rest of the
table, which bothers me since I am fairly sure we all know it's located in
New Hampshire.


"Where did you go?" Vanden sighs after it finally becomes clear to her that
no one is interested in Camden.


"Well, I went to Le Rosay," Evelyn starts, "and then to business school in
Switzerland."


"T also survived business school in Switzerland," Courtney says. "But I was
in Geneva. Evelyn was in Lausanne."


Vanden tosses the copy of Deception next to Timothy and smirks in a wan,
bitchy way and though I am pissed off a little that Evelyn doesn't take in
Vanden's condescension and hurl it back at her, the J&B has relieved my
stress to a point where I don't care enough to say anything. Evelyn probably
thinks Vanden is sweet, lost, confused, an artist. Price isn't eating and
neither is Evelyn; I suspect cocaine but it's doubtful. While taking a large
gulp from his drink Timothy holds up the copy of Deception and chuckles
to himself.


"The Death of Downtown," he says; then, pointing at each word in the
headline, "Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?"


I automatically expect Stash to look up from his plate but he still stares at
the lone piece of sushi, smiling to himself and nodding.


"Hey," Vanden says, as if she was insulted. "That affects us."


"Oh ho ho," Tim says warningly. "That affects us? What about the
massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Doesn't that affect us too? What about Sri
Lanka?"


"Well, that's a cool club in the Village." Vanden shrugs. "Yeah, that affects
us too."


Suddenly Stash speaks without looking up. "That's called The Tonka." He
sounds pissed but his voice is even and low, his eyes still on the sushi. "It's
called The Tonka, not Sri Lanka. Got it? The Tonka."


Vanden looks down, then meekly says, "Oh."


"I mean don't you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs
are killing like tons of Israelis there?" Timothy goads her. "Doesn't that
affect us?"


"Kappamaki roll anyone?" Evelyn cuts in cheerfully, holding up a plate.


"Oh come on, Price," I say. "There are more important problems than Sri
Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy is important, but there are
more pressing problems at hand."


"Like what?" he asks without looking away from Vanden. "By the way, why
is there an ice cube in my soy sauce?"


"No," I start, hesitantly. "Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow
down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a
strong national defense, prevent the spread of communism in Central
America, work for a Middle East peace settlement, prevent U.S. military
involvement overseas. We have to ensure that America is a respected world
power. Now that's not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally
important, if not more. Better and more affordable long-term care for the
elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up
environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality
of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on
crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure that college education is
affordable for the middle class and protect Social Security for senior


citizens plus conserve natural resources and wilderness areas and reduce the
influence of political action committees."


The table stares at me uncomfortably, even Stash, but I'm on a roll.


"But economically we're still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down
the inflation rate and reduce the deficit. We also need to provide training
and jobs for the unemployed as well as protect existing American jobs from
unfair foreign imports. We have to make America the leader in new
technology. At the same time we need to promote economic growth and
business expansion and hold the line against federal income taxes and hold
down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and
controlling mergers and big corporate takeovers."


Price nearly spits up his Absolut after this comment but I try to make eye
contact with each one of them, especially Vanden, who if she got rid of the
green streak and the leather and got some color — maybe joined an aerobics
class, slipped on a blouse, something by Laura Ashley — might be pretty.
But why does she sleep with Stash? He's lumpy and pale and has a bad
cropped haircut and is at least ten pounds overweight; there's no muscle
tone beneath the black T-shirt.


"But we can't ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people from
abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the
homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while
also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to
protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women's freedom of
choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to
encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and
violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly
we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young
people."


I finish my drink. The table sits facing me in total silence. Courtney's
smiling and seems pleased. Timothy just shakes his head in bemused
disbelief. Evelyn is completely mystified by the turn the conversation has
taken and she stands, unsteadily, and asks if anyone would like dessert.


"I have... sorbet," she says as if in a daze. "Kiwi, carambola, cherimoya,
cactus fruit and oh... what is that..." She stops her zombie monotone and
tries to remember the last flavor. "Oh yes, Japanese pear."


Everyone stays silent. Tim quickly looks over at me. I glance at Courtney,
then back at Tim, then at Evelyn. Evelyn meets my glance, then worriedly
looks over at Tim. I also look over at Tim, then at Courtney and then at Tim
again, who looks at me once more before answering slowly, unsurely,
"Cactus pear."


"Cactus fruit," Evelyn corrects.


I look suspiciously over at Courtney and after she says "Cherimoya" I say
"Kiwi" and then Vanden says "Kiwi" also and Stash says quietly, but
enunciating each syllable very clearly, "Chocolate chip."


The worry that flickers across Evelyn's face when she hears this is
instantaneously replaced by a smiling and remarkably good-natured mask
and she says, "Oh Stash, you know I don't have chocolate chip, though
admittedly that's pretty exotic for a sorbet. I told you I have cherimoya,
cactus pear, carambola, I mean cactus fruit—"


"I know. I heard you, I heard you," he says, waving her off. "Surprise me."
"Okay," Evelyn says. "Courtney? Would you like to help?"


"Of course." Courtney gets up and I watch as her shoes click away into the
kitchen.


"No cigars, boys," Evelyn calls out.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Price says, putting a cigar back into his coat pocket.


Stash is still staring at the sushi with an intensity that troubles me and I
have to ask him, hoping he will catch my sarcasm, "Did it, uh, move again
or something?"


Vanden has made a smiley face out of all the disks of California roll she
piled onto her plate and she holds it up for Stash's inspection and asks,


"Rex?"
"Cool," Stash grunts.


Evelyn comes back with the sorbet in Odeon margarita glasses and an
unopened bottle of Glenfiddich, which remains unopened while we eat the
sorbet.


Courtney has to leave early to meet Luis at a company party at Bedlam, a
new club in midtown. Stash and Vanden depart soon after to go "score"
something somewhere in SoHo. I am the only one who saw Stash take the
piece of sushi from his plate and slip it into the pocket of his olive green
leather bomber jacket. When I mention this to Evelyn, while she loads the
dishwasher, she gives me a look so hateful that it seems doubtful we will
have sex later on tonight. But I stick around anyway. So does Price. He is
now lying on a late-eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet drinking espresso
from a Ceralene coffee cup on the floor of Evelyn's room. I'm lying on
Evelyn's bed holding a tapestry pillow from Jenny B. Goode, nursing a
cranberry and Absolut. Evelyn sits at her dressing table brushing her hair, a
Ralph Lauren green and white striped silk robe draped over a very nice
body, and she is gazing at her reflection in the vanity mirror.


"Am I the only one who grasped the fact that Stash assumed his piece of
sushi was" — I cough, then resume — "a pet?"


"Please stop inviting your ‘artiste’ friends over," Tim says tiredly. "I'm sick
of being the only one at dinner who hasn't talked to an extraterrestrial."


"It was only that once," Evelyn says, inspecting a lip, lost is her own placid
beauty.


"And at Odeon, no less," Price mutters.


I vaguely wonder why I wasn't invited to Odeon for the artists dinner. Had
Evelyn picked up the tab? Probably. And I suddenly picture a smiling
Evelyn, secretly morose, sitting at a whole table of Stash's friends — all of
them constructing little log cabins with their french fries or pretending their
grilled salmon was alive and moving the piece of fish around the table, the


fish conversing with each other about the "art scene," new galleries; maybe
even trying to fit the fish into the log cabin made of french fries...


"If you remember well enough, J hadn't seen one either," Evelyn says.


"No, but Bateman's your boyfriend, so that counted." Price guffaws and I
toss the pillow at him. He catches it then throws it back at me.


"Leave Patrick alone. He's the boy next door," Evelyn says, rubbing some
kind of cream into her face. "You're not an extraterrestrial, are you honey?"


"Should I even dignify that question with an answer?" I sigh.


"Oh baby." She pouts into the mirror, looking at me in its reflection. "I
know you're not an extraterrestrial."


"Relief," I mutter to myself.


"No, but Stash was there at Odeon that night," Price continues, and then,
looking over at me, "At Odeon. Are you listening, Bateman?"


"No he wasn't," Evelyn says.


"Oh yes he was, but his name wasn't Stash last time. It was Horseshoe or
Magnet or Lego or something equally adult," Price sneers. "I forget."


"Timothy, what are you going on about?" Evelyn asks tiredly. "I'm not even
listening to you." She wets a cotton ball, wipes it across her forehead.


"No, we were at Odeon." Price sits up with some effort. "And don't ask me
why, but I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna cappuccino."


"Carpaccio," Evelyn corrects.


"No, Evelyn dear, love of my life. I distinctly remember him ordering the
tuna cappuccino," Price says, staring up at the ceiling.


"He said carpaccio," she counters, running the cotton ball over her eyelids.


"Cappuccino," Price insists. "Until you corrected him."
"You didn't even recognize him earlier tonight," she says.


"Oh but I do remember him," Price says, turning to me. "Evelyn described
him as 'the good-natured body builder.’ That's how she introduced him. I
swear."


"Oh shut up," she says, annoyed, but she looks over at Timothy in the
mirror and smiles flirtatiously.


"I mean I doubt Stash makes the society pages of W, which I thought was
your criterion for choosing friends," Price says, staring back, grinning at her
in his wolfish, lewd way. I concentrate on the Absolut and cranberry I'm
holding and it looks like a glassful of thin, watery blood with ice and a
lemon wedge in it.


"What's going on with Courtney and Luis?" I ask, hoping to break their
gaze.


"Oh god," Evelyn moans, turning back to the mirror. "The really dreadful
thing about Courtney is not that she doesn't like Luis anymore. It's that—"


"They canceled her charge at Bergdorf's?" Price asks. I laugh. We slap each
other high-five.


"No," Evelyn continues, also amused. "It's that she's really in love with her
real estate broker. Some little twerp over at The Feathered Nest."


"Courtney might have her problems," Tim says, inspecting his recent
manicure, "but my god, what is a... Vanden?"


"Oh don't bring this up," Evelyn whines and starts brushing her hair.


"Vanden is a cross between... The Limited and... used Benetton," Price
says, holding up his hands, his eyes closed.


"No." I smile, trying to integrate myself into the conversation. "Used
Fiorucci."


"Yeah," Tim says. "I guess." His eyes, now open, zone in on Evelyn.


"Timothy, lay off," Evelyn says. "She's a Camden girl. What do you
expect?"


"Oh god," Timothy moans. "I am so sick of hearing Camden-girl problems.
Oh my boyfriend, I love him but he loves someone else and oh how I
longed for him and he ignored me and blahblah blahblahblah — god, how
boring. College kids. It matters, you know? It's sad, right Bateman?"


"Yeah. Matters. Sad."
"See, Bateman agrees with me," Price says smugly.


"Oh he does not." With a Kleenex Evelyn wipes off whatever she rubbed
on. "Patrick is not a cynic, Timothy. He's the boy next door, aren't you
honey?"


"No I'm not," I whisper to myself. "I'm a fucking evil psychopath."
"Oh so what," Evelyn sighs. "She's not the brightest girl in the world."


"Hah! Understatement of the century!" Price cries out. "But Stash isn't the
brightest guy either. Perfect couple. Did they meet on Love Connection or
something?"


"Leave them alone," Evelyn says. "Stash is talented and I'm sure we're
underestimating Vanden."


"This is a girl..." Price turns to me. "Listen, Bateman, this is a girl — Evelyn
told me this — this is a girl who rented High Noon because she thought it
was a movie about" — he gulps — "marijuana farmers."


"Tt just hit me," I say. "But have we deciphered what Stash — I assume he
has a last name but don't tell me, I don't want to know, Evelyn — does for a
living?"


"First of all he's perfectly decent and nice," Evelyn says in his defense.


"The man asked for chocolate chip sorbet for Christ sakes!" Timothy wails,
disbelieving. "What are you talking about?"


Evelyn ignores this, pulls off her Tina Chow earrings. "He's a sculptor," she
says tersely.


"Oh bullshit," Timothy says. "I remember talking to him at Odeon." He
turns to me again. "This was when he ordered the tuna cappuccino and I'm
sure if left unattended would have ordered the salmon au lait, and he told
me he did parties, so that technically makes him — I don't know, correct me
if I'm wrong, Evelyn — a caterer. He's a caterer!" Price cries out. "Not a
fucking sculptor!"


"Oh gosh calm down," Evelyn says, rubbing more cream into her face.


"That's like saying you're a poet." Timothy is drunk and I'm beginning to
wonder when he will vacate the premises.


"Well," Evelyn begins, "I've been known to—"


"You're a fucking word processor!" Tim blurts out. He walks over to Evelyn
and bows next to her, checking out his reflection in the mirror.


"Have you been gaining weight, Tim?" Evelyn asks thoughtfully. She
studies Tim's head in the mirror and says, "Your face looks... rounder."


Timothy, in retaliation, smells Evelyn's neck and says, "What is that
fascinating... odor?"


"Obsession." Evelyn smiles flirtatiously, gently pushing Timothy away. "It's
Obsession. Patrick, get your friend away from me."


"No, no, wait," Timothy says, sniffing loudly. "It's not Obsession. It's...
it's..." and then, with a face twisted in mock horror, "It's... Oh my god, it's
Q.T. Instatan!"


Evelyn pauses and considers her options. She inspects Price's head one
more time. "Are you losing your hair?"


"Evelyn," Tim says. "Don't change the subject but..." And then, genuinely
worried, "Now that you mention it... too much gel?" Concerned, he runs a
hand over it.


"Maybe," Evelyn says. "Now make yourself useful and do sit down."


"Well, at least it's not green and I haven't tried to cut it with a butter knife,"
Tim says, referring to Vanden's dye job and Stash's admittedly cheap, bad
haircut. A haircut that's bad because it's cheap.


"Are you gaining weight?" Evelyn asks, more seriously this time.
"Jesus," Tim says, about to turn away, offended. "No, Evelyn."

"Your face definitely looks... rounder," Evelyn says. "Less... chiseled."
"I don't believe this." Tim again.


He looks deep into the mirror. She continues brushing her hair but the
strokes are less definite because she's looking at Tim. He notices this and
then smells her neck and I think he licks at it quickly and grins.


"Is that Q.T.?" he asks. "Come on, you can tell me. I smell it."
"No," Evelyn says, unsmiling. "You use that."


"No. As a matter of fact I don't. I go to a tanning salon. I'm quite honest
about that," he says. "You're using Q.T."


"You're projecting," she says lamely.


"I told you," Tim says. "I go to a tanning salon. I mean I know it's
expensive but..." Price blanches. "Still, Q.T.?"


"Oh how brave to admit you go to a tanning salon," she says.


"Q.T." He chuckles.


"I don't know what you're talking about," Evelyn says and resumes brushing
her hair. "Patrick, escort your friend out of here."


Now Price is on his knees and he smells and sniffs at Evelyn's bare legs and
she's laughing. I tense up.


"Oh god," she moans loudly. "Get out of here."


"You are orange." He laughs, on his knees, his head in her lap. "You look
orange."


"I am not," she says, her voice a low prolonged growl of pain, ecstasy.
"Jerk."


I lie on the bed watching the two of them. Timothy is in her lap trying to
push his head under the Ralph Lauren robe. Evelyn's head is thrown back
with pleasure and she is trying to push him away, but playfully, and hitting
him only lightly on his back with her Jan Hové brush. I am fairly sure that
Timothy and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting
person I know.


"You should go," she says finally, panting. She has stopped struggling with
him.


He looks up at her, flashing a toothy, good-looking smile, and says,
"Anything the lady requests."


"Thank you," she says in a voice that sounds to me tinged with
disappointment.


He stands up. "Dinner? Tomorrow?"
"T'll have to ask my boyfriend," she says, smiling at me in the mirror.


"Will you wear that sexy black Anne Klein dress?" he asks, his hands on
her shoulders, whispering this into her ear, as he smells it. "Bateman's not
welcome."


I laugh good-naturedly while getting up from the bed, escorting him out of
the room.


"Wait! My espresso!" he calls out.
Evelyn laughs, then claps as if delighted by Timothy's reluctance to vacate.


"Come on fella," I say as I push him roughly out of the bedroom. "Beddy-
bye time."


He still manages to blow her a kiss before I get him out and away. He is
completely silent as I walk him out of the brownstone.


After he leaves I pour myself a brandy and drink it from a checkered Italian
tumbler and when I come back to the bedroom I find Evelyn lying in bed
watching the Home Shopping Club. I lie down next to her and loosen my
Armani tie. Finally I ask something without looking at her.


"Why don't you just go for Price?"


"Oh god, Patrick," she says, her eyes shut. "Why Price? Price?" And she
says this in a way that makes me think she has had sex with him.


"He's rich," I say.

"Everybody's rich," she says, concentrating on the TV screen.
"He's good-looking," I tell her.

"Everybody's good-looking, Patrick," she says remotely.

"He has a great body," I say.

"Everybody has a great body now," she says.


I place the tumbler on the nightstand and roll over on top of her. While I

kiss and lick her neck she stares passionlessly at the wide-screen Panasonic
remote-control television set and lowers the volume. I pull my Armani shirt
up and place her hand on my torso, wanting her to feel how rock-hard, how


halved my stomach is, and I flex the muscles, grateful it's light in the room
so she can see how bronzed and defined my abdomen has become.


"You know," she says clearly, "Stash tested positive for the AIDS virus.
And..." She pauses, something on the screen catching her interest; the
volume goes slightly up and then is lowered. "And... I think he will
probably sleep with Vanden tonight."


"Good," I say, biting lightly at her neck, one of my hands on a firm, cold
breast.


"You're evil," she says, slightly excited, running her hands along my broad,
hard shoulder.


"No," I sigh. "Just your fiancé."


After attempting to have sex with her for around fifteen minutes, I decide
not to continue trying.


She says, "You know, you can always be in better shape."


I reach for the tumbler of brandy. I finish it. Evelyn is addicted to Parnate,
an antidepressant. I lie there beside her watching the Home Shopping Club
— at glass dolls, embroidered throw pillows, lamps shaped like footballs,
Lady Zirconia — with the sound turned off. Evelyn starts drifting.


"Are you using minoxidil?" she asks, after a long time.
"No. I'm not," I say. "Why should I?"
"Your hairline looks like it's receding," she murmurs.


"It's not," I find myself saying. It's hard to tell. My hair is very thick and I
can't tell if I'm losing it. I really doubt it.


I walk back to my place and say good night to a doorman I don't recognize
(he could be anybody) and then dissolve into my living room high above
the city, the sounds of the Tokens singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
coming from the glow of the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox (which is not as good


as the hard-to-find Wurlitzer 850) that stands in the comer of the living
room. I masturbate, thinking about first Evelyn, then Courtney, then Vanden
and then Evelyn again, but right before I come — a weak orgasm — about a
near-naked model in a halter top I saw today in a Calvin Klein
advertisement.


Morning


In the early light of a May dawn this is what the living room of my
apartment looks like: Over the white marble and granite gas-log fireplace
hangs an original David Onica. It's a six-foot-by-four-foot portrait of a
naked woman, mostly done in muted grays and olives, sitting on a chaise
longue watching MTV, the backdrop a Martian landscape, a gleaming
mauve desert scattered with dead, gutted fish, smashed plates rising like a
sunburst above the woman's yellow head, and the whole thing is framed in
black aluminum steel. The painting overlooks a long white down-filled sofa
and a thirty-inch digital TV set from Toshiba; it's a high-contrast highly
defined model plus it has a four-corner video stand with a high-tech tube
combination from NEC with a picture-in-picture digital effects system (plus
freeze-frame); the audio includes built-in MTS and a five-watt-per-channel
on-board amp. A Toshiba VCR sits in a glass case beneath the TV set; it's a
super-high-band Beta unit and has built-in editing function including a
character generator with eight-page memory, a high-band record and
playback, and three-week, eight-event timer. A hurricane halogen lamp is
placed in each corner of the living room. Thin white venetian blinds cover
all eight floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass-top coffee table with oak legs by
Turchin sits in front of the sofa, with Steuben glass animals placed
strategically around expensive crystal ashtrays from Fortunoff, though I
don't smoke. Next to the Wurlitzer jukebox is a black ebony Baldwin
concert grand piano. A polished white oak floor runs throughout the
apartment. On the other side of the room, next to a desk and a magazine
rack by Gio Ponti, is a complete stereo system (CD player, tape deck, tuner,
amplifier) by Sansui with six-foot Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers in
Brazilian rosewood. A downfilled futon lies on an oakwood frame in the
center of the bedroom. Against the wall is a Panasonic thirty-one-inch set


with a direct-view screen and stereo sound and beneath it in a glass case is a
Toshiba VCR. I'm not sure if the time on the Sony digital alarm clock is
correct so I have to sit up then look down at the time flashing on and off on
the VCR, then pick up the Ettore Sottsass push-button phone that rests on
the steel and glass nightstand next to the bed and dial the time number. A
cream leather, steel and wood chair designed by Eric Marcus is in one
corner of the room, a molded plywood chair in the other. A black-dotted
beige and white Maud Sienna carpet covers most of the floor. One wall is
hidden by four chests of immense bleached mahogany drawers. In bed I'm
wearing Ralph Lauren silk pajamas and when I get up I slip on a paisley
ancient madder robe and walk to the bathroom. I urinate while trying to
make out the puffiness of my reflection in the glass that encases a baseball
poster hung above the toilet. After I change into Ralph Lauren
monogrammed boxer shorts and a Fair Isle sweater and slide into silk
polka-dot Enrico Hidolin slippers I tie a plastic ice pack around my face and
commence with the morning's stretching exercises. Afterwards I stand in
front of a chrome and acrylic Washmobile bathroom sink — with soap dish,
cup holder, and railings that serve as towel bars, which I bought at Hastings
Tile to use while the marble sinks I ordered from Finland are being sanded
—and stare at my reflection with the ice pack still on. I pour some Plax
antiplaque formula into a stainless-steel tumbler and swish it around my
mouth for thirty seconds. Then I squeeze Rembrandt onto a faux-
tortoiseshell toothbrush and start brushing my teeth (too hung over to floss
properly — but maybe I flossed before bed last night?) and rinse with
Listerine. Then I inspect my hands and use a nailbrush. I take the ice-pack
mask off and use a deep-pore cleanser lotion, then an herb-mint facial
masque which I leave on for ten minutes while I check my toenails. Then I
use the Probright tooth polisher and next the Interplak tooth polisher (this in
addition to the toothbrush) which has a speed of 4200 rpm and reverses
direction forty-six times per second; the larger tufts clean between teeth and
massage the gums while the short ones scrub the tooth surfaces. I rinse
again, with Cepacol. I wash the facial massage off with a spearmint face
scrub. The shower has a universal all-directional shower head that adjusts
within a thirty-inch vertical range. It's made from Australian gold-black
brass and covered with a white enamel finish. In the shower I use first a
water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the
face an exfoliating gel scrub. Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at


getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne
pollutants and dirt that can weigh down hair and flatten it to the scalp which
can make you look older. The conditioner is also good — silicone technology
permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can
also make you look older. On weekends or before a date I prefer to use the
Greune Natural Revitalizing Shampoo, the conditioner and the Nutrient
Complex. These are formulas that contain D-panthenol, a vitamin-B-
complex factor; polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent for the scalp; and natural
herbs. Over the weekend I plan to go to Bloomingdale's or Bergdorf's and
on Evelyn's advice pick up a Foltene European Supplement and Shampoo
for thinning hair which contains complex carbohydrates that penetrate the
hair shafts for improved strength and shine. Also the Vivagen Hair
Enrichment Treatment, a new Redken product that prevents mineral
deposits and prolongs the life cycle of hair. Luis Carruthers recommended
the Aramis Nutriplexx system, a nutrient complex that helps increase
circulation. Once out of the shower and toweled dry I put the Ralph Lauren
boxers back on and before applying the Mousse A Raiser, a shaving cream
by Pour Hommes, I press a hot towel against my face for two minutes to
soften abrasive beard hair. Then I always slather on a moisturizer (to my
taste, Clinique) and let it soak in for a minute. You can rinse it off or keep it
on and apply a shaving cream over it — preferably with a brush, which
softens the beard as it lifts the whiskers — which I've found makes removing
the hair easier. It also helps prevent water from evaporating and reduces
friction between your skin and the blade. Always wet the razor with warm
water before shaving and shave in the direction the beard grows, pressing
gently on the skin. Leave the sideburns and chin for last, since these
whiskers are tougher and need more time to soften. Rinse the razor and
shake off any excess water before starting. Afterwards splash cool water on
the face to remove any trace of lather. You should use an aftershave lotion
with little or no alcohol. Never use cologne on your face, since the high
alcohol content dries your face out and makes you look older. One should
use an alcohol-free antibacterial toner with a water-moistened cotton ball to
normalize the skin. Applying a moisturizer is the final step. Splash on water
before applying an emollient lotion to soften the skin and seal in the
moisture. Next apply Gel Appaisant, also made by Pour Hommes, which is
an excellent, soothing skin lotion. If the face seems dry and flaky — which
makes it look dull and older — use a clarifying lotion that removes flakes


and uncovers fine skin (it can also make your tan look darker). Then apply
an anti-aging eye balm (Baume Des Yeux) followed by a final moisturizing
"protective" lotion. A scalp-programming lotion is used after I towel my
hair dry. I also lightly blow-dry the hair to give it body and control (but
without stickiness) and then add more of the lotion, shaping it with a Kent
natural-bristle brush, and finally slick it back with a wide-tooth comb. I pull
the Fair Isle sweater back on and reslip my feet into the polka-dot silk
slippers, then head into the living room and put the new Talking Heads in
the CD player, but it starts to digitally skip so I take it out and put in a CD
laser lens cleaner. The laser lens is very sensitive, and subject to
interference from dust or dirt or smoke or pollutants or moisture, and a dirty
one can inaccurately read CDs, making for false starts, inaudible passages,
digital skipping, speed changes and general distortion; the lens cleaner has a
cleaning brush that automatically aligns with the lens then the disk spins to
remove residue and particles. When I put the Talking Heads CD back in it
plays smoothly. I retrieve the copy of USA Today that lies in front of my
door in the hallway and bring it with me into the kitchen where I take two
Advil, a multivitamin and a potassium tablet, washing them down with a
large bottle of Evian water since the maid, an elderly Chinese woman,
forgot to turn the dishwasher on when she left yesterday, and then I have to
pour the grapefruit-lemon juice into a St. Rémy wineglass I got from
Baccarat. I check the neon clock that hangs over the refrigerator to make
sure I have enough time to eat breakfast unhurriedly. Standing at the island
in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a sliced Japanese apple-pear (they cost four
dollars each at Gristede's) out of aluminum storage boxes that were
designed in West Germany. I take a bran muffin, a decaffeinated herbal tea
bag and a box of oat-bran cereal from one of the large glass-front cabinets
that make up most of an entire wall in the kitchen; complete with stainless-
steel shelves and sandblasted wire glass, it is framed in a metallic dark
gray-blue. I eat half of the bran muffin after it's been microwaved and
lightly covered with a small helping of apple butter. A bowl of oat-bran
cereal with wheat germ and soy milk follows; another bottle of Evian water
and a small cup of decaf tea after that. Next to the Panasonic bread baker
and the Salton Pop-Up coffee maker is the Cremina sterling silver espresso
maker (which is, oddly, still warm) that I got at Hammacher Schlemmer
(the thermal-insulated stainless-steel espresso cup and the saucer and spoon
are sitting by the sink, stained) and the Sharp Model R-1810A Carousel II


microwave oven with revolving turntable which I use when I heat up the
other half of the bran muffin. Next to the Salton Sonata toaster and the
Cuisinart Little Pro food processor and the Acme Supreme Juicerator and
the Cordially Yours liqueur maker stands the heavy-gauge stainless-steel
two-and-one-half-quart teakettle, which whistles "Tea for Two" when the
water is boiling, and with it I make another small cup of the decaffeinated
apple-cinnamon tea. For what seems like a long time I stare at the Black &
Decker Handy Knife that lies on the counter next to the sink, plugged into
the wall: it's a sliver/peeler with several attachments, a serrated blade, a
scalloped blade and a rechargeable handle. The suit I wear today is from
Alan Flusser. It's an eighties drape suit, which is an updated version of the
thirties style. The favored version has extended natural shoulders, a full
chest and a bladed back. The soft-rolled lapels should be about four inches
wide with the peak finishing three quarters of the way across the shoulders.
Properly used on double-breasted suits, peaked lapels are considered more
elegant than notched ones. Low-slung pockets have a flapped double-besom
design — above the flap there's a slit trimmed on either side with a flat
narrow strip of cloth. Four buttons form a low-slung square; above it, about
where the lapels cross, there are two more buttons. The trousers are deeply
pleated and cut full in order to continue the flow of the wide jacket. An
extended waist is cut slightly higher in the front. Tabs make the suspenders
fit well at the center back. The tie is a dotted silk design by Valentino
Couture. The shoes are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni. While I'm dressing
the TV is kept on to The Patty Winters Show. Today's guests are women
with multiple personalities. A nondescript overweight older woman is on
the screen and Patty's voice is heard asking, "Well, is it schizophrenia or
what's the deal? Tell us."


"No, oh no. Multiple personalities are not schizophrenics," the woman says,
shaking her head. "We are not dangerous."


"Well," Patty starts, standing in the middle of the audience, microphone in
hand. "Who were you last month?"


"Last month it seemed to be mostly Polly," the woman says.


A cut to the audience — a housewife's worried face; before she notices
herself on the monitor, it cuts back to the multiple-personality woman.


"Well," Patty continues, "now who are you?"


"Well...," the woman begins tiredly, as if she was sick of being asked this
question, as if she had answered it over and over again and still no one
believed it. "Well, this month I'm... Lambchop. Mostly... Lambchop."


A long pause. The camera cuts to a close-up of a stunned housewife
shaking her head, another housewife whispering something to her.


The shoes I'm wearing are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni.


Grabbing my raincoat out of the closet in the entranceway I find a Burberry
scarf and matching coat with a whale embroidered on it (something a little
kid might wear) and it's covered with what looks like dried chocolate syrup
crisscrossed over the front, darkening the lapels. I take the elevator
downstairs to the lobby, rewinding my Rolex by gently shaking my wrist. I
say good morning to the doorman, step outside and hail a cab, heading
downtown toward Wall Street.


Harry's


Price and I walk down Hanover Street in the darkest moments of twilight
and as if guided by radar move silently toward Harry's. Timothy hasn't said
anything since we left P & P. He doesn't even comment on the ugly bum
that crouches beneath a Dumpster off Stone Street, though he does manage
a grim wolf whistle toward a woman — big tits, blonde, great ass, high heels
— heading toward Water Street. Price seems nervous and edgy and I have no
desire to ask him what's wrong. He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano,
a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace-
ups from Brooks Brothers. I'm wearing a lightweight linen suit with pleated
trousers, a cotton shirt, a dotted silk tie, all by Valentino Couture, and
perforated cap-toe leather shoes by Allen-Edmonds. Once inside Harry's we
spot David Van Patten and Craig McDermott at a table up front. Van Patten
is wearing a double-breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and
silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by
Gitman Brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from


Brooks Brothers. McDermott is wearing a woven-linen suit with pleated
trousers, a button-down cotton and linen shirt by Basile, a silk tie by Joseph
Abboud and ostrich loafers from Susan Bennis Warren Edwards.


The two are hunched over the table, writing on the backs of paper napkins,
a Scotch and a martini placed respectively in front of them. They wave us
over. Price throws his Tumi leather attaché case on an empty chair and
heads toward the bar. I call out to him for a J&B on the rocks, then sit down
with Van Patten and McDermott.


"Hey Bateman," Craig says in a voice that suggests this is not his first
martini. "Is it proper to wear tasseled loafers with a business suit or not?
Don't look at me like I'm insane."


"Oh shit, don't ask Bateman," Van Patten moans, waving a gold Cross pen
in front of his face, absently sipping from the martini glass.


"Van Patten?" Craig says.
"Yeah?"
McDermott hesitates, then says "Shut up" in a flat voice.


"What are you screwballs up to?" I spot Luis Carruthers standing at the bar
next to Price, who ignores him utterly. Carruthers is not dressed well: a
four-button double-breasted wool suit, I think by Chaps, a striped cotton
shirt and a silk bow tie plus horn-rimmed eyeglasses by Oliver Peoples.


"Bateman: we're sending these questions in to GQ," Van Patten begins.


Luis spots me, smiles weakly, then, if I'm not mistaken, blushes and turns
back to the bar. Bartenders always ignore Luis for some reason.


"We have this bet to see which one of us will get in the Question and
Answer column first, and so now I expect an answer. What do you think?"
McDermott demands.


"About what?" I ask irritably.


"Tasseled loafers, jerk-off," he says.


"Well, guys..." I measure my words carefully. "The tasseled loafer is
traditionally a casual shoe..." I glance back at Price, wanting the drink
badly. He brushes past Luis, who offers his hand. Price smiles, says
something, moves on, strides over to our table. Luis, once more, tries to
catch the bartender's attention and once more fails.


"But it's become acceptable just because it's so popular, right?" Craig asks
eagerly.


"Yeah." I nod. "As long as it's either black or cordovan it's okay."
"What about brown?" Van Patten asks suspiciously.
I think about this then say, "Too sporty for a business suit."


"What are you fags talking about?" Price asks. He hands me the drink then
sits down, crossing his legs.


"Okay, okay, okay," Van Patten says. "This is my question. A two-parter..."
He pauses dramatically. "Now are rounded collars too dressy or too casual?
Part two, which tie knot looks best with them?"


A distracted Price, his voice still tense, answers quickly with an exact, clear
enunciation that can be heard over the din in Harry's. "It's a very versatile
look and it can go with both suits and sport coats. It should be starched for
dressy occasions and a collar pin should be worn if it's particularly formal."
He pauses, sighs; it looks as if he's spotted somebody. I turn around to see
who it is. Price continues, "If it's worn with a blazer then the collar should
look soft and it can be worn either pinned or unpinned. Since it's a
traditional, preppy look it's best if balanced by a relatively small four-in-
hand knot." He sips his martini, recrossing his legs. "Next question?"


"Buy the man a drink," McDermott says, obviously impressed.
"Price?" Van Patten says.


"Yes?" Price says, casing the room.


"You're priceless."
"Listen," I ask, "where are we having dinner?"


"I brought the trusty Mr. Zagat," Van Patten says, pulling the long crimson
booklet out of his pocket and waving it at Timothy.


"Hoo-ray," Price says dryly.

"What do we want to eat?" Me.

"Something blond with big tits." Price.

"How about that Salvadorian bistro?" McDermott.


"Listen, we're stopping by Tunnel afterwards so somewhere near there."
Van Patten.


"Oh shit," McDermott begins. "We're going to Tunnel? Last week I picked
up this Vassar chick—"


"Oh god, not again," Van Patten groans.
"What's your problem?" McDermott snaps back.
"I was there. I don't need to hear this story again," Van Patten says.


"But I never told you what happened afterwards, " McDermott says,
arching his eyebrows.


"Hey, when were you guys there?" I ask. "Why wasn't I invited?"


"You were on that fucking cruise thing. Now shut up and listen. So okay I
picked up this Vassar chick at Tunnel — hot number, big tits, great legs, this
chick was a little hardbody — and so I buy her a couple of champagne kirs
and she's in the city on spring break and she's practically blowing me in the
Chandelier Room and so I take her back to my place—"


"Whoa, wait," I interrupt. "May I ask where Pamela is during all of this?"


Craig winces. "Oh fuck you. I want a blow job, Bateman. I want a chick
who's gonna let me—"


"I don't want to hear this," Van Patten says, clamping his hands over his
ears. "He's going to say something disgusting."


"You prude," McDermott sneers. "Listen, we're not gonna invest in a co-op
together or jet down to Saint Bart's. I just want some chick whose face I can
sit on for thirty, forty minutes."


I throw my swizzle stick at him.


"Anyway, so we're back at my place and listen to this." He moves in closer
to the table. "She's had enough champagne by now to get a fucking rhino
tipsy, and get this—"


"She let you fuck her without a condom?" one of us asks.


1


McDermott rolls his eyes up. "This is a Vassar girl. She's not from Queens.'
Price taps me on the shoulder. "What does that mean?"


"Anyway, listen," McDermott says. "She would... are you ready?" He
pauses dramatically. "She would only give me a hand job, and get this...
she kept her glove on." He sits back in his chair and sips his drink in a
smug, satisfied sort of way.


We all take this in solemnly. No one makes fun of McDermott's revelatory
statement or of his inability to react more aggressively with this chick. No
one says anything but we are all thinking the same thought: Never pick up a
Vassar girl.


"What you need is a chick from Camden," Van Patten says, after recovering
from McDermott's statement.


"Oh great," I say. "Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother."


"Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England," Price points out.


"Where's dinner?" Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled
on his napkin. "Where the fuck are we going?"


"It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases
and stuff," Van Patten says, shaking his head.

I have it too nigga don’t spoil

 

[Divineincel]

AMERICAN


PSYCHO


A Novel by

Bret Easton Ellis

First published 1991 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House Inc.,
New York


Copyright © Bret Easton Ellis 1991


This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, incidents, and dialogue,
except for incidental references to public figures, products, or services, are
imaginary and are not intended to refer to any living persons or to disparage
any company's products or services.


for Bruce Taylor


Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course,
fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the composer of these Notes not
only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the
circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have
wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one
of the characters of our recent past. He represents a generation that is still
living out its days among us. In the fragment entitled "Underground" this
personage describes himself and his views and attempts, as it were, to
clarify the reasons why he appeared and was bound to appear in our midst.
The subsequent fragment will consist of the actual "notes," concerning
certain events in his life.


Fyodor Dostoevsky


Notes from Underground


One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only
the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be
expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about — doing it
in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went
wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which
people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization
there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be
killing one another.


Miss Manners (Judith Martin)


And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention


Talking Heads


April Fools


ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red
lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and
First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as
it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy
Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Misérables
on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and
twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him
five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver,
black, not American, does so.


"I'm resourceful," Price is saying. "I'm creative, I'm young, unscrupulous,
highly motivated, highly skilled. In essence what I'm saying is that society
cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset." Price calms down, continues to stare
out the cab's dirty window, probably at the word FEAR sprayed in red
graffiti on the side of a McDonald's on Fourth and Seventh. "I mean the fact
remains that no one gives a shit about their work, everybody hates their job,
I hate my job, you've told me you hate yours. What do I do? Go back to Los
Angeles? Not an alternative. I didn't transfer from UCLA to Stanford to put
up with this. I mean am I alone in thinking we're not making enough
money?" Like in a movie another bus appears, another poster for Les
Misérables replaces the word — not the same bus because someone has
written the word DYKE over Eponine's face. Tim blurts out, "I have a co-op
here. I have a place in the Hamptons, for Christ sakes."


"Parents', guy. It's the parents’.


"I'm buying it from them. Will you fucking turn this up?" he snaps but
distractedly at the driver, the Crystals still blaring from the radio.


"It don't go up no higher," maybe the driver says.


Timothy ignores him and irritably continues. "I could stay living in this city
if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs. Maybe the ODM III or ORC II


dynamic tuning systems?" His voice softens here. "Either one. Hip my
friend, very hip."


He takes off the expensive-looking Walkman from around his neck, still
complaining. "I hate to complain — I really do — about the trash, the
garbage, the disease, about how filthy this city really is and you know and I
know that it is a sty..." He continues talking as he opens his new Tumi
calfskin attaché case he bought at D. F. Sanders. He places the Walkman in
the case alongside a Panasonic wallet-size cordless portable folding Easa-
phone (he used to own the NEC 9000 Porta portable) and pulls out today's
newspaper. "In one issue — in one issue — let's see here... strangled models,
babies thrown from tenement rooftops, kids killed in the subway, a
Communist rally, Mafia boss wiped out, Nazis" — he flips through the pages
excitedly — "baseball players with AIDS, more Mafia shit, gridlock, the
homeless, various maniacs, faggots dropping like flies in the streets,
surrogate mothers, the cancellation of a soap opera, kids who broke into a
zoo and tortured and burned various animals alive, more Nazis... and the
joke is, the punch line is, it's all in this city — nowhere else, just here, it
sucks, whoa wait, more Nazis, gridlock, gridlock, baby-sellers, black-
market babies, AIDS babies, baby junkies, building collapses on baby,
maniac baby, gridlock, bridge collapses—" His voice stops, he takes in a
breath and then quietly says, his eyes fixed on a beggar at the corner of
Second and Fifth, "That's the twenty-fourth one I've seen today. I've kept
count." Then asks without looking over, "Why aren't you wearing the
worsted navy blue blazer with the gray pants?" Price is wearing a six-button
wool and silk suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, a cotton shirt with French cuffs
by Ike Behar, a Ralph Lauren silk tie and leather wing tips by Fratelli
Rossetti. Pan down to the Post. There is a moderately interesting story
concerning two people who disappeared at a party aboard the yacht of a
semi-noted New York socialite while the boat was circling the island. A
residue of spattered blood and three smashed champagne glasses are the
only clues. Foul play is suspected and police think that perhaps a machete
was the killer's weapon because of certain grooves and indentations found
on the deck. No bodies have been found. There are no suspects. Price began
his spiel today over lunch and then brought it up again during the squash
game and continued ranting over drinks at Harry's where he had gone on,


over three J&Bs and water, much more interestingly about the Fisher
account that Paul Owen is handling. Price will not shut up.


"Diseases!" he exclaims, his face tense with pain. "There's this theory out
now that if you can catch the AIDS virus through having sex with someone
who is infected then you can also catch anything, whether it's a virus per se
or not — Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, anorexia,
diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, dyslexia,
for Christ sakes — you can get dyslexia from pussy—"


"I'm not sure, guy, but I don't think dyslexia is a virus."
"Oh, who knows? They don't know that. Prove it."


Outside this cab, on the sidewalks, black and bloated pigeons fight over
scraps of hot dogs in front of a Gray's Papaya while transvestites idly look
on and a police car cruises silently the wrong way down a one-way street
and the sky is low and gray and in a cab that's stopped in traffic across from
this one, a guy who looks a lot like Luis Carruthers waves over at Timothy
and when Timothy doesn't return the wave the guy — slicked-back hair,
suspenders, horn-rimmed glasses — realizes it's not who he thought it was
and looks back at his copy of USA Today. Panning down to the sidewalk
there's an ugly old homeless bag lady holding a whip and she cracks it at the
pigeons who ignore it as they continue to peck and fight hungrily over the
remains of the hot dogs and the police car disappears into an underground
parking lot.


"But then, when you've just come to the point when your reaction to the
times is one of total and sheer acceptance, when your body has become
somehow tuned into the insanity and you reach that point where it all makes
sense, when it clicks, we get some crazy fucking homeless nigger who
actually wants — listen to me, Bateman — wants to be out on the streets, this,
those streets, see, those" — he points — "and we have a mayor who won't
listen to her, a mayor who won't let the bitch have her way — Holy Christ —
let the fucking bitch freeze to death, put her out of her own goddamn self-
made misery, and look, you're back where you started, confused, fucked...
Number twenty-four, nope, twenty-five... Who's going to be at Evelyn's?
Wait, let me guess." He holds up a hand attached to an impeccable


manicure. "Ashley, Courtney, Muldwyn, Marina, Charles — am I right so
far? Maybe one of Evelyn's ‘artiste’ friends from ohmygod the 'East' Village.
You know the type — the ones who ask Evelyn if she has a nice dry white
chardonnay—" He slaps a hand over his forehead and shuts his eyes and now
he mutters, jaw clenched, "I'm leaving. I'm dumping Meredith. She's
essentially daring me to like her. I'm gone. Why did it take me so long to
realize that she has all the personality of a goddamn game-show host?...
Twenty-six, twenty-seven... I mean I tell her I'm sensitive. I told her I was
freaked out by the Challenger accident — what more does she want? I'm
ethical, tolerant, I mean I'm extremely satisfied with my life, I'm optimistic
about the future — I mean, aren't you?"


"Sure, but—"


"And all I get is shit from her... Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, holy shit it's a
goddamn cluster of bums. I tell you—" He stops suddenly, as if exhausted,
and turning away from another advertisement for Les Misérables,
remembering something important, asks, "Did you read about the host from
that game show on TV? He killed two teenage boys? Depraved faggot.
Droll, really droll." Price waits for a reaction. There is none. Suddenly:
Upper West Side.


He tells the driver to stop on the comer of Eighty-first and Riverside since
the street doesn't go the right way.


"Don't bother going arou—" Price begins.
"Maybe I go other way around," the cabdriver says.


"Do not bother." Then barely an aside, teeth gritted, unsmiling: "Fucking
nitwit."


The driver brings the cab to a stop. Two cabs behind this cab both blare
their horns then move on.


"Should we bring flowers?"


"Nah. Hell, you're banging her, Bateman. Why should we get Evelyn
flowers? You better have change for a fifty," he warns the driver, squinting
at the red numbers on the meter. "Damnit. Steroids. Sorry I'm tense."


"Thought you were off them."


"I was getting acne on my legs and arms and the UVA bath wasn't fixing it,
so I started going to a tanning salon instead and got rid of it. Jesus,
Bateman, you should see how ripped my stomach is. The definition.
Completely buffed out...," he says in a distant, odd way, while waiting for
the driver to hand him the change. "Ripped." He stiffs the driver on the tip
but the driver is genuinely thankful anyway. "So long, Shlomo," Price
winks.


"Damn, damn, damned," Price says as he opens the door. Coming out of the
cab he eyes a beggar on the street — "Bingo: thirty" — wearing some sort of
weird, tacky, filthy green jump suit, unshaven, dirty hair greased back, and
jokingly Price holds the cab's door open for him. The bum, confused and
mumbling, eyes locked shamefully on the pavement, holds an empty
Styrofoam coffee cup out to us, clutched in a tentative hand.


"I suppose he doesn't want the cab," Price snickers, slamming the cab door.
"Ask him if he takes American Express."


"Do you take Am Ex?"
The bum nods yes and moves away, shuffling slowly.


It's cold for April and Price walks briskly down the street toward Evelyn's
brownstone, whistling "If I Were a Rich Man," the heat from his mouth
creating smoky plumes of steam, and swinging his Tumi leather attaché
case. A figure with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses approaches
in the distance, wearing a beige double-breasted wool-gabardine Cerruti
1881 suit and carrying the same Tumi leather attaché case from D. F.
Sanders that Price has, and Timothy wonders aloud, "Is it Victor Powell? It
can't be."


The man passes under the fluorescent glare of a streetlamp with a troubled
look on his face that momentarily curls his lips into a slight smile and he
glances at Price almost as if they were acquainted but just as quickly he
realizes that he doesn't know Price and just as quickly Price realizes it's not
Victor Powell and the man moves on.


"Thank god," Price mutters as he nears Evelyn's.
"It looked a lot like him."


"Powell and dinner at Evelyn's? These two go together about as well as
paisley and plaid." Price rethinks this. "White socks with gray trousers."


A slow dissolve and Price is bounding up the steps outside the brownstone
Evelyn's father bought her, grumbling about how he forgot to return the
tapes he rented last night to Video Haven. He rings the bell. At the
brownstone next to Evelyn's, a woman — high heels, great ass — leaves
without locking her door. Price follows her with his gaze and when he hears
footsteps from inside coming down the hallway toward us he turns around
and straightens his Versace tie ready to face whoever. Courtney opens the
door and she's wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt
and silk-satin d'Orsay pumps from Manolo Blahnik.


I shiver and hand her my black wool Giorgio Armani overcoat and she
takes it from me, carefully airkissing my right cheek, then she performs the
Same exact movements on Price while taking his Armani overcoat. The new
Talking Heads on CD plays softly in the living room.


"A bit late, aren't we, boys?" Courtney asks, smiling naughtily.


"Inept Haitian cabbie," Price mutters, airkissing Courtney back. "Do we
have reservations somewhere and please don't tell me Pastels at nine."


Courtney smiles, hanging up both coats in the hall closet. "Eating in
tonight, darlings. I'm sorry, I know, I know, I tried to talk Evelyn out of it
but we're having... sushi."


Tim moves past her and down the foyer toward the kitchen. "Evelyn?
Where are you, Evelyn?" he calls out in a singsong voice. "We have to
talk."


"It's good to see you," I tell Courtney. "You look very pretty tonight. Your
face has a... youthful glow."


"You really know how to charm the ladies, Bateman." There is no sarcasm
in Courtney's voice. "Should I tell Evelyn you feel this way?" she asks
flirtatiously.


"No," I say. "But I bet you'd like to."


"Come on," she says, taking my hands off her waist and placing her hands
on my shoulders, steering me down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.
"We have to save Evelyn. She's been rearranging the sushi for the past hour.
She's trying to spell your initials — the P in yellowtail, the B in tuna — but
she thinks the tuna looks too pale—"


"How romantic."


"—and she doesn't have enough yellowtail to finish the B" — Courtney
breathes in — "and so I think she's going to spell Tim's initials instead. Do
you mind?" she asks, only a bit worried. Courtney is Luis Carruthers'
girlfriend.


"I'm terribly jealous and I think I better talk to Evelyn," I say, letting
Courtney gently push me into the kitchen.


Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse,
a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d'Orsay pumps
Courtney has on. Her long blond hair is pinned back into a rather severe-
looking bun and she acknowledges me without looking up from the oval
Wilton stainless-steel platter on which she has artfully arranged the sushi.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry. I wanted to go to this darling little new Salvadorian
bistro on the Lower East Side—'


Price groans audibly.


"—but we couldn't get reservations. Timothy, don't groan." She picks up a
piece of the yellowtail and places it cautiously near the top of the platter,
completing what looks like a capital T. She stands back from the platter and
inspects it. "I don't know. Oh, I'm so unsure."


"I told you to keep Finlandia in this place," Tim mutters, looking through
the bottles — most of them magnums — at the bar. "She never has Finlandia,"
he says to no one, to all of us.


"Oh god, Timothy. Can't handle Absolut?" Evelyn asks and then
contemplatively to Courtney, "The California roll should circle the rim of
the plate, no?"


"Bateman. Drink?" Price sighs.


"J&B rocks," I tell him, suddenly thinking it's strange that Meredith wasn't
invited.


"Oh god. It's a mess," Evelyn gasps. "I swear I'm going to cry."
"The sushi looks marvelous," I tell her soothingly.
"Oh it's a mess," she wails. "It's a mess."


"No, no, the sushi looks marvelous," I tell her and in an attempt to be as
consoling as possible I pick up a piece of the fluke and pop it in my mouth,
groaning with inward pleasure, and hug Evelyn from behind; my mouth still
full, I manage to say "Delicious."


She slaps at me in a playful way, obviously pleased with my reaction, and
finally, carefully, airkisses my cheek and then turns back to Courtney. Price
hands me a drink and walks toward the living room while trying to remove
something invisible from his blazer. "Evelyn, do you have a lint brush?"


I would rather have watched the baseball game or gone to the gym and
worked out or tried that Salvadorian restaurant that got a couple of pretty
good reviews, one in New York magazine, the other in the Times, than have


dinner here but there is one good thing about dinner at Evelyn's: it's close to
my place.


"Is it okay if the soy sauce isn't exactly at room temperature?" Courtney is
asking. "I think there's ice in one of the dishes."


Evelyn is placing strips of pale orange ginger delicately in a pile next toa
small porcelain dish filled with soy sauce. "No, it's not okay. Now Patrick,
could you be a dear and get the Kirin out of the refrigerator?" Then,
seemingly harassed by the ginger, she throws the clump down on the platter.
"Oh forget it. I'll do it."


I move toward the refrigerator anyway. Staring darkly, Price reenters the
kitchen and says, "Who in the hell is in the living room?"


Evelyn feigns ignorance. "Oh who is that?"
Courtney warns, "Ev-el-yn. You did tell them, I hope."
"Who is it?" I ask, suddenly scared. "Victor Powell?"


"No, it's not Victor Powell, Patrick," Evelyn says casually. "It's an artist
friend of mine, Stash. And Vanden, his girlfriend."


"Oh so that was a girl in there," Price says. "Go take a look, Bateman," he
dares. "Let me guess. The East Village?"


"Oh Price," she says flirtatiously, opening beer bottles. "Why no. Vanden
goes to Camden and Stash lives in SoHo, so there."


I move out of the kitchen, past the dining room, where the table has been
set, the beeswax candles from Zona lit in their sterling silver candleholders
from Fortunoff, and into the living room. I can't tell what Stash is wearing
since it's all black. Vanden has green streaks in her hair. She stares at a
heavy-metal video playing on MTV while smoking a cigarette.


"Ahem," I cough.


Vanden looks over warily, probably drugged to the eyeballs. Stash doesn't
move.


"Hi. Pat Bateman," I say, offering my hand, noticing my reflection in a
mirror hung on the wall — and smiling at how good I look.


She takes it; says nothing. Stash starts smelling his fingers.
Smash cut and I'm back in the kitchen.


"Just get her out of there." Price is seething. "She's doped up watching
MTV and I want to watch the goddamn MacNeil/Lehrer report."


Evelyn is still opening large bottles of imported beer and absently mentions,
"We've got to eat this stuff soon or else we're all going to be poisoned."


"She's got a green streak in her hair," I tell them. "And she's smoking."
"Bateman," Tim says, still glaring at Evelyn.

"Yes?" I say. "Timothy?"

"You're a dufus."

"Oh leave Patrick alone," Evelyn says. "He's the boy next door. That's
Patrick. You're not a dufus, are you, honey?" Evelyn is on Mars and I move


toward the bar to make myself another drink.


"Boy next door." Tim smirks and nods, then reverses his expression and
hostilely asks Evelyn again if she has a lint brush.


Evelyn finishes opening the Japanese beer bottles and tells Courtney to
fetch Stash and Vanden. "We have to eat this now or else we're going to be
poisoned," she murmurs, slowly moving her head, taking in the kitchen,
making sure she hasn't forgotten anything.


"If I can tear them away from the latest Megadeth video," Courtney says
before exiting.


"I have to talk to you," Evelyn says.

"What about?" I come up to her.

"No," she says and then pointing at Tim, "to Price."

Tim still glares at her fiercely. I say nothing and stare at Tim's drink.


"Be a hon," she tells me, "and place the sushi on the table. Tempura is in the
microwave and the sake is just about done boiling..." Her voice trails off as
she leads Price out of the kitchen.


I am wondering where Evelyn got the sushi — the tuna, yellowtail, mackerel,
shrimp, eel, even bonito, all seem so fresh and there are piles of wasabi and
clumps of ginger placed strategically around the Wilton platter — but I also
like the idea that I don't know, will never know, will never ask where it
came from and that the sushi will sit there in the middle of the glass table
from Zona that Evelyn's father bought her like some mysterious apparition
from the Orient and as I set the platter down I catch a glimpse of my
reflection on the surface of the table. My skin seems darker because of the
candlelight and I notice how good the haircut I got at Gio's last Wednesday
looks. I make myself another drink. I worry about the sodium level in the
soy sauce.


Four of us sit around the table waiting for Evelyn and Timothy to return
from getting Price a lint brush. I sit at the head taking large swallows of
J&B. Vanden sits at the other end reading disinterestedly from some East
Village rag called Deception, its glaring headline THE DEATH OF
DOWNTOWN. Stash has pushed a chopstick into a lone piece of yellowtail
that lies on the middle of his plate like some shiny impaled insect and the
chopstick stands straight up. Stash occasionally moves the piece of sushi
around the plate with the chopstick but never looks up toward either myself
or Vanden or Courtney, who sits next to me sipping plum wine from a
champagne glass.


Evelyn and Timothy come back perhaps twenty minutes after we've seated
ourselves and Evelyn looks only slightly flushed. Tim glares at me as he
takes the seat next to mine, a fresh drink in hand, and he leans over toward


me, about to say, to admit something, when suddenly Evelyn interrupts,
"Not there, Timothy," then, barely a whisper, "Boy girl, boy girl." She
gestures toward the empty chair next to Vanden. Timothy shifts his glare to
Evelyn and hesitantly takes the seat next to Vanden, who yawns and turns a
page of her magazine.


"Well, everybody," Evelyn says, smiling, pleased with the meal she has
presented, "dig in," and then after noticing the piece of sushi that Stash has
pinned — he's now bent low over the plate, whispering at it — her composure
falters but she smiles bravely and chirps, "Plum wine anyone?"


No one says anything until Courtney, who is staring at Stash's plate, lifts her
glass uncertainly and says, trying to smile, "It's... delicious, Evelyn."


Stash doesn't speak. Even though he is probably uncomfortable at the table
with us since he looks nothing like the other men in the room — his hair isn't
slicked back, no suspenders, no horn-rimmed glasses, the clothes black and
ill-fitting, no urge to light and suck on a cigar, probably unable to secure a
table at Camols, his net worth a pittance — still, his behavior lacks warrant
and he sits there as if hypnotized by the glistening piece of sushi and just as
the table is about to finally ignore him, to look away and start eating, he sits
up and loudly says, pointing an accusing finger at his plate, "It moved!"


Timothy glares at him with a contempt so total that I can't fully equal it but
I muster enough energy to come close. Vanden seems amused and so now,
unfortunately, does Courtney, who I'm beginning to think finds this monkey
attractive but I suppose if I were dating Luis Carruthers I might too. Evelyn
laughs good-naturedly and says, "Oh Stash, you are a riot," and then asks
wotriedly, "Tempura?" Evelyn is an executive at a financial services
company, FYI.


"TIl have some," I tell her and I lift a piece of eggplant off the platter,
though I won't eat it because it's fried.


The table begins to serve themselves, successfully ignoring Stash. I stare at
Courtney as she chews and swallows.


Evelyn, in an attempt to start a conversation, says, after what seems like a
long, thoughtful silence, "Vanden goes to Camden."


"Oh really?" Timothy asks icily. "Where is that?"
"Vermont," Vanden answers without looking up from her paper.


I look over at Stash to see if he's pleased with Vanden's casually blatant lie
but he acts as if he wasn't listening, as if he were in some other room or
some punk rock club in the bowels of the city, but so does the rest of the
table, which bothers me since I am fairly sure we all know it's located in
New Hampshire.


"Where did you go?" Vanden sighs after it finally becomes clear to her that
no one is interested in Camden.


"Well, I went to Le Rosay," Evelyn starts, "and then to business school in
Switzerland."


"T also survived business school in Switzerland," Courtney says. "But I was
in Geneva. Evelyn was in Lausanne."


Vanden tosses the copy of Deception next to Timothy and smirks in a wan,
bitchy way and though I am pissed off a little that Evelyn doesn't take in
Vanden's condescension and hurl it back at her, the J&B has relieved my
stress to a point where I don't care enough to say anything. Evelyn probably
thinks Vanden is sweet, lost, confused, an artist. Price isn't eating and
neither is Evelyn; I suspect cocaine but it's doubtful. While taking a large
gulp from his drink Timothy holds up the copy of Deception and chuckles
to himself.


"The Death of Downtown," he says; then, pointing at each word in the
headline, "Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?"


I automatically expect Stash to look up from his plate but he still stares at
the lone piece of sushi, smiling to himself and nodding.


"Hey," Vanden says, as if she was insulted. "That affects us."


"Oh ho ho," Tim says warningly. "That affects us? What about the
massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Doesn't that affect us too? What about Sri
Lanka?"


"Well, that's a cool club in the Village." Vanden shrugs. "Yeah, that affects
us too."


Suddenly Stash speaks without looking up. "That's called The Tonka." He
sounds pissed but his voice is even and low, his eyes still on the sushi. "It's
called The Tonka, not Sri Lanka. Got it? The Tonka."


Vanden looks down, then meekly says, "Oh."


"I mean don't you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs
are killing like tons of Israelis there?" Timothy goads her. "Doesn't that
affect us?"


"Kappamaki roll anyone?" Evelyn cuts in cheerfully, holding up a plate.


"Oh come on, Price," I say. "There are more important problems than Sri
Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy is important, but there are
more pressing problems at hand."


"Like what?" he asks without looking away from Vanden. "By the way, why
is there an ice cube in my soy sauce?"


"No," I start, hesitantly. "Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow
down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a
strong national defense, prevent the spread of communism in Central
America, work for a Middle East peace settlement, prevent U.S. military
involvement overseas. We have to ensure that America is a respected world
power. Now that's not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally
important, if not more. Better and more affordable long-term care for the
elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up
environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality
of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on
crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure that college education is
affordable for the middle class and protect Social Security for senior


citizens plus conserve natural resources and wilderness areas and reduce the
influence of political action committees."


The table stares at me uncomfortably, even Stash, but I'm on a roll.


"But economically we're still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down
the inflation rate and reduce the deficit. We also need to provide training
and jobs for the unemployed as well as protect existing American jobs from
unfair foreign imports. We have to make America the leader in new
technology. At the same time we need to promote economic growth and
business expansion and hold the line against federal income taxes and hold
down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and
controlling mergers and big corporate takeovers."


Price nearly spits up his Absolut after this comment but I try to make eye
contact with each one of them, especially Vanden, who if she got rid of the
green streak and the leather and got some color — maybe joined an aerobics
class, slipped on a blouse, something by Laura Ashley — might be pretty.
But why does she sleep with Stash? He's lumpy and pale and has a bad
cropped haircut and is at least ten pounds overweight; there's no muscle
tone beneath the black T-shirt.


"But we can't ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people from
abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the
homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while
also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to
protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women's freedom of
choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to
encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and
violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly
we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young
people."


I finish my drink. The table sits facing me in total silence. Courtney's
smiling and seems pleased. Timothy just shakes his head in bemused
disbelief. Evelyn is completely mystified by the turn the conversation has
taken and she stands, unsteadily, and asks if anyone would like dessert.


"I have... sorbet," she says as if in a daze. "Kiwi, carambola, cherimoya,
cactus fruit and oh... what is that..." She stops her zombie monotone and
tries to remember the last flavor. "Oh yes, Japanese pear."


Everyone stays silent. Tim quickly looks over at me. I glance at Courtney,
then back at Tim, then at Evelyn. Evelyn meets my glance, then worriedly
looks over at Tim. I also look over at Tim, then at Courtney and then at Tim
again, who looks at me once more before answering slowly, unsurely,
"Cactus pear."


"Cactus fruit," Evelyn corrects.


I look suspiciously over at Courtney and after she says "Cherimoya" I say
"Kiwi" and then Vanden says "Kiwi" also and Stash says quietly, but
enunciating each syllable very clearly, "Chocolate chip."


The worry that flickers across Evelyn's face when she hears this is
instantaneously replaced by a smiling and remarkably good-natured mask
and she says, "Oh Stash, you know I don't have chocolate chip, though
admittedly that's pretty exotic for a sorbet. I told you I have cherimoya,
cactus pear, carambola, I mean cactus fruit—"


"I know. I heard you, I heard you," he says, waving her off. "Surprise me."
"Okay," Evelyn says. "Courtney? Would you like to help?"


"Of course." Courtney gets up and I watch as her shoes click away into the
kitchen.


"No cigars, boys," Evelyn calls out.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Price says, putting a cigar back into his coat pocket.


Stash is still staring at the sushi with an intensity that troubles me and I
have to ask him, hoping he will catch my sarcasm, "Did it, uh, move again
or something?"


Vanden has made a smiley face out of all the disks of California roll she
piled onto her plate and she holds it up for Stash's inspection and asks,


"Rex?"
"Cool," Stash grunts.


Evelyn comes back with the sorbet in Odeon margarita glasses and an
unopened bottle of Glenfiddich, which remains unopened while we eat the
sorbet.


Courtney has to leave early to meet Luis at a company party at Bedlam, a
new club in midtown. Stash and Vanden depart soon after to go "score"
something somewhere in SoHo. I am the only one who saw Stash take the
piece of sushi from his plate and slip it into the pocket of his olive green
leather bomber jacket. When I mention this to Evelyn, while she loads the
dishwasher, she gives me a look so hateful that it seems doubtful we will
have sex later on tonight. But I stick around anyway. So does Price. He is
now lying on a late-eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet drinking espresso
from a Ceralene coffee cup on the floor of Evelyn's room. I'm lying on
Evelyn's bed holding a tapestry pillow from Jenny B. Goode, nursing a
cranberry and Absolut. Evelyn sits at her dressing table brushing her hair, a
Ralph Lauren green and white striped silk robe draped over a very nice
body, and she is gazing at her reflection in the vanity mirror.


"Am I the only one who grasped the fact that Stash assumed his piece of
sushi was" — I cough, then resume — "a pet?"


"Please stop inviting your ‘artiste’ friends over," Tim says tiredly. "I'm sick
of being the only one at dinner who hasn't talked to an extraterrestrial."


"It was only that once," Evelyn says, inspecting a lip, lost is her own placid
beauty.


"And at Odeon, no less," Price mutters.


I vaguely wonder why I wasn't invited to Odeon for the artists dinner. Had
Evelyn picked up the tab? Probably. And I suddenly picture a smiling
Evelyn, secretly morose, sitting at a whole table of Stash's friends — all of
them constructing little log cabins with their french fries or pretending their
grilled salmon was alive and moving the piece of fish around the table, the


fish conversing with each other about the "art scene," new galleries; maybe
even trying to fit the fish into the log cabin made of french fries...


"If you remember well enough, J hadn't seen one either," Evelyn says.


"No, but Bateman's your boyfriend, so that counted." Price guffaws and I
toss the pillow at him. He catches it then throws it back at me.


"Leave Patrick alone. He's the boy next door," Evelyn says, rubbing some
kind of cream into her face. "You're not an extraterrestrial, are you honey?"


"Should I even dignify that question with an answer?" I sigh.


"Oh baby." She pouts into the mirror, looking at me in its reflection. "I
know you're not an extraterrestrial."


"Relief," I mutter to myself.


"No, but Stash was there at Odeon that night," Price continues, and then,
looking over at me, "At Odeon. Are you listening, Bateman?"


"No he wasn't," Evelyn says.


"Oh yes he was, but his name wasn't Stash last time. It was Horseshoe or
Magnet or Lego or something equally adult," Price sneers. "I forget."


"Timothy, what are you going on about?" Evelyn asks tiredly. "I'm not even
listening to you." She wets a cotton ball, wipes it across her forehead.


"No, we were at Odeon." Price sits up with some effort. "And don't ask me
why, but I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna cappuccino."


"Carpaccio," Evelyn corrects.


"No, Evelyn dear, love of my life. I distinctly remember him ordering the
tuna cappuccino," Price says, staring up at the ceiling.


"He said carpaccio," she counters, running the cotton ball over her eyelids.


"Cappuccino," Price insists. "Until you corrected him."
"You didn't even recognize him earlier tonight," she says.


"Oh but I do remember him," Price says, turning to me. "Evelyn described
him as 'the good-natured body builder.’ That's how she introduced him. I
swear."


"Oh shut up," she says, annoyed, but she looks over at Timothy in the
mirror and smiles flirtatiously.


"I mean I doubt Stash makes the society pages of W, which I thought was
your criterion for choosing friends," Price says, staring back, grinning at her
in his wolfish, lewd way. I concentrate on the Absolut and cranberry I'm
holding and it looks like a glassful of thin, watery blood with ice and a
lemon wedge in it.


"What's going on with Courtney and Luis?" I ask, hoping to break their
gaze.


"Oh god," Evelyn moans, turning back to the mirror. "The really dreadful
thing about Courtney is not that she doesn't like Luis anymore. It's that—"


"They canceled her charge at Bergdorf's?" Price asks. I laugh. We slap each
other high-five.


"No," Evelyn continues, also amused. "It's that she's really in love with her
real estate broker. Some little twerp over at The Feathered Nest."


"Courtney might have her problems," Tim says, inspecting his recent
manicure, "but my god, what is a... Vanden?"


"Oh don't bring this up," Evelyn whines and starts brushing her hair.


"Vanden is a cross between... The Limited and... used Benetton," Price
says, holding up his hands, his eyes closed.


"No." I smile, trying to integrate myself into the conversation. "Used
Fiorucci."


"Yeah," Tim says. "I guess." His eyes, now open, zone in on Evelyn.


"Timothy, lay off," Evelyn says. "She's a Camden girl. What do you
expect?"


"Oh god," Timothy moans. "I am so sick of hearing Camden-girl problems.
Oh my boyfriend, I love him but he loves someone else and oh how I
longed for him and he ignored me and blahblah blahblahblah — god, how
boring. College kids. It matters, you know? It's sad, right Bateman?"


"Yeah. Matters. Sad."
"See, Bateman agrees with me," Price says smugly.


"Oh he does not." With a Kleenex Evelyn wipes off whatever she rubbed
on. "Patrick is not a cynic, Timothy. He's the boy next door, aren't you
honey?"


"No I'm not," I whisper to myself. "I'm a fucking evil psychopath."
"Oh so what," Evelyn sighs. "She's not the brightest girl in the world."


"Hah! Understatement of the century!" Price cries out. "But Stash isn't the
brightest guy either. Perfect couple. Did they meet on Love Connection or
something?"


"Leave them alone," Evelyn says. "Stash is talented and I'm sure we're
underestimating Vanden."


"This is a girl..." Price turns to me. "Listen, Bateman, this is a girl — Evelyn
told me this — this is a girl who rented High Noon because she thought it
was a movie about" — he gulps — "marijuana farmers."


"Tt just hit me," I say. "But have we deciphered what Stash — I assume he
has a last name but don't tell me, I don't want to know, Evelyn — does for a
living?"


"First of all he's perfectly decent and nice," Evelyn says in his defense.


"The man asked for chocolate chip sorbet for Christ sakes!" Timothy wails,
disbelieving. "What are you talking about?"


Evelyn ignores this, pulls off her Tina Chow earrings. "He's a sculptor," she
says tersely.


"Oh bullshit," Timothy says. "I remember talking to him at Odeon." He
turns to me again. "This was when he ordered the tuna cappuccino and I'm
sure if left unattended would have ordered the salmon au lait, and he told
me he did parties, so that technically makes him — I don't know, correct me
if I'm wrong, Evelyn — a caterer. He's a caterer!" Price cries out. "Not a
fucking sculptor!"


"Oh gosh calm down," Evelyn says, rubbing more cream into her face.


"That's like saying you're a poet." Timothy is drunk and I'm beginning to
wonder when he will vacate the premises.


"Well," Evelyn begins, "I've been known to—"


"You're a fucking word processor!" Tim blurts out. He walks over to Evelyn
and bows next to her, checking out his reflection in the mirror.


"Have you been gaining weight, Tim?" Evelyn asks thoughtfully. She
studies Tim's head in the mirror and says, "Your face looks... rounder."


Timothy, in retaliation, smells Evelyn's neck and says, "What is that
fascinating... odor?"


"Obsession." Evelyn smiles flirtatiously, gently pushing Timothy away. "It's
Obsession. Patrick, get your friend away from me."


"No, no, wait," Timothy says, sniffing loudly. "It's not Obsession. It's...
it's..." and then, with a face twisted in mock horror, "It's... Oh my god, it's
Q.T. Instatan!"


Evelyn pauses and considers her options. She inspects Price's head one
more time. "Are you losing your hair?"


"Evelyn," Tim says. "Don't change the subject but..." And then, genuinely
worried, "Now that you mention it... too much gel?" Concerned, he runs a
hand over it.


"Maybe," Evelyn says. "Now make yourself useful and do sit down."


"Well, at least it's not green and I haven't tried to cut it with a butter knife,"
Tim says, referring to Vanden's dye job and Stash's admittedly cheap, bad
haircut. A haircut that's bad because it's cheap.


"Are you gaining weight?" Evelyn asks, more seriously this time.
"Jesus," Tim says, about to turn away, offended. "No, Evelyn."

"Your face definitely looks... rounder," Evelyn says. "Less... chiseled."
"I don't believe this." Tim again.


He looks deep into the mirror. She continues brushing her hair but the
strokes are less definite because she's looking at Tim. He notices this and
then smells her neck and I think he licks at it quickly and grins.


"Is that Q.T.?" he asks. "Come on, you can tell me. I smell it."
"No," Evelyn says, unsmiling. "You use that."


"No. As a matter of fact I don't. I go to a tanning salon. I'm quite honest
about that," he says. "You're using Q.T."


"You're projecting," she says lamely.


"I told you," Tim says. "I go to a tanning salon. I mean I know it's
expensive but..." Price blanches. "Still, Q.T.?"


"Oh how brave to admit you go to a tanning salon," she says.


"Q.T." He chuckles.


"I don't know what you're talking about," Evelyn says and resumes brushing
her hair. "Patrick, escort your friend out of here."


Now Price is on his knees and he smells and sniffs at Evelyn's bare legs and
she's laughing. I tense up.


"Oh god," she moans loudly. "Get out of here."


"You are orange." He laughs, on his knees, his head in her lap. "You look
orange."


"I am not," she says, her voice a low prolonged growl of pain, ecstasy.
"Jerk."


I lie on the bed watching the two of them. Timothy is in her lap trying to
push his head under the Ralph Lauren robe. Evelyn's head is thrown back
with pleasure and she is trying to push him away, but playfully, and hitting
him only lightly on his back with her Jan Hové brush. I am fairly sure that
Timothy and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting
person I know.


"You should go," she says finally, panting. She has stopped struggling with
him.


He looks up at her, flashing a toothy, good-looking smile, and says,
"Anything the lady requests."


"Thank you," she says in a voice that sounds to me tinged with
disappointment.


He stands up. "Dinner? Tomorrow?"
"T'll have to ask my boyfriend," she says, smiling at me in the mirror.


"Will you wear that sexy black Anne Klein dress?" he asks, his hands on
her shoulders, whispering this into her ear, as he smells it. "Bateman's not
welcome."


I laugh good-naturedly while getting up from the bed, escorting him out of
the room.


"Wait! My espresso!" he calls out.
Evelyn laughs, then claps as if delighted by Timothy's reluctance to vacate.


"Come on fella," I say as I push him roughly out of the bedroom. "Beddy-
bye time."


He still manages to blow her a kiss before I get him out and away. He is
completely silent as I walk him out of the brownstone.


After he leaves I pour myself a brandy and drink it from a checkered Italian
tumbler and when I come back to the bedroom I find Evelyn lying in bed
watching the Home Shopping Club. I lie down next to her and loosen my
Armani tie. Finally I ask something without looking at her.


"Why don't you just go for Price?"


"Oh god, Patrick," she says, her eyes shut. "Why Price? Price?" And she
says this in a way that makes me think she has had sex with him.


"He's rich," I say.

"Everybody's rich," she says, concentrating on the TV screen.
"He's good-looking," I tell her.

"Everybody's good-looking, Patrick," she says remotely.

"He has a great body," I say.

"Everybody has a great body now," she says.


I place the tumbler on the nightstand and roll over on top of her. While I

kiss and lick her neck she stares passionlessly at the wide-screen Panasonic
remote-control television set and lowers the volume. I pull my Armani shirt
up and place her hand on my torso, wanting her to feel how rock-hard, how


halved my stomach is, and I flex the muscles, grateful it's light in the room
so she can see how bronzed and defined my abdomen has become.


"You know," she says clearly, "Stash tested positive for the AIDS virus.
And..." She pauses, something on the screen catching her interest; the
volume goes slightly up and then is lowered. "And... I think he will
probably sleep with Vanden tonight."


"Good," I say, biting lightly at her neck, one of my hands on a firm, cold
breast.


"You're evil," she says, slightly excited, running her hands along my broad,
hard shoulder.


"No," I sigh. "Just your fiancé."


After attempting to have sex with her for around fifteen minutes, I decide
not to continue trying.


She says, "You know, you can always be in better shape."


I reach for the tumbler of brandy. I finish it. Evelyn is addicted to Parnate,
an antidepressant. I lie there beside her watching the Home Shopping Club
— at glass dolls, embroidered throw pillows, lamps shaped like footballs,
Lady Zirconia — with the sound turned off. Evelyn starts drifting.


"Are you using minoxidil?" she asks, after a long time.
"No. I'm not," I say. "Why should I?"
"Your hairline looks like it's receding," she murmurs.


"It's not," I find myself saying. It's hard to tell. My hair is very thick and I
can't tell if I'm losing it. I really doubt it.


I walk back to my place and say good night to a doorman I don't recognize
(he could be anybody) and then dissolve into my living room high above
the city, the sounds of the Tokens singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
coming from the glow of the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox (which is not as good


as the hard-to-find Wurlitzer 850) that stands in the comer of the living
room. I masturbate, thinking about first Evelyn, then Courtney, then Vanden
and then Evelyn again, but right before I come — a weak orgasm — about a
near-naked model in a halter top I saw today in a Calvin Klein
advertisement.


Morning


In the early light of a May dawn this is what the living room of my
apartment looks like: Over the white marble and granite gas-log fireplace
hangs an original David Onica. It's a six-foot-by-four-foot portrait of a
naked woman, mostly done in muted grays and olives, sitting on a chaise
longue watching MTV, the backdrop a Martian landscape, a gleaming
mauve desert scattered with dead, gutted fish, smashed plates rising like a
sunburst above the woman's yellow head, and the whole thing is framed in
black aluminum steel. The painting overlooks a long white down-filled sofa
and a thirty-inch digital TV set from Toshiba; it's a high-contrast highly
defined model plus it has a four-corner video stand with a high-tech tube
combination from NEC with a picture-in-picture digital effects system (plus
freeze-frame); the audio includes built-in MTS and a five-watt-per-channel
on-board amp. A Toshiba VCR sits in a glass case beneath the TV set; it's a
super-high-band Beta unit and has built-in editing function including a
character generator with eight-page memory, a high-band record and
playback, and three-week, eight-event timer. A hurricane halogen lamp is
placed in each corner of the living room. Thin white venetian blinds cover
all eight floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass-top coffee table with oak legs by
Turchin sits in front of the sofa, with Steuben glass animals placed
strategically around expensive crystal ashtrays from Fortunoff, though I
don't smoke. Next to the Wurlitzer jukebox is a black ebony Baldwin
concert grand piano. A polished white oak floor runs throughout the
apartment. On the other side of the room, next to a desk and a magazine
rack by Gio Ponti, is a complete stereo system (CD player, tape deck, tuner,
amplifier) by Sansui with six-foot Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers in
Brazilian rosewood. A downfilled futon lies on an oakwood frame in the
center of the bedroom. Against the wall is a Panasonic thirty-one-inch set


with a direct-view screen and stereo sound and beneath it in a glass case is a
Toshiba VCR. I'm not sure if the time on the Sony digital alarm clock is
correct so I have to sit up then look down at the time flashing on and off on
the VCR, then pick up the Ettore Sottsass push-button phone that rests on
the steel and glass nightstand next to the bed and dial the time number. A
cream leather, steel and wood chair designed by Eric Marcus is in one
corner of the room, a molded plywood chair in the other. A black-dotted
beige and white Maud Sienna carpet covers most of the floor. One wall is
hidden by four chests of immense bleached mahogany drawers. In bed I'm
wearing Ralph Lauren silk pajamas and when I get up I slip on a paisley
ancient madder robe and walk to the bathroom. I urinate while trying to
make out the puffiness of my reflection in the glass that encases a baseball
poster hung above the toilet. After I change into Ralph Lauren
monogrammed boxer shorts and a Fair Isle sweater and slide into silk
polka-dot Enrico Hidolin slippers I tie a plastic ice pack around my face and
commence with the morning's stretching exercises. Afterwards I stand in
front of a chrome and acrylic Washmobile bathroom sink — with soap dish,
cup holder, and railings that serve as towel bars, which I bought at Hastings
Tile to use while the marble sinks I ordered from Finland are being sanded
—and stare at my reflection with the ice pack still on. I pour some Plax
antiplaque formula into a stainless-steel tumbler and swish it around my
mouth for thirty seconds. Then I squeeze Rembrandt onto a faux-
tortoiseshell toothbrush and start brushing my teeth (too hung over to floss
properly — but maybe I flossed before bed last night?) and rinse with
Listerine. Then I inspect my hands and use a nailbrush. I take the ice-pack
mask off and use a deep-pore cleanser lotion, then an herb-mint facial
masque which I leave on for ten minutes while I check my toenails. Then I
use the Probright tooth polisher and next the Interplak tooth polisher (this in
addition to the toothbrush) which has a speed of 4200 rpm and reverses
direction forty-six times per second; the larger tufts clean between teeth and
massage the gums while the short ones scrub the tooth surfaces. I rinse
again, with Cepacol. I wash the facial massage off with a spearmint face
scrub. The shower has a universal all-directional shower head that adjusts
within a thirty-inch vertical range. It's made from Australian gold-black
brass and covered with a white enamel finish. In the shower I use first a
water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the
face an exfoliating gel scrub. Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at


getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne
pollutants and dirt that can weigh down hair and flatten it to the scalp which
can make you look older. The conditioner is also good — silicone technology
permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can
also make you look older. On weekends or before a date I prefer to use the
Greune Natural Revitalizing Shampoo, the conditioner and the Nutrient
Complex. These are formulas that contain D-panthenol, a vitamin-B-
complex factor; polysorbate 80, a cleansing agent for the scalp; and natural
herbs. Over the weekend I plan to go to Bloomingdale's or Bergdorf's and
on Evelyn's advice pick up a Foltene European Supplement and Shampoo
for thinning hair which contains complex carbohydrates that penetrate the
hair shafts for improved strength and shine. Also the Vivagen Hair
Enrichment Treatment, a new Redken product that prevents mineral
deposits and prolongs the life cycle of hair. Luis Carruthers recommended
the Aramis Nutriplexx system, a nutrient complex that helps increase
circulation. Once out of the shower and toweled dry I put the Ralph Lauren
boxers back on and before applying the Mousse A Raiser, a shaving cream
by Pour Hommes, I press a hot towel against my face for two minutes to
soften abrasive beard hair. Then I always slather on a moisturizer (to my
taste, Clinique) and let it soak in for a minute. You can rinse it off or keep it
on and apply a shaving cream over it — preferably with a brush, which
softens the beard as it lifts the whiskers — which I've found makes removing
the hair easier. It also helps prevent water from evaporating and reduces
friction between your skin and the blade. Always wet the razor with warm
water before shaving and shave in the direction the beard grows, pressing
gently on the skin. Leave the sideburns and chin for last, since these
whiskers are tougher and need more time to soften. Rinse the razor and
shake off any excess water before starting. Afterwards splash cool water on
the face to remove any trace of lather. You should use an aftershave lotion
with little or no alcohol. Never use cologne on your face, since the high
alcohol content dries your face out and makes you look older. One should
use an alcohol-free antibacterial toner with a water-moistened cotton ball to
normalize the skin. Applying a moisturizer is the final step. Splash on water
before applying an emollient lotion to soften the skin and seal in the
moisture. Next apply Gel Appaisant, also made by Pour Hommes, which is
an excellent, soothing skin lotion. If the face seems dry and flaky — which
makes it look dull and older — use a clarifying lotion that removes flakes


and uncovers fine skin (it can also make your tan look darker). Then apply
an anti-aging eye balm (Baume Des Yeux) followed by a final moisturizing
"protective" lotion. A scalp-programming lotion is used after I towel my
hair dry. I also lightly blow-dry the hair to give it body and control (but
without stickiness) and then add more of the lotion, shaping it with a Kent
natural-bristle brush, and finally slick it back with a wide-tooth comb. I pull
the Fair Isle sweater back on and reslip my feet into the polka-dot silk
slippers, then head into the living room and put the new Talking Heads in
the CD player, but it starts to digitally skip so I take it out and put in a CD
laser lens cleaner. The laser lens is very sensitive, and subject to
interference from dust or dirt or smoke or pollutants or moisture, and a dirty
one can inaccurately read CDs, making for false starts, inaudible passages,
digital skipping, speed changes and general distortion; the lens cleaner has a
cleaning brush that automatically aligns with the lens then the disk spins to
remove residue and particles. When I put the Talking Heads CD back in it
plays smoothly. I retrieve the copy of USA Today that lies in front of my
door in the hallway and bring it with me into the kitchen where I take two
Advil, a multivitamin and a potassium tablet, washing them down with a
large bottle of Evian water since the maid, an elderly Chinese woman,
forgot to turn the dishwasher on when she left yesterday, and then I have to
pour the grapefruit-lemon juice into a St. Rémy wineglass I got from
Baccarat. I check the neon clock that hangs over the refrigerator to make
sure I have enough time to eat breakfast unhurriedly. Standing at the island
in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a sliced Japanese apple-pear (they cost four
dollars each at Gristede's) out of aluminum storage boxes that were
designed in West Germany. I take a bran muffin, a decaffeinated herbal tea
bag and a box of oat-bran cereal from one of the large glass-front cabinets
that make up most of an entire wall in the kitchen; complete with stainless-
steel shelves and sandblasted wire glass, it is framed in a metallic dark
gray-blue. I eat half of the bran muffin after it's been microwaved and
lightly covered with a small helping of apple butter. A bowl of oat-bran
cereal with wheat germ and soy milk follows; another bottle of Evian water
and a small cup of decaf tea after that. Next to the Panasonic bread baker
and the Salton Pop-Up coffee maker is the Cremina sterling silver espresso
maker (which is, oddly, still warm) that I got at Hammacher Schlemmer
(the thermal-insulated stainless-steel espresso cup and the saucer and spoon
are sitting by the sink, stained) and the Sharp Model R-1810A Carousel II


microwave oven with revolving turntable which I use when I heat up the
other half of the bran muffin. Next to the Salton Sonata toaster and the
Cuisinart Little Pro food processor and the Acme Supreme Juicerator and
the Cordially Yours liqueur maker stands the heavy-gauge stainless-steel
two-and-one-half-quart teakettle, which whistles "Tea for Two" when the
water is boiling, and with it I make another small cup of the decaffeinated
apple-cinnamon tea. For what seems like a long time I stare at the Black &
Decker Handy Knife that lies on the counter next to the sink, plugged into
the wall: it's a sliver/peeler with several attachments, a serrated blade, a
scalloped blade and a rechargeable handle. The suit I wear today is from
Alan Flusser. It's an eighties drape suit, which is an updated version of the
thirties style. The favored version has extended natural shoulders, a full
chest and a bladed back. The soft-rolled lapels should be about four inches
wide with the peak finishing three quarters of the way across the shoulders.
Properly used on double-breasted suits, peaked lapels are considered more
elegant than notched ones. Low-slung pockets have a flapped double-besom
design — above the flap there's a slit trimmed on either side with a flat
narrow strip of cloth. Four buttons form a low-slung square; above it, about
where the lapels cross, there are two more buttons. The trousers are deeply
pleated and cut full in order to continue the flow of the wide jacket. An
extended waist is cut slightly higher in the front. Tabs make the suspenders
fit well at the center back. The tie is a dotted silk design by Valentino
Couture. The shoes are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni. While I'm dressing
the TV is kept on to The Patty Winters Show. Today's guests are women
with multiple personalities. A nondescript overweight older woman is on
the screen and Patty's voice is heard asking, "Well, is it schizophrenia or
what's the deal? Tell us."


"No, oh no. Multiple personalities are not schizophrenics," the woman says,
shaking her head. "We are not dangerous."


"Well," Patty starts, standing in the middle of the audience, microphone in
hand. "Who were you last month?"


"Last month it seemed to be mostly Polly," the woman says.


A cut to the audience — a housewife's worried face; before she notices
herself on the monitor, it cuts back to the multiple-personality woman.


"Well," Patty continues, "now who are you?"


"Well...," the woman begins tiredly, as if she was sick of being asked this
question, as if she had answered it over and over again and still no one
believed it. "Well, this month I'm... Lambchop. Mostly... Lambchop."


A long pause. The camera cuts to a close-up of a stunned housewife
shaking her head, another housewife whispering something to her.


The shoes I'm wearing are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni.


Grabbing my raincoat out of the closet in the entranceway I find a Burberry
scarf and matching coat with a whale embroidered on it (something a little
kid might wear) and it's covered with what looks like dried chocolate syrup
crisscrossed over the front, darkening the lapels. I take the elevator
downstairs to the lobby, rewinding my Rolex by gently shaking my wrist. I
say good morning to the doorman, step outside and hail a cab, heading
downtown toward Wall Street.


Harry's


Price and I walk down Hanover Street in the darkest moments of twilight
and as if guided by radar move silently toward Harry's. Timothy hasn't said
anything since we left P & P. He doesn't even comment on the ugly bum
that crouches beneath a Dumpster off Stone Street, though he does manage
a grim wolf whistle toward a woman — big tits, blonde, great ass, high heels
— heading toward Water Street. Price seems nervous and edgy and I have no
desire to ask him what's wrong. He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano,
a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace-
ups from Brooks Brothers. I'm wearing a lightweight linen suit with pleated
trousers, a cotton shirt, a dotted silk tie, all by Valentino Couture, and
perforated cap-toe leather shoes by Allen-Edmonds. Once inside Harry's we
spot David Van Patten and Craig McDermott at a table up front. Van Patten
is wearing a double-breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and
silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by
Gitman Brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from


Brooks Brothers. McDermott is wearing a woven-linen suit with pleated
trousers, a button-down cotton and linen shirt by Basile, a silk tie by Joseph
Abboud and ostrich loafers from Susan Bennis Warren Edwards.


The two are hunched over the table, writing on the backs of paper napkins,
a Scotch and a martini placed respectively in front of them. They wave us
over. Price throws his Tumi leather attaché case on an empty chair and
heads toward the bar. I call out to him for a J&B on the rocks, then sit down
with Van Patten and McDermott.


"Hey Bateman," Craig says in a voice that suggests this is not his first
martini. "Is it proper to wear tasseled loafers with a business suit or not?
Don't look at me like I'm insane."


"Oh shit, don't ask Bateman," Van Patten moans, waving a gold Cross pen
in front of his face, absently sipping from the martini glass.


"Van Patten?" Craig says.
"Yeah?"
McDermott hesitates, then says "Shut up" in a flat voice.


"What are you screwballs up to?" I spot Luis Carruthers standing at the bar
next to Price, who ignores him utterly. Carruthers is not dressed well: a
four-button double-breasted wool suit, I think by Chaps, a striped cotton
shirt and a silk bow tie plus horn-rimmed eyeglasses by Oliver Peoples.


"Bateman: we're sending these questions in to GQ," Van Patten begins.


Luis spots me, smiles weakly, then, if I'm not mistaken, blushes and turns
back to the bar. Bartenders always ignore Luis for some reason.


"We have this bet to see which one of us will get in the Question and
Answer column first, and so now I expect an answer. What do you think?"
McDermott demands.


"About what?" I ask irritably.


"Tasseled loafers, jerk-off," he says.


"Well, guys..." I measure my words carefully. "The tasseled loafer is
traditionally a casual shoe..." I glance back at Price, wanting the drink
badly. He brushes past Luis, who offers his hand. Price smiles, says
something, moves on, strides over to our table. Luis, once more, tries to
catch the bartender's attention and once more fails.


"But it's become acceptable just because it's so popular, right?" Craig asks
eagerly.


"Yeah." I nod. "As long as it's either black or cordovan it's okay."
"What about brown?" Van Patten asks suspiciously.
I think about this then say, "Too sporty for a business suit."


"What are you fags talking about?" Price asks. He hands me the drink then
sits down, crossing his legs.


"Okay, okay, okay," Van Patten says. "This is my question. A two-parter..."
He pauses dramatically. "Now are rounded collars too dressy or too casual?
Part two, which tie knot looks best with them?"


A distracted Price, his voice still tense, answers quickly with an exact, clear
enunciation that can be heard over the din in Harry's. "It's a very versatile
look and it can go with both suits and sport coats. It should be starched for
dressy occasions and a collar pin should be worn if it's particularly formal."
He pauses, sighs; it looks as if he's spotted somebody. I turn around to see
who it is. Price continues, "If it's worn with a blazer then the collar should
look soft and it can be worn either pinned or unpinned. Since it's a
traditional, preppy look it's best if balanced by a relatively small four-in-
hand knot." He sips his martini, recrossing his legs. "Next question?"


"Buy the man a drink," McDermott says, obviously impressed.
"Price?" Van Patten says.


"Yes?" Price says, casing the room.


"You're priceless."
"Listen," I ask, "where are we having dinner?"


"I brought the trusty Mr. Zagat," Van Patten says, pulling the long crimson
booklet out of his pocket and waving it at Timothy.


"Hoo-ray," Price says dryly.

"What do we want to eat?" Me.

"Something blond with big tits." Price.

"How about that Salvadorian bistro?" McDermott.


"Listen, we're stopping by Tunnel afterwards so somewhere near there."
Van Patten.


"Oh shit," McDermott begins. "We're going to Tunnel? Last week I picked
up this Vassar chick—"


"Oh god, not again," Van Patten groans.
"What's your problem?" McDermott snaps back.
"I was there. I don't need to hear this story again," Van Patten says.


"But I never told you what happened afterwards, " McDermott says,
arching his eyebrows.


"Hey, when were you guys there?" I ask. "Why wasn't I invited?"


"You were on that fucking cruise thing. Now shut up and listen. So okay I
picked up this Vassar chick at Tunnel — hot number, big tits, great legs, this
chick was a little hardbody — and so I buy her a couple of champagne kirs
and she's in the city on spring break and she's practically blowing me in the
Chandelier Room and so I take her back to my place—"


"Whoa, wait," I interrupt. "May I ask where Pamela is during all of this?"


Craig winces. "Oh fuck you. I want a blow job, Bateman. I want a chick
who's gonna let me—"


"I don't want to hear this," Van Patten says, clamping his hands over his
ears. "He's going to say something disgusting."


"You prude," McDermott sneers. "Listen, we're not gonna invest in a co-op
together or jet down to Saint Bart's. I just want some chick whose face I can
sit on for thirty, forty minutes."


I throw my swizzle stick at him.


"Anyway, so we're back at my place and listen to this." He moves in closer
to the table. "She's had enough champagne by now to get a fucking rhino
tipsy, and get this—"


"She let you fuck her without a condom?" one of us asks.


1


McDermott rolls his eyes up. "This is a Vassar girl. She's not from Queens.'
Price taps me on the shoulder. "What does that mean?"


"Anyway, listen," McDermott says. "She would... are you ready?" He
pauses dramatically. "She would only give me a hand job, and get this...
she kept her glove on." He sits back in his chair and sips his drink in a
smug, satisfied sort of way.


We all take this in solemnly. No one makes fun of McDermott's revelatory
statement or of his inability to react more aggressively with this chick. No
one says anything but we are all thinking the same thought: Never pick up a
Vassar girl.


"What you need is a chick from Camden," Van Patten says, after recovering
from McDermott's statement.


"Oh great," I say. "Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother."


"Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England," Price points out.


"Where's dinner?" Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled
on his napkin. "Where the fuck are we going?"


"It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases
and stuff," Van Patten says, shaking his head.

There are no more barriers to cross all I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference towards it I have now surpassed