The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [41]
Sometime later, after I climb nude and sobbing from the bathtub, after Roger calls on one of the extensions and tells me that my father has called seven times in the last two hours (something about an emergency), after I tell Roger to tell my father that I’m asleep or out or anything or in another country, after I smash three champagne bottles against one of the walls in the suite, I’m finally able to sit in a chair I’ve moved over to a window and look out over Tokyo. I’m holding a guitar, trying to write a song, because for the past week a number of chord progressions have been repeating themselves in my head but I’m having a hard time sorting them out and then I’m playing old songs I wrote when I was playing with the band and then I stare at broken glass on the floor that surrounds the bed, thinking: that’s a cool album cover. Then I’m picking up a half-empty package of M&M’s and washing them down with some vodka and then since it makes me sick I have to head for the bathroom but I trip over the telephone cord and my hand slams into a thick piece of champagne-bottle glass and for a long time I’m staring at my palm, at a thin rivulet of blood racing down my wrist. Unable to shake the glass out, I pull it out and the hole in my hand looks soft and safe and I take the jagged stained piece of glass that still has part of a Dom Perignon label on it and seal the wound by placing it back into it where it looks complete, but the glass falls out and streaming blood covers the guitar I’m beginning to strum and the bloodied guitar will make a pretty good record cover too and I’m able to light a cigarette, blood soaking it only a little. More Librium and I’m asleep but the bed shakes and the earth moving is part of my dream, another monster approaching.
The phone starts ringing at what I can only guess is noon.
“Yeah?” I ask, eyes closed.
“It’s me,” Roger says.
“I’m sleeping, Lucifer.”
“Come on, get up. You’re having lunch with someone today.”
“Who?”
“Someone,” Roger says, irritated. “Come on, let’s play.”
“I need, like, something,” I mumble, opening my eyes, the sheets, the guitar next to the sheets, covered with brown dried blood, some of it in patches so thick it moves me to open my mouth, then swallow. “I need something, man.”
“What?” Roger’s saying. “Your Mr. Potato Head broke? What?”
“No, a doctor, man.”
“Why?” Roger sighs.
“Cut my hand.”
“Really?” Roger sounds bored.
“It was bleeding, um, pretty bad.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was. How did you do this?” Roger asks. “In other words: did you have help?”
“I did it shaving—who the fuck cares? Just … get a doctor.”
After a while, Roger asks, “If it’s not bleeding anymore, does it matter?”
“But there was a lot of … blood, man.”
“But does it even hurt?” Roger asks. “Can you even feel it?”
A long pause, then, “No, um, not really.” I wait a minute before saying, “Sort of.”
“I’ll get you a doctor. Jesus.”
“And a maid. A vacuum. I need a … vacuum, man.”
“You are a vacuum, Bryan,” Roger says. I can hear giggling in the background, which Roger silences by hissing, then he tells me, “Your father keeps calling.” I can hear Roger lighting a cigarette. “For what it’s worth.”
“My fingers, um, Roger, won’t move.”
“Did you hear me or, like, what’s the bloody story?”
“What did he want? Is that what you want me to ask?” I sigh. “How did he know where I am?”
“I don’t know. Some emergency. Your mom’s in the hospital? I’m not sure. Who knows?”
I try to sit up, then with my left hand light a cigarette. When it becomes apparent to Roger that I’m not going to say anything else, Roger says, “I’ll give you three hours to get cleaned up. Do you need longer? I hope to holy Christ not, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“And wear something with long sleeves,” Roger warns.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Long sleeves, man. Wear long sleeves. Something poofy.”
I look down at my arms. “Why?”
“Multiple choice: (a) You look nice in long sleeves; (b) you have holes in your arms; (c) you have holes in your arms; (d) you have holes in your arms.”
A long pause that I finally break up by saying, “C?”
“Good,” Roger