Less Than Zero Read online

  BRET EASTON ELLIS

  LESS THAN ZERO

  Bret Easton Ellis is the author of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers and Glamorama. He was born in 1964 and raised in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Bennington College and lives in New York City.

  Acclaim for

  BRET EASTON ELLIS

  “Ellis takes you down and down into a nothingness called L.A … that puts no value on anything. He is an extraordinary writer.”

  —L.A. Weekly

  “Bret Easton Ellis … is an extremely traditional and very serious American novelist. He is the model of filial piety, counting among his parents Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion.”

  —Carolyn See, Washington Post

  “Startling and hypnotic … a haunting, evocative portrait of a kind of L.A. life almost too turbulent to believe.”

  —Interview

  “An updated Catcher in the Rye.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Filled with languid comic terror, Less Than Zero is a startling debut for Bret Ellis, a no wave West Coast La Dolce Vita.”

  —Richard Price

  “A fascinating read.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “This is the novel your mother warned you about. Jim Morrison would be proud.”

  —Eve Babitz

  Books by

  BRET EASTON ELLIS

  Less Than Zero

  The Rules of Attraction

  American Psycho

  The Informers

  Glamorama

  For Joe McGinniss

  “This is the game that moves as you play …”

  —X

  “There’s a feeling I get when I look to the West …”

  —Led Zeppelin

  People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles. This is the first thing I hear when I come back to the city. Blair picks me up from LAX and mutters this under her breath as her car drives up the onramp. She says, “People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.” Though that sentence shouldn’t bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter. Not the fact that I’m eighteen and it’s December and the ride on the plane had been rough and the couple from Santa Barbara, who were sitting across from me in first class, had gotten pretty drunk. Not the mud that had splattered the legs of my jeans, which felt kind of cold and loose, earlier that day at an airport in New Hampshire. Not the stain on the arm of the wrinkled, damp shirt I wear, a shirt which had looked fresh and clean this morning. Not the tear on the neck of my gray argyle vest, which seems vaguely more eastern than before, especially next to Blair’s clean tight jeans and her pale-blue T-shirt. All of this seems irrelevant next to that one sentence. It seems easier to hear that people are afraid to merge rather than “I’m pretty sure Muriel is anorexic” or the singer on the radio crying out about magnetic waves. Nothing else seems to matter to me but those ten words. Not the warm winds, which seem to propel the car down the empty asphalt freeway, or the faded smell of marijuana which still faintly permeates Blair’s car. All it comes down to is that I’m a boy coming home for a month and meeting someone whom I haven’t seen for four months and people are afraid to merge.

  Blair drives off the freeway and comes to a red light. A heavy gust of wind rocks the car for a moment and Blair smiles and says something about maybe putting the top up and turns to a different radio station. Coming to my house, Blair has to stop the car since there are these five workmen lifting the remains of palm trees that have fallen during the winds and placing the leaves and pieces of dead bark in a big red truck, and Blair smiles again. She stops at my house and the gate’s open and I get out of the car, surprised to feel how dry and hot it is. I stand there for a pretty long time and Blair, after helping me lift the suitcases out of the trunk, grins at me and asks, “What’s wrong?” and I say, “Nothing,” and Blair says, “You look pale,” and I shrug and we say goodbye and she gets into her car and drives away.

  Nobody’s home. The air conditioner is on and the house smells like pine. There’s a note on the kitchen table that tells me that my mother and sisters are out, Christmas shopping. From where I’m standing I can see the dog lying by the pool, breathing heavily, asleep, its fur ruffled by the wind. I walk upstairs, past the new maid, who smiles at me and seems to understand who I am, and past my sisters’ rooms, which still both look the same, only with different GQ cutouts pasted on the wall, and enter my room and see that it hasn’t changed. The walls are still white; the records are still in place; the television hasn’t been moved; the Venetian blinds are still open, just as I had left them. It looks like my mother and the new maid, or maybe the old maid, cleaned out my closet while I was gone. There’s a pile of comic books on my desk with a note on top of them that reads, “Do you still want these?”; also a message that Julian called and a card that says “Fuck Christmas” on it. I open it and it says “Let’s Fuck Christmas Together” on the inside, an invitation to Blair’s Christmas party. I put the card down and notice that it’s beginning to get really cold in my room.

  I take my shoes off and lie on the bed and feel my brow to see if I have a fever. I think I do. And with my hand on my forehead I look up with caution at the poster encased in glass that hangs on the wall above my bed, but it hasn’t changed either. It’s the promotional poster for an old Elvis Costello record. Elvis looks past me, with this wry, ironic smile on his lips, staring out the window. The word “Trust” hovering over his head, and his sunglasses, one lens red, the other blue, pushed down past the ridge of his nose so that you can see his eyes, which are slightly off center. The eyes don’t look at me, though. They only look at whoever’s standing by the window, but I’m too tired to get up and stand by the window.

  I pick up the phone and call Julian, amazed that I actually can remember his number, but there’s no answer. I sit up, and through the Venetian blinds I can see the palm trees shaking wildly, actually bending, in the hot winds, and then I stare back at the poster and then turn away and then look back again at the smile and the mocking eyes, the red and blue glasses, and I can still hear people are afraid to merge and I try to get over the sentence, blank it out. I turn on MTV and tell myself I could get over it and go to sleep if I had some Valium and then I think about Muriel and feel a little sick as the videos begin to flash by.

  I bring Daniel to Blair’s party that night and Daniel is wearing sunglasses and a black wool jacket and black jeans. He’s also wearing black suede gloves because he cut himself badly on a piece of glass a week earlier in New Hampshire. I had gone with him to the emergency room at the hospital and had watched as they cleaned the wound and washed the blood off and started to sew in the wire until I started feeling sick and then I went and sat in the waiting room at five o’clock in the morning and heard The Eagles sing “New Kid in Town” and I wanted to come back. We’re standing at the door of Blair’s house in Beverly Hills and Daniel complains that the gloves are sticking to the wires and are too tight, but he doesn’t take them off because he doesn’t want people to see the thin silver wires sticking out of the skin on his thumb and fingers. Blair answers the door.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” Blair exclaims. She’s wearing a black leather jacket and matching pants and no shoes and she hugs me and then looks at Daniel.

  “Well, who’s this?” she asks, grinning.

  “This is Daniel. Daniel, this is Blair,” I say.

  Blair offers her hand and Daniel smiles and shakes it softly.

  “Well, come on in. Merry Christmas.”

  There are two Christmas trees, one in the living room and one in the den and both have twinkling dark-red lights coloring them. There are people at the party from high
school, most of whom I haven’t seen since graduation and they all stand next to the two huge trees. Trent, a male model I know, is there.

  “Hey, Clay,” Trent says, a red-and-green-plaid scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “Trent,” I say.

  “How are you, babes?”

  “Great. Trent, this is Daniel. Daniel, this is Trent.”

  Trent offers his hand and Daniel smiles and adjusts his sunglasses and lightly shakes it.

  “Hey, Daniel,” Trent says. “Where do you go to school?”

  “With Clay,” Daniel says. “Where do you go?”

  “U.C.L.A. or as the Orientals like to call it, U.C.R.A.” Trent imitates an old Japanese man, eyes slit, head bowed, front teeth stuck out in parody, and then laughs drunkenly.

  “I go to the University of Spoiled Children,” Blair says, still grinning, running her fingers through her long blond hair.

  “Where?” asks Daniel.

  “U.S.C.,” she says.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says. “That’s right.”

  Blair and Trent laugh and she grabs his arm to balance herself for a moment. “Or Jew.S.C.,” she says, almost gasping.

  “Or Jew.C.L.A.,” Trent says, still laughing.

  Finally Blair stops laughing and brushes past me to the door, telling me that I should try the punch.

  “I’ll get the punch,” Daniel says. “You want some, Trent?”

  “No thanks.” Trent looks at me and says, “You look pale.”

  I notice that I do, compared to Trent’s deep, dark tan and most of the other people’s complexions around the room. “I’ve been in New Hampshire for four months.”

  Trent reaches into his pocket. “Here,” he says, handing me a card. “This is the address of a tanning salon on Santa Monica. Now, it’s not artificial lighting or anything like that, and you don’t have to rub Vitamin E capsules all over your bod. This thing is called an Uva Bath and what they do is they dye your skin.”

  I stop listening to Trent after a while and look over at three boys, friends of Blair’s I don’t know, who go to U.S.C., all tan and blond and one is singing along with the music coming out of the speakers.

  “It works,” Trent says.

  “What works?” I ask, distracted.

  “An Uva Bath. Uva Bath. Look at the card, dude.”

  “Oh yeah.” I look at the card. “They dye your skin, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay.”

  Pause.

  “What have you been doing?” Trent asks.

  “Unpacking,” I say. “What about you?”

  “Well,” he smiles proudly. “I got accepted by this modeling agency, a really good one,” he assures me. “And guess who’s going to be not only on the cover of International Male in two months, but who is also the month of June in U.C.L.A.’s college man calendar?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Me, dude,” Trent says.

  “International Male?”

  “Yeah. I don’t like the magazine. My agent told them no nude stuff, just like Speedos and stuff like that. I don’t do any nude stuff.”

  I believe him but don’t know why and look around the room to see if Rip, my dealer, is at the party. But I don’t see him and I turn back to Trent and ask, “Yeah? What else have you been doing?”

  “Oh, like the usual. Going to Nautilus, getting smashed, going to this Uva place … But, hey, don’t tell anyone I’ve been there, okay?”

  “What?”

  “I said don’t tell anyone about this Uva place, okay?” Trent looks worried, concerned almost, and I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze to reassure him. “Oh, yeah, don’t worry.”

  “Hey,” he says, looking around the room. “Gotta do a little business. Later. Lunch,” he jokes, leaving.

  Daniel comes back with the punch and it’s very red and very strong and I cough a little as I take a swallow. From where I’m standing, I can see Blair’s father, who’s this movie producer and he’s sitting in a corner of the den talking with this young actor I think I went to school with. Blair’s father’s boyfriend is also at the party. His name’s Jared and he’s really young and blond and tan and has blue eyes and incredibly straight white teeth and he’s talking to the three boys from U.S.C. I can also see Blair’s mother, who is sitting by the bar, drinking a vodka gimlet, her hands shaking as she brings the drink to her mouth. Blair’s friend Alana comes into the den and hugs me and I introduce her to Daniel.

  “You look just like David Bowie,” Alana, who is obviously coked up out of her mind, tells Daniel. “Are you left-handed?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Daniel says.

  “Alana likes guys who are left-handed,” I tell Daniel.

  “And who look like David Bowie,” she reminds me.

  “And who live in the Colony,” I finish.

  “Oh, Clay, you’re such a beasty,” she giggles. “Clay is a total beasty,” she tells Daniel.

  “Yes, I know,” Daniel says. “A beasty. Totally.”

  “Have you had any punch? You should have some,” I tell her.

  “Darling,” she says, slowly, dramatically. “I made the punch.” She laughs and then spots Jared and stops suddenly. “Oh, God, I wish Blair’s father wouldn’t invite Jared to these things. It makes her mother so nervous. She gets totally bombed anyway, but having him around makes it worse.” She turns to Daniel and says, “Blair’s mother is an agoraphobic.” She looks back at Jared. “I mean he’s going to Death Valley next week on location, I don’t see why he can’t wait until then, can you?” Alana turns to Daniel, then me.

  “No,” Daniel says solemnly.

  “Me neither,” I say, shaking my head.

  Alana looks down and then back at me and says, “You look kind of pale, Clay. You should go to the beach or something.”

  “Maybe I will.” I finger the card Trent gave me and then ask her if Julian is going to show up. “He called me and left a message, but I can’t get in touch with him,” I say.

  “Oh God, no,” Alana says. “I hear he is like completely fucked up.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Suddenly the three boys from U.S.C. and Jared laugh loudly, in unison.

  Alana rolls her eyes up and looks pained. “Jared heard this stupid joke from his boyfriend who works at Morton’s. ‘What are the two biggest lies?’ ‘I’ll pay you back and I won’t come in your mouth.’ I don’t even get it. Oh God, I better go help Blair. Mummy’s going behind the bar. Nice to meet you, Daniel.”

  “Yeah, you too,” Daniel says.

  Alana walks over to Blair and her mother by the bar.

  “Maybe I should have hummed a few bars of ‘Let’s Dance,’ ” Daniel says.

  “Maybe you should have.”

  Daniel smiles. “Oh Clay, you’re such a total beasty.”

  We leave after Trent and one of the boys from U.S.C. fall into the Christmas tree in the living room. Later that night, when the two of us are sitting at the end of the darkened bar at the Polo Lounge, not a whole lot is said.

  “I want to go back,” Daniel says, quietly, with effort.

  “Where?” I ask, unsure.

  There’s a long pause that kind of freaks me out and Daniel finishes his drink and fingers the sunglasses he’s still wearing and says, “I don’t know. Just back.”

  My mother and I are sitting in a restaurant on Melrose, and she’s drinking white wine and still has her sunglasses on and she keeps touching her hair and I keep looking at my hands, pretty sure that they’re shaking. She tries to smile when she asks me what I want for Christmas. I’m surprised at how much effort it takes to raise my head up and look at her.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  There’s a pause and then I ask her, “What do you want?”

  She says nothing for a long time and I look back at my hands and she sips her wine. “I don’t know. I just want to have a nice Christmas.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You
look unhappy,” she says real suddenly.

  “I’m not,” I tell her.

  “You look unhappy,” she says, more quietly this time. She touches her hair, bleached, blondish, again.

  “You do too,” I say, hoping that she won’t say anything else.

  She doesn’t say anything else, until she’s finished her third glass of wine and poured her fourth.

  “How was the party?”

  “Okay.”

  “How many people were there?” “Forty. Fifty.” I shrug.

  She takes a swallow of wine. “What time did you leave it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “One? Two?”

  “Must of been one.”

  “Oh.” She pauses again and takes another swallow.

  “It wasn’t very good,” I say, looking at her.

  “Why?” she asks, curious.

  “It just wasn’t,” I say and look back at my hands.

  I’m with Trent in a yellow train that sits on Sunset. Trent’s smoking and drinking a Pepsi and I stare out the window and into the headlights of passing cars. We’re waiting for Julian, who’s supposed to be bringing Trent a gram. Julian is fifteen minutes late and Trent is nervous and impatient and when I tell him that he should deal with Rip, like I do, instead of Julian, he just shrugs. We finally leave and he says that we might be able to find Julian in the arcade in Westwood. But we don’t find Julian at the arcade in Westwood, so Trent suggests that we go to Fatburger and eat something. He says he’s hungry, that he hasn’t eaten anything in a long time, mentions something about fasting. We order and take the food to one of the booths. But I’m not too hungry and Trent notices that there’s no chili on my Fatburger.

  “What is this? You can’t eat a Fatburger without chili.”

  I roll my eyes up at him and light a cigarette.