American Psycho (52 page)

“Aren’t you having any?” Evelyn asks, concerned. She hovers over the chocolate-dipped urinal cake anxiously, poised. “I
adore
Godiva.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say. “Dinner was … filling.”

She leans down, smelling the brown oval, and, catching a
scent of something (probably disinfectant), asks me, now dismayed, “Are you … sure?”

“No, darling,” I say. “I want you to eat it. There’s not a lot there.”

She takes the first bite, chewing dutifully, immediately and obviously disgusted, then swallows. She shudders, then makes a grimace but tries to smile as she takes another tentative bite.

“How is it?” I ask, then, urging, “Eat it. It’s not poisoned or anything.”

Her face, twisted with displeasure, manages to blanch again as if she were gagging.

“What?” I ask, grinning. “What is it?”

“It’s so …” Her face is now one long agonized grimace mask and, shuddering, she coughs. “… minty.” But she tries to smile appreciatively, which becomes an impossibility. She reaches for my glass of water and gulps it down, desperate to rid her mouth of the taste. Then, noticing how worried I look, she tries to smile, this time apologetically. “It’s just”—she shudders again—“it’s just … so
minty.
”

To me she looks like a big black ant—a big black ant in an original Christian Lacroix—eating a urinal cake and I almost start laughing, but I also want to keep her at ease. I don’t want her to get second thoughts about finishing the urinal cake. But she can’t eat any more and with only two bites taken, pretending to be full, she pushes the tainted plate away, and at this moment I start feeling strange. Even though I marveled at her eating that thing, it also makes me sad and suddenly I’m reminded that no matter how satisfying it was to see Evelyn eating something I, and countless others, had pissed on, in the end the displeasure it caused her was at
my
expense—it’s an anticlimax, a futile excuse to put up with her for three hours. My jaw begins to clench, relax, clench, relax, involuntarily. There is music playing somewhere but I can’t hear it. Evelyn asks the waiter, hoarsely, if perhaps he could get her some Life Savers from the Korean deli around the block.

Then, very simply, dinner reaches its crisis point, when Evelyn says, “I want a firm commitment.”

The evening has already deteriorated considerably so this comment doesn’t ruin anything or leave me unprepared, but
the unreasonableness of our situation is choking me and I push my water glass back toward Evelyn and ask the waiter to remove the half-eaten urinal cake. My endurance for tonight is shot the second the melting dessert is taken away. For the first time I notice that she has been eyeing me for the last two years not with adoration but with something closer to greed. Someone finally brings her a water glass along with a bottle of Evian I didn’t hear her order.

“I think, Evelyn, that …” I start, stall, start again. “… that we’ve lost touch.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” She’s waving to a couple—Lawrence Montgomery and Geena Webster, I think—and from across the room Geena (?) holds up her hand, which has a bracelet on it. Evelyn nods approvingly.

“My … my
need
to engage in … homicidal behavior on a massive scale cannot be, um, corrected,” I tell her, measuring each word carefully. “But I … have no other way to express my blocked … needs.” I’m surprised at how emotional this admission makes me, and it wears me down; I feel light-headed. As usual, Evelyn misses the essence of what I’m saying, and I wonder how long it will take to finally rid myself of her.

“We need to talk,” I say quietly.

She puts her empty water glass down and stares at me. “Patrick,” she begins. “If you’re going to start in again on why I should have breast implants, I’m
leaving
,” she warns.

I consider this, then, “It’s over, Evelyn. It’s all over.”

“Touchy, touchy,” she says, motioning to the waiter for more water.

“I’m serious,” I say quietly. “It is fucking over. Us. This is no joke.”

She looks back at me and I think that maybe
someone
is actually comprehending what I’m trying to get through to them, but then she says, “Let’s just avoid the issue, all right? I’m sorry I said anything. Now, are we having coffee?” Again she waves the waiter over.

“I’ll have a decaf espresso,” Evelyn says. “Patrick?”

“Port,” I sigh. “Any kind of port.”

“Would you like to see—” the waiter begins.

“Just the most expensive port,” I cut him off. “And oh yeah, a dry beer.”

“My my,” Evelyn murmurs after the waiter leaves.

“Are you still seeing your shrink?” I ask.

“Pat
rick
,” she warns. “
Who
?”

“Sorry,” I sigh. “Your
doctor.
”

“No.” She opens her handbag, looking for something.

“Why not?” I ask, concerned.

“I told you why,” she says dismissively.

“But I don’t remember,” I say, mimicking her.

“At the end of a session he asked me if I could get him plus three into Nell’s that night.” She checks her mouth, the lips, in the mirror of the compact. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I think you need to see someone,” I begin, hesitantly, honestly. “I think you are emotionally unstable.”

“
You
have a poster of Oliver North in your apartment and you’re calling
me
unstable?” she asks, searching for something else in the handbag.

“No.
You
are, Evelyn,” I say.

“Exaggerating. You’re exaggerating,” she says, rifling through the bag, not looking at me.

I sigh, but then begin gravely, “I’m not going to push the issue, but—”

“How uncharacteristic of you, Patrick,” she says.

“Evelyn. This has got to end,” I sigh, talking to my napkin. “I’m twenty-seven. I don’t want to be weighed down with a commitment.”

“Honey?” she asks.

“Don’t call me that,” I snap.

“What? Honey?” she asks.

“Yes,” I snap again.

“What do you
want
me to call you?” she asks, indignantly. “CEO?” She stifles a giggle.

“Oh Christ.”

“No, really Patrick. What do you want me to call you?”

King, I’m thinking. King, Evelyn. I want you to call me King. But I don’t say this. “Evelyn. I don’t want you to call me anything. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“But your friends are my friends. My friends are your friends. I don’t think it would work,” she says, and then, staring at a spot above my mouth, “You have a tiny fleck on the top of your lip. Use your napkin.”

Exasperated, I brush the fleck away. “Listen, I know that your friends are my friends and vice versa. I’ve thought about that.” After a pause I say, breathing in, “You can have them.”

Finally she looks at me, confused, and murmurs, “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. “I am.”

“But … what about us? What about the past?” she asks blankly.

“The past isn’t real. It’s just a dream,” I say. “Don’t mention the past.”

She narrows her eyes with suspicion. “Do you have something against me, Patrick?” And then the hardness in her face changes instantaneously to expectation, maybe hope.

“Evelyn,” I sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re just … not terribly important … to me.”

Without missing a beat she demands, “Well,
who
is? Who do you think
is
, Patrick? Who do you
want
?” After an angry pause she asks, “Cher?”

“Cher?” I ask back, confused. “
Cher
? What are you talking about? Oh forget it. I want it over. I need sex on a regular basis. I need to be distracted.”

In a matter of seconds she becomes frantic, barely able to contain the rising hysteria that’s surging through her body. I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. “But what about the past? Our
past
?” she asks again, uselessly.

“Don’t
mention
it,” I tell her, leaning in.

“Why
not
?”

“Because we never really shared one,” I say, keeping my voice from rising.

She calms herself down and, ignoring me, opening her handbag again, mutters, “Pathological. Your behavior is pathological.”

“What does
that
mean?” I ask, offended.

“Abhorrent. You’re pathological.” She finds a Laura Ashley pillbox and unsnaps it.

“Pathological
what
?” I ask, trying to smile.

“Forget it.” She takes a pill that I don’t recognize and uses my water to swallow it.

“
I’m
pathological?
You’re
telling
me
that
I’m
pathological?” I ask.

“We look at the world differently, Patrick.” She sniffs.

“Thank god,” I say viciously.

“You’re inhuman,” she says, trying, I think, not to cry.

“I’m”—I stall, attempting to defend myself—“in touch with … humanity.”

“No, no, no.” She shakes her head.

“I know my behavior is … erratic sometimes,” I say, fumbling.

Suddenly, desperately, she takes my hand from across the table, pulling it closer to her. “What do you want me to do? What is it you want?”

“Oh Evelyn,” I groan, pulling my hand away, shocked that I’ve finally gotten through to her.

She’s crying. “What do you want me to do, Patrick? Tell me. Please,” she begs.

“You should … oh god, I don’t know. Wear erotic underwear?” I say, guessing. “Oh Jesus, Evelyn. I don’t know. Nothing. You can’t do anything.”

“Please, what can I do?” she sobs quietly.

“Smile less often? Know more about cars? Say my name with less regularity? Is this what you want to hear?” I ask. “It won’t change anything. You don’t even drink beer,” I mutter.

“But you don’t drink beer either.”

“That doesn’t matter. Besides, I just ordered one. So there.”

“Oh Patrick.”

“If you really want to do something for me, you can stop making a scene right now,” I say, looking uncomfortably around the room.

“Waiter?” she asks, as soon as he sets down the decaf espresso, the port and the dry beer. “I’ll have a … I’ll have a … a what?” She looks over at me tearfully, confused and panicked. “A Corona? Is that what you drink, Patrick? A Corona?”

“Oh my god. Give it up. Please, just excuse her,” I tell the waiter, then, as soon as he walks away, “Yes. A Corona. But we’re in a fucking Chinese-Cajun bistro so—”

“Oh god, Patrick,” she sobs, blowing her nose into the handkerchief I’ve tossed at her. “You’re so lousy. You’re … inhuman.”

“No, I’m …” I stall again.

“You … are not …” She stops, wiping her face, unable to finish.

“I’m not what?” I ask, waiting, interested.

“You are not”—she sniffs, looks down, her shoulders heaving—“all there. You”—she chokes—“don’t add up.”

“I do too,” I say indignantly, defending myself. “I do too add up.”

“You’re a ghoul,” she sobs.

“No, no,” I say, confused, watching her. “
You’re
the ghoul.”

“Oh god,” she moans, causing the table next to ours to look over, then away. “I can’t believe this.”

“I’m leaving now,” I say soothingly. “I’ve assessed the situation and I’m going.”

“Don’t,” she says, trying to grab my hand. “Don’t go.”

“I’m leaving, Evelyn.”

“Where are you going?” Suddenly she looks remarkably composed. She’s been careful not to let the tears, which actually I’ve just noticed are very few, affect her makeup. “Tell me, Patrick, where are you going?”

I’ve placed a cigar on the table. She’s too upset to even comment. “I’m just leaving,” I say simply.

“But
where
?” she asks, more tears welling up. “Where are you going?”

Everyone in the restaurant within a particular aural distance seems to be looking the other way.

“Where are you going?” she asks again.

I make no comment, lost in my own private maze, thinking about other things: warrants, stock offerings, ESOPs, LBOs, IPOs, finances, refinances, debentures, converts, proxy statements, 8-Ks, 10-Qs, zero coupons, PiKs, GNPs, the IMF, hot executive gadgets, billionaires, Kenkichi Nakajima, infinity, Infinity, how fast a luxury car should go, bailouts, junk bonds, whether to cancel my subscription to
The Economist
, the Christmas Eve when I was fourteen and had raped one of our maids, Inclusivity, envying someone’s life, whether someone could survive a fractured skull, waiting in airports, stifling a scream, credit cards and someone’s passport and a book of matches from La Côte Basque splattered with blood, surface surface surface, a Rolls is a Rolls is a Rolls. To Evelyn our relationship
is yellow and blue, but to me it’s a gray place, most of it blacked out, bombed, footage from the film in my head is endless shots of stone and any language heard is utterly foreign, the sound flickering away over new images: blood pouring from automated tellers, women giving birth through their assholes, embryos frozen or scrambled (which is it?), nuclear warheads, billions of dollars, the total destruction of the world, someone gets beaten up, someone else dies, sometimes bloodlessly, more often mostly by rifle shot, assassinations, comas, life played out as a sitcom, a blank canvas that reconfigures itself into a soap opera. It’s an isolation ward that serves only to expose my own severely impaired capacity to feel. I am at its center, out of season, and no one ever asks me for any identification. I suddenly imagine Evelyn’s skeleton, twisted and crumbling, and this fills me with glee. It takes a long time to answer her question—
Where are you going
?—but after a sip of the port, then the dry beer, rousing myself, I tell her, at the same time wondering: If I were an actual automaton what difference would there really be?

“Libya,” and then, after a significant pause, “Pago Pago. I meant to say Pago Pago,” and then I add, “Because of your outburst I’m not paying for this meal.”