Less Than Zero

At Kim’s new house, in the hills overlooking Sunset, the gates are open but there don’t seem to be too many cars around. After Blair and I walk up to the door and ring the doorbell, it takes a long time for anybody to open it. Kim finally does, wearing tight faded jeans, high black leather boots, white T-shirt, smoking a joint. She takes a hit off it before hugging both of us and saying “Happy New Year,” then leads us into a high-ceilinged entrance room and tells us she just moved in three days ago and that “Mom’s in England with Milo” and that they haven’t had time to furnish it yet. But the floors are carpeted, she tells us, and says that it’s a good thing and I don’t ask her why she thinks it’s a good thing. She tells us that the house is pretty old, that the guy who owned it before was a Nazi. On the patios, there are these huge pots holding small trees with swastikas painted on them. “They’re called Nazi pots,” Kim says.

We follow her downstairs to where there are only about twelve or thirteen people. Kim tells us that Fear’s supposed to play tonight. She introduces Blair and me to Spit, who’s a friend of the drummer’s, and Spit has really pale skin, paler than Muriel’s, and short greasy hair and a skull earring and dark circles under his eyes, but Spit’s mad and after saying hi, tells Kim that she has to do something about Muriel.

“Why?” Kim asks, inhaling on the joint.

“Because the bitch said I looked dead,” Spit says, eyes wide.

“Oh, Spit,” Kim says.

“She says that I smell like a dead animal.”

“Come on, Spit, forget it,” Kim says.

“You know I don’t keep dead animals in my room anymore.” He looks over at Muriel, who’s at the end of the long bar, laughing, holding a glass of punch.

“Oh, she’s wonderful, Spit,” Kim says. “She’s just been taking sixty milligrams of lithium a day. She’s just tired.” Kim turns to Blair and me. “Her mother just bought her a fifty-five-thousand-dollar Porsche.” Then she looks back at Spit. “Can you believe it?”

Spit says he can’t and that he’s going to try to forget about it and decide what albums to play and Kim tells him, “Go ahead,” and then before he goes over to the stereo, “Listen, Spit, don’t get Muriel down. Just keep quiet. She just left Cedars-Sinai and once she gets drunk, she’s fine. She’s just a little strung out.”

Spit ignores this and holds up an old Oingo Boingo record.

“Can I play this or not?”

“Why don’t you save that for later?”

“Listen, Kim-ber-ly, I’m getting bored,” he says, teeth gritted.

Kim pulls a joint out of her back pocket and hands it to him.

“Just cool it, Spit.”

Spit says thanks and then sits down on the couch next to the fireplace, with the huge replica of the American flag draped over it, and stares at the joint a long time before he lights it.

“Well, you two look fabulous,” Kim says.

“So do you,” Blair tells her. I nod. I’m tired and a little stoned and didn’t really want to come, but Blair actually came over to my house earlier and we went swimming and then to bed and Kim called up.

“Is Alana coming?” Blair asks.

“No, can’t make it.” Kim shakes her head, taking another hit off the joint. “Going to the Springs.”

“What about Julian?” Blair asks.

“Nope. Too busy f**king Beverly Hills lawyers for money,” Kim sighs, then laughs.

I’m about to ask her what she meant by that when suddenly someone calls out her name and Kim says, “Oh, shit, the liquor guy just arrived” and walks off and I look out past the big lighted pool, out over Hollywood; blanket of lights under a neon purple sky and Blair asks me if I’m okay and I say sure.

Some young guy, eighteen or nineteen, brings in a large cardboard box and sets it on the bar and Kim signs something and tips him and he says, “Happy New Year, dudes” and leaves. Kim takes a bottle of champagne out of the box, opens it expertly and calls out, “Everybody take a bottle. It’s Perrier-Jouet. It’s chilled.”

“You convinced me, you rat.” Muriel runs over and hugs Kim and Kim gives her a bottle.

“Is Spit pissed at me or something? All I said was that he looked dead,” Muriel says, opening her bottle. “Hiya, Blair, hi, Clay.”

“He’s just on edge,” Kim says. “Wind’s weird or something.”

“He’s such a moron. He tells me that, ‘Well, I used to do well in school before they kicked me out.’ Huh? What in the f**k does that mean?” Muriel asks. “Besides, the idiot uses a blowtorch to freebase.”