Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney Read Free Book Online

People were happy to meet you and to invite you to their parties. So much was going on. Of course, mentally, you were always taking notes. Saving it all up. Waiting for the day when you would sit down and write your masterpiece.
    You dig your typewriter out of the closet and set it up on the dining-room table. You have some good twenty-pound bond from the supply cabinet in the office. You roll a sheet, with backing, onto the platen. The whiteness of the sheet is intimidating, so you type the date in the right-hand corner. You decide to jump immediately into the story you have in mind. Waste no time with preliminaries. You type:
He was expecting her on the afternoon flight from Paris when she called to say she would not be coming home.
“You’re taking a later flight?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m starting a new life.”
    You read it over. Then you tear the sheet out of the typewriter and insert a new one.
    Go farther back, maybe. Try to find the source of this chaos. Give her a name and a place.
Karen liked to look at her mother’s fashion magazines. The women were elegant and beautiful and they were always climbing in and out of taxis and limousines on their way to big stores and restaurants. Karen didn’t think there were any stores or restaurants like that in Oklahoma. She wished she looked like the ladies in the pictures. Then maybe her father would come back.
    This is dreadful. You tear the sheet into eighths and slide them into the wastebasket. You insert another piece of paper; again you type the date. At the left margin you type, “Dear Amanda,” but when you look at the paper it reads “Dead Amanda.”
    Screw this. You are not going to commit any great literature tonight. You need to relax. After all, you’ve been busting ass all day. You check the fridge; no beer. A finger of vodka in the bottle on the sink. Maybe you will step out and get a six-pack. Or wander over to the Lion’s Head, as long as you’re going out, to see if there’s anybody you know. It’s not impossible there to meet a woman avec hair, sans tattoo, at the bar.
    The intercom buzzes while you’re changing your shirt. You push the Talk button: “Who is it?”
    “Narcotics squad. We’re soliciting donations for children all over the world who have no drugs.”
    You buzz him up. You’re not sure how you feel about the advent of Tad Allagash. While you could use company, Tad can be too much of a good thing. His brand of R & R is nothing if not strenuous. Nonetheless, by the time he gets to the door, you’re glad to see him. He’s looking très sportif in J. Press torso and punked-out red SoHo trousers. He presents his hand and you shake.
    “Ready to roll?”
    “Where are we rolling?”
    “Into the heart of the night. Wherever there are dances to be danced, drugs to be hoovered, women to be Allagashed. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Speaking of drugs, are you in possession?”
    You shake your head.
    “Not a single line for young Tad?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Not even a mirror I can lick?”
    “Suit yourself.”
    Tad goes over to the mahogany-and-gilt-framed mirror that you inherited from your grandmother, the one Amanda was so afraid your cousin was going to nab. He runs his tongue over the glass.
    “There’s something on here.”
    “Dust.”
    Tad smacks his lips. “In this apartment the dust has better coke content than some of the shit we buy by the gram. All us coke fiends sneezing—it adds up.”
    Tad runs his finger across the length of the coffee table. “It looks like you could teach a course in dust here. Did you know that ninety percent of your average household dust is composed of human epidermal matter? That’s skin, to you.”
    Perhaps this explains your sense of Amanda’s omnipresence. She has left her skin behind.
    He walks over to the table and leans over the typewriter. “Doing a little writing, are we? Dead Amanda . That’s the idea. I told you you’d get more nookie than you