Author Mafia - Game Over!

[Bret Easton Ellis]

I wake up. Straining to see what time it is from the bedside clock I notice the half empty bottle of quaaludes but I

don't

notice them as well. I'm already thinking about the conversation last night with Price, trying to piece it together. Flashes of Price's droning conversation interrupted by an occasional mouthful of quesadilla with papaya from - where were we? Arcadia? - somewhere downtown. Terribly grubby food, poorly prepared. And Price wouldn't shut up. Something about rules for wearing vests with suits. Something about muted greys, taupes and navies being Armani

not

Emporio. Something about a big meeting tomorrow, 9am.

I check the time. I am two hours late. I get up and put on some clothes, I can't decide or remember what sort of meeting it is so I dress casual. A lamb's wool topcoat, a wool jacket with wool flannel trousers, a cotton shirt, a cashmere V-neck sweater and a silk tie, all from Armani.

At the meeting I sit quietly in a shaded corner of the room, my complexion looking abnormally dark - but I am still thinking of going by the tanning salon later, and I have to return some videotapes - as I study the placards of the others. Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Pinch-something, Shakespeare - what the fuck? Where am I? What kind of meeting is this? My head is buzzing, straining. I don't know what is going on, but this feels like a trial and I need a valium.

Some Austen woman gives me a sharp stare from across the room. Name seems familiar. Didn't I fuck some hardbody in college named Austen? She had great cheek bones, great body, not like this woman. This looks like some nasty piece of feminist flesh with saggy jowls and a disapproving eye.

VOTE: Jane Austen

My head is screaming. Only evian to drink here. I need to wake up. Fast.

[Bret Easton Ellis]

Got a call. Mysterious voice on the line, "Quit with the RVS" then silence. I thought I heard a snicker before the line went dead. I'm thinking Price is a prize asshole if it was him. I fantasize for a moment about what it would feel like to rip out his jugular then I remember I have to return some videotapes.

UNVOTE: Jane Austen

[Bret Easton Ellis]

OOC: Prod received, posts incoming, terribly sorry

[Bret Easton Ellis]

I get through the meeting in a daze and daydreaming about a circus elephant - probably the one I saw on some show recently documenting mistreated animals in captivity being prone to violence - running amok through the boardroom. Stampeding around the confined space crushing skulls, hands, flesh, strewing bodies and paper flying, sticking to the seeping wounds. Splinters of timber from the cheap imported Italian bench-top mixing with a pinkish-white foam from popped eyeballs and a greyish paste of brain fluid. Crushed white ceramic coffee mugs mixing with fine powdered bits of off-white teeth enamel. I drink two bottles of Evian and screw the lids back on them leaving my thoughts and the stale air of the room within.

And now some others and myself are going to this bitch Austen's house. Riding in the back of a limo I'm listening to her talking and I'm gazing at the others still trying to figure out what this is all about and this bitch won't shut up and I'm wondering why that Shakespeare guy is wearing a starched ruff. She's saying something about people who use rhyme aren't really talking enough and if they did talk they wouldn't look good because they'd be using rhyme and I'm not really listening or understanding what she means but my head is aching and I need a valium or a JB on ice or a claw hammer to rip her tongue out. But it doesn't stop and while she's lilting I'm thinking about how much her voice sounds similar to the mouse I found in the kitchen this morning when I crushed its head slowly beneath my perforated cap-toe leather lace-ups by Allen-Edmonds.

FoS

@ Jane Austen

And then some poet interrupts and makes little rhyme but at least some reason to my screaming head. And this bitch Austen is staring at this guy with a fiery eye while some other guy called Joyce has his head buried in the leather upholstery of the limo, tongue hanging from his mouth and drool slowly sliding down the seat. Shakespeare almost pokes this poets eye out with his starched ruff while leaning towards him.

"You're a good guy, Cummings." He says to him.

I'm looking at Cummings and thinking that with a couple of Halcion I'd probably agree but at least he's sounding better than Austen flapping her jowls. And she is still staring at him with crazy daggers and I'm looking across at some guy who's got a sticker pasted across his forehead reading "Pynchon" ignoring most of us and instead talking into the limo phone.

[Bret Easton Ellis]

Joyce looks up from making a meal of the seating, his eyes are glazed over and wild.

"Mmmgghhhhgrrrhmph" He mutters through clenched teeth with spit still glistening on his lips.

I feel a deep anger arise from within. This idiot contorting his face into dimwitted expressions. I control myself - just. I numb myself to the strangeness of it all. I let the motion sink till I'm left with just the sensation of slick tires skidding over city streets. The limo rolls on.