Less Than Zero Read Online Free PDF

hid beneath some cashmere sweaters. After looking at the small yellow pill with the hole in the middle of it, I decide that I really don’t need it and I put it away. I take off my clothes and look at the digital clock, the same kind of digital clock that Griffin has, and notice that I only have a few hours to sleep before I have to meet my father for lunch, so I make sure the alarm is set and I lay back, staring at the television hard, because I once heard that if you stare at the television screen for a long enough time, you can fall asleep.

    T he alarm goes off at eleven. A song called “Artificial Insemination” is playing on the radio and I wait until it’s over to open my eyes and get up. Sun is flooding the room through the Venetian blinds and when I look in the mirror it gives the impression that I have this wild, cracked grin. I walk into the closet and look at my face and body in the mirror; flex my muscles a couple of times, wonder if I should get a haircut, decide I do need a tan. Turn away and open the envelope, also hid beneath the sweaters. I cut myself two lines of the coke I bought from Rip last night and do them and feel better. I’m still wearing my jockey shorts as I walk downstairs. Even though it’s eleven, I don’t think anyone is up yet and I notice that my mother’s door is closed, probably locked. I walk outside and dive into the pool and do twenty quick laps and then get out, towel myself dry as I walk into the kitchen. Take an orange from the refrigerator and peel it as I walk upstairs. I eat the orange before I get into the shower and realize that I don’t have time for the weights. Then I go into my room and turn on MTV really loud and cut myself another line and then drive to meet my father for lunch.

    I don’t like driving down Wilshire during lunch hour. There always seem to be too many cars and old people and maids waiting for buses and I end up looking away and smoking too much and turning the radio up to full volume. Right now, nothing is moving even though the lights are green. As I wait in the car, I look at the people in the cars next to mine. Whenever I’m on Wilshire or Sunset during lunch hour I try to make eye contact with the driver of the car next to mine, stuck in traffic. When this doesn’t happen, and it usually doesn’t, I put my sunglasses back on and slowly move the car forward. As I pull onto Sunset I pass the billboard I saw this morning that read “Disappear Here” and I look away and kind of try to get it out of my mind.

    M y father’s offices are in Century City. I wait around for him in the large, expensively furnished reception room and hang out with the secretaries, flirting with this really pretty blond one. It doesn’t bother me that my father leaves me waiting there for thirty minutes while he’s in some meeting and then asks me why I’m late. I don’t really want to go out to lunch today, would rather be at the beach or sleeping or out by the pool, but I’m pretty nice and I smile and nod a lot and pretend to listen toall his questions about college and I answer them pretty sincerely. And it doesn’t embarrass me a whole lot that while on the way to Ma Maison he puts the top of the 450 down and plays a Bob Seger tape, as if this was some sort of weird gesture of communication. It also doesn’t really make me angry that at lunch my father talks to a lot of businessmen, people he deals with in the film industry, who stop by our table and that I’m introduced only as “my son” and the businessmen all begin to look the same and I begin to wish that I had brought the rest of the coke.
    My father looks pretty healthy if you don’t look at him for too long. He’s completely tan and has had a hair transplant in Palm Springs, two weeks ago, and he has pretty much a full head of blondish hair. He also has had his face lifted. I’d gone to see him at Cedars-Sinai when he had it done and I remember seeing his face covered with bandages and how