I had wanted to write canonical literature, which is as arrogant as it seems. I saw myself as a candidate for the Great American Novel. And then, after my confrontation with Warren, when it was obvious that a career as a novelist was out of the question (would, in fact, be dangerous), I thought I might simply write a glossy romance about the misadventures of some drugged-up, oversexed private school kids – “Five Go Mad on the CTA”, as it were – to wise up the squares about how dreary and desolate a rich kid’s life can be.

But how would I explain Trish to you? Trish, whose mind is broken in a way so similar to mine that we consider ourselves twins. I call her my Narci-Sis. For, you see, Trish is from a wealthy real estate family and her grandfather tried to break her mind. He did manage to use her sexually for several years until he was caught, and so she has the usual sexual issues, but the real damage was to imprison her for hours and torture her until she almost had a split personality, a “bad self” that would respond to him sexually on his command. She is incredibly talented and beautiful and like me she has a broken place in her mind where her personality simply quits and there’s nothing but an uncontrollable flood of images and emotions with no seeming center. But she’s the opposite of me in that in those circumstances I close down and become extremely cold and controlling, whereas she loses her mind and becomes extravagantly hysterical.

She looks like Christy Turlington, by the way. During the summer of 1988, when Christy was just getting famous, I tried to train Trish as my slave-assistant so I could complete the Abramelin working. We were living in her family’s villa in Ibiza, hopping back and forth to London to check out the dance scene. It was the Second Summer of Love, everyone was crazy on drugs, dancing all the time and talking crap about aliens and magic. Trish got mistaken for Christy all the time, and this caused some awkward rumors about both Trish and Christy that had to be quashed by the fashion industry because Christy was Catholic and Trish was channeling the Whore of Babylon.

(the words of Drake Marshall)

My father died from COVID, thank god. I can’t tell you what it means to me. He was out there in New York, an early case, for all I know he’s in one of those semi-trucks you see in news articles, overflowing with dead bodies. My mother, hapless dolt that she is, is taking care of everything, or their butler is, or who knows. She told me about it on the phone. “That’s terrible,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t expect any strong expressions of emotion. She informed me that she knew it would make me unhappy and I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. At some point there will be a funeral.

Meanwhile, here I am at the club, the Egyptian-themed spa that is still owned by the family of Alvin Albrecht, my childhood friend from school. When the lockdown started the spa closed so, so our old school set is using it as a secret base, preparing for the Mad Max Apocalypse that may be coming. The pools are working and our favorite saunas are still hot. Alvin’s family is being generous with their long-term employees, keeping them on as a skeleton crew. Everyone here knows the place so well we never interfere with each other.

I’m spending a lot of time crying and laughing, having strange feelings that should be about my father in some sense but can never truly because he was such a twisted fuck.

… That’s the point where my mind breaks. I can’t follow a train of thought when I think or talk or write about him because he beat me up so much when I was younger.