The Shards

In late May of 1980, May 23rd to be exact, The Shining opened,

and I wanted to see it as soon as possible.

I was obsessed with Stephen King's seminal book.

And it remains one of the key novels that made me wanna be a writer.

In fact, as soon as I was done reading The Shining for a third time,

I began writing my own novel, which would ultimately become Less Than Zero.

This would be the first time I drove to Westwood to see a movie without the gang,

and I felt incredibly adult as I raced across Mulholland

on that Saturday morning in my father's black Mercedes 450 SL,

a two-door tank that was hardly the sporty vehicle I longed for

as a teenager.

I remember, and I don't know why,

that I was wearing a fashionable new Ralph Lauren shirt,

brown with a touch of white-gray stripes and Calvin Klein jeans with Gucci loafers.

One ticket, please.

Three dollars.

Thank you.

I sat in reverent silence and stared at the 70-millimeter screen.

Writing this now, I can't believe I was left to my own devices for 20 minutes,

just idly sitting there,

thinking about things, about my friends Thom and Susan,

waiting without wanting something to distract me

like smartphones or social media.

The lights in the theater slowly darken, and that's when I saw the boy.

This is the reason why I've never forgotten seeing The Shining

on May 24th, 1980, at the theater in Westwood at 10:00 a.m.

I was off to the side near the aisle when I saw him.

A guy so stunningly handsome I thought at first he was a movie star

or a model from GQ magazine.

He was tall.

He was undoubtedly tan everywhere.

This boy aroused something primal in me that I'd never felt before.

I needed to be his friend. I had to own him.

The Warner Brothers logo headed toward us as the opening credits began

over aerial shots of the family's Volkswagen heading toward the Overlook.

He had to be older than me. A UCLA student, maybe.

I watched, mesmerized, as this boy, this god, disappeared from my sight line.

He noticed me staring and glanced away,

but not before a lingering gaze took me in,

and I fantasized that he was interested in me too.

After the movie was over, I was underwhelmed.

It was nothing like the book. I felt cheated.

I walked into the lobby hoping to find the boy, but he wasn't anywhere.

I waited outside the theater, but he wasn't there either.

What I didn't know then is that I would actually meet this boy again,

and his name was Robert Mallory,

and that his arrival at my high school and into my life would coincide

with a season of horror and murder that would destroy us all.

"Redrum" over and over? That's gonna haunt me for the rest of my life.

Like, "redrum"? But…

It has occurred to me when talking about what happened to us in 1981

that one thing is evident: Kids today have it fucking easy.

Sure, being a teenager is hard now because you have to deal

with puberty and sexuality and online bullying,

but our generation had it tougher because we had to deal with serial killers.

Shadow.

Shadow.

Shadow.

The early '80s was the golden era for serial killers.

All the legends were on hunting sprees.

The Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler.

Shadow.

As I prepared to enter senior year…

Shadow.

…I had no idea that my friends and I would be hunted too

by perhaps the most sadistic serial killer of them all.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

This is our story.

Some of us survived high school.

Some of us died.

But none of us made it out alive.

Darling.

Hello.

Who is this?

I remember it was a Sunday afternoon before Labor Day,

and our senior year was about to begin on that Tuesday morning

of September 8th, 1981.

And I remember that the Westridge Stables were located on a bluff above Malibu

where my girlfriend, Deborah Schaffer, was boarding her new horse, Spirit.

I was driving solo following Susan Reynolds and Thom Wright

along Pacific Coast Highway.

Everything sped up when you got your car

You are now autonomous in ways you hadn't been.

You had become an adult.

This encouraged our parents to work longer hours

or travel with less restrictions,

leaving all of us behind in beautiful empty houses

in Bel-Air and Beverly Hills or Benedict Canyon,

and that was okay with my friends and I.

We were the family. We raised each other.

We would usually start our day by meeting for lunch at Hamburger Hamlet,

where we'd crowd into the red booths for patty melts

after buying our tickets for the next movie at The Bruin.

Dinner was usually at the food court

with breaks at the arcade playing Space Invaders and PAC-MAN.

Or look for new music at Tower Records, leafing through the paperbacks

at any number of the large bookstores that dotted the streets.

There were five or six in 1981.

That's the one.

There are none now.

I kept behind Thom's car up the winding road of the stables

where we parked next to Deborah's gleaming brand-new BMW.

We located Debbie trotting Spirit by his reins.

- Rock it, Debbie. There you are. - She was wearing her riding attire.

I was aware of Spirit being yet another example

of Debbie's carelessness and privilege.

The cost of maintaining and housing the animal was astronomical,

but I don't think she even cared.

In a way, Debbie was an experiment.

I wasn't determined to have a girlfriend my senior year,

except if it had been Susan Reynolds,

and yet Debbie had become somewhat inexplicably just that.

We were at a party at Anthony Matthews' house,

and she just started making out with me on a chaise lit by the pool.

I was stoned on a Quaalude. She did a bump of coke. It was midnight.

- Put it in. I'm so wet. - What?

And I was at a point where I still tried to be attracted to girls.

- There's people around. - I want it. I want you, Bret.

I surprised myself and went with it.

Debbie always broke the rules.

By senior year, her hair was a shade of platinum inspired by Blondie.

If you were in 11th or 12th grade, makeup was minimally allowed,

but because Debbie was so rich, she got away with murder

and wore her lipstick hot pink

or blood red, always defiant.

Look, Debbie, I'm you.

You guys, cut it out. You're gonna spook the horses.

- Susan, please, get off his back. - Okay.

This is a $1 million horse from Arabia, and you're gonna spook him

because you can't get off Thom's back for five minutes.

You just scared all of them…

Thom Wright and Susan Reynolds had been dating since they were sophomores

and were now the most popular people,

not only in our class, but in the overall student body.

It was obvious why.

Thom and Susan were casually beautiful,

all-American, and they both came from wealthy families.

For about two years, they were in love

until that fall of 1981, when one of them wasn't.

Thom was always the ideal of teen boy handsome,

and what was so alluring about him was that he didn't seem to care.

He had an intriguing blankness that was attractive and soothing.

He was the opposite of Susan,

school class president, effortlessly a straight-A student.

She kind of knew I was secretly in love with her,

and I knew everything about her.

When she got her period, the problem with her mother,

every imaginary slight and deprivation she thought she was enduring…

- I love you. - … her crushes on classmates before Thom.

She was to me the most beautiful girl ever,

and to this very day, the person I think I've loved the most in my entire life.

Have you heard from your parents?

This morning, still in France, headed to Venice next week.

They're staying in Europe indefinitely.

My mom said that she still thinks she wants to divorce him.

My dad said that the trip has been good, and they weren't coming home

until their marriage was on solid ground again.

I hope it works out for them.

Sucks having divorced parents.

I miss my dad a lot.

My God, it's my dream, all that freedom.

Who's cooking your food? You don't cook.

Rosa makes all my meals.

Gracias.

I just write all night after she goes home and do whatever I want.

Are you coming to Debbie's house tonight? It's the last party of the summer.

Labor Day always makes me blue. It's the end of something.

Oh, but this year is the beginning of our senior year.

We're coming. Although, God, Debbie's dad makes me super uncomfortable.

- So goddamn gay. - Thom!

Sorry, he is. Last time I was there,

he asked me if I wanted to take a Jacuzzi with him in his bathroom,

not the one by the pool.

Pretended I got food poisoning and left.

Yeah, I get gay vibes from him too.

I don't think Debbie's mom knows, if you could believe it.

She likes the house, the trips, going to the Oscars every year.

How many does he have again? Oscars.

Two.

You know that book I'm writing?

I want him to buy it and let me write the movie.

God, I hate coming here every weekend just to watch her ride this dumb horse.

- Why do we do this to ourselves? - Because we are nice people.

And this year, we're gonna rule the school.

- Don't we already? - Help.

There's no helping you.

I don't understand.

I just think we need to cool it for a while.

It's maybe gotten out of hand.

I agree.

Just remember, we're good friends.

Always will be.