Dry: A Memoir (14 page)

Because she is asking questions, I feel almost like a minister, like I need to preach and convert. “Well, by getting rid of the alcohol, it’s like I have lost this thing that took up so much of my life and caused too many problems, directly and indirectly. You know, the butterfly thing.”

“What butterfly thing?” she says.

“You know how when a butterfly beats its wings in the Amazon, this sends a mote of pollen through the air which causes the wild bore in wherever to sneeze which creates a breeze which, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, all ends up affecting traffic in LA or something. I forgot how it works exactly.”

“Oh, yeah,” Greer says. “There was a Honda commercial a few years back like that.”

I roll my eyes at her Greerness. “I just feel like I have less baggage and so, I don’t know, I’m able to just accept things more, not have to fight them. Don’t fight the river, go with it.”

“God, you do sound transformed.” She dabs the paper napkin against the corner of her mouth. Then she abruptly looks down at it. “Speaking of the rain forest,” she says. “Poor napkin.”

As we finish our lunches, I feel this little flame inside of me. This proud little flame, because even though it’s new, I do feel transformed. The technical term is Being on a Pink Cloud. I hear the only trouble with Pink Clouds is that eventually you fall off.

After work, I head straight to HealingHorizons for my first Group. For the first fifteen minutes, it’s exactly like rehab. Because I’m new, they go over the rules of the group, all of which I already know: no crosstalk, no handing tissues to someone if they cry, “I” statements. We go around the room introducing ourselves, saying a little bit about our lives, how long we’ve been sober. But after fifteen minutes, the door swings open, this guy walks in and everything changes.

The first thing I notice about him, the first thing
anybody
would notice about him is the plain fact that he is what a magazine might describe as painfully handsome. He’s got jet-black hair, husky-blue eyes, a strong nose, a strong chin, dimples—all of it. Yet, he’s a little rough around the edges; five, maybe six o’clock shadow, tousled hair, rumpled clothes. But he looks sloppy almost as if a fifteen-hundred-dollar-a-day prop-stylist made him look this way. He apologizes for being late as he makes his way over to an empty chair by the window. His voice is deep, low-country South Carolina. “I’ve had an awful day,” he begins, taking over the room. But nobody seems to mind. In fact, everybody is looking at him, spellbound. So am I. Every few seconds his eyes twitch, a nervous tic. I have the exact same nervous tic. This is truly appalling.

Foster is his name. He’s thirty-three, a crack addict/alcoholic who doesn’t need money and thus has too much free time on his hands. He has a small, vague job for just this reason. He’s living with a physically abusive alcoholic illegal alien from London named Kyle. And from what I gather, he’s trying to get the guy to move out. “I almost used last night,” he says. “After work, I got off at two
A.M.
, I was just dreading going home to him. So I went up to Eighth Avenue and I was going to score some crack. I was out of control and I was going to do it. But then, this hustler I know, the guy I was going to buy the crack from, was arrested right before my eyes, just as I was about to come up to him.” Foster exhales, tosses his head back. I look at his Adam’s apple, the dark razor stubble that shadows his neck. “It just really knocked the wind out of me.”

He runs his fingers through his hair. He doesn’t seem to actually look at anybody in the room, make eye contact. Just shifts around in his seat, fidgets. He’s in his own world.

The moderator of the group, Wayne, asks the room, “Would anybody like to give Foster any feedback?”

An older man to my left says, “I’m glad you didn’t use, Foster. I’m really glad you didn’t use.”

Foster mouths a quick
Thanks
and slumps lower in his chair.

For a moment, the room is silent. Watching him. I mean, handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.

“You know,” Foster begins with almost a manic level of intensity, “I just want go kayaking in the Florida Keys, get a black lab, grow tomatoes, have a life. I don’t want all this craziness. I don’t want this insanity. I’m really sick and tired of it.” He pounds his fist on his thigh.

His eyes dart around the room. He glances over here, over there and then at me, and then on to someone else, but he sort of skids into a double take and turns back to look at me. He stares at me for what feels like a very long time and I think,
Do I have something hanging out of my nose?

“Hey, I’m sorry I was late. What’s your name?” he asks as he gets up out of his chair and comes over to me, hand extended.

“Augusten,” I tell him, discreetly wiping my hand on my jeans before taking his hand to shake it. My heart is racing. He is thrilling.

“Augusten,” he repeats. “Augusten. What an interesting name. You mind if I call you Auggie?”

“Auggie is fine.” I repress the urge to smile at my delight over having just been given a pet name by this man.

He smiles back. “Great,” he says. “Welcome to Group.”

He sits back down and Group continues. For the next hour and a half, I am aware that he is watching me.

When Group is over, we all pile into the same elevator and nobody says a word. That’s the strange thing about elevators, it’s like they have this power to silence you. I’ve just been in group therapy where people will reveal the most intimate details of their lives to complete strangers, yet in the elevator nobody can say a word.

Outside, people exchange
good-byes
and
see you soon
s, and head off in different directions.

I make a left toward Park Avenue and I can feel Foster a few beats behind me.
Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me
, I am psychically commanding him.

But he doesn’t. At Park, he heads north and I head south.

I walk the ten blocks home thinking about Group, specifically this Foster guy. I realize I’m excited for Thursday, the next Group. I realize Foster is the reason why.

I go straight to Perry Street AA. Tonight, the speaker is talking about how people in recovery are always looking for these big, dramatic miracles. How we want the glass of water to magically rise up off the table. How we overlook the miracle that there is a glass at all in the first place. And given the universe, isn’t the real miracle that the glass doesn’t just float up and away?

THE BRITISH INVASION

H

ayden calls from rehab, collect. I accept the charges.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says in that British lilt that I miss as soon as I hear.

“Really? What are you going to do, where are you going to go?”

Silence. Then, “Well, I really don’t have anywhere to go, except home to London, but I’m not ready for that yet. So I was wondering . . .” He drifts off. “Well, I was wondering if maybe I could stay with you, just for a little while, just until—”

I cut him off, unable to contain my excitement. “Yes, I would love it.”

“Really?” he asks.

“Come immediately. It’ll be like a minirehab.”

It’s decided that he will arrive tomorrow night, at eight. After we hang up, I walk around my studio apartment, grinning like a crazy person. It’s a tiny apartment, but no smaller than the rooms at rehab, and three of us fit into those at a time. Hayden can sleep on the sofa, like a pet.

He can curl up at night with the stuffed animal I will get for him.

At work the next day, we’re informed that we are finalists in the review for the Wirksam beer account. This means that instead of pitching against seven other agencies, it’s down to three.

“I have a really good feeling about this,” Greer confesses. Then, “It’s really too bad about Fabergé.”

Our perfume client has decided not to launch a new perfume. The account has gone into remission. I feel spared and am relieved that I don’t have to work on that account. I want to be as far away from Fabergé eggs as possible.

“Yeah, bummer,” I say sarcastically.

At work, Greer has a copy of
Entertainment Weekly
on her desk and I thumb through it. It’s amazing how many of the celebrities in there remind me of Foster from group. I’m hit by a pang. A pang of what, exactly, I’m not sure.

“I don’t like Meg Ryan,” Greer announces.

“Why?”

“I just don’t buy her ‘I’m so together’ bullshit. I think she’s really a very angry person inside.”

“Oh . . . kay,” I say. “We’re not
projecting
, are we, Greer?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she says.

Good. That’s the Greer I know and love.

I glance down at my desk drawer and there’s something sticking out, so I open it. The drawer is crammed with pages torn from magazines. “What the?” I say as I pull the pages out, unfold them. It takes me a moment to see that the pages were not just randomly torn out. They are beer ads. “Did you do this?” I say to Greer.

“Do what?” she says, leaning forward.

I unfold one of the ads, an ad for Coors, and show it to her. “This. Did you stuff all these in my drawer?”

“That’s weird,” she says in a way that makes me know she’s innocent. “Why would someone do that?”

I crumple them up and shove them into the trash can. I try to dismiss it as some sort of weird joke, but I can’t shake the creepy feeling. Somebody went to a lot of effort to pull those ads from magazines. Somebody put some real time into it.

It’s like something I would do myself in a blackout.

Hayden’s plane is delayed six hours. He arrives at two in the morning. We have a late dinner at a twenty-four hour restaurant in the East Village and then stay up until five, talking maniacally. Plotting, planning our sobriety. It’s amazing how drunk you can be without alcohol.

It’s unclear how long Hayden will stay. At least a couple of weeks. I’m thinking even a month or perhaps for the rest of my life. The only thing is, we made this agreement: if he relapsed, I have to ask him to leave. I can’t imagine him relapsing, because he’s so determined. And I know that I certainly won’t. Once I put my mind to something, that’s it. Of course, that was the whole problem in terms of cocktails.

I feel incredibly euphoric tonight. This
must
be that glorious Pink Cloud, God-rays shining through. With Hayden’s suitcases opened next to the sofa, and the sofa turned into a makeshift bed, the room feels highly occupied. I’m glad I’m not alone; instead of feeling cramped, I feel secure. At around five-thirty we crawl into our respective beds and sleep.

My alarm clock goes off at nine and wakes us both up. “Do you feel hungover?” I ask Hayden groggily.

“I most certainly do,” he admits.

“I don’t mean tired, I mean—”

“I know exactly what you mean,” he interjects. “I feel like I drank a bottle of wine. I even feel guilty.”

“Exactly!” I say, relieved that he feels it too. Relieved that I am not the only one who is so unaccustomed to happiness and the feeling of impending punishment that follows.

I climb out of bed and twist, trying to pop my back. “I have Group after work, so I won’t be home until like seven-thirty. If you want, we can go to the eight o’clock Perry Street meeting.”

“Great,” he says.

“What are you going to do today?” I ask.

He smirks. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe relapse.” He laughs. “Actually, I want to go speak to someone at Carl Fisher about perhaps doing some freelance music editing.”

I ask him who Carl Fisher is.

He tells me that they are a huge and famous publisher of classical music, that he’s worked with them before. I had forgotten that Hayden was not only a crack addict, but also a classical music editor. I think,
Please don’t look at my CD collection: Madonna, Julia Fordham, one well-hidden Bette Midler
.

There’s nothing to do at work but wait for beer news. So Greer and I make the most constructive use of our time by thumbing through magazines, making long distance calls and talking about other people.

“Is he cute?” she asks when I tell her Hayden has come to stay with me for a while.

I throw a pencil up at the suspended ceiling like a dart and it sticks. “No, it’s not like that at all, there’s absolutely no physical chemistry between us. We just click, you know, in other ways.” I tell Greer about what I heard at AA the other night, about the glass of water.

“God, that’s really insightful,” she says, trotting her paperclip pony across the top of the stapler. “It’s like really appreciating what you have, what’s in front of you.” She gazes out the window. “I need to remember that. I seem to fly off the handle too easily. And all my books say anger is really bad for your health.”

Aside from collecting crocodile handbags from Hermés and Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, Greer is an aficionado of self-help books.

“I wish
I
were an alcoholic. I mean, you’re getting all this really good therapy and all these insights from those alcoholic meetings.”

I do feel a little smug. But then my compassion kicks in. “You could be an alcoholic too,” I tell her.

“No,” she sighs. “I wouldn’t be a good alcoholic. I’d be the good
wife
of an alcoholic.
I’m
codependent. That’s why you and I get along so well.” She looks at me earnestly. “I’m glad you’re an alcoholic though,” she adds. “I mean, I’m glad you’re getting all this therapy, because I feel like I’m getting it too, secondhand from you.”

I smile at her like,
You moron
.

“No, I mean it, I’m practicing the same ‘letting go’ thing you are. I already feel like things are bothering me less. You’re really inspiring to me. I even have a sticky note on my refrigerator at home:
LET IT GO
.”

Then I realize what’s happening: Greer is shape-shifting. She is a puzzle piece who is reshaping herself to accommodate the newly reshaped me. More or less.

At Group, I talk about work. How it’s manageable, how I don’t feel obsessed with it. Actually, I explain, it’s the opposite. Then I tell everybody about how Hayden has come to stay with me for a while. I explain how we met in rehab. The group consensus is that this could be a very good experience, but to make sure we’ve established boundaries.

Foster speaks in sweeping, affirmative statements about how he’s going to ask
his
Brit to leave. He’s very confident, high-strung.

The group encourages him. “Yes, you should,” they say. It seems that Foster has been trying to get rid of the Brit for the six months that he’s been in Group. It also turns out that Foster has been in and out of rehab four times.

Three times I catch him looking at me, then looking away. I feel this strange, invisible connection with him. Like a current. I wonder if I am imagining it. I also wonder if there is any significance to the fact that last week, he was wearing a long-sleeved denim shirt and today he is wearing a tight white T-shirt.

Outside after group, I head off toward Park, walking quickly so I make it to Perry Street on time to meet Hayden.

Foster appears beside me. “Hey, Auggie, wait up,” he says, passing me a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “I just wanted to give you my number, you know, in case you ever need to talk.” He winks. Or is it a twitch?

Alcoholics are always giving their phone numbers to each other. In fact, in rehab, I learned you’re supposed to ask for people’s phone numbers, in case you need to call somebody. And sure enough, I already have a collection of ten phone numbers from people I don’t know at Perry Street. I got six numbers my first night. “In case you need to talk, call anytime,” people say. Alcoholic friends are as easy to make as Sea Monkeys.

“Okay, great—thanks,” I say, slipping the number into the front pocket of my jeans. “I appreciate it.” I try to sound normal, casual. An experienced phone-number recipient, simply working the program.

“See ya next week then,” Foster says, smiling as he heads into the street, arm extended, a taxi stopping immediately, as if on cue.

As I walk to the Perry Street meeting I can feel the slip of paper in my pocket. It seems to contain a heat source.

Hayden’s waiting outside with two large cups of coffee. He hands one to me. “What happened?” he says, smiling, waiting.

“What do you mean?” I ask, taking the lid off the coffee, blowing some of the heat away.

“I don’t know,” he says. “You just look so happy.”

I laugh too hard. “I do?” Coffee sloshes over the edge of the cup onto my hand. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just the Pink Cloud. Wanna head inside?”

“I suppose. Oh, by the way,” he says casually as we’re taking our seats, “I never would have pegged you for a Stevie Nicks fan.”

I glare at him.

All through the meeting, I pay no attention to anything anyone says and instead sit there, silently concocting reasons to call Foster.

After Perry Street, we find a place around the corner from my apartment that has a Ping-Pong table, so we go there and play. We find a rhythm and actually keep the ball going for a good five minutes at a time.

Ping: Hayden thinks he’ll get some work from Carl Fisher.

Pong: I had a slow day at work.

Ping: Hayden went to the library and checked out some books.

Pong: I think I’m really attracted to a crack addict in my group therapy.

Dribble, dribble, dribble, the ball bounces off the table onto the floor. “What are you talking about, what crack addict?”

It seems best to play this casual. “It’s nothing,” I say, leaning over to retrieve the ball. “It’s just a feeling, you know. It’ll pass.”

He eyes me suspiciously. “You know better than this, Augusten,” he says, his British accent lending his words an extra helping of authority.

“I know, I know,” I say. “Nothing’s going to
happen
, it’s just this weird thing. He’s a mess, I would never get involved with him, besides there is NO WAY he would ever be attracted to me. He’s just friendly.”

We leave, head home.

“I’m going to keep my eye on you,” he warns.

When Hayden’s in the bathroom, I slip the number out of my pocket and stash it safely in my wallet. It gives me a little thrumming sensation in my chest knowing it’s there.

There’s a message on my machine. “Hi Augusten, it’s Greer. Listen, since tomorrow’s Friday and nothing’s going on at work, let’s just take the day off, a mental health day. Call me if that’s okay with you.”

Hayden and I spend the evening reading. He reads poetry. “God, I’m not sure reading Anne Sexton is such a good idea in early sobriety,” he comments.

I read a paperback novel, but must read each page twice because my mind won’t focus on the words. At ten, we turn off the lights and go to sleep. I lie awake for at least an hour, replaying the moment Foster handed me the phone number.

And then in a moment of shining epiphany, I realize I didn’t actually
see
him write the number down. Which means he must have written it down before Group. Which means at least once, he has thought about me
outside
of Group. Which means that whether consciously or subconsciously, this could have affected his choice of what to wear to Group. Which means that the tight white T-shirt could very well have been meant for me. Sometimes people compare gay men to teenage girls and they are correct, I realize. I think the reason is because gay men didn’t get to express their little crushes in high school. So that’s why we’re like this as adults, obsessing over who wore what white T-shirt and what it means,
really
.

“Are you asleep?” Hayden asks softly.

I mumble, as if I am half-asleep. Best to keep my obsessions to myself for now. Besides, nobody in rehab said there was anything wrong with having a little fantasy.

•  •  •

“I don’t know, I just feel lousy.”

I’m talking to Pighead on the phone. I called him to see if he wanted to do something since I have the day off. “Do you have a fever?”

He hiccups. “No, it’s just that these . . .” He hiccups again, midsentence. “Hiccups won’t go away.” Then he confesses, “I have a small fever, my head feels fuzzy.”

I’m at his house within fifteen minutes, and he looks awful. Pale and sweaty and the hiccups are almost constant. “I think you should call your doctor.”

“I already have,” he says. “She’s out of town, her message center is trying to get ahold of her so she can call me back.”

Virgil is hyperventilating, running from room to room, as if there’s about to be a thunderstorm. “Can you take Virgil out for a walk? I haven’t taken him outside yet.”