Dry: A Memoir (23 page)

Why would I want to?

He told me,
I love you
. Then he called me all manic saying how much I’d changed his life. And now, nothing. So I’m going up and down, my mood completely dependent upon his sobriety or lack of. He’s like this incredibly beautiful Van Gogh painting with slashes all through it. True, it’s a Van Gogh. But look at those slashes.

I can see the person he could be, the person he almost is. And I want that person. I want to love that person. I want
that
to be the person who tells me I’m hogging all the covers. I can’t stand one minute looking at the stars out the sunroof and the next minute wondering, does he have a broken bottle pressed against his neck?

And here’s the part I don’t admit to anybody, even Hayden: part of me wants to see him using. I want to know what he’s like. I want to know
all
sides of him. I want to see if he looks more content when he’s with me or his crack.

When Hayden walks in the door, he looks suspicious. Guilty. I immediately think,
You’ve relapsed
. “Augusten, we need to have a talk.”

Here it comes.

“I’m going back to London.”

Because this is the last thing I expected him to say, I make him tell me again.

“It’s time for me to get back to London. I’ve been here for more than six months. And there’s a project waiting for me there.”

I feel as if I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. I should be relieved, I suppose. To have the apartment all to myself, the inconvenience of stepping over suitcases gone. But instead, I feel like I’m being abandoned.

“When are you leaving?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“When did you decide this?” I can’t believe it’s so sudden.

“Today, when I got the call about the project in London. It’s a famous composer. I’d be insane not to take it.” He lights a Silk Cut.

I have to be happy for him. I can’t be selfish for me. He can’t stay forever, no matter how much I want him to. “Well, we should do something special before you leave. Maybe I should try and see if I can get tickets to
Rent
.”

“Oh, that would be terrific, but I doubt you can.”

“I’ll call Ticket Master.”

Hayden’s going to work with a famous composer and I’m going to end up sitting in a parked cab on Eighth Avenue, waiting while my Banana Republic boyfriend buys crack from a teenage hustler. That is, assuming he’s still alive. I hate that I love him.

The intercom on the wall next to the door lets out a lame squawk. Hayden and I both look at it; we’ve never heard it before. Nobody ever visits me and I always pick up, never order in for delivery. I go over and push the
TALK
button. “Yeah?”

“Auggie, it’s me, Foster.”

“Brilliant!” Hayden says, excitedly rubbing his hands together. Hayden has never seen Foster before. Suddenly there is the possibility of drama.

I buzz him up. A few seconds later, he knocks on the door. I let him in.

“I had to see you.” And then he starts crying, grabbing ahold of me and sobbing against my neck. I look at Hayden who mouths,
Crack
. I mouth back,
No shit
.

“Foster, what’s going on? C’mon, pull yourself together and tell me what’s happened.”

He sniffs, wipes his nose on the shoulder of his T-shirt and says, “Hi, you must be Hayden. I’m Foster. Nice to meet you. Sorry for barging in like this, but—”

“Yes, that’s whom I assumed you were. Nice to meet you, too.”

“I picked up again, Auggie. Big time. I couldn’t stop myself. I’m out of control.”

“Where have you been?”

“The U.N. Plaza.”

“What? The U.N. Plaza? For two days?”

“The windows open so the smoke can get out. Anyway, I want to get better. I’m checking into rehab.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. I think I’ll go peruse Barnes & Noble for something to read on the plane. Something inspiring like
Final Exit
.”

“Thanks, Hayden. See you later. I’ll call Ticketmaster, see about
Rent
.”

“You guys are going to see
Rent
?” Foster asks. “I wanna go.”

“You wouldn’t like it. You can’t smoke inside the theater,” I tell him.

Hayden leaves and Foster takes my arm and pulls me over to the bed, where he sits.

“I’ve never seen where you live before. It’s . . . small.”

It occurs to me that no matter how rock-bottom Foster became, he would never be able to live in something as humble as my apartment. And my apartment is probably not too humble by ordinary standards. He’s completely spoiled. “Yeah, I know. Forget about the apartment. Listen, you better get to rehab. You’re a mess, a real train wreck.”

“I know, Auggie. Please, will you forgive me? I can’t help it. You know what that’s like, remember? You used to be a mess.”

“Yeah, I know,” I admit, “I do remember what it’s like to be out of control.” Odd that I say this in the past tense.

Foster gives me a small, sweet smile. “I do love you, you know. Even though I know I’m no great prize, I am
your
no great prize.”

“Why did I ever agree to group therapy?”

“No, Auggie. You got a lot out of it, you really did.”

“Like you?” I ask nastily.

He rolls me over on top of him. “Yeah, like me.”

After
Rent
, we walk over to Ninth Avenue and hail a cab to take us back downtown. “There’s really no reason to ever go above Fourteenth Street,” I say as we fly down Ninth, making all the lights. “Except for the brief excursion for live theater.”

“Are the meat samosas filled with lamb or beef?” Hayden asks the waiter at the Indian restaurant.

“They are filled with
meat
,” he replies proudly.

Hayden orders the vegetarian samosas.

“At least I can better understand your attraction to him now, after seeing him,” Hayden says, breaking off a piece of papadum. “He’s possibly the most attractive man I have ever seen in my life. He’s quite literally breathtaking. I no longer blame you at all for your shallowness and lack of judgment.”

I smirk. “Yeah . . . well.” I take a sip of Diet Coke, the Ketel One martini of those in recovery. I’m so sick of Diet fucking Coke.

“It’s almost like a male Liz Taylor thing.”

“How do you mean?” I ask him.

“You know, if she weren’t as beautiful as she is, people wouldn’t admire her
struggle
with booze and pills. They’d just cross her off as a hopeless lush. We’re a very visual society.”

“I don’t know. My obsession with Foster is kind of fading. It’s like he’s severed my give-a-shit nerve. I’m over him.”

“Ha! You are so full of shit. He’s done just the opposite; he’s reconnected your give-a-shit nerve.”

“No, it’s not true. I don’t deserve to be in love with such a mess.”

“I’m not talking about what you deserve. I’m talking about what you feel.”

“I hate it when you play therapist. Especially with
your
accent. It makes everything you say sound so BBC.”

The first course arrives and we start talking about rehab. “Don’t you think it’s odd,” Hayden says, “that you spend thirty intense days with these perfect strangers, you become this really tight little dysfunctional family? And you never hear from anybody again?”

I stab a piece of tikka chicken kabob onto my plate. “I do think about that sometimes. Like, I wonder if Dr. Valium is okay. Or Big Bobby, I wonder if he’s cross-addicted to White Castle.” In rehab we learned that it’s easy to cross-addict from one thing to another. Like you give up crack and you pick up dope. Or you give up booze and pick up a crack addict.

“I’m sure Pregnant Paul is out there using again. I have no doubt about that,” he assures me.

“And that girl, what was her name? The cutter?

“Sarah,” he says.

“That’s right, Sarah. She’s probably sitting at home right now with a serving fork stuck in her thigh and a syringe in her arm, having multiple orgasms.”

“You’ve really only slept with Foster once?” Hayden asks as he spoons some maatar paneer gravy over his saffron rice.

“Twice now, actually.”

“When was the twice?”

“Yesterday, after you went to Barnes & Noble. But I only count it as the first ‘official’ time.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this time, I looked.”

Back home, Hayden gathers his things together from around the apartment, stuffing them into his suitcases, double-checking under the sofa and in the bathroom for anything left behind.

Foster calls just after we turn off the lights to go to sleep. He calls just to let me know he’s okay and not using. He doesn’t want me to worry, he says. He’s content tonight to just stay home, curled up on the sofa reading
Bastard Out of Carolina
. After the operator cuts in and asks him to deposit twenty-five cents for an additional three minutes, Foster doesn’t call back. But I can see him: standing there on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Seventh Street, banging his head against the hung-up phone receiver, saying
shit, shit, shit
.

I help Hayden carry his suitcases downstairs to the black Lincoln he ordered from a car service to take him to the airport. “No cocktails on the plane,” I warn.

Hayden gives me a hug. “Good luck to you. Please get to some meetings, they’ll do you good.”

“I know, I know. I will. I promise.” Even as I say this, I know I won’t. I’m so over AA.

“And good luck with Foster. Be careful.”

Hayden has become my common sense. I don’t want him to go. I’m afraid of what I might do, what might happen. Without him, who will keep me in check?

He climbs into the backseat, slides the window down and leans out. As the car pulls away he shouts, with feigned earnestness, “And remember, you
are somebody
.”

Hayden is gone. And suddenly I feel so completely alone. I stand on the sidewalk, surrounded by apartment buildings, cabs, cars, people packed into every available inch of this city. And yet I feel alone. It doesn’t feel like we’re each going our own separate ways. It feels like he is moving on and I am staying behind.

I begin to smell it in the hallway as I walk toward my office. It gets stronger. When I finally reach my office door, I realize I have reached ground zero for the smell. I bend down, swipe my hand across the gray wall-to-wall carpeting and then bring my finger to my nose and sniff. It’s unmistakable: scotch.

I open my door. The smell hits me in the face like something physical. Fumes so powerful that if I were to light a match, the room would probably explode.

My office has been drinking, has relapsed without me.

Because I don’t know what to do, I sit at my desk. And amazingly, the alcohol fumes are only more intense. I can only sit there like I am meat marinating.

A moment later, Elenor passes by my office saying a casual “Hi there” as she passes by. Then she reappears, standing in my doorway, nose upturned. A look of alarm passes across her face. She steps inside, sniffing. “Augusten,” she says, “what’s going on in here?” She looks around. I don’t know what she is looking for. A party?

“I haven’t been drinking, Elenor, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

She eyes me suspiciously. My credibility is stretched to the breaking point due to the obvious olfactory situation at hand.

“It smells like a distillery in here.”

“I noticed,” I say.

She leans around and looks in my trash can, glances under my desk. “Any idea why your office smells like this?”

One word comes to mind. “Rick.” I stare at her. “He poured a bottle of scotch in here. It’s probably his idea of funny.”

She stares back at me blankly. “I don’t think Rick would do that,” she says. Then she crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a little smile like I’m some child who is lying about the toothpaste all over the hairbrush. “So everything’s going okay with you? You know, in terms of your . . . situation?”

I can’t believe this. I want to grab her and shake her, scream,
I DIDN’T FUCKING DRINK! DON’T YOU REMEMBER THAT ASSHOLE WAS LOOKING THROUGH MY BACKPACK? DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HE HAS IT IN FOR ME??!!
Instead, I get up from behind my desk and grab my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’m fine, Elenor. Thank you for asking. And I think you’re wrong about Rick. I think this is exactly the kind of thing he would do.”

“Where are you going?” she asks, turning.

I let out my air and look at her like,
You just don’t get it
. “To a keg party, Elenor,” I say.

Walking down the sidewalk, I fume. I shoulder my way through the throngs of workers, clutching their Starbucks cups,
Wall Street Journal
s, briefcases. The sounds of traffic, which I normally don’t even hear, are deafening, oppressive. I pass a building super hosing down the sidewalk and there’s a rainbow in the mist. I step on the rainbow, soaking my shoes.

I can’t call Foster, can’t depend on him. And Pighead has enough to worry about without worrying about me. Hayden is probably sleeping off his jet lag. That’s my sober network. It’s a very short list. I walk quickly, imagine not stopping. Could I walk all the way to California?

If I had gotten a sponsor in AA like I was supposed to, I could call him. And he could tell me, “Let go and let God,” and I could think,
Bullshit
.

I could go to a meeting now and just vent. I could.

On the corner I spot an Irish pub. It’s open, even at ten-thirty in the morning.
Pathetic
, I think.
The kind of place you’d have to be a hard-core alcoholic to step foot in
.

I go inside.

That smell. Stale beer, cigarette smoke, wood, gin. There’s no other smell like it. It’s bar smell. And at once, I feel like I have come home.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to dim light. I make my way to the bar and sit on one of the stools. I set my bag on the bar and my hands are shaking. I can’t do this. I can’t be here. It’s not worth it.

“What’ll it be?” the weathered old bartender asks in a gravelly voice, the skin around his eyes creased, his mustache yellowed from years of exhaling Marlboros.