Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [105]
“Well, what about me?” she cries. “I need some support here.”
“Advertising is not the most important thing in the world, Greer.”
“No, of course not,” she spits. “You are.”
I glance over at the empty bottle. I would need to be very drunk to speak with her now. A gram would help, too.
“Look, I gotta—”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean that. I just mean that I need help, too.”
“I can’t be your support system,” I say. “I have too much going on in my life. There’s not enough of me left over.”
“I had a dream about you last night,” she begins. “I dreamt that I was working late at the office and all of a sudden, there was a tornado. And the windows started to blow in and there was glass everywhere. And in the dream, I knew you were the tornado.”
“Sorry about your dream.”
“I bet you are,” she says and hangs up.
An hour and a half later, she calls back. There is apology in her voice. “I just thought you’d like to know what happened to Rick,” she says.
Rick is now the farthest thing from my mind, but whatever happened to him, I can only hope it was something that involved a stun gun. “What?” I say, weary, half interested, half not giving a fuck.
“He was promoted,” she says.
“That’s wonderful,” I say, ready to hang up.
“To Direct,” she adds.
A thin smile comes to me. Rick is now in Direct Marketing, the lowest of the low. His life will be about getting people to open their envelopes and send back the SASE. If ad people are bottom-feeders, Rick is now a catfish with no dorsal fin and an extra eye.
I drink to Rick.
“He coded. It took five people just to get his heart going again. He hasn’t regained consciousness.” These are the first words I hear this morning, not counting “Grande? or venti?” from the Starbucks guy. Pighead’s brother is standing next to me in ICU. We are both standing in the doorway to Pighead’s room. Pighead himself is attached to many busy machines.
“I don’t get it,” I say. My fingers burn from the hot coffee in my hand.
“He started complaining last night. Saying his chest hurt. He was cold and sweaty. My mother freaked, called nine-one-one. I got here at about three.”
At three, I was still doing lines. This reminds me that I brought one of the packets with me. “I gotta run to the bathroom. Be back in a sec,” I say, turning and walking down the hall. Inside the bathroom, I open the little envelope and set it on the stainless steel ledge above the sink. I open my wallet and pull out a credit card. I go to work on the coke. I do maybe a quarter of it. I fold the envelope back up and stick it in my pocket. Then I decide, fuck it. And I take the envelope out again and do another quarter. I take a leak and my piss smells like scotch. Then I go back outside. Jerry is still staring at his older brother. I walk past him and go to Pighead’s bedside.
“Pighead,” I say. “You in there?” I poke his arm with my index finger. He doesn’t respond.
“Wake up,” I say very quietly. It’s an effort to speak softly because the coke is pushing me. I’m hitting my breaks constantly, skidding inside.
Nothing. Less than nothing. The ventilator is incredibly offensive, breathing for him like this. Giving him these expansive, healthy breaths. For the first time today, I notice that I’m wearing jeans and a tight white T-shirt. The veins along my arms stand out like highways on a map and I feel ashamed. It feels obscene to look this healthy.
On the way home, I tell myself he’s dying, that I have to accept this fact. Then I tell myself, no he’s not, I don’t have to accept anything. I can feel the small pouch of coke in my pocket. It’s like this tiny powder hard-on that wants attention. But the thing is, I don’t really love coke. So I stop at a liquor store on University Place and pick up a bottle of Dewar’s.
Pighead’s mother calls me three times, leaving long messages on my machine. Messages that say things like “When are you coming?” and “Still no change.” I listen to her speak into the machine, unable to answer