Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [108]
I keep talking to him but I don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe there’s a holding area or something. A process. Like going through customs with a dog. How it has to stay in quarantine for a few weeks before you can take it home. Maybe it’s like that. Or maybe you just die and that’s it. Maybe there is nothing else. Maybe your body heat simply evaporates and adds another billionth of a degree of heat to the world.
The phone rings. I take a hurried swallow of scotch and answer it. It’s Foster. Why am I not surprised? “Well, well, well,” I say.
“Hey, Auggie.”
“Hey, Fosty,” I mimic, hatefully. “Where’s your little Brit tonight?”
I hear the flick of a lighter, a sharp inhale. “He’s gone. Been gone for three, four days,” Foster says as he holds his breath.
“And you?” I ask.
He exhales into the phone, which I guess is my answer. “I’m fucked up. How’s life?”
This makes me laugh. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days. It’s bitter, like the first twenty seconds of water coming out of an old faucet. “What’s your address?”
It takes me about fifty minutes to reach Foster’s apartment by cab. I tip the driver three bucks and walk to the front door of the brownstone. He answers wearing a tank top, sweatpants and a blue bandana on his head. I walk through the door without saying anything.
“Want the grand tour?” he asks with zero enthusiasm.
I’m standing in the foyer. In front of me is a staircase that winds up to a second floor. To my right is one large room and to my left is another. There is no furiture. Various articles of clothing are strewn about; underwear, jeans, a sock and—inexplicably—a football helmet. I follow Foster through the living room and into the kitchen. Although it would be considered a “gourmet, true cook’s kitchen” by a perky real-estate agent, it’s just another empty room. The Wolf stove, the Sub-Zero refrigerator with the glass doors, the slate countertops all ignored. “Nice kitchen. Bet you make some really lovely dinners here,” I say.
“Oh yeah,” he says, “I’m always cooking up a fucking storm.”
“Why’d you even bother?” I ask him.
“Gotta live somewhere,” is his answer.
I look at the copper backsplash and get the cliché lump in my throat. “Pighead died, Foster. And I’m drinking again.” I go over and wrap my arms around him and tuck my face against his neck.
“Shhhhhh, baby.” He strokes the back of my head with his fingers. “Let’s smoke.”
I ease away from him as he opens one of the drawers in the kitchen. He removes a glass pipe and a small plastic bag, along with a yellow Bic lighter. “C’mon, let’s go get comfortable.” He leaves the drawer open.
We sit cross-legged on the futon in his bedroom. He hands the pipe to me. I place it to my lips and our eyes meet. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod my head.
He lights the white rocks at the end of the pipe and I draw. A dreamy, warm smoke fills my lungs and goes immediately to a place inside of me that I have been unable to reach my entire life. The taste is both chemical and slightly sweet. I hold it in my lungs until I feel vaguely faint and then let it out.
This is perfect.
Nothing can compare to this.
It is instant and it is profound. This is what has been missing from me my entire life.
Foster smiles so warmly at me that I lean over and hug him as hard as I possibly can. He kisses my face over and over. Then he lights the pipe for himself.
Back and forth we trade it. He lights it for me, I light it for him.
Later, while Foster is lying on his back with his shirt off, I bring my face close to his stomach and study the ripples. They fascinate me. How did he get them? Where did they come from? God, the body is so breathtakingly amazing.
As if we are thinking one continuous thought, Foster begins doing crunches. I watch the muscles in his stomach bloom red with heat and blood. He does crunches and he doesn’t stop. Sweat begins to form on his forehead. His face becomes liquid. I take the pipe and light it myself, watching. Sweat