Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [19]
I hear commotion upstairs. Then all at once, a thunder of feet, laughter on the stairway behind me. I feel them see me.
Peggy hands me the pill along with a tiny paper cup of water. She looks up and throws out some hi’s to the crowd.
I watch as people glide down one of the two corridors, gather in the conversation pit. One person comes over to us.
“Hi, Kavi,” Peggy says.
Kavi smiles only at me, as if I am something new on the menu. He’s wearing black jeans with a coin-studded belt and a tight white shirt. His eyebrows are thick and undivided, a chalkboard eraser arched across his forehead. He looks Indian, but highly gay-Americanized. This strikes me as a sort of a sacrilege. A lock of his thick, black hair falls precisely across his forehead in a glossy, deliberate curl. “I’m Kavi. What are you here for?”
“Thirty days.”
He smirks, puts one hand on his hip. “No, I mean what’s your drug of choice?”
I understand nothing he says. Suddenly I speak a different language, one that only chairs and light fixtures can understand.
He waits for my answer.
I wait for my answer.
He rolls his eyes. “You know . . . like alcohol . . . crack . . . crystal . . .”
I suddenly hear one word I can understand. “Oh, alcohol. Sorry.”
Kavi seems bored by my answer. “I’m a sex addict, that’s why I’m here, but also cocaine. I never really was much of a drinker. I’m from Corpus Christi. I’m a flight attendant.”
I think, From now on it’s Amtrak.
Peggy gets an idea, looks at Kavi. “How’d you like to be a buddy, Kavi? Show Augusten around?”
Kavi appears delighted. “I guess,” he says, twirling his curl in a nonchalant fashion.
“Great,” she says. Then to me, “You’re free.”
I wish.
Now I’m standing next to Kavi in the center of the conversation pit. Other patients look at me, come over. They stick their hands out and say things. I keep repeating my name and that I’m from New York. I believe that I am meeting people, shaking their hands, but I have left my body and am operating purely on muscle memory.
Kavi pulls me away, turns to the crowd, says something. He leads me down the length of the men’s corridor; I am his.
“This is the gym. Ellen holds her drama therapy workshops in here. Ellen’s unreal.” He rolls his eyes and shivers.
The gym is filled with boxes and folding chairs, stacked in rows against the wall. I see, in the far corner, a small bench press without weights. The basketball hoops have no nets, boxes stacked high beneath them. I feel fairly certain I am the only person ever to have broken a sweat in this gym. And my sweat is from panic.
“On Fridays we have an AA meeting here that’s open to the public.”
It hits me that “the public” is a group to which I no longer belong. “Is there a pool here?” I ask idiotically.
“Ever go skinny dipping?” Kavi answers, his finger scratching his left nostril.
I need very badly to escape from Kavi. “Well, thanks for the tour,” I say, turning toward the exit.
He shrugs and leads me back out into the common area with the indestructible furniture and fireproof ceiling.
A big, friendly-looking man approaches me. “Hey, I’m Bobby,” he says with a thick Baltimore accent, “. . . and I’m an alcoholic.”
Saturday Night Live, this is a skit. I’m actually home, drunk, watching TV. This is my worst blackout ever. Somebody must have put something in my drink.
Big Bobby looks at me like a dog waiting for a treat after performing a trick. He is a very happy man. He looks brainwashed. Or worse. I check his forehead for a large surgical scar.
He continues to smile expectantly.
I take a step back. I don’t want to catch whatever he has. He’s a disturbing, out-of-uniform Santa.
Kavi slinks over to us. “Lunch,” he purrs.
All at once, people appear from various unseen places. It’s as if their minds share one collective thought. Time . . . for . . . lunch . . . I’m surprised they don’t move with their arms extended out in front of them, like in Night of the Living Dead.
I follow Bobby and Kavi up the back stairs, past the main room and down