Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [55]
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.”
It’s nearly noon. Pighead always walks Virgil at around seven, before work. Even when he’s on vacation from work, like now.
I walk Virgil and the instant his paws hit the curb, his leg goes up and he pees. He pees for what feels like twenty minutes. I walk him around the block and I realize I am feeling a little bit of panic. And then I realize that the reason I am feeling this way is because I saw something in Pighead’s eyes that I have never seen before: fear.
Back inside the apartment, Pighead swears he’s fine and that he just needs to rest. He tells me there’s no reason for me to hang out. That he’ll call if he needs anything. I leave. The whole way home I have an uneasy feeling I can’t shake.
Hayden’s pouring boiling water into a mug when I come back to the apartment. “That was fast. Is your friend okay? Want some tea?”
I lean against the sink. “I don’t know Hayden, it’s strange. I mean, Pighead never gets sick.”
“But you said he has AIDS.”
“No, he’s HIV-positive, but he doesn’t actually have full-blown AIDS. I mean, he’s been positive for years, and nothing—not even a cold.”
“Well, it could just be a cold or something. But you need to not be in denial that it could be”—he hedges—“it could be something more.”
The word is heavy, leaden and falls on the floor between us making such a loud sound that neither of us say anything for a while. I don’t allow myself to even imagine that possibility.
Finally, I say, “They have new medications for AIDS now. It’s not like it used to be. People live with it.” As I say this, I recognize in my voice the same tone I use when I’m talking a client into an ad he doesn’t want. I’m selling.
Hayden smiles, blows on his tea.
“Too hot?” I say.
He nods his head. “Oh, by the way, your undertaker friend called you.”
“Jim? When?”
“While you were over at Pighead’s. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
“That’s okay, I’ll call him later.”
“He said he really needs to talk to you.”
A craving strikes. Before, I would have said I wanted a drink. I see now that what I crave is distraction. I don’t want to think about Pighead and his hiccups. I speed-dial Jim. “What’s up?”
“I met somebody,” he says. Jim is always meeting somebody. His somebodies usually last for a week. Or about as long as it takes for him to finally confess what he does for a living. Whichever comes sooner.
“Oh yeah, what’s she like?” I ask.
“She’s great,” Jim says. “A computer programmer. And she’s stacked.”
They met at Raven, a very dark and moody goth bar in the East Village that tends to attract people who are nocturnal and consider Diamanda Galas to be easy listening.
“Have you guys gone out . . .” I want to say, in daylight yet? But instead I say, “to dinner or anything?”
“Yeah, we’ve already made it past the three-date point. And guess what?” he says excitedly. “She knows I’m in prearrangements.”
“Jim, does she know what prearrangements means?”
“Yes,” he answers, annoyed, “she knows.”
I imagine a woman with pale skin, long black hair and black fingernails who wears black lace and is thrilled to have landed herself an undertaker. I see a black hearse sailing along a highway upstate, tin cans flying behind, a sign in shaving cream on the back window: JUST MARRIED! “Sounds great,” I say.
“We’re getting together tonight for drinks at this new place. I was wondering if you wanted to join us, so you can meet her.”
My first reaction is fear. I recall something spoken to me in rehab: If you walk into a barbershop, sooner or later you’ll get a haircut, Rae had said. So don’t go to bars. Don’t even think about it.
“Jim, I’d love to meet her. But I really don’t think I should be going to a bar.”
Hayden looks up from his book.
“Well, it’s not a bar really, it’s a restaurant. They have a bar, but it’s basically a restaurant.”
Hayden watches me, his eyes saying, whatsgoingon???
I’ll feel like a horrible