Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [64]
“I need to get going now, I really do.” It feels impossible for me to sit still another moment. Better to leave than be left.
“You going to be okay?”
“Uh huh.”
We stand. I place my hand on the brass doorknob, turn and pull. Nothing happens. He reaches over and twists the deadbolt; the door opens. For an awkward moment, we stand there.
He gives me a hug. I don’t fight it.
“You smell good,” he tells me.
“You do, too,” I say, reduced now to single-syllable words.
The hug goes on longer than casual hugs do.
“And you feel good, too.”
“So do you.”
We both feel it, it would be impossible not to. But neither of us will mention it.
I pull back and say, “Okay, see you later. Thanks for the sandwich and everything.”
“I’m glad I got to be with you some.”
I walk down the hall toward the elevator bank. I turn back in the direction of his door, and he’s still standing there, watching me. I want to run back to him and tell him everything that was going through my mind. But I don’t. I leave. He’s a crack addict from my group therapy. I can’t have these feelings about him.
In the cab home, I feel like I have been sniffing glue all night. High and guilty. The fumes of him still trapped in my nose.
“It’s obvious what you’re doing,” Hayden says. He dunks and redunks the chamomile tea bag in his mug. “You’re defocusing.”
To “defocus” is to focus on someone else, or something else other than your sobriety. Your sobriety should, at all times, remain your number one priority. Alcoholics instinctively defocus. I am a perfect example. With three hundred bottles of Dewar’s in my apartment, all I could see was the wall. Now all I can see is Foster.
“I know. I mean, I think that’s part of it.”
“I don’t like the sound of this at all, you getting involved with a crack addict from your group therapy. That’s really addict behavior.”
“We’re not involved,” I say in my own defense.
“You told me he was hugging you on his couch.”
“Because I was upset. He’s a nice guy.”
“Look, I’m not here to make judgments, but I just think this is, well, crazy.”
I wish Hayden would vanish in a cloud of smoke. “Hayden, you’re gonna have to stop with this mental health stuff. Or I’ll have to take a cheese grater across your face.”
“You’re obsessing on him,” he says, unfazed.
This is true, I am. “I am not,” I say.
“This is your addict talking. Your addict needs something to fill it up. Your addict is hungry. It’s trying to feed.” He sounds as though he is describing the plot of a science fiction horror film.
“I’m just upset about Pighead being in the hospital. Foster was only being nice, helping me out. That’s all.”
“What do you mean? Pighead is in the hospital?”
I want a beer. A six-pack. And then I want to go out for drinks. “Yeah, hospital. He called me at work today. His doctor checked him in. They’re doing tests, that’s all I know. Hiccups that won’t go away.”
“Dear God, I’m sorry. Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. They’re still trying to find out what’s wrong. I mean, yeah, he’s okay, I’m sure he’s okay. They just need to figure out this hiccup thing.”
Hayden looks at me with utter compassion; the long-lost son of Mother Teresa.
For some reason, the fact that Pighead is in the hospital lets me off the hook with Hayden. And then, this awful feeling. I feel happy that Pighead is in the hospital, deflecting the attention. And I’m a monster again.
Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don’t go there alone, Rae once said.
My office door is unlocked. Immediately, this makes me suspicious. I always lock my door. And if I don’t, the cleaning lady does. I throw my stuff on the sofa and go over to my desk. There is a yellow sticky note on my computer screen. DRINKS. ODEON NINE TONIGHT—BE THERE. Beneath this is another line: (ONE GLASS OF WINE NEVER HURT ANYBODY.)
I pick up the phone and dial Greer’s extension, but she’s not in yet. I walk over to the bookcase, and I notice that the storyboards we did for the Pizza Hut pitch have been rearranged. These are boards we presented last year, and we just keep