Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [72]
“Well, of course. That’s why I like it.”
“No, I mean, this in-between thing of ours. It’s like all the hugging and affection and everything, but we don’t have sex.”
“You will let me know the moment you’d like to change that fact, I trust.” I imagine his crooked smile.
“No, I mean I have mixed feelings.”
“Auggie, look. I know we’re not supposed to see each other. I know it’s this big no-no, but I like being with you, I love being with you. More than anybody else I have ever known. And that’s the truth, it is.”
“No major life changes for at least a year.”
As I lie on the bed I think that Foster is bar, bartender, cocktail, cocktail napkin, lime wedge, salt, tip and two Xanax all in one.
I’m worried that all of the inner mess that was channeled into alcoholism is now channeled into other disturbing rivers. That I’ve drained the lake to flood the city.
Somebody from Group relapsed last week. His name is Bill and he’s in his late fifties or early sixties. He’s been with his boyfriend for over thirty years, moving out of his parents’ house into his lover’s when he was in his twenties. He’s a solemn man who never smiles, not once. He struggles. His hair is silver and I expect it has been since he was thirteen. He’s a retired investment banker like Pighead and reminds me of Pighead. There’s something about how he tries so hard to understand things. And the way in which he takes his life as a series of steps. Like he is following a formula or directions.
He had been named executor of a will a few months ago and was in the house this week and there was scotch in the kitchen, in the living room. He said he avoided the bottles, knowing they were there. And I thought how I wouldn’t avoid the bottles. I would hold them up to the light and think about how something so beautiful can take so much from a person. I’d want to hold the gun that nearly killed me. But I guess he avoided the bottles, the rooms they were in. And then he got into an argument with a woman, I’m unclear who. And he drank. And then he went home and his lover smelled alcohol on his breath. He said they had a quiet night. And I could imagine it. He said they ate dinner together. And I could hear the knives scraping against the plates. I could hear water glasses being set down on the table. Both of them sitting there, steeping in failure. And I was thinking how horrible that must feel. How doomed I would feel if it had been me sitting there telling people that I relapsed. And would somebody say, “I saw it coming, I have to say”? Or would it be a surprise? It would be a surprise to me.
Thirty years with the same man.
My nasty German beer client wants an advertising campaign based on German heritage. “Ve vant to be ze authentic Cherman beer. Ve vant to own Cherman heritage.” I swear I hear his heels click together beneath the conference room table.
“German heritage?” I repeat, making sure I hear him correctly, that I’m not presently attending an off-off-Broadway satire. His dark brown, almost black eyes become smaller as he squints at me, his eyebrows pinching together into one.
I think, They would have gassed you in a heartbeat. Black hair, black eyes. You look like a Gypsy. You could even pass for a Jew.
“Do you not understand vat I have just said? I believe my English is not so bad.” He retrieves a small steel nail clipper from his jacket pocket and begins to clip his nails over the table. Half moons scatter everywhere.
“No, no, I heard you . . . I just wanted to make sure, you know, I understand what you want . . .” I say, trying to be diplomatic, professional, “. . . without getting into all the Nazi stuff.”
His face goes red instantly, a mood ring dropped in boiling oil. He slams the clipper down on the table. He glares at me with pure hatred. I can feel him picturing me hanging by parachute straps in a German high-altitude simulation booth, sans the air-mask. “I am so sick and tired of you Americans associating modern Germany vith . . .” He pulls out