Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [73]
Barnes, the redheaded account guy, Tod, the junior media planner, Greer and I all exchange a look. Our creative director, Elenor, was fortunate enough to have a maxi-pad meeting in Cincinnati. Asshole Rick blew off the meeting to go to a movie.
“Ve haf been vith so many agencies over ze years; ve have tested campaigns, changed agencies, and vatched our sales decline. All ve vant is a solution,” he nearly spits. Both of his fists rest on the table before him.
I want to say, You fucking Germans and your solutions. Instead, I say, “Okay.” Later in my office, I sit at my computer. German heritage. Hmmm. I make a list of all things German:
cuckoo clocks
lederhosen
leather underwear
Doberman pinschers
graph paper
white lab coats
expensive, precision-engineered automobiles
showers
ovens
uniforms
peculiar facial hair
assorted schnitzels
sauerkraut
twins
sunlamps for reviving unconscious, cold-water survival experiment subjects
techno music
pharmaceuticals
SS officers
involuntary train rides
razor wire
rocket scientists
dentists
I look at my list and realize I’m in trouble with this German heritage thing. This is not, as they say, a rich area. I lean back and exhale, rubbing my eyes. When I open them, I notice the bottle. It’s small, the kind they serve on airplanes. A small green bottle of gin, tucked between two books on the shelf.
Rick.
It’s got to be Rick. And suddenly, I’m anxious. I walk over to the bookshelf and take the bottle down. I hold it in my palm. I look for more, but it’s just this one. And the thought occurs to me that I could uncap it and drink it right down. And that’s exactly what I would like to do. Because I’m sick of thinking of German beer ads and I’m sick of Rick’s weirdness. I take a deep breath and toss the bottle into the trash.
I just bought black leather pants and a midnight-blue velvet shirt to wear at some future, unknown event. I didn’t try anything on in the stores, I took them, red-faced, to the counter and paid with cash. Then I came home and put them on, the shirt unbuttoned nearly to my waist, the collar back off my neck. I looked like Sex. I looked like something that might have a scent strip attached to it that you can peel open and rub on your wrist. I took the clothes off and folded them and put them on the top shelf of the closet, the one that I never open by the front door.
I went to a movie with Foster and while I was sitting there in the dark looking at the screen I thought, “I have black leather pants and a midnight-blue velvet shirt in my closet.” This fact could never be known by looking at me. You might think I own flannel shirts from Eddie Bauer, worn Timberland boots, Nikes caked with mud, T-shirts with editorial-house logos on them. You might even think I own an Armani suit. But you would never guess the truth. The recent truth.
Then last night, I saw a giant rawhide bone at a pet store. A novelty bone. Much too large for any real dog. I bought it and went over to Pighead’s to give Virgil his new bone. He was euphoric, had no idea where to begin chewing first. Pighead called me this morning and said, “So now, it’s the bone he runs to, not me or his water. The bone.”
And it occurs to me: if I wore the black leather pants and the midnight-blue velvet shirt, and carried Virgil’s new giant dog bone, I could get into any club in Manhattan.
It’s Saturday, noon, and I’ve been chain-smoking and drinking coffee alcoholically since seven this morning. I’ve had two pots. I feel electrified, like I’ve been blow-drying my hair in the bathtub. I’m completely manic—singing along loudly to the radio, but to different songs than they’re playing. I’m like somebody who has just decided to stop taking important psychoactive medication. I’m so crazy this morning that Hayden couldn’t stand being around me and went out for a walk.