Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [74]
I go downstairs to buy green apples. I’m picking them up and they’re covered with black grit. The little Indian man who guards the fruits and flowers outside grins and says almost toothlessly, “Is dirt . . . from the cars . . .” and he points to the street. I buy Jolly Ranchers instead.
I want to feel calm and at ease. Like someone who lives in Half Moon Bay, California, and makes hummus from scratch. Instead, I feel like I’m a contestant on some awful supermarket game show where I’ve got sixty seconds to hurl my shopping cart down the aisles, piling it with as much as possible before the buzzer goes off.
“Fill it with expensive meats!” the studio audience is screaming at me. “Chutneys!!” they shriek. “No, stay away from the bathroom tissue!”
My eight A.M. call to Pighead woke him.
“Get up! Do something with me!” I was manic.
He said no, told me to go back to sleep and then he hung up on me.
Then I called Jim, but he didn’t answer. No doubt he’s in bed with Astrid, screening his calls: no single people or recovering alcoholics.
Maybe I should get a puppy. I would love to have a dog, except that alcoholics aren’t allowed. No major changes for your first year.
But now that I have all this free time, drinking time, I need something constructive to do with it. Like housebreaking. I always had dogs when I was a kid, but since I’ve been in New York and drinking, I never had time. You can’t just have a dog, then tie it to a parking meter outside Odeon every night while you’re inside getting hammered, slyly watching Cindy Crawford pick at a plate of mixed greens.
I hate having feelings. Why does sobriety have to come with feelings? One minute I feel excited, the next I feel terrified. One minute I feel free and the next I feel doomed. I think about lobotomies. Are they are like nose jobs, can you just go and have one? Or do you need a doctor’s recommendation?
And lately, I get annoyed with AA, because even though I’ve been going every day, I haven’t really made any close friends. Or actually, any friends. It seems much easier to make friends in bars. I have to keep reminding myself that these AA people are exactly like bar people—they are bar people—except their bars have all been shut down. And I have to admit, this makes them less interesting to me.
I need a hobby. Sober people have hobbies. But my hobby can’t involve a major lifestyle change. Something like Feed the Children. I could collect letters from malnourished orphans.
The bloated face of Sally Struthers filled my television screen recently. Her chin was trembling and she looked to be in physical pain, as if wincing from a sharp punch. But, strangely, she also looked hungry. Because I watch television with the sound off, I had to hunt for the remote to hear what she was saying. That’s when I heard her begging for me, personally, to send her cash so that she could Feed the Children. Cut to little Anna, a shriveled Indian girl with jewel eyes. Back to Sally, this time walking. Turning sideways so that she could fit through the alley between two mud-cake homes.
Well, somehow I felt that if I sent Sally a donation, she would open the envelope herself and squeeze the cash into the hip pocket of her elastic-waist jeans. She would then treat herself at Pizza Hut, using my envelope to dab pepperoni grease from her chin. I imagined her maybe having garlic cheese bread on the side and a salad of iceberg lettuce topped with blue-cheese dressing, Bacos and croutons. She would do her eating alone, eyes never leaving the table. Her chin would tremble as she chewed and chewed and swallowed hard, against the threat of tears. After leaving her tray on the table for someone else to clean up, she would moan as she climbed into her 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood. It would be an effort to close the door. She would then place both hands at the top of the wheel, and pressing her forehead against the backs of her hands, begin sobbing right there in the parking lot. Then, blinking back the tears, I see her starting the car, swiping her plump little pinkie beneath both eyes and driving away.