Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [76]
I lay my head on his thigh.
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
I don’t say anything. I don’t want him to know how much I’ve missed him, too.
“I know we talk on the phone all the time, but I don’t see you enough. I want to see more of you. I want to see you every day.”
I roll over on my side, still using his thigh as a pillow. There’s a swan on the lake in front of us. I point at it. “We should catch it and cook it.”
Foster laughs. “Let’s catch it and put it on a leash and give it to that friend of yours, Hayden.” He becomes animated. “Couldn’t you just see little Hayden walking that big ol’ swan around the streets of Manhattan? He could name it Addiction. It could sit on his lap in AA meetings and bleat away. From what you’ve told me about him, I think Hayden would love a little pet.”
I smile into his leg. “Foster, what is it you like about me?” I stare at the blades of grass before me, afraid to know the answer. Afraid because I want to know the answer.
“What I like about you is that I’ve never met anybody like you in my life. You’ve got depth and you’re funny and you have a sweet, good soul.” A breeze from the water passes over us. “And I admire your strength.”
“I don’t have any strength,” I inform his leg.
He puts his hand on my head and his touch is warm and soft, his fingers intelligent. “Oh yes, you do. You’re a survivor. You have strength in your sobriety, and making it through all you’ve made it through.” His hand moves to my stomach. He slides it under my shirt and rests it there. “And you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in my life.”
What’s scary is his utter conviction. “That is such a lie, Foster.”
“No, it’s not.”
I can tell by his voice that he means what he says. This makes me want to pay his rent for life.
“So what do you like about me?” he asks.
“Oh, lots of things. I don’t know. I feel comfortable with you. You’re very easy to be around. You’re warm and giving and kind and smart. You make me laugh. You make me sandwiches.”
“And I have furry arms.”
“That too.”
“You know, Auggie, all my life, people have liked me for my looks. It’s always the same thing: sex, sex, sex. One of the things about you, is that you’re not like that. You don’t just dive into sex.”
“I can’t. I signed a piece of paper saying I wouldn’t.” I imagine the document I signed when I joined Group being faxed to my office, the words BECAME INVOLVED written in red marker at the top. I imagine Elenor waving the document in my face. “You fucked somebody in your group therapy?” And she fires me.
He rubs his hand around on my stomach. “There is no piece of paper that would stop you from doing what you wanted. I know that much about you.”
I feel flattered that he presumes to know anything about me at all. It makes me think maybe someday, he would know what book I would like, what foods I would hate, what movie I would go see. It makes me imagine things happening at a future point in time that involve a dual credit application.
“I just know you’re not with me because of how I look. You’re interested in the me part of me. I can feel that,” he says.
“No, I’m not. It’s only because of your looks.”
He takes his hand out from under my shirt, places it on my forehead. “Thanks, Augusten, I was hoping you’d say that.”
We drive on to Providence, Rhode Island. Foster still has this swan thing in his head and is driving very slowly down residential streets, making me check people’s lawns for a plastic swan or swanlike bird that he can steal. “All we have to do,” he says, “is jump out real quick, take the swan and stick it in the trunk.”
We don’t see any swans, so Foster drives to the coast. It