Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [99]
I dream that he walks in the door and I feel relieved. Only to wake up and realize I was dreaming. I have the same dream throughout the night, a terrible loop.
At work the next day, I feel edgy and worried and frustrated and angry and sad and confused and relieved and every other emotion on that damn rehab feeling chart. Sometimes, a few feelings collect and have a sort of party in my head. Then it seems they all leave and I have no feelings at all. I remember in rehab someone saying that nine months was a turning point. A lot of people go back out and use at the nine-month point. It’s like the seven-year itch. I think this must be because we have nine months programmed into us from our time in the womb. After nine months we are ready to make a dramatic change. Be born, or go get drunk.
Our Wirksam commercial is being tested in focus groups. Greer really stresses about this. She is worried the commercial will not test well, that people will not like it. I, on the other hand, could not care less. Advertising feels like this piece of dog shit I can’t seem to scrape off my shoe.
I sneeze.
Greer sees me eyeing my sleeve. “Do you want a Kleenex brand facial tissue?” she asks.
“Huh? A what?”
She reaches into her desk drawer and retrieves a small packet of tissues. “A Kleenex brand facial tissue. Do you need one?”
“Greer? What’s wrong with you? Why are you calling them that? They’re Kleenexes.”
She sets the tissues on the desk. “Augusten, you of all people should know better. Kleenex is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark. They’re not ‘Kleenexes,’ they’re tissues. Kleenex brand tissues.”
“You’re completely mad,” I tell her.
“No. You’re just being a selfish alcoholic. Kleenex is their brand. They have a right to protect it. And I, for one, respect that. I respect other people. You can’t just go around changing things into what you want them to be. Just because you want to call tissues Kleenexes doesn’t make it fair or right.” She’s very angry.
“Um. You’re taking this whole Kleenex thing way too seriously. What is this really about?”
“It’s about the entire world revolving around you, Augusten. Because you know what? It doesn’t. We all have to make compromises and get along.” She picks the tissues up and throws them in my lap. “And be civilized, okay? Don’t use the sleeve of your sweatshirt to wipe your goddamn nose.” She stands to walk out of the room.
“It’s not a sweatshirt, Greer. It’s a Gap High Performance Fleece Athletic Crew Top.”
At a little after noon, I phone Pighead at the hospital. I’m alarmed when his mother answers. Why can’t he answer the phone himself? “How is he?” I ask.
“He not so good,” she says in her thick Greek accent. “He have very high fever. No food, nothing. Can’t eat. Last night, very bad. He ask about you. You come?”
“I’m on my way.”
• • •
When I walk into Pighead’s room, I’m confronted with his mother and two of Pighead’s friends, whom I know only by name, from Pighead telling me deeply personal and embarrassing things about them. I nod to the friends. “Hey,” I say to his mother. She turns to me. Her eyes contain confusion, panic and ancient Greek spells. I walk to the bed.
Pighead’s eyes are wide open, too wide. “Hey, Pighead,” I say.
He looks at me. He extends his shaking hand. I take it. “Augusten,” he moans, “please don’t hit me.”
His mother looks at me quickly, sharply. “He’s only teasing,” I say. And I can see a tiny smile on his face, but it’s so small it’s almost like what’s left after a normal smile. He closes his eyes, which for some reason makes me feel better.
I ask him if he’s feeling okay and he shakes his head from side to side. “No.”
And suddenly he’s asleep, which does not make me feel better. Because falling asleep that fast is more accurately termed “losing consciousness.” “What’s going on with him?” I ask his mother. “He wasn’t this bad the other day.”
“He’ll be fine,” she says, walking to the nightstand and removing a used tissue, a paper cup and a peeled but uneaten banana, which has begun to turn brown. I note that