Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [24]
“Big deal,” Hope said when I told her.
We were taking a walk around the neighborhood at night and it had taken me twenty minutes to confess. “I figured it out on my own anyway,” she said, glancing at me sideways and smiling.
“You did?” I asked, alarmed. Did I emit a certain gay odor? Or maybe it was my unnatural obsession with cleanliness that clued her in. It was one thing to be gay. But it was something else altogether to seem gay.
“My adopted brother Neil is gay, too,” she said, stopping to pet a cat.
“He is?” There was a gay Finch?
“Yeah, Neil Bookman. He used to be a patient of Dad’s, but now he’s Dad’s adopted son.”
“How old is he?” I wondered. Was he my age? A year older?
“Thirty-three,” Hope said.
That seemed pretty old to be adopted. “Where does he live?”
“Well,” Hope began as we continued walking, “he used to live out back in the barn. But then he got mad that Dad wouldn’t give him a room inside, so a few months ago he moved to Easthampton, into some house with a divorced woman. But he still keeps his room in the barn. Kinda like a pied-a-terre.”
My timing couldn’t have been worse. Here I was, just starting to basically live with the Finches, and the only gay one had just moved out.
“He visits a lot. I can call him if you like. You two should get together. I think you’d really like each other.”
I’d never seen a real, live gay man in person before; only on the Donahue show. I wondered what it would be like to see one without the title “Admitted Homosexual” floating in blocky type beneath his head.
A week later, Hope called me in Amherst to tell me that Bookman would be over that afternoon. I was on the next bus.
Agnes was on the sofa in the TV room, eating out of a bag of Purina Dog Chow. When she saw me walk into the room, she laughed. “It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s actually quite good. Would you like to try some?”
“Uh, no thanks,” I said.
She said, “You don’t know what you’re missing,” and popped another brown nugget into her mouth.
“She’s right. They actually are pretty good,” said a low voice behind me.
I turned around and saw a tall, thin man with short black hair and a black mustache. He had friendly brown eyes. “Hi, Augusten. Remember me? Bookman? God, the last time I saw you, you were like this tall.” He lowered his hand to waist height.
“Hi,” I said trying not to sound electrified with excitement. “I sort of remember you. A little. I think you came over to our house sometimes when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I visited your mom.”
“So,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets, trying to look casual.
“So Hope said you wanted to meet me. I’m flattered. I feel famous.” He smiled.
“Yeah, well. You know, now that I’m staying here all the time, I wanted to get to know everybody.”
His eyes flashed and his warm smile vanished. “You’re staying here? You have a room here?”
I remembered about the barn, how the doctor made him stay in a barn and not a room. I backtracked. “Well, not exactly. I mean, I’m hanging around here a lot. I don’t have a room or anything.”
He seemed relieved. “Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
Hope walked into the hallway and put her arm around Bookman. “Hey big brother,” she said. “I see you two found each other.”
“That we did,” Bookman said. “Not so tight, Hope, Jesus. I’m not a dog.”
“Oh, poor baby,” Hope said, releasing her arm. “I forget how fragile you are.”
“Is that Hope?” Agnes called out from the TV room. “Tell her she owes me four dollars.”
“I’m right here Agnes, you can tell me yourself.”
“Oh, uh, okay,” she stammered, “that was you. I thought I heard you. You owe me four dollars.”
Hope leaned her head into the room. “I know I do and I’ll get it to—holy cow, Agnes.