Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [43]
And my father wouldn’t even accept my collect calls.
As I was picking the paint off the windowsill I saw an unfamiliar station wagon pull up in front of our house. The engine was killed but nobody stepped out. I watched for a few minutes until the passenger window opened and a pink helium balloon escaped and rose up into air. I wondered where he got the helium, and if he had any left over.
The doctor had made a house call.
My mother called me downstairs and Dr. F shook my hand. He said, “You have a fiercely independent spirit, young man.”
My mother said, “He certainly does.”
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready for what?”
He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. “We need to take a little drive. We have to pick up some supplies from a friend in order for this to work. In the car, we can talk about what we’re going to do, what the plan is.”
My mother kept glancing back at her typewriter, like it was calling her. I knew it was hard for her to be separated from it for even five minutes.
“You’ll need to come with us,” the doctor said.
My mother looked alarmed, like she’d just been diagnosed with a disease that would prevent her from ever being able to talk about herself again. She hesitated, then she said, “Okay. I just need to get my bag.”
Finch drove, my mother sat in the passenger seat and I was in the back, my forehead pressed against the window. I was beginning to worry about what, exactly, I had agreed to. As soon as we were out of Amherst and onto the highway my mother opened her bag and began searching for something. She pulled some typed pages out and arranged them on her lap. She cleared her throat and turned to the doctor. “Would you like to hear some of this new poem I’ve been working on?”
He nodded. “Certainly, Deirdre. If you’d like to read it.”
“May I smoke?” she asked, sticking a More between her lips and poising her lighter.
“By all means.”
“Thank you,” she replied almost flirtatiously. I half-expected her to stick a dogwood blossom behind her ear.
For the next half hour, I endured a mandatory poetry reading. She read in her melodic, Southern voice, enunciating perfectly, each inflection practiced. I knew she must have wished there were a microphone clipped to her shirt collar or a camera pointed at her profile.
I couldn’t help but think, This car is taking me to a mental hospital and my mother is treating it like open-mic night at a Greenwich Village café.
We drove to a farmhouse in the country, surrounded by pastures. Dr. F pulled into the half-circle gravel driveway and stopped the car. He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s very important,” he began, “that you not ever tell anybody about this.”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and agreed even though I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.
“I could lose my medical license,” he said.
What was he going to do? And why were we at a farm-house? The mystery was scary. I wanted to know right then what was going on, but I also felt like I couldn’t ask, I had to wait and see.
My mother straightened her papers and put them back in her bag. She looked out the window. “This is a lovely house,” she said. “What a beautiful old barn.”
“I’ll be back momentarily,” the doctor said. “You both just sit right here.”
After he left my mother said, “Well, you certainly have created quite the adventure for yourself.” She rolled down her window and inhaled deeply. “The air is so clean out here, so fresh. Reminds me of when I was little girl in Georgia.” Then she took a More from her pack and lit it.
The doctor was gone for about half an hour. When he returned he was carrying a small paper sack. He slid into the car and started the ignition. I was expecting him to pull out of the driveway, but instead he turned around and handed me the bag.
I took it. It contained a pint of Jack Daniel’s.
He