Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [58]
“Okay, I’m outta here,” Natalie said.
“No wait,” I said, grabbing her arm. “Let’s watch.”
“I am not gonna watch my sister scoop my dad’s shit out of the toilet so she can put it outside to dry,” she said, laughing.
Finch roared with glee. “That’s exactly why Hope is my best daughter.”
“See, Natalie?” Hope teased. She stuck out her tongue.
“Good for you, Hope. You’re Dad’s favorite. Scoop away.”
I watched as Hope carefully hoisted the coiled turd out of the toilet and brought it up out of the bowl, dripping. Sitting on the spatula like that, it looked not unlike various food items cooked in the house. I also wondered if maybe it was true. If God really was a comedian and this was his way of saying things would soon improve. The thought was extremely comforting. Maybe I’d be able to attend beauty school after all.
Hope walked out of the bathroom and down the hall, careful of her precious cargo. Zoo had heard the commotion and was standing in the hallway, wagging her tail. She licked up the drops of water as they fell onto the floor. “Natalie or Augusten, one of you get the door,” Hope shouted as she made the turn past the jackets and into the kitchen. “Now!”
I ran ahead and got the door for her.
“Thanks.”
Natalie and I stood in the doorway watching her pad across the lawn with the spatula and then gently ease the turd onto the weathered picnic table.
“My family is so fucking insane,” Natalie said. “How will I ever get into Smith?”
“You will,” I said, though I didn’t know how. Not without changing her last name and undergoing a complete brainwashing.
Natalie turned to me. “At least you understand.”
“Can you imagine if the neighbors knew what went on in this house?” I said.
She laughed darkly. “Oh my God, they’d throw my father in an insane asylum and burn the house to the ground. It would be exactly like Frankenstein.”
I looked at all the houses on the block, the other old Victorians. Only they had lace curtains in the windows, manicured bushes out front, actual flowers in bloom. We only had plastic tulips stuck into the dirt, blossom-first, and there wasn’t a curtain or shade in the place. It wasn’t hard to imagine that one of the neighbors—a Smith Admissions Coordinator perhaps—was peering out her curtain at this exact moment.
Natalie absently fingered a long strand of her hair.
I couldn’t help but think it would look so much better platinum. “We should bleach you,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’d be fun. It would look really good. Bring out your eyes.”
She shrugged. “Maybe later.”
Outside, Hope gave the turd a nudge with the spatula, making sure the coil was tight.
Agnes began mindlessly sweeping the carpet in the living room. This was always her first response to stress. It was not uncommon to be awakened in the middle of the night to the fshhh, fshhh, fshhh sound of Agnes sweeping the hallway runner, the living room rug or the walls themselves. The sweeping had the effect of spreading the animal hairs out thinner and moving crumbs and toenail clippings into the corners.
“Knock it off, Agnes,” Natalie shouted.
“You mind your own beeswax,” Agnes shouted back. As she continued to sweep, she leaned heavily on the broom. Without it, I doubted she could remain standing. She would just sag onto the floor and stay there like a load of laundry.
Finch came into the room, drying his hands on his shirt-tails. He peered outside. “Excellent,” he commented. Then he shouted to Hope. “Good work.”
Hope turned back, beaming.
Finch said, “You two just wait. Things are really gonna turn around for us now. It’s a sign from God.”
“Can we have twenty bucks?” Natalie asked, hand outstretched.
Finch reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “I only have ten.”
Natalie took that and pulled me by the arm. “Let’s go for a walk.”
The first sign that things were, in fact, turning around came in the form of a frozen Butterball turkey. Hope won it from a radio station by being the first caller to correctly identify a Pat Boone song. It didn’t fit in the freezer, so she placed it in the bathtub