Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [61]
Our dedication to our craft was relentless.
“Knock it off you two, I’m trying to sleep,” Hope would sometimes complain in the middle of the night. Of course, this just made us turn the stereo up louder.
If we happened to be in rehearsal downstairs in my room and a neighbor padded across the lawn to rap gently on the window and ask us to please be more quiet, Natalie might simply lift her skirt and mash her vagina against the window while extending her middle finger.
We had dedication. We had, we were positive, enormous talent. What we needed was a captive audience.
And what more captive an audience could one ask for than the permanent inmates of the Northampton State Hospital?
“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” Dr. Finch said.
“You think they’d let us?” Natalie asked. The prospect of a live audience had caused her face to flush and small bumps to rise on her forehead. She scratched madly at her face.
“I should think they’d be thrilled that two talented young performers had offered their services, free of charge.”
We wanted to press him for more encouragement, but the power of the TV was too strong and he was nodding off to sleep.
“This could really turn into something,” Natalie said, her eyes slightly wild.
I agreed completely. “Maybe it’ll make the papers. Do you know how to write a press release?”
The bumps had spread to her upper arms and she scratched them. “No, but Hope does.”
“I know it’s not Broadway, but it’s a beginning.”
Our next step would be contacting the entertainment director for the hospital. This proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated, mainly because there was no such thing as an entertainment director at the Northampton State Hospital. There was only a depressed fat lady behind the front desk who looked at us hopelessly when we made our inquiry.
“I’m not sure I even understand what you’re asking,” she said.
Natalie exhaled, trying to manage her impatience. “I told you, I’m from Smith College and he’s from Amherst. We’re music students and we’d like to perform for your patients. As a special treat.”
“Uh huh,” the woman said doubtfully. “Hold on a minute and I’ll see if I can find somebody.” She scanned a piece of paper that was taped to the desk next to the phone and punched in an extension. She turned her head away from us and spoke softly.
“Don’t worry,” Natalie said. “If worst comes to worst, we can make my father call somebody. He knows people here.”
The reason he knew people there was because the whole family used to live on the hospital grounds, back before Finch had his own practice. Natalie’s first memory of home was of being in that very hospital, surrounded by lunatics. In fact, it had been her father’s dream to someday have his own psychiatric hospital. When this didn’t happen, he did the next best thing. He allowed his house to fall into a state of disrepair and then he invited patients to live there. I always wondered if the fact that the Finch children had been raised in a mental hospital was the reason their threshold for weirdness was so high.
“Somebody will be with you shortly. Would you . . .” she started to say something, maybe offer us a tiny paper cup of water, but changed her mind.
“Thanks,” Natalie said.
We moved away from the desk and stood near the door. It seemed wise to stand near the door in case we had to make a sudden run for it. There was no telling who was on the other end of that phone.
A moment later, a robust nurse appeared. She walked with the gait of a horse wrangler and her forearms were thick and muscular, like she’d had loaves of French bread implanted under the skin. “Hi. I’m Doris. How can I help?”
Natalie repeated the lie that we were music students from Smith and Amherst and that as part of our study, we wanted to sing at the hospital.
Doris’s first reaction was one of practicality. “We don’t have an auditorium,” she said.
Natalie said, “That’s okay. We can sing right on the ward.”
I was glad she spoke the lingo.
“We don’t even have a piano,” Doris said.