Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [63]
Which is why the wet smack was such a shock to both of us.
“Fuckers.” It was the hateful old man, the one without teeth, I now saw. He’d coughed deeply, productively, and spat in our direction.
Because we were standing so close together, his phlegm hit us both. In the face.
It was deeply repulsive.
And we did the only thing we could possibly do. Or at least Natalie did.
She spat right back at him.
HERE, KITTY KITTY
I
WAS ASLEEP ON NATALIE’S WHITE FOTAKI RUG WHEN I WAS startled awake by a rapid knocking on the door. I reached up and slapped Natalie’s stubbly calf, which was hanging over the mattress. “Someone’s at the door.”
“Natalie, Augusten,” Hope whispered through the door. “Open up.”
Natalie moaned, her feather earrings stuck to her cheek. “What time is it?” She reached over and turned her alarm clock around, knocking the Zippo on the floor. “Jesus Christ, it’s not even five in the morning.” She blinked at me with her puffy, tired eyes, then climbed out of bed, dragging the sheet with her and wrapping it around her shoulders.
I sat up and my mouth tasted horrible, like stale pot, beer and Cheetos. The exact combination of ingredients that had caused me to pass into unconsciousness on Natalie’s floor.
Natalie opened the door and yawned. “What do you want?”
Hope was in her nightgown clutching Freud to her chest.
“What are you doing with that poor cat?”
She stepped inside the room and Natalie closed the door. “Freud’s not well,” Hope said. Her face was pained, deeply concerned.
Quickly, I scanned the cat for signs of a fight—dried blood on its fur, a chunk of ear missing. “She looks fine,” I said.
“She’s not fine,” Hope snapped. “I think she’s dying.”
“Oh, no,” Natalie said, climbing back into bed, the sheet twisted through her legs. “Hope, just take a Valium and go back to sleep. Your cat is fine.”
“No, she’s not. She’s dying. She told me.”
It seemed like I was still stoned. “What?”
“She woke me up fifteen minutes ago. I was dreaming about her, dreaming that she was eaten by a white glob. It was just awful, you guys. It was a nightmare. And then all of a sudden, I woke up and she was curled up right next to my face. Purring.”
“Hope, what are you talking about?” Natalie lay a pillow over her head, covering her eyes.
“Don’t you guys get it?”
“Get what?” I said. “Get that you’ve finally gone completely insane?”
“Freud was sending me a message through my dreams. She was telling me that she’s dying.”
Hope was trembling and Freud struggled to break free of her grasp. But Hope kept moving her arms in such a way that the cat was trapped.
I tried to enlighten her. “Hope, Freud wasn’t talking to you through your dreams. She’s just a fucking cat.”
“She’s not just a cat.”
“Go back to bed,” Natalie said. She reached for the light to turn it off.
“Wait,” Hope said. “I’m serious. I really need to do something. Please.”
Natalie sat up. She ran her fingers back through her hair and coughed. “Okay, what do you want us to do?”
I looked at Hope.
“Well, I don’t know.”
I said, “I’ll go with you to the vet tomorrow so you can have her checked out.”
Hope shook her head. “No, I don’t want any strangers near her right now. She needs to be home. I need to comfort her.”
I burped. “Well, I don’t know. There’s nothing you can do about it tonight. You should just take her back down to your room and go to sleep.”
“But what if I have the dream again?”
“You won’t,” I told her. “You never dream the same thing twice.”
“That’s not true,” Hope said. “I have a lot of dreams again and again.”
“Look, Hope. There’s nothing you can do tonight. Go back to bed. This is fucking insane.”
The cat made a gurgling sound.
Eventually Hope did go back to bed and Natalie turned off the light. “Can you believe her? She’s just so weird.”
“What’s the matter with her?” I said.
Natalie turned the light back on. “I need a cigarette.”
I reached over and grabbed my pack, then tossed it on the bed.
Then we cracked up until Natalie had to run into the bathroom because she was going to pee in the bed.
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