Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [69]
I wrapped his head in Saran wrap and then, an hour later, brought him into the bathroom to rinse his head in the sink.
Next to the sink was a free-standing plastic shelf unit. Agnes’s cosmetics were on one of the shelves. I picked up one of the tubes. Max Factor mascara. Vintage. Probably from the first batch Max Factor himself ever mixed together. I tossed it back on the shelf and turned my attention back to Bookman.
“Is it out yet?” he said with his face in the sink, water running across the back of his head and his nape.
The difference was startling.
“Yeah, it’s out. You can raise your head up but don’t look.” He stood, his head dripping, and had a big smile on his face. The change of activity had already done him good.
I towel-dried his hair.
It was a greenish-shade of brown. And it felt exactly like steel wool, except straight.
“How does it look?” he asked.
I led him out of the bathroom. “It’s a new look. It’s good.”
“I wanna see. Hand me a mirror.”
I handed him one of my mirrors. Unfortunately, I had many. “Holy shit.”
“See?” I said. “Completely different.”
“It’s green.”
“It’s not green. It’s ash blonde.”
“It’s green,” he said louder. It made his face look even paler.
“It’s the lighting.”
He handed the mirror back to me. “And it feels absolutely awful. Are you sure you wanna do this for a living?”
“It’ll feel better when it grows out. Yes, I’m sure. What else is there for me to do? Besides, I don’t care about the actual hair part. I’m only really interested in the product lines that can carry my name.”
“Well you’re not gonna get very far with the product lines if you don’t care a little more about the hair part.”
“Oh shut up. You’ll get used to it.”
Then he softened. “I’m just teasing. I kind of like it. And I love that you did it to me. I’m yours. You can do anything you want to me.”
I thought, There’s that lotto feeling again.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
B
ECAUSE THE MINISTER’S WIFE REFUSED TO LEAVE THE MINister, and because my mother required a worshipful companion, she was forced to break up with Fern and secure herself a new mate. As luck would have it, Dr. Finch had recently begun seeing a suicidal eighteen-year-old African-American girl who had taken a leave of absence from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Her name was Dorothy.
And she was destined to spend many of her early adult years as my mother’s girlfriend.
Dorothy’s reddish-black hair tumbled down her shoulders in kinky loops. She had large brown eyes, an expressive mouth and a nose that resembled the dorsal fin of a salmon. Instead of being called “pretty” one might have described her as having “character.” I thought she looked like a young witch.
She was an excitable girl who seemed to be starved for chaos. The way other people seek comfort and security, Dorothy sought extremes. And she found this with my mother.
One of the things I liked about her was that she had long fingernails that she would carefully manicure and paint to fit her mood. If she were in a happy mood, her nails would be bright red. If she were feeling like she wanted to eviscerate her mother she would paint her nails burgundy. And when Dorothy was in one of her withdrawn, sullen moods, her nails would be neutral.
But to me, her best quality was her trust fund. It had been established by her father whom she loathed because when she was younger he showed her his penis on a rowboat. The trust fund was large enough that she was able to live off the interest alone.
And like a bottom-feeding catfish, I was able to live off the scraps.
“Here’s fifty,” she’d say. “Now get lost.”
When I officially moved into the Finch house, I assumed my mother would keep my old room for me in Amherst. The way mothers on primetime television do. But this was not the case.
Instead, Dorothy moved from her parent’s house in Buckland into my old bedroom. At least that was the arrangement at first. My mother was going