Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [87]
But Hope did. “We’ll take his picture and show it to the bartenders, see if any of them have seen him.”
One by one, we hit the gay bars of New York. And one by one, the bartenders shook their heads. “Are you sure?” Hope asked every time.
When it became clear to us that we would never find him by going door-to-door, we decided our best bet was to go back to Northampton and wait by the phone. Eventually, he’d call. And if we were there, we’d have a better chance of talking him home than anyone else who answered the phone.
We drove straight back to Northampton, stopping once for gas but not for food.
And for the next three nights, I did not sleep. I stayed awake, sitting in a chair beneath the phone in the kitchen.
Hope called his parents, who hadn’t heard from him in years. She called his former roommate, who said she hadn’t heard from him since he moved out. And that, as far as Bookman’s social life was concerned, was the end of the line.
I waited by the phone for a week. Then a month. Then two months. Then a year.
At night, I dreamed he returned and I would ask him, “Where did you go?” and “Why?”
After a year, the few belongings in his room were packed into boxes and placed in the upstairs hall closet.
At night, I imagined him sneaking around outside the house, coming over to my window and tapping it gently with his finger to wake me. But he wouldn’t need to wake me because I would already be awake, waiting.
This didn’t happen. He didn’t come back.
Leaving the most awful and curious itch inside me that I couldn’t scratch.
ALL-STAR RUNNING BACK
B
RENDA DANCED ON THE PINK PORCH IN THE TWILIGHT wearing skin-tight Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. Deborah Harry threatened at full volume through the speaker propped in the open window, I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha.
Brenda ran her hands across her burgundy Danskin and down her thighs. She licked her lips and tossed her head back. At eleven, she was stunningly beautiful. There was a grace about her that made me think she would grow up to be a famous dancer in New York City.
Years later, she would move to Memphis and become an unlicensed massage therapist who gave hand jobs, but this evening, with the pale orange sunlight glancing off her jetblack hair, Brenda looked poised for Lincoln Center.
“That’s great, B,” Natalie said. She was leaning back against the railing on the porch, smoking.
Brenda expertly fingered the swan that was stitched into her hip pocket. “You’re so good with your hands,” I told her. Of course, this comment would prove to be prophetic.
Brenda’s mother, Kate, had finally given in to her constant whining and woven Brenda’s hair into dozens of slim braids. Once her hair was dry, Brenda unbraided it and pranced around the house with her new kinky hair.
In the fading light, her kinky mane created a sort of dark halo around her head. When she tossed her head to the side and swung out her hip, it was easy to picture her on stage.
“She reminds me of me when I was her age,” Natalie said of her niece. I thought I caught a melancholy look in her eyes as she glanced away into the street. “Hey, I could really go for a beer.”
“Mmmm,” Brenda said, “me too.”
Natalie laughed. “You bad girl. You’re too young to drink.” Brenda stopped dancing. “I am not.” Her lips plumped out in a frown.
“You are too,” Natalie said. “No beer for you.”
“Then how ’bout a joint?”
Natalie rolled her eyes and smiled. “No, bad girl. How about some milk?”
“Whatever,” Brenda said. Then she opened the door and stomped inside. A moment later, the record came to an abrupt, scratchy stop.
Natalie leaned over to crush her cigarette on the porch. “I really was just like her. She’s such a free spirit.”
* * *
Freedom was what we had. Nobody told us when to go to bed. Nobody told us to do our homework. Nobody told us we couldn’t drink two six-packs of Budweiser and then throw up in the Maytag.
So why did we feel so trapped? Why did I feel like I had no options in my life when it seemed that options were the only thing