“Exactly!” I say, relieved that he feels it too. Relieved that I am not the only one who is so unaccustomed to happiness and the feeling of impending punishment that follows.
I climb out of bed and twist, trying to pop my back. “I have Group after work, so I won’t be home until like seven-thirty. If you want, we can go to the eight o’clock Perry Street meeting.”
“Great,” he says.
“What are you going to do today?” I ask.
He smirks. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe relapse.” He laughs. “Actually, I want to go speak to someone at Carl Fisher about perhaps doing some freelance music editing.”
I ask him who Carl Fisher is.
He tells me that they are a huge and famous publisher of classical music, that he’s worked with them before. I had forgotten that Hayden was not only a crack addict, but also a classical music editor. I think, Please don’t look at my CD collection: Madonna, Julia Fordham, one well-hidden Bette Midler.
There’s nothing to do at work but wait for beer news. So Greer and I make the most constructive use of our time by thumbing through magazines, making long distance calls and talking about other people.
“Is he cute?” she asks when I tell her Hayden has come to stay with me for a while.
I throw a pencil up at the suspended ceiling like a dart and it sticks. “No, it’s not like that at all, there’s absolutely no physical chemistry between us. We just click, you know, in other ways.” I tell Greer about what I heard at AA the other night, about the glass of water.
“God, that’s really insightful,” she says, trotting her paperclip pony across the top of the stapler. “It’s like really appreciating what you have, what’s in front of you.” She gazes out the window. “I need to remember that. I seem to fly off the handle too easily. And all my books say anger is really bad for your health.”
Aside from collecting crocodile handbags from Hermés and Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, Greer is an aficionado of self-help books.
“I wish I were an alcoholic. I mean, you’re getting all this really good therapy and all these insights from those alcoholic meetings.”
I do feel a little smug. But then my compassion kicks in. “You could be an alcoholic too,” I tell her.
“No,” she sighs. “I wouldn’t be a good alcoholic. I’d be the good wife of an alcoholic. I’m codependent. That’s why you and I get along so well.” She looks at me earnestly. “I’m glad you’re an alcoholic though,” she adds. “I mean, I’m glad you’re getting all this therapy, because I feel like I’m getting it too, secondhand from you.”
I smile at her like, You moron.
“No, I mean it, I’m practicing the same ‘letting go’ thing you are. I already feel like things are bothering me less. You’re really inspiring to me. I even have a sticky note on my refrigerator at home: LET IT GO.”
Then I realize what’s happening: Greer is shape-shifting. She is a puzzle piece who is reshaping herself to accommodate the newly reshaped me. More or less.
At Group, I talk about work. How it’s manageable, how I don’t feel obsessed with it. Actually, I explain, it’s the opposite. Then I tell everybody about how Hayden has come to stay with me for a while. I explain how we met in rehab. The group consensus is that this could be a very good experience, but to make sure we’ve established boundaries.
Foster speaks in sweeping, affirmative statements about how he’s going to ask his Brit to leave. He’s very confident, high-strung.
The group encourages him. “Yes, you should,” they say. It seems that Foster has been trying to get rid of the Brit for the six months that he’s been in Group. It also turns out that Foster has been in and out of rehab four times.
Three times I catch him looking at me, then looking away. I feel this strange, invisible connection with him. Like a current. I wonder if I am imagining it. I also wonder if there is any significance to the fact that last week, he was wearing a long-sleeved denim shirt and today he is wearing a tight white T-shirt.
Outside after group, I head off toward Park, walking quickly so I make it to Perry Street on time to meet Hayden.
Foster appears beside me. “Hey, Auggie, wait up,” he says, passing me a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “I just wanted to give you my number, you know, in case you ever need to talk.” He winks. Or is it a twitch?
Alcoholics are always giving their phone numbers to each other. In fact, in rehab, I learned you’re supposed to ask for people’s phone numbers, in case you need to call somebody. And sure enough, I already have a collection of ten phone numbers from people I don’t know at Perry Street. I got six numbers my first night. “In case you need to talk, call anytime,” people say. Alcoholic friends are as easy to make as Sea Monkeys.
“Okay, great—thanks,” I say, slipping the number into the front pocket of my jeans. “I appreciate it.” I try to sound normal, casual. An experienced phone-number recipient, simply working the program.
“See ya next week then,” Foster says, smiling as he heads into the street, arm extended, a taxi stopping immediately, as if on cue.
As I walk to the Perry Street meeting I can feel the slip of paper in my pocket. It seems to contain a heat source.
Hayden’s waiting outside with two large cups of coffee. He hands one to me. “What happened?” he says, smiling, waiting.
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking the lid off the coffee, blowing some of the heat away.
“I don’t know,” he says. “You just look so happy.”
I laugh too hard. “I do?” Coffee sloshes over the edge of the cup onto my hand. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just the Pink Cloud. Wanna head inside?”
“I suppose. Oh, by the way,” he says casually as we’re taking our seats, “I never would have pegged you for a Stevie Nicks fan.”
I glare at him.
All through the meeting, I pay no attention to anything anyone says and instead sit there, silently concocting reasons to call Foster.
After Perry Street, we find a place around the corner from my apartment that has a Ping-Pong table, so we go there and play. We find a rhythm and actually keep the ball going for a good five minutes at a time.
Ping: Hayden thinks he’ll get some work from Carl Fisher.
Pong: I had a slow day at work.
Ping: Hayden went to the library and checked out some books.
Pong: I think I’m really attracted to a crack addict in my group therapy.
Dribble, dribble, dribble, the ball bounces off the table onto the floor. “What are you talking about, what crack addict?”
It seems best to play this casual. “It’s nothing,” I say, leaning over to retrieve the ball. “It’s just a feeling, you know. It’ll pass.”
He eyes me suspiciously. “You know better than this, Augusten,” he says, his British accent lending his words an extra helping of authority.
“I know, I know,” I say. “Nothing’s going to happen, it’s just this weird thing. He’s a mess, I would never get involved with him, besides there is NO WAY he would ever be attracted to me. He’s just friendly.”
We leave, head home.
“I’m going to keep my eye on you,” he warns.
When Hayden’s in the bathroom, I slip the number out of my pocket and stash it safely in my wallet. It gives me a little thrumming sensation in my chest knowing it’s there.
There’s a message on my machine. “Hi Augusten, it’s Greer. Listen, since tomorrow’s Friday and nothing’s going on at work, let’s just take the day off, a mental health day. Call me if that’s okay with you.”
Hayden and I spend the evening reading. He reads poetry. “God, I’m not sure reading Anne Sexton is such a good idea in early sobriety,” he comments.
I read a paperback novel, but must read each page twice because my mind won’t focus on the words. At ten, we turn off the lights and go to sleep. I lie awake for at least an hour, replaying the moment Foster handed me the phone number.
And then
in a moment of shining epiphany, I realize I didn’t actually see him write the number down. Which means he must have written it down before Group. Which means at least once, he has thought about me outside of Group. Which means that whether consciously or subconsciously, this could have affected his choice of what to wear to Group. Which means that the tight white T-shirt could very well have been meant for me. Sometimes people compare gay men to teenage girls and they are correct, I realize. I think the reason is because gay men didn’t get to express their little crushes in high school. So that’s why we’re like this as adults, obsessing over who wore what white T-shirt and what it means, really.
“Are you asleep?” Hayden asks softly.
I mumble, as if I am half-asleep. Best to keep my obsessions to myself for now. Besides, nobody in rehab said there was anything wrong with having a little fantasy.
• • •
“I don’t know, I just feel lousy.”
I’m talking to Pighead on the phone. I called him to see if he wanted to do something since I have the day off. “Do you have a fever?”
He hiccups. “No, it’s just that these . . .” He hiccups again, midsentence. “Hiccups won’t go away.” Then he confesses, “I have a small fever, my head feels fuzzy.”
I’m at his house within fifteen minutes, and he looks awful. Pale and sweaty and the hiccups are almost constant. “I think you should call your doctor.”
“I already have,” he says. “She’s out of town, her message center is trying to get ahold of her so she can call me back.”
Virgil is hyperventilating, running from room to room, as if there’s about to be a thunderstorm. “Can you take Virgil out for a walk? I haven’t taken him outside yet.”
It’s nearly noon. Pighead always walks Virgil at around seven, before work. Even when he’s on vacation from work, like now.
I walk Virgil and the instant his paws hit the curb, his leg goes up and he pees. He pees for what feels like twenty minutes. I walk him around the block and I realize I am feeling a little bit of panic. And then I realize that the reason I am feeling this way is because I saw something in Pighead’s eyes that I have never seen before: fear.
Back inside the apartment, Pighead swears he’s fine and that he just needs to rest. He tells me there’s no reason for me to hang out. That he’ll call if he needs anything. I leave. The whole way home I have an uneasy feeling I can’t shake.
Hayden’s pouring boiling water into a mug when I come back to the apartment. “That was fast. Is your friend okay? Want some tea?”
I lean against the sink. “I don’t know Hayden, it’s strange. I mean, Pighead never gets sick.”
“But you said he has AIDS.”
“No, he’s HIV-positive, but he doesn’t actually have full-blown AIDS. I mean, he’s been positive for years, and nothing—not even a cold.”
“Well, it could just be a cold or something. But you need to not be in denial that it could be”—he hedges—“it could be something more.”
The word is heavy, leaden and falls on the floor between us making such a loud sound that neither of us say anything for a while. I don’t allow myself to even imagine that possibility.
Finally, I say, “They have new medications for AIDS now. It’s not like it used to be. People live with it.” As I say this, I recognize in my voice the same tone I use when I’m talking a client into an ad he doesn’t want. I’m selling.
Hayden smiles, blows on his tea.
“Too hot?” I say.
He nods his head. “Oh, by the way, your undertaker friend called you.”
“Jim? When?”
“While you were over at Pighead’s. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
“That’s okay, I’ll call him later.”
“He said he really needs to talk to you.”
A craving strikes. Before, I would have said I wanted a drink. I see now that what I crave is distraction. I don’t want to think about Pighead and his hiccups. I speed-dial Jim. “What’s up?”
“I met somebody,” he says. Jim is always meeting somebody. His somebodies usually last for a week. Or about as long as it takes for him to finally confess what he does for a living. Whichever comes sooner.
“Oh yeah, what’s she like?” I ask.
“She’s great,” Jim says. “A computer programmer. And she’s stacked.”
They met at Raven, a very dark and moody goth bar in the East Village that tends to attract people who are nocturnal and consider Diamanda Galas to be easy listening.
“Have you guys gone out . . .” I want to say, in daylight yet? But instead I say, “to dinner or anything?”
“Yeah, we’ve already made it past the three-date point. And guess what?” he says excitedly. “She knows I’m in prearrangements.”
“Jim, does she know what prearrangements means?”
“Yes,” he answers, annoyed, “she knows.”
I imagine a woman with pale skin, long black hair and black fingernails who wears black lace and is thrilled to have landed herself an undertaker. I see a black hearse sailing along a highway upstate, tin cans flying behind, a sign in shaving cream on the back window: JUST MARRIED! “Sounds great,” I say.
“We’re getting together tonight for drinks at this new place. I was wondering if you wanted to join us, so you can meet her.”
My first reaction is fear. I recall something spoken to me in rehab: If you walk into a barbershop, sooner or later you’ll get a haircut, Rae had said. So don’t go to bars. Don’t even think about it.
“Jim, I’d love to meet her. But I really don’t think I should be going to a bar.”
Hayden looks up from his book.
“Well, it’s not a bar really, it’s a restaurant. They have a bar, but it’s basically a restaurant.”
Hayden watches me, his eyes saying, whatsgoingon???
I’ll feel like a horrible friend if I don’t go. And as long as I’m aware of what I’m doing, I know I’ll be okay. “What time?” I ask Jim.
Hayden’s mouth opens, his eyes widen in disbelief.
“Eight.”
“Okay, give me the address.”
“Are you mad?” Hayden asks after I hang up.
“It’s not a bar, it’s a restaurant.”
“A restaurant with a bar,” Hayden argues.
“Look, I’ll be fine. I’ll walk in, meet this goth girl, have a seltzer and then leave.”
Hayden has turned into a mistrustful parent. He doesn’t even need to use words, he can use looks alone. There will be no drive-thru McDonald’s for me tonight.
The restaurant is in Soho, on Wooster Street. It’s easy to spot, because its fabulousness can be seen from a block away. Two huge French doors open out onto the sidewalk, and long, rich, red velvet drapes hang from each door and billow in the warm summer evening breeze. Inside, it’s so dark my eyes need time to adjust. For a moment I stand there in this unknown void. Gradually, it reveals itself to me. An expansive bar begins near the door and stretches back into blackness for what is probably miles. Low Moroccan tables are peppered throughout the converted loft space and the only light comes from small votive candles inside blue glass orbs on the tables and along the bar. Behind the bar, colorful liquor bottles are lit from below like fine art.
They look breathtakingly beautiful. Seeing them, I am filled with longing. It’s not an ordinary craving. It’s a romantic craving. Because I don’t just drink alcohol. I actually love it. I turn away.
Two women sit cross-legged on tapestry cushions at one of the tables, each with an exotic blue drink before them. Cigarette smoke curls up from their ashtray like a cobra. In the corner, I see a tall man in a suit whispering into the ear of a woman who looks like a young Kathleen Turner. Four gigantic, thick-bladed ceiling fans barely spin above my head. I realize that in Manhattan, this is the year of the ceiling fan. I could be in Madagascar, circa 1943, in a bar reserved for spies.
Jim is standing at the bar, talking animatedly with a woman, their back
s to me. Relieved, I make my way slowly over to them, careful not to accidentally trip on one of the cushions, the low tables or some other unseen, impossibly exotic design element. This is the Kingdom of Heaven and I am only allowed to visit briefly. Sit on the floor, not a cloud.
“Hey, buddy,” Jim cheers as he sees me. “Holy shit, you look totally different, you look awesome.” His eyes are wide with vodka. I haven’t seen him for over a month. I have never seen him when I’m sober. In the hundred-watt bulb of sobriety, he reminds me of a train wreck.
He aims me at the tall, attractive blond woman next to him. “Augusten, Astrid—Astrid, Augusten.” We shake hands. Her hand is moist and cool, not from nerves but from the drink she is holding.
“Shit, man,” Jim says, giving me the once-over for the second time. “I gotta say, the way you look—hell, I wouldn’t kick you out of my bed.” He breaks into laughter and gives Astrid a playful wink. She laughs too, and takes a big swallow of her cocktail.
Jim forgets that two years ago, he in fact didn’t kick me out of his bed. We had been out until four in the morning when the bars closed and ended up at his apartment. When we woke up the next morning, we were together in bed, naked. We were both so horrified by the situation that neither of us ever spoke of it again. I am tempted to remind him now, but refrain.
The bartender glides over, as if propelled by silent jets attached to the heels of his Prada shoes. All bone structure and musculature, he’s a head shot that can also mix drinks. “What can I getcha?” he asks, using just one corner of his mouth. I am sure he has stood in front of his mirror for many hours saying this exact phrase, using this exact side of his mouth. If you asked, I bet he’d describe himself as A few degrees left of cool.
A Ketel One martini please, very dry with olives, I want to say. “Um, just a seltzer with lime,” I say instead. I might as well have ordered warm tap water or dirt. I feel that uncool. And suddenly, it’s like I can feel how depressing alcoholism really is. Basements and prayers. It lacks the swank factor.
“You guys okay?” the head shot asks Jim and Astrid, pointing at their drinks.
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