Dry: A Memoir (17 page)

He gives me a hug. I don’t fight it.

“You smell good,” he tells me.

“You do, too,” I say, reduced now to single-syllable words.

The hug goes on longer than casual hugs do.

“And you feel good, too.”

“So do you.”

We both feel it, it would be impossible not to. But neither of us will mention it.

I pull back and say, “Okay, see you later. Thanks for the sandwich and everything.”

“I’m glad I got to be with you some.”

I walk down the hall toward the elevator bank. I turn back in the direction of his door, and he’s still standing there, watching me. I want to run back to him and tell him everything that was going through my mind. But I don’t. I leave. He’s a crack addict from my group therapy. I can’t have these feelings about him.

In the cab home, I feel like I have been sniffing glue all night. High and guilty. The fumes of him still trapped in my nose.

“It’s obvious what you’re doing,” Hayden says. He dunks and redunks the chamomile tea bag in his mug. “You’re defocusing.”

To “defocus” is to focus on someone else, or something else other than your sobriety. Your sobriety should, at all times, remain your number one priority. Alcoholics instinctively defocus. I am a perfect example. With three hundred bottles of Dewar’s in my apartment, all I could see was the wall. Now all I can see is Foster.

“I know. I mean, I think that’s part of it.”

“I don’t like the sound of this at all, you getting involved with a crack addict from your group therapy. That’s really addict behavior.”

“We’re not involved,” I say in my own defense.

“You told me he was hugging you on his couch.”

“Because I was upset. He’s a nice guy.”

“Look, I’m not here to make judgments, but I just think this is, well, crazy.”

I wish Hayden would vanish in a cloud of smoke. “Hayden, you’re gonna have to stop with this mental health stuff. Or I’ll have to take a cheese grater across your face.”

“You’re obsessing on him,” he says, unfazed.

This is true, I am. “I am not,” I say.

“This is your addict talking. Your addict needs something to fill it up. Your addict is hungry. It’s trying to feed.” He sounds as though he is describing the plot of a science fiction horror film.

“I’m just upset about Pighead being in the hospital. Foster was only being nice, helping me out. That’s all.”

“What do you mean? Pighead is in the hospital?”

I want a beer. A six-pack. And then I want to go out for drinks. “Yeah, hospital. He called me at work today. His doctor checked him in. They’re doing tests, that’s all I know. Hiccups that won’t go away.”

“Dear God, I’m sorry. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. They’re still trying to find out what’s wrong. I mean, yeah, he’s
okay
, I’m sure he’s okay. They just need to figure out this hiccup thing.”

Hayden looks at me with utter compassion; the long-lost son of Mother Teresa.

For some reason, the fact that Pighead is in the hospital lets me off the hook with Hayden. And then, this awful feeling. I feel
happy
that Pighead is in the hospital, deflecting the attention. And I’m a monster again.

Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don’t go there alone
, Rae once said.

My office door is unlocked. Immediately, this makes me suspicious. I always lock my door. And if I don’t, the cleaning lady does. I throw my stuff on the sofa and go over to my desk. There is a yellow sticky note on my computer screen.
DRINKS. ODEON NINE TONIGHT—BE THERE
. Beneath this is another line: (
ONE GLASS OF WINE NEVER HURT ANYBODY
.)

I pick up the phone and dial Greer’s extension, but she’s not in yet. I walk over to the bookcase, and I notice that the storyboards we did for the Pizza Hut pitch have been rearranged. These are boards we presented last year, and we just keep them because we never got around to throwing them out. As a result, I’ve been staring at this pan of Deep Dish pizza for the past twelve months, and now it’s gone. I thumb through the boards, and it’s clear that somebody has been snooping. It then occurs to me that this is something Rick would do. Rick would look through our old Pizza Hut boards because he needs ideas. And sometimes you can take an idea from one place and use it somewhere else.

Ideas come easy to me. But this is not so for Rick. He struggles. I can write a script—and a really good one—in a few minutes. I’ve created campaigns over tuna sandwiches with Greer. But Rick needs to fester for a while. He needs days, sometimes weeks. And even then, he often doesn’t come up with anything that great. Usually something he’s recycled from some old issue of
Communication Arts
magazine.

And all of a sudden I can picture him in my office after I have left for the day. I can see him fingering the boards.
That faggot. He thinks he’s so good. He’s just a fucking lush
, he would say. And then he’d leave the sticky note.

“I can’t believe you got here before I did,” Greer says, suddenly standing in my doorway, winded from her brisk walk from the train.

“Check it out,” I say, gesturing toward the computer.

She walks around the desk and looks at the note. She leans in to read it. “Maybe somebody has a crush on you,” she says, looking up.

“A crush?” I say. I pull the Pizza Hut board back out and place it in the front. I stack the boards neatly against the wall.

“Well, yeah. Maybe somebody likes you.” She smiles slyly. “Maybe it’s that new account guy,” she says. “You know, the one with the goatee.”

“Greer, this isn’t about a crush. It’s somebody being a jerk.”

Greer plucks the note off the screen. “Why do you always have to be so cynical?” she says. “Maybe it’s not some big joke. Maybe somebody really does want to meet you for drinks. Maybe you should go.”

I tell her about the storyboards being examined.

“That’s ridiculous,” she says. “The cleaning woman probably moved them to dust. God knows you never clean in here.”

“I think it’s Rick,” I say.

“Rick? Why would he do something like that?”

“Think about it, Greer. The beer ads, the fake concerned looks, and now this. You and I both know what a pathetic loser he is. He’s not above doing something like this. He’s looking for ideas to steal.”

Greer considers this. “I don’t think Rick is creative enough to think of something like this,” she says. “I mean, Rick’s a jerk. But a harmless jerk.”

I’m not so sure. So all day long, I keep an eye on him. I watch him for signs of guilt. We pass in the hallways, and I make eye contact. He makes eye contact back and smiles. But he doesn’t look away, which to me would implicate him. I’m tempted to confront him, but if he didn’t do it, I really would seem like a crazy alcoholic faggot.

I also make sure to walk past the new account guy’s office at least twice, just to see if he looks up. I walk casually, as if out for a stroll. Just to see if by some far-flung chance, Greer is right, that the note is for real and the guy really does have some sort of crush on me. But the third time I walk by, he looks up from his desk. “Can I help you with something? Do you need me for some reason?”

I step into his office. “Um, I was just wondering if you have the competitive beer reel,” I say.

He smiles. “Nope, not with me. But I could get a copy for you. I’ll make sure somebody drops it by your office.”

I notice a framed picture of a beautiful woman on his desk. She is on the beach, laughing into the sun, the straw hat on her head about to blow off. “Never mind,” I say.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Later, when I tell Greer that the note wasn’t from the account guy, she says, “That picture doesn’t mean anything. It could be his sister.”

“Greer, even if his sister were Christy Turlington, he wouldn’t have a shot of her like that on his desk. Trust me. It’s his wife or his girlfriend.”

“Maybe,” Greer suggests, “he’s confused. Maybe he’s engaged but doesn’t really know if he can go through with it. Maybe it’s like some sort of sexual-orientation cry for help.”

“Oh my God,” I say.

“Well, it’s possible. I mean, maybe he’s got all this family pressure, and all this pressure from the girl, and maybe he just really needs somebody to talk to.”

“Greer,” I say, “you are in the right business. I have never met anybody so skilled at creating mountains out of molehills.”

Greer looks pleased with herself. “You’re not the only one with a bookcase full of advertising awards.”

“My name is Augusten, and I’m alcoholic,” I announce to the room. “And today I have ninety days.”

The alcoholics at the Perry Street meeting applaud. I’m sitting at the podium because today I have ninety days of sobriety and in order to “work my program” I need to “qualify.” I glance over at Hayden, who smiles at me.

I’m amazed by how nervous I am, how dry my throat suddenly is. Even though I make a living talking in front of people, presenting advertising campaigns to CEOs, I’m terrified and speechless. My hands are almost dripping with sweat. I can’t think of how to begin, what to say. My mind is filled with two-ply facial tissues. Yet, my mouth somehow switches to autopilot and words come out of me, like involuntary farts. I talk about how it was when I was drunk. I begin with the Fabergé egg exhibit, then being forced into rehab by my boss. I talk about rehab, and then coming back into my life, sober.

And I’m obsessed with a handsome, hairy-armed crack addict from my group therapy
, I don’t say. I say I feel grateful for the people in my life, grateful for my sobriety, one day at a time, etcetera.

“You were spectacular,” Hayden tells me afterwards.

“How so?”

“You were so honest and substantive. Just no bullshit,” he says, slapping me on the back.

“Really? I seemed normal?” I ask.

“Of course. You were great.”

“What a relief. I had no idea what I was saying. I was actually thinking about how my chest hair is growing back after having shaved it all off.”

Hayden turns sharply,
“What?”

“Well, I thought maybe of bleaching it for the summer. But then I thought how awful it would be to have roots. Chest hair roots. That would be really humiliating. The blond chest hair might look good and natural like I go to the Hamptons on the weekends. But as soon as the roots started to appear, it would be like, ‘Oh, that’s very sad, he’s obviously looking for something and just not finding it.’ ”

Hayden stares at me with mock horror. Or maybe it’s real horror. “You absolutely terrify me. The depth of your shallowness is staggering.”

“Let’s go get Indian,” I say.

At the restaurant on First Avenue and Seventh, I tell Hayden that I think asshole Rick from work is fucking with me.

“I thought your boss’s name was Elenor,” he says, biting into a vegetable samosa.

“Rick is her partner. They work together. Good cop, bad cop.”

“You said work was going well. I don’t understand.”

I tell him about how last week, I got into work and somebody had crammed beer ads from magazines in my desk drawer. I tell him about the sticky note.

Hayden is aghast. “That seems hostile,” he says.

“Rick’s a fuck. He’s a homophobic closet case and he hasn’t got an ounce of talent. He just hitched his wagon to Elenor years ago and she’s too busy to notice he’s as dumb as a box of hair.”

Hayden takes a long sip of water. “You have to keep an eye on this Rick person.”

I intend to.

•  •  •

“Come over to my apartment at six and we’ll walk to Group together,” Foster tells me on the phone.

I hurl my body into a cab and head uptown. Each block has tripled in size since the last time I was in a cab. I can’t get there fast enough.

He opens the door wearing a towel around his waist and half a beard of white shaving cream on his face. “C’mon in, I just have to finish shaving, then we can go.”

I stand in the doorway of his bathroom as he shaves; steam from the sink fogs the mirror. The towel is short enough that I can see the muscles in his legs flex each time he shifts the weight from one leg to the other. Thick muscles, covered with tan skin and black hair. He’s a hairy guy, circa 1970 when guys didn’t bother with electrolysis or waxing. Foster is physically retro. He watches me as he shaves, glancing from sink to skin to me, smiling. “Are we going to be okay, or are we late?” he asks, scraping the blade across his face; the sound of a butter knife against sandpaper.

“We’re okay,” I say without bothering to look at my watch.

Foster pulls the towel off from around his waist, revealing a pair of white boxers.

I think:
Is it okay for one member of group therapy to see another member of group therapy in his underwear? Am I crossing a boundary?

He rinses his face over the sink, then stands up and takes a towel, presses it against his face. “All done,” he announces. He brushes against me as he walks by. “Oh, sorry,” he says, grinning. “Clumsy ol’ me.”

I follow him to the bedroom. “Should I wear these . . .” he asks, holding out a pair of black jeans, “. . . or these?”—holding out a pair of khakis.

“Neither,” I say.

He raises just one eyebrow. Something that I know (from Greer, of course) takes hours of practice in front of a mirror.

“Okay,” he says flatly, letting both pairs of pants fall to the floor. Then he saunters over toward me, smiling. I pretend to back away.

“I meant you should wear sweatpants,” I say, laughing.

“Is that what you meant?” He raises his arm up, brushes his forearm against my cheek. “Fur,” he says.

I move my hands around his waist, press him against me. He wraps his arm around me and somehow manages to move us over to the bed where we collapse.

“How’d you get this?” I say, pointing to a small scar under his chin.

He rubs it lightly with the tip of his finger. “I cracked up my pickup truck when I was in college, smacked my face on the steering wheel.”

His earlobe fits perfectly between my lips. I’d forgotten how it feels to kiss somebody. Back when I was in love with Pighead, I always felt like he didn’t want me to kiss him, but that he let me anyway. This is different. Mutual makes all the difference. And then I realize I’m kissing somebody from my outpatient group therapy.