Luckily, Keith lives only blocks away. His apartment is a fifth-floor walk-up. I manage the stairs and am uncomfortably sober by the time I reach the top. I am hoping he has alcohol in the apartment. And then I remember the blow. Once inside, Keith tosses his wallet and keys on the kitchen counter and removes miniature paper envelopes from his pocket. He produces a razor blade from the junk drawer in the kitchen and goes about the task of cutting lines. He works wordlessly, like an old-world craftsman. His face is pure scrimshaw. I, on the other hand, would simply drag out the corner of my Amex card, poke it into the dust and start snorting.
“Wanna go?” he asks, producing exactly half of a plastic straw from thin air.
I take the straw. “Sure,” I say as I lean over the counter and, like a practiced anteater, begin inhaling line after line.
“Whoa, man. Take it easy on that shit.”
I turn my head sideways and look at him with the straw still at my nostril. “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I’m fine.” I inhale another two lines and pass the straw to him. I pinch my nostrils together and sniff whatever dust remains.
Keith displays admirable moderation, snorting only two lines. “That’s enough for me for a while,” he says.
“Take off your shirt,” I tell him as I stretch my own T-shirt over my head.
“Holy shit,” he says when he sees my chest. “You have an incredible body.” He reaches his hand out to touch my stomach. I feel no pleasure in his compliment or his touch, only impatience. This is the only feeling. I feel like the paper on which my mood chart is printed.
“Here, I’ll do it,” I say as I tug his shirt up, snagging it on his head. He pulls his head out and tosses the shirt onto a chair. His chest is very handsome—strong and solid. But this isn’t what interests me. What interests me is seeing what I can get him to do. The coke has made me incredibly horny and also borderline suicidal. I’m split 50/50. Do I want a blowjob or do I want to jump out the window?
“Does this feel good?” he asks later in bed, my cock in his hands, slick from his mouth.
No, it feels awful, I don’t tell him. But want to. This is not what I expected, he was the wrong guy. His touch is too personal. Affectionate. It could split me open.
I gently pull him up, rest his head on my chest. I stroke it as kindly as I can possibly stroke a stranger’s head. “I have to go,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Hey, Augusten, what’s the matter? You seem like you’re upset about something. Like maybe you wanna talk. I really like you, you know. It’s not just about sex or anything. I mean, there’s something about you that, well, I don’t know,” he trails off. “Something I guess I’m really attracted to. And I don’t mean the physical stuff.”
He’s a really nice guy. If only I weren’t me.
Greer calls me to tell me that our commercial didn’t do well in focus groups and that we need to do a re-edit.
“I can’t care about this now,” I tell her. I am deeply hungover.
She’s silent for a moment. “Well, it’s our commercial. I mean, I know you’ve taken a leave from work, but . . . Well, you are the writer.”
“Greer, I have a lot of shit happening,” I say. “You are just going to have to deal with this yourself. Hire a fucking freelancer.”
“Why me?” she explodes. “Why must I always clean up after you?”
My head is pounding and my nose is dry. “Greer, just calm the fuck down. I’m not getting paid to deal with this crap. Get it? Leave of absence means I’m not there.”
“Well, what about me?” she cries. “I need some support here.”
“Advertising is not the most important thing in the world, Greer.”
“No, of course not,” she spits. “You are.”
I glance over at the empty bottle. I would need to be very drunk to speak with her now. A gram would help, too.
“Look, I gotta—”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean that. I just mean that I need help, too.”
“I can’t be your support system,” I say. “I have too much going on in my life. There’s not enough of me left over.”
“I had a dream about you last night,” she begins. “I dreamt that I was working late at the office and all of a sudden, there was a tornado. And the windows started to blow in and there was glass everywhere. And in the dream, I knew you were the tornado.”
“Sorry about your dream.”
“I bet you are,” she says and hangs up.
An hour and a half later, she calls back. There is apology in her voice. “I just thought you’d like to know what happened to Rick,” she says.
Rick is now the farthest thing from my mind, but whatever happened to him, I can only hope it was something that involved a stun gun. “What?” I say, weary, half interested, half not giving a fuck.
“He was promoted,” she says.
“That’s wonderful,” I say, ready to hang up.
“To Direct,” she adds.
A thin smile comes to me. Rick is now in Direct Marketing, the lowest of the low. His life will be about getting people to open their envelopes and send back the SASE. If ad people are bottom-feeders, Rick is now a catfish with no dorsal fin and an extra eye.
I drink to Rick.
“He coded. It took five people just to get his heart going again. He hasn’t regained consciousness.” These are the first words I hear this morning, not counting “Grande? or venti?” from the Starbucks guy. Pighead’s brother is standing next to me in ICU. We are both standing in the doorway to Pighead’s room. Pighead himself is attached to many busy machines.
“I don’t get it,” I say. My fingers burn from the hot coffee in my hand.
“He started complaining last night. Saying his chest hurt. He was cold and sweaty. My mother freaked, called nine-one-one. I got here at about three.”
At three, I was still doing lines. This reminds me that I brought one of the packets with me. “I gotta run to the bathroom. Be back in a sec,” I say, turning and walking down the hall. Inside the bathroom, I open the little envelope and set it on the stainless steel ledge above the sink. I open my wallet and pull out a credit card. I go to work on the coke. I do maybe a quarter of it. I fold the envelope back up and stick it in my pocket. Then I decide, fuck it. And I take the envelope out again and do another quarter. I take a leak and my piss smells like scotch. Then I go back outside. Jerry is still staring at his older brother. I walk past him and go to Pighead’s bedside.
“Pighead,” I say. “You in there?” I poke his arm with my index finger. He doesn’t respond.
“Wake up,” I say very quietly. It’s an effort to speak softly because the coke is pushing me. I’m hitting my breaks constantly, skidding inside.
Nothing. Less than nothing. The ventilator is incredibly offensive, breathing for him like this. Giving him these expansive, healthy breaths. For the first time today, I notice that I’m wearing jeans and a tight white T-shirt. The veins along my arms stand out like highways on a map and I feel ashamed. It feels obscene to look this healthy.
On the way home, I tell myself he’s dying, that I have to accept this fact. Then I tell myself, no he’s not, I don’t have to accept anything. I can feel the small pouch of coke in my pocket. It’s like this tiny powder hard-on that wants attention. But the thing is, I don’t really love coke. So I stop at a liquor store on University Place and pick up a bottle of Dewar’s.
Pighead’s mother calls me three times, leaving long messages on my machine. Messages that say things like “When are you coming?” and “Still no change.” I listen to her speak into the machine, unable to answer her calls. “Maybe he would wake up if you come,” she says.
No, I want to tell her, he wouldn’t.
I notice that I have polished off nearly half of the Dewar’s. I glance over at the picture of Pighead in the car from our trip to Massachusetts all those years ago. And a picture of me in that fucking motel pool. I look at it and think, The deep end.
And then some
thing else hits me. Something so blindly obvious that it’s no wonder I have been unable to see it. The problem is that it’s been eight years since that trip to Massachusetts, six-and-a-half since he learned he was positive, six-and-a-half since I decided to get over him in that way. And I didn’t. I didn’t get over him. I never got over him. My feelings simply went into remission. They were pushed out of the way by the olive in the bottom of my martini glass.
No wonder I don’t feel anything. I’m about to lose everything.
It’s after visiting hours when I arrive at St. Vincent’s. The receptionist at the front desk lets me up despite the fact that I probably smell like the floor of a bar. She lets me up after checking her computer. “Go ahead,” she says, handing me a pass. I want to turn her computer monitor around and read what it says. Why is she letting a drunk up to his room near midnight? Does it say, “Lost cause, admit all”?
ICU is dark, though pulsing with the electronics of life support. I get the feeling that nobody here is sleeping. They’re just unconscious. I walk softly, trying not to let my sneakers squeak against the tile.
“Pighead?” I say softly. “I’m here,” I tell him. I look to see if his eyes are moving beneath his eyelids, to see if he’s dreaming.
His right eye opens. The eye closest to me.
“Pighead?” I say. “It’s me. It’s okay. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”
He doesn’t squeeze my hand. But still. There’s something in his eye. Something of him. I need to tell him. Now.
Except I can’t say anything. I can’t say anything that will make him think something’s wrong. “Pighead, you know how much I . . .” and then I say, “It’s okay.”
A tear wells in his eye. It wells and then spills down his cheek. And despite being pumped with booze and coke, I can read that one eye as clearly as a billboard for cigarettes. Only instead of saying Alive with Pleasure it says, I Have to Go Now.
“You’re going to be okay, Pighead. They’re going to fix you. You need to fight this off. Fight as hard as you can.” Plop, plop, plop, my own tears hit his sheet.
His eye says, “I can smell the liquor on your breath, Fuckhead. What the hell are you gonna do without me?”
“Pighead?” I whimper.
His eye says, “I have to go now. Don’t follow me. Be good. Stay dry.”
I need him to get up and start making hot dogs. I need him to yell at me for something. I need him to absolve me of every bad thing I have ever done to him or anyone else. I need him to know I won’t run away or be shallow anymore.
His eye closes. A nurse enters the room. “Your friend had a very fitful evening. I think it’s best if you let him rest. He needs to rest.”
“How is he?” I ask her.
She looks at me like, What, are you kidding? “I’m sorry,” she says, touching my arm as she leads me out of the room.
Well, there’s my answer.
“He can get better, you know. I’ve seen him do it before. I mean, he was fine only a month or so ago.” I think, It has been only a month, hasn’t it? Or has this been going on longer? Have I lost track of time?
“You can come back tomorrow,” she says. Then she adds, “You should probably sleep some yourself.”
At home, I drink the rest of the bottle and finish up what little coke is left. I play the last message Pighead left on my answering machine. He left it before any of this shit happened. I saved it because it was so unusual. It said, “It’s eleven-thirty, you must still be at work or over at Foster’s. Anyway, Augusten, I just wanted to let you know that I love you.”
At the time, I thought, Huh? What’s this shit all about? Why is he so Hallmarky all of a sudden?
Now I know.
I wake up to the nagging ring of my phone. The machine picks up. I hear a hang-up, then the phone rings again. I drag myself out of bed feeling flammable from the alcohol fumes that are wafting off my skin. On the counter next to the microwave is the empty bottle of Dewar’s, along with a dozen empty bottles of hard cider. Funny, I don’t recall buying hard cider last night.
“Hello?” I answer. This seems to me more acceptable than “What the fuck!?” Which is my first thought.
“Augusten, Jim.”
“Oh, hey. What in the world are you—”
“Pighead died. I just got the call.”
In an effort to wake from the dream, I speak out loud. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m so sorry, Augusten. He was pronounced dead forty minutes ago. Heart failure.”
“Wait.”
“We’re handling the arrangements. I recognized his name. We’re always the first to know. I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yeah, he’s dead. I’m so sorry, kiddo. Want me to come over?”
Why didn’t his family call me? Why didn’t his brother call me? Why did he die? And why is the undertaker telling me this? “I have to go,” I tell him and hang up. I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. “He’s dead,” I tell my reflection. “Do you understand? Pighead is dead. You will never see him again. How does this make you feel?”
My reflection says nothing.
The wake is at four. I arrive at one. It’s impossible for me to see people right now, anyone. Especially his family. It seems hardly possible that I am even capable of walking, having consumed nothing but alcohol for the past thirty hours. Which may explain the frown I get from the woman who answers the door of the funeral home. “No, Jim is not in at the moment. But you may view the body if you like.” View the body. As if he’s a Fabergé egg.
I walk into the viewing room. Harps gently play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” through discreet speakers in the ceiling. Banquet chairs with padded red vinyl seats face the front of the room. There are flowers everywhere, an extravagance of blossoms. The aroma is Grandmother’s Powder Room on steroids. He, I feel certain, would approve of the casket. It’s a solid walnut Batesville with an ivory crepe lining. Jim suggested it personally. This is the first time I have ever seen, firsthand, how exquisite the undertaker’s taste truly is in these matters.
I peer into the coffin.
So still. No heaving chest. No shaking. No sweating. No face winced in pain. No hiccups. No diarrhea. And a tuxedo.
“Hey, Pighead? Are you there? Pighead?”
I guess not.
I look at his face a while longer. I want to touch it but am afraid. I think, Now I can remove your number from speed dial on my phone. I can forget your birthday. I don’t have to put rubber gloves on and inject you with medication. I don’t have to worry about getting stuck with a needle. Or fill your humidifier. Or change the lightbulb in the kitchen. Or answer the front door. I don’t have to wonder how long you’ll live. I don’t have to tell you I can’t see you today. I don’t have to ever put more ice in your glass or pick up hot dog buns on the way to your apartment.
In my head, I go over all these new benefits.
Days pass. They come and they go and I drink. This is all that happens. I suppose the mail arrives but I don’t check. Greer leaves a message to see how Pighead is doing. She deliberately does not mention anything about work, so I know this is probably the real reason she called. I send her an e-mail saying just, He’s dead. On my list of priorities in life, Greer is at the bottom along with vacuum cleaner bags and my career.
Jim calls drunk and leaves a weepy message. Something about how he did the best he could. How he prepared “the body” himself, as a favor. How Astrid left him because she thinks he’s a drunk. “Ain’t that a pisser,” were his exact, slurry words.
And I can’t stop thinking about Pighead. I wish I could talk to him and he’d talk back. Use some sort of spirit-world sign language. Make the lights flicker, or if that’s too hard, he could cause a draft in my apartment. Or maybe it’s easier to come back in a dream. Maybe he could visit me there. The only problem with that is that I’d always think it was just a dream. So maybe he needs to learn how to turn street lamps off when I walk
beneath them. If that’s too tricky, maybe he could just make them blink.
I keep talking to him but I don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe there’s a holding area or something. A process. Like going through customs with a dog. How it has to stay in quarantine for a few weeks before you can take it home. Maybe it’s like that. Or maybe you just die and that’s it. Maybe there is nothing else. Maybe your body heat simply evaporates and adds another billionth of a degree of heat to the world.
The phone rings. I take a hurried swallow of scotch and answer it. It’s Foster. Why am I not surprised? “Well, well, well,” I say.
“Hey, Auggie.”
“Hey, Fosty,” I mimic, hatefully. “Where’s your little Brit tonight?”
I hear the flick of a lighter, a sharp inhale. “He’s gone. Been gone for three, four days,” Foster says as he holds his breath.
“And you?” I ask.
He exhales into the phone, which I guess is my answer. “I’m fucked up. How’s life?”
This makes me laugh. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days. It’s bitter, like the first twenty seconds of water coming out of an old faucet. “What’s your address?”
It takes me about fifty minutes to reach Foster’s apartment by cab. I tip the driver three bucks and walk to the front door of the brownstone. He answers wearing a tank top, sweatpants and a blue bandana on his head. I walk through the door without saying anything.
“Want the grand tour?” he asks with zero enthusiasm.
I’m standing in the foyer. In front of me is a staircase that winds up to a second floor. To my right is one large room and to my left is another. There is no furiture. Various articles of clothing are strewn about; underwear, jeans, a sock and—inexplicably—a football helmet. I follow Foster through the living room and into the kitchen. Although it would be considered a “gourmet, true cook’s kitchen” by a perky real-estate agent, it’s just another empty room. The Wolf stove, the Sub-Zero refrigerator with the glass doors, the slate countertops all ignored. “Nice kitchen. Bet you make some really lovely dinners here,” I say.