Running With Scissors

by Augusten Burroughs

  I went out the back door into the yard. The crystal stemware was shattered, and glittered in the grass. Light from the kitchen glinted off the sterling forks, knives and spoons that were scattered everywhere. It gave the yard the magical look of a set. And I would not have been at all surprised to see Marie Osmond rise from the ground in a white sequined dress, singing “Paper Roses.”

  YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SEX OBJECT

  T

  HERE WAS A NOTE ON THE BACK OF THE NESTLE’S CRUNCH bar wrapper. It read: You are nothing but a sex object. I bought the candy bar from the vending machine downstairs next to the ice. I bought it for Bookman. He ate half, slipped me the rest and then scrawled the note, passing it to me while my mother lay on the bed in front of us, unconscious in her curly black poodle sweater and covered in Johnson’s baby powder.

  I was nearly fifteen, Bookman was thirty-four and we were in the midst of our tumultuous love affair.

  We were staying at the Treadway Inn motorlodge in Newport, Rhode Island. Me, Bookman, Hope, Dorothy, and the doctor.

  And, of course, my mother.

  She was the reason we were all there. She’d gone crazy again. And this time it was really bad.

  Instead of committing her to the Brattleboro retreat, Dr. Finch decided to take her to a motel in Newport, where he could treat her around the clock himself. Her therapy involved scrawling the numeral 5 with her lipstick on every smooth surface, raging at everyone who came within sight, and recycling the motel furnishings into kindling. She even scraped some of the popcorn-textured ceiling down with her stubby fingernails and ate it.

  We took turns watching her. Hope and the doctor had already spent hours with her and they were asleep in one of the three rooms the doctor had rented. Neil and I were on guard.

  Because of the medication the doctor had given her, my mother slept soundly. I was grateful for this because her hysterics terrified me. I’d been awake for three days straight. I just wanted to go to sleep, but I knew that she could hurt herself if we didn’t watch her. So we watched her. And Bookman passed me the note.

  I stuck my tongue out at him after I read it.

  He smiled. Then he scribbled another note on the rest of the wrapper. You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.

  I had my mother’s eyes. Everybody always told me this. And it scared me that I had her eyes because I worried that it meant I had whatever else she had back there that made her believe she could not only speak to the dead, but smoke cigarettes in the bathroom with them.

  As I sat there, I thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t decided to go to the mental hospital; if I had decided to just go to school instead. I’d be expected in school the next day. How would that have happened? Even if I had wanted to be in school, there just wasn’t room for it in my world. I wondered what the Cosby bitch would do in my situation, if it were her father on this bed in a poodle sweater. “No, Daddy, Fat Albert isn’t hiding in the corner with an axe. You’re Fat Albert, don’t you understand?”

  I’d tried calling my father collect to tell him what had happened to my mother. I was hoping that maybe he would feel bad and come get me, take me somewhere. On a trip, maybe. But, as usual, he refused to accept the charges. I decided that when we returned, I would send him a dildo in the mail, C.O.D. “What’s this?” he would say in front of the mailman. And then he’d open the box. I would make it a nineinch black dildo.

  I sat on the stiff vinyl chair, Bookman sat on the other and I wondered how anything would ever be normal again. What if my mother didn’t get better? What if she couldn’t be pulled back from wherever she was? And more importantly, what would the cheap motel soap do to my hair?

  The first time my mother was hospitalized, I was eight. She was gone so long, I forgot what her face looked like. I worried she would never return from the hospital and when she did, it was like not all of her came back. She returned flat, sad. As though an important part of her personality had been surgically removed.

  Since she started seeing Finch, she’d gone crazy every fall. It was like her brain went on a Winter Clearance Sale. Sometimes the doctor would take her to a motel room where they would stay for four or five days. They would “work through” the psychotic episode together. Other times, she would be hospitalized. That would usually last for two weeks. It made me sad to visit her in the hospital. Not because she didn’t fit in there with the crazy people, but because she did.

  Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward, she would tell me, “I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.” And I would believe—for a few months—that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom’s Hell Is for Children tour was going to be her last tour?

  Eventually, I dozed off. And Bookman must have carried me, because when I woke up, I was in bed, under the sheets. I was wearing my shirt, but my pants had been stripped off.

  “You feeling better?” he asked, sitting on the other bed smoking a cigarette.

  I felt heavy, like I had slept for months. “I don’t know. How long was I asleep?”

  “An hour maybe,” he said.

  “Oh. How’s my mother?”

  “Still asleep.”

  I wanted to go back to sleep. But I couldn’t stop replaying the conversation I had with her before she went to bed.

  “Are you alright?” she asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re alright.”

  It went on for twenty minutes. If she’d just asked once, it might have made me feel better, like she was still my mother and that she cared. But because she was like a broken record, because she couldn’t stop asking, it made me feel she was truly insane.

  Finch said the reason my mother went psychotic was because she was in love with him and afraid to admit it. He said her repressed emotions for him made her sick.

  “I need to talk to you,” Neil said.

  I realized I was staring blindly at the floor and looked up at him. “Yeah?”

  “I’m going through my own crisis here,” he said. “Over you.”

  I didn’t want to hear anything he said. I wanted him to go away; to go back to Rhode Island and wait for me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that my feelings for you are so huge, I don’t think I can contain them. Sometimes I want to hold you so tight it scares me. Like I want to hold you until the life is gone, so you can’t ever vanish.”

  This sounded alarmingly like something you’d hear on an episode of Charlie’s Angels; a final episode where the Angels are taken to a warehouse and doused with gasoline, firecrackers stuffed in their pockets. “You’re not going crazy too, are you?” I said. Was everybody going to go insane now? Was it contagious, like the flu?

  “I may very well be going insane,” Bookman said. He was trembling. His lit cigarette making a zigzag of light in the darkened room.

  “Can we talk about this later? I just can’t deal with anything else right now.”

  “But I can’t deal with my emotions, with what you’ve done to me. You have a power over me.”

  I hated it when he talked about the power I had over him. He was like one of those people who sit in the hallway and bang their head against the wall over and over. He just wouldn’t stop. “Later,” I snapped.

  He reclined on the bed, staring straight ahead.

  I’d pissed him off. I went over to him, put my arms around him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just feel like I’m gonna explode.”

  “Don’t you see,” he said, “that’s exactly how I feel.”

  For two days my mother was like a grizzly bear. In fact, she seemed to increase in mass and sprout fur. Her body gave off a repulsive odor that was both sweet and me
tallic. And no matter how much medication the doctor gave her, she didn’t seem to be getting any better. I began wishing she would throw herself out the window so that life could go back to normal. Nothing, it seemed, would fix her.

  Until Winnie Pye came along.

  Winnie was a sassy waitress at a coffee shop down the street. My mother had insisted that she wanted a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and when the doctor said he’d send Hope or me off to get it, she screamed, “I will go and get my own goddamned sandwich.” Finch had told her she wasn’t well enough to be out in public. And she’d taken his Brill Cream and sprayed him in the face with it. “If I’m well enough to aim, I’m well enough to get my own damn sandwich.”

  So Finch had gone with her to the little diner on the corner. Like a bodyguard, I followed, lagging slightly behind.

  Winnie had been their waitress.

  She had tall, teased blonde hair and tan, leathery skin with tiny wrinkles surrounding her mouth. Bright pink lipstick bled into the corners. Her eyelids were painted sky blue and she wore gold heart earrings that were the size of onion rings.

  My mother loved her instantly.

  “I’m being held hostage by this crazy man,” my wild-eyed mother said when they sat at the counter.

  “Are you now, honey. You two lovebirds having a little fun with the baby powder?” she teased with a wink.

  “You don’t understand.” My mother leaned in. “He’s the crazy one, not me.”

  “Hey, sugar. I don’t make no judgments about no one. To each his own. Now, what can I getcha?” She licked the tip of her pencil and poised it over her order pad.

  My mother ordered her sandwich, the doctor ordered a slice of Boston cream pie.

  I sat at the far end of the counter and watched. When Winnie came to take my order she said, “What’s a little man like you sitting here all by your lonesome?”

  “I’m with them,” I said, nodding toward the far end of the counter.

  “Oh,” she said. Then she leaned in. “What’s the matter, sourpuss, you don’t like your momma’s new friend?”

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s her shrink.”

  Winnie opened her mouth. “Her shrink? Your momma’s gone and shacked up with her shrink? Boy, she must be one crazy lady.”

  “They’re not shacked up. My mother’s crazy and he’s taking care of her.”

  “Your momma’s crazy?” Winnie said, sliding her eyes sideways.

  My mother was talking to her spoon.

  “Yeah,” I said. “She’s out of it. Her doctor took her to that motel across the street to try and get her better.”

  Winnie frowned. “That don’t make no sense. Why would a shrink take his crazy patient to a motel?”

  “Well,” I said, “he’s sort of an unusual shrink.”

  “Unusual my ass,” Winnie said. “Somethin’s fishy. I better go have me a look.” And she walked back down to the other end of the counter.

  I watched as Winnie approached my mother and Finch, smiling. Then she reached across the counter, put her hand on the doctor’s shoulder and said something that caused him to laugh and blush. She pointed to the rest rooms at the far end of the room. Finch got up from the counter and walked back to the bathroom. Then Winnie came around from behind the counter and took the stool next to my mother. She turned sideways so they were face to face, and they had a chat. A moment later when the doctor reappeared, Winnie got up, went back behind the counter and came walking back to me.

  “Sugar, somethin’ funny’s goin’ on,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “My mother’s stark raving road.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, sugar. I got an instinct about this one.” She leaned forward and whispered. “I seen a lot of crazy people come in here. Folks madder than hatters. But your momma’s different. She says that doctor of hers, he’s trying to get him a little action, if you know what I mean.” She gave me a knowing wink.

  “Don’t listen to her,” I said. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. This morning she said her dead grandfather was standing next to her holding out a basket of pecans.”

  “I love pecans,” Winnie said. Then, “Hey, we got us some pretty good pecan pie. Would you like a slice?” She added, “On the house.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself. But it’s good pie. Not too sweet.”

  “I don’t like pie,” I told her. “I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

  Her face fell. “You don’t have much of a sweet tooth? Everybody has a sweet tooth, sugar.”

  “Not me.”

  “Well, you must got other things on your mind.”

  I glanced over at my mother and Finch and saw that he was gripping her arm, firmly. Great. Now she was gonna have a fit in public, right here in the restaurant.

  “I told your momma I’ll come and visit her later at the motel.”

  “You did?”

  “I did. Your momma could use a friend,” Winnie said. “That shrink of hers.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. He may be a shrink, but he’s still a man.”

  I could not imagine what my mother said to get this perfect stranger to visit her in her motel room. I could not imagine the kind of person that would, upon seeing a crazy talcum-powder-covered Southern lady think to herself, Hmmmm, she might make a great new friend. The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.

  That evening, Winnie came to the motel. She came wearing white denim jeans with rhinestone roses on the back pockets. She wore a red-and-white checkered shirt that she had knotted just below her large breasts.

  Finch was lying on top of my mother on the bed, struggling to pin her arms against the mattress. I was standing by the TV wishing my mother would stop thrashing. When I heard the knock, I was sure it was the motel manager, coming to throw us out. Instead, it was Winnie.

  “What the hell is going on in this room,” she demanded.

  Finch turned and my mother slipped out from under him.

  Winnie ran to my mother’s side. “You ain’t like no doctor I ever seen before. You’re the one that looks crazy.”

  My mother was panting. “He is, Winnie. He’s the crazy one.”

  Winnie turned to my mother. “We’ve got to get you all cleaned up, sugar. What’s that man gone and done to you?”

  My mother began to sob.

  Winnie turned to me. “Sweetums, you go and get yourself a Coke from the vending machine. You got quarters? Reach in my bag over there and pull out my wallet. I got some change in there.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “Well, alright then. But scram.”

  Then Winnie eyed Finch, who was standing at the foot of the bed, utterly bewildered. “And you,” she said, hugging my mother tight, “you take those hands of yours and leave us alone.”

  Finch cleared his throat. “Look, Miss,” Finch said. “You do not understand this situation. This woman is in a state of crisis and she needs—”

  Winnie released my mother and walked over to Finch. In her high-heeled red boots she was at least four inches taller than he. She lowered her voice and looked him straight in the eyes. “You notice all those rigs in the parkin’ lot?” she said. “Those are my boys. I know every one of ’em. There’s Fred from Alabama, he’s up here makin’ a peanut delivery. And Stew? He’s out here all the way from Nevada. Now,” she said, placing her hand on her hip, “I don’t think my boys would take too kindly if I was to tell ’em that some shrink was in this here motel room holding a lady in crisis down on the bed like I seen when I walked in. As a matter a fact, I think that just might ruffle their feathers. Now you go on and you leave us ladies alone.”

  Finch said nothing. He simply turned and walked out of the room.

  Winnie went back over to my mother and cupped her face in her hands. “It’s okay,” she said. “Winnie’s here.”

  The door did not open again for
three days, except to receive deliveries from a few of Winnie’s friends.

  When my mother finally exited that motel room, she was transformed.

  “Oh my God,” Hope said when she finally saw her.

  “Deirdre?” Bookman asked.

  I didn’t recognize her myself.

  My mother was wearing one of Winnie’s colorful Hawaiian muumuus. Winnie had also treated her to a makeover, painting her face so heavily she looked like a former Vegas lap dancer. Her eyelids were like two cabochons of turquoise and when she blinked, her new plastic eyelashes touched her brow.

  My mother loved her new look and her new friend.

  I scrutinized Winnie for visible signs of mental illness. I wondered if my mother had somehow captured her mind, made her crazy, too.

  “There we are,” Winnie said, presenting my new mother. “She just needed a little talking to and a little makeover. A lady’s got to feel like a lady.”

  “Shall we go?” my mother said.

  Nobody said a word.

  “Winnie’s coming with us,” my mother said. “She’s decided to take a leave of absence from her job. To make sure I get back on my feet.”

  Winnie smiled and fluttered her polyester eyelashes.

  All the way home in the car, I stared at my mother’s new face. Every few miles she would comment, “What a lovely tree,” or “That is a beautiful lawn.” To the untrained eye, my mother might have appeared to be normal. But I knew better. I could see the wildness behind the eyes, crouching, hiding. I could see the tiny hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth that said, I’ll fool you all.

  I flopped my head against Bookman’s shoulder and he moved his hand carefully to my crotch, checking the rearview mirror to make sure that Hope wasn’t watching.

  He tried jerking me off through my jeans, but I couldn’t get hard.

  THIN AIR

  O

  NE NIGHT NOT LONG AFTER MY FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY while I was lying on my bed writing in my journal about how much I hoped to someday meet Brooke Shields, there was a knock at the door. I knew it was Bookman. Nobody else would knock on my door at two in the morning; they would just waltz right in. I wasn’t about to give him a blowjob, that much I knew.