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Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
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(Paperback - REV)
Reader Rating: (53 ratings)
- Publisher: Picador
- Pub. Date: April 2004
- ISBN-13: 9780312423797
- Sales Rank: 3,083
- 320pp
- Edition Description: REV
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry—the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next.
You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life—and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.
The New York Times
Mr. Burroughs remains ebulliently glib when it's useful, as befits his advertising skills. But Dry also deals with two deaths: his lover's and, very nearly, his own. These are no laughing matters, but Mr. Burroughs remains adept at mixing comedy and calamity. — Janet Maslin
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
When Augusten Burroughs released 2002's Running with Scissors -- his memoir about growing up in the mother of all dysfunctional families -- readers didn't know whether to drop their jaws in horror or hold their stomachs from laughing. Whatever reactions he gets from readers, Burroughs's gift for dishing on all things stranger than fiction has made him a bestselling author.
More About the AuthorCustomer Reviews
- Reader Rating:
- Ratings: 53Reviews: 52
Dry: A Memoirby Anonymous
Reader Rating:
August 26, 2008: Augusten Burroughs is one of my favorite authors, but this book is my favorite. It's funny yet insightful. Really great book. Worth your time and money.
Dry: A Memoirby Anonymous
Reader Rating:
December 05, 2006: When I first starting reading this book, I thought I wouldn't like it or couldn't get into it. After reading the first few pages I loved it. I read it in 2 sittings. I could never put it down. I wanted to find out what happened next. I really shows what Alcoholics have to go through. I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed Running with Scissors.
Fact File
Name:
Augusten Burroughs
Also Known As:
Augusten X. Burroughs
Current Home:
New York, New York and western Massachusetts
Date of Birth:
October 23, 1965
Place of Birth:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Education:
No formal education beyond elementary school
Awards:
"I am awaiting my honorary doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical School."
Biography
Although Augusten Burroughs achieved moderate success with his debut novel, Sellevision, it was his 2002 memoir, Running with Scissors, that catapulted him into the literary stratosphere. Indeed, few writers have spun a bizarre childhood and eccentric personal life into literary gold with as much wit and panache as Burroughs, whose harrowing accounts of dysfunction and addiction are offset by an acerbic humor readers and critics find irresistible.
Born Christopher Robison (he changed his name when he turned 18), Burroughs is the son of an alcoholic father who abandoned his family and a manic-depressive mother who fancied herself a poet in the style of Anne Sexton. At age 12, he was farmed out to his mother's psychiatrist, a deeply disturbed -- and disturbing -- man whose medical license was ultimately revoked for gross misconduct. In Running with Scissors, Burroughs recounts his life with the pseudonymous Finch family as an experience tantamount to being raised by wolves. The characters he describes are unforgettable: children of assorted ages running wild through a filthy, dilapidated Victorian house, totally unfettered by rules or inhibitions; a variety of deranged patients who take up residence with the Finches seemingly at will; and a 33-year-old pedophile who lives in the backyard shed and initiates an intense, openly homosexual relationship with the 13-year-old Burroughs right under the doctor's nose.
That he is able to wring humor and insight out of this shocking scenario is testimony to Burroughs's writing skill. Upon its publication in 2002, Scissors was hailed as "mordantly funny" (Los Angeles Times), "hilarious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "sociologically suggestive and psychologically astute" (The New York Times). The book became a #1 bestseller and was turned into a 2006 movie starring Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, and Joseph Fienes.
[Although the doctor who "raised" Burroughs was never named in the memoir, six members of the real-life family sued the author and his publisher for defamation, claiming that whole portions of the book were fabricated. Burroughs insisted that the book was entirely accurate but agreed in the 2007 settlement to change the wording of the author's note and acknowledgement in future editions of the book. He was never required to change a single word of the memoir itself.]
Since Running with Scissors, Burroughs has mined snippets of his life for more bestsellers, including further installments of his memoir (Dry, A Wolf at the Table) and several well-received collections of razor-sharp essays. His writing continues to appear in newspapers and magazines around the world, and he is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition.
Good to Know
Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Burroughs:
"When I was very young, maybe six or seven, I used to make little books out of construction paper and wallpaper. Then I'd sew the spine of the book with a needle and thread. Only after I had the actual book did I sit down with a pencil and write the text. I actually still have one of these little books and it's titled, obliquely, Little Book."
"Well, all of a sudden I am obsessed with PMC. For those of you who think I am speaking about plastic plumbing fixtures, I am not. PMC stands for Precious Metal Clay. And it works just like clay clay. You can shape it into anything you want. But after you fire it, you have something made of solid 22k gold or silver. So you want to be very careful. Anyway, I plan to make dog tags. So there's something."
"I'm a huge fan of English shortbread cookies, of anything English really. I very nearly worship David Strathairn. And I'm afraid that if I ever return to Sydney, Australia, I may not return."
"I will never refuse potato chips or buttered popcorn cooked in one of those thingamajigs you crank on top of the stove."
"And my politics could be considered extreme, as I truly believe that people who molest or otherwise abuse children should be buried in pits. And I do believe our country has been served by white male presidents quite enough for the next few hundred years. I really could go on and on here, so I'd best stop."
Feature Interview
In the winter of 2005, Augusten Burroughs took some time out to talk with us about some of his favorite books, authors, and pastimes.What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer? Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz was the first book I read as an adult, at the age of twenty-four. Until this time, I'd never had the opportunity to sit down and read. Reading takes solitude and it takes focus. My life had been extremely chaotic. By the time I was twenty-four, I was already an active alcoholic. But during a brief period of sobriety, I went to a local bookstore and selected Midaq Alley out of all the other books, simply because I liked the cover. It turned out to be a profound experience for me. I was completely absorbed in the book, in the experience of reading. I felt transported from my life into a different, better life. From that moment forward, I was a heavy reader, often devouring three or four books a week.
What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
Not in order, here are ten of my favorite books.
What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -- Mike Nichols's first film -- continues to be my favorite movie. Maybe because it feels like the closest thing I have to a home movie.
Other films I love are films from the 1940s like Double Indemnity and Citizen Kane. I'm a huge fan of pictures from the 1970s, like Chinatown, Network, The Godfather, The Eyes of Laura Mars, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. A Streetcar Named Desire is one of my all-time favorite movies. As is On The Waterfront. More recent films that I love include Silkwood, The Accused, The Silence of the Lambs, Safe, American Beauty, The Hours. And this list is very incomplete.
What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I never listen to music when I write. And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing. But I do listen to music when I'm in the car: Stevie Nicks, Julia Fordham, Carole King, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Sinead O'Connor, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Coldplay, Great Big Sea, Tina Turner. But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.
What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
I love to both give and receive very old books. For his birthday two years ago, I gave my partner a cookbook from the mid-17th century. Boiled sheep head anyone? Of course, the perfect book for book lovers (and graphic design students) would be a copy of Chip Kidd: Book One, an enormous and fascinating retrospective of the work of this most famous book jacket designer (and author). What's great about this book is that he really takes the reader through the design process, showing his initial sketches on napkins and scraps of paper, covers that were killed by the publisher or the author, and then the famous final covers we all know and love. And because Chip is a terrific and funny writer, it's a really interesting book to read, not just look at.
Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write every day. I usually have a Blenheim ginger ale nearby. The television on the bookshelf behind me is always on, but always mute. I may have a lit candle on the table behind me. My French Bulldogs are probably snoring away. That's the ideal. But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair. The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.
Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
I was rejected by every agent I contacted, except one. And he's still my agent today -- Christopher Schelling with Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd. As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward. I believe that if you have real talent as a writer, a true gift, you will eventually be published. But it may not happen according to your schedule. And it may not happen with the first manuscript you create. Or the second. So you have to be, if not patient, at least endlessly tenacious.
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
Well, like I said above -- you must never give up. Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen. I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen. The reason I was so confident is because I knew I wouldn't stop trying until it happened. And this is the secret. You don't need to be confident. You just need to be stubborn.
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In the summer of 2004, we asked authors featured in Meet the Writers to give us a list of their all-time favorite summer reads, and tell us what makes them just right for the season. Here's what made Burroughs's list:
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble Review
It would come as no surprise to any reader of Augusten Burroughs's first
memoir, 2002's critically acclaimed bestseller Running with Scissors, that
the adolescent depicted there would reach adulthood with a raft of emotional
issues. In his earlier effort Burroughs recounted how, abandoned by his mother
at the age of 12 and raised by her unbalanced psychiatrist, he dropped
out of school, enjoyed the run of the doctor's dilapidated home, and entered an abusive relationship with the pedophile who lived in the guest house out back. In Dry, Burroughs presents himself in his early 20s, earning six figures a year as a New York City ad copywriter and drinking so much alcohol that it wafts from his pores. Landing in rehab, Burroughs initially resists 12-step bromides. Upon release, however, he recognizes the strength they give him as he confronts the death of a former lover, an affair with a fellow recovering addict, and his own struggles with the temptation to have just one drink. As with any tale of a battle against substance abuse, there is an element of just waiting for the eventual, inevitable relapse. But Burroughs's wit, along with his ultimate success in keeping his demons at bay, makes this a riveting read. Katherine Hottinger
From the Publisher
From the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry—the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next.
You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life—and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.
The New York Times
Mr. Burroughs remains ebulliently glib when it's useful, as befits his advertising skills. But Dry also deals with two deaths: his lover's and, very nearly, his own. These are no laughing matters, but Mr. Burroughs remains adept at mixing comedy and calamity. — Janet Maslin
Publishers Weekly
Imagine coming home to find hundreds of empty scotch bottles and 1,452 empty beer bottles in your apartment. This is what Burroughs (Running with Scissors) encountered upon returning from Minnesota's Proud Institute (supposedly the gay alcohol rehab choice). "The truly odd part is that I really don't know how they got there," admits Burroughs in this autobiographical tale of being a prodigy with an extremely successful career in advertising and a drive to get as wasted as possible as often as possible. Burroughs's telling of the tale alternates among hilarious, pathetic, existential and hopeful. It is an earnest and cautionary tale of calamity, brimming with Sedaris-like darkly comic quips: "Making alcoholic friends is as easy as making sea monkeys." Burroughs's slight Southern accent and gentle yet glib delivery should summon empathy on the listener's part that may have been lost with another reader. From Minnesota, Burroughs returns to New York and participates in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Like James Frey in the similar yet very different book, A Million Little Pieces (see audio review, below), Burroughs believes that when rehab is over, he must walk into a bar to see if he can resist the temptation to drink. Though not a technique condoned by A.A., it certainly makes for a fascinating listening experience. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 21). (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Burroughs's memoir of his troubled childhood, Running with Scissors, which was recently issued in paperback, captured considerable attention and even had a run on the New York Times's best sellers list. This sequel is an account of his early adult life as an advertising executive in New York City attempting to recover from alcoholism. He begins his advertising career as a 19-year-old with intelligence and a flair for writing but no education past elementary school. But scars remain from the years with his alcoholic father, his lunatic mother, and her wacky psychiatrist, and drinking slowly becomes the focus of his life. Consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol often leaves him hung over and reeking, causing his employer to urge him to attend rehab for a month. He chooses a hospital for gays in Minnesota and, after a week or so, begins to gain some insight about his drinking. After rehab, he returns to his apartment and begins to gather up the 27 large garbage bags of liquor bottles he has accumulated. With irreverent and humorous touches, Burroughs manages to personalize the difficulties of recovery without ever lapsing into sentimentality. This heartfelt memoir will interest readers who enjoyed his debut and those wanting new insights into addiction and recovery. Recommended for large public libraries.-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Like the alcohol he so enjoys, Burroughs’s story of getting dry will go straight into your bloodstream and leave you buzzing, exhilarated, and wiped out. Burroughs is a malcontented, successful advertising copywriter: in his 20s, gay, living in Manhattan, and owner of a childhood that the word "nightmare" doesn't even begin to cover (as described in Running With Scissors, 2002). Burroughs is an alcoholic, a true-blue, two-fisted, drink-till-you-see-the-spiders-on-the-wall alcoholic. He is not, as he would say, the man you’d want operating the cotton gin—he is funny and dark. This is his story of trying to keep the next drink from coming. Declaring he's "vain and shallow"—"If I were straight, I am certain I would be one of those guys who goes to wet T-shirt contests and votes with great enthusiasm"—he’s quick to strike a pose to admire his silhouette; but in his own half-mad way, he's an original, a step aslant of the cutting edge, and wonderfully capable of expressing the miseries and sublimities of detox. It starts with his agreement—dry out, or get fired—to enter rehab; he chooses a gay clinic in Minnesota: "a rehab hospital run by fags will be hip. Plus there's the possibility of good music and sex." Reality quickly intrudes when the clinic staff checks him for cologne ("Oh, you'd be surprised by the things alcoholics will try and sneak in here to drink") and proceeds along a circuitous path thereafter, with plenty of opportunities for cliffhanging—bad decisions in his love life; a coworker trying to sabotage his efforts to reform; AA abandonment; his best friend's death; the "alcoholic terrorist" in his head—weaving in and out of gallows humor and ahoned starkness. In the end, it's all up to Burroughs, and to give the end away would be criminal, for this memoir operates on a high level of involvement and suspense. Didn't think you’d ever feel even an ounce of sympathy for—let alone root for—a drunken adman, did you? Meet Mr. Burroughs. Agent: Christopher Schelling/Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.
What People Are Saying
Robert Sabuda
From the master pop-up artist:
I'll never complain about having a "tough day" again.... This memoir is so brutal, yet funny -- it should be required reading for anyone touched by the specter of substance abuse.
Loading...Product Details
- ISBN:
0312423799
- ISBN-13: 9780312423797
- Format: Paperback, 320pp
- Publisher: Picador
- Pub. Date: April 2004
- Edition Description: REV
- Sales Rank: 3,083
Table of Contents
Interviews & Essays
Mopping Up the PastI was feeling a little bit high because my new Swiffer Mop was as brilliant in person as it appeared to be in the infomercial. I hitting the little trigger thing on the handle with my finger and watching the cleaning solution stream out with such astonishing precision. I was gliding the mop over the bare wood floor and I was thinking, This is it. Mopping has changed forever. When the phone rang. "Augusten, it's Jennifer," my editor said. She was on a speaker phone, I could tell. You can always tell when somebody is on a speaker phone because you can hear the expectation on the line, you can hear the other people leaning forward, looking at each other. "As of right now, you're a New York Times bestseller."
With these words, she changed my life.
Instantly, I became a person with a happy childhood.
"Are you serious?" I asked her.
She shrieked and then there was more shrieking from the other people on her end.
"Are you sure it's not a mistake?" I asked her. Couldn't The New York Times make a mistake?
"No, it's not a mistake!" she cried.
After I hung up the phone, I stood there for a moment. I still had my Swiffer Mop in my other hand. I thought, How appropriate.
I'd taken my ragged, filthy, squalor-filled childhood and I had cleaned it and polished it.
I had the sensation of thousands of pigeons suddenly lifting off my back and taking to the air. So much weight, lifted.
Because before Running with Scissors was a big, bestselling memoir, it was just my terrible childhood. That I never spoke about. That I was horribly ashamed of. That I never, ever wanted to think about again.
But here is what I learned from writing this book. If something haunts you, if something weighs you down, you must face it head on. There can be no stepping around it. There can be no trading of the terrible past for fresh cocktails. This does not work. You will never forget. Best, then, to sit down and really spill it all out. Tell somebody everything. Or write it all down. Or paint a picture that contains all the details.
In this way, you can free yourself.
After I finished writing Running with Scissors, I felt an enormous sense of relief. There, nothing left to hide. And I didn't really care if the book sold tremendously well. I just hoped that a few people would read it and see that I got through something terrible, so they can too. I hoped that my publisher would publish more things I wrote.
There is much discussion of The Memoir. Is it dead? Are there too many? Should people in their 30s even be allowed to write them?
My feeling is that it doesn't matter what you write, it matters only that you write with complete honesty. That your story has the distinctive ring of truth to it. Because this is what people crave: the truth.
It can be beautiful or ugly or funny or sexy or confusing. But as long as it has the ring of truth to it, everything will be okay. Because people will respond to it. They may not like it, but they will not feel cheated, emotionally.
So this is all I really know about the memoir.
People ask me, "So now that you're so successful, has your life changed?" And the answer to this is that yes, my life has changed.
I have written every single day for my entire life. When I was tiny, before I could write, I spoke into a blue tape recorder. But from the age of 11 on, I wrote. The difference is that now, I don't keep what I write in boxes, stowed in the closet, never to be opened again. Augusten Burroughs
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions1. At what point in Augusten Burroughs's memoir do you think the reality of his addiction actually became real to him?
2. Why did he realize how much he loved Pighead only when it was too late?
3. Do you feel addictions were portrayed realistically or not in Dry? Why or why not?
4. Who do you feel was the bravest character in the book?
5. Who do you feel was the most villainous character in the book?
6. Why do people choose inappropriate partners? Why did Augusten in Dry? Did he trade one addiction for another in terms of his choice in men?
7. What are some of the most dangerous behaviors recovering alcoholics can undertake? What are some of these behaviors you saw in Dry?
8. Can you pinpoint the one thing that finally got Augusten to a point where he could really be in recovery? What was it and why?
Read a Sample Chapter
DRY
By AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
Copyright © 2003 Augusten BurroughsAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0312272057
Chapter One
Sometimes when you work in advertising you'll get a product that's really garbage and you have to make it seem fantastic, something that is essential to the continued quality of life. Like once, I had to do an ad for hair conditioner. The strategy was: Adds softness you can feel, body you can see. But the thing is, this was a lousy product. It made your hair sticky and in focus groups, women hated it. Also, it reeked. It made your hair smell like a combination of bubble gum and Lysol. But somehow, I had to make people feel that it was the best hair conditioner ever created. I had to give it an image that was both beautiful and sexy. Approachable and yet aspirational.
Advertising makes everything seem better than it actually is. And that's why it's such a perfect career for me. It's an industry based on giving people false expectations. Few people know how to do that as well as I do, because I've been applying those basic advertising principles to my life for years.
When I was thirteen, my crazy mother gave me away to her lunatic psychiatrist, who adopted me. I then lived a life of squalor, pedophiles, no school and free pills. When I finally escaped, I presented myself to advertising agencies as a self-educated, slightly eccentric youth, filled with passion, bursting with ideas. I left out the fact that I didn't know how to spell or that I had been giving blowjobs since I was thirteen.
Not many people get into advertising when they're nineteen, with no education beyond elementary school and no connections. Not just anybody can walk in off the street and become a copywriter and get to sit around the glossy black table saying things like, "Maybe we can get Molly Ringwald to do the voice-over," and "It'll be really hip and MTV-ish." But when I was nineteen, that's exactly what I wanted. And exactly what I got, which made me feel that I could control the world with my mind.
I could not believe that I had landed a job as a junior copywriter on the National Potato Board account at the age of nineteen. For seventeen thousand dollars a year, which was an astonishing fortune compared to the nine thousand I had made two years before as a waiter at a Ground Round.
That's the great thing about advertising. Ad people don't care where you came from, who your parents were. It doesn't matter. You could have a crawl space under your kitchen floor filled with little girls' bones and as long as you can dream up a better Chuck Wagon commercial, you're in.
And now I'm twenty-four years old, and I try not to think about my past. It seems important to think only of my job and my future. Especially since advertising dictates that you're only as good as your last ad. This theme of forward momentum runs through many ad campaigns.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion. (Reebok, Chiat/Day.)
Just do it. (Nike, Weiden and Kennedy.)
Damn it, something isn't right. (Me, to my bathroom mirror at four-thirty in the morning, when I'm really, really plastered.)
It's Tuesday evening and I'm home. I've been home for twenty minutes and am going through the mail. When I open a bill, it freaks me out. For some reason, I have trouble writing checks. I postpone this act until the last possible moment, usually once my account has gone into collection. It's not that I can't afford the bills-I can-it's that I panic when faced with responsibility. I am not used to rules and structure and so I have a hard time keeping the phone connected and the electricity turned on. I place all my bills in a box, which I keep next to the stove. Personal letters and cards get slipped into the space between the computer on my desk and the printer.
My phone rings. I let the machine pick up.
"Hey, it's Jim ... just wanted to know if you wanna go out for a quick drink. Gimme a call, but try and get back-"
As I pick up the machine screeches like a strangled cat. "Yes, definitely," I tell him. "My blood alcohol level is dangerously low."
"Cedar Tavern at nine," he says.
Cedar Tavern is on University and Twelfth and I'm on Tenth and Third, just a few blocks away. Jim's over on Twelfth and Second. So it's a fulcrum between us. That's one reason I like it. The other reason is because their martinis are enormous; great bowls of vodka soup. "See you there," I say and hang up.
Jim is great. He's an undertaker. Actually, I suppose he's technically not an undertaker anymore. He's graduated to coffin salesman, or as he puts it, "pre-arrangements." The funeral business is rife with euphemisms. In the funeral business, nobody actually "dies." They simply "move on," as if traveling to a different time zone.
He wears vintage Hawaiian shirts, even in winter. Looking at him, you'd think he was just a normal, blue-collar Italian guy. Like maybe he's a cop or owns a pizza place. But he's an undertaker, through and through. Last year for my birthday, he gave me two bottles. One was filled with pretty pink lotion, the other with an amber fluid. Permaglow and Restorative: embalming fluids. This is the sort of conversation piece you simply can't find at Pottery Barn. I'm not so shallow as to pick my friends based on what they do for a living, but in this case I have to say it was a major selling point.
A few hours later, I walk into Cedar Tavern and feel immediately at ease. There's a huge old bar to my right, carved by hand a century ago from several ancient oak trees. It's like this great big middle finger aimed at nature conservationists. Behind the bar, the wall is paneled in this same wood, inlaid with tall etched mirrors. Next to the mirrors are dull brass light fixtures with stained-glass shades. No bulb in the place is above twenty-five watts. In the rear, there are nice tall wooden booths and oil paintings of English bird dogs and anonymous grandfathers posed in burgundy leather wing chairs. They serve a kind of food here: chicken-fried steak, fish and chips, cheeseburgers and a very lame salad that features iceberg lettuce and croutons from a box. I could live here. As if I didn't already.
Even though I'm five minutes early, Jim's sitting at the bar and already halfway through a martini.
"What a fucking lush," I say. "How long have you been here?"
"I was thirsty. About a minute."
He appears to be eyeing a woman who is sitting alone at a table near the jukebox. She wears khaki slacks, a pink-and-white striped oxford cloth shirt and white Reeboks. I instantly peg her as an off-duty nurse. "She's not your type," I say.
He gives me this how-the-hell-do-you-know look. "And why not?"
"Look at what she's drinking. Coffee."
He grimaces, looks away from her and takes another sip of his drink.
"Look, I can't stay out late tonight because I have to be at the Met tomorrow morning at nine."
"The Met?" he asks incredulously. "Why the Met?"
I roll my eyes, wag my finger in the air to get the bartender's attention. "My client Fabergé is creating a new perfume and they want the ad agency to join them tomorrow morning and see the Fabergé egg exhibit as inspiration." I order a Ketel One martini, straight up with an olive. They use the tiny green olives here; I like that. I despise the big fat olives. They take up too much space in the glass.
"So I have to be there in a suit and look at those fucking eggs all morning. Then we're all going to get together the day after tomorrow at the agency and have a horrific meeting with their senior management. Some global vision thing. One of those awful meetings you dread for weeks in advance." I take the first sip of my martini. It feels exactly right, like part of my own physiology. "God, I hate my job."
"You should get a real job," Jim tells me. "This advertising stuff is putrid. You spend your days waltzing around the Met looking at Fabergé eggs. You make wads of cash and all you do is complain. Jesus, and you're not even twenty-five yet." He sticks his thumb and index finger in the glass and pinches the olive, which he then pops in his mouth.
I watch him do this and can't help but think, The places those fingers have been.
"Why don't you try selling a seventy-eight-year-old widow in the Bronx her own coffin?"
We've had this conversation before, many times. The undertaker feels superior to me, and actually is. He is society's Janitor in a Drum. He provides a service. I, on the other hand, try to trick and manipulate people into parting with their money, a disservice.
"Yeah, yeah, order us another round. I gotta take a leak." I walk off to the men's room, leaving him at the bar.
We have four more drinks at Cedar Tavern. Maybe five. Just enough so that I feel loose and comfortable in my own skin, like a gymnast. Jim suggests we hit another bar. I check my watch: almost ten-thirty. I should head home now and go to sleep so I'm fresh in the morning. But then I think, Okay, what's the latest I can get to sleep and still be okay? If I have to be there at nine, I should be up by seven-thirty, so that means I should get to bed no later than-I begin to count on my fingers because I cannot do math, let alone in my head-twelve-thirty. "Where you wanna go?" I ask him.
"I don't know, let's just walk."
I say, "Okay," and we head outside. As soon as I step into the fresh air, something in my brain oxidizes and I feel just the slightest bit tipsy. Not drunk, not even close. Though I certainly wouldn't attempt to operate a cotton gin.
We end up walking down the street for two blocks and heading into this place on the corner that sometimes plays live jazz. Jim's telling me that the absolute worst thing you can encounter as an undertaker is "a jumper."
"Two Ketel One martinis, straight up with olives," I tell the bartender and then turn to Jim. "What's so bad about jumpers? What?" I love this man.
"Because when you move their limbs, the bones are all broken and they slide around loose inside the skin and they make this sort of ..." Our drinks arrive. He takes a sip and continues, "... this sort of rumbling sound."
"That's so fucking horrifying," I say, delighted. "What else?"
He takes another sip, creases his forehead in thought. "Okay, I know-you'll love this. If it's a guy, we tie a string around the end of his dick so that it won't leak piss."
"Jesus," I say. We both take a sip from our drinks. I notice that my sip is more of a gulp and I will need another drink soon. The martinis here are shamefully meager. "Okay, give me more horrible," I tell him.
He tells me how once he had a female body with a decapitated head and the family insisted on an open casket service. "Can you imagine?" So he broke a broomstick in half and jammed it down through the neck and into the meat of the torso. Then he stuck the head on the other end of the stick and kind of pushed.
"Wow," I say. He's done things that only people on death row have done.
He smiles with what I think might be pride. "I put her in a white cashmere turtleneck and she actually ended up looking pretty good." He winks at me and plucks the olive from my drink. I do not take another sip from this particular glass.
We have maybe five more drinks before I check my watch again. Now it's a quarter of one. And I really need to go, I'll already be a mess as it is. But that's not what happens. What happens is, Jim orders us a nightcap.
"Just one shot of Cuervo ... for luck."
The very last thing I remember is standing on a stage at a karaoke bar somewhere in the West Village. The spotlights are shining in my face and I'm trying to read the video monitor in front of me, which is scrolling the words to the theme from The Brady Bunch. I see double unless I close one eye, but when I do this I lose my balance and stagger. Jim's laughing like a madman in the front row, pounding the table with his hands.
The floor trips me and I fall. The bartender walks from behind the bar and escorts me offstage. His arm feels good around my shoulders and I want to give him a friendly nuzzle or perhaps a kiss on the mouth. Fortunately, I don't do this.
Outside the bar, I look at my watch and slur, "This can't be right." I lean against Jim's shoulder so I don't fall over on the tricky sidewalk.
"What?" he says, grinning. He has a thin plastic drink straw behind each ear. The straws are red, the ends chewed.
I raise my arm up so my watch is almost pressed against his nose. "Look," I say.
He pushes my arm back so he can read the dial. "Yikes! How'd that happen? You sure it's right?"
The watch reads 4:15 A.M. Impossible. I wonder aloud why it is displaying the time in Europe instead of Manhattan.
Chapter Two
I arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at a quarter before nine. Fifteen minutes early. I'm wearing a charcoal gray Armani suit and oxblood red Gucci loafers. My head throbs dully behind my eyes, but this has actually become normal. It usually wears off by the end of the day and is completely gone after the first drink of the evening.
I didn't technically sleep last night, I napped. Even in my drunken stupor of last night, I realized I couldn't show up here this morning looking like a total disaster, so I managed to call 1-800-4-WAKE-UP (You snooze, you lose!) before I laid down on my bed, fully dressed.
I was awake by six A.M. and still felt drunk. I was making wisecracks to myself in the bathroom, pulling faces. This is when I knew I was still drunk. I just had way too much energy for six A.M. Too much motivation. It was like the drunk side of my brain was trying to act distracting and entertaining, so the business side wouldn't realize it was being held hostage by a drunk.
I showered, shaved and slicked my hair back with Bumble and bumble Hair Grooming Creme. Then I ran the blowdryer over my head. Afterward, I arranged my hair in such a way that it appeared casual and carefree. A wisp of hair falling across my forehead, which I froze in place with AquaNet. After having gone on more fashion shoots than I care to count, I've learned that terminally unhip AquaNet is the best. The result was hair that looked windblown and casual-unless you happened to touch it. If you touched it, it would probably make a solid knocking sound, like wood.
I sprayed Donna Karan for Men around my neck and on my tongue to oppose any alcohol breath I might have. Then I walked to the twenty-four-hour restaurant on the corner of Seventeenth and Third for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee. The fat, I figured, would absorb any toxins.
As a backup safety measure, I swallowed a handful of Breath Assure capsules and wore a distracting, loud tie.
Continues...
Excerpted from DRY by AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS Copyright © 2003 by Augusten Burroughs
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.