Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs Read Free Book Online

accumulated around my middle.
    I will eat only small, restrained portions of their steamed local trout and seasonal field greens. I will politely refuse the dessert of fresh berries in a marzipan nest.
    But as the landscape transforms from flatlands to industrial parks, I begin to worry. Nowhere in my vision have I encountered so many parking lots filled with minivans. My internal Rehab Hospital Tourism tape has been snagged inside my internal VCR.
    Where is the lush scenery? The pond with the rare Japanese goldfish? Where are the meandering hiking trails?
    The driver turns left onto Maiden Lane. The hospital is supposed to be on the corner, but all I see is the Pillsbury factory outlet store among other industrial park buildings. And across from Pillsbury (complete with a giant inflatable Dough-Boy on the lawn) is a brown, 1970s professional office building with missing shingles on its overhanging roof. The lawn has been worn away to bare dirt from heavy foot traffic. And the sign out front is missing a few letters. It reads: P      OU      INS      T      E .
    Signs with missing letters can only mean bad things. When I was a kid, the “e” went out in the local Price Chopper grocery store and stayed out for many years. Because the “Pric Chopper” logo happened to be a man wielding an axe, the sign sent out an eerie and powerful castration message, which, at the age of twelve, affected me deeply.
    Oh, fuck .

    Inside the building is the busy, clinical atmosphere of a suburban doctor’s office. A receptionist answers one call while placing another on hold. Two people sit reading out-of-date magazines, a chair between. A large artificial ficus tree looms in the corner near the window, its leaves layered with dust. “May I help you?” says the receptionist, a twenty-something woman with short mousy hair and no chin. She is all bubble eyes, nose and teeth, flowing into neck. I tell her I’m here to check in. She looks at me pleasantly, as though I am here for a teeth whitening. “Just have a seat and somebody will be right with you.”
    I can feel my ears throb with blood, my face go hot. Suddenly, unexpectedly, this whole scene is becoming dangerously close to being real.
    I could leave now. I could say, “I forgot something in the cab . . .” and then walk back out to the parking lot, give myself fifteen good feet of distance, and then run like hell. Back in New York, I could tell everyone, “I had an epiphany on the plane . . . it was almost spiritual . . . You won’t see me drinking anymore.”
    Then I see her.
    “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” she sings as she comes towards me. “You must be Augusten. I’m Peggy. Come with me.” She is a short woman, but extremely wide. And she’s dressed entirely in white polyester. Her hair is blond, frizzy and past her shoulders, but dark at the “roots” which comprise half the length of her hair. She is saying things to me but I am too stunned to comprehend a word. All I know for sure is that I have accidentally fallen through a wormhole in the universe and stumbled into someone else’s grim life.
    She leads me down a flight of stairs, we turn right, walk through a doorway and suddenly we’re in a long hallway. Doors on either side, all of them open. As we walk, I peer into the rooms. This is not hard to do since each one is lit brightly with overhead fluorescents. I notice that each room has three beds. The air smells vaguely of disinfectant and baby powder and magic markers. There are people sitting on some of the beds, doing nothing but looking blankly out into the hallway. My first impression is that combs are banished here. A man looks at me fearfully while he chews his fingernail. His hair is an unruly mass of silver and black threads.
    An emaciated great-grandfather crosses in front of us wearing a blue hospital gown. The back is wide open, drawstrings hanging. I see his concave butt cheeks and wince.
    This is not good. This is very, very