Burroughs Augusten - Running with scissors : a memoir

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Also by Augusten Burroughs

Sellevision
Dry
Magical Thinking
Possible Side Ejfects

A MEMOIR

Augusten Burroughs

Picador New York

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS . Copyright 2002 by Augusten Burroughs.
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E-mail: trademarketing@stmartins.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burroughs, Augusten.

Running with scissors : a memoir Augusten Burroughsspan>

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-28370-9 (hc) ISBN 0-312-42227-X (pbk) 1. Burroughs, AugustenChildhood and youth. 2. Burroughs, AugustenHomes and hauntsMassachusettsAmherst. 3. Novelists, American20th centuryBiography. 4. Amherst (Mass.)Social life and customs. I. Title.

PS3552.U745 Z477 2002

813.6dc21

First published by St. Martins Press

For
Dennis Pilsits

Look for the ridiculous in everything
and you will find it.

Jules Renard, 1890

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Damn it, she says, something isnt right.

Yesterday she went to the fancy Chopping Block salon in Amherst with its bubble skylights and ficus trees in chrome planters. Sebastian gave her a shag.

That hateful Jane Fonda, she says, fluffing her dark brown hair at the crown. She makes it look so easy. She pinches her sideburns into points that accentuate her cheekbones. People have always said she looks like a young Lauren Bacall, especially in the eyes.

I cant stop staring at her feet, which she has slipped into treacherously tall red patent-leather pumps. Because she normally lives in sandals, its like shes borrowed some other ladys feet. Maybe her friend Lydias feet. Lydia has teased black hair, boyfriends and an above-ground pool. She wears high heels all the time, even when shes just sitting out back by the pool in her white bikini, smoking menthol cigarettes and talking on her olive-green Princess telephone. My mother only wears fancy shoes when shes going out, so Ive come to associate them with a feeling of abandonment and dread.

I dont want her to go. My umbilical cord is still attached and shes pulling at it. I feel panicky.

Im standing in the bathroom next to her because I need to be with her for as long as I can. Maybe she is going to Hartford, Connecticut. Or Bradley Field International Airport. I love the airport, the smell of jet fuel, flying south to visit my grandparents.

I love to fly.

When I grow up, I want to be the one who opens those cabinets above the seats, who gets to go into the small kitchen where everything fits together like a shiny silver puzzle. Plus, I like uniforms and I would get to wear one, along with a white shirt and a tie, even a tie-tack in the shape of airplane wings. I would get to serve peanuts in small foil packets and offer people small plastic cups of soda. Would you like the whole can? I would say. I love flying south to visit my grandparents and Ive already memorized almost everything these flight attendants say. Please make sure that you have extinguished all smoking materials and that your tray table is in its upright and locked position. I wish I had a tray table in my bedroom and I wish I smoked, just so I could extinguish my smoking materials.

Okay, I see whats the matter, my mother says. She turns to me and smiles. Augusten, hand me that box, would you?

Her long, frosted beige nail points to the box of Kotex maxi pads on the floor next to the toilet bowl. I grab the box and hand it to her.

She takes two pads from the box and sets it on the floor at her feet. I notice that the box is reflected in the side of her shoe, like a small TV. Carefully, she peels the paper strip off the back of one of the pads and slides it through the neck of her dress, placing it on top of her left shoulder. She smoothes the silk over the pad and puts another one on the right side. She stands back.

What do you think of that! she says. She is delighted with herself. Its as if she has drawn a picture and placed it on her own internal refrigerator door.

Neat, I say.

You have a very creative mother, she says. Instant shoulder pads.

The blow-dryer continues to tick like a clock, counting down the seconds. Hot things do that. Sometimes when my father or mother comes home, I will go down and stand near the hood of the car to listen to it tick, moving my face in close to feel the heat.

Are you coming upstairs with me? she says. She takes her cigarette from the clamshell ashtray on the back of the toilet. My mother loves frozen baked stuffed clams, and she saves the shells to use as ashtrays, stashing them around the house.

I am fixated on the dryer. The vent holes on the side have hairs stuck in them, small hairs and white lint. What is lint? How does it find hair dryers and navels? Im coming.

Turn off the light, she says as she walks away, creating a small whoosh that smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because its the smell she makes when shes leaving.

Okay, I say. The orange light from the dehumidifier that sits next to the wicker laundry hamper is looking at me, and I look back at it. Normally it would terrify me, but because my mother is here, it is okay. Except she is walking fast, has already walked halfway across the family room floor, is almost at the fireplace, will be turning around the corner and heading up the stairs and then I will be alone in the dark bathroom with the dehumidifier eye, so I run. I run after her, certain that something is following me, chasing me, just about to catch me. I run past my mother, running up the stairs, using my legs and my hands, charging ahead on all fours. I make it to the top and look down at her.

She climbs the stairs slowly, deliberately, reminding me of an actress on the way to the stage to accept her Academy Award. Her eyes are trained on me, her smile all mine. You run up those stairs just like Cream.