Burroughs - A wolf at the table : a memoir of my father

A WOLF AT THE TABLE

ALSO BY AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Possible Side Effects

Magical Thinking

Dry

Running with Scissors

Sellevision

A M E M O I R O F M Y F A T H E R

AUGUSTEN
BURROUGHS

ST. MARTINS PRESS NEW YORK

A WOLF AT THE TABLE. Copyright 2008 by Island Road, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Phil Mazzone

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34202-9
ISBN-10: 0-312-34202-0

First Edition: May 2008

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Some names have been changed.

For Christopher Schelling, who is short and mean and saved my life and gave me every star that I pointed to. This book belongs to you. Because I never could have written it without your brutish and relentless love. I know I never say it, but I cherish you and love you with all my heart.

I am indebted to Jennifer Enderlin, Tanya Farrell, Frances Coady, John Sargent, Sally Richardson, John Murphy, Christina Harcar, Steve Troha, and everyone at St. Martins Press and Picador; Haven Kimmel, Robert Rodi, Jeffrey Smith, Timothy Sommer, Lawrence David, Lori Greenberg, Sheila Cobb, Lona Walburn, Jon Pepoon, Suzanne Finnamore, Jill Clayburgh, Dan Peres, Sarah Wynter, Russell Nuce, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Relda, my brother and his family, Judy Robison, and especially Dennis Pilsits, without whom there would be no point. I would also like to thank Paul Sleven and Jonathan Albano for their intrepid support.

In loving memory of George Nicholas Stathakis

IF MY FATHER caught me he would cut my neck, so I just kept going. Broken sticks and sharp stones gouged my bare feet, but I didnt consider the sensation. A branch whipped across my face; I felt the sting and for an instant I was fully blind, but I didnt stop.

His flashlight sliced into the woods on either side of me. The beam was like a knife, and I didnt want it on my back. He was out there, behind me somewhere in these woods.

I dashed to the right through a clutch of young silver birch trees and ran up the embankment, crouching to maintain speed. With his bad knee, he would have trouble with the hill. Lumbering forward, he would need to pause and massage the swollen, throbbing kneecap, catch his breath.

When I realized the jabbing slash from his flashlight was gone, I worried that he had cut around and was one step ahead of me. That he was already on the hill, climbing it from the other side. What if I reached the top and he was there waiting?

I veered back to the path, then crossed it. I wanted to pause and listen, but I couldnt. Fear pressed me forward. My breathing roared in my head as though my ears were beside a gigantic heaving machine, a bellows stoking some hellish fire.

Even though I was wearing only pajamas and had no shoes, I wasnt cold. I wasnt anything at all. I was only a blur.

When I stepped on a branch, the rough bark cut deep into my arch, but I just kept going. The pain exploded in my foot and shot out the top of my head, and then was left behind in my wake.

I paused finally and watched the trees for slashes of light but saw none. As my heart settled and my ears became less occupied, I listened and heard nothing but the thready pulse of the night. And I sensed that the hunt was over. Prey knows when it has escaped.

SITTING IN MY high chair, I held a saltine cracker up to my eye and peered through one of the tiny holes, astonished that I could see so much through such a small opening. Everything on the other side of the kitchen seemed nearer when viewed through this little window.

The cracker was huge, larger than my hand. And through this pinprick hole I could see the world.

I brought the cracker to my lips, nibbled off the corners, and mashed the rest into a dry, salty dust. I clapped, enchanted.

THE HEM of my mothers skirt. A wicker lantern that hangs from the ceiling, painting the walls with sliding, breathing shadows. A wooden spoon and the hollow knock as it strikes the interior of a simmering pot. My high chairs cool metal tray and the backs of my legs stuck to the seat. My mother twisting the telephone cord around her fingers, my mouth on the cord, the deeply satisfying sensation of biting the tight, springy loops.

I was one and a half years old.

THESE FRAGMENTS ARE all that remain of my early childhood. There are no words, just sounds: my mothers breathy humming in my ear, her voice the most familiar thing to me, more known than my own hand. My hand still surprises me at all times; the lines and creases, the way the webbing between my fingers glows red if I hold up my hand to block the sun. My mothers voice is my home and when I am surrounded by her sounds, I sleep.

The thickly slippery feel of my bottles rubber nipple inside my mouth. The shocking, sudden emptiness that fills me when its pulled away.

My first whole memory is this: I am on the floor. I am in a room. High above me is my crib, my homebox, my goodcage, but its up, up, up. High in the air, resting upon stilts. There is a door with a knob like a faceted glass jewel. I have never touched it but I reach for it every time I am lifted.

Above my head is a fist of brightness that stings my eyes. The brightness hangs from a black line.

I am wet-faced and shrieking. I am alone in the awake-pit with the terrible bright above my head. I need: my mother, my silky yellow blanket, to be lifted, to be placed back in my box. I am crying but my mother doesnt come to pick me up and this makes me mad and afraid and mad again, so I cry harder.

On the other side of the door, he is laughing. He is my brother. Hes like me but hes not me. Were linked somehow and hes home but hes not home, like my mother and her voice.

Opposite this door against the wall, there is a dresser with drawers that my mother can open but I cannot, no matter how hard I pull. The scent of baby powder and Desitin stains the air near the dresser. These smells make me want to pee. I dont want to be wet so I stand far away from the dresser.

This is my first whole memorylocked alone in my room with my brother on the other side of the door, laughing.

There is another memory, later. I am in the basement sitting on a mountain of clothing. The washer and dryer are living pets; friendly with rumbling bellies. My mother feeds them clothing. She is lifting away pieces of my mountain, placing them into the mouth of the washer. Gradually, my mountain becomes smaller until I can feel the cool of the cellar floor beneath me.

A form on the wooden stairs. The steps themselves smell sweet and I like to lick them but they are coarse and salty; they dont taste as they smell and this always puzzles me and I lick again, to make sure. The thing on the stairs has no face, no voice. It descends, passes before me. I am silent, curious. I dont know what it is but it lives here, too. It is like a shadow, but thick, somehow important. Sometimes it makes a loud noise and I cover my ears. And sometimes it goes away.

DID MY FATHER live with us at the farmhouse in Hadley?

I was in my twenties when I called my mother and asked this question. The farmhousewhite clapboard with black shutters and a slate roofsat in a brief grassy pasture at the foot of a low mountain range. I could remember looking at it from the car, reaching my fingers out the window to pluck it from the field because it appeared so tiny. I didnt understand why I couldnt grab it, because it was just