"Yeah, that"s right. I visited your mom."
"So," I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets, trying to look casual.
"So Hope said you wanted to meet me. I"m flattered. I feel famous." He smiled.
"Yeah, well. You know, now that I"m staying here all the time, I wanted to get to know everybody."
His eyes flashed and his warm smile vanished. "You"re staying here? You have a room here?"
I remembered about the barn, how the doctor made him stay in a barn and not a room. I backtracked. "Well, not exactly. I mean, I"m hanging around here a lot. I don"t have a room or anything."
He seemed relieved. "Oh," he said. "Okay."
Hope walked into the hallway and put her arm around Bookman. "Hey big brother," she said. "I see you two found each other."
"That we did," Bookman said. "Not so tight, Hope, Jesus. I"m not a dog."
"Oh, poor baby," Hope said, releasing her arm. "I forget how fragile you are."
"Is that Hope?" Agnes called out from the TV room. "Tell her she owes me four dollars."
"I"m right here Agnes, you can tell me yourself."
"Oh, uh, okay," she stammered, "that was you. I thought I heard you. You owe me four dollars."
Hope leaned her head into the room. "I know I do and I"ll get it to-holy cow, Agnes. Are you eating dog food?"
"Why does everybody make such a fuss? It"s just a little kibble."
"Oh, Mom," Hope said, grimacing. "That stuff"s not clean, it"s made for dogs."
"It"s pretty good," Bookman said, playfully licking his lips.
She spun around. "Don"t tell me you"re eating it, too."
"Just a little. You should try it."
"No way am I eating dog food."
Agnes said, "Oh, you"re such a fussbudget. Always afraid to try something new. Ever since you were a little girl you"ve been afraid of new things."
"I"m not afraid to try new things," Hope said. "But I draw the line at dog food."
"I don"t want to try it either," I said.
Bookman placed his hand on my shoulder and it was like my entire body warmed five degrees, instantly. "Try a little."
I had to now. "I"ll try it if Hope does."
Hope looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks a lot. That means I"m the coward. Okay, fine. Gimme that bag."
Agnes held the bag up and Hope and I reached in and removed one nugget each. Then we looked at each other and popped them into our mouths.
It was surprisingly tasty. Nutty, slightly sweet with a satisfying crunch. I could immediately see how the little pellets could become quite addictive. "They"re not awful," I said. could become quite addictive. "They"re not awful," I said.
"See?" Bookman said.
"I told you. What did you think? I wouldn"t eat them if they didn"t taste good," Agnes said, bringing a whole handful to her mouth and tossing them back. She crunched loudly and turned her attention back to a soap opera.
"Well, I gotta go," Hope said. "Dad needs me at the office. We"re behind on the insurance forms. See you guys later?"
"Yup. Catch you later," Bookman said.
Hope opened the front door to leave. "Bye, Augusten. Have fun."
"Okay, see ya."
After she left, Bookman said, "So. Do you want to take a walk?"
We walked into the center of town, up to the Smith College campus, then beyond all the way to Cooley d.i.c.kinson Hospital. The whole way I was dying to tell him about me. I felt like we had so much in common-being gay, being stuck at this house, being without our own parents. And in a house full of girls, we were two guys. But still I couldn"t tell him. I told him everything else-about how my parents" fights had gotten really bad, about their divorce, about how my mother had started to get a little weird, about how she was seeing Dr. Finch all the time now and I was basically living there because she couldn"t handle me.
"It"s tough to have a sick mom," he said. "My mom couldn"t handle me either. Neither could my dad."
"Yeah, mine too. He never wants to see me. And my mother, she"s just so caught up in her own stuff. I guess she"s been through some really bad things and she needs to focus on herself right now."
"And where does that leave you?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Yeah," Neil said. "Exactly. Here at the crazy house of the even crazier Dr. Finch."
"Do you think he"s crazy?"
"In a good way. I think he"s a genius. I know he saved my life." And then out of the blue he said, "He was the first person I told I was gay."
"Really?" I said. He"d finally said it. All this time I was beginning to wonder if Hope had been wrong. He seemed so normal, like a regular guy. He didn"t have an earring or talk with a lisp and judging by his brown shoes and pale blue polyester slacks, he certainly wasn"t gifted with color.
"Me too," I said.
"What?" asked Bookman, pausing on the sidewalk.
"I"m gay."
Somehow, this took him completely by surprise. He gasped, inhaling sharply and his eyes widened. "What? Are you serious?"
"Yeah," I said, feeling embarra.s.sed. "I thought you knew, I thought Hope told you."
"Holy Mary mother of G.o.d," he said. "So that"s what this was about."
"What?"
"Nothing. So you"re gay?" he asked again.
"Yeah," I said.
We continued walking but then he stopped again. "Are you sure you"re gay? I mean, how long have you felt like this?"
I told him all my life.
"That"s pretty sure." He chuckled.
As we walked down Main Street past the closed stores, Neil said to me, "I just want you to know, I"m here for you whenever you need to talk. I mean, night or day. You can talk to me about anything, this or anything else."
I glanced at him and thought he looked so handsome, bathed in the artificial yellow glow of the street lamp. "Thanks," I said.
"And don"t ever worry," he said firmly. "I will never take advantage of you."
"Okay," I said, reaching in my pocket for a Marlboro Light.
"You smoke?"
"Yeah," I admitted. It was a habit I"d picked up from Natalie. At first, I was worried that Agnes or the doctor would be furious and not allow it. But they didn"t mind as long as "you don"t burn down the house."
Neil pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit my cigarette.
"Thanks," I said. Smoking had become my favorite thing in the world to do. It was like having instant comfort, no matter where or when. No wonder my parents smoked, I thought. The part of me that used to polish my jewelry for hours and comb my hair until my scalp was deeply scratched was now lighting cigarettes every other minute and then carefully stomping them out. It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn"t had any cigarettes.
"It was great talking with you," Bookman told me when we were back at the house.
"Thanks for everything," I said.
"Thank you you," he said and smiled warmly, eyes moist.
He left, climbing into his wreck of a car and I sank into the TV-room sofa. I felt mildly intoxicated, like I"d just taken a big swallow of Vicks 44. Then I saw a stray Purina Dog Chow Agnes had dropped on the seat cushion. Without hesitation, I picked it up and popped it into my mouth. No longer would I be afraid of trying new things.
"Hi, Augusten," Hope said, when she came home an hour later.
I was still sitting on the sofa in a daze. "Hi," I said vaguely.
"What are you doing?"
I"d been staring at the radiator. "Nothing. Just got back from walking around with Bookman."
She looked around. "Oh yeah? Good. I need to ask him something. Where is he?"
"Oh, he left," I said.
"Shoot. Do you think if I run down the street I can still catch him?"
"No," I said. "He left like an hour ago."
Hope took a seat on the sofa. "Shucks," she said. "I wanted to ask him if he can fill in for me at the office this Friday. I wanted to visit my friend Vivian in Amherst." Then Hope reached into her canvas rainbow bag and pulled out a small white bible.
"Would you mind doing a bible-dip with me?"
"Sure," I said.
All the Finches did bible-dips. It was like asking a Magic Eight Ball a question, only you were asking G.o.d. The way it worked was, one person held the bible while another person thought of a question to ask G.o.d, like, "Should I get my hair cut short?" Then the person holding the bible opened it at random, and the person asking the question dropped his or her finger on the page. Whatever word your finger landed on, this was your answer. The doctor was so enthusiastic about bible-dips as a direct form of communication with G.o.d that most of his patients performed them. Although n.o.body did as many dips as Hope. cut short?" Then the person holding the bible opened it at random, and the person asking the question dropped his or her finger on the page. Whatever word your finger landed on, this was your answer. The doctor was so enthusiastic about bible-dips as a direct form of communication with G.o.d that most of his patients performed them. Although n.o.body did as many dips as Hope.
I held the bible and Hope closed her eyes. "Ready?" I said.
She opened her eyes. "Okay."
I opened the bible.
Her finger landed on the word "awakened."
"Oh my G.o.d," Hope said. "That"s just incredible."
"What"d you ask?"
"I asked if the fact that I missed Bookman means that I shouldn"t visit my friend Viv on Friday, if that was a sign."
"So?"
"Well, so so," Hope said. "I got awakened awakened. And to me, that means that I would be disturbing Vivian if I visited her. She did have a cold last month and she"s seventy-four. So she probably needs her sleep. If I showed up on Friday, I might wake her up."
I nodded my head and Hope looked up at the ceiling. "Thanks, G.o.d," she said.
Hope and G.o.d were buddies. Theirs was not a formal relationship steeped in ritual and tradition. It was more of a close yet casual friendship.
Last week, Hope and I were driving around the center of town looking for a parking s.p.a.ce. When a red Vega pulled out of a handicap spot in front of Thome"s Market, Hope shrieked. "Okay!"
"You shouldn"t park here," I told her. The car smelled sweet, like wet dog and armpits, and I was sick of sitting in it. But I still didn"t feel she should take a handicap spot. sweet, like wet dog and armpits, and I was sick of sitting in it. But I still didn"t feel she should take a handicap spot.
"This s.p.a.ce was meant for me," she said.
We climbed out of the car and Hope set her rainbow bag on the hood. In addition to the rainbow bag, Hope always carried a canvas PBS bag and usually a plastic shopping bag. "Lock it," she called.
I locked it, but didn"t see the point. As if there was anything to steal: a World Father"s Day b.u.t.ton, a bag of balloons, a blue plastic Goody hairbrush on the dashboard. Then again, there was was a box of Valium in the trunk. a box of Valium in the trunk.
Hope reached into her PBS bag and pulled out an electric alarm clock. "Have you got a dime?"
I dug into my pocket, feeling my hip bones, feeling too skinny, and pulled out a dime. "Here," I said, handing it to her.
Then I noticed there was no parking meter. "Hope, there"s no meter."