Wow. That was a surprise. "Are you serious?" I said.
"Why not?"
That song demanded an incredible vocal range. "You think we can do that one?"
Natalie was strident with confidence. "Totally."
And that is how it came to pa.s.s that Natalie and I performed "You Light Up My Life" live, in front of a captive and highly medicated audience.
When we arrived at the hospital a week later, Doris led us onto the locked ward and into a large, open room with bars on the windows and furniture that would have remained unscathed in a typhoon.
Some of the patients were seated by their own free will. Others were strapped to their chairs or guarded by one of three orderlies. These were twenty, twenty-five of the most dismal, most tragic lost souls I had ever seen collected in a room at once.
Instantly, all stage fright vanished. I felt utterly at home.
Doris had done her best to arrange a sort of stage for us, created by moving the various wheelchairs and chairs into a half-circle. Natalie and I stood in the center of this half-circle and I looked out at the faces. Heads slumped against shoulders, mouths open with drool hanging, eyes rolled back in their sockets and tongues that seemed unnaturally long. One or two of the patients rocked steadily in their chairs. A few expressed hostility at being corralled.
"f.u.c.k this s.h.i.t," spat a nasty old man. I was relieved that he was one of the ones being guarded by an orderly because his eyes were not as dim as some of the others and I worried he was capable of some sort of outburst.
"No, no, no." This was chanted by a woman with the hairiest face I"d ever seen, except on a dog. Even her forehead was fuzzy.
Did they not allow these people mirrors? Were the mentally ill somehow infused with an extra portion of hair-growth hormones?
Natalie cleared her throat.
I looked at her and we nodded. It was time.
Our voices trembled at first, because of our nerves. Anytime you perform in front of a live audience for the first time, this is bound to happen. But by the second verse, we were both completely absorbed in the song. Natalie"s voice was truly beautiful, soaring high against the perforated ceiling panels. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a spotlight on my face, bathing me in color. I imagined a hushed audience wearing expensive earrings, tissues poised beneath their eyes.
Which is why the wet smack was such a shock to both of us.
"f.u.c.kers." It was the hateful old man, the one without teeth, I now saw. He"d coughed deeply, productively, and spat in our direction.
Because we were standing so close together, his phlegm hit us both. In the face.
It was deeply repulsive.
And we did the only thing we could possibly do. Or at least Natalie did.
She spat right back at him.
HERE, KITTY KITTY.
I.
WAS ASLEEP ON N NATALIE"S WHITE FOTAKI RUG WHEN I I WAS WAS startled awake by a rapid knocking on the door. I reached up and slapped Natalie"s stubbly calf, which was hanging over the mattress. "Someone"s at the door." startled awake by a rapid knocking on the door. I reached up and slapped Natalie"s stubbly calf, which was hanging over the mattress. "Someone"s at the door."
"Natalie, Augusten," Hope whispered through the door. "Open up."
Natalie moaned, her feather earrings stuck to her cheek. "What time time is it?" She reached over and turned her alarm clock around, knocking the Zippo on the floor. "Jesus Christ, it"s not even five in the morning." She blinked at me with her puffy, tired eyes, then climbed out of bed, dragging the sheet with her and wrapping it around her shoulders. is it?" She reached over and turned her alarm clock around, knocking the Zippo on the floor. "Jesus Christ, it"s not even five in the morning." She blinked at me with her puffy, tired eyes, then climbed out of bed, dragging the sheet with her and wrapping it around her shoulders.
I sat up and my mouth tasted horrible, like stale pot, beer and Cheetos. The exact combination of ingredients that had caused me to pa.s.s into unconsciousness on Natalie"s floor. caused me to pa.s.s into unconsciousness on Natalie"s floor.
Natalie opened the door and yawned. "What do you want?"
Hope was in her nightgown clutching Freud to her chest.
"What are you doing with that poor cat?"
She stepped inside the room and Natalie closed the door. "Freud"s not well," Hope said. Her face was pained, deeply concerned.
Quickly, I scanned the cat for signs of a fight-dried blood on its fur, a chunk of ear missing. "She looks fine," I said.
"She"s not fine," Hope snapped. "I think she"s dying."
"Oh, no," Natalie said, climbing back into bed, the sheet twisted through her legs. "Hope, just take a Valium and go back to sleep. Your cat is fine."
"No, she"s not. She"s dying. She told me."
It seemed like I was still stoned. "What?"
"She woke me up fifteen minutes ago. I was dreaming about her, dreaming that she was eaten by a white glob. It was just awful, you guys. It was a nightmare. And then all of a sudden, I woke up and she was curled up right next to my face. Purring."
"Hope, what are you talking about?" Natalie lay a pillow over her head, covering her eyes.
"Don"t you guys get it?"
"Get what?" I said. "Get that you"ve finally gone completely insane?"
"Freud was sending me a message through my dreams. She was telling me that she"s dying."
Hope was trembling and Freud struggled to break free of her grasp. But Hope kept moving her arms in such a way that the cat was trapped.
I tried to enlighten her. "Hope, Freud wasn"t talking to you through your dreams. She"s just a f.u.c.king cat." through your dreams. She"s just a f.u.c.king cat."
"She"s not just a cat."
"Go back to bed," Natalie said. She reached for the light to turn it off.
"Wait," Hope said. "I"m serious. I really need to do something. Please."
Natalie sat up. She ran her fingers back through her hair and coughed. "Okay, what do you want us to do?"
I looked at Hope.
"Well, I don"t know."
I said, "I"ll go with you to the vet tomorrow so you can have her checked out."
Hope shook her head. "No, I don"t want any strangers near her right now. She needs to be home. I need to comfort her."
I burped. "Well, I don"t know. There"s nothing you can do about it tonight. You should just take her back down to your room and go to sleep."
"But what if I have the dream again?"
"You won"t," I told her. "You never dream the same thing twice."
"That"s not true," Hope said. "I have a lot of dreams again and again."
"Look, Hope. There"s nothing you can do tonight. Go back to bed. This is f.u.c.king insane."
The cat made a gurgling sound.
Eventually Hope did go back to bed and Natalie turned off the light. "Can you believe her? She"s just so weird."
"What"s the matter with her?" I said.
Natalie turned the light back on. "I need a cigarette."
I reached over and grabbed my pack, then tossed it on the bed.
Then we cracked up until Natalie had to run into the bathroom because she was going to pee in the bed.
For the next three days, Hope would not let Freud out of her sight. Or her arms.
"Hope, don"t hold that cat over the stove like that," Agnes scolded. "Her tail could catch fire on one of the burners."
There was nothing Natalie or I could say that would make Hope understand that the only suffering her cat was experiencing was her. her.
"You can"t hang that thing around her neck. It"s too heavy."
"But Natalie, this way she can"t get lost. I can hear her wherever she goes in the house."
The necklace, made of two jar lids and a length of red yarn, was secured around the cat"s neck. The lids clanked together whenever the cat moved.
"What are you doing to this cat?" the doctor bellowed when it leapt up on his lap, fleeing from Hope.
"Dad, Freud"s sick," Hope said, catching her breath.
"Leave this poor animal alone," was all he said before nodding off in front of the TV.
On the fourth day, the cat"s condition worsened. According to Hope, Freud again contacted her during REM sleep and said that she had hung on for as long as she could, she really just needed to be left in peace so she could die now.
"Has anybody seen Hope?" I asked that afternoon. I needed a ride to the Hampshire Mall so I could fill out a job application at Chess King and Hope was the only one who could drive me there.
"I haven"t seen her all day," Agnes said, scrubbing at the dining room table with vinegar and newspaper. "Last time I saw her she was downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt"-she used her fingernail to scrub something off the table-"with the cat." dining room table with vinegar and newspaper. "Last time I saw her she was downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt"-she used her fingernail to scrub something off the table-"with the cat."
I turned around and looked at the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt. "Hope?" I called out. When I didn"t hear any answer, I opened the door. It was dark. But then just as I was about to close the door, I heard something, a faint scratching sound. I flicked on the light and started down the stairs.
Hope was lying on the floor with her head next to a yellow plastic laundry basket. She appeared to be dead. "Hope, are you okay?"
"Mmmm? Who?" she mumbled sleepily.
"Hope, what are you doing down here on the floor? People have been looking for-"
That"s when I saw the whiskers. They were poking out of the slats of the laundry basket, flicker, flicker, flicker.
I leaned forward and peered inside the basket. Freud was pressed against the side of it, her nose trying to poke through. "Hey cat," I said gently. Then, "Hope, what"s going on in here?"
Hope slowly sat up. She brought her finger to the side of the basket and tickled Freud"s whiskers. "Poor kitty."
"Why is she in the laundry basket? And why do you have this dollhouse on top of it?"
Hope looked up at me and her face told me that something dreadful had happened. It was the face you might wear if you had to tell a parent that their child had met unfavorably with a python.
"She"s dying, Augusten."
The cat made a yowling sound, almost a growl.
I brushed a cobweb off my head and slapped the back of my neck. "What you are doing down here? It"s awful." my neck. "What you are doing down here? It"s awful."
The bas.e.m.e.nt was damp, with a dirt floor, stone walls and a low ceiling of exposed beams.
In a calm, tender voice Hope explained. "I"m down here with Freud to keep her company while she pa.s.ses away."
My first impulse was to laugh. Except the expression on Hope"s face told me she wasn"t kidding. So I said, "Oh-kay," and I backed away, then walked slowly up the steps, turning the light off before closing the door.
Then I ran as fast as I could upstairs and burst into Natalie"s room.
"Oh my G.o.d," I said. "You will never never believe what your crazy sister is doing." believe what your crazy sister is doing."
Natalie quickly let her skirt fall, covering her thighs and turned away from the mirror. "What now?"
"She"s got the cat trapped in a laundry basket in the bas.e.m.e.nt. She"s gonna kill it."
"What?"
"It"s true. I was just down there. She"s got the thing stuck inside this laundry basket because she says it"s dying and she wants to keep it company or something."
"Are you serious?" She raised her eyebrows in her trademark don"t-f.u.c.k-with-me-fashion.
"Totally."
She grabbed her Canon Al.
"No, not like that. Just lean in and tilt your head up toward the lightbulb," Natalie directed, the camera gripped in her hands.