Free You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas by Augusten Burroughs Page A

garbage of the brain.”
    I slowly raised only my left eyebrow while lifting just the right corner of my mouth to form an asymmetrical smile; a wise-ass smirk. As a child, I had spent hours practicing this special effect of the face. At that moment, as I was about to get the hell out of that unfortunate room and its fat, pitiful circumstances, it paid off.
    “You know, American alcoholics are pretty fucking hard to insult. You are talking to somebody who drank too much
Kahlúa
last night, which is not exactly a 1983 Château Margaux. So, as we say over here, calm the motherfuck down.”
    When his petulance had subsided, I gently asked the question that made me wish for death. “I just want to confirm—and I
will
take your word for it—did you, then,
fuck me blind
?”
    “I slipped it in once and that’s all,” he said, his head straight forward, looking at the wall instead of me. An infuriating
dignity
attempted to cling to his doughy features.
    The world became a very bad place.
    “What?”
I shouted.
    And now he looked at me. He pounded his fists on the mattress in frustration or perhaps humiliation. “I told you, I slip it in
once
. Then out. And then,” he stopped, catching himself.
    With only my eyes, I made him know that I would saw off his head if he didn’t tell me the rest.
    He held his face up, elevated his chin. That revolting
pride
thing again. “And then
frottage
on the back. Just a little slide-against. Then I come, I wipe off. That’s it. Everybody happy.”
    I was now standing directly beside him, looming over him in precisely the position one would assume if one were holding a large rock and intended to crush another person, say Santa Claus. “Oh no, no, no. Everybody
not
happy,” I shouted. “This is
not
me happy. I am not happy.”
    I pointed my finger at him. “Are you absolutely
sure
you have told me everything?
    Santa looked up at me, right in the eyes. “I have told you the truth.”
    Miserably, I knew he had.
    That meant, I needed medical assistance immediately: I needed a brain transplant.
     

     
    The next week, a series of blood tests ensued. When the doctor told me I was fine, I asked him, “What else can you test for? I want you to test for everything French. And everything old-person. Whatever parasites or gangrenes they get, test for those, too.” I shuddered. “What about gout? Is that communicable?”
    But even if my blood was clean, my mind was now contaminated. While I didn’t remember the Foulness, I remembered the Foul
er.
    Over and over I replayed that horrible morning. From waking up in the sun-drenched room and seeing the hazy red blur, right up to the point where I stood above him wishing I had a hefty river stone.
    That awful voice of his. Those sneaky, cloudy eyes. The liver spots. I knew I shouldn’t continue to obsess over what had happened. But it was my own internal car accident: I had to keep rubbernecking no matter how grisly because there was always a chance I’d see a head roll past.
    I nearly called the doctor back to schedule a medical memory wipe, something where a full day is removed, along with maybe the two or three surrounding days just to make sure. But I knew I simply had to force myself to stop dwelling on and thus polishing the horror of what happened to a blinding sheen. Down the
I-did-it-with-Santa
road there was only madness.
    Rather, I had to think of the entire experience like an incredibly high state income tax bill or Beanie Babies—an unpleasant reality, now in the past.
    I’d forgotten plenty of guys before, I could do it again.
    Or so I believed for about thirty seconds. Right up until I was passing a magazine store and glanced in the window. There he was:
my lover.
Three of him, actually—three paper Santa heads taped to the window.
    This was only the second week in December. I would be seeing an awful lot of Santa over the coming days. And then there was next year to look forward to. And the year after that. And every year for