Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs Page B

sedan. She was, it seemed to me then, well over six feet tall. She was broad-shouldered and broad-faced. When she lumbered into the room, the word mistress did not come to mind.
    Dr. Finch adored her. She’d been his muse for over a decade, traveling with him from motor-lodge to motor-lodge. Their love was no secret. Often we would joke, “Can you imagine her on top of him? She’d crush him.”
    Geraldine seldom came over to 67 Perry Street, except under the protection of holidays and special occasions. Agnes would be chilly but polite, never forgetting that she was first and foremost a doctor’s wife .
    And when Geraldine was gone, the screaming would begin.
    “ I don’t care ,” she’d bellow from behind the closed bedroom door. Then something might crash against the wall. “I am your wife . You cannot do this to me.”
    Finch would always laugh. He found her fury absolutely hysterical. His face would grow red and his eyes would tear and sometimes he’d call somebody into the room just to watch Agnes in the blind midst of her rage. “Hope!” he might bellow, “your mother is having a fit of hysteria. It’s spectacular!”
    Agnes continued screaming regardless of who showed up at the door to watch. It was like she was in a scream-trance. And then, for some reason, she always ended up laughing, too. Somebody might point out how insane she looked, holding the nightstand above her head, and then she would catch herself and laugh.
    It fascinated me how she tried to maintain her dignity as a Doctor’s Wife. She always spoke of him as “the doctor.” And she always wore lipstick, even if she was only cleaning turkey off the ceiling—something that needed to be done on a frequent basis.
    When it was the doctor’s chance to be furious with Agnes, he could bellow and boom all he wanted but she ignored him completely. He stood in front of her in his loose Fruit of the Loom briefs, his black ankle socks and his black wing tips and ranted. But Agnes just hummed as she trimmed the wicks of her Virgin Mary votive candles with a nail clipper.
    Sometimes fights took on a festive, holiday feel.
    Jeff, the only biological Finch son and a resident of Boston, kept his distance from his more eccentric Western Massachusetts clan. But when he did come to town, all the Finches and many of the patients would gather—Poo’s mother, Anne; the oldest Finch daughter, Kate; occasionally Vickie would show up. Hope and Natalie, my mother, and sometimes the doctor’s “spiritual brother,” Father Kimmel, with his “adopted daughter,” Victoria.
    If a ham had been baked or a chicken roasted, it wouldn’t be long before animal parts were hurling through the air.
    “Yeah, that’s just because you think you’re too fucking good for us,” Natalie might shout.
    “Calm down, Natalie. I’m busy in Boston. I’ve got a job out there.”
    Hope would try and lay a guilt trip on him. “It wouldn’t hurt you to visit Dad at least. It’s not like you’re in California.”
    “Yeah,” Anne would agree. “I’m a single mom with a son. Are you trying to say you’re busier than me? Because if you are, you’ve got. . .”
    Long-buried resentments would float to the surface like dead fish. “Well, Mr. Boston Hot Shot, I seem to remember a certain five-year-old boy who liked creamed corn.”
    To those of us who were not blood relations, the effect was something like watching a porn film. It made us want to try it at home.
    “Yeah, well, you’re a lousy fucking parent,” I might scream at my mother later that evening.
    “And you’re a selfish goddamn son.”
    If he wasn’t physically sitting in the armchair clapping, the doctor was certainly mentally egging it on. “What a glorious expression of anger,” he might say, his voice rising above the cacophony. “Get it out, get it out, get it out!”

HE WAS RAISED WITHOUT
A PROPER DIAGNOSIS
     
     
     
    M
    Y LIFE CAME COMPLETE WITH A FACTORY-INSTALLED BI ological brother seven