Читать онлайн «Possible Side Effects»

Possible Side Effects

Also by Augusten Burroughs

Magical Thinking

Dry

Running with Scissors

Sellevision

Possible Side Effects

AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

St. Martin’s Press                New York

Author’s Note

Some of the events described happened as related; others were expanded and changed. Some of the individuals portrayed are composites of more than one person, and many names and identifying characteristics have been changed as well.

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS. Copyright © 2006 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. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010.

Design by Phil Mazzone

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burroughs, Augusten.

   Possible side effects / Augusten Burroughs. —1st ed.         p.   cm.    ISBN-10 0-312-31596-1   ISBN-13 978-0-312-31596-2   1. Burroughs, Augusten—Childhood and youth.   2. Novelists, American—20th century—Biography.   I. Title. PS3552. U745Z475  2006813'.

First Edition: May 2006

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

For Bob and Relda Robison

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted and wish to express my gratitude to my publisher, St. Martin’s Press and Picador. I would also like to thank and extend my love to my friends and family, both personal and professional. My partner, Dennis Pilsits, makes it all possible and meaningful.

Possible Side Effects

Pest Control

The first time I was starstruck, the object of my affection was a glamorous Eastern Airlines stewardess. She had towering blond hair, frosted blue eyelids, and was well into her twenties. I was eight. We were thrown together when my parents put me on a flight by myself to Lawrenceville, Georgia, to visit my wealthy grandparents.

“I call them by their first names, Jack and Carolyn,” I told her with pride. “They’re my father’s parents. And my grandmother wears lots of jewelry, just like you. ”

“Aren’t you precious?” the flight attendant said.

I smiled because I loved the name, precious. It reminded me of precious stones like rubies and emeralds and diamonds. And even semiprecious stones, like onyx, which was the black stone men wore, and the ugliest one of all.

The flight attendant returned to the kitchen, and I looked out the window, happy to see the mundane “North” pass by, far below me. As the only member of my family for generations born above the Mason-Dixon line, I was fascinated by the impossibly exotic South.

Like, instead of dirty, gray squirrels, my grandparents had Technicolor peacocks on their lawn. And while we got hateful blizzards in the winter, my grandparents got yet more sunshine. I found it impossible to believe that snow did not cover the world but here was proof.

Though this became an annual trip for me, my grandfather traveled a lot, so I never spent much time with him. And he was gruff, so when he was around I was frightened and avoided him.