The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated)

by Ainslie Hogarth

  I groped around in his disgusting bag for the keys to the car, found them, and drove it into the next town over to buy Alf and me more beer than we could ever drink in a night.

  Then I drove around and around until there was almost no gas left and I came home and slipped the keys back into his nasty bag and couldn’t wait for him to discover the empty tank. It was very important to Herman that I got my license as soon as I possibly could. So I could run even more errands for him, pick up food within a much larger radius. Fucking asshole jerkface.

  I don’t know when he’ll be using the car again though. It’s not like he’s visiting Dr. Schiller. Goddamn fucking liar.

  I called Alf’s house. His mom said he was sleeping. That’s good. He should sleep.

  I’m going to try and sleep too.

  Twenty-Sixth Entry

  Right now I’m sitting at the front desk and I have no idea if Alf is going to show up or not. He never called me back.

  Olivia is sitting in one of the chairs with no arms and she’s started on a coughing fit that’s lasting for goddamn ever. I’m actually a little worried she’s going to keel over and die. But she probably won’t.

  The door just opened. A customer? A goddamn customer on tonight of all nights?!

  Even Olivia looked nervous. I think she wanted Alf and me to be able to have our “dinner,” to be able to hang out with our friends one night this summer. I haven’t seen June or Andrea, or anyone else from school, in forever. Just Alf. Alf all the time. Olivia really does care about us. She really does want us to be happy.

  But it wasn’t a customer. It was Alf. Good old Alf.

  “Hi,” he said quietly.

  “Alf!”

  “I knew you wouldn’t cancel the party,” he whispered so Olivia couldn’t hear.

  “Of course not.”

  “And I couldn’t let you do this all alone.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  And we hugged and it felt nice but I sort of felt bad about kissing him before, because even though maybe I do like Alf that way, I only kissed him to get him to show up tonight, and he did, and now I felt gross about it.

  “You look different,” I said.

  He was wearing jeans instead of sweatpants. And he’d combed his hair differently, so he didn’t look like a pervert anymore.

  “Oh yeah, I bought these pants a little while ago.” And he twirled around in a very Alf way.

  “I like them.”

  “Thanks.”

  Olivia walked up to the front desk. She was sweating from her coughing fit.

  “Alright, you two, I’m leaving now.” Her meter was close to the top.

  “Okay,” Alf said.

  “How come you were late?” she asked Alf. She wasn’t angry. Just curious.

  “I guess I slept in,” he replied.

  “Well, it looks to me like you were primping for your dinner! You look very sharp, Alfred.”

  “Thanks, Olivia.” He blushed. And somehow he didn’t blurt some long, inappropriate story about grooming his pubes or something.

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t get any of those novelty guests in, hmm?” Olivia said as she put on her coat.

  “Yeah, well, I think most people outside of town have kinda forgot about it by now,” I said.

  “You know, I remember a time when this was the busiest night of the year. A bunch of freaks wanting to stir up trouble in here.”

  “Well, I’m glad it stopped,” said Alf. Even though we were exactly a pair of freaks trying to stir up trouble.

  “Me too.” And Olivia smiled and said, “Alright, well, you guys don’t make a mess, okay? And you know, it’s okay by me if you decide to have a few drinks and all, and really I’d rather you do it here than outside somewhere, but please don’t let anyone drive drunk or anything like that. And don’t let anyone puke anywhere.”

  “We won’t,” I said.

  “And you know, if you make a mess, you’ll be the ones who’ll have to clean it all up.”

  “Well, and you asked us not to make a mess. We listen to you sometimes too, Olivia.”

  And she laughed. And repeated again, begged us, really, not to make a mess. And then finally left. I felt a little bad that we were about to throw a giant party.

  “Thanks for coming, Alf.”

  “Yeah, yeah, stop thanking me.”

  “No, really though.”

  “Well, I just figured, like, you’re right. Probably nothing’s going to happen tonight. Nothing like that would ever happen with so many people around.”

  “It’s true, you know.”

  “And nothing really happened yesterday. I mean, it was scary and all, but I mean, neither of us was hurt. It was actually pretty exciting.”

  “Right? I think tonight’s gonna be a blast.”

  “Is there coffee?” asked Alf.

  “Yep. Wanna play cards?”

  “Sure. Okay, lemme get coffee, then we can play.”

  It was hot in here. Too hot. I took the cards out of the cupboard and went over to the thermostat. Someone had turned off the air conditioner. Who the hell would do that? Certainly not Olivia. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it either. Pretty sure.

  Alf emerged from the kitchen, talking.

  “Noelle, if we end being murdered by ghosts and this is our last night together, I just want you to know something.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to know that … ugh man, okay, I want you to know that I … I saw your boob once.”

  “Alfred, you bastard! When was that?”

  “That time we were both up watching that movie about the lawyer and the criminal and he like, goes after the guy’s family. The one in black and white.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah. Cape Fear.”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “How did you see my boob that night?”

  Alf’s shoulders moved up slowly and touched his ears before he continued. “Well, remember how it was your turn to close the window? Because I always have to do it.” I started to interject but he cut me off. “And don’t even start, Noelle, you know I always have to do it.” I shut up because he was right. “Well, when you got up to spin the closer thing, I could see up your shirt and I saw your boob and I’m sorry. I couldn’t potentially go to my grave tonight without you knowing.”

  “Alright. You know what? Thanks for coming out about it. Now you get to die feeling good about yourself and I get to die feeling violated and disgusted.”

  “Haha, hey!” and he kinda punched my shoulder the way that he had been all summer. Because of his goddamn annoying crush. But it didn’t feel annoying this time.

  “Well I should come clean about something too,” I said. “Remember when you got your learner’s permit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’d been saving that Coke all night for, like, a caffeine boost right before you left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m the one who drank it.”

  “Um, yeah, Noelle, I fucking knew you did!”

  “How did you know?”

  “There was no one else there that night! It had to have been you. And you just lied and lied and lied.”

  “Yeah, yeah well. I’m telling you now.”

  “Well. Thank you. Because it was really annoying you wouldn’t just tell the truth.”

  “Well, it could have been the guest!”

  “What guest?”

  “We had a guest that night. She could have easily opened up the fridge and taken it.”

  “No we didn’t!”

  “Yes we did, Alf. I talked to her for, like, half an hour about drinking your stupid Coke. I felt terrible about it.”

  “Hey, Noelle, we absolutely did not have a guest. I remember because it’s one of the reasons I found your lying so fu
nny, that like, there was literally NO ONE ELSE who could have taken it.”

  “Yes, we did too have a guest. That fat lady, she was maybe, I don’t know, twenty or thirty. Really ugly. Really fat. Come on, you checked her in!”

  “NOELLE! I seriously didn’t!”

  “She said you checked her in.”

  “Noelle, I’m telling you, I didn’t check in any lady before my driver’s test.”

  “Okay, fine then. Let’s check the system.”

  “Okay, let’s.”

  I went to the computer and turned it on.

  “When was your test?”

  “July 18th.”

  I clicked through the calendar to July 17th. And it was empty. We didn’t have any guests that night.

  And Alf and I got very quiet then, because we both realized what this meant.

  That I had seen a ghost almost right away. Almost as soon as the summer started. And Alf wondered if maybe he had too.

  We thought of all of them, the old man on the low calorie diet, the strange woman with the birdcage.

  And there had been others. OTHERS.55 Not many. But enough to make me feel cold despite the fact that the air conditioning hadn’t kicked in yet.

  “You said she was fat?” asked Alf.

  I nodded. I knew what he was thinking. That maybe it’d been Margaret. Big fat Margaret, and I’d spoken to her. She’d told me Alf wouldn’t be mad about the Coke, that Alf would have let me drink it if I’d asked. I remembered her smile, teeth glazed in saliva, reflecting the lobby’s bright light. She wore slippers, which seemed odd, but not so odd I thought she might be a fucking ghost. Had I seen her feet? Did she have red toenails? I can’t remember. She looked so alive. She was sweating, for god’s sake.

  And I realized then that the house wasn’t the most quiet on the nights we had guests. It was louder than ever those nights, showing itself to us as hard as it could.

  I started dealing out the cards. But I dealt too many and had to start again. Twice. We were both quiet for a while as we played.

  Until finally Alf spoke, probably as tired of his own thoughts as I was. “So, uh, how’s your dad?” he asked.

  And for some reason my throat felt too clogged up to answer right away. “He’s still a liar.” I cleared it. “Why?”

  “Well, I’ve been here for, like, an hour and he hasn’t called fifty times.”

  “That’s true, actually. Well, I think he’s not feeling so well right now. When I left tonight he was sleeping.”

  “I thought he was feeling better. Or whatever it is. I thought the chicken made him think he was cured.”

  “Um, he was, I guess. But then he went out to buy himself another chicken and apparently it was a goddamn disaster.”

  “Sorry, man.”

  “Yeah, it’s alright.”

  And we continued to play cards for a long time before we started setting up for the party.

  55. We’re currently going through the guest history for the past three months, locating the guests we’re able to and asking them to sit for interviews about their stay: strange phenomena, odd behaviors from either Noelle or Alf, suspicious-looking persons on the premises, etc. There are a large number of guest who we haven’t been able to locate.

  Twenty-Seventh Entry

  People have started showing up. Like, already twenty at least. Or maybe thirty. Who knows. I’m bad at that kind of thing. I don’t even know how many people to expect. Alf probably does.

  I’m leaving you in the closet, diary. I hope it’s not too dark and scary in here for you. Now that you’re alive and all.

  Getting drunk is weird, like, deliberately making yourself a retard. Spending money even, and going out of your way to, like, temporarily disable yourself.

  And yet it’s somehow worth it. This crazy thing that people love but are also scared of. Especially girls. A lot of girls hate the feeling of being retarded and disabled and out of control.

  To a lot of girls at my school being TOO DRUNK can be this very shameful thing. I guess because when girls are out of control, like the way you are when you’re drunk, you get blamed for the stuff that happens to you, whereas guys just kind of get to laugh about how drunk they can get.

  TOO DRUNK. YOU’RE A GIRL WHO GETS DRUNK. TOO DRUNK. And to some other kind of a girl that means you’re a girl who deserves what she gets.

  One time June dumped a beer on a girl for saying that to her, that she was TOO DRUNK. It was crazy, but also great.

  I guess we’re all like that, June and Andrea and me, we all don’t mind that feeling of being out of control, will keep going and going and going till we’re snoring bubbles into our own puke. And that’s one of the reasons we’re friends.

  Andrea is probably the prettiest of the three of us. She’d probably say that I was but actually secretly think it’s her. Because that’s what I just did.

  June’s good-looking too but sort of bigger, always kinda dieting. But verging on something scarier.

  Because sometimes she’s “a little bit bulimic.” Which she’s somehow got me

  convinced is really possible, that a person can be just “a little bit bulimic.” And that actually, having that kind of control over your gag reflex is a handy skill.

  Anyway, she said that as soon as she has enough money for a gym membership, she’ll stop and I believe it for some reason.

  Andrea has a gym membership, she goes a lot.

  I’m too lazy for an eating disorder or a gym membership.

  June’s mom caught her puking and made her speak to a therapist. Today was her first session so Andrea and I asked her how it went. Because we’re her BEST FRIENDS, so we’ve gotta ask things like that.

  “She said I’ve got body dysmorphic disorder,” June revealed.

  “What’s that?” asked Andrea.

  “It’s like, when you don’t see how you really look in the mirror, right?” I asked. 56

  “Yeah, that’s it. Like, what I’m seeing isn’t actually how I look because my brain is putting, like, an ugly filter on it.”

  “Oh, well, your ugly filter must be on all of our brains,” said Andrea.

  “You’re so mean!” And June slapped her arm.

  Alf came over and brought us all beers. The Alfred in him was really coming out as the host of the party.

  “Thanks!” I said.

  They just smiled. June and Andrea didn’t quite know what to make of Alf yet. Like, to them Alf was this kind of weird guy I worked with who also apparently went to our school but they didn’t recognize him. I’d barely talked to them all summer so they had no idea that actually Alf had become my very best friend, and that we’d kissed, and that he had a terrible crush on me. Not that I would have necessarily told them that anyway, even if all my time hadn’t been hijacked by the nightshift.

  On the outside Alf is sort of a boring nice-guy type. I didn’t really know what to make of him either, at first. He doesn’t come off as particularly smart or funny or cool or good-looking until you really get to know him, but then you can see that he really is funny and smart and cool and good-looking underneath all his stupid clothes and shyness. He just makes it really hard to get there.

  Alf and I are going to be best friends forever.

  Okay, that is officially the most embarrassing thing I’ve written in this whole diary.

  As he passed me my beer he smiled at me but his smile was sort of cracked down the middle. And I think that was fear. Good old Alf. Good old sweet nice Alf who could save me, he could. He could save me from the house and the things that live here. I wish there was some kind of black light, like cops use to find semen and blood and guts, that worked for seeing ghosts; for seeing spirit stains. So I could be more in control when Sibyl came out. When Margaret appeared to scold me. Because I’d made her upset. According to you, diary, Margaret is very m
ad at me.

  “Are you okay?” asked June.

  I must have zoned out.

  “Yeah, go on. Go on about the session,” I said.

  “Well anyway, the therapist told me I had that body dysmorphia thing. But I think she’s full of shit.”

  “You don’t think you have it?”

  “Fuck no. I’m fucking fat. I know I am. I wish it was goddamn body dysmorphia,” and she took a big glug of beer. The kind that makes you wanna take a drink too, so I did. Seeing someone take a really refreshing-looking drink of something, especially beer, is just as contagious as a yawn.

  “Oh goddammit, June, you’re not fat.” Andrea grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close into a hug. Squeezing her too tight, so June squirmed and pushed Andrea off of her.

  “Anyway, stop worrying,” said June. “Hopefully I am body dysmorphic.”

  “Yeah, fingers crossed you’ve got a crippling mental condition!” Andrea laughed.

  I laughed too, then excused myself to find Alf.

  “Hey.” I grabbed his arm. He was filling up bowls of chips, just like an Alf.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look all freaked out.”

  “No, I’m fine. I just, I have kind of a weird feeling.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you worried about”—I whispered lower—“are you worried about ghosts?”

  “No, no. Well, I don’t know, I guess that’s part of it, yeah.”

  “Alf, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna be fine. I promise. And nothing can really happen anyway, remember? They can’t hurt us.”

  “I know, I know. I’m fine.”

  I went over to the big table we’d pushed against the far wall and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. I don’t know who it belonged to but it didn’t really matter because we were hosting the party so we got to drink whatever we wanted.

  I opened it up and took a big swig of it. It burned and I couldn’t twist my face hard enough to make it stop.

  “Here,” and I held it out to Alf, who was laughing at my twisted face.