Jay's Journal

by Dr. Beatrice Sparks

  I tried to get to the flame, blow it out, smash it out, cover it with my, whatever was left of me, but some unseen black power held me back. Literally and absolutely bound me. My arms and legs were pinioned to my sides.

  Defeatedly I began to cry. As I wept I saw some tears running down the face of my body, even though it was still occupied by something else and I could not enter.

  After what seemed like an eternity, with everyone committing themselves to whatever evil force pervaded the area I felt a tremendous surge of pain and found that I was once more in my body, which somehow in some way seemed foreign to me. It, without my permission or favor, had dedicated itself to some mysterious black force for—I couldn’t remember what—that part had been blacked out. How strange, when I remembered the rest so well. Was I blocking it out myself because I just didn’t want to remember? Was anything too vicious and degrading and degenerate for these forces? Vaguely I recalled someone bringing two Great Danes into the house just as Tina and I had been leaving after I had abused her. Were the people and the dogs? . . . They would have done anything! I remember having felt the same feelings there as I felt at the cabin . . . The same strange vibrations . . . The blackness, the smells. I won’t, I can’t let myself think about it!

  December 11

  I haven’t felt well. I’ve gone to school and worked my few hours but I simply haven’t the energy for anything else. It’s like my body’s wasted, for good and eternally wasted. Man, if something doesn’t happen soon to get me upped I’m going to have to see a doctor or a shrink. The bummer keeps bumping by and by and by!

  Each day I feel worse. Tina wants to use her powers to heal me but I won’t let her, and I won’t use them for myself. I’d rather be sick! She conducted the forum today and seems even brighter and more bubbly than ever—but me . . . old man me, I’m suffering from nightmaritis. Chronic nightmaritis! Did they? Did someone take over my body? Can they do it again?

  December 13

  This is a miracle. Can one call an O power a miracle? Today Brad, who couldn’t make a basket when he had free throws, couldn’t miss! He scored twelve points in one game, more than he’s scored in the whole season. What a coincidence! Or was it? Dear God, it had to be!

  December 14

  Brad and Dell and I are like three little kids, lost in the deepest part of the dark and scary woods. We don’t want to talk about O and we can’t think about anything else. All the chicks in the area plus the coach are treating Brad like an idol, but like he says, the thing he thought would make him the happiest person in the world isn’t making him happy.

  December 15

  Tina came over and sneaked through my window and into bed with me but I couldn’t get it on. I didn’t even want to. It’s like I’m not me anymore. Like I’m two people in one body . . . fighting, struggling for dominance. Oh hell, won’t morning ever come? The darkness is my enemy. All evil lurks inside and hides it so I cannot see. But it sees me.

  December 18

  Things are going from worse to impossible. I’m fighting a losing battle with . . . whatever. Tina and Mel are planning a big anoua for December 24 but I will not be a part of it! I told her I wouldn’t and she just smiled.

  December 19

  Brad won another basketball game by thirteen points! He hated it!

  December 20

  Dell’s old aunt in Las Vegas sent his Christmas present early. Can you believe everything she owns to him? Her car, practically new, a $13,000 bank account so he can go to college, plus the old L.V. house clear. In a few years the land alone will be worth a fortune. It’s only one block from The Strip. She’s had three heart attacks in two days and her doctor says she has no chance at all to recover. Another coincidence? Strange but, I insist, possible!

  2:13 A.M.

  There is something . . . someone in this room. I can feel it. I can smell it. I cannot see it, only the aura that emanates from it. It’s black and murky yellowish-green. Oh God, please make it go away.

  3:49 A.M.

  It’s still here. Will it never go away?

  December 21

  Brad and Dell and I sat up all night and talked. We declared we had to get ourselves put together. We’re going to chuck O completely! Once and for all! Get out! It’s got us all so screwed-up we don’t know reality from unreality anymore. Brad and Dell have both felt foul presences in their rooms too, even though we now, all three, are sleeping with our lights on like little scared kids.

  4 A.M.

  Won’t it ever get daylight? Won’t this thing ever ever go away? It stands in the corner by my desk and stares at me. I can’t see it completely but I can feel its glare. Once I reached out to grab it, and saw its hand, just like mine only of a darker, not so dense, matter, lash back. I felt nothing, which is strange because I know it can restrain me! Dell says the beings who sometimes surround him are always laughing: silently, goadingly, knowing-something-that-he-doesn’t-know, laughing.

  I dare not go to sleep.

  I dare not ask the Lord my soul to keep.

  No matter what the results—I am out!

  December 22, NITE

  Well, I cried today. Tina is going out with some bastard from Fairfax (God, what a hick). Man, sitting talking to her on the phone and my mind so shattered. Oh shit, this is going to be one fucked-up weekend.

  Yes, I cried today. It seems so much like the beginning of the end. I would attempt to discourage this beginning but it’s her show too. The empty feeling inside is like a silent earthquake, a hush a boom hydrogen bomb. Why oh why does it seem like my whole insides are making the transition from whole to part? She’s part of me, I love her. I made the investment of my heart but the love market is down. I’m losing, going down, she kept me afloat but I’m beginning to sink. Why in God’s name do I love her . . .

  (How ironic, tonight I spent ten dollars on her Christmas present.)

  December 23

  I just read yesterday’s “everybody feel sorry for me” bullshit and I think it’s about time I changed the name of that tune. Man, my ass has been dragging for so long I’ve almost forgot how to get it off the ground. I’ve just simply got to pull my head out and start doing something constructive from the inside out. It’s like now I’m building from the outside in, and it’s not working. I imagine it’s something like a carpenter trying to build a house with the roof and the exterior first. It just can’t be done! Much as it craps me I guess I’ve got to start conforming a little more, building on the good old proven things, stop being so afraid I’m going to let somebody else be right, or smart, or have an idea of their own. Anyway, right here—right now—all the never-never land, make believe, magic, witchcraft bullshit is going to be flushed down the crapper where it belongs. I’m going back to the good old proven dependable, you-can-count-on-it concepts.

  Now, today, this minute, is the time to get my life back in order. I’ve been screwing up long enough. I’m going to get my priorities all straightened out. Nobody controls my mind but me! Nobody is responsible for my half-assed thinking and actions but me! Nobody can set forth general characteristics, interests, and goals for me except me! So here goes nothing . . . and everything . . .

  December 24

  DEAR GOD:

  How nice to wake and find—

  You’ve given me a brand-new day,

  Which I can use in any way.

  I lie here in my soft warm bed,

  My pillow underneath my head.

  The world is mine. Your gift to me,

  THIS DAY IS MINE, and I am free—

  Dear God, what will I make it be?

  A thing of love, of joy and care?

  Something wonderful and fair?

  That tonight, as the sun is sinking low

  I can, with special inner glow,

  All unashamed, and filled with glee

  Present more proudly back to thee.

  Dear God, this I hope I can do!

  For me!—and you.

  Christmas Eve

 
Family, Brad and Dell, life is looking up after all the blackness. Brad and Dell are so understanding about how I feel. They keep telling me I’ll get over Tina like I got over Debbie, but that was different. It’s like I’m only part of a person without Tina . . . without . . . that’s stupid! And I won’t let myself think that way—won’t let her or anything else control me!

  I bought a neat digital watch for Kendall and a turquoise ring for Chad and a catcher’s mitt. For Mom I bought her favorite perfume which she always says is too expensive and makes her feel like she’s being extravagant. I love making her feel extravagant and special. She is special! She is the most special mom in the whole world! And Dad, nothing material in life could ever represent in the slightest his worth to me, but anyway I bought him a fishing pole.

  And Brad and Dell, we opened our presents tonight in my room. I’m so lucky to have two such wonderful, all through my lifetime, forever after, friends. I’m glad I’ve got money so I can buy them nice things, not that I’m trying to buy their friendship or their love, just that I’m trying to tell them how important they are in my life . . . in my eternity . . .

  Man, I’ve got a headache! Like someone’s in there pounding to get out or someone’s out here pounding to get in. Oh Judas, why did I have to think of that? And ruin my whole night.

  December 25

  Brad and Dell and I went to church together. We partook of the Sacrament and rededicated ourselves to things we understand and, deep down inside, always have believed in and respected.

  We were all three sick to our stomachs and headachy and hurting all over but that’s probably because we didn’t get any sleep last night and we’ve been eating Christmas goodies and junk for the past few days, or maybe we’re coming down with the flu.

  Hail the Christ child!

  Everybody knows what I’m aiming for. Everybody knows why I’m here.

  I’m lookin’ for a place to hide and boy I’m gettin near.

  The girl that moved me left. I’m here alone, above the clouds, below the rain

  It’s such a shame I love her. The reasons were simple yes, and no answers to questions of freedom and loneliness. My caress could not find her or bind her

  She’s gone

  Out of the dream of a lasting time

  She changed her mind and said that no one knows what she must be. Leave her be.

  A ransom of happiness the price to pay

  I heard her say. She’s gone.

  2:43 A.M.

  I’ve never been in a more scary winter storm. Usually I love the snow and the wind, tonight it’s lethal.

  I wish I thought that I had lost my mind, but I know I have not! The experiences I am living through are real. They are not flashbacks of a drug-sodden mind. Oh Judas, how I wish they were!!!!

  About an hour ago I got up because I could feel that someone was staring at me. I got up and tried to turn on all the lights in the room but they wouldn’t work—only the small light that I am afraid to sleep without remained glowing. I flopped onto my knees to pray but the staring entity, with a cosmic-consciousness type of power stopped me.

  Breathing heavily I forced myself to look up. Across the bed from me was a person, I swear by all the Bibles in the world! He was real! As real as I am real! His skin was more gray than mine, like more refined matter, where did I hear that? But other than that he is just like me. Probably in his late twenties, good-looking, sharp and thin, wearing a gray kind of tight-fitting jumpsuit thing. Our whole conversation remains seared upon my mind word for word:

  “Hello again, Jay.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Raul.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You know,” he smiled, a most knowing frightening little mouth twist.

  “But you’re not real.”

  “I’m not?”

  I pulled away, having to know but not really wanting to ask. “Wh . . . Who are you?” I whispered hoarsely.

  He folded his arms across his chest and in a mocking way stated matter-of-factly, “Remember the third of the host of heaven that were cast out without bodies?”

  I nodded weakly, wanting more than anything in the world for the whole thing to be a bad dream but knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not.

  “Wh . . . what do you want?”

  He grinned. “Would you believe . . . your young virile bod?”

  I buried my head in the covers, cutting my cheek on the belt buckle I had left on the bed. “Our father . . . our father . . .” I tried to pray, but it was like mental arm wrestling, Raul’s pressure against mine, and me from the beginning knowing, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he would win. He had a wedge in somewhere, like his foot in the doorway of my mind and try as I would I couldn’t get it out.

  “There’s no way I’m going to let you . . .,” I mumbled.

  He interrupted, “You already have!”

  “No.”

  He reached over and ran his fingers through my hair. I cringed.

  “Not once,” he hesitated, “but twice.”

  I remembered both times and whimpered, “But no more! I swear no more!” Raul laughed aloud, “Want to bet?”

  There was something shockingly unreal about Raul talking like just anybody, dressing like just anybody, looking so . . . ordinary and unstrange. Evil spirits . . . devils, looked . . . always in horror movies they looked . . .

  “How?” he asked, reading my mind.

  I shrugged.

  “Feeling more relaxed now you’ve accepted who I am?” he asked.

  I panted, “I guess so.” But I was cold! All the way through my body frozen cold!

  “Not so scared?”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s so unreal. . . . I can’t believe . . .” My teeth chattered so much I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Raul sat down at my desk like he owned it. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve always known we existed.”

  “Yes . . . and no . . . I . . .”

  “You mean you didn’t want to believe!”

  “Maybe.”

  Raul looked grim, “How did you feel when you didn’t have a body?”

  I gritted my teeth, hugged myself, and tried to draw my head and arms and legs into myself like a turtle.

  “You wanted a body desperately, just like I want one, didn’t you?”

  I started crying, yelling inwardly for Dad to come help me.

  Raul got uncomfortable, “Stop that!”

  I blubbered, “Dad, Dad, I want you, need you!”

  Raul growled and swung at me. I felt nothing.

  Somewhere during our conversation I had heard Hamlet, Kendall’s cat, making the ugly weird sounds he makes only when he’s in heat or fighting. As the sounds came closer to my room Raul disappeared.

  Not wanting to awaken the family, not feeling that I could handle any more at this point, I ran out into the dark hall to get Hamlet and let him out. He hissed, jumped at me, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that Raul had taken over his body.

  I wanted to scream, run, jump in bed with my parents, or get the boy scout hatchet and hack the cat into little bits, but what good would that do?

  Feeling I was suffocating and being overwhelmed by the stench Raul had left to permeate the house, I ran to the front door.

  As Hamlet shot off through the dark, Mom, Dad, Kendall, and Chad all came running down the hall.

  “What’s that awful smell?” Mom asked.

  “If you let that damn cat go stinky in the house again,” Dad threatened.

  “It’s not my cat,” I screamed, relieved at being able to dare scream.

  “It smells worse than the time we went past the oil refinery,” Kendall said, holding his nose.

  Chad ran over and clung to Dad’s legs. “I’m scared. I had a dad bream,” he said, mixing up his letters the way he had when he was very little.

  Kendall went closer to Mom. “Me too . . .”

  Dad
put one arm around Mom and one around me, “Strange,” he whispered, “so did I.”

  I could feel Mom shaking but she tried to be light, “Crazy family, having community nightmares. Even Hamlet is screaming out in the lilac hedge.”

  She led us all into the kitchen for hot chocolate.

  Oh dear God, how I do wish it had all been a nightmare!

  I’ve got to make myself talk to Dad about it, but not tonight . . . not tonight . . .

  December 29

  I was so happy the day after Christmas when we left to go see Aunt Laura in Phoenix. I had wanted to get away! I had to get away from—mainly Raul—and his cohorts—more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

  Now to come home to this! Brad dead! I still can’t believe it! I won’t believe it!

  Brad was just peacefully driving out of the Blue Moo when the dumb truck turned the corner and, running with its left front wheel on the high curb, crashed over the hood of his car. Dell said the bumper hit him directly on the right temple like a giant hammer, killing him instantly. Why there? It’s so awful. It’s so useless. Such a coincidence. Brad, 16 ½, barely starting in life.

  I didn’t even get to pay my last respects or go to his funeral. Maybe that’s a good thing. I would have cried like a baby, made an ass out of myself, embarrassed his family . . . Oh God, I wish I knew what happened to him—especially him, after death.

  Cub Scout together, we

  Three

  In kindergarten and

  In grade, and Junior High and High

  How dare you die

  And leave me here

  In fear,

  Of all the great unknown

  Alone.

  You know the answers now,

  No problems, intrigues,

  Stress or strife.

  I miss you so! I loved you so!

  But love you more in death