The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

by Jennifer Lynch

  He's gone. I don't deserve him, nor does he deserve a life that begins and ends each day in a small square box. A reminder, if you will, that he is not free, but owned.

  I let the pony go. One of the last things I had hoped for before recalling all of your... shit. It doesn't matter anyway.

  I hope Troy understood why I made him leave me.

  I'm so afraid that anything I touch runs the risk of contact with BOB. I'll be investigating death... don't worry. I can feel you deciding how and when. You bastard.

  Laura

  November 12, 1987

  Dear Diary,

  I hope God reads this:

  I could use the help.

  It is definitely the end of my life, the end of my belief in myself... trust... everything gone! Leo and Bobby came to get me at the stables because I could hardly walk another step. Bobby said he had called home for me and told them he was taking me out to a surprise dinner... we'd be back late.

  That was sweet and very considerate of him, I must admit. But like I told Leo and Bobby from the backseat as I changed clothes (again a thank-you to Bobby for borrowing something for me to wear of Donna's-who tells Bobby she is worried about me). I'll admit surprises here, not that I doubt Donna's loyalty or her friendship, but I believe now too much in BOB. I told them both that I was worried. That I had good reason not to leave any one place, all night long. I said I was concerned enough that, if we all agreed, we could turn back and forget the coke until tomorrow. Bobby laughed at me, and Leo patted my hand as if I were something cute, something that chirped the same message again and again. Pulling a string at my back, unnecessary. "I don't think this is very safe."

  We drove out past Mill Town and deeper into Low Town. I've never seen a night so dark. No moon anywhere in the sky. This even worried Leo, who I'm sure will take good care of me, until I go. Everything I need right now is either a substance or the cash with which to buy a substance. My little white friend. Another lie, but at least I looked this one right in the face and said I'd believe it anyway. Temporary happiness is better than slowly allowing friends, family, lovers, a frightening peek at how close I am to self-destructing. Don't come too close, there is no longer safety in numbers. I can promise you that.

  We drove up to a small road without a posted sign of any kind, but assumed it was the right road, as it was the only one around for miles. Bobby just sat there before driving down toward the house. Leo egged him on, like, "C'mon, Bobby, let's drive." I tried to get his attention, too, but he was honestly in another world. His face was something out of the Twilight Zone.

  The minute Bobby came out of his thought he began barreling down the road, complete darkness ahead of us that somewhere shadowed a house. One I hoped was filled to an obscene level with cocaine and a quick drink if I managed a smile... Show teeth, I thought.

  Leo looked at me like for a moment it struck him as wrong to be down here, under these conditions, not knowing anyone, and padded up with cash totaling in the thousands. I just slid back into my seat and shut up, suddenly realizing how ridiculous it was of me to change clothes... I'm only dressed for trouble when it comes to Low Town in an hour of darkness still not explained in news reports or radio stations. They're not even saying there is a power failure.

  I said, "I wonder, how long would it take the police to get down here after a call?"

  Bobby reached into his jacket and produced his father's pistol. It gleamed only slightly and I told him he was completely fucked out of his mind to be carrying that around with him. I was now sure that it was not a stomachache I was experiencing, but instead a quite obvious gut instinct to turn around and drive like fuck-all until we were close to home.

  The car did not turn, nor did it slow. The road showed no signs of life, no house up ahead, not a fucking soul around... well, perhaps a soul or two... which was even more reason to make a silent getaway while we still had the chance to leave together.

  Out of nowhere, it seemed, Bobby slammed on the brakes. The truck spun in two full circles and dust shot up and began to glow in the light from the headlights. Finally we stopped. We were all in a bit of shock. "I thought I saw someone..." Bobby said. "I didn't want to run him over." We all got out and moved slowly in the dark.

  All of a sudden someone grabbed me from behind and began to strangle me. I thought, I don't believe I'm going to die this way... in Low Town during a blackout no one will even admit is actually going on while I'm trying to buy drugs, cocaine to be specific, and neither of the two strong and burly men I have as companions know I'm being fucking strangled! I thought that was it... I'd bought the goddamn farm here. Cash. Paid in full.

  The grip loosened, my vision blurred and I passed out cold. I woke up in this drug dealer's house with a headache that thought it was an aneursm. Bobby and Leo came into the room, and Bobby obediently took a seat next to me and acted worried about my head, and his concern reminded me of just how it had happened. And I said (a fair amount of sarcasm in this, I might add), Who's fuckin' bright idea was it to strangle me until I passed out cold?

  No one responded.

  "Then I guess this would be the way you guys meet chicks here in Low Town?" Silence in return. "Classy."

  The fattest of the four dudes pulled a gun from his shirt and aimed it at me. I looked at him, like he was going a bit overboard maybe... that a "Shut up" or "Fuck off" would have been perfectly clear to me. He cocked the mother-fuckin' thing and brought it to my face.

  "I apologize, sweetheart... Can't expect everyone wearing a dress to be a girl." He looked at me, licked his gun. "Nice titties."

  "I know." Not that his explanation for strangling me made any sense at all. His apology was accepted, and quite seriously preferred, over a permanent hole in my head. I offered my hand and thanked him for not shooting me. It would have really fucked up my evening. There was a pause... and no handshake.

  Slowly, and with great pleasure, he began to curl the edges of his mouth up up up, and ended the performance in a frozen "eat shit and die" grin, the likes of which I had only seen once before. I knew the deal was bogus. I found myself kept alert and up-to-date on the etiquette of silence by the four pistols that found quite important parts of my face on which to rest their barrels.

  Cold metal. A chill at the base of my neck. Frightening. Call me crazy, but weapons often cause me to hyperventilate and desire large quantities of fresh air A.S.A.P.

  I told them I was going to the truck. I kept thinking one of the guns would go off and make a beeline for me. I had to get air, which was made more difficult than usual due to the shrinkage that took place in my neck. Besides, I'm afraid of bullets and would bet good money that they hurt when inserted inside the flesh at a high speed.

  I was suddenly aware of persons in military attire, posted like frozen nightmares all around the house. One of the soldiers came up to my window and I was all huddled up because it was chilly and I was frightened.

  With one of the straightest faces I had ever seen, he asked, "You ever think about dying?"

  "Not in a situation like this one. No, sir."

  He looked at me like I had just made his promotion arrive a few days earlier than scheduled, and he said, "You must want to step outside the vehicle, please, miss."

  "Are you just going to shoot me or something?"

  "There's been a fair amount of cocaine stolen from inside the house. I thought maybe you'd like to show me that the truck is clean and we can go on with business... par the norm."

  I got out and I thought I was going to shatter into little pieces of bone, I was so scared. "Everything okay?"

  "On my end of the shotgun, yes, it is."

  I couldn't move.

  "Your end isn't much of a party, is it?"

  "No. No, it's more like a wake... no party I'd like to go to. Sir."

  "You can go on back to your seat and relax."

  "What's going on in the house, right now?"

  He shrugged. "I guess the boys are sitting around debating whether or
not to blow their faces off or send 'em back to high town just the way they came in."

  "Oh. I feel much more relaxed now. Thank you."

  I had to sit in that fuckin' truck for almost forty minutes waiting to find out if Bobby and Leo were allowed to drive home in solid, rather than liquid, form. At last, they came out of the front door patting these bullies on the backs and laughing like they went way back. I thought, gee, this is great. I'm out here about to be shot point-blank for lifting a kilo of cocaine (I carefully inserted it under my dress, which still appeared skintight, and proved me innocent of the theft), and the thanks I get is a snail's pace on the way to the truck. And a cheesy example of male bonding if I ever saw one.

  And then a look of total fear came from Bobby's eyes to mine and registered, "Look out!" Guns started going off like the NRA had accepted applicants who were legally blind. People were just fucking shooting at each other... paranoid, and so high that if they were hit, they'd notice sometime tomorrow.

  I slid over into the driver's seat and swung around to where Leo was hiding, unarmed, praying like a madman, and we were gone speeding down the road back towards the city.

  Then, it was my turn to send the "Oh, shit" look. When we were halfway down the road, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw someone else in the truck bed with Leo, and Leo was losing something awful. Bobby pulled out his gun and with his free hand, lifted himself out of the side window and told the guy he had two seconds to disappear or die. He had to choose fast...

  The guy sat up, and Bobby shot him in the chest at a range of about three, maybe four feet. The speed of the bullet sent the guy flying out of the back of the truck and onto the ground behind us. Bobby screamed at me, "Get the hell outa' here. Drive!"

  As soon as we were back on paved roads, Bobby lowered himself into the cab, still holding the gun in his hand as if he were ready to fire.

  Bobby was silent the whole way home. Leo sat in back and thanked God for the miracle of prayer. I wondered if there was a lot of blood in the back of the truck, and if the man was dead...

  At Leo's house I walked in and asked him if we were alone. He said we were, and so I removed the entire kilo of cocaine from my skirt, plastic in mint condition. A good job, I thought, for an amateur like myself. I apologized to Bobby for probably causing the extra man to hide in back.

  I was searched, though, and the guy said I was clean. I thought they'd given up, seeing as how everyone was hugging each other on the way out of the house.

  "They were telling us nice and slow," Leo said, "how they'd find us and remove our genitalia a half inch at a time... with a butter knife if the bimbo with us was sitting on a kilo of their coke, it wouldn't be long before we'd bypass all hospitals and go directly to hell."

  I sat down and thought for a moment about the word "bimbo."

  "Hey, you guys" I said. "I'm real sorry. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think you guys would be jumping up and down about it." No response.

  "I'm the one who suggested we not go at all, remember?"

  A smile from both of them.

  Leo nodded toward the kilo and said, "You got yourself quite a party in that bag."

  Bobby turned and looked at me with sudden pride. "A coupla regular Bonnie and Clyde's."

  That drama ended and yet there was another to come. We, of course, decided to begin blowing the stuff up our noses in quantities never before accepted by the human body. If the bullets didn't kill us, the mountain of cocaine would come in a close second.

  We were high. I needed to get out. I wanted some stuff from the Cash and Carry. Neither of them would even think of leaving the couch.

  They were into the television, and even more so the macho thrill of sitting in front of a mountain of cocaine, with three straws protruding from a hole at the top of the bag.

  Both of them looked at me with puppy-dog eyes and dilated pupils and said, do you mind if we just hang? I was a little pissed at Bobby for not offering to escort his own girlfriend, the very one who had risked her life, however worthless at the moment, to ensure that he be as high as he was.

  I figured screw 'em and decided I could handle a two-block drive down the road to the store, without breaking into the sweats or experiencing an emotional breakdown.

  I drove off, and as I passed the only two other homes on the road, I noticed a magazine lying on the floor of the truck that I hadn't noticed earlier. Fleshworld Magazine.

  My mind went reeling, a magazine that could perhaps teach me something I hadn't thought of myself... and BAM!

  I pulled over to the side of the road, and before I got out of the truck to see what I had hit, I saw myself four years ago. A young girl, awakened by the noise, came flying from the front door and began to slow as she saw the animal in the road.

  She looked at it and took one step closer, still not going within fifteen feet of it, as if to spare herself the reality.

  I turned and saw Jupiter. A cat identical to the one I considered a best friend before some drughead like myself came along and without any thought, cared more for the stories in a porn magazine than for what might be crossing the road.

  I couldn't help but begin to cry. Then I couldn't stop. I was the person years later I had hated for taking my cat away from me when I needed his company the most. I told the little girl I would do whatever she thought was best. If she wanted a new cat, I would be happy to buy it... She looked at me - and tried to cheer me up! Her cat is stuck to the road, because of my sex hang-ups, and she's trying to make me feel better.

  She came around to the side of the truck, where I was leaning. I was unable to face her.

  I felt such tremendous shame, I could barely move.

  "Please, stop crying."

  Jesus, she even sounded like me.

  "Why are you so sad? I didn't mean to make you feel so bad."

  I looked down at her and saw something I missed so much. Such a willingness to forgive. Such a big heart; this one girl could love all of these United States and leave no one feeling lonely.

  "When I was just about your age, I had a cat who looked just like yours. I called him Jupiter, and he was probably the best friend around. Someone hit him out in the street, and I heard the noise and came running to help him. I remember I was so amazed by how quickly... death decides it is hungry."

  There was a moment where there was only wind. We said nothing.

  Then she looked up at me and asked, "Did you forgive the person who hit your cat?"

  I crouched down beside her and told her that Jupiter was killed by someone who hit and ran. "I figured she was in heaven, but I missed her a lot... and I forgave her death, but I don't think I ever forgot that someone hit my cat, but didn't stop to say they were sorry.

  She held up her hand, and her nightgown flannel, made me smile. "My name is Danielle." She shook my hand tight.

  "My name is Laura Palmer." I gave her a hug and she wrapped her arms around me, warm. "It's very nice to meet you, Danielle." I stood. "It takes an awfully special person to forgive so easily."

  She held my hand for a minute, and after thinking about something very carefully she looked up at me and said, "When I heard the noise, I was worried that the cat had been hurt... But I came out, and I saw you, and you were crying more than me, because you remembered your cat, and it made you sorry you hurt this one. Why would I want to make you feel bad for anything you do? I think you're nice, Laura Palmer."

  "Danielle, I think you are extra special nice, with sugar on top." I looked away toward the cat, then back to her.

  "My mom is gonna get it."

  Little Danielle made me feel, more than anyone I had been around in ages, that there was still a chance for everything to work out. I even began to think a new cat would be nice...

  I just remembered that I set my horse free. I hope I didn't send it off somewhere where it might be hit, or not taken care of the way he should. I guess I should have thought of that before I allowed myself to be swept away by the drama of setting my horse
free, to go and do whatever he wished... Alone.

  Boy, I'm not racking up the brownie points this week, am I? What very dark but almost omenlike events I've gone through. Why?

  Am I supposed to get back up onto life and get a job? Or am I still revved up to die? All I know is I'm taking the truck back right away, and I'm leaving the drugs behind for a sobering walk home.

  Maybe' Mom will make hot chocolate, and I can edit the evening's events and just be with my mom. I'll just take the truck back and go right home. I'll just walk. Just get home.

  Write you when we get there.

  L

  November 13, 1987

  Dear Diary,

  I am home. It's early. Leo and Bobby weren't very happy about the fact that I wanted to go home. Leo had decided that it was going to be a night of new and "unusual things." Bobby was really, really high, and I think Leo had told him that he was supposed to talk me into going along with whatever Leo wanted, because I had never seen him so concerned about keeping me somewhere. His constant looks toward Leo made me think Bobby felt guilty, or maybe uncertain about whether or not he should be leading me into this. Waving the cheese in front of the mouse... a little blond-haired, very frightened, little mouse. See the trap? See it? Go. You wanted this anyway, remember?

  Leo shook his head when I told them I had decided I wanted to leave, that something had happened that made me feel... I stopped. I didn't finish my sentence because I suddenly saw that the two of them were in no position even to pretend they cared about some cat out on the road. An animal in white, perhaps still there... or like I imagined it while driving slow, lights off, back to the end of the road. I saw its dead eyes locking on the vision of a mother, probably tired and wondering if her daughter would be all right. Wondered, as she carefully lifted the animal's body, if death stopped, right here. Maybe she thought about work to be done the next day, thought about hovering there in the road... so tired, always tired.

  I guess I'm thinking of myself here. I am tired. I'm the one who asks, is death only the frozen image we have of the animal's body? Grandfather's ashes, just an easier way to fit him inside an urn? He's just a body anyway, why not decorate the remains?