Jay's Journal

by Beatrice Sparks

  After eons, someone opened the windows and the doors; a damp, cold blast blew through bringing me partially to my senses. “Let’s get out of this hell hole,” I gagged, hoping I had just had the worst of all bummers.

  Tina, whose body someone had patched with big Band-Aids hurriedly slipped on her clothes. “Let’s.”

  Nothing was said on the way home. What was there to say? Oh God, I’m ashamed! I know I was drugged but that is still no excuse. Why do they want to do things like that? Why do people want to act like animals? After what happened in the canyon I had vowed never to use angel dust again, but what in the world could they possibly have given us except it? Or worse. Was anything worse? Even the name offended me, was blasphemous! “Angel dust!” It should be called Devil Dust!

  Oh dear God, I’ve got to do something. I can’t let anything like what happened to me happen again or happen to anyone else. I wonder if I wrote an unsigned note to the police department . . . but what could I say? That the place is used by a witch—is a drug drop? Yeah! Yeah, first thing in the morning, before school I’ll drive by and get the address and report the house. Oh Judas, how could Tina ever have let me in for anything like that? Let herself become involved? I know she didn’t do it willingly. I’m sure she is as heartbroken and humiliated as I am. What am I ever going to say when I see her tomorrow at school . . .

  I’m taking three Histaspan. They’re only for colds but are supposed to cause drowsiness. I’ve got to sleep! Sleep is my only way to escape.

  October 6

  I think I’ve lost my mind. Tina conducted assembly today like nothing had happened. She had a Band-Aid over one eye and one on her neck, just above her turtleneck sweater, that’s all . . . me . . . I’m a basket case. Imagine her accepting the whole thing like . . . Judas, I wanted to stomp right up there on the stage and—no, I didn’t, I don’t ever want to do anything like that again but . . . Oh crap, I haven’t heard one word that was said in any of my classes and she’s so cool and together.

  I’m sick. Physically, emotionally, and, mostly, by far, mostly spiritually sick! Oh God, I’m a debased inhuman animal. I hate myself, despise myself, loathe myself.

  AFTER DINNER

  Judas, it’s strange that how when you hate yourself you hate everyone else too! I fought with Mom and Dad at the table and slapped Chad and punched out Kendall when we were supposed to be doing the dishes. Judas, I’m really a Judas! I could have done anything. I did do everything! Could I . . . if I had been living at the time of Christ and been under the influence of drugs have . . . oh dear God, no . . . I can’t let myself think about things like that or I really will lose my mind!

  I wonder if the ancient Roman and Greek civilizations and the people in Sodom and Gomorrah just had orgies when they were all stoned? Was that their excuse too?

  10:30 P.M.

  Tina came into the store tonight. She looked so tiny and fragile and sad I wanted to take her in my arms and cry . . . with her . . . for her . . . for me . . . for us! She has a big bruise on her cheek and the two Band-Aids that show. Frank asked her what happened. She said she fell down the basement stairs. Frank laughed and said. “Yeah? I’ll bet Jay beat you up.”

  I wanted to die. I’ve never wanted to die so much before in my life, but she just laughed too and said, “Jay won’t even squash flies in Toad. He just opens the window and shoos them out.”

  I tried to laugh, but all the laughter has gone out of my life. I wonder if Tina feels anything at all like I do on the inside . . . bleeding hamburger, crushed bone. I wonder what’s keeping me upright. What’s keeping her together.

  October 7

  I made Tina cut school with me and spend the day in Aspen Falls. We had to talk! At first she held back because school is really important to her, but it’s important to me too. More important actually, because it’s me, the guy, that is eventually going to have to make the living with his brain. Anyway I practically had to kidnap her.

  As we were sneaking out the gym door she stopped at the machine and picked up a couple of sandwiches and drinks and Twinkies. Isn’t that just like a female, my life is cracking up completely and she stops to get something as mundane as Twinkies.

  I hadn’t really talked to Tina since . . . well before, except passing “hi’s” almost like we were strangers in the halls, and the night after when she came to work and just whispered, “I love you, I really do love you through all the eons of time.” I’ll never forget those words. They are like red neon in my brain, because I couldn’t imagine anything but disgust and loathing in her for me.

  All the way up to Aspen Falls and even for a little while when we got there I was uncomfortable. I couldn’t say what I really wanted to. It was like we were talking about school things and our families and stuff because we were afraid to get down to the nitty-gritty that really had to be talked about. It was like she was trying to pretend it had never happened—maybe that’s the way it should be. Anyway, she looked so fragile and helplessly childlike sitting there on the bed of bright-colored leaves that I didn’t want to remind her again of nightmares and stuff. I wanted to protect her and love her, adore her. I gathered her into my arms and was gentle with her, for once, more aware and concerned about her needs than mine.

  “Can you imagine a more beautiful or wonderful marriage bed?” she whispered afterwards.

  I held her close. I never ever ever wanted to let her go! It was the two of us against the world. It always would be.

  I had thought on the way up that we would have to break up, that we were not good for each other, that we were feeding each other’s weaknesses and fears. But we aren’t. Together we’re like a full symphony orchestra, not just a flash-in-the-night rock group or a loud dissonant combo but . . . well, like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

  I knew, even at the time I thought that, that I should feel blasphemous about connecting those thoughts, but I didn’t, I don’t now! I want to marry the girl . . . marry her for all time and for all eternity. I know now what that means, what that desire is. NOT just a one night stand . . . not just a relationship . . . but marriage, serious, eternal marriage with children and gobs of relatives and us together, mostly just us together through the rest of high school and college and . . . forever . . . Oh the joy of that thought, the wonder, the sweetness, it wipes out everything that has gone before. Of course, it may take a year or so, but we can wait, anything as good and wonderful as what we’ve got can do what has to be done! I wonder what’s the first step I should take? Should I talk to my father, see my Bishop? Oh Judas, life is so complicated, but so wonderful! So glorious and wonderful and forever! I’m glad I believe in eternity.

  This life is not near enough time

  To love you, Tina.

  October 8

  Today we went to the football game at Sulphur Spring. We got the crap beat out of us but I really didn’t care. Somebody put something in my Coke, and I was just grooving along there feeling no pain at all. Screaming and yelling and wishing the hell I could get Tina out of there so I could go after her . . . me and my big plans of being on probation till I was worthy. Judas, what a weak lily-livered bastard I am.

  Anyway, after the game we went to Janie’s to have pizza. Her parents weren’t home so after we’d eaten, someone brought out an Ouija board, then the crystal ball, then the tarot cards, then into Cosmic Alertness . . . imagine, Nancy Nice Janie Jarvis into O too!

  It was a fun, nondestructive evening and I’ve decided that as long as we’re just with kids who are into O we’re all right. It’s the adults that are the freak-outs. I never did hear anything or read anything about the Scott house that I turned in anonymously. I wonder if anything ever happened or if the local narcs just thought it was another crank letter. Oh Judas, I can just see this square old dumb policeman coming up to this nice little supermarket type lady’s door and asking her if she was a witch, if she “dispensed controlled substances?”

  Man, it’s so underground!!!!!
>
  October 9

  I’ve got to make myself study for a debate Monday and a biology test. I’ve got to get myself back on the track. I’ve got to get myself up off my ass . . . auwa . . . think . . . concentrate . . . auwa . . .

  Tina called, said not to worry, she loved me. That made me feel better.

  October 11

  Home for lunch.

  I won the debate thumbs-up. It was like my mind had computerized every fact I’d ever put there and I could bring them out at will. Man, it’s an exhilarating feeling to have that much control over your mental abilities. I received almost a perfect score from the judges, and I was flying, flying, flying until I went to the boys’ room and found that, sometime before the debate, Tina had slipped a tiny miniature feathered wanga into my pocket. I was so mad I wanted to flush her down the toilet and it too, but I didn’t dare . . . voodoo is supposed to be as powerful for bad as it is for good . . . Oh Judas, I don’t believe all that crap! I threw the dumb wanga away and now I’m really afraid ! Fear is a terrible handicap!

  3:45 P.M.

  I had my biology test in the afternoon and was so screwed up I had to get an uppie from Tina to get my head and ass off the floor . . . think I blew it.

  October 20

  Tina won runner-up in the Miss Apple Hill High contest. She was a little miffed because she wasn’t made queen and said it was because I’d been so busy with my own shit that I hadn’t used any power in her behalf which really isn’t true . . . but then it is. Oh Judas. It’s like I’m a puppet. Like I’m controlled and I don’t want to be controlled! I want to be me! Free, with my free agency to do right or wrong, good or bad, smart or dumb, but still my decisions! I’m not going to let some dumb wanga or anything else control me! Tina said the Ouija board and the crystal ball both had said she would be queen and that only my negativeness made her slip down to princess. Could that be true? Could that possibly be true? Oh crap, this is like living in a primeval culture during the dark ages.

  Scary . . . Hairy . . . Scary . . . I just got home from the library and now I wish I hadn’t gone. Man, why, why, why did I ever go? Everything I read just makes my position worse.

  Al Rossiter Jr., a UPI Science editor from Washington, wrote about a 33-year-old man from Arkansas who became paranoid and then after two weeks in the hospital suffered a fatal heart seizure. An autopsy found no reason for his death but his wife said he had angered a two-headed, who had caused it.

  Kenneth Golden, an instructor in the University of Arkansas Psychology Department knew about the two-headed. It’s an old woman witch who heals people, and casts spells, both good and bad.

  Professor Golden described things in the American Journal of Psychiatry. He explained that two-headeds, along with “conjure doctors,” “root doctors,” and “hoo-doo men” are believed to be able to trick or hex a person, causing sickness, insanity, and death.

  Golden says “Hexing practices are no longer a phenomenon only of rural isolated communities in the deep south. Physicians have provided evidence that voodoo and hexing practices exist as far north as Connecticut.”

  Man, if he only knew about the underground kid movements in nice little Apple Hill and Salt Lake and Denver and Las Vegas and all of California, etc. I’ve met kids from all over and they say it’s big and ever-growing everywhere. Actually the occult movement is kind of a Pied Piper sort of thing: We want to go but we don’t want to go . . . in the end we have no choice . . . we’ve just got to see what’s in that mountain. And besides, the Pied Piper seems so nice at first, so friendly, caring, supportive, sharing, and giving only good things, elevating things, all the things kids want and need and don’t get enough of at home and school. It’s kind of an “in,” a “belonging” thing too. We want to belong! We want to be “in.” The underground secretive part of it just makes the whole setup more compelling and irresistible.

  Professor Golden says people in the United States are afraid to tell anyone about hexing practices for fear of being belittled or misunderstood. He is so right!

  In a way I’m glad I did today’s research because now at least I’ve got someone to present my material to when I get it all gathered, someone that at least has a little background. Maybe Professor Golden will appreciate my findings. Actually I’m sure he will, because there is no way in God’s green earth that anyone would get this material unless they’d been there. Man, the vows are so secretive and so sacred ! I’ll only dare break them myself because it’s a scientific endeavor and I want to help my fellow man.

  October 25

  Thirteen of us went up to Mavis Johnson’s cabin for the weekend. Tina lied and said she was going with a girl friend, to plan for the Coronation Ball. I lied and said I was going to get away to study for next week’s debate in Arizona. Man talk about manipulation, we’ve got it down to a science.

  As I look back I, in a way, feel upped by the weekend—frightened but enlightened—in another way I feel downed, dishonest, disgusted, dishonored. But no matter what I can’t deny the POWERS! The Satanic Black Powers! I’ve heard about the devil all my life, that he tempted Adam and Eve, that he misled Cain, that he’s always been around to tempt us and get us to do evil, but it’s mostly seemed like a fairy story . . . along with elves or munchkins or Santa Claus. Not now! . . . now I KNOW HE’S REAL! That he does exist, that he does, or maybe just on occasion can, control parts of this universe!

  Long before we started using potions, when my mind was as untouched as it is at this very moment, I saw, through our minds working together, how little piles of twigs can be made to burst into fire by themselves, how a string of beads can be broken without a touch. The string my mom brought me from Hawaii, that had been strung by her missionary cousin. They were special to me and as they rolled into all the corners I started crying, I wasn’t stoned or drunk or anything but I started crying. Tina reached up and patted my checks and brought me into her arms like a baby. She kissed me gently. Within minutes I realized that she had been chewing, not gum, but a leaf of some kind . . . I was ripping. All the weekend seems vague yet real . . . much of the time I was flying, limitless. I knew all the world, all history. Everything was under me, mine to control. Then the dark side of my soul came forth and rats crawled across me and every kind of vermin and rodent. Tina, who always seemed in command brought me another vial and knowledge began flowing into me again, beyond the darkness of my fears. Again I comprehend all things . . . they’re like the lost chord in my memory now. I know they’re there, the things of ages past, the things of the ancients, the things of Atlantis. I want them back! Tina said I will have to go into that land beyond this one again to get them, perhaps many times before I can sort the truth from the error, the good from the bad. Am I going to have to do that before I can make my great contribution? Oh this ringing in my head still, the pain in the back of my neck . . . the birds. Were they real? Angry? Dangerous? Fear paralyzes clarity. I must gain more control of my thinking so that I can sort the reality from the unreality. For now I am caught between worlds, will I ever get back? Can I bring the hidden sacred treasure of knowledge back with me? Not the knowledge that Satan is their God. That I know! Tina left a note in my pocket when she passed me at the market. I wonder who she accepts as her God?

  October 27

  Tina has convinced me that we’ve got to stay out of black witchcraft and that the only way to stay in white is for her to start a new coven. I don’t know. She says I’m her master, that she is my slave, and yet I feel like her slave. Is she manipulating me?

  1:10 A.M.

  I’ve rationally, and after much consideration, decided to get out.

  9 P.M.

  Saw Tina at the drugstore after work. I bought her a Coke and told her no matter what, I was through. I pleaded with her to get out too but the look on her face was like all the storms in all the skies that have ever been in the universe. She spat a curse on me and left.

  11:30 P.M.

  I heard a soft tapping on my bedroom window and opened it a
s fast as I could. There was a little package but Tina had gone. I ran out the front door, she had disappeared into the shadows. Before I could get down the driveway I heard her father’s car screech around the corner. She has returned my wanga in shreds.

  I am so low! Oh Tina I know your powers have helped me in my time of need at school, at home, at basketball and soccer. Oh Tina . . . Tina . . . Tina . . . what have you done? You said you would leave me if you had to choose. Why? Why? Why? Why?

  I am not your true love. O is!

  I sit here, with all the knowledge of the world here at my feet.

  But the beads are broken and the cross is lost

  I can be anything, have anything but the beads are broken . . .

  I’m lost alone, everything bad returns and my life is as the dust

  blown and scattered with the wind gone

  I am not . . .

  If I haven’t the courage to end my life and be finished, let it end here . . .

  I am not . . .

  Tina, I love you. You have saved me many times but I am lost for sure now. Even your love couldn’t keep me afloat, never think it is your fault, because it isn’t. Return to your “true love,” O. I am lost . . . and have nothing but sadness to keep me; let it be known that all my worldly possessions are yours if you will have them, if they will remind you of the good times.

  Why does this shit sound so melodramatic—even in death.

  October 30

  I cannot believe that everything can go wrong but it has! I ran over Kendall’s bike which he has left in the driveway nine million times before and I have never run over, I lashed out at Chad with a book in my hand and chipped his front tooth, I fought with Mom and called her a “bitch” to her face which should get me something special from Dad when he gets home. I absolutely wiped out on my English and my biology classes, both of which should have been a cinch . . . and worst of all I wrecked Toad again. Rather, the milk truck ran into me although the asshole denies it.