Than life.
11:27 P.M.
Dell came over and spent the night. I wonder if anyone else in the whole world knows how we feel? The loneliness, the love . . . the guilt! Oh dear God, we’re both so confused. We curled up in each others arms on my bean bag and cried like we did the time we got stranded on the broken ledge when we were about seven. Bawling, bawling, bawling, no way out until morning came, remember the howl of coyotes back somewhere in the hills, and the darkness . . . the terrible, awful, consuming, engulfing darkness. That same darkness is with us now, but this time it’s like it’s inside. Even keeping on the light all night doesn’t get rid of it.
Tina told Dell at the funeral that Brad had known he couldn’t get out. That no one can get out once they’ve dedicated themselves. But we were not responsible even if it is real. We were all stoned! Tina and Mel had given us . . . whatever . . . mixed with that blood and . . . oh dear God, it’s too awful.
Dell is lying at the foot of my bed in his sleeping bag, slumbering fitfully. Oh God, what have we done with our shining birthrights and heritages?
Before we tried to sleep (he made it, I haven’t obviously), I got out my trusty Bible and we took turns reading in the New Testament. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. I especially like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Dell and Brad and I studied those four books in seminary one semester. How kind and gentle and good those men were. How they loved Jesus and tried to follow his teachings. They cast out evil spirits too. That wasn’t unusual in those times. Maybe that’s what Dell and I need, and maybe we shouldn’t wait too long. Oh Judas, I wish I dared talk to my dad about it. He’d know! I wish I dared go right up in his bedroom now and ask him to come down here and talk to us. He would! But would he, could he understand? I don’t want to hurt him anymore. Maybe we should talk to someone else. Our seminary teacher, the Bishop. I’ll talk to Dell about it in the morning. It’s just a matter of who to talk to now, and I feel better.
December 30
I tried to talk to the Bishop, actually made an appointment, then chickened out. When Dad and Uncle John asked Dell and me if we wanted to go cross-country skiing with them for the day to try and get our minds off Brad’s death, I called and cancelled saying my problem wasn’t serious. Actually, I do think things are getting better. Basically, Dell and I just need time to clear our heads, get things together, get back our strength. The shock of Brad’s death was too much! But at least it made us see how far off the track we were.
The skiing was fantastic. Powder snow floating out behind us like wings. The sky was so blue and clear it made the pine trees seem an unearthly different shade of green, and when we stopped and Dad made a fire and cooked our meal it was . . . Oh Judas, why didn’t we have more fun? Why couldn’t it have been like old times? Everything’s beginning to bug me—school, the folks, forever tending kids. I’ll be glad when school starts again. Man, I’m uptight!
Hmmm. It seems as though there are a lot of repetitions of ideas in this here “book” of mine. They are important so no harm in it.
I’m all alone today with something on my mind.
I’m searching for someone, a person I can’t find.
Just thinking back to times, that person I could see
Just wondering if all that time that person could see me.
It seems like I should have better things to do than sit around and watch a bunch of shitty kids. The minute I turn my back they screw up and my mind breaks. I get blamed for it.
January 4
How gray the day. One nightmare on top of another. Bondage . . . psychological bondage! Fear so near . . . Raul so close.
Mom coming in and saying Dell’s Aunt Dicey called and told her Dell is dead! First Brad . . . Now Dell . . . my heart is warped.
No, no
I will not let you go
Till I go too
Then we will be
Again, the three.
Say Hi, to Brad
And take him by the hand
He’ll understand
That soon we’ll be
Again the three
Oh, dear God, how can I be so morbid? It’s just another of Kendall’s coincidences. Mom said, with tears streaming down her face and overflowing from her soul, that it was! I know she loved Brad and Dell almost as much as I did. She baked us cookies and homemade bread and jam, and special cakes when birthdays came around. Oh death . . . how sad the sound.
Only last night Dell said that he was going to the Bishop on Sunday. That nothing, absolutely nothing, could stop him—even me! Then we cried and I promised I would not try to stop him, but I would help him, encourage him. . . . MAKE HIM GO! Now it’s too late!
Of course it was a coincidence!
Larry called and gave me the details. Dell’s car stalled on the Freeway just off the Twenty-third Street ramp for some dumb reason. He started walking back to Stabley’s Gas ’n Go to get Myron or Jake to come help him. Just at the foot of the ramp he got some gravel in his shoe and sat down on the shoulder to shake it out.
A carful of kids from school were pulling off the ramp, not going fast or stoned or drunk or anything, and as they pulled off, Kyle, who was driving, told Larry it was just like someone grabbed the wheel of the car out of his hands and swung it to the right. Larry in the back could see the car swerving directly towards Dell. Kyle started pulling and pulling and the kids started screaming but Dell’s head was down and the bumper hit him guess where? Directly on the right temple . . . just like Brad! Oh dear God, I can’t bear the pain! I can’t!
Kyle just phoned. He’s so broken up he could hardly talk but he knew how close Dell and I were and he wanted me to hear his side of the story and know how sorry he was. I felt better just sympathizing with him and trying to make him feel better. He’s coming over after a while and we’re going down together to the mortuary to see Dell’s body if they’ll let us and where the accident happened and everything. Kyle said he didn’t know if he could ever drive his car again, so I’m going to pick him up.
MIDNIGHT
I am soooooo tired! How can emotional shocks make you so physically tired?
They wouldn’t let Kyle and me see Dell’s body at the mortuary but we went by and saw his folks and cried and talked with them for a while. Man, they’re taking it good. They loved him so much, and thought he was such a good kid. I’m glad they don’t know. I’m really glad !
Kyle told me he didn’t think he’d ever sleep again, that he’d always be dreaming he was trying to wrestle his car back onto the road, away from Dell, just innocently sitting there emptying the stones out of his shoe.
Kyle said everyone felt the steering mechanism had malfunctioned but he knew it hadn’t! Jim Kroller at the garage had checked it over minutely directly afterwards and there was not one damn thing wrong! I wanted like hell to explain to Kyle about Raul and the forces and the third of the hosts and everything, just so he would feel better and less personally guilty, but how could I? I certainly don’t want him mixed up in that garbage shit. Maybe in time he can forget and forgive himself. Will I ever be able to?
January 5
Dell in his casket looked like he was asleep. They had turned his head so the right side didn’t show. Oh the gruesomeness of it! When I looked at that body I could again see him putting his pointer finger to his right temple and declaring with his life that he would dedicate himself to . . . I can’t even write it . . . I went to the men’s room and puked and puked and puked, everything I’d eaten for days and then some, and it was red, like blood. Most likely I had broken a little blood vessel in my stomach or throat with my retching, or was it part of the rituals? Part of the mutilation ceremony? Part of the driving me crazy bit? Is that my price to pay? Will institutionalization be my end?
Dear God, will I ever be the same again, or sane? Will I be next? Anyway, I will not go back on Dell and Brad ! My external friends. No matter what I will not! Even though Raul and his pack are now really getting to me. It’s becoming harder each day
because Raul likes different music than I do, different food, pornography. Oh Judas, I hate him so! With a kind of hate I’ve never known before.
January 10
Tina is being so kind and friendly to me it’s hard to keep away from her; she brought me chocolate chip cookies and a batch of fudge. Also a note saying how badly she felt and vowing her love forever but . . . I guess I’m going bananas but I really feel that she is Brad and Dell’s enemy, even in death. That’s sick—sick and paranoid and dumb! But it’s still the way I feel.
January 13
I can’t understand how things can go on in school as they always have, and at home, and work. How Tina can race up and down the halls laughing and joking. How she can preside at student government meetings and assemblies and be a princess at the games and parties and stuff. It’s like nothing had ever happened, like Brad and Dell’s lives made only holes in water that soon filled up for everybody but me. Like she and the others don’t do the crazy things I know they do, after hours.
11:47 P.M.
Next month we’re having another debate in Canada. Man, I hope I can get my shit together. Last time it was so neat, and I’ve got to prepare for the one in Mexico in the spring. I’ve got to make that one, but I feel so low, so draggy. Life must go on! Without Brad and Dell? With Raul? Why?
January 14
Tina and I had lunch together. She said she was really worried about me and tried to get me to start coming to their O meetings again. I said, no way! She insists, lots of new fun people are coming in and they’ve found some wonderfully advanced phenomena meanings that would fascinate me. But I don’t want to be fascinated anymore. Tina even promised she’d go with me to see Dr. Peters, the head of the psychiatric department at the university so we could find out who we could present the facts we’ve already gathered to. She said that was the least I could do in Brad and Dell’s memory. I don’t know, I’m so confused and down.
Then she asked me what in hell would make me feel better. Trying to force myself to be light I said, if I could have the lead in the play, “Barefoot in the Park.” Hell, they’ve already cast and are into rehearsals.
Tina laughed, pecked me on the cheek, like in the old days, and skipped off down the hall. I wonder if I’ll ever feel that way again? Skipping? Laughing? Right now it’s like I’m alone and carrying the burdens of the world. Without Brad and Dell’s help those burdens are so heavy!
January 15
Mr. Jensen, head of the drama department, called tonight and asked me if I’d take over the Robert Redford part in “Barefoot in the Park.” We were at the dinner table and Mom and Dad said I turned white as a sheet. Mr. J. said Ty Turner, who had the part, had had his appendix rupture during the night. My blood ran cold. I could just see Tina and her bunch practicing black witchcraft . . . voodoo . . . mambo . . . on Ty. It was a real principle! It could happen! I’d seen it work! But she’d promised me she’d stay out of black stuff. She’d promised.
Why had she done it? She’d already traded me in on the nose picker from Texburg, who was supposed to be such a big . . . whatever . . . I can’t even remember what they call male witches anymore. My mind just isn’t working like it used to. Oh, Warlock . . .
January 18
I’ve been reading in the World Book about witchcraft. It says from earliest times people have believed in witches by one name or another. Most people no longer believe in witchcraft. But some primitive persons (primitive persons? Tina says 1 percent of all high school kids!) cling to their belief in evil, mysterious powers. Such persons believe that accidents may be caused by an individual who has these mystic powers. They believe that a person who practices witchcraft calls upon spirits or demons to rise up and hurt his or her enemies.
The Book of Knowledge states that formerly people “thought that the world was divided into a kingdom of good and a kingdom of evil.” It is! Oh, if all human beings would only accept the fact that it is! They would keep themselves from so much hurt and pain! Like me . . . I’m lost, in limbo . . . I don’t want to go down, and I don’t seem to be able to go up. It’s so physically and emotionally and spiritually painful. Raul now comes and goes at will, even when I’m around others. Kendall and Chad both can feel him, although they can’t see him. I can tell by the look in their eyes when he’s around. And Hamlet . . . Hamlet always loved to sleep at the foot of my bed when I’d let him. Now he won’t stay in the same room with me, doesn’t even like to come to the house when I’m there.
I keep remembering the parable of Christ commanding the evil spirits to leave the man and how they went into the swine. Hamlet knows!
I still haven’t worked up the guts to talk to Dad or the Bishop, but I’m going to. I AM GOING TO!
January 19
The parents are really leaning on me—mad because I didn’t take the “Barefoot in the Park” part, mad that I chickened out of the last debate, mad I wouldn’t turn in my essay, mad that I won’t . . . can’t . . . go to church, mad that I spend so much time in my room . . .
Mom gave me a list of things to do and I can’t force myself to get past the first two. I’m being driven out of my mind, out of my own body!
HOW . . . HOW . . . GOD, HOW CAN I EVER GET BACK?
The list—number three, get hair cut. Get hair . . . on that body that no longer belongs to me . . . cut. There’s no one inside!
January 22
Tonight I was so lonely for Dell and Brad. I took Chad for a ride in Toad then stopped at 31-Flavors and bought him a double-decker of his favorite pralines-and-cream ice cream. I needed his love and warmth and companionship and I tried to be light and talk about fun things we’d done in our family in the past. But even he can feel Raul . . . who is more and more often with me . . .
When we got home I invited Chad into my room to sit together with me in my bean chair while we played checkers. He used to love that, but tonight he pulled away and looking me straight in the eyes in his honest innocent little way, he said, “You’re not Jay anymore . . . You don’t look like Jay . . . You don’t smell like Jay . . . You don’t act like Jay.” He stared at me intently for a minute and then kind of whimpered, “Who are you?” Afraid of the tone of his own voice, he ran from the room slamming the door behind him.
Sweet little Chaddy, that was so unlike him, but in his childlike purity and incorruption he knows . . . Chaddy alone knows . . . that I no longer control my own destiny, own my own body, I am no longer captain of my ship, no longer master of my soul.
10:49 P.M.
Tomorrow I must, I WILL call the Bishop. I wish it were not so late and I’d do it tonight.
1977, Year of Our Lord
Dear world, I don’t want to get my hair cut, I don’t want to tend kids, I don’t want to see Tina at school Monday. I don’t want to do my biology assignment or English or history or anything. I don’t want to be sad or lonely or depressed anymore, and I don’t want to eat, drink, eliminate, breathe, talk, sleep, move, feel, or love anymore. Tina, it’s not your fault. Mom and Dad, it’s not your fault.
I’m not free, I feel ill, and I’m sad, and I’m lonely.
One last request—all my worldly possessions go to Debbie as my wedding present.
A LETTER FROM JAY’S MOTHER
January 26, 1977
DEAR JANIE,
I have had to write so many letters to Jay’s friends and tell them about him. He had girl and boy friends from Chicago to California and from Canada to Las Vegas. Jay had been in science fairs, speech meets, thespian plays, dance contests, essay contests, and on many trips all over the country and to Mexico. Everywhere he went he made friends and it wouldn’t be long until he would be corresponding with them.
He was a very intelligent person with an IQ of 149. When he was in the eighth grade he won the highest award that is given each year by the Air Force in science. He was planning to go into law or medicine when he graduated from high school. He had been asked to run for student body president in his school for this coming year. He was pres
ident of the Debate Club, a National Thespian, and won the award in school for not losing any of his debates that he participated in this past year. He was helping the school principal with some of the students who had problems with drugs, etc., and was doing an exceptional job with that. He got to liking a little girl who had a drug problem and had gone with lots of boys and had fallen in love several times. As a result she wanted to marry before school was out and had had problems with her family about this so when Jay started to liking her the mother and father didn’t approve and so she and Jay had problems with her folks. For three months they had one hassle after another about this. We tried to get Jay to go with other girls but he had settled his mind about Tina and then all of a sudden one of Tina’s old boyfriends showed up and contacted Tina. Jay found out about it and in four days Jay was dead. One night while we were out Jay took a 22-pistol, put it to his right temple, and pulled the trigger. He died instantly. He left a suicide note saying he was tired of all the hassles and didn’t want to do anything that living people do. He also said that he was sick, sad, and unhappy.
We were very sorry that we didn’t know that Jay was so deeply troubled and depressed. We knew he was unhappy about a few things and tried to help him all we could but Jay really masked his feelings to the point that he fooled all of us.
We do feel that Jay had lived a pretty full life in his short 16 ½ years because he had tremendous abilities and was such an intense person. He was a very deep thinker and was so far ahead in his intelligence that I’m sure he will advance much faster with his heavenly father than he could on this earth. Jay’s very best boy friend was killed in a car accident a week to the day before Jay was. Another friend was also in one. I’m sure they are together in heaven and doing good there as they did on the earth.
Well I hope I haven’t bored you with this long letter but I wanted you to know a little about him. He was a very choice child on earth and we were so happy to have had him with us for the 16 ½ years that we did.