Jay's Journal Read online

  Judas, it was awful, Dad meeting me at the door, his face like an iron mask, and Mom’s tears like icicles streaming down her cheeks. Oh crap I hate them and their heavy-handedness so much! But a part of me knows they’re trying to protect me too! But from Debbie? Why can’t they understand her? They think she’s too “aware,” too “worldly” for me. Everybody in this dinky town knows everything about everybody else, about their past, present, and forever. Once somebody has slipped no one will ever give them a chance again, have faith in them, think they’re any good. Well, I won’t be that way! These smug little people in their smug little holes can keep their heads up their asses—but they can’t make me do it! I’m me! Me! Me! I won’t be like them . . . them . . . them!

  Oh Mom—you’re such a fat gross-out loser!

  What do you know about love, fat hog? Are your feelings more holy than mine? Am I exempt from the knowledge of love until I become “of age”? Do I automatically become human enough to love when I start loving you and seeing things your way? If that is the case then it may be a very long time until I am “human” in your eyes.

  (I love!)

  I just read what I wrote and I’m sorry.

  TO MY PARENTS

  You love me

  So you think this gives you rights

  To mold my life like yours

  But this can never be.

  I must be free

  I must be me!

  I know I’ll make mistakes

  And whimper in my sleep

  For all things you as parents represent—and yet

  I’m not your pet.

  You cannot teach me tricks—to come at your command

  Or always lead me by the paw or hand.

  To win or fail

  I alone must blaze my sometimes lonely, sometimes hurting trail.

  It’s 3 A.M.

  God, why are the blackened wasteful nights so long?

  Why do the sunny happy days pass by so fast and sweet?

  When Debbie sits beside my feet?

  Why must my teardrops wet the pillow of my bed.

  For all the unkind things I’ve said.

  I do not want to hurt my loved ones so

  How can I change?

  That, only you, dear God, can know.

  5 A.M.

  Night . . . endless is thy name.

  I’m like a drowning person. All the stops in the computers of my mind have fallen out and everything I’ve ever learned or read or heard is spilling out over each other. I’m trying to see things like others see them. I know Debbie controls me completely but she was hurt so much by the crumbs she used to go with. They used her! She was young and innocent and believing, and she really is trying to get off drugs. She is! I know she is! My heart tells me she is! My guts tell me she is! Why won’t anyone believe her but me? Why won’t they give her a chance? Trust her? Mom, Dad, you’ve got to! Brad and Dell, you especially have got to!

  March 2

  The old wrinkles are still pissed off at me. They treat me like shit, like I was five years old. Curfew! Points! Withdrawn privileges!

  So big question—why so much hate in your mind when love is the only way to straighten things out?

  March 3

  I’m trying! I’m trying hard to comprehend how it was when my old man was young! Didn’t he get the hots like I get? Doesn’t he understand what they’re doing to me? I’m afraid to even think it but with Debbie being like she is and everything if she can’t see me she might start seeing someone else. I couldn’t stand that! And I won’t let it happen! I don’t care what my parents, or anyone else in the whole world, say or do! Judas, what a bleak way to exist. My clothes, my hair, my teeth, my room, everything sets them off.

  March 4

  Today Debbie was feeling extra low. I can only go to school and work and never see her alone. I let her talk me into ripping off a few amphetamines for her. At least with them she can get through the days without always being in tears. I took them out of the bottle Dr. Morrison had prescribed and I was delivering to rich old Mrs. Lawder. I’m sure it’s just diet garbage. No biggie.

  March 5

  Today I had to get Debbie some barbiturates so she can sleep. Man, I hate this! But if I don’t get them for her she says she’ll get them from Craig. I won’t lose her to that crotch scratcher. I hate to see her on the merry-go-round but I can get her straightened out once I’m off restriction.

  March 7

  Freedom! Debbie and I were like two little kids afraid life would run off without us. Her mom was at her aunt’s, who is sick, so we cut school and had the whole house to ourselves. Man, did we ever make good use of every room and every bed in it.

  March 9

  I’m worried about Debbie, she’s really using! I’m having a hard time keeping her supplied. I’ve got to find help for her but I don’t know exactly how to go about doing it. “Ups” all day and “downs” at night.

  April 10

  Time goes so fast I can’t believe it. Debbie and I are inseparable. We go to church together and to Mutual together and she either has Monday Home Night at my house or I go to hers. We aren’t sixteen yet so according to church standards we aren’t allowed to officially date, which is kind of funny since we’re jumping in and out of the brush every time we have fifteen minutes together. “Too young to date.” Ho, ho, ho.

  April 12

  Today Debbie came to our house for dinner. Everybody was really neat to her. It made me feel guilty as hell, because all the time they were telling her how nice she looked and how sweet she was and stuff, she was trying to get me to take her down to my bedroom. Sometimes she’s like two different people. I love her with a kind of eternal protective love and there’s no way I’ll throw her out on the street to take care of her habit, but it’s getting to where I can’t handle my end of it. She handed me a pathetic little note today in school saying she had to have more “ups” and I almost cried when I read it. Practically every other word was misspelled and the punctuation was like someone had stood across the room and thrown periods, commas, etc. She’s like a child. She really is! Like a helpless dependent, dumb, dumb, dumb, really dumb in all ways, child. Oh God, what have I gotten myself into? Kendall and Chad, at seven and five, write, read, and speak better than she does. But we were always treated like adults. I guess we’re an unusual family . . . Unusually stupid! At least I am to have gotten myself in this mess! Can I handle her? Can I handle her habit?

  April 14

  Oh God, I hate myself. I despise myself. I curse myself, but I had to do it! I’ve written for information about how and where to get help for Debbie but until I get it . . . Oh God, how could I? Was that really me that went down to the pharmacy an hour early and opened amphetamine capsules and after carefully pouring all the contents into a baggie filled the caps up again with powdered milk? I’m trying to convince myself that most of the people who use “ups” don’t need them anyway but man it’s hard . . . hard . . . hard . . . My dad wouldn’t believe I could ever do anything like that. I can hardly believe I did it myself.

  In a way it’s Gregg’s fault. He told me about taking stuff out of his dad’s bag. He made it seem so easy; doctors being so tired and uptight all the time, his old man had never even noticed or missed anything, especially after Gregg started substituting dried milk or powdered sugar in the capsules that he emptied.

  Man, I can hardly stand the strain of it: thinking about someone with their arm caught in the elevator webbing and being torn out of its socket in blood and gore and torn muscles and flesh and the emergency doctor giving them dried milk or powdered sugar capsules to ease their pain; and what about the kid I saw one time who’d been run over right at his crotch by a big old diesel truck? What if that doctor’s kid had . . . Oh crap, this strain is literally and truly going to drive me bananas.

  Why did I do it? Why in hell did I ever, ever, ever do it? One thing is sure—no matter what, I will never do it again! Nothing, nobody, could ever make me go through this hell gui
lt trip again!

  April 23

  I’m grounded, but only for two days this time. Lucky Dad thought I was goofing off instead of doing my janitorial chores. Judas, if he had known why I didn’t have my work done at the store, he’d have died. Actually I’m scared and I don’t feel right about substituting and all that shit but when Debbie begs me to get her some “uppies” or “downies,” I have to. Any way I can. The only way I can! I’m hooked on her! I really truly, in the worst way, am hooked on her!

  Debbie and Brad and Dell and I are studying about Hare Krishna and Zen and stuff. We’ve got to find something that will help Deb . . . Brad and Dell are such special buddies. They know I won’t leave Deb . . . and I know they won’t leave me. It’s the only thing that holds me together. Life is really shitty. All the stuff they sent from the Mental Health Center is just so much garbage. Maybe it wouldn’t be if Deb would go in herself, but she won’t. Sometimes I wish I’d never met her. NO I don’t. I couldn’t face life without her. She depends upon me so much. She brings out all the good in me . . . and the bad.

  How sad

  That life and growth are based on tears

  And blind are left to lead the blind

  Or fall behind

  To depths of despair

  That have no ending

  Anywhere.

  July 15

  Tonight I’m really feeling low. At the dinner table Dad was telling us about Aunt Laurel, who has cancer, and how they just don’t seem able to relieve her pain even when they double her dosage of medication. He told about Aunt Laurel crying and begging him to give her something to make her die. That she couldn’t, she really couldn’t, bear the pain, to please, please give her something to make her die. I got so uptight I spilled my milk in my plate and when the kids laughed I came completely unglued and swore at them. That got everybody off their rockers and now I’m sentenced to my room again. But at least I deserve it this time. I more than deserve it! No doubt Dad was dispensing some of the capsules I’d emptied and filled with powdered milk. I wonder how many other people that really need medication are genuinely suffering while we’re taking our trips. God, I can’t believe that I’ve been substituting for four months for me and Debbie and Brad and Dell, too—God! How could I? Well, I’m not going to do it anymore, no matter what!!! I’m not! I’m not! We’ll have to start going to keggers, or getting someone to make the beer-run for us to the junction, or maybe get our stuff off the streets.

  Man, I don’t know how I got sucked into this whole scene. At first substituting and stealing Darvon and stuff seemed so hard, it about did me in. I cried and had to make myself do it, then it got easy . . . just like they say. Oh God . . . dear, dear, dear God, what can I ever do? I’m going to talk to my seminary teacher. I trust him. He’ll help me. He’ll help us all. Zen and Hare Krishna and all that crap are just crap. I can’t wait for morning to talk to Brother Black.

  4:37 A.M.

  I just had the nightmare to end all nightmares. I was in the pharmacy department when this wrinkled old decrepit woman hobbled in, gray with pain. She begged Dad for some stronger medication to replace the unbearable physical torture I could see she was suffering. He reached for one of the jars where I had traded milk. Gratefully she grabbed the pills and gulped them down. Time passed and she stood there looking at Dad with unbelief, the combined agony and torment twisting her face into even more corkscrew wrinkles. Tears began flooding down her face, tears of total pain and misery. She turned to me and wheezed, “Son, son, help me . . . help me . . .” It was only then I recognized her! It was Mom! A beaten, tortured shadow of Mom, and I had brought the pain and despair to her! She reached over to hug me but I pulled away. The stench of her decaying, already dead, but not dead, body was more than I could bear. I woke myself up with groaning. Oh God, how awful can it get? I hereby swear that I will never make another substitution or steal another pill or replace a Darvon or anything else. No matter what happens to Debbie, I am going to go straight! I’m not into it like she is . . . or am I? I’m dying for a sleeping pill . . . anything to help me escape from this madness. How . . . when . . . did this happen to me? How could I be so unconcerned about the suffering of others? Or is this part of another nightmare—Dear God—I hope so!

  July 18

  Can you believe the dumb jackass luck? Dad came in early and caught me stealing the pills for Debbie. Judas, he was so mad he was completely out of it. He fired me immediately and said I was a not-to-be-trusted freak and that I wasn’t worth the powder to blow me to hell which was right where I was headed, and all shit like that. He said I was a pea-brain disgrace to him and the rest of the family and . . . the thing that hurts the most is that he’s right about every damn thing, he’s absolutely and completely right. I am just no damn good. No damn good at all. A fifteen-year-old absolute failure and misfit. Willful, rebellious, and disgraceful, etc., etc., etc.

  How can I ever, in my lifetime, make up for substituting dried milk, aspirin, vitamin C, and stuff for really seriously needed medication for all those months?

  Lightning flashes ’cross the sky

  A bolt that cannot let me by.

  It’s aimed at me.

  The outside storm with bolts and flashes rages

  While we are safe and warm within our cages.

  A greater storm, by far, screams—indeed it will not rest.

  Within my breast.

  Almost every night I have this recurring nightmare of Mom begging for something to ease her agony. Oh God, it’s awful, awful, awful and each night it gets worse.

  July 30

  I never thought I’d be sent away to a place like this, but crap, I guess they had to do it, especially after Dad became suspicious and found out what I’d been doing with the caps. It’s the groats! Most of the guys here are weird, druggies, incorrigibles, runaways, or court probation cases. We’d probably all be in juvie hall if our parents didn’t have enough money to buy us out. It’s a glorified rich man’s kid’s prison, tennis courts, swimming pool, built-in psychiatrist that nobody ever sees, private tutors even with a regular school setup, but a prison just the same. Every time we look out the windows or go in the yard we’re aware of the high fence with the three strands of barbed wire on top. One kid says it’s electrified.

  I guess what I did was a really big crime because Dad and even his pharmacy seem to be in trouble. Mom says they might close him down. Man, seven employees out of work, too, and all my fault.

  August 15

  Debbie writes nearly every day. I really appreciate that because without her letters I’d go crazy. Her letters are incredibly dumb but maybe her dumbness is what makes her so precious to me, makes me need her so much. Maybe she fills my macho insecurity. I could hardly believe that letter was from a fifteen year old.

  Oh God! If I could just get over the nightmares about Mom I think I could make it.

  August 17

  Haven’t heard from Debbie in a week but it’s O.K. I write to her every day and beg her to write but she doesn’t. I guess it’s unfair of me to expect her to wait for me while I’m locked away for . . . who knows how long. I guess I’ll begin working on improving my intellect, which would make my parents happy. Beginning right now, right this minute, everything I say and think and write must be worthy of my IQ. Awwww! I’m so fucking bored . . . bored . . . bored . . . So lonely! So alone! Must develop, progress, encourage myself! I’m really going to make a deep study of the Oriental philosophies when I get out of here.

  They try to keep us busy, going to full-time school, making pots and macrame, sports, games—my ass is always dragging. It isn’t that I do so much but I’m always tired. What can cause that?

  Jim Tyler (a nerd) shares the room with Bob London (a fink) and Cal Loomis (a jerk) and me. Jim’s parents mortgaged their house to send him here. He’s a rip-off artist and he’s such a dumb bastard. Man, I don’t know how I’m going to cope. I think someone beat all three of them with an ugly stick.

  Judas, how I miss
Brad and Dell! We’ve been best, best, best, best, best friends since before first grade. Brad and Dell—I can’t think of any of the joys of life without them. Me, and Dell and Brad, on trikes, on bikes, on goats and in cars, the rotten, rebellious, ever looking for trouble trio. I think I’ll write a profoundly profound ode to us.

  THE JOYS OF THE “TRIO”

  When we were in Boy Scouts, the patrol we organized was called “The Boner Boys Patrol,” referring to an erection, of course. This may sound perverted but we were indeed quite horny. The flag we had was green with a skull on a Maltese cross and our motto, “Death before Dishonor.” This was an endeavor to “rip off the system.” Perverting a nice organization such as the Boy Scouts of America was quite an accomplishment, even though we weren’t trying to do anything but be ourselves; we didn’t realize we were revolutionaries, but we were. (Anyone who happens to read this might get entirely the wrong idea—revolutionary—change for a) the sake of change and b) for the humanization of institutions.) Anyway this was the beginning of our anti-institution campaign. Even though I didn’t know that’s what it was until now. . . . The long hair and weird clothes were for seeking outward changes (we didn’t realize that the change must come from within); antivalues were for establishing our own peer group.

  Now realization that a) violence leads to repression, b) in order to unsystemize the systems you must work from within the system, and c) you must be open to different points of view in order to become a legend, all the same. And we will yet be legends even as we are apart.

  I really cannot help but look back in pride, not at our mistakes but our being and the effect we had on each other and everyone we knew. Brothers in all things. An example of human closeness. For all of the ill that came about, it was an experience of great merit.