The Basic Eight
Page 35
To go back and edit a journal, to find her scrawled on every page, impossible to ignore, undeletable, breaks my heart. I can’t do it. Too much in my life has been reread like that, dramatically reinterpreted, and it always puts me in a bad light. It’s like finding a trail of handkerchiefs dropped across early October, until you have to conclude that Adam was always going to be dating Kate, and never me, until just before he died. It’s like having your sloppy handwriting on an all-school survey blown up and projected on a wall, the typed questions rippling on the arm of the prosecutor as he picks out his favorite parts while you, by law, must remain silent. It’s like Dr. Tert holding up an earring that she stole from your top shelf and talking at length about talismans. Leaders of Satanic cults, you see, often horde personal items from all their acolytes so they can cast spells on anyone who disobeys them. “The claw-hand nail file, obviously, belonged to Adam.” When you hear the new explanation all the original ones slip away, intangible, until you can’t remember why you had all that stuff on your shelf in the first place, or exactly who it was who took the rest of the absinthe and mixed it into a cup of fruit punch. It’s like going back to your locker, opening it and dropping everything into your gaping bag until it bulges at your side. Once, all these things in your locker meant something–that economics textbook you’ve barely touched since you covered it, that shiny flask you borrowed from your best friend, that long-overdue library book–but now I was just emptying my locker. Now they were just all the things I was taking home with me as I left school for the last time.
Hanging around the front entrance to Roewer High School were Mr. Dodd and Mr. Baker, and both of them were smoking and laughing at some joke. My backpack was heavy on my shoulders from clearing my locker out–I figured now was as a good a time as any. I was stunned that it wasn’t even time for homeroom yet, but I guess that time drags when you’re not having any, any fun.
“Hey Flannery,” Baker said. “Larry, do you know Flan?”
“I believe I do,” he said, looking right at me. “You’ll be late for homeroom, honey.”
“So will you,” I said, “honey. Besides, I’m not going.”
Dodd looked at Baker, who rolled his eyes. “And why not?” my homeroom teacher asked me.
I sighed. Now that I’d said it once I was getting a little tired of it. “Because,” I said, “because I, Flannery Culp, beat Adam State to death with a croquet mallet, and now I’m going home to wait for whatever happens in these situations.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed, again; Dodd always was so slow. “I mean, I don’t know if they send cops, or call my parents, or the principal or Dr. Tert or what. See you later, gentlemen.”
I’d walked about five steps when Baker’s hand grabbed my shoulder, right in the bruisy place where my boyfriend Gabriel Gallon had pushed me. “What?” I said.
“What?” he said.
“What?”
“What were you talking about, back there? Were you serious? Are you–are you serious, Flan?”
I looked down the blank space of the sidewalk, in front of my high school. Once upon a time, during stressful conversations, this glamorous girl named Natasha would just appear, with all the right words and the right gestures, and great legs and a shiny, shiny flask. But right now there were just some students arriving for what this girl used to describe as same shit, different day. One of them had a big black box that was playing a new song by a band I hadn’t heard of. “Yes,” I said. “I guess what I am is serious. I really did it.”
Baker opened his mouth, a little geometric shape I couldn’t give the formula for to save my life. “You–”
“You,” I said. “You told me to, Mr. Baker. You’re the one who always said, ‘Do something.’ It was your rule.”
Baker blinked. How streamlined I can make these sentences, how tidy and clean. Baker blinked. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
“Well,” I said, shrugging. My heavy bag went up reluctantly, groaning, the squeak of its plastic straps poking the gurgle in my head, the sound of Adam’s lungs filling and heaving with his own blood. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Baker stepped back. More kids were arriving, and not just at Roewer; every moment, all over the world, more and more kids and what are you going to do about it? “That’s not what I meant at all,” he said, redundant as only teachers can be. So this is what he was springing on me, as I went home to wait for my life to end: I’ve disappointed my Calc teacher. “Flannery, that’s not what I–”
“I know,” I said. I looked down the sidewalk and for a second a glint of a forest-green dress threatened to appear, out of the gray morning like a phantom from fog. But then there wasn’t anything, and then, as I kept staring, I couldn’t even remember what I was looking for. What I needed was right in front of me somewhere, but I was spacing out, momentarily. Forgetting myself. What was it, what I was looking for?
“Flannery–” he said, and the bell rang just as I found it. For what I was looking: the seven of clubs.
EPILOGUE
Hello, my name is Eleanor Tert, a therapist and doctor. Perhaps you’ve read my books or seen me on TV with my good friend Winnie Moprah, another doctor. Through my work, I try to help people reach a better understanding of themselves and others, and make a better life.
You’ve just read the diary of Flannery Culp, the famed teenage Satanic murderess who led her cult, the Basic Eight, to notoriety this year with the murder of Adam State. Adam isn’t really presented fairly in Flannery’s version of the events, so I hope that through the integrity of our media you all know the real Adam. Adam State was one of the most popular boys at Roewer High School, and at the time of his murder he was on the cusp of a dazzling future: college, and then undoubtedly a brilliant and lucrative career, perhaps raising children of his own. From all I know of Adam he would never have done some of the things Flannery talks about.
I must object, too, to the presentation of myself and my work in the diary, particularly in the first speech I make at Roewer’s all-school assembly. To try to dismiss me merely because of my past addictions is to do me a grave injustice; the writer Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery notes, took absinthe and yet is still a respected novelist and short story writer in America and elsewhere. What particularly angers me is that the sixth-period Advanced Shorthand class at Roewer was instructed to take complete notes on my speech as a classroom exercise; Flannery easily could have obtained a copy of the word-for-word transcription rather than relating it from memory, tailor-made to her own point of view. And I won’t even comment on her presentation of my all-school survey without the statistical justification and analysis which precedes and follows all such surveys I do. I will just say that to deny me my full say on the matter is what I consider to be Flannery’s other great crime. Like James Carr, who remains in a coma, I have been blocked from telling my side of the story. For more of my thoughts on this matter see my book, Crying Too Hard to Be Scared, which is much more thorough on the subject.
I was asked to write this epilogue to explore some of the more remarkable things to be found in what is regarded by Dr. Moprah and myself to be one of the most important documents on teenage Satanic murder to appear in this century. First off, of course, is the matter of Flannery’s parents. David and Barbara Culp are well-respected members of their community and were considered to be model parents by all who knew them. David is a radiologist and Barbara teaches networking, so they were able to provide for Flannery all the comforts of an upper-middle-class Jewish home in San Francisco. Both of them have many hobbies and insist that they have had no more than a passing interest in the occult. We all saw the coverage of this event and will always remember their somber faces as they supported their daughter through the trial, and nursed their private grief at home. Having moved to Florida after the verdict, they ask that their whereabouts not be disclosed.
There is also the much-maligned Flora Habstat, whom I have met and co
unseled many, many times. Due to client confidentiality I cannot discuss Flora at any length, but suffice to say that she is a bright, beautiful, thoughtful, intelligent, attractive, creative and life-loving human being. There is nothing at all in her personality to suggest that she is a “bitch,” and with a good fitness and diet program she keeps quite thin. All in all I am very proud of her and only hope that she will be allowed to tell her side of the story once this book is published, perhaps on television.
Lastly, of course, is the mysterious Natasha, Flannery’s confidante. Who is she, really? In researching Flannery’s life as part of my position as creative consultant for the TV movie Basic Eight, Basic Hate, I researched Flan’s early life and found two prospective “Natashas” to whom Flan may have found an extreme attachment. One is Natasha “D.” (her last name has been changed), a girl in Flan’s first-grade class. A janitor at Pocahontas Elementary School (which was then Martin Van Buren Elementary) remembers that Flan and Natasha “D.” were “unusually close, almost best friends,” for at least the first few months of first grade, whereupon the “D.” family moved to Plano, Texas, due to her father’s position as an executive. Natasha “F.,” nee “D.,” said in a brief telephone interview that she does not remember Flannery, nor did she know who I was.
The other Natasha, Natasha “V.,” may be closer to the mark. Natasha “V.” worked at Camp Boyocorpo during one of the two summers Flan attended as a camper and was assigned to Flan’s bunk as a counselor-in-training. Who knows what whispered confidences or other activities may have gone on during those starlit nights? In any case, Natasha “V.” became a lesbian with serious self-esteem issues. Shortly after I appeared on the Winnie Moprah show, Natasha “V.” sought me out for professional help, and during one of our early hypno-imaging sessions this revealing connection rose to the surface.
Whatever her source, Natasha’s importance cannot be overemphasized. What Natasha did, Flannery did–Adam’s murder, Carr’s poisoning, the drinking, talking back in class–so Natasha’s actions can be seen as an imaginary manifestation of Flan’s dark side. Like a shadow, Natasha performed the actions Flannery was afraid to admit wanting to perform. Luckily this whole sequence of events was put to a stop before it was too late, and hurrah to Flora Habstat for that.
In conclusion, I wish to draw your attention to a passage from the end of Flan’s diary: “More kids were arriving, and not just at Roewer; every moment, all over the world, more and more kids and what are you going to do about it?” Flan’s desperate question is obviously a cry for help, though despite several letters I have written to her, she refuses to see me even for a minute. But it is also a call to action. Indeed, more and more kids are arriving, and not just at Roewer; high schools everywhere report dramatic overcrowding. In short, teachers and administrators are getting more and more overworked and unable to deal with the myriad of problems that challenge today’s teens academically, athletically and socially. So the responsibility falls on you. Peter Pusher, in his remarkable book What’s the Matter with Kids Today?: Getting Back to Family Basics in a World Gone Wrong, suggests that the answer lies in prayer, but I would suggest (with all due respect to Peter) that we take our solution one step further: Moral Watchfulness.
Moral Watchfulness is a combination of different concepts, and each one needs further explanation. “Moral” because society is nothing without morals. Teach your children–and other people’s children, if you have no children of your own–the importance of right or wrong.
To do so, you need to arm them with the weaponry of morals. In addition, you need to be “Watchful.” Be Watchful for signs of Satanism. Be Watchful for absinthe abuse, even casual absinthe abuse. Perhaps you need to give your children my all-school survey, and interpret it accordingly. I may be creating a workbook. Finally, you need to combine both “Moral” and “Watchful” (ness is just a suffix) into an aggressive strategy to make sure our children don’t end up hanging out with the Basic Eights of this world.
Remember, our world is at the equivalent of first semester senior year–the most important semester for our future. Read this diary, not for the true-crime thrills all of us crave deep within us, but for the important lesson it teaches us all: Flannery Culp, and people like her, are neither fish nor fowl but are living, breathing human beings, as real as I am. Thank you.
Vocabulary:
CUSP
MUCH-MALIGNED
THOROUGH
MORAL
RADIOLOGIST
WATCHFULNESS
Study Questions:
1. Dr. Tert says: “To try to dismiss me merely because of my past addictions is to do me a grave injustice.” Write one paragraph agreeing with this statement, and another paragraph disagreeing with this statement.
2. Which model for Natasha do you think is more likely, Natasha “D.” or Natasha “V.”?
3. Do you, deep within you, crave true-crime thrills? Why or why not? Do you think you would be a better person if you used Dr. Tert’s strategy of “Moral Watchfulness?” Why or why not? Do you think Flannery’s version of the story of the Basic Eight is correct? Why or why not? Do you think Dr. Tert’s version of the story of the Basic Eight is correct? Why or why not? Was Dr. Tert even there? Why or why not? Why or why not? Why or why not?
4. Ness is a suffix. Name at least four other suffixes.
About the Author
DANIEL HANDLER is the author of The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, and Adverbs, and, as Lemony Snicket, the enormously popular children’s novels in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
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ALSO BY DANIEL HANDLER
Watch Your Mouth
Adverbs
Copyright
THE BASIC EIGHT. Copyright © 1999 by Daniel Handler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2007 ISBN: 9780061860317
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