Jay's Journal

by Beatrice Sparks

  Judas, even being profoundly profound is getting boring.

  I guess I better stop, but you can’t stop life; it just goes on and on! Lonely and ugly and deflating unless you’re binged or stoned! You can’t do anything to please anybody or say anything to please them or even dress so they’ll be happy and give you a smile. Man, they’re strict here. I thought my parents were strict, but here you can’t even fart without permission.

  Oh dear God, life is such an ugly heavy trip. Was it meant to be this way?

  There must be fulfilling joy and light and hope somewhere. Please God, help lead me there.

  Slow time, no time, let the circle go round

  A lonely time, a loving time, I’m feeling kinda down

  August 28

  Today I met Pete. There is something really different about him. Different and fascinating. I feel like a cobra with a mongoose. I just don’t know which of us is which. I feel Pete is drawn to me as I am to him, but I don’t know why. He’s a gorgeous, slick, slim, trim jock, and different somehow than the rest of the teachers but—I don’t know—I hope he’s not some crazy fairy fruit . . . it’s scary but it’s exciting.

  Debbie has stopped writing altogether so I guess I’m going to have to get my head into something else. But what? What in the world what? In a way I’m kind of glad we broke up. She used me! The dirty little whore used me! Just like everybody tried to tell me she would. I know she’s back on the street with Mark Vrooder again, or whoever is around and will supply her. She alone is responsible for this whole rocked-up mess I’m in. I’d never have done the things I did without her begging and pleading and crying and crying and crying . . . Oh Judas, what a freaked-out hots I was for her, and I call her dumb! I’m the dumb bastard that took the fall while she goes right on licking her chops. I’ve got to get her out of my mind. I won’t think about her anymore. I won’t! I won’t! Only about my parents and what I’ve done to them . . . and Brad and Dell. Oh dear God, what if my messing around got both of them into the scene where they can’t get out either? Please, please God, not that! I was never that dependent upon the stuff myself but everybody’s so different.

  Now I lay me down to sleep

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep

  If I should die before I wake

  I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  Would he? Would even God want me now?

  What do you do when every time you see or think of a certain chick it breaks your mind into little teeny pieces and they dribble out your ears? Man, it hurts, it really hurts. It’s easy to say “well, that’s life” and try to play it cool but it still hurts.

  Get stoned, you say? Well, person, it just so happens you’re busted and you couldn’t take that chance anyway. Besides, it wouldn’t solve the problem only deaden the pain for a while.

  SOLUTION—find another chick. Is it possible? Is there another one-and-only for me? Only one way to find out.

  She’ll have to be cool, not too straight, not too “the other way” (like Deb in that respect) and of course, good lookin’ etc., etc. But still . . . (I wish I had Deb.)

  September 2

  I still can’t read Pete. He teaches history and he relates to us about like the other wardens called teachers and advisors. But still, I wish Brad and Dell were here. I need a friend. I really need both my eternal friends! I’m scared . . . deep inside my guts scared. I don’t want to be here. I want to be home!

  I can’t sleep. I’m afraid to sleep. Afraid someone will pounce upon me in the darkness, or tortured deathlike Mom, deprived of her life-giving medication, and in her dead moldy, gray-green shroud will come back again.

  Once nights brought warmth and peace and rest,

  A lullaby within my breast.

  A snoring dog beside my feet,

  A snuggling purring kitten by my face,

  But, who can trust the human race?

  It’s 2 A.M. What in hell does anyone do at 2 A.M.? Anyway I just had this neat dream about a girl. Not Debbie, another girl. The exact opposite of Debbie. Judas, she was beautiful, dark, and damp. I hope I dream about her again. I do hope I dream about her again!

  September 6

  This afternoon Pete took me on a work detail and I can’t figure out whether he’s some kind of a screw-loose or . . . I don’t know, he’s really got some strange ideas. They sound crazy weird but still I’m so curious to know more I just about wet my pants thinking about when we’ll have a chance to talk again. There’s no way I could ever dig any of the bull he and another guy, Kurt, are trying to lay on me, but at least it makes me think about something besides my troubles. Pete’s into Astara and all forms of the occult. It’s so far out it shatters my wavelengths. He talks so easily about intuition, meditation, ESP, auras, life after death, the oversoul, how much karma a person must erase before they are liberated, how they can better influence the world in the new age, how they can recognize their soul mate, mysticism, esoteric science, hidden teachings of the ancients, the equations of life, etc. He says “an Astarian in need never walks alone.” I need that. Man, right now in my lost cluttered life I really need something like that.

  Pete showed me how to meditate and relax for sleeping. I hope it works. It’s got to work because I hardly ever can sleep anymore. Judas, I’m so lonely and confused. Jim and Bob and Cal are all such yucks, and it’s the three of them against me. Oh Brad and Dell, I need a friend!

  12:47 A.M.

  Pete told me he’d be pulling night emergency duty because old Klamus has the flu. He said I should pretend sick after 10:30 when he’d be at the nurses’ station and come on down.

  The minute I opened his door I could feel . . . I don’t know. He looked at me without speaking, for what seemed like forever, then at a chair, which soon started rolling slowly towards me while Pete continued to stare at it, straining so hard it made creases like the Grand Canyon in his forehead and squinch wrinkles around his eyes. I pretended I thought it was some kind of trick and tried to laugh and find the wires or strings or whatever he’d hooked to it, but of course I couldn’t. Pete moved it absolutely with mental powers. He did! I saw him do it! I keep telling myself that’s ridiculous and dumb and impossible but he did! He actually did!

  After sitting there uncomfortably for another long period Pete looked down at the little wart on my ring finger that I’ve had for—man, I don’t even remember how long. He asked if it was a personal friend and when I shrugged he suggested we get rid of it.

  Patiently he showed me how to synchronize our breathing and concentrate together. Then he put his pointer finger on his forehead, then on the wart. Fascinated, I put my pointer finger on my forehead, then on his. He closed his eyes and a strange guttural low “ahhhhhh” sound started kind of leaking out of his mouth. I, completely unbelieving, but out-of-my-head curious joined him.

  After a minute Pete got up and pulled the curtains in the little room and locked the door, then we went back to our ahhhhing. Up to this point nothing had happened to my wart and I didn’t have any faith that anything would but, Judas, as I look down at my finger now where the wart used to be . . . man, I can’t believe it. It did disappear! It really did! It’s gone!

  The whole concept is spooky . . . but maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe, like Pete says, mind over matter is just something man doesn’t understand and is therefore afraid of. I don’t think I’m actually afraid but I’m . . . man, I’m confused! Why is there this little low-keyed something inside me that’s so, all the time, ill at ease around Pete, and yeah, I guess a little-kid-type scared? In some ways scared out of my tree!

  September 13

  Pete has practically ignored me for a week. I guess he and Kurt told me all that crap just to see exactly how crackers I was! I guess what I thought happened really didn’t happen! But what about the wart? It’s still gone! Oh man, all the pressure is making me lose my marbles!

  September 14

  I dreamed again about her! HER! HER!!! Not Debbie! Her! She would make me a better person, n
ot tear all my morals down!

  September 16

  Today Pete took me into the city to have the school station wagon repaired. I can’t recall ever having had a more fantastic day! Maybe it was just because I’ve been in stir for so long, but then again maybe there is something to all the strange alien stuff he believes so completely. Just because it seems unnatural to my little sheltered provincial mind shouldn’t mean anything. Man, it really is heavy thinking. This is the first time I’ve been emotionally stimulated since I don’t know when. To expand my intellect . . . to comprehend things incomprehensible . . . to actually experience other planes of existence that have not even been complete fantasies before. Man, could it possible, conceivable, feasible be? Did Atlantis genuinely once exist? Does it still? I’ve never been so upped in my life before, even on drugs and booze. I wonder when we will be able to get together again.

  September 17

  Last night I met Pete after lights-out. We talked for hours about my aura, which shows fear and grief and pain. I can’t see auras on other people like he does, yet, but Pete says I can learn, actually I really think I saw a soft whitish glow around him, denoting spirituality, security, dependability, and honor. I’ve got to change mine. As my self-conditioning changes, my aura will change. I want to learn everything all at once, but I know I can’t. It’s so frustrating! Pete is going to help me find myself! My true self! My inner auwa.

  September 18

  Pete gave me a herb to chew before I go to sleep. He says it will relax me and give me wonderful dreams. It will show me my inner auwa, my own aura, and the aura I can yet obtain. I know I saw Pete’s aura tonight and also I am beginning to see the dark sinister ones around Cal and Jim and some of the others. It’s a new plateau of existence that I didn’t even know existed before. Man, it’s so strange and exciting.

  September 19

  Last night I really did experience cosmic consciousness . . . something supernatural. Pete was right! My psychic self is a slumbering cosmic power. It is my link with infinity to be drawn upon at will. It was not like being stoned. I saw bright colors and stuff but it was like I controlled them instead of them controlling me, and I understood the harmony that governs the worlds in space and the tiny atom. Pete had said that the consciousness that directs the physical universe also pulsated in the cells of my being. He was right! Right and wonderful! He will teach me the mastery of life. Oh, I can’t wait. Orthodoxy has ruled my thinking far too long. I and the universe are one. There is no division of supernatural and natural. I must . . . I will, control my karma, thereby controlling all things around me and within me.

  September 20

  2:14 A.M.

  Pete is teaching Tom and Dave and me about ESP. He said he would awaken me at 1:47 A.M. and he did! Oh, these wonderful powers that mankind wastes!

  NOON

  I can’t believe it. Just when I’m beginning to adjust, actually find a new way of life, Mr. Durham hits me with the fact that I’m being released in the custody of my parents the end of the month. When he called me into his office I almost started bawling. Now here I am in my room sick with cramps and chills. Going on sixteen and a snot-nosed crybaby. Hell, I’m so P.O.’ed and torn with emotions. I want to leave but I don’t want to leave. Something inside me is afraid of Pete and his exotic mysterious beliefs. I think deep down I’ve always known my parents’ church was true. I know a part of me has always wanted to go on a mission, and sometimes in church when I hear people bearing their testimonies, even though I’m kind of acting irreverent on the outside, something deep in my pre-life mental programming tells me that what they are saying is true. I’m so-so-so mixed up. Maybe what I really need is a shrink.

  It’s the middle of the night again and I can’t sleep. How can a person really know what’s real and what’s unreal, what’s right and what’s not right?

  I suspect that the herbs Pete has given me a couple of times, once to chew and once to drink, were some kind of natural hallucinogens, but I couldn’t have been hallucinating when I saw him levitate coins and when he woke me to the minute with ESP or the aura bit. Oh Judas, I love and miss my mom and dad and Kendall and Chad soooooooooooo much. We’re such a nice neat family and they care so much about me. They’ve written or called or sent me some little thing nearly every day I’ve been here and they visited as often as the school would let them. They’re so smart. I really should follow their guidance. Both Mom and Dad went all the way through college on straight scholarships. I’m sure Dad would have become a doctor if Grandpa hadn’t had a stroke his second year of college and needed him for the next couple of years till he could get back on his feet and run the business again. And dear . . . dear . . . sweet Mom. How many times she’s slept in my room when I’ve been sick. She always said she just wanted to be near in case, but I know she knew I was scared and I needed her. They’re always there when I need them. Even Dad slept in my room once when my fever was high. Oh God, how could I have hurt them, let them down, tormented them, humiliated them, disgraced them, brought suspicion upon my most honorable, Christlike, ethical father? And my devoted and gentle mom, who could have gone into scientific research instead of becoming a mother. Dad says she had three companies after her when she graduated, but she preferred to get married and raise a family. She’s all the things anyone could ask of a wife and mother. Our home is always clean and it smells good, and she always has time for us, and knows how to listen. I really miss her homemade bread.

  All three of us kids could read before we went to school, and we could count the vegetables she put in the salads and the ingredients she put in the cookies, and we knew the color of eyes and pies and french fries and wise men. Even the rhyming thing she taught us when we were little more than infants. It was a fun game then to improve our vocabulary, but now . . . Now I don’t know what I’d do without my poems and my song lyrics. Oh, thank you, Mom! I’m really going to show both you and Dad how grateful I am when I get out of here.

  You gave me life

  Then put my hand in yours and led me on my way

  Till I rebelled and lost myself.

  Please do not let me go.

  I need you so.

  I will be glad to get home . . . GLAD! GLAD! GLAD! Happy, secure, repentant glad. I never did belong in this hole. Brad and Dell and I have all done crummy mean little rotten things all through our lives but we aren’t second-class reject retards. I love my family, my home, God, my country, Dad, Chad and Kendall, Mom and apple pie, and homemade bread . . . yumm . . . homemade bread!

  I’ll be glad to get home. Most of the kids here are misfits from broken homes or they’re just so rebellious nothing can touch them. With me I just kind of got sidetracked. I’ve got to get my priorities in order once again and I’ll be O.K. Without Debbie hassling my head I can make it, but what about when I see her? I don’t know how it’s possible to love and hate somebody so much at the same time. I honestly don’t know whether I’ll want to kill her or hug her if I ever see her again. I’ve asked Dell and Brad about her in a number of letters but they always answer all my other questions and avoid that one. Mom wouldn’t lie to me and she says she hasn’t heard anything, but she doesn’t have her ear to the street.

  September 30

  I hate it here! I hate the food, and the discipline, and the “please sir may I go to the bathroom, sir, please”—the whole rinky-dink mini-prison setup. I even hate Pete and his Ouija-board fortune-telling that made me think he was something special. He’s just another big puke, but at least he made life bearable while I served my term. I won’t need him on the outs. I’m going to run so straight I’ll never have to see that hurt look in my mom’s eyes again, or that frightened, tense, holdback stance that my dad always takes when I’ve about driven him to the end.

  Judas, I hate to admit it even to myself but sometimes I’ve done things just to hurt my parents, because I was hurting I wanted to hurt them too . . . I must make a commitment that I will never do that again. I want to belong! I’ve got to
work to belong!

  October 9

  Been home nine days now and sometimes I don’t fit in any better here than I did in the Pine Boys’ School.

  October 10

  I’m hurting so bad I don’t know if I should scream or beat myself or throw up. God, tell me, how can people who are supposed to love me and care for me and protect me do this to me? Aunt Meg and Uncle Carter and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jim came over to dinner and we were just sitting there talking about how uptight the world was getting. I tried to explain a little to them about Transcendental Meditation and Cosmic Realization for inner peace and I can’t believe how they all cut me and made fun of me. It was almost savagely ritualistic. Superficious old dumb squares, they didn’t know anything about it and they didn’t want to learn, all they wanted to do was condemn, hurt, cut, maim. I wasn’t trying to say TM or CR would take care of all the world’s ills or that they should give up their own beliefs . . . only to implement them. Oh God, how could they be so mean to me? How could they so cruelly, knowingly hurt me? Each taking turns torturing me while the others all sat around and laughed, vicariously enjoying my suffering. I know now how Christ must have felt when they were preparing him and nailing him on the cross.

  If that is what Christianity is all about, I must find something better. I must find out who I really am! Not who they say I am!

  I am a child of the universe. I am a person, self-made, custom-made, handmade. Not seeing all and therefore not judging all.

  I am what I am for myself, to please myself and bring good vibrations to others. Fine, absolute, inquiring, acute, working. Unstable at times but still expanding, creating, producing, having, sharing, being, loving, knowing, losing, gaining, happening. Established now, not so alone, but lonesome. Original, a feeling, an organism, an orgasm, a closeness, a level, a conflict.