Jay's Journal

by Beatrice Sparks

  Raindrops keep falling on my head.

  Or have I really wet the bed.

  Oh crap, give up. Think about cars. Think about the car!

  November 25

  I can’t believe girls! Janie came unglued because I didn’t want to ball. It isn’t really that I don’t want to. I want to like hell but I can’t let myself get into another relationship right now. She thinks it’s because I don’t love her, but I do! I like her and love her both! Judas, women!

  Brad and Dell both say that they have to fight girls off too.

  Dad’s always throwing in these little sex things when we talk and telling me how I have to protect girls and how the guys are the aggressors and all that. He doesn’t know how much things have changed. I would have liked living in his day. It’s like you’re not being manly or you can’t or you’re a queer if you just plain don’t want to, or you’re waiting—or . . . I don’t know what it is, but right now I’m just going to cool my jets no matter what! I’m going to pay more attention to my church standards. I’m going to be more what my parents want me to be and what the real me wants to be!

  November 26

  I’m getting mellow in my old age. Here I am tending kids and I don’t even mind, actually it has in a way been fun. Kendall popped corn and we played “I Doubt It” and watched TV and it was just like it ought to be in a family . . .

  Chad burned his hand on the pan Kendall was melting butter in and he didn’t scream or have a fit or anything, he just told me I was the neatest and smartest brother in the world when I put his fingers in a bowl filled with ice cubes and water.

  I like those two little guys! I love them! I like being with them and being supportive and protective. I’m sounding like a man instead of a boy . . . at last! At last!

  November 28

  I was chosen to represent the school in the state Speak Out contest. Imagine, one kid out of a school and I’m it! Man, I’m so proud I can hardly button my shirt over my swelled chest or get my hair to stay down on my swelled head. I keep saying, “Oh, it’s nothing,” but inside I want to scream, “I’m important! I’m important! Hey, look at me, everybody!”

  Dad, Mom, and the rest of the family are so proud of me. It’s special to do something that gives them pleasure and pride for a change.

  December 1

  I won. Man, what an ego trip. Maybe I’ll go into law, at least now I definitely know I want to stay on the debating team.

  December 5

  Brother Niels, my seminary teacher, asked me if I’d be the narrator at the Christmas program. That kind of hurt because these past few months I’ve skipped his class oftener than I’ve attended it and when I did go I wasn’t really listening, my mind was drifting off in any direction but the one he wanted. But anyway, it is a compliment and another ego high.

  December 9

  Tiffany asked me to the Preference Ball. It’s the neatest thing that’s ever happened to me. She could go out with any guy in this school. She and Tamara Thomas are the two foxiest chicks here. I’m thinking about them both fighting over me. Sometimes fantasies are better than real life.

  December 14

  Tiffany was the most fantastic fox at the dance. Man, I was so proud of her . . . and of me! Wow, my confidence doth wax strong . . .

  I must be doing something right. Tamara asked Brad and Dell went with Georgia Mills, she’s not much to look at but she really is fun, and Girls’ League President. The whole thing was wow! Tammy’s a year older than the rest of us so she took her mom’s car. It’s kind of funny to be chauffeured about by a girl but at this age I guess we all pretty much have to take what we can get. You can’t rip off a car for a Preference Ball.

  December 17

  Imagine an A+ on a seminary test. Me, the one that thought I couldn’t stand anything about the class. Actually Brother Niels is pretty fascinating now that I’ve started listening to him. If I shut my eyes the material makes a most fantastic part of the TEN COMMANDMENTS movie. I saw it when I was a little bitty snipper and I’ve never forgotten. Man, those were exciting days. I wouldn’t have liked living in them, except of course, if I’d been a pharaoh or something, but come to think about it, the pharaoh didn’t make out too well in the end either.

  December 18

  GROUNDED AGAIN! But at least this time it’s only for a week and I gave the punishment to myself. I guess “borrowing” Mom’s car and then getting the fender bent wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. I shouldn’t have been showing off but a kid driving a big old long black Cadillac has to either show off or act dead. Judas, $50 for the repair, at least I just have to pay the $50 deductible . . . Fifty dollars . . . oh the pain! Well, anyway, it was pretty straight of Dad to ask me what I thought he should do as punishment.

  December 19

  Being grounded is giving me time to learn the Christmas script but it’s so, so, so boring! I’ve got this damned cold and my nose is running like a faucet and my head is clogged up and my chest rattles and groans when I cough like I’m nine hundred years old. The stereo won’t work and there’s nothing on TV except soaps and game shows, which I hate. Dad is working, the kids are at school and Mom is up staying with her sister in Wyoming for a few days. Aunt Kay is only thirty-one years old and has terminal cancer. It’s really rough with her four little kids. . . . kind of scary too because our family seems to have a predisposition towards cancer on both sides. I never say anything, but every time I get a lump or a mole or a wart I wonder . . . prostate cancer is . . . oh crap, there’s no need to think about morbid things like that. Indeed, to be more realistic I should, now that I’ve got the time, evaluate my priorities in life and get myself somewhat straightened around.

  Set goals . . . disciplines . . . I know where I came from, what I’m doing here, where I’m going! I just haven’t been doing much to attain. Oh I made it at the Speak Out and now I’m working on the pageant, but the every minute of every day stuff I’m falling down on.

  To evaluate:

  I respect and honor my father. He does the very best he can with his abilities, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually . . . and he’s extremely together about most things! Man, I just fragment when things don’t go my way or I can’t control them. He was so cool when we were skiing and Dell took the uncontrolled fall and hit the tree. Dad had his leg set with his broken ski and a temporary sled stretcher made out of branches and his remaining ski and ski poles, and us all calmed down in the midst of that sudden blizzard, like nothing had ever happened. Man, that is cool. And the time when we were going to California and saw the car wreck. . . . It was like he was Jesus the way he calmed down the hysteria and screaming and stuff, and stopped the bleeding and quieted the two little kids that were hurt. I was practically no help at all. I just wanted to go out in the cactus and throw up or just stand around and gawk like everybody else that stopped. Yes, there is much in him to admire, that I should pattern my life after.

  Mom also; gentle, kind, a little overweight but pretty in an old way, intelligent. I’ll be lucky if I find a wife like her when I grow up. She makes such good bread!

  Kendall: not too bright, Mom works hard with him but even learning his times tables was Herculean. I love that word. Someone used it at the Speak Out . . . Herculean . . . isn’t that descriptive? I’ve got to work harder at retaining really descriptive words, for

  Maybe I’ll be a doctor.

  Maybe I’ll be a lawyer.

  Maybe I’ll be a scientist.

  Maybe I’ll be an oceanographer or a biologist or a pharmacist.

  Maybe I’ll be a writer. I wonder how I’d go about that or what I’d write about. Not a TV Jamie at fifteen who gets a teacher pregnant and . . . I wonder why decisions in life are so difficult.

  Brad has always wanted to do something mechanical, be an engineer, own a garage, race cars, fly planes . . . whatever . . . but at least he knows in which direction he’s going. Dell, well, he’s more like me. I’m not sure his parents can afford to send him t
o college, though. His old man is just a carpenter, Dell wants more . . . but . . . who the hell knows what the future is going to bring. That isn’t right! I must be more precise in my writing as well as my thinking if I’m going into any of the above fields. One molds and makes their future! At least if they want one of any consequence.

  Chaddy. I love that little flipper. He can be so neat when he’s good and lovable . . . and such a rotten little I-can’t-stand-him stinker when he’s not.

  Conclusion: With my mental, physical, and spiritual attributes, coming from this provincial, protective-type town, with my supportive, honorable parents and peers, and my caring, conscientious teachers, there is not one reason why I should not be happy and successful in any field of endeavor I see fit to choose.

  Happiness and success, here I come! Watch out for me! I’m like a comet piercing through the black darkness of ignorance. I’m going to work harder on my spiritual growth too. I’m sure that’s what me and Brad and Dell need. We’ve all been sort of drifting spiritually since that last big surge just before we were twelve.

  Man, I feel good! Just kind of getting myself in sync with what I’ve got, where I am, and where I’m going is a neat feeling. I can do it! I can! I can! I can! Now I just have to find out WHAT it is I’m going to do.

  I’ve just reread today’s entry. What a dissertation! Man, sometimes I even impress myself. I guess I can admit it here. I’m pretty neat. Good bod, good mind, good me! Wow! What have I been taking? Does orange juice ferment?

  December 22

  The pageant was fantastic. I can’t believe that everything went off so well, with so few hitches. No loudspeaker problems, no light problems, no cast problems . . . well, at least at the final production. The place was filled to overflowing and with the speakers put up all around the audience, when they used them in the last “Hallelujah Chorus,” man, it was like we were all being smothered in music; not really smothered, more baptized, immersed. Carl, from the music shop, had brought the amplifiers he used with his rock group. I still get goose bumps and sweaty palms when I think about it. Sweet little Chad looked up at me with his innocent childish eyes shining after it was over, and asked me seriously if “really-for-true” angels were singing with us. That about wiped me out. Wow, a tear just dropped down on my journal even now.

  December 27

  I’ve had a relapse of my cold plus the flu and I slept almost the full time of Christmas. Throwing up, diarrhea, then sleeping . . . the story of my life for the past few days. This afternoon is the first time I’ve even felt like climbing up through the crawl hole in the attic to bring you down, which should make you feel good if journals have any feelings. I’m getting sick again . . . oh shit!

  January 5

  Dell’s dad just got the contract to frame in five big apartment and condominium units in Las Vegas. He’ll be there six months so he’s taking the family down. They’ll live with Dell’s great-aunt who has an old big house there. Dell says it’s in kind of a crummy area but . . . Judas, I’m going to miss him. He’s like my brother, in some ways more than a brother. He’s my friend! My very very best friend, well, at least he and Brad are. The Three Nephites. We’ve been living kind of like them for the last couple of months: being considerate, trying to help others anonymously when possible. It’s made us feel so good and we’ve been so close, almost closer than ever. Oh crap, it’s going to be the groats without Dell. It’s like Chaddy or Kendall were leaving, confidentially, maybe even more painful . . .

  I’m thinking about skiing tonight with Dad. There is so much snow on the mountains. Here in the valley it’s almost like spring. Skies blue and clear but clouds resting over Whitecap. Maybe it’s snowing up there right now though it’s only twenty minutes away.

  But I don’t feel like skiing. The shock of Dell’s leaving is like a physical punching out. I guess this is the first time in my life I’ve ever felt a trauma and really known what it was. Man, it’s bad! Kind of like it infiltrates your body in every pore. I can’t eat, I can’t concentrate. It’s almost even worse than when I broke up with Debbie . . . different . . . but just as black and lonely and lost and a it’s-not-true, I-won’t-believe-it kind of feeling.

  I guess I’ll work late tonight. Mr. Stokes is doing inventory and I might as well be miserable working as be miserable spending my hard-earned money; besides the news even made me uncoordinated. In basketball practice I missed every single shot I tried to make . . . that’s not me! I’m not good but I’m not that rotten! Oh shit, I guess this, like everything else bad in life, will pass, besides Las Vegas isn’t that far away. Mom said I could go down some weekend and stay and Dell’s folks said he could bus it up here occasionally. In a way I feel like a fruit I hurt so bad. I want to hug Dell and cry on his shoulder and tell him how rotten it’s going to be, just me and Brad . . . two whats? Judas, I’m acting like Dell’s dead, or dying, what a bean-brain, what a selfish yuck.

  It’s going to be a lot worse for him than for me. I should think about him. He won’t have anything . . . anyone . . . Me and Brad will both be here and all the kids we’ve always grown up with. For him it will be like me at the Pine Boys’ School. Oh please, God, not that! Don’t let him get so lonely and confused that he’ll . . .

  I gotta go to work . . .

  12:30 A.M.

  Man, inventory is hard—worked from 4:30 till past midnight and on a school night. Mom’s going to be hopping!

  January 6

  Dell’s last night here so Mum let him and Brad sleep over. It was like the olden days, only better! We had pillow fights and ate everything that was loose in the house even though Mom had gone to the market and bought what she said was enough junk food for the American army and navy both. And Dad threatened Kendall and Chad to stay the heck away from my room, because he knew we wanted to be alone.

  Brad wanted to be funny so he brought his electric blanket over and put it inside his sleeping bag. Right after he’d gone to sleep I woke up Dell and we turned it on high then snuggled down to see what would happen. In a few minutes Brad fought his way out of the bag, sweating and swearing. We pretended we were asleep while he turned off his bag, opened the window a crack, and made himself a pallet on the floor. Fighting hard to control our snickers, Dell and I waited until he’d gone to sleep again, then opened the window wide, closed the heat vent in the room, and waited for episode two. Sure enough pretty soon we heard old Brad scratching around looking for more covers and the switch to his electric blanket. Practically strangling to keep from laughing, we again waited until he went to sleep, then turned up the heat in the room, turned up his blanket high, and waited for the explosion. Brad must have really been groggy with sleep because again he just turned down the blanket and squirmed out on top of the covers. Beside ourselves, Dell and I turned off the blanket, opened the window, and waited. Within minutes Brad came up slugging. It had taken him a long time to figure out what was happening but when he did he was ready to hit both of us up the side of the head. It was half an hour before we could get him to see how funny it was, then we all rolled on the floor and got hysterical. It’s a good thing my room is upstairs and Mom had had Kendall and Chad sleep in the guest room in the basement. We’d have awakened the dead if we lived close to a cemetery.

  Man, that was funny, so funny that neither Dell nor I dared go back to sleep. We knew Brad would find some way to get even with us, and did he ever!

  He knows I go stinky when I first get up in the mornings so he put apple butter all over the toilet seat and then pulled the bathroom curtains and unscrewed the light. I got up all groggy eyed and made my early trek to the john, sat down, and about blew my mind. Brad, who’d been waiting, jumped up like an ape on the sink and screwed in the bulb, bringing to view the brown turd-looking goop all over my bottom and running down my legs. I wanted to kill him. It wasn’t funny! Not then anyway.

  All through breakfast Dell waited to see what was going to be his comeuppance . . . nothing came . . . lunch passed . . . no problems .
. . then Dell’s last class, gym. He went to put on his tennis shoes and squishhhhhhhhhhhh. Brad had somehow stuffed the right toe with dog-do. The whole class about went crazy as Dell hopped off to the showers with dog shit oozing out from between his toes. Mad! He was mad—dog mad! He and I had known all along we couldn’t get away with anything, but, man, dog shit; only one of us would think of something like that!

  Was there ever such a terrible but terrific trio? I wonder, will my kids and their kids feel this same fantastic forever-whatever-affinity?

  January 11

  Dad is out of his head worried about Mom. For the first few days they thought her fever was from a cold or the flu or something but now it’s up to 103 or 4 and she stayed in the hospital overnight. They can’t find anything. If something doesn’t change by tomorrow they are going to do an exploratory. Judas, I can’t stand that, them just cutting Mom open and plowing around her insides trying to find out what isn’t working right or what’s infected.

  I know Mom’d give her life for me. I’m just lying here wondering if I’d give mine for her. Oh Judas, I’m so afraid I wouldn’t. I’m almost sure I wouldn’t. I’m such a selfish, egotistical, self-centered yuck. God’s plan of making parents was such a wonderful one. They love kids in a deeper way than kids love them. I wonder if when I’m a parent I’ll love so completely and without reservation. After I’d been rolling with Debbie and . . . Judas, I hate to even think about it, even though it’s always sneaking about somewhere in the back alleys of my mind . . . substituting in Dad’s pharmacy, even then they both loved me without reservation. Oh they hated what I’d done but they’ve always, always loved me!