The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (9 page)

I do not doubt that BOB is aware of my every movement. That this horror who calls himself a man sits up high when the sun shines or perhaps curls up below. No matter. He watches me with eyes that burrow inside, seeing each speck of doubt, sensing each palpitation of my heart when a boy passes, each embrace from a mother who knows nothing of how far away her daughter's bedroom has become.

I try each day to memorize the face that looks back at me in the mirror. I hold tight to it. I imagine I'll be in flight when I compare it to my remains that I often dream soon will be found.

I have such an anger and an urge to charge at the sky, to call the wind a liar for never showing itself. An urge to scream at the two who allowed my birth. Cries for help to anyone who will hear them. To scream into the street that there is a lack of miracles in Mother Nature herself.
Her divinity is a lie.

In a forest of trees again and again, I have been brought down. Surgery of a strange and indescribable nature takes place. Blood is let. This Mother Nature has not done away with this evil, nor has it opened its wood to allow a scream to escape. Instead, it cradles this man and keeps him safe from discovery, safe from daylight. He knows the planet will not betray him. This light will come, and stay, leave only to return on schedule. He has a promise. The universe's habit, conveniently requiring a twelve-hour fix of the two extremes.

His time is the evening, the hour during which rescue is least possible, and when most with pure hopes and dreams and memories of swinging on swing sets are fast asleep. Their eyes moving quickly under their lids.
Seeing nothing.

Never is there a noise that stirs even those who sleep in the next room. Never does the world lean a bit for me, cast a vote, and cause an eye to open... See the man... see the way his eyes are frozen in the image of my face in a scream. No explanation for WHY he has chosen me, or even if he has a final plan.

I can only wait. Hold my tired eyes open with the energy of a dare. A fight to see who in fact is the darkest. Who, when forced to see the other side, will in fact survive?

I sit awaiting his arrival, kept awake by the notion that I shall grow accustomed to the dark far easier than he to the light.

Laura

September 10,1986

Dear Diary,

Enclosed please find my mind and its memory. As well, a characteristic the enemy lack in excess-conscience. "Guilt" is simply a word he uses to silence me. He has no regard for mortality, no concern for danger.

How could such an intruder fear death, or the possibility of imprisonment, and still manage to come so consistently up the side of my home, using my window as if it were familiar to him?

He mocks me entering dressed in the clothes of one who could be a best friend. A neighbor. A traveling salesman who casually invites himself in, goes as far as to request coffee, regular, before dissolving into the daydream he sometimes is?

Does he expect to sit down and chat before taking the house's only child from her room and treating her like an experiment?

I am either dreaming him to life, and slowly killing myself, or he has told my parents of his visits and has offered, in return for their own safety, that these visits will continue without possibility of interruption. They would simply go unnoticed. Junk mail, somewhere in the house. I imagine that they would have to hear me as I am led out. Is it possible they do not care?

L

September 11,1986

2:20 A.M.

Dear Diary,

I cannot tell you how much it upsets me that I am no threat to him.

He is too safe with the idea that he will always gain entrance to my home and exit painlessly and without sound. In the dark he knows he will find a grip around my wrist strong enough to silence me, and to carry me, like a child drags a doll, to a place where he knows no one will find me. He knows this because the place is miles from any source of light other than that which pours sometimes, so clearly in my memory, from his lips and eyes-the very light stolen from within me. The girl who, ever since she can remember, made a patient effort to tolerate, and keep secret the very man who wishes to steal her innocence, never allowing her to mature, never permitting the joys of maturity. The time this little girl has dreamed of ever since she knew how to skip, and run, and smile at even the slightest breeze, the way it tickled her so. Unselfishly, she gave and gave of herself, emptying the delicate basket inside her, of her soul.

I hope to call him to my window soon. I fear he is waiting for me to tire of these all-night writing sessions. These moments where I lapse in and out of the part of me who plans to open the window this time and give my hand willingly. The part of me that doubts anything really exists at all and that therefore there is nothing at all to fear outside that window, and so am willing to venture to the usual spot, without struggle. I who swears a noise or powerful slap at the back of the head will not cause even the slightest change in footsteps. The part of me that has rehearsed its cries for more and more incisions, more insertions, more insults and threats, and has planned to continue them until his appetite, before insatiable, grows smaller. The animal frozen solid in front of his shotgun barrel, begging to fill that space on his wall.

Remove the thrill. Program yourself. There will be pain, but none worse than before. Hold tight on the image of home and of bed and of the warm smell of him as you rinse and rinse and rinse. Home awaits you as it always has.

Play with him as he plays with you. Accept that you are bad and dirty and cheap and should be thrown to the wolves as scrap meat, and must never bear children, for who knows the faces they would be locked behind from birth until death... Remember to ignore. Leave an opening large enough inside to take on his body weight in hatred and methods of reduction that only apply to the emotional portions of oneself, the most vital and irreplaceable of all.

Believe that he is only intrigued by the fear he breeds, the lack of interest you display in life when he leaves you back at your home. How he pretends to ring the doorbell, mocks you, your life, your hopes, your most private insecurities, watches as you struggle with the sense that you are unworthy to even enter the house in which you took your first steps, feel as he watches you catch a tear before it has left your eye -
look for him and he is gone.

As if it were a religion, I have chanted inspirations to myself, for days now I have whined, and taunted, and almost wished him to arrive, and he has not. I have an incredible headache from trying to think of his weaknesses, when in fact, I couldn't begin to know them. Perhaps I am wrong altogether about his lust only for the fear in his particular victim... I must say honestly, I am tired of making light of the situation and believe that if I do not sleep soon, I shall begin seeing BOB everywhere. This, need I mention, would not be good for me at present.

I am lonely here, and find myself thinking about Bobby, who I know would hold me in his arms the way I can't imagine anyone else doing.

Be careful, Laura

October 1,1986

Dear Diary,

I'm sorry I haven't written, but so much has happened. Tonight as I began to undress for bed Bobby Briggs came to my window. A beautiful, dreamy sight that sent me reeling. He says there is a party we couldn't miss out at the end of Sparkwood. A friend of his, Leo-who I think I've heard of before in the air of gossip that I often hunt down-is throwing a party. I warned him, I had only thought seriously of curling up with him, and confessed that I was missing more sleep than I need to be sociable.

He promised me there would be no problem in the alertness department, as he had a new treat for me to try that sometimes negates the need for sleep entirely.

I'm out the window, Diary. Shhhh!

I'll tell all the moment I return. I'm hiding you... beware of BOB... he is sometimes tardy.

Laura

P.S. It just struck me that BOB's name is a warning in itself...

B. BEWARE

O. OF

B. BOB

October 3,1986

Dear Diary,

I don't know where to begin! I returned home the following afternoon, without a single gripe from the watchdogs, Mom and Dad. I was halfway down the side of the house when I realized I was heading way out of upper town, to a party filled with people at least six to ten years my senior... and I was thinking I'd be back by sunrise? Never! Not to mention that Bobby had some "Go Fast" for me somewhere... at least I thought that to be the situation before we arrived at Leo's... I'm guilty of the understatement of the year with that one.

But anyway, I must first brag about the tangled web I did weave, and how not a stitch was out of place or questioned when I arrived back home at nearly six P.M. the following day! Need I say, I have now crossed over into a dimension of intense sleep deprivation? Three days and four nights... and taking into consideration the treat I was given as a door prize before leaving, I could be up until next month, painlessly dropping pound after pound... (six and a half since the last day I slept). I find that no matter what drug, if any, I have inside me, the less I sleep, the less I eat.

The note said something simple and to the point. Skip it if it bores you, but I guess I gained a sense of satisfaction and joy out of pulling the wool over the "folks"' (as Bobby says) eyes. Mom, it is just about five A.M. and I have tried again and again to get back to sleep. After almost two solid hours of fair tries, I was suddenly reminded of the clearing I spent the other afternoon in. Troy so enjoyed the grazing there, and I think a blanket and a book will set the stage for the distance I guess I need to feel. Not from you, Mom! I could hear you taking that personally, but don't. I just mean away from people. Just a few hours with my pony, Troy, and maybe a nap over Nancy Drew or something? Please don't worry, I'll call before six if I'm not already home by then.

Love, Laura

I spent the night at the most outrageous party ever, and Mom sat quietly at home, imagining me wrapped in the words of a good book, sinking softly into a blanket on the grass. I'll need to make sure Troy gets a ride tonight... somehow... shit. I hadn't thought of him until now... I hope Zippy doesn't phone to suggest he take Troy out... damn. I'll be right back. I'm going to ring the stables right away.

So! Bobby had borrowed his uncle's truck for the night, and as long as we stayed off the 21 we weren't running the risk of getting pulled over... Bobby without a license... me no sleep, and an enormous lie, in my book, to my parents... ? Can you imagine?

Off we went, music playing surprisingly loud and clear for the age of the truck... it made me feel like it all worked. The way the trees were blowing, the speed of the truck, the music, my nerves as I began to undress into my birthday gift, sent via AIR MAIL from Cousin Maddy. Did I even tell you, I talked to her for almost an hour last week? Well, this dress is to die for, skin tight, and it came with an insert in the breast area that allowed you, if you so desired, to lift your breasts upwards, instead of leaving them flat the way some dresses do. Bobby nearly killed us, when he missed a tree by a quarter inch. He said it would have been worth it to die, with my eyes "transfixed on a bosom as sweet as yours". Doesn't that sound like a country song or something... transfixed on a bosom as sweet as yours...?

Bobby took me off to the side of the truck before we went into the house. He kissed me, and then said it was important that I knew that Leo, from a straw's distance, is a great guy, funny and can hold his own in a chat. Then he shook his head in a drastic "N.O." I wanted to know what the hell that meant, I mean what if I did what he said N.O. to? Bobby turned around just when we got in the doorway, and he said, "Tonight it's not important, I'm pretty sure you'll hang with me... just don't ever fuck the guy. He's into some weird shit, that Leo, man..." I nodded and was suddenly, unmistakably intrigued by the phrase, "weird shit" and its sexual context. Bobby went to grab me a beer, I guess, and Leo came up to me. Shit... it was there, right away.

Both of us knew it, and he said, "Laura Palmer... how 'bout that? Last time I saw you, Old Dwayne Milford was giving you a plaque or something... some prize you won...?" I had to interrupt him -

"Finest Performance/Five Consecutive Years."

He asked if I had proof of performance quality, and I assured him proof was in abundance but I was about to fall asleep and die of thirst at the same time. He called to Bobby, which I was grateful for, seeing as how I was entering a bedroom, post warning and all.

(Hang on, I gotta do a couple lines... I'm coming down and I'm about to tell you some incredible stuff-hang on.) So I'm in this room with Leo and Bobby, and just as we're about to pass the straw, the door to a bathroom opens. A bathroom off the bedroom... and Ronnette Pulaski walked out of it, looking like she had given up junk food, and had started taking pretty good care of everything on her body except her nose. She was pretty high, and just by the way Leo nodded his head toward her and said a quick hey led me to believe this was a regular kind of thing.

You want to hear something freaky... It didn't become completely clear to me until now, but when I went down to the spot BOB takes me... and I was saying that sometimes I smelled my panties and wanted to put my face between the legs of a girl and taste her...
(God, sometimes it feels right to say, other times I can't)?
Well I had actually just for that moment thought of Ronnette, just because she was the only girl aside from Donna that I had seen naked... we were in an assembly together about two years ago, maybe more, and we were the only two costume changes in the middle of the program... we changed clothes... and kind of smiled at one another... I guess I was attracted to her somehow ... by the way her eyes appeared sad, but cold. I liked her body... anyway, it was strange to see her there. I have no idea what she thinks of me... I doubt it's wise to ask. All I need are rumors buzzing around that Ronnette and I are "seeing" each other every chance we get. Mom would have to be sent to the Haywards', if not the hospital itself, and Dad, he'd most likely think we were talking about a new game... an extension of kick the can, maybe? Who cares...!!!