The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (16 page)

I can't hear you.

WE BOTH KNOW YOU CAN.

Diary, I am here alone in my room alone. I have had a very nice day, and now I am sitting in bed, on top of the covers, writing to you. I know that I can control this. I know I can
SEE BOB BECAUSE HE IS REAL. A REAL THREAT. TO YOU, LAURA PALMER. TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU. BE NICE. BE GLAD TO SEE ME.

Never!

YOU ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE THIS WAY.

That's impossible! Get the fuck out of my head!

I LIKE IT HERE. MIGHT STAY AWHILE.

Fine.

BE NICE.

Nice? Gee, BOB, is that you? How wonderful of you to drop into my head. The door is always open, you know. Why don't you and I go for a walk in the woods, BOB. C'mon. Let's take a walk. You can pick the day's game. What will it be... sex?

NO. YOU'RE DIRTY.

You are wrong.

TRY AGAIN, LAURA PALMER.

You aren't worth it.

I HAVE A MESSAGE.

A message from...?

A DEAD MAN.

I'm insane!
You are not real! It's simple. I need to get to a doctor because I am creating this. I am in charge. Calm down. I have to calm down.

MESSAGE: A SEAT IS BEING SAVED FOR YOU... LAURA PALMER

Stop!

BACK SOON.

See? You are in my head. No one besides you knew the details of my dream of death. Not even Bobby.

BOB is not real.

Laura

January 7, 1988

In the Eyes of the Visitor

I am something constant

An animal of prey

No matter how many times

I am attacked

Sent home to the nest

Bleeding

I stay.

I am the greatest of fools.

A defect in the cycle of life.

No creature with any

Respect

For life

For itself

For its enemy

Stands again and again

In the enemy's path.

I stay.

I have no respect

Left

For the enemy

For the nest

For the tree

For the prey.

I wait

Without choice

I challenge his threat

To take this baby

And hand it to Death.

January 20, 1988

Dear Diary,

I have some good news.

I spent the afternoon with Johnny today. He was in especially good spirits and I decided that the day was too crisp and beautiful for either of us to stay inside.

Out to the front lawn we went. The lawn is a great expanse of green grass and flowers tended year-round by a staff of men and women with green thumbs, fingers, and the rest. It is the perfect place to spend a Saturday afternoon. I usually see Johnny on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but apparently a specialist came to see him yesterday, and Benjamin asked if I would mind coming today instead.

Between you and me, Diary, today was much better for me.
Yesterday
, for the second time ever, I ditched school. I spent the whole day going through my bedroom, reorganizing things. Mom and Dad were gone all day until six P.M. at some convention.

I rearranged my furniture a bit and bought a lock for my bedroom door. It was easy to install because it was only a chain lock. A few screws later and I had privacy. If only everything were that simple. I didn't ask Mom or Dad if the idea bothered them, so I chose the chain, figuring they will think I only want the room locked when I am there. This is not the case, but for now, until I can think of a reason that the two of them would approve of, and not question... this is it.

I went through some of the more recent
Fleshworld
Magazines and found that this is the time to submit a fantasy of mine. There is a contest going on for one month only, "Fantasy of the Month." The winner receives $200. Anonymity is allowed, although a mailing address is necessary. My safety deposit box allows me six weeks free use of a P.O. box. I'll get over there later today and take care of it, I guess. No harm in entering as long as I use a different name.

Today, I needed a fresh start. My time with Johnny was wonderful, and dare I say, almost spiritual. We were lying face to face on our stomachs while he requested that I tell him story after story.

The moment I would finish one, he would applaud and say, "Story!"

He didn't want to be read to. He wanted nonfiction. Life experiences. All that went through my head at first was, this is impossible. I can't tell him any of my stories! But eventually I realized that not only did I have some suitable stories, but that I was being far too forgetful of Johnny's mental level. I could have recited the grocery list, with intonations like those of storytelling, and he would have stood up to cheer. He wanted to feel included in a face-to-face discussion, some interaction. Spoken to rather than spoken about.

I was able to stop pitying myself and to recall some of the happiest times in my life, as well as some of the most sad. Each story helped me as much as it did Johnny. I had a chance to realize how far away I had kept happiness, and how much I missed it.

As you can imagine, I basically took full advantage of the chance to just babble on to someone, story or no story, uninterrupted. No questions, no comments, no judgments on who I was or where I'd be going, once dead. Johnny is simply the best listener around.

I felt very refreshed and even entertained, thanks to Johnny's innocent mimicry of faces in conversation. He was always nodding as if he understood.... Smiling when I would, and at the mention of the words "the end," he would put all his energy into applauding me.

At about two-thirty, Mrs. Horne, who I was surprised to see without shopping bags under each arm, and a plane ticket in her mouth, called the two of us in for lunch. When I looked at my watch, I was shocked to see that almost three and a half hours had gone by.

Before I could get up, Johnny took hold of my hands and smiled one of his biggest smiles ever. He closed his eyes, reopened them and said his very first sentence!
He said, "I love you, Laura."

I could go on and on about how wonderful that was, both as an incredible leap for him, as well as for me. It was the highest compliment I have ever been given.

After lunch I left to open my P.O. box. I'm going to have to think carefully about this fantasy. Perhaps I shouldn't write it here, in your pages, because unless it is printed, it didn't really happen to me. Did it?

More soon. Laura

February 1, 1988

Dear Diary,

I've been going over and over my sexual experiences and have decided that it is important to look at at least the initials of each person I have been with.

B.

B.B.

L.J.

R.P.

J.C.L.

T.T.R.

D.M.J.

C.D.M.

M.R.M.

D.G.

G.N.

G.P.

D.L.

M.R.

M.F.

R.D

T.T.O.

K.M.Y.

S.R.

A.N.

M.D.

J.H.

M.F.

C.S.

B.G.D.

L.D.

J.H. And several unseen unknowns - out by the cabin.

T.P.S.

M.T.

G.L.

J.S.

M.V.L.

C.S.

D.M.J.

A.W.N.

M.S.R.

D.D.

S.C.

H.P.

B.E.

February 9, 1988

Dear Diary,

Something very strange has happened.

I snuck out of the house last night to go see Leo and Jacques at the cabin. Ronnette was supposed to be there too, and I was pretty excited about seeing her. Besides, it had been ages since I could talk about things with a girl. Donna just wouldn't understand all of this. I needed girl talk, badly.

I began walking, but then decided I was too impatient (a big mistake), and so I headed toward Highway 2, in hopes of hitching a ride the next mile or two to the cabin.

About fifteen minutes passed before I saw a big rig, just like Leo's, coming down the road. I stuck my thumbs out, and sure enough, the truck pulled over and the door opened. Inside the cab were four very drunk, very drugged-up truckers who, from what I could understand, had been in town drinking. One of them offered me a beer, and I took it. Not really because I wanted it, but because I was suddenly afraid of upsetting any of them.

I told them where I needed to be dropped off, and just before my stop, I finished the beer and began peeling the label off the bottle nervously.
I realized we were not going to stop.

I told the driver he was about to pass my "dropping point," and he told me I should know better than to be hitchhiking late at night with a body like mine, poured into my jeans and T-shirt the way it was.

I swear I was not "poured" into my clothes, Diary. My only mistake was leaving the trail through the woods and heading out to the highway alone. It was a big mistake, but I... I wasn't thinking.

We drove up through the Twin Peaks to a seedy little motel that I wasn't even convinced was owned and open, due to its shabby appearance.But needless to say, these guys already had two rooms and basically carried me into the first. I caught the room number, 207. In case I could call for help, I would know where I was. I wasn't sure I'd get out of here in one piece.

All of them became incredibly rowdy. They were screaming at the top of their lungs and shouting out vulgar language. I thought for a moment that if I could just stand up without anyone's noticing, I could outrun any of these drunk jerk-offs. I was as careful as I could be, but the moment I tried to stand, three of the four guys were on me.

"Where are you going', baby?"

"Hey, why don't you and I go into the next room and do a little private dancing?" He was the ugliest of all of them.

I knew that if I didn't do something soon, something to manipulate the situation my way, they would become violent and most likely rape me. I realized that I might never come out of it alive.
I was horrified.

I forced a smile. "Listen... all of you."

One of the guys looked at me like I was out of my mind to be taking such "liberties." He was interested, though, in what I was going to say, because he got all of them to shut up and gather around the chair I was in.

I squeezed yet another false smile out of my face and went on, "Listen, if you all want to play tonight... and you know what I mean... then let's do it right, okay?"

One of the guys, the one with tattoos everywhere, stepped up to the chair, and kicked the hell out of it. Five or six times. I tried not to look as mortified as I was. He bent down, greasy hair in his face, his breath like garbage. "You better watch your mouth, little hitchhiker, 'cause where I'm from, a hole like you would never dare tell a man that he ain't doin' a job that beats all other jobs."

"I didn't mean to imply that you weren't experienced. I can tell that you are, just by watching you move." God, they were all so awful. My tongue was shaking in my mouth, nervous and lying. I was so stupid!

Another of the guys, the youngest, and the only one with any concern for me at all, suggested they hear what I had to say.

I slid myself back to an upright position in the chair and looked at all of them, carefully. I thought, just go for it. It's either going to work or they're probably going to rape and kill you. You can't let people like this take your life. Just make it up as you go along, Laura.

"Okay, I am not opposed to drinking, drugs, or sex, all in measured doses. I am not opposed to getting a little kinky, getting motherly, or becoming a little girl... more of a little girl, nor am I opposed to my performing a solo show, for everyone.

There were belches and nodding heads. Eight big eyes, growing wider.

"I think all of you will like my show very much Il even invent some new things for you, new touches... and if anything should come to you, about what you want to see me do, you come over and whisper in my ear.
I'll play games.

"But here's the deal: I get a ride back to town, and I walk out of here the same way I walked in. No violence."

One of the guys decided he was too macho for this and said, "I'll slap you right upside the head if I get the urge, bitch."

I gathered my nerves enough to lean toward him and appear confident. "If you get the urge to slap me, as you said, right upside the head, I haven't done my... job." I swallowed hard. "You can call me bitch and whatever else, but let's just try and get along... okay?"

It took me another forty minutes after they agreed to my show to get them to stop with all of the attitude and the yelling. Finally, I offered each a Valium in his beer and told them to sit on the couch, drink the beer, and I would start.

I have never been so frightened, ever. Forget nightmares, forget near-misses with a speeding car on a wet road, forget BOB even, simply because, in comparison to this, it was four to one. And each of them was big enough to eat my entire body as a snack before lunch.

All of them sat on the couch, except one, who I told to watch the door so that no one would think I was planning an escape. I pulled a chair around to the middle of the room. A wooden chair, nice high back...
almost too perfect.
I took a few steps to each side of the room and switched off the lights.

Slowly I began to undress, and each time I removed a piece of clothing, I memorized where I had "tossed it" so (if they did pass out like I planned) I would be able to dress quickly and get out.

I began to talk to myself. I imagined being stoned so that I could relax. I was so damned afraid that someone was going to jump up and say, "You're history, baby," but no one did.

I slowly began the routine of the "little girl lost in the woods"... a favorite of Leo's and Jacques's because I can become "Mommy" so fast.

I prayed that I could keep them intrigued long enough to watch their eyelids get heavy. I went to the man at the door, probably the meanest one, and I lifted his hand, which was surprisingly relaxed, onto my chest, and I talked to him softly.

It was a good fifteen minutes that he was touching me and really getting into talking back with me and I could feel him giving in, just like Jacques. One of the others got selfish and said, "Hey, what about over here!"