Never Play With Voodoo Dolls by Brian Hesse (book club books .TXT) 📕

like a lightning bolt smashing hard into soft wet ground. I had a girlfriend, the only one I ever had in my life, who hurt me deeply. She humiliated me in front of everyone during our freshman year of high school. Yes, I was still infatuated with Sandy, but a man has needs, and I am not fool enough to wait on someone I may never have. Her name was Marion Morris. Seriously, that was her name. We went on a few dates and, by all indications, things were going great. We made out several times while her parents away. We went to the movies and held hands the entire time. We even talked about moving in together when the hell of high school finally came to its inevitable end. Then out of nowhere she dropped the proverbial bomb on me, right in the overcrowded hallway of that miserable brainwashing factory, Polk High.

   “Hi, babe. Are your parents’ home tonight?” I was almost shaking in anticipation of the answer. I must admit; the best part of our brief relationship was the alone time at her parents’ house when they were gone. But need I say more. I don’t think so.

   She looked at me with an expression I can only describe as complete revulsion, as if she were looking at a strange bug, only worthy of being squashed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about nerd,” she stated with a laugh, and quickly walked away down the hall. I found out later that she dropped me for Brad Tillerson, the muscular Neanderthal on the Polk High football team. I don’t blame him. Guys don’t have loyalty to one another. Girls are fair game in the limited world of the human male. She was the cause of my humiliation that day. She was the one responsible for the tearing pain that gripped my heart that day. It only makes logical sense that she should be my test dummy. Wouldn’t you agree?

Goodbye Marion Morris

   With a little amateur investigation, I tracked down Marion to the small town of Jim Thorpe, just a few miles away. She worked as a waitress for a local restaurant there, Karl’s Steak House. So, as you can imagine, I became a frequent patron there twice each week. By the third week I had to make my move. She was obviously becoming suspicious, considering the fact, that I always sat in her assigned section.

  “Wow, John, you’re here again.” Stated Marion, standing with her pad and pen in hand, waiting to take my order. She flicked the top of her pen continuously, nervously, with a blank expression, devoid of her typical fake waitress smile. I just knew that I officially have taken the awkward role of a stalker, and I was all out of “chance” encounters with Marion. In fact, I could see her going back to the kitchen to place my order, and talking to the other waitresses about me. I could see her telling her friends behind cupped hands, that her stalker from high school was back to order the usual fried steak, mashed potatoes, and a side of apple pie for dessert.

  “Hi Marion, we seem to always run in to each other,” I stated without even thinking. Now it was real obvious I was following her. I looked nervously throughout my meal for just one slip from Marion. Not even a slip really. I just needed something from her. A dropped stray hair in my mashed potatoes. A button from her blouse popping off from the enormous pressure of her oversized fake breasts. Then it happened, as if Satan himself was eating fried steak across from my table. When she came out to give me my check, one of her fake nails just popped right off her pinky finger. I snatched it up before she even finished writing the check, just in case she noticed it fell off and tried to take it back. I, laughed inside my own mind as I envisioned myself yelling, “finders’ keepers,” as I ran out the door.

I already rehearsed the ritual over and over again in my mind, without the personal belonging. My Mother didn’t raise any fools, and I was sure to read every word of that strange black book. On the very last page, was a warning written in strange calligraphed script. The warning read, do not practice rituals without all necessary objects, incantations, and intentions. Well, I knew the incantations, and I certainly had every intention of going through with this. I just lacked the object, which I now just so happen to have.

 

The Ritual

  I will be quick with this part. I made a human figure out of the melted wax of some black and white candles, I picked up at the Dollar Store. I buried the finger nail deep into the wax figure, concentrating so hard on Marion’s face, that my temples pulsated with each heavy thump of my heart. The day before the ritual, I casually walked into the old cemetery just a few miles from my home. This cemetery is old and, as far as everyone knows, is not part of any church in the area. So, I just took a guess that the dirt was not blessed. I gathered about two pounds of this ancient earth, and placed it right here, in a mound, on my kitchen floor. I placed the wax doll, with the imbedded nail, on top of the mound, and began the incantation. Turning in the directions, West, North, South, and East, I stated loudly with as much pent up emotion as I could muster:

I name you Marion Morris.

Fires and waves, earth and winds, spiral inside me.

Magic Begin!

I placed each candle on each point of where a pentagram may be. Oh yea, I forgot to actually draw the pentagram, but is that important? I doubt that it is.

I then took a pin, and warmed it over one of the candles flames. I stuck pins in the feet, knees, elbows, groin, chest, neck, and finally head. All the time saying odd things like, the feet are dead. “The knees are dead.” I am twisting your bones.”

So, I am going to skip some steps. This is not a how-to of spell casting. Let’s just say, that I ended by placing the doll in a cardboard box, and burying it in the same cemetery I got all that dirt from.

  Weeks passed of me just laughing at myself for what I did. I mean come on, I stole dirt from a cemetery and put it on my kitchen floor. Anyway, one night I got hungry, and there was just nothing to eat in my apartment sized fridge. You know, the kind that can barely hold a bag of apples and a few TV dinners. It dawned on me, “I will go check on Marion.” Maybe I will try to be nice and just bury the past. I kind of felt sorry for her. She didn’t end up that

well off. She looked tired and worn out working in that place as a server of the rude and ungrateful. On my way, to the restaurant, I imagined her being tripped by snot nosed brats making their horrible little messes. I saw her wearing a silly little birthday hat, singing that stupid birthday song to ungrateful screaming children. How humiliating she must sometimes feel. So, I decided that I would apologize, and maybe get Sandy off my mind. Time to grow up sometime.

I’m Sorry Marion

   I sat in her section nervously waiting for her to emerge. I was so afraid that she would peek out the grease stained steel kitchen door, and quickly retreat back in to have a talk with the manager. I could hear the conversation now.

    “Pete, this guy keeps stalking me.” She would state in an overly exaggerated tone.

    “Want me to call the cops?”

   “No, I’m used to humiliating this guy, I will just do it again. Besides, what’s the difference between a crowded school hallway and a crowded restaurant?”

   But this isn’t what happened. Scenarios are always the worst in our minds. As if all our thoughts originate in the lonely darkness and are slowly pushed, reluctantly, to the reality of daylight. What actually happened is she came to wait on my table as normal. However, her appearance was so haggard. She had very large purple bags under the eyes. Her once beautiful dark eyes appeared dull and grey, as if the life was swiftly drained from her soul.

   “Can I take your order, John?” she asked, slurring on every syllable, as if her speech was in a perpetual dream mode, in slow motion and barely audible.

   “Marion, please sit down and talk to me, I have something to say.”

   She sat but interrupted, what was to be, my emotional apologetic outpouring. “John, I am so sorry for what I did to you. Truth is, I was really in love with you. I was just confused. You see, my home life was really bad. I was scared that you would see that home life if we got too involved. Anyway, I hope you can forgive me. I really want to work this out, if we can.”

   At that moment, my thoughts of Sandy faded from my mind. The words of Marion washed the picture of Sandy away, like a tidal wave destroying a house of cards. I was in love with Marion all over again. Never before have I felt such compassion and love for another human being. Marion made me realize that Sandy was nothing more than a leftover childish infatuation.

   “Yes Marion, I always loved you. Let’s start again.”

    Watching her walk back into the kitchen, all felt right with the world again.

After several minutes, I heard chaos that would tear my utopia apart, like a hot knife slicing through cool butter. I heard screaming from several voices, both female and male. I heard the clanging of stainless steel pots and pans crashing against linoleum. Worst of all, I heard the now lively scream of Marion echoing in my ears, like the blood curdling scream of a murder victim shooting through the brain of a guilt-ridden killer.

I ran to the back of the kitchen and vomited when I gazed upon the unreal scene before my eyes. Marion was lying on the floor in a puddle of thick French fry grease mixed with a growing puddle of her dark blood. The grease and blood met somewhere in the middle but could not mix. This image struck me as revolting, but interesting from a scientific perspective. Her face looked charcoaled on one side, and the other was covered in large blisters of flesh peeling in layers as she squirmed helplessly on the slick linoleum floor.

   She apparently slipped on the floor in her half-dazed state. I learned later from coworkers that she complained of sleeplessness for weeks before the accident. Yep, you guessed it. Right around the time of my silly little ritual in my apartments kitchen. Well she slipped right next to the large deep fryer face first into the hot oil, French fries, and onion rings that were still cooking at the time. Even worse than that, I heard she was very excited just before the “accident” in fact, she looked awake for the first time in weeks after talking to me.

   My heart still aches when I think of what may have been. It has only been two weeks since she died that night at the Lehighton Hospital. The only comfort is that I have not thought of Sandy since Marion’s death. I also decided to get out of this shitty little town. I am going to college, find a nice girl to settle down with, and get all those things I always dreamed of having. I am also going to burn this damned silly book.

   Oh wait, it seems there is a missing page in the back. The page here is