She Forgot

Humans are beguiling creatures. I don’t think most of us will ever understand what causes people to do, the things that they do.

I guess the purpose of me doing this, is a last-ditch effort. For you.

I am going to tell you a cautionary tale, about the last hours of Betty Jean Blythe’s life on this earth. A girl who, like you, had all the free will of the cosmos.

I think that all of you reading this can agree that Betty was a rather good girl. And she was. In fact, she was such a hardworking, innocent girl, that my friend came to visit her one rainy evening, in the run down diner, she had worked at since 17.

. . .

Betty was wet from the storm and late to work. She always forgot to get the oil changed, and her old Honda’s engine finally gave out. Her alcoholic boyfriend said he was too drunk to drive. Couldn’t pick her up. Of course, he drove drunk every day (we see all of it)…and just gave an excuse. You all, have gotten’ yourselves a real knack for doing that.

Her eyeshadow bled down beyond her chin. Her bra had chaffed painful red slits through her skin during the walk.

Beyond being hours late, this was her first day back since the diner shut down for two weeks. A customer had a severe allergic reaction to the sauce in the pasta. At the looks of the diner, no big surprise. They were a skeleton crew, since the new girl had been fired. It was her table, and the customer had told the waitress about the allergy. Unfortunate.

The, “OPEN” neon sign flickers in and out. Usually, the only people you ever see are the same big haul truckers, or a few folk that live in the small farm town about seven miles east.

The country radio station that Donny Colden, the grizzled, overweight, manager always played, crackled on. He would always play those contests for naming artists of the Patsy Cline era, and he could win a gift certificate to IHOP or something.

“About time you showed up, Betty Jean….you have a customer,” Donny mumbled, without ever looking up from his crossword, “He been waiting on ya for an hour or so”.

Asking why he didn’t just give it to one of the other girls, he sloppily adjusted himself in his seat, crushed his cigarette in a stained coffee mug, and again without looking up, “He said he didn’t want anyone else, and if he is pissed about the wait, he can get his meal for free. Your dime,” and with that, he grimaced, again adjusting his seat and belt cinch. He always wore the same pair of worn out, filthy jeans, that obviously hadn’t fit him since well before the time of Patsy Cline.

With that, Betty grabbed her little black notebook from her little black apron, and headed toward the back of the establishment.

She didn’t recognize the undeniably handsome man who sat alone in the booth.

“Hello, Betty,” he said with a warm smile, “I see you got stuck in the rain. I am so sorry that Jeff said he was too drunk to pick you up. Thank you for pushing through and making it in, anyway. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Taken aback by the sudden list of facts being rattled to her, of her past two hours…Betty just stood, silent, mouth agape.

“Please sit,” he gestured kindly to the booth across from him.

She stuttered, still in a state of unknowing, “I, um, I’m sorry, I can’t, my manager ne-…”

“I know your manager never allows you to sit,” he smiled, “ But look around you, sweet girl, no one is here.”

And with that, she peered around the diner, thinking she must be in a dream. No cooks, no manager, no waitresses, no customers….no Patsy Cline.

Betty smoothed the back of her skirt, and took her seat.

“What is it, that you want, Betty?”

Things were happening too fast. She opened her little black book and flipped through the pages, “Ummm, hold on, I, I have todays specials that I’d like to tell you about.”

The pages were blank. Every page was blank. Why were the pages blank?

“Oh here, use mine.” He slid a leather bound black notebook in front of her. His grin was one of pure amusement.

“Sure, it’s not your notebook, but I think you will find mine to be much more, salient….and I’d like to give it to you, for a short time. All you have to do in return, is tell me what you want.”

His charm was intoxicating, yet terrifying.

Betty laughed nervously. She was so uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to anyone asking her what she wanted. She was always told what she wanted. Spiraling into an internal panic she blurted out, “I don’t know, umm, $20,000 for a new car, I’m sure could help.”

She figured she should just say something to get this increasingly invasive encounter to conclude.

“Okay, sweet girl, I am so sorry to cut this short. It has been my upmost pleasure to visit with you today. Unfortunately, I have others to attend to. Hold my notebook close to you until I return, I assure you it will only be temporary. And that is all I ask. I’ll certainly see you again soon, I promise. Goodbye, Betty Jean Blythe.”

The call bell on the food counter had suddenly rung her back to a full diner. The smells, people, chatter, the heat. The only thing missing was the stranger.

As she stood up, she saw the leatherbound book, sitting in front of her. There was an awkward bulge in it, and as she went to pick it up, a few dollars had spilled out onto the counter. She dropped again, into her seat. The notebook contained exactly $20,000, and a list. A list of names. The names were written in beautiful calligraphy, but all the names had a single line through each of them. All but one. Betty Jean Blythe.

Her mind was racing when, “I’m not payin’ ya to sit, Betty Jean!! Your friend isn’t here anymore! And Christ, almighty! Wash that miserable face of makeup off ya, I don’t need ya scarin’ off more customers…. look like a got’amned melted candle.”

Betty Jean ran to the bathroom to fix her face, and hastily put the money and black book in her apron.

At the end of the day, she transferred the money to her purse. There was a small car dealership, less than two miles from the diner.

She punched her time card as she tossed her apron in the bin to be laundered, grabbed her bag and jacket, and started down toward the dealership. She stopped. Feeling confident and a little sassy, she looked back at Donny, “I quit.”

She couldn’t stop thinking about her day. Maybe he was a genie. Maybe that is why he told her that he would see her again. To make her other two wishes.

She got to the crossroads of the breakdown. It was surreal for her to stand there, knowing that seven short hours prior, she was standing in the same spot, tears of despair, streaming down her face. In the same day, at the same spot, she now cried tears of joy.

A sudden chill crept down her spine. The air smelled crisp, the crows cried, and an odd eerie mist began to set upon the area. Then, the crows stopped.

She looked across the crossroads in the direction she was to head. The fog had made it almost impossible to make out anything beyond her. She began to walk, and then noticed how quiet everything had become. How eerie. How sad.

Suddenly, a wailing cry of despair had broken the unbearable silence. It was the most helpless, brutal cry, she had ever experienced. A shape began to form out of the black mist. It was a shape of a man. The shrill wail bellowed from him, she was forced to bring her hands to her ears…the shrieking made her eardrums threaten to burst. It was not the scream of a man. This was the scream of a beast that no man had ever heard…… Well, I take that back. Some have.

Again, the creature threw back its head and once more the shrill and injured scream tore through the trees and hit her with a force that struck her on her back in the cold mud and her body began to tremble. The beast was approaching. Every time getting closer, bellowing again out in pain and misery…snorting like a horse being spooked by a pack of hungry wolves.

Lightning cracked the sky as the storm picked up again, the clap of thunder was the only thing beyond the blood-curdling shrieks that allowed the paralyzed girl to attempt to struggle to a feeble, sitting position.

And there he was.

“Hello, sweet girl,” his voice was now both of man and beast. His words carried a constant base of a growl.

He hung his head. His deep, blue/grey eyes, were no longer kind, but neither were they cruel. No longer charismatic, but painfully melancholic. They were the eyes of something from darkness; but not evil, just not of this world. And they were the eyes of something in true pain.

“May I have my little black book back, Betty Jean?”

She trembled and stared up at the man, not yet realizing what had happened.

“Betty Jean, I need my book back. I only asked that you held very close to you, and took care of something that was very important to me.”

Her body recoiled in pain as she uncontrollably seized and could only moan. Her bowels exited. The warmth of the excretion around her thighs was the only “comfort” she would ever feel again.

Down on her haunches, her fingers desperately ripped at the ground to keep her upright. The cuticles ripped away, and again she fell.

“Where is my book, Betty Jean Blythe?” His eyes now filled with fire.

She didn’t have it. Oh God, she didn’t have it. It was at the diner. It was in the laundry bin. She had switched the money from the apron to her purse, but she had not moved, the most precious thing, the man had asked her to care for.

“I forgot,” she muttered, filled with regret.

“You forgot,” he repeated back, the most horrible sadness she has ever seen.

“You also forgot to mention to the manager that you took that table the girl was fired for. You forgot to mention the allergy to the cook. You forgot how desperate Donnie was for help. You forgot to put oil in that old car that Donnie gave to you as a show of good faith that you would help save his dying business. You have forgotten a lot, sweet girl, in a short time.”

He sunk his head. He stood, in silence, as the storm raged on, and her body was helpless, on the ground.

There were no tricks, no lies and no deceptions. She was given something amazing, and her selfish elation allowed her to immediately forget about the need of another.

Now, she would take her last breath, and the crows again began to call.

. . .

Yes. Those unsavory moments, unfortunately, were the last moments of Betty Jean Blythe’s life on this earth.

If nothing else, this is my message. It was never him, my friends. He never tempted the neighbor to cheat on her husband. He never tempted the man who raped and killed the little girl in the ally. He never tempted you to ignore the beatings you hear every night, on the other side of your apartment wall.

Sure, you blame the Devil. If you all only knew…..the Devil is praying for you, too.