The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

In Remembrance of a Lunatic

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I've known my share of 'troubled' people in my life, though none of have wound up in mental institutions, that I know of.

One of my best friends works as a psychiatric nurse in the hospital of the town where I spent my formative years, and though she cannot outright tell me who she sees as 'guests', she sometimes will let things slip like, 'Oh, I've seen her recently, and, well, nevermind...' Obviously this sets the wheels into motion and I dream up all kinds of vicious scenarios involving former cheerleaders going postal or the classroom Casanova ending up strung out and suicidal. As a professional, she cannot divulge the truth, but if we should hear a rumour and quiz her about it, we get the 'eyebrows', the 'you're hot or cold' facial movements. To her credit, she never opens her mouth, though.

I think as adults we're supposed to look back and feel badly about the way we might have treated people as we were growing up. Perspective is good, most of the time, and it allows for a renewed sense of objectivity when encountering brand new oddballs in our present day lives. I was treated badly myself at times, and I still feel the cold of that on occasion, mostly because the rejection rooted itself deep and refuses to die. The truth is, though, that I've been the one who goes about rejecting, too. I've dismissed people from my life when they became too difficult, or strange or annoying. Mostly, it was just a nagging feeling, a knowingness that would come over me whenever I was with one of them. I think femmedragon used the term 'foreboding', and it captures the bizarre feelings of that time beautifully. The disconnect between us seemed only tangible to me, though, and often they carried on as though nothing was amiss until I let them go. Quite often, they didn't seem to notice, and I would have to be rude to get the point across.

Alex, who was more my sister's friend, brought a knife to our house one day and my parents banished her forever, saying she was 'trouble'. Last year, after living a life which stayed in line with my parent's prophecy, she was found, chopped into pieces, the murderer(s) still at large. Heather, an elementary school chum who seemed to enjoy playing mindgames with me, as in being my best friend one day and the next treating me like a leper, was cast out by me when I'd finally realized she was a little off the beam. She was pregnant at sixteen, married, divorced, another kid, an engagement, a break-up, another marriage and we'll see how this goes. She's the type who will tell you how tough she is, how she'll 'mess you up' if you say something she doesn't like, without realizing what sort of fool she makes herself out to be. Anyone can throw a punch, but not everyone is throwing their life away in an effort to seem tough and fearsome. She doesn't get that, yet. You know the type, they're basically everywhere, and they're oh-so-tiresome. I do not feel badly about disentangling myself from these people because my instincts about them were right and we would have never been a good fit. I rarely even get involved with people like this anymore. My radar works well, most of the time, and while I don't want harm to come to anyone, I'd be happy to keep a distance until they straighten their act out.

I have been fooled on occasion, though.

Take Lourie, one of my very best friends in high school. Vibrant, charming, smart, nymph-like, she was seemingly a favourite of every kind of teenager in that school. She didn't care what clique a person was in, she was always an honourary member. The boys were wild for her, with her melon-like breasts and her tiny waist. She wore blue eyeliner, pink lipstick and her hair was the colour of a summer sunset, a chemically enhanced gold and orange. When I was enchanted with her, I saw only the beauty, and when the spell was broken, I saw the cheapness, the clumsily contrived aspirations of a dimestore demi-goddess. Her clothes at the time were always brand names, like Vuarnet, Polo, Bimini, Esprit etc, but there was still something about her which seemed...off. Never would she invite us to her house, but she talked about her 'fantastic' background all the time, leading us to wonder what secret she was hiding. One night, Kyla and I decided to ambush her, taking a walk in her neighbourhood before coming upon a little townhouse that bore the address she'd listed as her own. Her mother answered the door, bedraggled, snaggle-toothed, but overall, friendly. The house was cramped, with far too much furniture and porcelain flowers on shelves everywhere, and Lourie looked as mortified as she did angry that we'd arrived unannounced. The thing was, neither Kyla or I cared what her house looked like. We weren't the kind of girls who judged someone because of their house or family, but Lourie didn't seem to get that about us, and for some reason, it hurt.

Lourie worked hard to ensure we believed in her virginity, her good intentions and her sincerity. It came as a bit of a shock when I finally discovered that none of those things were real. While the rest of us were agonizing about whether we should let a boy put their hands up our shirt, L. was balancing one to five guys at once. When Kyla was heartsick over a boy she'd mistakenly let go, L. jumped in and offered to patch their relationship back up. I have to say that I was not surprised when L. called me to ask if I'd break it to K. that the 'boyfriend' had fallen 'in love' with Lourie. I had felt that coming, knew in my gut that this girl was not what she wanted us to believe. She was a succubus; a knapsack wearing, gum-chewing, gravel-voiced vampira.

I knew she was looking to siphon the energy of anyone she admired or envied. There was a sick kind of hunger in her jewel-blue eyes. I knew it, and I couldn't figure out how to rid myself of her without everyone else thinking me a beast. Though she had offended so many in our inner circle her ability to manipulate was amazing, so I had to be careful. One by one, friends would confide in me that they weren't sure they actually liked her, that she flirted with their boyfriends or took control of conversations, and I would nod and sympathize because I understood the confusion of it.

One Christmas season, she, Kyla and I were together (I can't remember where) and we were trying to be festive, laughing and rolling candy canes around in mouths, when Lourie opened her knapsack. She showed us a large butcher knife she had under some clothes and books, and when our eyes widened, she whispered in a husky voice that she intended to use it, if necessary. Her grandfather was visiting for the holidays, she'd explained, and he had 'done things to her' when she was small. Her mother had been injured in a car accident, and she'd been sent to live with her grandparents for the two years it took her mother to recover. In that time, the grandfather had 'interfered' with her, many times, and when she told her parents about it, they dismissed it.

If he tries to touch my little sister, I will use this on him. I sleep with it under my bed and I keep it with me when I'm awake. He'll never touch her, I won't let him. And a shiver went up my spine.

I believed her, knew she intended to do as she said she would but it was her expression and her voice which really unnerved me. There was an undeniable malevolence in that angel face, a bubbling evil just under the skin, and I remember looking at Kyla who was just as unsettled as I was. I felt for her, had even suspected something like this in her past given her secret promiscuity, but to see the dysfunction in all its glory was beyond my experience.

It took a while to remove myself from her company. It might have been another year, actually. I didn't do so because she had been molested/raped by her granddad, that would have been low and inhuman. I did it because the damage in her was infecting me and she seemed to like it. She was too smart and crafty to be crazy, but she was still not quite right and I knew that she'd likely never be the kind to fix what was unhinged inside. To be her friend would have taken everything I had and there was no way I could give it. A few months before we graduated, I played the avoidance game (after a huge fight where I unleashed every thought I'd ever had about her, essentially annhilating her) and she was careful to respect my boundaries. That said, a year later, when I thought she'd be gone for good, she popped up again, phoning me, asking me to get together, as though everything from the past had never happened. Flash to six years after that, when she was living on the other side of the country and I'd moved to a different city, and the phone rings on an uneventful winter night. It was her, in a fit of nostalgia, missing me and my humour, my intelligence, my company. It felt slightly creepy to have someone call like that, out of the blue, when the history between us was so defective. I made small talk and begged off on account of an early morning meeting. I made no promise to contact her again, and I hoped she'd understood the implication.

Then, a year ago, the Facebook phenomenon brought her back to me. I couldn't bring myself to ignore her friend request, and we've only exchanged a couple emails since, which is reassuring. She is divorced, still has a huge social circle, still parties, still has a legion of adoring, fumbling men leaving ridiculously stupid messages on her 'wall', and she's still seemingly lost. She is essentially the same wounded bird she was twenty years ago, with pleasant colour and a delighful call, but who also will swoop in on the living, plucking the unlucky ones from a land of innocence before ripping everything inside of them out. She can't help it, she's afflicted.

I feel for the ones who get lost in themselves, I really do. It's just that I don't want whatever they're infected with. I'd rather be alone than have them take the good left in me. I wish them the best, and I will smile and say hello if ever I should be face to face with them, but there will never be another night of laughter over wine, or chats over coffee. I won't give it a chance to creep across the bridge between us. Life is hard enough without the crazy.