our feature presentation
Laura M. Bezarie
by V.I.T.R.I.O.L.High School, a turbulent time for most, was utter hell for me. Luckily, a sympathetic teacher intervened by providing artistic challenges and eventually getting me a deal with the school's principal to attend a local community college rather than going through my senior year. This was back in '87 and the Columbine phenomena was just a gleam in the media's eye, but I swear I would have snapped if I had stayed in that school another year.
Needless to say, when I was a 15-year-old sophomore I was in a particularly sorry state. I was quite a late bloomer and did not have much interest in girls until around this time. Sure, I played spin the bottle at a few parties but had yet to even touch a girl below the neck, save holding hands of course. I was such an innocent when it came to girls and sex. Now, this did not mean I was innocent in other issues. I started drinking when I was really young and High School gave me an opportunity to share my vast knowledge with others. I can't remember how we got all the beer, but one night we had more than enough to do the job. A small group of us sat on the railroad tracks late into the evening, drinking one beer after another.
One thing led to another; we got that natural wanderlust that comes to inebriated teenagers and began walking north. I remember a chill in the air so I think it was either spring or late autumn. No, it must have been autumn -- I remember crunching about in the leaves. With beer in tow we staggered down the tracks for about a mile until we came, quite unknowingly, to the local cemetery. This was a classic horror show cemetery, built up on a hill and covered with wonderful old trees. It was perfect, as a thick fog had rolled in and made it quite impossible to even see one's feet.
Even back then I was not an easily spooked kid, but I hesitated a bit before walking off the tracks and following my friend's recommendation that we go check it out. I remember saying something witty about the fact that this was the point in the movie that I always think, "God, those stupid people! Why the hell would you go play around in a cemetery at midnight?" But reason was out the window; I slammed the last of my beer and tossed it down the railroad tracks before climbing the steep hill at the back of the cemetery.
While the rest of the troupe played stupid pranks on each other, I wandered around the tombs looking at the moon and listening to all the noises about me. I pulled up a stone and contemplated the things that people who hang out in cemeteries contemplate. I won't bore you with the philosophical sentiments of a high school outcast, but my thoughts, whatever dark subjects they were on, must have been too laced with beer: I woke up soaked with dew to sunrise and the rumble of a passing train.
I found out later that day that the rest of my friends had searched for me for an hour but eventually gave up, thinking that I must have been pissed-off by their joking around and headed home. I lived about two miles away, so even though it would have been a long, drunken walk I could have made it. It took them a while to admit that they were utterly freaked by my disappearance and high-tailed it out of there before whatever got me could get one of them. I also found out, after attempting to sneak into my bedroom at 7 AM, that one of them was bright enough to call my house at 3 in the morning and inquire if I had made it home alright. My mother was, of course, waiting for me, and another healthy portion of "grounding" was heaped upon my plate. I was very used to being grounded and accepted it without a blink. I told my mother I was tired -- "No, I haven't been drinking" -- and that I wanted to sleep a bit more.
As I lay in bed I returned to the one thought that had consumed me the entire walk home. While I was sleeping on the cold wet ground I had a most wonderful and realistic dream. Without going into every lurid detail, I dreamt I met a girl. She was younger than I, had long dark hair and was dressed in strange clothing. We talked briefly, kissed, and then she began to undress me. I was nervous; she told me not to be and that this was the first time she had done anything like this, but that all would be fine. She kept saying it was very important that we do this. It was wonderful, it was passionate, and though it had its awkward moments we both laughed and played as though we were just two kids having fun. When all was done she kissed me and said she had to go. This was about the same time I was awakened by the train.
Now, other than the obvious, two things struck me about this dream as I lay awake thinking about it. First, within the dream there was nothing else but the girl and myself. There were no walls, no furnishings, no landscape; just a muted gray-green surrounding without form. Though there was gravity and we were not floating, we appeared to be in a large cloud. In addition to this there was a fetid smell I cannot place no matter how hard I try. In the dream it didn't phase me, but the memory of the smell was horrible. The smell is still to this day lodged in my olfactory memory. The closest possible physical manifestation of the smell would have to be the herb asafetida, which smells like rotting eggs. I rolled these thoughts through my mind and tried to put it all together with the most striking part of the dream.
When this girl emerged in my dream she told me her name, a name that I'll remember to my dying day. She said it simply but precisely: "Hello, my name is Laura Bezarie." Now the really freaky thing that still gets me is coming to in this cemetery, looking around to figure out where the hell I was, recalling how I arrived there and then bringing my eyes to focus on the tombstone before me that read "Laura M. Bezaire 1893 - 1917." It stunned me to no end, and I had to sit there on the ground in shock until I had the nerve to crawl back down the hill and walk two miles on railroad tracks to my home.
That night I dreamed of her again, and we talked and held each other. I woke the next day and felt a longing for her. She was beautiful and kind and I decided, in the way 15 year-olds do, that I was in love with Laura.
The next week I went to the City Records office and discovered that everyone in Laura's family had died right around the same time. First her mother died along with her newborn baby, then her younger brother, then Laura herself, with her father following quickly after. It was a tragic story and it was the beginning of my dedication to, and obsession with, Laura.
After school, one could find me hanging out in the cemetery talking to her. I even bought her presents and buried them in the ground. On weekends I would sneak out and stay the night in the cemetery. I would light candles and read out loud to my lover. I was in the process of learning sex magick and Laura was easy going about such things, she would agree to anything I came up with. It was a morbid little world I was living in, but one that was wonderful and strange. I was a pretty dark goth kid back then and this whole affair seemed utterly perfect to me. My daily interaction with Laura lasted for years. Though she was not with me physically, she helped to get me through. Of course, I eventually felt the desire to be with real women and thanks to Laura, I felt a bit more secure in pursuing them. On my first real date I shared my story, took the adventurous young lady with wide-eyes to the cemetery to introduce her to my first dead lover and verify that Laura approved. I actually thought that if Laura didn't approve, the ground would open up and swallow the poor thing. The ground didn't open and luckily my date was really turned on by the idea of hanging out with a crazy goth kid who had sex with a dead girl!
While I was living in the Detroit area I continued to visit Laura. I took every girl I went out with to visit her. Even when I was traveling about the country I would fly in once in a while to visit family and would feel the need to stop by Laura's grave.
The last time I was there was about a year ago. I stopped by to tell her I was happy to be getting married. I didn't take my wife -- I didn't want to take a chance on the ground opening up.
V.I.T.R.I.O.L. lives in Detroit again. He is an information guard. He still believes we are sensitive and that somewhere, out there, we are doing the same things only with slight alterations. In the back of his mind a mantra has been spoken for 15 years: "The world is as soft as lace and hearing your name is better than seeing your face." He is a preacher, a healer, and is available for hire. Send love letters, job offers here.
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