Therapy Notes
Hello, my name is Alice. I was recently appointed a court ordered therapist, and they said that I needed to start writing shit down. Having said that, I will now state the following:
I did not kill or have anything to do with the death of Squancho Gleebus. I was nowhere near Squancho Gleebus before or at the time of his death. I feel remorse for what the Gleebus family has been through during these past few months, but I will not be participating nor will I be assisting those who do participate in the investigation of his demise. Any and all questions from the police, FBI or the Gleebus family should be directed to my employers.
Now, where was I?
Oh, yeah— therapy.
Okay, so several miles east of the
Mississippi, and just a few more into the southern tip of the Appalachians, there’s this small rinky-dink kinda town.
Now, if you go some miles past that town and into the woods, you’ll see a diner.
It’s pretty hard to miss, seeing as it’s right next to the road and looks like it came straight out of a 50s themed movie set.
That, shiny steel wrapped beacon? Yeah, that’s where I work and live. It’s also where all of this shit began.
You see, a few months ago the owners of this fine establishment decided we needed more help. So they did the usual and put out a few help wanted signs, interviewed a few people— the whole shebang. Well, eventually they hired this guy: Squancho.
Despite the name being kinda fucked, he was just like every other part-timer they’d hired on in the past (lasted longer too, if the Elvis calendar behind me is to be trusted). He came in when he was scheduled, left the second his shift ended, did fairly midlan’ at everything else— nothing too out of the ordinary.
When he started getting twitchy and looking like shit, I was fully ready for him to call it quits.
Then after about a week or so, he mellowed out and started coming in smelling like reefer.
Well, it eventually got to the point that he started getting pretty comfortable, and he stopped being so shy about it. And he was pretty much hot boxing his car at the start of every shift. (I’d look out into the parking lot, and no joke—it was like his windows were tinted.) I’m not one to judge, though. Everyone’s got their quirks, and I’d be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t partake in the devil’s lettuce every now and then myself.
I’m getting off topic— what I’m trying to say is Squancho seemed like he was in it for the long haul. But I didn’t exactly make it my point to get to know him, and he wasn’t the first part-time employee we had that smoked weed.
I didn’t count my lucky stars every time he pulled into the parking lot, but we were friendly towards each other and that was about it. I didn’t particularly care when he stopped showing up to work, I’d just assumed he’d finally gotten enough and quit.
It wasn’t until the cops showed up, banging on the side of my van, that I actually started to give a shit. Granted, it wasn’t exactly for Squancho.
A few years back, I almost ended up drowning out by this area we call Mufflers Dam. And according to the EMS, I almost got to see the Good Lord early. Unfortunately, they brought me back to my senses, but I’ve had a whole laundry’s list of issues ever since. I can deal with most of them, but the hallucinations, trouble sleeping, and all that shit are just something I can’t do. A gal can only take so much, after all.
The hallucinations and general weird shit is usually from the lack of sleep, so for a good bit I took some pills and gummies to try and help. But they stopped working, and for a while there, I was downing a bottle almost every time I wanted to keep what’s left of my sanity. And it wasn’t long after that, they just flat out stopped working for me. So I started getting experimental— started mixing them with some stuff to see what worked and what didn’t.
I eventually found something that did it for me. (I’m not gonna say what exactly. Knowing how some of ya’ll are, you’d probably off yourselves trying to recreate it.) It’d knock me out for a good hour or two and it’d keep my mind from getting too screwy.
So I started making bottles of the stuff, premixed so I could get me a swig of it when I needed. And I was keeping them in the van near my bed.
When the cops came barging in to ask about Squancho, they almost immediately clocked my stash, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. So we went through with the old song and dance—They slapped cuffs on me, parked me down in the back of a cruiser, and took off to the chopping block.
And that’s when this whole confusing entanglement truly took off in full.
I got the lovely experience of spending the night in a holding cell with strangers and got to start the new day with the deputies trying to pry a murder confession out of me. It was also, coincidentally, how I found out that Squancho was no longer with us.
Apparently, some kids found what was left of him hung out behind the Wiggle-mart.
(The bouquet would’ve been lovely had it not been held together with people bits and shoved into his chest cavity.)
It took a bit, but I was eventually able to get myself a lawyer after the interrogation. And he was able to keep me from being incarcerated, but now, I have a nice new therapist breathing down my neck.
Which— now that I think about it, and loathe as I am to admit it— they may be right about a few things.
I think I have been projecting on one of the new guys. They just look and seem a lot like Squancho... It’s kinda uncanny. It may be my messed up little mind speaking, but all they’re missing is the weird eagle-solo cup tattoo, and they’d pretty much be him.
I feel a tiny bit bad about it.
Well, that and not realizing anything was off about Squancho’s disappearance, but at the same time, every other part-timer before him headed out and did something similar. (Well, other than that time the tornadoes came through, but that was a different situation all together.) We got their resignation or we didn’t, and we just vibed with what may or may not have happened to them. It’s just the timely occurrence, like having a weird hamster.
I guess it’s just him having stuck around for so long, I got attached…or maybe something like that.
The whole situation kinda sucks, but not nearly as bad as it is for the other new hire.
And, I really don’t want to sound rude or anything, but— I think he may be kinda gay. Or bisexual or something, because this guy’s definitely got the hots for the other newbie.
Almost every time Gleebus’s lookalike enters a room his head immediately turns, and every time he leaves, the guy’s eyes trail after. He’s always checking if he’s in a room or not, and trying to schedule days where they’re together. It’s all honestly kinda sweet to see.
The problem is, the locals haven’t been all that accepting of the poor guy.
We had a few who absolutely refused to order when he was on the grill, and Mr. Janice strait up told him that “his kind” weren’t supposed to be around here.
Which was rich coming from him. Especially when Ms. Tods caught him, just last week, down at the creek “sharing robes” with one of the guys from that religious group out in the woods.
I’d feel bad for Mrs. Janice, what with her husband being a cheating ass and all that, but the bitch is the sole reason we have shit getting into our trash. She keeps feeding the local wildlife, and it’s making them too bold. But she’s always got some excuse—“Oh, that wasn’t me,” or “you have no proof,” and “it’s just birds”— bullshit. She knows what she’s doing. We had a deer ripping trash bags apart last night, and that fucking coyote is pretty much a permanent fixture at this point. (The birds aren’t really that much of a problem anymore, but it is sad when they dive bomb the windows.)
We stopped serving her a while back, and I know Mr. Janice isn’t giving her anything when they visit together, but she still does it.
Other than all of that, I guess the things that’ve really been getting to me is stress.
I found Tomila in the hallway this morning, which fucking sucked, because I had to lug her back to the front. (You wouldn’t think a mannequin would weigh so much, but I guess life is just full of surprises.) And the cash register got jammed because one of the doll heads got stuck in the drawer. So we had to do everything manually for the better part of the day.
I went to get the mail when I took my smoke break, but this freak in a shitty clown mask was standing next to it. So I didn’t get to do that.
But the piesta de resistance, was when Tristian Stringer showed up. Fucker didn’t really do anything, just ordered a coffee and stared down the new guy (the gay one) and left. So that was a lovely little addition to my day.
I kinda hoped he’d crawled off and died after graduation. But he’s back, I guess. Fuck, I hope he’s just passing through. I really don’t want to deal with that psycho while I don’t have my stash fully stocked.
The voices in the drains are getting annoying, now. So I’m gonna try to turn the jukebox on and pray there’s music instead of screams.
– Alice