Joyce Oates - Sourland

For the first several months of my employment at Barnegat I rode with one of the other librarians, who also lives on Shore Island, three miles to the north. Until one day it became abundantly clear that this woman was too curious about me. Too interested in me. So now I take the shore bus. Now I ride with predominately dark-skinned commuters — African-American, Hispanic — most of them nannies, cleaning women & day-laborers of various kinds. This is something of a scandal at the library — something of which my co-workers speak ruefully behind my back — Why won’t Jane let us help her? If only Jane would let us help her! To their faces I am not at all unfriendly; in fact I’m very friendly, when I wish. But the bus stop is less than a block from the library. The trip itself is less than three miles, from my (rented) apartment (duplex, ground-floor) on Shore Island to Barnegat; if you continue south from Barnegat it’s another three miles to Lake View, & so along the Jersey shore — densely populated in the summer, sparsely populated in the winter — forty-three miles to Atlantic City.

Yes I’ve taken the bus to Atlantic City since moving to the Jersey shore.

Yes I’ve gone alone.

My family disapproves of course. My mother in particular who is anxious & angry about her cripple-daughter of course.

Why on earth would you take public transportation when you could ride with a friend, she asks.

Not a friend, I tell her. A co-worker.

A co-worker, then! But why live alone on the Jersey shore when you could live in Highland Park, with us.

(Highland Park is a very nice middle-class suburb of New Brunswick not far from the sprawling campus of Rutgers University where my father teaches engineering.)

Because I do what I want to do. And not what you want me to do.

My mother & I are not close. And so I would not tell her how fascinated I am by others’ fascination with me. How I love the eyes of strangers moving onto me startled, shocked — by chance, at first — then with deliberation — making of me an object of sympathy, or pity; an object of revulsion. Love making you feel guilty for having two normal legs, feet. For being abled, not disabled. Staring at my face fixing your eyes on my eyes to indicate how pointedly you are not looking away nor are you glancing down at my lower body to see what is missing in me that makes me irremediably different from you who are whole & blessed of God.

Now at the rear of the darkened library he’s waiting.

In the parking lot, near Library Staff Parking Only — he’s waiting.

Later he will say I tried to go away. But I couldn’t.

He will say Do you know why, Jane? Why I couldn’t go away?

By 6:20 P.M. the parking lot behind the library is empty except for a single vehicle, a station wagon, which must be his. In no hurry I have prepared to leave. For I know he’ll be there: already between us the bond is established, should I wish to acknowledge it.

Like an actress preparing to step out onto a stage & uncertain of the script — uncertain what will be said to her. By this time the sky has darkened. The clouds are thickening. There is a wan melancholy beauty remaining in the sky in the heavy massed clouds like a watercolor wash of Winslow Homer, shading into night & oblivion. On the pavement are swaths of snow pockmarked with the grime of the long Jersey winter but at this hour, imperfections are scarcely visible. I am wearing a long military-looking dark wool coat swinging loose & unbuttoned — a chic, expensive designer coat purchased at an after-Christmas sale at the East Shore Mall — my face is stony & composed & in fact I am very uneasy — I am very excited — pushing open the rear door that bears on the outside the admonition No Admittance — Library Staff Only — & at once the man in the herringbone coat steps forward to take hold of the door & pull it farther open, as if I required assistance. In a thrilled voice saying, “May I help you, Ms. Erdley? Let me get this door.”

“Thank you — but no. I can manage the door myself.”

“Then — let me carry this bag for you.”

“No. I can carry this bag myself.”

On my crutches I’m strong, capable — swinging my Step Up! legs like a girl-athlete in a gym. On my crutches I exude an air of such headlong & relentless competence, your instinct would be to jump out of my way.

No I tell him. And again No . Almost I’m laughing — the sound of my laughter is startling, high-pitched — a laughter like breaking glass — it’s astonishing to me, this sudden sexual boldness in the man in the tweed coat & white shirt who’d been so polite, earnest & proper, inside the library. No one is close by — no one is a witness — he can loom over me, taller than I am by several inches — he can coerce me with his height & the authority of his maleness. Very deliberately & tenderly he appropriates my leather bag — slips the strap from my shoulder and onto his own.

“Yes. This is very heavy. I can carry this.”

I can’t tug at the shoulder bag — I don’t want to get into a struggle with the man. We’re walking together awkwardly — as if neither of us has a sure footing — the sidewalk is wet, icy — my crutches are impediments, obstacles — my crutches are weapons, of a kind, & make me laugh, so ugly & clumsy & this man isn’t sure how to appropriate me, armed as I am with both crutches & prosthetic lower limbs that clearly fascinate him even as they frighten him — I can’t help but laugh at the situation, & at him — he’s trying to laugh, too — but agitated, embarrassed — daring to grip my arm at the elbow as if to steady me.

“Ms. Erdley — maybe I should carry you? This pavement is all ice…”

“No. You can’t carry me.”

“Yes. I think I should.”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Where is your car?”

“I don’t have a car.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“I said no. Now leave me alone, please.”

“But — how are you getting home?”

“How do you know I’m going home?”

“Wherever you’re going, then — how will you get there?”

“The way I got here.”

“Ms. Erdley — how is that?”

“I think that’s my business.”

“Just tell me — how? You’re not walking home, are you?”

“And what if I am?”

“Well — are you?”

“No. I am not walking home.”

“Then — where are you going?”

“I’m taking the bus.”

“The bus! No — I’ll drive you.”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I’ll drive you.”

How we meet, people like us.

He tells me his name: Tyrell Beckmann.

He knows my name: Jane Erdley.

He was born in Barnegat Sound, thirty-seven years ago this month. Moved away for all of his adult life & just recently moved back for “family & business reasons.”

He has a wife, two young daughters.

Matter-of-factly enunciating Wife, two young daughters in the stoic way of one acknowledging an act of God.

A miracle. Or a natural disaster.

Solemnly he confides in me: “After my father died last fall the family put pressure on me to return to Barnegat — to work with my brothers in the family business — ‘Beckmann & Sons’ — I’d rather not discuss it, Jane! In February I enrolled in a computer course at the community college — anything that’s unknown to me, I’m drawn to like a magnet. Also it’s a good excuse for getting out of the house in the evening. Until I came into the library. Until I saw you.”

His breath is steaming in the cold air. Shrewdly he has shifted the heavy shoulder bag to his right side so that I can’t tug it away from him, & he can walk close beside me unimpeded.