Joyce Oates - Sourland

Thinking Maybe it isn’t over yet. Not yet.

When I left the library that evening — not with the others but at 6:25 P.M. there was Tyrell waiting at the rear & seeing me approach the door quickly he came forward & pulled the door open as I pushed it & in a lowered voice though there was no one within earshot he said, “Jane, may I carry you? — just to my station wagon let me carry you,” & this time I did not say No.

In his arms I feel airy, guiltless. My arm around his neck, my stump-thighs borne aloft in his embrace. The crutches he leaves behind, leaning against the rear wall of the library. In the car he settles me, buckles me into the seat belt & returns to the crutches & positions them beneath his arms — Tyrell is several inches taller than I am, & so the crutches are short for him — he is clumsy & funny using them — “walking” — he has not the knack of swinging his body, his legs as if they were useless, lifeless. But he is very funny — we are both laughing — breathless & giddy like drunken lovers.

At the station wagon Tyrell shoves the crutches into the backseat with a clatter — he seizes my shoulders, seizes my head, my face framed in his hands & he kisses me — his kisses are hungry, predatory — he begs me to forgive him & exulting in my power which is the most exquisite sexual power I tell the man Yes maybe. This time.

Our naked bodies. The man’s body is heavier & thicker than you would think. His chest is nearly hairless, & the hairs a very pale brown, almost invisible. His man-breasts are flat but the nipples are small & hard as pits. On his back, like an outline of wings, are whorls of hair. At his waist, a ring of excess flesh. With what passion the man licks, kisses, sucks at my thigh-stumps, that end above my knees; very excited, aroused, the man lifts my stumps onto his shoulders & presses his hot hungry face between them. What he does to me with his lips, teeth & tongue is near-unbearable to me, in a delirium I murmur his name, I cry out his name, I am utterly helpless, lost. In orgasm the man is rocked as by a sudden powerful wave yet within minutes he has begun again licking, kissing, sucking at the thigh-stumps Love love love you there is no one like you & there is nothing like this.

It is not true as Tyrell believes, that no man ever carried me in his arms as Tyrell has.

In Atlantic City, this occurred. But only once, when I was new to Barnegat & lonely & reckless one weekend.

The man was a stranger — of course — & the name I gave him was not my true name nor did he know where I lived or how I was employed though I saw in his watering eyes that unmistakable look of sick-helpless love. For without my Step Up! legs I am petite as a child, I weigh so little a man of below average height & strength can lift me & carry me in his arms. & nothing further came of this. So little do I recall, I could not tell you the name of the glittering casino & hotel where we met, in a lounge near the blackjack tables. It was a meeting I entered into of my own volition but with much doubt & distaste & abruptly then I ended it without telling the man, fled from a women’s restroom & back to Barnegat, on the bus.

As I said, he did not know my name. Had he wished to find me, he could not.

He will leave her, he says. His wife.

He speaks bravely, recklessly. You would believe that he speaks sincerely.

He wants to live with me, he says. He loves me, he thinks that we should live together…

His words are stunning to me, unreal. My heart begins to beat quick, hard & erratically. Calmly I say to him — my voice is light, lightly teasing — “You loved her when you married her — you can’t deny that” — & Tyrell protests, “No. I don’t think so” & I say, cruelly, “What do you mean — you ‘don’t think so’ — not only did you marry your wife, you had two children with her. You must love her,” & he says, speaking slowly, grimly, “I was lonely when we met — I was desperate to be ‘normal’ — Courtney was somehow there — she wanted a more permanent relationship & I didn’t want to hurt her — There is so little between us now, only the children, household matters, problems — the minutiae of life. Nothing like what I feel for you. Nothing like what binds us together. Courtney is a good decent woman & of so little interest to me, I have difficulty listening to her — her flat whining hurt voice — even when we were newly married we didn’t ‘have sex’ often — & never, now — we’ve become old people — prematurely old — only the children & the household keep us together — a kind of adhesive — adhesive tape, soiled & frayed — we’re like people of the 1950s — that feels like us, when you see a movie of that era, or photographs — the men wearing hats, fedoras — the men so determined to be mature — the women wearing hats, gloves — stockings — ‘girdles’ — the photography in black & white, not color. What infuriates me is how Courtney complains of me, to the children — she speaks of me in the third person to them, so that I can overhear — she says, ‘Does Daddy love us? Daddy never tells us that he loves us’ — ” his voice going shrill, mocking; a voice of such masculine derision, for a moment I am silenced; for a moment pricked with guilt, sympathy for the contemptible unloved female.

Then recovering I say, in my lightly teasing voice, “So — what do you tell this poor woman?” & Tyrell says, “I tell her — ‘Courtney, why should that matter? Why the hell should that matter so much?’”

He pauses, breathing quickly. In his eyes a look of utter exasperation, righteousness.

“It only proves that I was living a mistake, Jane. It proves that I don’t know why I did anything before I met you.”

Courtney! The name makes me smile, in scorn. A pretentious name, for a plain dull unloved woman.

After lovemaking that exhausts us, strains our hearts & chafes our skin — my most sensitive skin, the insides of my stump-thighs, & the soft pale cottony flesh of my breasts — sinking then into sleep, open-mouthed, quivering. The man breathes heavily, deeply — his face close up appears contorted — his forehead creased & lines in his cheeks like erosion in earth — his skin is a rough hot parchment-like skin — clammy with sweat, exuding a sharp pungent smell — by degrees I feel myself weakening I don’t want to love this man, I am not able to love any man . Still awkwardly my thigh-stumps are spread & fitted to the man’s thighs, & his arms around me are still tight, uncomfortably tight, as he sinks into a jagged twitchy sleep where I can’t follow except the love that passes between us — I think it is love — as in a single thrumming artery — whose thought is We are twins. In our souls. We are joined together at the heart.

In the morning, he was gone.

Very early in the morning, before dawn. While I lay dazed & groggy in sleep & he lowered his weight onto the bed beside me, stroking my hair, my naked shoulders & back saying he has to leave & he will call me — he will see me that evening — he will try to see me — there is so much happening in his life, a series of crises — “You are the central crisis of my life, Jane! — but you are not the only crisis” — & on his strong legs he goes away & for an hour or more I lie unmoving like a child trapped in a wreck — waiting to determine Am I alive? Or — am I dead? Rousing myself then & reaching for my Step Up! legs & my crutches & maneuvering myself into the day & at Barnegat library there is Jane Erdley reliable & professional as usual — in a lime-green velvet vintage dress, with a tinkling glass-bead necklace — her Step Up! legs stylishly encased in ivory eyelet stockings & her demure plastic feet in black patent leather Mary Janes. Yet sternly instructing myself through this long day — as for much of my life following the accident when drunk-Daddy fell asleep at the wheel — Look, Jane: you are alone. You will always be alone. No one will love you, & no one will desire you. And if there is love, & desire, it will be a sickness in the other, that will revolt you.