Joyce Oates: Sourland

He overcame her. She was fighting him, whimpering and trying to scream, trying to draw breath to scream but he’d pushed her down, horribly she was on the floor, pushed down helpless and panicked on the floor of her own house, in terror thinking that Anton was trying to strangle her, then it seemed that he was kissing her, or trying to — in panic she jammed her elbows into his chest, his ribs — his mouth came over hers again — his mouth was wet and ravenous and his teeth closed over her lip, in terror she thought that he would bite off her lip, in a kind of manic elation he was murmuring what sounded like You like me! You want this! Grunting with effort he straddled her, his face was flushed with emotion, fury; he brought his knee up between her legs, roughly; their struggle had become purely physical, and desperate, enacted now in near-silence except for their panting breaths. Hadley had no idea what she was doing moving her head from side to side trying to avoid the man’s mouth, his sharp yellow teeth, the smell of his agitated breath, the mouth was like that of a great sea leech sucking at her, sucking at her tongue, the back of her head was being struck against the hardwood floor Oh! — oh — oh as if he wanted to crack her skull, his fingers were poking and jabbing at her between her legs, in a paroxysm of desperation Hadley managed to squirm out from beneath him, like a panicked animal crawling on hands and knees and almost in that instant she believed that she might escape Anton Kruppe except he had only to lunge after her, seize her ankle in his strong fingers, laughing and climbing over her straddling her again more forcibly this time closing his fingers around her neck so now she knew she could not escape, she knew it was certain, she would die. In a choked voice Anton was saying, “You — want me here! You asked for this. You have no right to laugh at me. You and your ‘trustee’ husband…” In the confusion of the moment Hadley had no idea what Anton was saying. Trustee? Her husband had served on an advisory board for the history department at the university, he’d had no association with the molecular biology institute. She could not have explained this, she had not the strength, or the breath; she felt her assailant’s fingers now poking inside her, she cried out in pain and kicked at him squirming beneath him like a creature desperate to escape a predator yet she had time to think almost calmly This can’t be happening. This is wrong. She seemed to see herself in that instant with a strange stillness and detachment as frequently through her marriage when she’d lain with her husband and made love with her husband and her mind had slipped free and all that was physical, visceral, immediate and not-to-be-halted happening to her was at a little distance, though now tasting the wine on Anton’s tongue, the dark-sour-feral wine taste of a man’s mouth like her own, he’d lost patience now and was jamming at her with two fingers, three fingers forced up inside the soft flesh between her legs which Hadley knew was loathed by the man, he was furious with her there, disgusted with her there, his hatred was pure and fiery for her there as she begged him Please don’t hurt me Anton, I want to be your friend Anton I will help you. It wasn’t wine she was tasting but blood — he’d bitten her upper lip — on his feet now looming over her — his work-trousers unzipped, disheveled — his shirt loose, blood-splattered — he’d managed to get to his feet disengaging himself from her — their tangle of limbs, torn clothing, tears, saliva — he staggered away to the front door — stiff-legged as a scarecrow come partway to life — and was gone.

She lay very still. Where he’d left her, she lay with a pounding heart, bathed in sweat and the smell of him, her brain stuck blank, oblivious of her surroundings until after several minutes — it may have been as many as ten or fifteen minutes — she realized that she was alone. It had not quite happened to her as she’d believed it would happen, the crossing-over.

She managed to get to her feet. She was dazed, sobbing. Some time was required, that she could stand without swaying. Leaning against a chair in the hall, touching the walls. In the opened doorway she stood, staring outside. The front walk was dimly illuminated by a crescent moon overhead. Here was a meager light, a near-to-fading light. She saw that the pumpkin-head had fallen from the step, or had been kicked. On its side it was revealed to be part-shattered, you could see that the back of the cranium was missing. Brains had been scooped out but negligently so that seeds remained, bits of pumpkin-gristle. She stepped outside. Her clothing was torn. Her clothing that was both expensive and tasteful had been torn and was splattered with blood. She wiped at her mouth, that was bleeding. She would run back into the house, she would dial 911. She would report an assault. She would summon help. For badly she required help, she knew that Anton Kruppe would return. Certainly he would return. On the front walk she stood staring toward the road. What she could see of the road in the darkness. On the roadway there were headlights. An unmoving vehicle. It was very dark, a winter-dark had come upon them. She called out, “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” Headlights on the roadway, where his vehicle was parked.

Four years old she’d begun to hear in fragments and patches like handfuls of torn clouds the story of the stabbing in Manhattan that was initially her mother’s story.

That morning in March 1980 when Mrs. Karr drove to New York City alone. Took the New Jersey Turnpike to the Holland Tunnel exit, entered lower Manhattan and crossed Hudson and Greenwich Streets and at West Street turned north, her usual route when she visited an aunt who lived in a fortress-like building resembling a granite pueblo dwelling on West Twenty-seventh Street — but just below Fourteenth Street traffic began abruptly to slow — the right lane was blocked by construction — a din of air hammers assailed her ears — vehicles were moving in spasmodic jerks — Madeleine braked her 1974 Volvo narrowly avoiding rear-ending a van braking to a stop directly in front of her — a tin-colored vehicle with a corroded rear bumper and a New York license plate whose raised numerals and letters were just barely discernible through layers of dried mud like a palimpsest. Overhead were clouds like wadded tissues, a sepia glaze to the late-winter urban air and a stink of diesel exhaust and Madeleine Karr whose claim it was that she loved Manhattan felt now a distinct unease in stalled traffic amid a cacophony of horns, the masculine aggressiveness of horns, for several blocks she’d been aware of the tin-colored van jolting ahead of her on West Street, passing on the right, switching lanes, braking at the construction blockade but at once lurching forward as if the driver had carelessly — or deliberately — lifted his foot from the brake pedal and in so doing caused his right front fender to brush against a pedestrian in a windbreaker crossing West Street — crossing at the intersection though at a red light, since traffic was stalled — unwisely then in a fit of temper the pedestrian in the windbreaker struck the fender with the flat of his hand — he was a burly man of above average height — Madeleine heard him shouting but not the words, distinctly — might’ve been Fuck you! or even Fuck you asshole! — immediately then the van driver leapt out of the van and rushed at the pedestrian — Madeleine blinked in astonishment at this display of masculine contention — Madeleine was expecting to see the men fight together clumsily — aghast then to see the van driver wielding what appeared to be a knife with a considerable blade, maybe six — eight — inches long — so quickly this was happening, Madeleine’s brain could not have identified Knife! — trapped behind the steering wheel of the Volvo like a child trapped in a nightmare Madeleine witnessed an event, an action, to which her dazzled brain could not readily have identified as Stabbing! Murder! — in a rage the man with the knife lashed at the now stunned pedestrian in the windbreaker, who hadn’t time to turn away — striking the man on his uplifted arms, striking and tearing the sleeves of the windbreaker, swiping against the man’s face, then in a wicked and seemingly practiced pendulum motion slashing the man’s throat just below his jaw, right to left, left to right causing blood to spring instantaneously into the air — A six-foot arc of blood at least as Madeleine would describe it afterward, horrified — even as the bleeding man kept walking, staggering forward . Never had Madeleine Karr witnessed anything so horrible — never would Madeleine Karr forget this savage attack in the unsparing clarity of a morning in late March — the spectacle of a living man attacked, stabbed, throat slashed before her eyes and what was most astonishing He kept walking — trying to walk — until he fell . The victim wore what appeared to be work clothes — work-boots — he was at least a decade older than his assailant — late thirties, early forties — bare-headed, with steely-gray hair in a crew cut — only seconds before the attack Madeleine had seen the victim visibly seething with indignation — empowered by rage — the sort of rough-hewn man with whom, alone in the city in such circumstances on West Street just below Fourteenth Street, Madeleine Karr would never have dared to lock eyes. Yet now the burly man in the windbreaker was rendered harmless — stricken — sinking to his knees as his assailant leapt back from him — dancer-like, very quick on his feet — though not quick enough (Madeleine had to suppose) to avoid being splattered by his victim’s blood. Fucker! Moth’fukr! — the van driver mouthed words Madeleine couldn’t hear but comprehended. In the righteousness of his fury the driver made no attempt to hide the bloody knife in his hand — in fact he appeared to be brandishing the knife — ran back to his vehicle, climbed inside and slammed shut the door and in virtually the same instant propelled the van forward head-on and lurching — Madeleine heard the protesting shriek of rubber tires against pavement — reckless now the fleeing man aimed the van into a narrow space between another vehicle and the torn-up roadway where construction workers in safety helmets had ceased work to stare — knocking aside a sawhorse, a series of orange traffic cones scattering in the street and bouncing off other vehicles as in a luridly colorful and comic simulation of bowling pins scattered by an immense bowling ball; by this time the stricken man was kneeling on the pavement desperately pressing both hands — these were bare hands, Madeleine could see from a distance of no more than twelve feet — against his ravaged throat in a gesture of childlike poignancy and futility as blood continued to spurt from him Like water from a hose — horrible!