Joyce Oates - Sourland

“Don’t cry! No need to cry, now.”

The little girl’s eyes were cobalt-blue, very dark; her face was narrow, a sort of feral face, with a look of being hurt, wounded; there was something just discernibly deformed about her. She’d wetted herself, a strong odor of ammonia lifted from her soiled clothing. Yet Adrienne hugged her, Adrienne kissed the chilled little face, murmuring words of comfort. Adrienne thought This is our only purpose on earth: to give comfort to others.

The thought was immensely satisfying to Adrienne. She felt her heart swell with warmth, well-being.

In the crude paper slippers, that were already soaked through, and tattered, Adrienne carried the little girl to her car, which was on the far side of the lot. Her stocking feet were freezing but her face was feverish. Happily she whispered to the little girl — she would take care of her, she promised not to turn her over to police, or to welfare — “You can come home with me, Lilith! You will be safe with me. No one will know.”

The panicked child bit Adrienne’s hand — fortunately her teeth were tiny milk teeth, not strong enough or sharp enough to break Adrienne’s skin. Adrienne was shocked but managed to laugh. “Lilith! I’m not your mommy. You have no reason to be frightened of me.”

At her car, which was a new-model Acura her husband had bought less than six months before, Adrienne saw that something unfortunate had happened. A heavy ridge of earth — chunks of broken concrete, ice, and soil — had been plowed against her front wheels, no doubt by one of the earthmoving machines that had been grunting and grinding in the parking lot when she’d arrived. What bad luck, and at such a time! Adrienne had to set the fretting child inside her car, in the passenger’s seat, and for several desperate minutes kick, claw, and swipe at the dirt, to free the wheels — “God help me. Oh God — help me. ” Her hands were filthy, the front of her coat, her legs — she was laughing, and she was crying — it might have been God who gave her the idea to drag a plank over to her car, and insert it behind the left front wheel, on a patch of ice, to provide traction.

“This will do it, Lilith! Let’s try.”

Under a New Jersey statute one was obliged to carry a small child in a child-seat in the rear of a vehicle, not in the passenger’s seat, but Adrienne had no choice except to buckle Lilith in the front seat beside her, as best she could in the oversized belt. “Please don’t cry! You’re safe with me — I promise.” By this time all floors of the courthouse had gone dark.

By a miracle the motor flared into life. Calmly and deliberately despite her desperation to escape Adrienne maneuvered the Acura out of the lot. No police vehicles on the street! No one was following her! The nighttime city appeared to be less frantic than the daytime city and in a maze of one-way and dead-end streets Adrienne worked her way gradually back to Route 1 which would bear her north and out of accursed Trenton.

“We’re safe, Lilith! Almost safe. Please don’t cry, darling.”

Darling. The word was immensely soothing, familiar somehow. It was not a word available to everyone.

On northbound Route 1 sleet rained from the sky. Tiny bits of ice hammered against the hood and roof of the white Acura. Adrienne’s headlights were on bright but she had difficulty seeing the highway. Blindly she drove, happily — she was thinking of how when they were safely home she would give the child a much-needed bath — a hot soaking sudsy bath — she would shampoo the child’s fine, fair hair, and comb it free of snarls — she would dry the child in her largest bath towel, in her arms — she would feed the starving child, and herself. She could prepare a thick delicious tomato soup — scrambled eggs — oatmeal? Oatmeal with raisins and honey. Or she would save the oatmeal with raisins for morning. She would spoon food into the child’s mouth and put the child to bed in the rarely used bed in her guest room. She would sing the child to sleep if the child continued to fret. She would sit by the child’s bedside through the night, to protect her. For there was the child’s cruel mother, and there was the child’s cruel father, from whom the child must be protected. And in the morning all that was confusing would become clear, she knew. She had faith.

Must’ve been a time of contagion somehow he’d picked up like hepatitis C this morbid fear of dying young and his “organs” being “harvested” rib cage opened up, pried open with giant jaws you’d hear the cracking of the bones deftly with surgical instruments the organs spooned out blood vessels, nerves “snipped” and “tied” your organs packed in dry ice, in waterproof containers to be carried by messenger to the “donor recipient” this sick-slipping-helpless sensation in his gut like skidding his car, his parents’ new Audi they’d trusted him with, on black ice approaching the Tappan Zee Bridge deep in the gut, a knowledge of the futility of all human wishes, volition This is it, you are fucked Only twenty-three years old not old no reason to worry about the future, his mom can worry for him moms are experts at worrying, moms are most useful at worrying yet moms should be shielded from knowing too much about their sons moms should be protected otherwise you feel guilt sick-guilt, like sick-worry about dying young he wasn’t worried really, it’s just his mind maybe there’s a tapeworm burrowed into his brain it’s not normal to be aware of your “organs” wakened in the night when he finally gets to sleep by the rude thump! thump ! of his heart dazed thinking someone was in bed with him? was it B., she’d just slipped from bed to use the bathroom and would be back stumbling in the dark, giggling and collapsing on top of him the narrow sunk-mattress bed with smelly sheets of his college dorm room in Mackie Hall but no, can’t be, Jason has graduated, all that’s gone once his brain is fully awake he has no trouble comprehending he’s in his own bed, in his own home he’s safe here Only twenty-three yet he has become obsessed knows people his age who’ve already died that is, already he knows people his age who’ve died “head-on collision” “by his own hand” (gun) “mountain-hiking fall” (Ecuador) “drug overdose” it is morbid to dwell on such things but really he’s kind of anxious so much time to think naturally, you become anxious maybe there is a tapeworm in his brain (can’t suggest this to Mom, Mom would freak) at the same time he’s capable of discussing the issue openly and easily with people, with friends, as he’d done in his ethics class, saying what you’d expect an intelligent person to say Sure I’d want to donate my organs my eyes to some other person in need Greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends he believes this, kind of he is a Christian, kind of being an “organ donor” doesn’t mean that you die for that purpose but that after you die your “organs” are “harvested” this is a crucial distinction this makes him anxious you start off in a car, never return alive and your organs shunted off to be planted in strangers, your eyes inserted in the eye sockets of a stranger, no wonder he can’t sleep she’d twined her thin arms around his neck, mashed her hot yearning face in his neck half the time he hadn’t known what the hell was she serious? was she joking? it was some other guy she loved, not him? or was it him ? he doesn’t sleep with any of them now it’s been seven, eight months living in his mom’s family house in Rye, New York avoid people easier to avoid in August, they’ll be on Nantucket yet he’s eager to contact his friends each morning waking frantic to make contact with as many of his friends as he can as if in the night might’ve lost someone has been lost to someone checks his e-mail immediately before even rinsing his putrid mouth, washing his face that’s a clay mask dried and shrunken his cell phone he’s frantic to call his friends mostly guys from his eating club, and a scattering of girls not so much to talk with them, within a few seconds of starting a conversation he’s ready to break it off, just to see are they there are they still there as he is still here It makes him laugh to think how there’s a final message that will be enshrined, sort of Jason’s last e-mail! next thing I hear he’s dead his friends calling one another, excited flurry of e-mails and attachments, text-messages his friends thrilled, breathless he will be pried out of the wreckage by the “Jaws of Life” he will feel his chest being pried open the rib cage must be cracked like breaking apart a roasted chicken the first organ to be “harvested” is the heart only a few hours after brain death this organ begins to deteriorate dry ice, an airtight container sometimes by messenger carried on airplanes eyes without lids, very carefully wrapped in sleep mode, unseeing optic nerves and blood vessels snipped, tied this is microsurgery he’s laughing this is truly so weird nobody seems to acknowledge how weird how alone he is, in this knowledge can’t say to Mom you are so fucking afraid of dying, it might be better to die and get it over with senior year he’d had lots of friends B. was not Jason’s closest friend B. belonged to Jason’s eating club, they’d taken a popular bio-ethics course together he’d hooked up with B. a few times during their senior year haphazard and casual by mutual consent (he was certain!)