What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Hangs up the phone, quivering with rage. The nerve of that asshole, calling Corky Corcoran up at home, on a Saturday morning, on this Saturday morning, with his crackpot scam! A hot rash spreads up Corky’s throat into his face.

  Yesterday, at the Athletic Club, when that jerk-off was buttonholing him, had anyone noticed?—any of Corky’s fellow Club members?

  Corky plans a series of telephone calls. He’s the kind of guy, even an emergency, or a tragedy like the Plummer death, isn’t such a threat, if he’s got a telephone receiver in his hand.

  Now, this new invention the cordless phone: Corky loves it. Doesn’t have to be restricted to one place, he can walk around, work off nervous energy. These days, talking on an old-fashioned phone, the danger is Corky will start his pacing and yank the plug out of the socket.

  First he skims through the Journal again. Seeing how the front page is designed, unless it’s an accident—four photos and columns of newsprint in a near-symmetrical pattern, the smaller photos of Plummer and Steadman balanced with the lead top-center photo of a military action in Bosnia, “Muslim Slav” forces firing on Sarajevo civilians, and an equally big photo near the bottom of the page, Carolyn Warmus with her attorney after her second trial in White Plains where she’s been found guilty of murdering her lover’s wife. Pathetic-looking woman, a loser. And those dopey bangs covering her forehead.

  So much passion in the world. The trouble people make for one another.

  Just Corky’s luck, he’ll wind up with a bitch like Warmus someday.

  Inside, page twenty, there’s more about that crazy bastard Leroy Nickson. One of those disgusting tabloid-type stories that flare up and everybody’s talking about it for a few days then it disappears and you never hear again. Unless there’s a trial. Corky reads the brief article though he knows he shouldn’t, it just makes him angry, he’s a liberal Democrat and a Cuomo man but, hell, he’d vote for the death penalty to be reinstated, just to put Nickson in the good old electric chair. Lethal injection’s too good for some cocksuckers.

  A good thing, though, politically speaking—Nickson’s white. Everybody can get behind being outraged at him, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, you name it. Not like Sergeant Pickett who Corky sort of thinks might be a fall guy. White cop, racist? Or just scared and jumpy and used poor judgment firing his gun thinking the fleeing kid was drawing a gun to fire at him? Not knowing, how in fuck could you know, in the dark, in the confusion, running on foot into what might be called enemy territory down there on Welland, the kid’s only twelve years old.

  Corky’s depressed thinking about it. The trial’s scheduled now to start in mid-June. With Steadman discredited that takes some of the heat off the Mayor and his men and the UCPD but there’s plenty of trouble ahead. Walking a tightrope it’s called, a no-win situation. Sure to get statewide, maybe national media coverage. After the Rodney King fiasco. Oscar’s been in print and on TV making terse careful statements calling for a “thorough investigation” of the shooting but if you know the code, he means an investigation by the UCPD Firearms Discharge Review Board which is under the auspices of UCPD Internal Affairs and so under the authority of the Chief of Police. So he’s basically tossing it into the D.A.’s lap to figure out how to prosecute. Both the Mayor and the D.A. are elected officials (and Warren Carter’s a Republican moderate—there’s a Union City tradition of Republican D.A.’s) so there’s the common belief that they aren’t connected along lines of influence or patronage, like, for instance, the Police Commissioner is a mayoral appointee, but insiders know the two men are connected. They’re rivals, they might hate each other’s guts, but they’re connected. In ways Corky can only guess at.

  Then there’s the Policemen’s Benevolent Association. Polled at eighty-nine percent behind Pickett. And nobody in Union City wants to fuck with the cops any more than they do in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City. It’s a fact—Corky hates to admit it—nobody except a wild man like Marcus Steadman is willing to say publicly, the cops are a political force in America. Beyond Democrats and Republicans, an actual force like a tornado or a hurricane, you don’t alienate them if you’re a politician. Not just the crooked cops, the graft and corruption you hear about that’s the tip of the iceberg for what you don’t know and for your safety don’t want to know but the rank-and-file union men, the average cop—white male working-class American. Some with high school degrees, some without. In Irish Hill, the guys who liked to play rough became criminals or cops, in high school they’d been interchangeable. If Corky hadn’t gone to St. Thomas, and out of the parochial school system, Christ knows how he’d have ended up. The cooked-up deals he gets involved in, the occasional kickbacks and bribes and fees and tax write-offs that’re part of business at Corcoran, Inc., are white-collar stuff. Even if you get caught, you don’t serve time.

  The last time a mayor of Union City fucked with the UCPD, gave in to pressure in 1971 trying to install a Citizens’ Crime Commission with the power to overrule the Firearms Discharge Review Board, there was a police strike, the next thing to a police riot, right at City Hall. Between three and four thousand uniformed police waving picket signs, yelling and blocking traffic and even stomping on the hoods and roofs of cars, terrifying the citizens. A sight that, if you saw it, as Corky Corcoran did from a fifth-floor window in the Criminal Court Building across the street, you’d never forget. He’d actually been scared, physically scared. Even with his Irish face, his Corcoran name, his reputation around town he’d been scared.

  Thinking of Beck. That look Beck gave him. Trying to figure why Corky Corcoran’s poking his nose around Marilee Plummer’s place when he had no way of knowing something had happened to her. In what way Corky’s connected.

  The first reflex is: send flowers.

  You’re a politician, you’re an elected official, and you are a personal friend: send flowers.

  So Corky’s first call is to his florist, Corky’s got an account there, orders flowers in memory of Marilee Plummer, sent to the funeral home. Listening simultaneously to the five-minute radio news at 10 A.M., no new developments regarding Marilee just a restatement of what Corky already knows, but there’s an angry taped quote from one of Steadman’s aides—“Mr. Steadman in no way knows any single thing of this person killing herself, I repeat Mr. Steadman in no way knows”—then state news, national news, Bush, Quayle, asshole politics, Corky switches off the radio in disgust. He’s got his cordless phone and he’s set up operations in the solarium (the solarium is at the rear of the house, the last of Charlotte’s additions and though Corky resisted initially now it’s his favorite room, beautiful fifteen feet by twenty feet with a brick floor and curved glass overlooking the deep sloping lawn, juniper pine bordering the property and a six-foot wrought-iron spike-topped fence—so Corky feels protected): a pot of instant coffee boiled acid-potent, his frayed pocket address book, his fat home Rolodex, a pad of legal paper and a ballpoint pen and that snapshot of Thalia’s he stole yesterday.

  Stole?—took. Figuring Thalia will never miss it.

  This is the snapshot in which Thalia’s figure is blurred and she’s talking with her unknown male friend in the background, and in the foreground, talk about accident, coincidence—Vic Slattery, George Presson, and Marilee Plummer.

  Marilee’s dressed like a fashion model, one of those classy-hooker types you see in glossy magazines, sexy but smart, hot to look at but cool, playing it cool, a red sheath dress of some slippery material so tight it shows the curve of her buttocks and her big nipples through the fabric, a half dozen gold chains around her beautiful neck and wild sunburst earrings like an African princess, the kind of earrings that look heavy but are in fact feathery-light made of aluminum or tin. Now Corky knows what’s in store for this mysterious young woman he thinks he can see a sign, a hint in her face, that characteristic tension in her neck, almost-angry twist to the mouth, you can’t tell is she laughing with the two middle-aged Caucasian males beside her or is she laughing at them? For sure, with
Corky Corcoran, the bitch had been laughing at him. Two years ago, at least, in the Zephir lounge. He hopes to hell Marilee and Kiki—there were two girls involved—didn’t tell anybody about him making an asshole of himself. Or, if they did, that word didn’t get back to Thalia.

  Next, Corky calls one of his poker-playing buddies Digby Dunne who’s city editor at the Journal, takes him seven minutes to track Dunne down (in his car, on the Turnpike) but Dunne only tells Corky what he already knows, there’s nothing the paper’s holding back except a tip the police got that one of Marcus Steadman’s women friends had been harassing Plummer but the information’s unreliable and to name any names might be libelous so the paper’s holding off. Dunne asks Corky what he’s been hearing and Corky says not a thing.

  Next, Corky calls a WWUC broadcaster who’s a friend, Biff says all kinds of rumors are circulating but nothing substantial, it seems pretty clear Plummer’s death was suicide. Corky says but what about a suicide note, in that case? Biff says he doesn’t know. The cops in this town, if there was a suicide note, the investigating officer might pocket it to deliver to an interested party, that’s been known to happen, or suspected. For blackmail purposes, or to do a friend a favor. Since Plummer was associated with the Slatterys, both Oscar and Vic at different times, and since supposedly she’d gone out with any number of prominent Union City white men, married and unmarried, who knows what a suicide note might have been. And if she’d left a diary, or letters she’d written.

  Biff asks Corky if he’d ever gone out with Plummer. Corky says with a rueful laugh no, he’d never even got close.

  Next, Corky calls a UCPD lieutenant in the Sixth Precinct and asks him what he’s heard, if anything, about the Plummer death but the lieutenant claims not to know anything except what he’s read in the paper or seen on TV like everybody else. Corky can tell the guy’s telling the truth, so passes on to him the tip about the woman friend of Marcus Steadman harassing Marilee Plummer and hearing this the lieutenant curses calling Steadman a familiar epithet. And Corky says there’s a rumor there was a suicide note the police are keeping under wraps, any truth in that?—and the lieutenant says how would he know, he’s in the Sixth Precinct.

  Corky makes a few more calls. It gives him a sense of power making calls, dozens sometimes in a single day from his desk at Corcoran, Inc., or from his desk at Pearl Street, or in his car, or here at home. As many as twenty-five telephone numbers he’s memorized without making any effort, weird photographic memory he’d put to good use in school though it isn’t of much value generally. He’d memorized Christina’s number immediately and has a powerful need to punch it out now but won’t let himself. He just knows how he’d sound calling her anxious and repentant like a dog kicked in the ass Hello Chrissie?—look, I’m sorry. And if he doesn’t say he’s sorry what’s the reason for calling her.

  Fuck Christina. He’s got plenty of other women in reserve.

  There’s a beeping signal when Corky next picks up the receiver meaning a call came in while he was on the line, he’s hoping it’s Christina but when he punches in his code it’s just Charlotte—poor Charlotte, repeating her message from yesterday. Jerome, please call me, I’m so worried, tell me what’s happening, and if you speak with Thalia will you ask her please to call me. There’s more to Charlotte’s message but Corky punches “3” for erase.

  Corky’s secret feeling about most of the women he’s been involved with through his sexually active life: message erased.

  Next, Corky calls his Uncle Sean. Twelve rings, Corky’s about to give up figuring the old man’s out, then the phone’s answered and there’s this strange voice Corky hardly recognizes low and suspicious-sounding, doesn’t even say hello but asks who is this, and Corky identifies himself, and there’s a long pause and Sean asks again who is this, so Corky raises his voice saying it’s Corky your nephew, hey is something wrong Uncle Sean, and finally the old man says Corky? it’s you? so Corky’s embarrassed, it’s been so long since he’s called this man who’d been like a father to him. Corky makes a joke of it but Uncle Sean doesn’t laugh. Corky asks him is today a good day for a visit, is he free to go out to lunch maybe at the Seneca House and how’d he like to visit his aunt Mary Megan at Holy Redeemer. It isn’t clear from the exchange whether Sean knows about Mary Megan’s surgery and just doesn’t want to talk about it, the men in Corky’s family, including Corky, are like that, or whether he’s half-drunk (this early in the day?) or just woozy or getting Alzheimer’s and Corky’s impatient wasting time trying to decipher his uncle’s words, puts it to him like this—“O.K., Uncle Sean, it’s eleven o’clock now how’s about I see you in an hour?” And Sean mumbles what sounds like yes he’s free.

  Next, Corky calls a druggist friend, a betting buddy he sometimes goes with to the track, asks Willy what’s a pill called oxycodone and Willy tells him it’s a powerful painkiller and tranquilizer like Percodan, with a codeine base. Corky asks is it habit-forming and Willy says with that hacking laugh of his that Corky’s grown to dread, it’s so superior and so morbid, “Shit, Corky, that’s a serious question? Anything that kills pain is going to be habit-forming.”

  2

  Romance: October 1989

  Mmmmmmmm! You know what this specimen is, honey?—a sweet ol’ Freckhead, that’s what he is. Ain’ he?”

  “What?—’Freckhead’? Wha’s that?”

  “No, girl, I mean ‘Frecklehead’—ain’ that what I said?”

  “You said ‘Freckhead.’”

  “Say what?”

  “‘Freckhead.’”

  “Nah”—shrieking with laughter, like she’s being tickled, “—I never did! Never did! ‘Freckhead’! Never!”

  They were both teasing him, no mercy, Corky loved it. The gorgeous black girl giving off that ripe yeasty-plum scent, the wild-eyed hot-breathed white girl, one on each side of grinning-drunk Corky Corcoran in the Zephir lounge where somehow they’d wound up, crowded together, arms, legs, thighs, even heads bumping, and Kiki’s hair in Corky’s face, and Marilee’s right breast nudging Corky’s arm, squeezed into one of those red-leather banquettes along the wall. Practically behind the stoned-looking combo playing—is it disco music from another era?—so loud Corky can hardly register the noise as music, only as percussive waves. The three of them, laughing their heads off. Howling with laughter. Corky’s eyes leaking tears, and Marilee’s rich deep-bellied shriek, you could tell that girl’s colored without needing to look, and you could imagine her shrieking like that making love, Oh man Oh lover Oh like that Oh mmmmmmm just like that. And Kiki, even wilder, she’s maybe high on coke, Corky wouldn’t doubt, and maybe Marilee too, along with being wasted, smashed, bombed out of their skulls on alcohol. Kiki’s got a high-pitched girlish giggle, all elbows and hair and rolling-white thyroid eyes, skinny body and pointed breasts inside some cheap-ethnic tunic top, pretty pasty-pale face screwed up like she’s in pain, or near to coming, and her rat-frizzed dyed-copper hair like Brillo wire but Corky’s attracted to her, too, not so powerfully as to Marilee but, yes, to Kiki, too, to both girls, damn right.

  This Playboy fantasy playing in lurid Day-Glo colors in Corky’s head, as in one of those CineMax mall theaters, that these two terrific-looking girls in their mid-twenties are going to make love to Corky Corcoran who’s old enough almost to be their father, yes the pervert’s imagination is careening along at full tilt, he’s practically slavering over them, Marilee Plummer on his left, Kiki what’s-her-name on his right, big shot at the Zephir where they know his name and lavish tips, what the fuck that he’s old enough almost to be the girls’ Daddy, he’s getting to be the age he thought he’d never get to be, you never think you’re going to get to be, old enough that half the world’s young enough to be his daughter, Jesus! What’s a guy supposed to do, chase after females his age?—try to get it up for females his age? Shit, Corky’s out from under that heavy bitch he married not even knowing she was three years older than him, what an asshole Corky Corcoran thinking himself s
o shrewd, such a stud, lucky Charlotte’s a rich man’s daughter and can tell him go fuck, I don’t need alimony from you. So he’s a free man now, legally divorced and free and clear, nobody’s husband, nobody’s step-Daddy needing to feel guilt at another man’s kid regarding him with big tearful eyes when he hasn’t paid sufficient attention to her or slamming her bedroom door when accidentally, really accidentally, he’s happened to glance inside passing by seeing her half in underclothes or bare-assed or just brushing her hair in that whiplash way of hers you’d think would have loosened half the hairs on her head, or coming out of the bathroom glaring at him pouty-mouthed as if knowing (but how could she know?—fuck, she couldn’t) step-Daddy’s going to whack himself off inside, the door safely locked, sniffing the dry-sharp smell of her urine the fan hasn’t quite carried off. Free and clear and living by himself at 33 Summit Avenue in the prestige neighborhood of Maiden Vale, maybe these two beautiful girls would like to come back there for a nightcap? a nightcap or two?—in the meantime he’s celebrating his freedom, American Express Gold Card covering the Zephir tab he’ll be stunned to discover, next month, the fuckers must have padded, overcharged him for drinks and, asshole, he’d encouraged the waitress to calculate her own tip, dumb prick Corky Corcoran, born yesterday, imagining all the world loves you because you love all the world, or pretend you do, yes but right now he does love all the world, his arms around these two great-looking girls, his scotch on the rocks going down smooth as if it’s the first after a long cruel thirst and not, who knows, the fifth or the sixth, God knows. Asking these two boom-boom girls, “What’s happier than a drunk pig wallowing in the muck?” and the girls cry out in unison, “What, Corky?—what is?” and Corky says, exploding in laughter, so that drinkers at the bar glance around quizzical and smiling hoping to get in on the joke, “A drunk Irish pig wallowing in the muck.”