What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Corky is tearing so frantically at the thing, Marilee Plummer grabs his hand to prevent him from ripping his very ear off—“Oh, oh! Corky, no!” It’s the most sincere she’s been all evening but Corky isn’t in a mood to notice. The Zephir manager, who knows Corky Corcoran, or in any case knows him as an occasional free-spending patron of the Zephir, hurries over to see what the problem is, and to restrain Corky who’s on his feet staggering blindly and cursing, “Fuck it get this fucking thing off, this is no joke!”—to the astonishment of other patrons, and the surprise of the combo. The Lou Reed imitator actually pauses, frazzled hair like a wig, wasted eyes staring. Kiki is crying, “Oh I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh dear!”—but spoils the effect by bursting into laughter and having to hide her face, and Marilee scolds, “Girl! Come on! This is no joke!” but Marilee too is biting her lips to keep from laughing. By this time Corky’s a man so driven by pain, fury, humiliation, he pushes these cruel girls aside, makes his way blindly out of the lounge hoping to hell among these gaping bemused patrons there’s nobody who knows him. He’s walking hunched over as an elderly man fearing total ignominious collapse, his face dead-white and even his freckles bleached out, cheeks glistening with tears as voices call after him—“Corky!—Corky!”—but Corky pays no heed, Corky’s through with mock sympathy, mock solicitude, he’s too distracted by his inflamed ear, the wild throbbing heartbeat in his ear loud as the combo’s drumbeat, refuses aid from the Zephir manager who with a straight face offers to get a pliers, or maybe a screwdriver would be better to force the clamp off the ear, Corky says, “Get away! Go to hell! Leave me alone!” clutching at his dignity as a man might clutch at a threadbare towel to cover his nakedness in the eyes of strangers. And then he’s outside. Reeling, swaying like a drunk except he’s stone cold sober his knees turned to water and suddenly he’s puking out his guts in the parking lot, in no condition to drive himself to the hospital so he limps up the street to a taxi stand and falls into a taxi asking the driver please to take him fast to Union City General Hospital (which is about two miles away) insisting he isn’t having a heart attack, he isn’t going to die in the back of the taxi, the driver smells vomit and has possibly seen the flash of the fucking thing on Corky’s ear though Corky’s trying his best to hide it, yet not too conspicuously, with his right hand.

  And hurrying, limping, head ducked, into the emergency room entrance at Union City General, rushing into bright lights and that unmistakable hospital-disinfectant smell, teeth gritted against the pain in his ear that seems now a virtual blossom of pain, an irradiated tree of pain, Corky’s vision blurred as if underwater yet seeing with humiliating clarity the curious, bemused glances of strangers, thank God they are strangers, no one here seems to know who Corky is. Nor does the name “Jerome Andrew Corcoran” mean anything to the middle-aged nurse-receptionist on duty at the busy hour of eleven P.M. of a Friday in downtown Union City, the woman maintains a deadpan sort of sympathy, Corky stammers explaining the accident, he knows it’s trivial but it hurts like hell. A woman friend put the earring on him, and it won’t come off.

  And then a wait, a wait of how many minutes?—many. The waiting room’s already filled when Corky hobbles in, a groaning young man bleeding through a roll of gauze wrapped around his head is carried hurriedly by on a stretcher, Corky’s embarrassed of his own problem and spends the ninety minutes pacing and prowling about in the outer lobby, in adjacent corridors, he avoids others’ eyes, he shrinks and skulks and ducks around corners, in a men’s lavatory he stares astonished at his face that’s pale, yet mottled, flushed, freckles standing out in comical relief like raindrops tinged with dirt, sweet ol’ Frecklehead, Fuckhead, Corky Corcoran. He fills a sink with water as cold as he can get it, dunks his head in it, his red-swollen right ear and that side of his face, teeth chattering, and again desperately and clumsily he tries to work the clamp loose, tries to slide it up, down, considers for a moment actually ripping this part of his ear off, but the pain is so intense he loses his balance, slips, strikes his head hard against the the side of the porcelain sink, almost knocks himself out.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck it!”

  Not until 12:34 A.M. is Jerome Andrew Corcoran’s name called and at last he’s led, weak, into an examining room, trying not to wince with pain and even to assume a measure of dignity as a tall lanky bespectacled black intern, young kid no more than twenty-five or -six, examines the afflicted ear, tugs experimentally at the clamp, maintaining an air of professional decorum no matter what he’s thinking, “Hurts, huh? Wow, the earlobe’s swollen.” Corky has to bite his lip to keep from screaming. The intern insists then he lie down on an examining table, try to relax, important to relax, mister, and he and a young Asian nurse work at loosening the clamp, you’d think they might get it off within seconds but in fact it takes minutes as Corky lies with his eyes tight shut leaking tears as what he imagines are surgical instruments are applied to the clamp. By this time Corky’s ear has swollen to twice its normal size in reverse proportion to his cock which has shrunk to half its normal detumescent size and the pain has become abstract, not an extraneous and accidental factor in his life but a defining element in that life—This is the price you have to pay for being Corky Corcoran. And suddenly, the clamp is off.

  Corky sits up slowly, tentatively. Red-eyed and sniffing. He tries to smile, does in fact smile—“Thanks! I can’t tell you how much!” The black jivy intern, the pretty Asian nurse joke with their patient now, treat the injured ear with a smarting disinfectant, damned thing still hurts like hell and feels like it’s balloon-sized and shredded like raw meat but Corky’s anxious to show he’s O.K. now, he’s a good sport, his thanks are profuse, he isn’t drunk now but indeed stone cold sober yet he sounds a little drunk, giddy, his voice loud, saying to the intern, “Well, Doctor, I bet you’ve never had to remove one of these God-damned things from anybody’s ear before,” and the intern says with a grin, “In fact, mister, we remove ’em all the time, from all parts of the body, y’know? It’s like an epidemic out there, all kinds of kinky-funky goings-on.” And he and the pretty Asian nurse dissolve in laughter Corky hopes isn’t edged with cruelty. Corky hopes isn’t at his expense.

  As Corky prepares to leave the examining cubicle the intern asks him, “Hmmm mister, don’t you want your earring?” with a curly smile holding the twisted chunk of metal in the palm of his hand, fucking thing isn’t gold or platinum just some cheaply glittering crap metal now bent nearly flat, hard to comprehend how it could have caused such agony in a grown man. Corky’s smiling, Corky’s a guy who can take a joke, except suddenly he slaps the black kid’s hand and sends the clamp flying—“Don’t fuck with me! Just send me the bill!”—charging blind out of the emergency room and out of the God-damned hospital, ol’ Freckhead’s had enough for one night.

  3

  “Down to the Morgue”

  Why the hell not?—I’m on the City Council.”

  Headed south on Decatur on his way to visit his Uncle Sean when the idea hits Corky, excites him. Why not? The city morgue, Twelfth and Huron. He’ll be passing it in five minutes.

  Only 11:43 A.M.—for once Corky’s running on time. So impulsively he swings onto Meridian, takes it to Twelfth which is one-way, a favorite route of his. Three moderately fast lanes and no repair work right now and traffic lights timed if you know how to pace them which Corky does, he takes the route so often. Sure, why not, the Union City Morgue. See what’s being said about the Plummer suicide.

  Corky knows the chief medical examiner, Brophy. Not well, but a poker contact. Weird guy, you have to hand it to these characters, they get along with dead bodies and death, build their professional careers on corpses. Got to be sick! Still, who else wants to do shit like that?—no normal guy. For sure, not Corky Corcoran.

  Also that jerk-off what’s-his-name, Wickler, Wexler, head pathologist, a protégé of Brophy’s. Another contact.

  Corky’s driving on Twelfth bulling his way into the right lane for his turn, crowding
out some black dude in a shit-eater Olds 88, Corky’s trick is to crowd in not seeming to notice what he’s doing all innocent like the guy’s in his blind spot—which maybe he is—then if there’s resistance he glances over startled and apologetic, lifting his hand to signal Hey man, Christ, I’m sorry!

  Works every time. Or almost. The black dude glares his eyes at hot-shit whitey in the Caddy, but there’s respect for the Caddy, and this is whitey’s turf, so fuck it, no sweat. It’s what you live for, Corky’s thinking, hitting his brakes to make the turn, moments like this. Quicksilver—then gone.

  Like that last trifecta sweep he won. Harness race out of Chicago. Twenty-six thousand, five hundred clear on an eight-hundred-dollar bet, owed it to some guy he scarcely knew and hadn’t in fact liked the looks of, or maybe the guy had halitosis, beefy cigar-smoker, and they’re at Bobby Ray’s Sports Bar one night and Corky’s buying drinks to counteract his pissed-out mood and this guy Larry, or Louie, gets to bullshitting with him and there’s the moment, it’s always just a moment, a single nanosecond Ping! and you know you’re a brother of the other guy and he knows it. So this Larry, or Louie, leans over to Corky Corcoran and drops certain loaded information into Corky’s lap.

  “Just keep it to yourself, paddy, who told you. Eh?”

  Corky laughed. Hadn’t been called “paddy” in years. Sure, he’d keep it to himself, he’s not the kind of gambler shoots his mouth off around town. Clearing $26,500 on $800, a sweet deal.

  Saturday mornings, especially a holiday weekend, no normal citizen will be found in the office, but these morgue men, top guys who got to the top because they’re compulsive about their work, might just possibly be in.

  Also, Memorial Day weekend’s one of the big American weekends, if you’re in the Death business.

  Driving, Corky catches some spot news, WWTQ between blasts of teenaged rock, update on the Plummer suicide except not much new—no suicide note yet reported, a stepsister in Lackawanna blames the media for Marilee’s death, the curator for the historical museum where she worked is quoted saying Ms. Plummer though new to his staff since last September was one of his “most valuable” “most imaginative” assistants.

  Corky wonders was the job at the county museum a patronage job.

  Not that Marilee Plummer, smart and ambitious as she was, needed or could have wanted a no-show job. Still, Corky makes a mental note to ask around. Just curiosity.

  After the incident with the earring Corky might’ve called Marilee once or twice, can’t remember or doesn’t care to remember but in any case nothing came of it though when they encountered each other around town she behaved respectfully to him at least to his face not laughing at him nor making any playful reference to ol’ Frecklehead as he’d feared she might. The one thing a man’s terrified of, is a good-looking woman laughing at him.

  Too smart for that, ambitious career girl careful in her dealings with influential men; aware of and respectful of a Caucasian male with Jerome A. Corcoran’s connections. For a young woman on the periphery of power that’s ninety-nine percent male power understands she’s got only one really negotiable asset and that’s her reputation. Smart, good at her job, good-looking, sexy—all that’s assumed. But her reputation for being loyal, trustworthy, respectful to important men—that’s her real ticket.

  Cunt power doesn’t exist. It’s only granted by men. And that provisionally—to be revoked at any time.

  Corky’s feeling good making every traffic light on Twelfth, fact is he’s happiest in his car, in motion. Once away from his house he can breathe. Like a cement sky opening up and in fact as Corky emerges from a railroad underpass at Market Street the sky actually opens up, heavy soiled-looking cloud surface breaking into chunks like massive boulders, rock-faces illuminated by sunlight so Corky stares upward. There’s life on Earth, and a life in the sky. Could you love there you’d be happy. Great crevices of icy blue beyond. Blue without end. Corky’s heart lifts like a lover’s.

  Chrissie?—it’s me.

  You know I love you. I’m sorry.

  Suddenly Corky knows: Christina Kavanaugh is going to be his wife.

  How does Corky know, he just knows. Instinct. Logic. She’s dying to have his kid. Loves him because he makes her laugh, he’s a real man seeming not to be living in his head but living through his body like his soul is his body and she’s a woman to appreciate that. Loves his cock, too. And this thing about Harry Kavanaugh, this shocker—Corky’s seeing how it will turn out for the best. Sure. For, now, Christina will have to choose between Harry Kavanaugh her dying husband and Corky Corcoran who’s so fucking alive and what choice for any normal woman is that?

  Corky first glimpsed Christina at a party in Edgewater, some millionaire-philanthropist’s house fourteen years ago and he was married at the time but as soon as he saw Christina Kavanaugh he knew she was the one—though pregnant. First he’d seen the watermelon-belly, and then the face. Sighted her, and stared. A damned good-looking woman, self-possessed, intelligent mouth and eyes and eyebrows dark enough and thick enough to appear unplucked, and she was wearing white, a sort of quilted raw-silk fabric, and a white rose in her hair, how glossily black her hair, Corky Corcoran drew a deep breath and just stared. Rude mick, a few drinks under his belt and Charlotte had to keep an eye on him but Charlotte was elsewhere and Corky fell in love like a magician had snapped his fingers She’s the one.

  Recognizing too she’s one of the Burnsides, a name meaning not just money but class. The Burnsides were wealthy landowners in the Lakeport settlement of Union City at a time in history when the Corcorans of County Kerry, Ireland, might’ve been living in caves, God knows swinging from trees. Burnside an early governor of New York State, somebody else a general, War of 1812. All this flashing through Corky’s head as, seeing him, his rude stare, and then not seeing him, coolly looking through him, the woman whose actual name Corky didn’t yet know passed by him bearing her enormous belly like a trophy ignoring his expression of dazed adoration. And he’d thought, in her wake, feeling faint, but pissed too, nobody snubs Corky Corcoran.

  And so it’s turned out. And this way too he’ll be revenged on Federal Court Justice Harry Kavanaugh, another old-money high-class name. That irritation Corky like ninety-nine percent of the American population feels when you drive up and see the parking space is reserved for some cripple in a wheelchair and these parking spaces are always empty God damn it so you have to park a half-mile away, this irritation Corky feels for Harry Kavanaugh whose wife he’s going to take from him. No mercy no pity. Fuck pity. No more shit on their shoes for Corky Corcoran whose prick at least is in working order.

  Down to the morgue.

  Two kinds of families in the world: those who don’t have any idea what down to the morgue means, and those who do.

  The weatherworn buff-stucco building at Twelfth and Huron, attached to the rear of Union City General Hospital, a quarter-mile from the Union City Police headquarters—high-density siren zone. Ambulances, police vehicles, constant traffic. Except the morgue faces Huron, a bleak neighborhood of discount furniture stores and used-car dealers and Day-Glo defaced fences and sidewalks. The old Loblaw’s Grocery renamed Huron Fresh Foods Market (Korean) and the old Ace’s Keyboard Lounge renamed Club Zanzibar (black) and the old Fox Theatre (long empty). Since the fires of summer 1967 and the sporadic riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, much of the black inner-city neighborhood looks like a war zone, bordering the hospital-UCPD sector. Fitting, the morgue should be here.

  Corky can’t help shivering. Old memories stirred. Many a blood relative—Corcoran, Donnelly, Dowd, Farley—made this trip over the decades. Called down to the morgue to identify a corpse.

  Some years ago, when Sean Corcoran was drinking his heaviest, Corky was in perpetual dread of being called down to identify his uncle, found dead in the street and his wallet gone. In fact he’d had to identify his great-uncle Hock Corcoran, about six years ago, and that was bad enough: a call came fr
om Hock’s daughter, herself a woman in her fifties, a woman who still looks through Corky at family gatherings judging him a sinner for having married a divorced woman, pleading with him to go down to the morgue in her place to make the identification, choked fury and shame even in her grief over the phone and Corky’d said O.K., what the hell. Somebody had to do it. Hock Corcoran, old drunk, flat-out brain-rotted rummy with a chronic habit of running away from home and turning up by the docks, or in Chambers Park that’s the city’s gathering place for people like himself. Hock’s brain was long pickled in alcohol so he was rarely, at his most eloquent, able to grunt out a coherent statement, but the old bugger had a will of iron, knew what he wanted—which was to roam the slummy downtown by the docks, beg for quarters, maintain his red-wine coma, sleeping where he happened to pass out. And this for years. Years!

  The weird thing about alcoholics is, they keep going. The human organism’s tough as a cockroach.

  Once, hauling the old bugger home from St. Anthony’s Mission on Front Street, Corky actually had to stop his car and get out and puke, Hock stunk so powerfully—the profound stink, beyond the stink even of skunk, of a man who has not washed his body or changed his clothes in weeks and has in fact pissed his clothes, and worse. Poor Corky! His car at the time was a sporty red Corvette. He’d had to get rid of it soon afterward.

  And when he’d identified Hock, he’d been as brisk and businesslike as possible. As soon as the morgue attendant drew back the sheet from the dead man’s face, Corky muttered, “Right! That’s my man.” Not requiring more than an instant’s glance through slitted eyes to see that the bloated-battered flamey face was a Corcoran face, no mistake.