What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Hmmm! ‘Deal with him’—what? Coffee, spareribs, sweet potato pie?” The bulge of Beechum’s eyes suggests how he’s enjoying this.

  Now it’s out in the open, Corky thinks. O.K., man.

  By this time Beechum has edged Corky up to the cashier’s counter. There’s an eerie scintillating in the corner of his eye and more of that bleeping and farting—another video game. Corky glances around and sees no one’s there. He says, lowering his voice, “—That’s right. You’re right, Mr. Beechum. I didn’t come here for food, I came here because I need protection. I need it now. I can’t wait. I’ve got money like I showed you and I’m interested in”—lowering his voice still further, and bending toward Beechum so there’ll be no margin for error—“a gun.”

  Beechum widens his eyes. “Eh? Say what?”

  “A gun. Fucking gun.”

  “A gun, my man!” Beechum’s looking grave, shaking his head slowly from side to side, a ponderous kind of head-shaking, his torso involved too, the gold medallion gleaming and winking between his suede lapels. The bas-relief is a lion with enormous mane and bared teeth. “What kinda gun?”

  “Show me what you have.”

  “Mister, you know what you want or you don’t know, hmmm? And if you don’t know, ain’t much purpose hanging out here.”

  “—A Smith & Wesson fifty-seven, forty-one Magnum six-shot.”

  Corky answers quick: this is the gun of choice, he’s heard, of the UCPD, the kind certain of the cops own though the Department is issued another model.

  Beechum bares his gums in a grin that possibly registers surprise. Corky thinks, I’ve impressed the bastard!

  “How yo’ know that straight off, my man? I never heard of the motherfucker.”

  “Look, Beechum—Mr. Beechum—don’t jive me, O.K.? Like I say, I’ve got the cash. And I’m in a hurry.”

  “Hurry—goin’ where?”

  “—I’ve been putting up with a lot of shit from you and your friends and I’ve had about enough of it.”

  Beechum’s standing with his arms folded across his chest eyeing Corky in that way Corky can’t figure—does he just not trust him, or does he not like him? Corky can accept not being trusted but not being liked—that hurts.

  Whichever, Beechum’s bulldog face tightens as he makes his decision. Shaking his head gravely and ponderously, “Hmmmm! Mister, I’m sure you’re speaking the truth, but, shit, I’m afraid Beechum ain’t the man to help you. Go tell yo’ friend, there’s no guns at Club Zanzibar.”

  “What? Hey, come on—”

  “You come on, mister. Nobody here in possession of any gun let alone selling ’em.”

  “—I can pay up to five hundred dollars. Like I told you, I—”

  Corky’s got his wallet out again and Beechum raps sharply at his arm. “Nah, no, mister. Best you leave now, Zanzibar’s closed.”

  Corky’s incredulous. “What?”

  “Best you leave now, mister. Get in yo’ Caddy and drive back where you come from and tell yo’ friend he’s full of shit—you got it?”

  “Look, Beechum,” Corky says, excited, “—I’m a serious customer. You do business with me now, maybe we’ll do business another time. If I told you my name, you’d recognize it! I’m not leaving here without what I came for.”

  Beechum laughs. Raises his eyebrows so high his fedora lifts.

  “Oh you ain’t, my man, eh? You ain’t leaving? Eh?”

  “Look,” Corky says, pleading, “—I’m your friend, I’m on your side. Politically—I’m on your side. At City Hall—”

  “City Hall?—where’s that?” Beechum asks in mock earnestness. “Which city?”

  “—the Mayor and his—”

  “Mayor who? C’mon man, you jiving me.”

  Beechum’s edging Corky backward and God damn it he’s stumbling into a chair, almost falls but rights himself in time, Christ he is lightheaded, famished. Hearing himself say, aggrieved as a kid, “—If I was black you wouldn’t treat me like this,” and Beechum shoots back quick as a TV comic, “How’m I gonna treat you, then?” and Corky says, “Like a brother,” and Beechum laughs crinkling his face so his eyes are yellow slits, “Shit, man, you ain’t my brother!—and if you was, how you so certain you know how I’m gonna treat you? Might be, I been bustin’ my brothers’ balls since they grew ’em.”

  It’s then Corky makes his mistake: takes hold of Beechum’s arm as Beechum pushes at him, and Beechum pushes at him harder, quick as a coiled-up spring unsprung, and next thing Corky knows he’s on his ass on the floor. How’d it happen? What happened? It’s like in the boxing ring, you’re jabbing at your opponent you’ve got your opponent in your sights, then suddenly you’re on your ass seeing stars or crawling on the canvas trying to pick up your mouthpiece with your gloved hand, and your opponent looking at you from above. Beechum’s not smiling now looking at Corky from above his yellow eyes flashing pure meanness. The sheen of his black oily skin is like flame beneath the skin’s surface. “Nobody puts his hands on me, man. I don’t care what color you are or think you are. This is Roscoe Beechum!”

  Corky persists, stammering, “L-Look, I—I’m desperate—I need to do business with you—Somebody took my gun, I need protection—I’m afraid I’m going to be—”

  Shrilly Beechum says, “What’s that got to do with Roscoe Beechum, I’m asking you, man?—what the fuck’s any of you got to do with Roscoe Beechum?” crouching over Corky in such fury Corky begs, “Jesus, don’t shoot!” shielding his face with his arms imagining he sees, or in fact seeing, a gun in Beechum’s fingers drawn out from inside the suede jacket, Corky’s ingloriously scrambling back on his ass feeling Beechum’s hot breath in his face like the very breath of a lion, king of the carnivores. And those eyes! “I’m leaving, hey don’t shoot!”—grabbing a lightweight aluminum chair that almost topples over on him trying to get to his feet, still Corky’s saying as if, God help him, he can’t not say it, as if the point of his being here in Club Zanzibar for whatever harebrained purpose knocked on his ass is his saying this, uttering these words, in a voice almost too choked for Roscoe Beechum to hear, “—My f-father was Tim Corcoran—d’you know that name—d’you remember him—’Tim Corcoran’—Corcoran Brothers Construction—we all lived here, in Irish Hill—he died because he hired nonunion Negroes—in 1959—he was killed—my f-father—” not knowing what he’s saying as the words tumble from his mouth as, afterward, Corky won’t recall much of what happens in Club Zanzibar this afternoon, just as he was never able to remember being hypnotized by Harry Blackstone being volunteered by Daddy to climb up onto the stage in response to the magician’s request being cheered on by the gang of relatives and ascending with childish bravado to the stage and the man with the Satanic spiky black beard and black shining eyes asking Corky to count with him backward from ten and with the pronunciation of the very word “ten” there came washing over the child complete oblivion, complete not only in itself but with the power to obliterate memory even pertaining to it, surrounding and defining it. And Corky hears Beechum grunt what sounds like, “Who?—’Corcoran’—” but in the next instant the door of Club Zanzibar is open and Corky’s outside on the pavement. Swaying on his shaky legs but, at least, he isn’t on his ass.

  Corky wipes his eyes with his knuckles. He’s aware of a half dozen black boys gaping amazed at him and he’s aware he has to not only get to his car but unlock it, not only unlock it but climb inside and drive it away without being mugged, he’s smelling rain before he feels it on his overheated face, he’s smelling a familiar mixed odor, something metallic in the air, the sharp sour smell of fertilizer, but a ripe fragrance of garbage too, and lilac beneath—a smell as of home, his lost home. He has his car keys out seeing that his tires are slashed. He’s unlocking his car seeing, Jesus, no, his tires are not slashed—not the ones on this side, anyway. Nor are his hubcaps gone. The black boys with their oddly sculpted flattop hair are observing him closely, murmuring and giggling among themselves, but mayb
e Club Zanzibar is in a buffer zone and patrons of even the Caucasian race are privileged not to be harmed, nor even touched—is that possible, Corky’s thinking. Is that possible.

  At any rate nobody touches him. He’s O.K. Inserting the key into the lock with surprising dexterity considering the condition of his nerves, easing himself into the Caddy that’s like a cocoon-womb receiving him, and the fragrance herein too of the pink begonia for Sister Mary Megan he means still to deliver to her bedside, so help him. Corky’s safe!

  Except as he’s about to drive away, one of the black boys hurries to the car, “Hey Mistah Cor’crin,” he calls out, and Corky turns to see something in his hand seemingly nonlethal, “—Mistah Beechum say this for you, and no charge, O.K.?”

  It’s a big wedge of sweet potato pie wrapped in aluminum foil, and a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, lukewarm.

  8

  Corky on Mount Moriah

  You, Jerome. Our only witness.

  It’s a private funeral not only closed to all outsiders but its actual location meant to be a secret, except Corky Corcoran knows. One of his TV-news contacts. No media please, please no media at our daughter’s funeral the Plummers begged but fuck the family of the deceased, right? Fuck the mourners where there’s a hot story.

  Even before Corky arrived to scout out the neighborhood there were TV vans in the street, a narrow residential street off Decatur called Washington, all but blocking traffic spilling glaring-white lights, cameras, cables. Film crews, photographers, reporters milling around hoping to engage the mourners as they arrive and hurry into the church, what leeches they are, these “media people”!—Corky, who’s addicted to the news, who’s at this very moment punching stations on his car radio hoping for a news announcer’s voice, nonetheless feels disgust. This is a funeral, after all. For Christ’s sake someone has died.

  Corky’s discreet enough not to cruise past the church, he’s parked up the block, he’s bothering no one. Just about the only white faces here are the media people, and Corky doesn’t want to be mistaken for one of them. He’s a mourner—at a distance. Smoking his cigarettes, picking gummy sweet potato pie from his teeth. Trying to think. The death of somebody you don’t know intimately nor even well, not a friend not a relative not a lover, but you’ve had some contact with, is a shock like a minor earth tremor—you feel it, but there’s no emotion.

  Corky wonders if Thalia is at the funeral, if she’d been invited. If he sights her, what he’ll do.

  Thalia, Marilee. And Kiki. What’s the connection?

  Corky’s in such a state of nerves he’s susceptible to thinking he’s the connection.

  The Covenant Evangelical Free Church where the private funeral for Marilee Plummer is held this afternoon of Sunday, May 24, 1992, is a modest white-painted woodframe building that more resembles a house than a church, in a neighborhood of similar modest neatly tended woodframe and stucco houses. This is southeast Union City, Washington Park. Now almost entirely black and Hispanic working-class where until the late 1960s it was 100 percent white working-class. Corcoran, Inc., used to own property here, office rentals on Decatur, but no more. It looks to Corky as if Washington Park is holding its own, though if it unravels it will be along wide windy Decatur Boulevard where crack houses and prostitution are prospering.

  When Corky was growing up in Irish Hill, Washington Park was Polish, Italian, solidly Catholic. Locally renowned, or was it notorious, for its citizenry’s unflagging resistance to the post-War phenomenon of urban social change “integration”—until the riots of 1967 and the eruption of inner-city vandalism, looting and fires of the following year in those days after the assassination of Martin Luther King threw the community into a panic, and Washington Park lost its white population to the suburbs. Like Irish Hill, equally scattered. Corky remembers working for Parks & Recreation in late summer 1967 saving money for tuition to Rensselaer and how one evening at the Seneca House with some of the guys from his crew he’d run outside to see the sky go up in gassy orange flames just a few blocks south of Irish Hill, it was a few days after the Detroit burning and he’d wondered Is this the end? the end of Union City? the end of America? Almost, he’d felt a weird kind of elation. He wouldn’t have to go to Rensselaer after all where he’d probably flunk out. He wouldn’t have to take care of nor even see again his crazy mother, shuttling back and forth between her wearying kin the Corcorans and the McClures, and St. Raphael’s Hospital. He wouldn’t have to be Corky Corcoran, Tim Corcoran’s son.

  Through his streaked windshield where the wipers are timed slow Corky watches the facade of the little church, the hearse at the curb, the dozen or so mourners’ cars. Wonders if his “funeral floral display”—in memory of Marilee Plummer, with sympathy Jerome A. Corcoran—was delivered to the right address, and if anybody took note. Not thinking of Tim Corcoran’s funeral, nor of that hearse which was the first and will remain the only significant hearse of Corky’s experience. For what purpose to such thinking, what but a perpetual laceration of the heart, and Corky’s nerves are already strung so tight his eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of their sockets. If only a drink! a drink! if only Christina hadn’t betrayed him if only Roscoe Beechum had sold him a gun!—the devious little prick. (Yes, Corky devoured the sweet potato pie, sugary-syrupy and chewy and the heavy crust too one of the most delicious tastes he’d ever had in his mouth, he’d wolfed it down like a starving animal chewing and swallowing large mouthfuls washing them down with coffee his hands trembling and his eyes flooding with tears of gratitude as he sat in the Caddy at the foot of West Welland overlooking Lake Erie on this gusty-rainy spring afternoon God-damn happy to be alive seeing how the entire western sky above the lake was a single mass of cloud, clotted and ribbed, covered by a hulking shadow that seemed somehow to be the very shadow of the earth, cast upward.)

  By 4:45 P.M. nobody’s yet emerged from the church. The showy shiny hearse at the curb. The mourners’ cars. A half dozen burly black men, in suits, neckties, hats, standing about the front of the church as if guarding the premises, but not cops. Corky’s sure they’re not cops. There’s a UCPD patrol car cruising the area, two officers inside . . . passing by Corky for the third time they give him a hard stare seemingly without recognition. It’s a free country isn’t it, he’s got a right to be here. Fuck you. Corky’s antsy and bored and scared a drink, need a drink but look: if you can hold out till Tuesday, the AA clinic. And Tuesday, too, the stores will be open, there’s a sports store on Union, you’ve got a homeowner’s gun permit, you can buy a gun legitimately and no fucking around like at the Zanzibar.

  Corky’s been punching radio stations up and down the band a squawk of static and heavy-breathing Stone Age rock and some prissy asshole preaching Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb my brothers and sisters and ads delivered at top volume finally hitting upon a news update but it’s WPOR Oriskany seventy miles away, even weather predictions there don’t interest him. Corky wants to know what’s going on in Union City, what’s the latest news, the news-about-to-break, he’s dying to know. Sensing that something imminent is gathering, an electrical storm gathering to discharge itself.

  Yes but why do you think you’re going to die at any minute, what the fuck’s wrong with you, other people die but not Corky Corcoran!

  Just can’t sit in the car any longer so he’s outside stretching his legs, it’s a mistake maybe but Corky’s strolling in the direction of the church smoking his cigarette in the rain bareheaded and liking the cool feeling against his heated skin. All those reporters, media sucks, standing around in the rain waiting for something to happen. Waiting for mourners of a dead girl to emerge from a church. A coffin to be photographed, a hearse. Death. There’s a TV truck in the street bearing a gleaming white satellite dish like an upended flying saucer, several camera crews with their equipment like artillery. Glazed-eyed reporters, standing around with nothing to do but interview one another. One of them, blond glamor girl for WWTC-TV Evening Action News in a little
red career suit and snazzy white boots, looks like a baton twirler and Corky’s eyeing her with interest when unexpectedly she recognizes him and cries, “Oh! Jerome Cochrane?—is that who you are?—one of the Mayor’s aides?” and Corky feels simultaneously a thrill of pleasure at being so singled out, for many others are milling about in the street, and a deeper and more profound pang of regret, now his cover’s blown.

  As always, when you’re beset by the media, on their terms and not your own, things happen too swiftly to be processed. Corky sees a little red light pop on as a TV camera is wheeled at once in his direction, the blond in the red suit and boots who’s Peggy Crofton as she proclaims herself thrusts her microphone into Corky’s face as she fires away questions suddenly fierce and professional as any man: was Corky a friend of the deceased Marilee Plummer? is he acquainted with the Plummer family? what is the Mayor’s relation to the deceased? what is Vic Slattery’s relation to the deceased? what does Corky think of the fact that only blacks, no whites, were allegedly invited to Marilee Plummer’s funeral? what is Marcus Steadman’s role in this? what of the coroner’s verdict of suicide, does Corky have any opinion?—and Corky’s standing blinking and trying to speak his mind blank as if he’s been struck a succession of hammer blows to the head, this woman is all over him jabbing her microphone practically into his mouth like it’s a cock she’s wielding like a weapon, and what Corky manages to say, stammering and squinting into the camera dazed by lights and sweating berating himself Asshole! how’d you get yourself into this! he doesn’t know, he does manage to say the death is a “tragedy” and he does manage to correct the woman’s misidentification of him but the rest is a blur. And thank God then the doors of the church open, mourners begin to emerge, Peggy Crofton and WWTC-TV abruptly terminate the interview with Corky Corcoran.