What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The faster you travel, the slower the clock.

  Except it wasn’t Corky’s fault exclusively, the breakup of his marriage. And Thalia’s enmity. How was it his fault, how’s it a man’s fault, women coming on to him, PR-glamor girls, TV girls, City Hall professionals, secretaries receptionists “aides” law students politics B.A.’s having a taste of the real thing, meaning politicians, meaning men, and loving it: no sexual turn-on like campaigns, elections. Power. The Seventies: universal birth control pill, no condoms. No herpes, no AIDS. No second thoughts. No “sexual harassment”—it hadn’t been discovered yet. One of Corky’s first affairs was with a deputy mayor’s Vassar-educated assistant who was known to be screwing the deputy mayor and Corky Corcoran and rumor had it Red Pitts at the same general time, and nobody worried about catching anything, never so much as a thought. And little Bonnie whose last name Corky’s forgotten, hired by Corcoran, Inc., from a temp service, Corky’s first glimpse of Bonnie and she’s got a permanent job, frosted-pink lips and jade eyeliner and seriously big hair, wide-eyed kid looking hardly older than Thalia but in fact twenty-four and much practiced, a diaphragm in her cunt for emergency purposes and jelly in her leather bag, as hot for her nattily dressed whistling-breezy boss as he’s for her. The Seventies: a decade of impromptu screwing on desktops, in the rears of cars, Corky’s back aches at the thought of it. In the Eighties, it was posh hotel rooms downtown and out along I-190, sometimes Corky’s girl, or woman as they’d begun to want to be called, would even be on expense account, a sales director at Union Trust, the programmer for WWAZ-TV, assistant district attorneys, the assistant curator of the Art Museum, the society editor at the Journal. And certain of Charlotte’s women friends, loosening up as if with age, their businessman husbands raking in dough in those boom times before October 1987 and their kids grown and moved away and suddenly what’s there to save it for?—their grandchildren? And Charlotte one night waiting up for Corky bathed and talcumed and in her lacy nightgown serene as Mother Teresa dosed to the gills with Xanax and alcohol this time asking, Is it another woman, Jerome, I insist upon knowing for the sake of my therapy, it’s crucial for me at this stage to know, Dr. Fromme doesn’t believe that actual reality is significant in our psychic lives but I believe it is, are you unfaithful to me?—and Corky protested, hurt, offended, Charlotte for Christ’s sake there is only you, you and Thalia, other women don’t mean shit to me, and Charlotte said, calmly, Maybe they don’t, maybe that only makes it worse: you’re incapable of being faithful, aren’t you—and Corky’d hesitated just long enough, and gave it away: Faithful how?

  As if she’s aware of Corky’s thoughts and not liking them Charlotte pushes herself up from the sofa, excuses herself to get some Kleenex. Corky watches her walk with purposeful steadiness out of the room: shoulders and back erect as she can manage, hips undulating, ass in the silky-wool beige slacks fleshy, a little heftier than Corky recalls, more of a handful. Handfuls. Those classy clothes she’s wearing, for him, might be worth $1000 not to mention the jewelry. Weird how it’s developed—“civilization”—the whole thing’s dependent upon our hiding our nakedness, that’s to say our bodies, from one another. Pile on the glitz, the “style.” Take a good look, the game’s over. That sociobiologist Corky’s been reading, Turke, the evolution of Homo sapiens in terms of female reproductive physiology, all hinges upon the fact that in the human female there’s no perceptible estrus swelling so the male can’t tell when the female is ovulating. And that’s because females need males around all the time, not just for impregnating them but for food-supplying and protection; and that’s because the human baby is born totally helpless—“premature”; and that’s because if babies were born with brains sufficiently developed for survival, the brain size would kill the mothers in childbirth. Jesus, what a depressing theory! All of civilization, culture, human history, why Corky Corcoran’s where he is at this moment in Time, because a woman’s ass is designed in a certain way.

  And beneath it all, guiding all life on Earth, DNA seeking to replicate itself. Blind, fanatic, no other purpose. Like rabies. Corky read that in The Selfish Gene.

  When Charlotte returns, she’s carrying a bottle of Red Label and two glasses. Her manner’s more aggressive, her face looks glossier, more in focus; she’s freshened her makeup, repaired the runny mascara. She looks good and she’s smiling and Corky says quickly, “I don’t want that. I have to be leaving, I’ve got a dinner engagement at—”

  “Don’t want what?”—sitting on the sofa beside Corky, as before, pouring whiskey for them both.

  “That drink.”

  “This is Red Label, your favorite.”

  “I don’t want it, Charlotte. Thanks!”

  “Don’t tell me you’re giving up drinking again.” Charlotte cuts her eyes at Corky as if he’s said something amusing. “That’s what you’d call bullshit.”

  Charlotte hands Corky the glass, he’s got no choice but to take it. The amber liquid quivering in his hand. The wire so tight around his head his blood vessels are about to burst. Don’t. No. You can’t.

  Charlotte touches her glass to Corky’s, and drinks. Shuts her eyes, laughs again, a sighing despairing-luxuriant laugh so Corky realizes she’s far along, she’s been drinking for hours. “Remember that terrible time after you came close to losing an election, the Republicans were sweeping people in from Reagan on down, and at the victory party at the Mayor’s you started drinking and disappeared and three days later I got a call from the Indian Lake police you’d been found dazed, half-naked, your car stolen and your wallet and—”

  “Charlotte, for Christ’s sake: I didn’t come close to losing that fucking election! I got sixty-four percent of the vote.”

  “—you gave up drinking then. ‘Cold turkey.’ For eighteen hours.” Charlotte’s laughing so hard whiskey comes out of her nose, she has to mop herself with a tissue. “Poor ‘Corky.’”

  Corky remembers this episode as longer, much longer, than a mere eighteen hours. But his pride’s been offended—let it stand.

  “That first time we met, at Troika’s, you got drunk and sang some Irish songs for us, I’ll never forget—’Pawpaw,’ I said, ‘who is this?’ All the Players were charmed. What a character!”

  Corky says, “I don’t remember that.” He’s set the glass on the coffee table. Gripping then his right hand with his left, to control the shakes, as he takes a drag from his cigarette.

  “I remember,” Charlotte says gaily. As a stage actress she’d had some pretensions of “using” her voice, doing operettas, she begins to sing now, wavering and off-key but to Corky’s untrained ear startingly professional—

  “The cock crew,

  the sky was blue.

  The bells in Heaven

  were ringing eleven.

  Time for this poor soul

  to go to Heaven.”

  “I sang that? I did not.”

  “You certainly did. I’d never forget.” Charlotte sighs, runs a hand through her hair, touches an earring. Her eyes are still moist. “You were the handsomest man I’d ever seen, up close. Even more than Braunbeck—that bastard.”

  Corky’s touched, but winces with exaggerated pain. “‘Were’—?”

  “Well,” says Charlotte bluntly, “—you were twenty-seven then. That was a long time ago.”

  Corky recalls that little song . . . oh Jesus, wasn’t it one of the nursery tunes his Grandma McClure from Limerick used to sing to him? And Theresa sang it too, giving it a strong Irish inflection. The more pronounced the Irish inflection, the greater the love. Did he—? That night—? And a table of bemused strangers his audience, and his boss Ross Drummond sizing him up?

  Maybe Corky does remember, vaguely. The cock crew, the sky was blue . . . Like a dream not even his own but recounted to him by another.

  Charlotte says, sighing, “Yes. The handsomest man I’d ever seen, up close. And if I’d ever seen Paul Newman in person he might not have been so handsome as in his movies.”
>
  Ex-wife and ex-husband sit contemplating the rapidly receding past. Almost twenty years ago. Twenty years! Corky’s one of those American guys who never age beyond twenty, so how’s this possible? And even so the “past” is flying away from us into space like distant galaxies flying away from one another, all things in the Universe flying away from one another after the Big Bang initiated Time.

  Time for this poor soul to go to Heaven.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, as if she’s been wrenched back into the present against her will, Charlotte says, “I almost forgot—I saw you on television, Jerome, on the six o’clock news. WWTC. My heart almost stopped . . . ‘Jerome Cochrane’ that silly woman called you. If I’d been prepared, I could have taped you.”

  Corky, swigging Diet Coke, almost chokes. “Oh, God. I don’t think I want to know about this.”

  “Don’t be silly. You were terrific as usual.”

  “I was . . . terrific?”

  Charlotte hesitates. “Well, you were fine. You can talk.” Laughing with sudden harshness, that look in her face signaling it’s another woman she’s zeroing in on. “That awful Peggy Crofton! She’s shameless! Hovering like a vulture outside the church, trying to get an interview with Mrs. Plummer on her very way to the cemetery—can you imagine? Asking the mother of a girl who only just committed suicide if she knows why? She looks young, but she’s my age at least. Her face has been lifted so many times already it’s a mask. I’d never watch WWTC, it’s tabloid TV, except I was switching through the channels, I almost never watch anything more than three minutes now there’s the remote control, this constant worry over Thalia has made me frantic.” She lifts the glass of amber whiskey and contemplates her finely vibrating hand as if in wonder.

  Corky belches something so chemical-toxic the fumes bring actual tears to his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about what, confused and stammering, he might have said. Any public utterance by a politician, or even, like Corky, a guy on the periphery of political power, it’s for the public record. It’s there.

  Charlotte asks, “Did you know, Jerome, that Thalia was involved somehow with this—this Plummer girl? They were friends? I didn’t. All the ugly publicity about her, that terrible Marcus Steadman, the rape charges—this black girl is a friend of my daughter’s? I never knew.”

  Hesitantly, almost shyly, Corky asks, “What did I say? On the film clip?”

  “Well, it was just a clip. Obviously, it had been edited. I mainly remember you saying the death was a ‘tragedy’ and there should be a police investigation of it. A thorough one, not just routine.” Charlotte frowns, sips her drink. “I think. It came and went so quickly. I was in a state of shock just seeing you . . .”

  Corky doesn’t want to consider why his ex-wife was in a state of shock seeing him on local TV but especially he doesn’t want to consider that, on TV, he seems to have asked for a “thorough” police investigation of a matter arguably not his business. How’s this going to go over with Oscar Slattery, Ben Pike . . . and the rest?

  Gazing at the glass of whiskey. Not seeing it, just gazing.

  What they’ll tell me at AA: one day at a time.

  One hour at a time.

  One minute at a time.

  That’s life!

  Charlotte’s talking of the Plummer death, the Plummer case. Her distress that Thalia is somehow involved, her worry that Thalia, too, is . . . suicidal. “You know, Jerome, despite the rumors, that poor girl did kill herself. There’s no doubt about it.”

  “No doubt—?”

  “She did. The Plummer family won’t even allow an autopsy—I don’t blame them.” Charlotte grimaces, involuntarily glancing down at herself, as if imagining herself, the glory of her ripe female-mammalian flesh, eviscerated. “Brrrr! When I think of anyone I love—”

  “Wait,” Corky says, annoyed, “—how do you know Marilee Plummer killed herself ‘without a doubt’? Because the coroner says so?”

  “No. Because Pawpaw says so.”

  Pawpaw!—that ridiculous name. Here’s a woman forty-six years old and her old man’s in his late seventies and she’s still calling him Pawpaw. It was worth it, Corky’d thought, going through the hell of a divorce, to get out from under a broad who calls her father Pawpaw.

  Corky says dryly, “So how’s ‘Pawpaw’ know? He read it in the paper?”

  Charlotte sips her whiskey slowly. Licking her cherry-red luscious lips. Like a woman enjoying a secret. The drink has brought color out in her cheeks, she’s more relaxed, enjoying herself. Old times with her wayward husband. “Warren Carter’s father Lyle told him, they play squash together—you know. They’ve been playing squash together for fifty years except when one or the other was in the hospital. Or, I guess, during the war.”

  “Warren Carter’s father told him? So what?”

  “Yes, but he really told him. I mean—there’s no doubt.”

  Warren Carter is Union City’s district attorney: a moderate Republican with, it’s said, actual moral convictions, principles. During the Reagan-Bush era this is something of an eccentricity in the Republican party, so Carter’s respected, feared. He’s long been a political ally, though never publicly a friend, of Oscar Slattery and his brother William. Corky knows that deals are constantly being made between City Hall and the D.A.’s office, he even knows what some of these deals have been, in any government you’re obliged to trade off favors with your rivals or there’s no getting anything done. Still, he’d guess that Carter, for purely selfish political purposes, would press for a high-profile investigation into the Plummer death if he believed anything could be made of it: if “homicide,” not “suicide” was a possibility. So if not, then not. Corky’s relieved to hear this, in fact.

  Since Death has been floating like a black dirigible above Union City released at about the time of the siren Corky heard on Friday morning, ambulance rushing to a body already dead, Corky’s been made to wonder what the hell is going on at the same time uneasily sensing it might be better for him not to know.

  You, Jerome: our only witness.

  Well, fuck that. Here’s a guy fighting the shakes, the imminent D.T.’s, mouth parched no matter how much liquid he sloshes down it, and tomorrow evening at the ritzy Chateauguay Country Club he’s got to stand up before an audience of fifteen hundred formally dressed people and say something warm witty uplifting original and interesting about the only man in politics today except maybe Cuomo, Bill Bradley, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, a very few others he actually can bring himself to contemplate without gagging—that’s enough. More than enough.

  Corky shrugs. If Pawpaw says so it must be so.

  And then this happens: Corky’s checking his watch, knows it’s time to leave Charlotte if he hopes not to be too late for the Slatterys’, God damn it’s already 8:08 P.M. and was he due at 8:00?—yes but if he’s smart he’ll push a little more on the subject of Pawpaw, say he drops by the old man’s house tomorrow warming him up for a bite of $138,000—by Wednesday!—he’d better prime the pump now with Charlotte, and before leaving, too, he should call in to listen to his voice mail, what if there’s an important message from Thalia but fuck it he isn’t going to, fuck Thalia, and seeing this surreptitious gesture Charlotte’s suddenly provoked, snatches Corky’s cigarette out of his mouth and boldly takes a drag—an inhalation so deep and sensuous her breasts rise, and appear to swell; her eyes take on light, as a smoldering fire flares up when touched by oxygen. In giddy gratitude then murmuring, “Oh God! Did I need that.”

  Corky’s shocked, and looks it. “Charlotte! What are you doing? You were so brave to quit—”

  “What’s the difference? You’re smoking.”

  “I’m not drinking.”

  Charlotte laughs happily. “Jerome, you’re so funny. I love you.”

  Corky’s face heats though he hasn’t heard this; doesn’t want to have heard this. No. Never.

  In his husbandly scolding mode, Corky says, “Cut the bullshit, Charlotte—” snatching the cigarett
e back from her, right out from between her lips, and she gives a shrill cry slapping at his hand, and the cigarette goes flying scattering sparks, and Corky curses and strikes her on the shoulder, not hard, with the flat of his hand, as you might discipline an obnoxious child, and Charlotte screams and punches Corky clumsily, striking his jaw. “You shit! You always play rough.”

  And Corky lets the woman have it in the mouth.

  No: Corky restrains himself. Like a gentleman.

  Breathing hard, on the brink of losing it, but managing to say calmly, “Look, sweetheart, don’t provoke me.”

  “Don’t provoke me, ‘sweetheart.’”

  Charlotte’s retrieved the cigarette, she’s smoking it defiantly. That tilt of the chin, that arrogance in the eyes, how like Thalia of just the evening before, taunting Corky about his girlie mags. Daughter, mother.

  Fuck me, want to fuck me?

  Corky swallows hard. Like a man on a high diving board, swaying in the wind. Yes. No. Just don’t. You know, it’s a mistake yet somehow the glass of Red Label is in Corky’s trembling hand, somehow he’s raised it to his mouth and he’s drinking and oh God the first taste irradiates tongue mouth nasal passages and even his teary-rimmed eyes, his throat that’s been parched all this long cruel day of mockery and deprivation.

  Corky sighs. “God! Did I need that.”

  Charlotte’s been staring at Corky amazed. There’s a moment’s startled almost reverent silence. Then, in breathy triumph Charlotte murmurs, her fingers closing about Corky’s wrist gently, but purposefully, “Oh, Corky—I’ve been so lonely.”

  Shyness is clumsiness, and how suddenly shy Corky is. Kissing open-mouthed this passionate woman who’s suddenly new to him, and intimidating; her very need, hunger, heat a fire he isn’t sure he can quench. This warm straining flesh he knows as intimately as his own, yet doesn’t: making love to Charlotte after so long is like one of those dreams of elation and terror in which you return home gradually realizing this is not your home but a simulacrum haphazardly and insufficiently willed into being by an imagination not your own.