What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  He remembers.

  3

  “May the Road Rise Up to Meet You . . .”

  And now so abruptly so unexpectedly, when, as he’d told Yeager, he had other plans, Corky’s on his way to a communion breakfast.

  Not that he’s going to mass and to communion, for sure not, hasn’t been to mass still less to communion in years except for certain funerals he can’t get out of, God damn how you wind up resenting the elderly and not-so-elderly relatives for croaking and screwing up a morning’s plans not to mention a morning’s promise: a high requiem mass leaves a taste you can’t get rid of even with Johnnie Walker Red Label even with fucking Listerine for Christ’s sake. Just the thought of it, and the memory of it, pisses Corky off.

  He dies, he wants family and friends to have a party. Good old-fashioned Irish wake except that’s it—no church service.

  Not that Corky’s thinking about dying, he isn’t. Kept putting off his and Charlotte’s wills, Charlotte nagging him for years and now they’re divorced and that pressure’s off. Corky fully intends to get the will drawn up, however. This spring. Or summer. When things calm down. When he can find a lawyer he can trust not one of these mercenary shits you call them on the phone and the meter starts clicking at their end like a taxicab.

  Here’s what: call Greenbaum, ask him for a referral. The first step in a friendship, you ask advice of a guy; you take the advice seriously; you follow through. He likes that, and next thing you know he’s asking advice of you. You and him and your mutual friend meet for drinks, lunch.

  Like Pawpaw says Never trust a Jew unless you have him in your pocket.

  It’s 10:20 A.M. Radio-weather girl announcing there’s hope for no rain, deferred showers, this afternoon. Corky sees the sky’s almost cleared in the east, the wind’s so God-damned strong, pale dilated light flooding everywhere. Driving south on the Fillmore toward downtown past fucking-familiar sights ordinarily he wouldn’t see Corky’s struck how the air looks moist, glistening. Billboards, buildings, church spires, gold-glinting dome of the Byzantine church and the blue-choppy river and even the Canadian shore a mile away—sharp, hard, clean edges. Shit, a man’s got a chance!

  (Weird thoughts that come to you sometimes in your car—like it isn’t you but the good sense of the car, the soul of the car, that’s talking.)

  Corky’s feeling if not exactly terrific, hopeful. Stone cold sober and that’s the way it’s going to be. Charlotte really pissed him off laughing at him, bullshit he’d only quit for eighteen hours that time. And this time it’s permanent. Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, sure. It figures. It’s in the genes. But tonight at the Chateauguay Country Club there’ll be Corky Corcoran trim and looking good in his tux giving his speech about Congressman Vic Slattery and the one thing certain assholes are going to say to one another is, Corcoran hasn’t had a drink all evening, what’s up?

  Sure he can do it. Won’t need any of that scary stuff Antabuse, either, makes you puke if you drink even beer, wine. Sean was into that for a while and it does things to your head.

  His head, nobody’s going to fuck with.

  Should’ve told Yeager to get off his property unless he had a warrant, preserve his self-respect. Nobody fucks with me.

  Except: Yeager is his friend. Corky could see that in the guy’s eyes.

  And behind Yeager there’s Oscar Slattery himself: Oscar who for sure is Corky Corcoran’s friend, going back almost thirty years. Absolutely no doubt about that. (It’s Oscar’s place he’s headed for now, the Mayor’s residence, Stuyvesant House. Invited to a communion breakfast Oscar is hosting.) Not only a friend but a kind of son, like with Vic he’s a kind of brother. Right?

  Telling Vic certain things about his father’s death, and about his mother. Vic’s sympathy, Vic’s silence. You knew you could trust Vic who’d wanted to be a Jesuit but gave it up thinking he wasn’t “pure” enough. Not “worthy.”

  Need a drink? a drink crouched in front of the liquor cabinet in the room Charlotte called the library staring at the bottles for how long he didn’t know after the squad car drove off. Nobody talks of the life we live in dreams, the other life that’s deeper, richer. The life in drinking. Drunk. There’s the fucking soul.

  Like the female body you just can’t talk about. You can’t. Theresa hugging him so tight against her the breath went out of him like a blow, his ribs cracked open. That last time. They’d both seemed to know it was the last time. Kissing him hot and wet and so hungry on the mouth like nobody’s ever kissed him since. Nor ever will. And nobody so beautiful. Schizzy, crazy—the pupils of her eyes like pinpricks, and the eyeballs shiny. The radiant heat of the dead-white skin. Nobody so beautiful. Her cries like the wind crazy too in the trees, oh Jesus how wonderful to hear it and feel it and know you might be dead someday but right now sweet fucking Jesus you’re alive.

  The rest of his life, this “Corky” life—shit! Just searching what’s left of the world for it.

  Some of these things, Corky’d told Vic Slattery, once. Or, not these things exactly, for of course Corky’d never told another living soul about that madness with Theresa, solitary in his knowledge even while his mother remained alive since she would not have remembered it or, remembering it, would not have been capable of distinguishing it from any dream or apparition in her head. Corky said, It’s something about women, women’s bodies, what is it, his voice trailing off in adolescent anguish and resentment and wonder, and Vic said, serious, even solemn, in that way of his both childlike and prematurely adult, No, it’s anybody’s body, it’s our own bodies, like Christ came to earth and became a body too, it blows your mind knowing we’re alive but never knowing what alive is.

  And yet more earnestly, saying, Corky, I think that’s what it is: not sex. Just being alive.

  That year, when Jerome became “Corky.” The world wasn’t bounded by the perimeters of Irish Hill, he had a new life, he was new. Even “Irish” up in the Lakeshore district was different!

  That year, Corky’s first year at St. Thomas Aquinas Academy for Boys. The debate team, and the boxing team, and student government—which suited “Corky’s” talents and ambition just fine.

  He was still living on Roosevelt Street with his aunt and uncle, for sure. But it wasn’t the same, it would never be the same again. He hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d hoped.

  After Yeager left Corky’d felt like his head was a clay pot somebody was beating sticks against. Staggering inside the house groping his way to the nearest bathroom, a “guest” bathroom on the first floor so little used now Mrs. Krauss jokes she has to dust the fancy carved perfumed soap. Dropping his trousers, sitting on the toilet amid gleaming black porcelain and gleaming brass fixtures and Portuguese floor tiles, Corky’s voiding his bowels as if The faster you travel, the slower the clock the enormous breakfast he’d consumed hardly an hour before had already been digested, its superfluities turned to shit. Everything’s accelerated, rushing past. His life, what he’d thought was his. Past, present—future? Thinking of how that time in biology class Corky’d asked Father Ober why, no matter what you eat, it comes out the same color and smell? and the class rocking with laughter thinking Corky’s being a wise guy when, he swears, he wasn’t. What the fuck’s so funny?

  Trying to comprehend what Budd Yeager’s visit means. If it’s just what it is, the Slatterys concerned about him; or if it’s something more. Could they be fearful of him, too? Poking his nose where it isn’t wanted, like in fact he is impersonating a cop. And that’s dangerous.

  Knowing he’s been spied on is bad enough, humiliating to know that that ghoul Wiegler must’ve made a goofy story of it, “Jerome Andrew Corcoran” passing out in the morgue like a woman, that’s bad enough, but—impersonating a cop! Corky can’t get over it.

  How many times he’d insisted at the Zanzibar he wasn’t a cop, isn’t a cop! Why wouldn’t Roscoe Beechum believe him! Why wouldn’t Roscoe Beechum look and see him!

  Corky could cry, it’s so
unjust.

  Flushing the toilet, his nostrils pinched against the stink of his own shit, rinsing his hands with cold water since he’s in a rush and doesn’t want to use the expensive French soap nor even the dainty embroidered Irish linen hand towels—God damn! Corky’s a guest in his own house.

  Prowling the downstairs rooms then checking for . . . he doesn’t know what. Nobody’s broken in here, obviously. These rooms he’d last seen in Thalia’s presence. The silence a pressure on his eardrums. And that smell—emptiness acquires a smell, unmistakable. Dusty-gritty, with an undercurrent of body stink. Married again? You? It’s too late for you. One thing Corky knows now, he’ll have to sell this house. Can’t bear living here any longer. Prestige, pride, assuring that jealous assholes like Donnelly, Philly Dowd get their noses rubbed in it—not enough. Also the elder Drummonds approved. Fuck the elder Drummonds. Buying The Bull’s Eye on a crazy impulse like he did, putting 33 Summit Avenue on the market with a list price of let’s say $550,000—Corky’s life will be turning 180 degrees. If the house was in Chateauguay, even in St. Claire, he’d ask a cool $1 million and get it, but it isn’t. So fuck that. He’ll get his price.

  And maybe he and Christina Kavanaugh will get married, and maybe they won’t. Corky can’t make up his mind if he loves the woman or wishes she and Harry Kavanaugh were both dead.

  In the kitchen toast crumbs scattered on the tile floor and the same dishes, cups stacked in the sink and crap spilling out of the trash basket beneath the sink and in the solarium the Sunday paper looking like the wind blew it, Corky’s Rolodex, cordless phone. And sunshine spilling through the tinted glass like acid. Corky lifts the phone receiver and quickly dials his ten-digit voice mail code but when he hears the beginning of the first call, anxious concerned Sandra Slattery, “Corky? Is something wrong? It’s after eight-thirty, we were expecting you at—” Corky hangs up guiltily.

  Upstairs, first thing, Corky enters his bedroom and checks the bedside table drawer another time—of course it’s empty. What’s he thinking, Thalia would’ve crept back repentant and replaced it?

  “Dream on, asshole.”

  Stripping his clothes. Throwing them down. Like he could strip off his skin. Sour-smelling underwear he’d had to put back on after showering at the motel. Nothing he hates worse. Sniffing his shorts he thinks he smells Charlotte’s perfume. Poor Charlotte, a beautiful woman like that, all-American girl, she deserves better than him.

  Proof, if more proof’s required, women think with their cunts and their cunts can’t think.

  In the corner of the bedroom there’s a forty-pound dumbbell, Corky picks it up in his right hand and lifts it a half dozen times then transfers it to his left hand already panting, winded. A sign of alcohol deprivation he’s sweating and shivering plus the D.T.’s always a possibility at the corner of his eye, giant roaches set to GO across the ceiling. I’m an alcoholic, help me.

  Bare-assed and anxious Corky calls in for his voice mail. Listens while lifting, or trying to lift, the dumbbell that’s heavier than it’s ever been before. Forty pounds? He remembers that compulsive phase of weight lifting, guys at St. Thomas, Vic methodically building up his muscles like they were armature, Cassius Clay was their hero, fantastic black heavyweight quick and wily on his feet as a middle-weight, the boxing team coach showing them tapes, drilling them. Now boxing’s not an option at St. Thomas. Too dangerous, lowlife.

  “. . . Corky? This is Vic calling, it’s a little after nine and Sandra and I are wondering if you’ve forgotten?—you were going to have dinner with us?” Vic’s voice concerned, but easy, not a sign of being annoyed, pissed at Corky’s rudeness, the Slatterys set aside an evening for Corky and this is how he values it, and could they know he was balling his ex-wife the two of them blotto drunk what would they think? The next call’s from both Vic and Sandra, both of them on the line but Sandra does most of the talking, now she does sound anxious, “—almost eleven, Corky—we’re afraid something has happened to you, please call when you can?—” and Corky feels like a real shit letting the dumbbell slip from his damp fingers to bounce on the bed what the fuck is wrong with you!

  A fourth call clicks on, and there’s a husky, breathy voice, for a hopeful moment Corky thinks it’s Christina, but, no, not Christina, Charlotte instead, “. . . Jerome? Darling? You’ve just left and I’m missing you already . . . but you’re with me, too . . . inside me . . . I feel . . .” A long pause, Corky’s embarrassed, poor Charlotte drunk and maudlin-sexy not knowing how she sounds by acid-bright daylight, the moon and its romantic-hazy aura long gone. By “inside me” Charlotte means Corky’s semen in her vagina, is that what she means?—Corky grimaces fastidiously and punches “3” to erase the message.

  You’d think a woman of forty-six would know better, for Christ’s sake.

  Thick-tongued and contrite Corky calls the Slatterys to apologize for the night before. Talks first to Sandra, then Vic lifts a second receiver and it’s a three-way conversation, gratifying to Corky how relieved they are to hear from him at last and to hear he’s all right. They’re not angry with him! They’re not judging him harshly! He can’t remember exactly what he told Sandra the day before so he’s vague, elusive, it’s a “personal matter”—“family crisis”—he hopes they aren’t fed up with him completely. Sandra says quickly, “Corky, don’t be silly, a dinner’s just a dinner—we can do that any time we’re in Union City. Or you can come down to Washington. We were worried about you.” And Vic says, “—You are all right, Corky? Is there anything we can do?” and Corky says, sighing, “Jesus, Vic, I wish there was.” There’s a pause, and Vic says, “Well, maybe there is, try us.” And there’s another pause, and Corky says, slowly, “I need to talk to you sometime, before tonight if that’s possible.” Not knowing he’s going to say this until he says it. Not knowing even what he means by saying it.

  It’s then that Vic invites Corky to the communion breakfast. This breakfast has become a Memorial Day custom since Oscar became Mayor but it isn’t an official affair in any way, just family and friends, nine o’clock mass at St. Stanislaus and a buffet breakfast at Stuyvesant House but lots of people come to the breakfast who haven’t attended mass—“Sandra and I promised Dad we’d drop in, so you come, too, Corky. Dad will be delighted to see you, no question about it.”

  Corky’s naturally flattered as hell to be invited, even so casually. Any occasion at the Mayor’s residence is an honor. He hesitates for maybe three seconds before saying, “Great! Thanks! I’ll be there.”