What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Sandra pulls away, and Corky takes hold of her wrist, they’re panting, warm. Sandra’s elegantly coiffed hair has become disheveled and her purse, hanging from a strap on her arm, is hanging open, about to spill its contents. “Wait,” Corky says, desperate, incredulous, “—you’re telling me my daughter’s been harassing you and Vic, and you kept it a secret? For how long?” and Sandra says, apologetically, “Oh, Corky, we didn’t want to worry you, you’re so excitable. And it hasn’t been continuous. And some of it has been playful—more what you’d call eccentric behavior,” and Corky says. “‘Eccentric behavior’?—you mean, crazy! What you’re saying is crazy!” and Sandra protests, “Oh, Corky, no, not really, I shouldn’t have used the word ‘harassing’—that’s too extreme,” and Corky says, still holding Sandra’s wrist, though she’s backing away from him, and he’s following, in the direction of the public rooms at the front of the house, “Sandra, wait: are you sure Vic wasn’t involved with Thalia? Maybe just a single time,” and Sandra tries to wrench her arm away, her face tightening, “She’s fixated on him, and it isn’t reciprocated, that’s why she’s so—persistent,” and Corky says, “Whatever Vic tells you, or tells me, it might be true and it might not, he isn’t an altar boy any longer, don’t hand me that crap,” and Sandra says, “Corky, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, but let me go!”—managing to get free of him, and turning, walking swiftly away not looking back.

  So here’s Corky Corcoran standing staring after Sandra Slattery who’s hurrying away breathless and disheveled as if they’ve been struggling together, staring muttering, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” under his breath.

  A porcelain doll in a lace nightgown in his hand?

  Better then for Corky to leave Stuyvesant House immediately. But he doesn’t.

  Pleading with Sandra Slattery, Corky hasn’t noticed Red Pitts at the far end of the corridor but Pitts has been watching them, and when Sandra approaches him hurried and distracted Pitts asks what’s going on, Mrs. Slattery?—has that guy been bothering you?—and Sandra says no, it’s nothing, thanks Red, in no mood right now to so much as pause to talk with hulking Red Pitts her father-in-law’s devoted bodyguard, Sandra’s aroused, fierce-eyed, gratified too, God-damned happy she’s dumped such distressing news in Corky Corcoran’s lap, let Corky deal with it, let Corky try to calculate how seriously Thalia’s accusations can be taken—all this Corky will learn, or figure out, in the future. At the moment the poor guy’s concerned with finding a lavatory, at the rear of Stuyvesant House preferably, his bowels have turned to liquid shit and there’s no time for speculation.

  Corky locates a lavatory beyond the kitchen area, MEN STAFF painted in black on the door. Inside, just two stalls, and both empty, and in one of the toilets he voids his bowels for the second time in a few hours trembling and shivering as scalding liquid cascades from what seems a raw tear, a fissure in his very flesh, O Jesus have mercy. But it’s done. It’s done and he wipes himself with fistfuls of toilet paper and flushes the toilet, then at the sink furiously washing his hands staring in hollow-eyed contempt at the pathetic prick in the mirror in his Macy’s blazer, his patterned Enzio Cenci necktie, when the door behind him is shoved rudely open, and there’s Red Pitts framed in the doorway.

  Corky’s first thought is a taunting Red, my man!—but he says nothing.

  Not a word, the two men looking at each other in the mirror above the sink. Red steps inside, lets the door close. Corky’s crouched over the plain white sink head lowered, face dripping water where he’s splashed it. Crude as a twelve-year-old-boy, screwing his face up against the odor, which the ventilating system’s been defeated in carrying away, Red says, “Phew, what a stink!—that’s you, ‘Corky’?” seeing too in that instant the antique doll balanced on the mirror’s ledge and laughing derisively, “What’s that—your baby?” Corky reaches for a wad of paper towels to dry his face nervously aware he’s in actual danger from Red Pitts, a guy the size of a pro fullback, and hotheaded, and packing a gun. So Corky doesn’t say anything except, “Fuck you, ‘Red,’” under his breath.

  Corky hasn’t caught on that Red Pitts has come in the lavatory for him. He thinks it’s just coincidence.

  Red Pitts, the pimp. Corky Corcoran, the gentleman.

  But Red’s advancing upon Corky big-jawed with that twitchy smile, eyes like steel filings, “I saw you and Mrs. Slattery out there—what the fuck were you doing with that lady? I saw you,” and Corky says excitedly, “What? What did you see? You’re following me around? You’re spying on me?” crouched watching Red Pitts behind him, through the mirror, the pug nose, the beefy face and dumb-fuck blow-dried hair in an Elvis sweep across the forehead—that’s a new style, for Red. Corky’s heart is pounding like a sparrow’s in the presence of a hawk, Corky knows if the two of them were alone together somewhere remote and unobserved this man would crack Corky’s skull against the sink like an eggshell. Red says, incredulous, “What the fuck’s wrong with you, Corcoran? Molesting Vic Slattery’s wife? On these premises? You got a screw loose? You drunk? That’s it, huh, you’re drunk? And impersonating a cop?—you, you dumb little shit, you sawed-off dwarf-freak, you—impersonating a cop?”

  What happens then Corky won’t recall exactly, he’s still crouched and watching Red Pitts through the mirror, he sees, or thinks he sees, Red starting to swing at him, a crude roundhouse right to land between Corky’s shoulder blades and drive his jaw against the sink and his lower teeth into his upper teeth, so quick-on-his-feet Corky Corcoran the Irish Henry Armstrong slips this blow, or the trajectory of the blow if it was actually on its way, dodges and ducks and sends a desperate and unerring right straight from the shoulder with the pent-up fury of years into Red Pitts’ groin.

  Red Pitts’ eyes fly open. A grunting sound like a rug struck by a wire rug-beater seems to issue not from his mouth but from his body. He doubles over grabbing his crotch and he sinks to his knees on the lavatory floor and long before he recovers even enough to stagger to his feet Corky Corcoran is gone.

  5

  “Please Forgive Me, I Love You . . .”

  Like a figure in a film run swiftly and comically backward Corky Corcoran retraces his steps to the parking lot adjacent to Stuyvesant House, hurriedly in the Caddy backs around throwing up gravel beneath the fenders, nursing his right hand which is already beginning to swell at the knuckles but sweet fucking Jesus did that feel good! better than any fuck, any day! and laughing to himself, out of the corner of his eye he sees, but isn’t going to acknowledge, Fats Pickering and Mort McNamara Oscar’s campaign manager walking together, he’s headed for the security kiosk to get the hell out of here though reasoning that Red Pitts even should he recover quickly enough from being coldcocked in time to alert Security won’t do so: won’t in his pride tell a living soul what happened, preferring to get his revenge, and for sure Red Pitts will, as a private citizen.

  Still, Corky hauls his ass off the Stuyvesant House grounds at quadruple the speed he arrived.

  At the kiosk there’s no hassle. In fact the prick who gave him a hard time coming in is actually smiling at him now, waves him through like Corky Corcoran’s a dignitary, Corky’s feeling so good he grins and waves back, yelling out the Caddy window, “Happy Memorial Day!”

  How’s it feel, kid?

  Terrific!

  Then on Van Dusen speeding to the Fillmore he’ll be taking south to Irish Hill feeling the first mild tinge of regret, also, fuck it, he left Thalia’s doll in the lavatory, that he’d wanted to hang onto to confront her with, shake in her face, This is all you care about me?—giving away my present you said you loved?—running around town telling shit-faced lies I’m a pervert?—but he has to laugh, a good belly laugh like he hasn’t had in days, that look on Pitts’ face, that grunt that erupted out of him, Corky hasn’t coldcocked another guy since a parking lot fight at the old Cloverleaf before he was married, which is too long ago. He can’t believe how sweet, driving his fist into Red Pitts’ balls, it’s like the boxing
commentators say, deadpan—That got his attention.

  But a mild tinge of regret like the beginning of a toothache. If Oscar finds this out.

  Yes, but Oscar won’t. This is between Red and you, and nobody else.

  But if Oscar does. And Vic, and Sandra. What then?

  Self-defense. It was self-defense.

  And what about Red, what’s he going to do? The guy’s a psycho waiting to spring.

  Worry about that when the time comes.

  Time’s on my side.

  Hire two goons like with Thalia’s stalker, $500 up front and $500 on delivery, beat the shit out of Red Pitts before he gets his hands on you O.K. but what if they kill him?—what then?

  Sucking on his swelling knuckles but still laughing Corky swings off Van Dusen taking a sharp left against traffic signs to get over into the right-hand lane of the access ramp to the Fillmore, not acknowledging he’s cutting off some middle-aged guy and his old lady blinking at him through the windshield of one of those crappy budget imports, then up the ramp flying onto the Expressway like flying into the sky, seeing high-blown clouds like horses’ manes so beautiful and that pale washed-looking blue beyond he’d stare at from the attic of his uncle’s house on Roosevelt where he’d sneak away to stand for long wordless minutes as a boy waiting for the release of his brain from its ceaseless toil of thought: and his soul then turning to vapor, rising into that sky.

  “Terrific!”—the latest weather bulletin on WWAZ between blasts of commercials predicts no rain until this evening. So the parade, scheduled to begin at two P.M., will go as planned.

  This word Corky’s been saying repeatedly, compulsively, like tiny bubbles fizzing in his brain—“Terrific!”

  He’s a little punch-drunk, after Stuyvesant House. But he’ll be O.K.

  Then, next happens what Corky could never have anticipated, nor even hoped for in his wildest fantasies, never: as, at the poker table, better yet at craps, you do truly enter sometimes that incalculable dimension called luck, or a winning streak: he decides to call in for his voice mail on his way to Irish Hill—and his anxiety of the past twenty-four hours vanishes as if it has never been.

  First, there’s another call, throaty and intimate, from Charlotte, which at once impatient guilty and embarrassed for her Corky cuts off with his thumb on “3,” for erase; then, an abrupt hangup—Corky’d like to think this is Christina calling him; then, a second hangup—this has got to be Christina; then, to Corky’s astonishment, so like an answered prayer as he listens with the receiver pressed up tight against his ear he slackens the Caddy’s speed unconsciously until he’s traveling at below forty miles per hour in the farthest left-hand lane and other drivers begin honking, it’s Thalia—“Hello, Corky, this is . . . I guess you know who this is . . . I’m calling to say how sorry I am for the way I’ve been behaving, will you forgive me? Please forgive me . . .” a pause, a sound that might be muffled laughter, or sobbing, “. . . Since Marilee did what she did . . . what she’d say she had to do . . . I don’t judge . . . I haven’t been in control of my thoughts. Whoever is, I don’t know. Marilee shared certain confidences with me in the secrecy of sisterhood-blood that transcends the blood of ‘race’ . . . ‘identity’ . . . I can never betray her. I believed I would enact her revenge for her from out of the grave but I have come to the conclusion now that I have no right. Corky, there is God . . .” another pause, so long Corky thinks the message might be over, then Thalia’s breathy murmurous voice continues, “. . . I have been unfair to you, Corky . . . I know you love me, I know you are a good man and God resides in your heart despite you . . . I love Mother, too, and will write to her from where I am going . . . from the western ranges . . .” these words, western ranges, uttered in a curious melodic voice, “. . . to explain and to beg forgiveness for my cruelty but above all my ignorance. And I beg forgiveness from the Slatterys too, by now maybe you know of my shame how I . . . misunderstood, and made a fool of myself . . . I do love him . . . but my love will never again make any claim . . . there need be no reciprocation . . . as, loving God, we must not expect God to love us in turn nor even to know us.” And another pause, and then with more force, confidence, “Corky, I have thrown your gun into the river. The temptation of evil is gone forever. Don’t be angry with me, Corky! Forgive me! Please forgive me, I love you . . .”

  By this time Corky’s braked to a stop on the Expressway shoulder.

  Tears in his eyes, O Christ he’s relieved!

  Punches “1” to have Thalia’s message repeated. And then another time. Can’t believe it. His good fortune. So unexpected. And just at the right time.

  Thalia, sweetheart! Sure I forgive you. Sure I love you too.

  Corky listens to the tape four times in all each time steeling himself for hearing different words, or, in Thalia’s breathy voice, a touch of mockery, trickery—it’s hard to trust her, after all. But this is the real thing. He’ll call Charlotte right away and give her his voice-mail code so she can call in and hear the tape herself.

  The western ranges—what’s that mean? Corky thinks he remembers a friend of Thalia’s from Cornell, family owned a big ranch in Wyoming. Or Montana. A girlfriend, and they’d been close. Must be this friend, this ranch, Wyoming, or Montana, the western ranges Thalia means.

  Right now Corky’s not going to think about it, Corky’s so happy so relieved it’s like he’s filled with helium gas knowing now he can visit his Uncle Sean and tonight he can speak in honor of Vic Slattery he loves like a brother—what’s life but a celebration?

  6

  Rat’s Nest

  And if Dermott Corcoran hanged and beheaded aged twenty-two, and not Gahern his younger brother, had been destined from the start of Time to be Corky Corcoran’s ancestor, what then?

  Every other story, you don’t exist. Only in this story, you exist. So long as the story continues.

  Praying to God in Whom since the age of eleven he has not believed.

  Praying to God with a kid’s snotty arrogance. I hate You, I blame You.

  And why wasn’t he strong enough, why wasn’t it in him. To identify his father’s murderers with a simple lie—he who, all the years of his life afterward, would be capable of any kind of bullshit when it suited him.

  And why not strong enough to save his mother. Letting her go, finally. Sure he’d been relieved. Got drunk after the funeral, got laid, and that very night a dose of the clap.

  Old fart-in-a-bottle O’Malley telling him he had “gon-or-rhea” and should be grateful it’s 1967 and not 1867. And Corky said, Yeah?—well it is 1967, Doctor. So fix me up.

  Theresa angry, weeping over him, I can’t! can’t save you! I’m not strong enough! But he keeps trying, any woman almost, might be the one.

  That hot wet claiming kiss, full on the mouth. Piercing his groin like a knife blade.

  And that sudden-shuddering waking to something raw against his eyelids: the sky. Knowing you’re out-of-doors, not safe inside, still less in a bed. Nothing between you and the sky.

  How light winked like beads of water. The puddled roof, the tarpaper smell. Crows shrieking in a field. Then a rattling freight train. And faded letters on a water tower a mile away just coming into focus in the mist. INDIAN LAKE, N.Y.

  He’d told Theresa she was crazy but never told her how he loved her. That craziness. Realizing yesterday morning waking after his worst drunk in recent memory flat on his back in gravel by the Expressway and the black kid bug-eyed squatting over him to determine is this honky dead or is he alive, realizing then it’s this waking, the rawness of first light, the sky glaring down at him that’s drawing him up into it. So fucking lonely.

  And the black kid calling over bemused and contemptuous to his momma not giving a damn if Corky hears, Just some drunk.

  It’s 12:46 P.M. Corky’s on his way to Roosevelt Street to visit Sean Corcoran. At last.

  Though a little pissed off, he’s just called the old man to say for sure he is coming, be there in ten minutes sha
rp, and what’s the old man do but grumble he won’t be holding his breath.

  Meant to be a joke. Typical Irish wit.

  Corky isn’t going to let it get him down, though. What’s life for but to celebrate.

  And all these flags flapping—State Street, Union Boulevard, Erie. All over the city and all over the United States of America flags flying, Memorial Day, try to get in the mood. Kiss me America, I’m your boy.

  Corky heads south on Erie, crosses the canal at Dalkey this time instead of Welland, he’ll never drive on Welland past Club Zanzibar as long as he lives, black racist shit, you meet them halfway, and more than halfway, your good intentions shoved up your ass. This canal bridge too is narrow, shaky, but in better repair than the other, this section of Irish Hill not so run-down. Corky slows his car squinting east along the canal where the surface is wind-rippled, shot with light like shivering. He’s feeling so good so relieved so fucking grateful about Thalia, he could cry. Like it’s a reward for not drinking. For running his ass off these last few days.

  Next, he’ll settle it with Christina. The situation’s simple: Harry Kavanaugh knows, so he doesn’t have to be told. So Christina can get a divorce, and marry Corky. What’s the problem?

  He’s sure now, he loves her. Around that fact, like the steel structure of a building, other facts can fall into place.

  Up-canal, the rear of the old Dundonald Cannery Co., where relatives of Corky’s worked, Judd Donnelly’s father a manager, Corky as a kid had a summer job, one of many. Now boarded up, for sale for years, no buyer. Across the canal, brown-brick rowhouses. Must be mainly blacks, Hispanics. Clotheslines, laundry hanging out to dry, rear yards weedy and heaped with trash except here and there one kept clear, somebody’s planted a garden, probably a woman, there’s more hope in them somehow, the species without hope would die out in a generation. Heat death of the sun. Entropy?—things winding down. But all that’s bullshit if you know what you want.