What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Bullshit, but it sounds good.

  A drink sweet Jesus do I need a drink his throat parched despite the Canada Dry he’d swigged this terrible thirst never make it cold stone sober: never in his shaky state close to crying when the granite memorial is finally unveiled.

  Doesn’t Nick Daugherty see Corky? Sure, he must. Corky’s been craning his neck trying to get his friend’s attention for the past twenty minutes.

  Of the $5000 Nick was able to make only a couple of payments that first year and then ran into financial problems—more problems. Three years now, or is it four? No hurry about repaying the loan Corky insisted, embarrassed. A handshake’s enough, between friends. And no interest either, of course. What d’you think I am, a Jew? Hey Nick here’s your old friend Corky Corcoran, O.K.?

  A distant shuddering of thunder, light bleeding through matted layers of cloud above Lake Erie. Corky’s nostrils arch like a horse’s smelling something’s going to happen.

  Why’d you turn up at that whore’s funeral.

  Those people are not your friends.

  Get him to sign. Talk’s talk.

  Greenbaum looking at him, those shrewd turtle’s eyes, like Corky’s a terminal case. Any asshole can figure, you lend a guy up to his ass in debt money charging no interest he’ll pay back his creditors who are charging him interest, not you. You’re the last on his list. You’re maybe not even on the list.

  Hasn’t seen Nick in maybe a year. But Corky’s slow to believe.

  Christ, that promissory note Greenbaum prepared for Corky to take to Nick, on Corky’s desk at home, couldn’t bring himself to read it through. Pay me back when you can he’d said. A way of boasting Hey I’m rich: look what I can afford.

  The last time the Daughertys invited him out to dinner, Deborah red-eyed and weepy in the kitchen, taking Corky’s hands in hers whispering thanks, soft so Nick in the other room couldn’t hear. Deborah saying lifting her earnest pretty face to Corky’s you don’t know how much this means to Nick, it’s a real boost to him he’s been feeling so low your faith in him your friendship oh Corky thank you! A wet breathless kiss like a dog’s daringly on Corky’s mouth meant to seem impulsive but Corky guessed she’d been planning it for days, weeks. And Corky blushing embarrassed saying O.K., shit it’s O.K., Nick would do the same for me.

  That, Corky still believes. For sure.

  “—If the dead could speak to us today, instead of us presuming to speak for them, we might be shocked at what they would say: no more ‘heroic’ deaths, no more ‘sacrifice,’ no more wars, no more Memorial Days!”

  This final speech of the afternoon is being given, over ominous rolls of thunder, by former U.S. Marine First Lieutenant Billy Brannon. Brannon’s been introduced impressively as a veteran of two tours in Vietnam, seriously wounded near My Lai and several times decorated for bravery in combat, president of the Great Lakes Veterans’ Association and principal of North Decatur High School. Corky listens to Brannon’s high, reedy, impassioned voice, he’s envious, hell he’s jealous, but admiring, too—Brannon’s the real thing. Daring to say what he’s saying, practically coming out and telling the crowd that war is bullshit, all the while maintaining his respect for his listeners—that’s true leadership. Corky’s thinking he might’ve been up there in Brannon’s place, he might’ve been a man of integrity, a man with a true mission, if circumstances had been otherwise. If he hadn’t been a coward.

  Coward: that night when Heinz Meuller was driving after a basketball game, six or seven of them crammed into the car on their way downtown to The Bull’s Eye and everybody including Vic Slattery drunk on beer they’d smuggled into the gym and Heinz sighted some black kids on the sidewalk in front of the Palace Theatre crying Hey watch this! laying on the horn and aiming the car for the sidewalk so the kids turned, screamed and scattered their eyes wild and faces like dark leaves lifted and blown in a furious wind, Run niggers! Heinz yelled and some of the others Run run run niggers! laughing wildly and Corky in the back seat staring his face locked in an idiotic grin as Heinz’s car, a heavy Olds, began to skid, its rear wheels veering to the right even as the black kids ran in desperation one of them falling and scrambling to his feet and managing to escape even as the car jolted up onto the sidewalk but bounced back into the street again like a car in a child’s cartoon lethal-seeming but harmless and only a joke harmless as Heinz brought it under control and continued on Grand Boulevard at forty miles an hour all the guys laughing like they’re about to piss their pants and Corky was gripping the seat in front of him thinking he’d be sick to his stomach and at The Bull’s Eye his terrible worry was there wouldn’t be room enough for him in the booth, what if, what then, yes but there was plenty of room for Corky Corcoran that night, he was O.K.

  Brannon’s winding up his speech. Pretty strong stuff, criticizing the Gulf War, asking why weren’t sanctions tried, what of the Iraqi dead and wounded victims of their mad leader, must the United States be a party to such madness?

  “—We must learn to transcend the old way of thinking our dead are to be memorialized, their dead are to be tallied,” Brannon is saying urgently, “—there are no winners in any war, we are all losers! Those of us who have killed no less than those of us who have died!”

  It’s at this point that Brannon’s voice begins to shake. He breaks off, rubs his eyes inside his glasses, for an awkward moment he’s silent then mutters what sounds like “Thank you” and turns away from the microphone. At that moment there’s a high rumbling roll of thunder like faint laughter and a gust of wind shakes tree limbs over the reviewing stand, loosening fuzzy-golden seeds like rain. At the edge of the crowd where people have been drifting away there’s a pause, nobody seems to know if Brannon’s speech is over, or what the hell’s going on, so Corky, embarrassed for Brannon, begins to clap, lifting his hands over his head so others join in, though the applause is scattered and sporadic and never builds up much momentum before the military band swings into “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in what sounds like polka time.

  Sean turns to Corky, annoyed. “Sounds like a Communist, that one. How in hell’d he get on the program?”

  Says Corky, “Shit, Billy Brannon’s an old buddy of mine.”

  At that moment remembering: Nick Daugherty!

  The crowd is breaking and scattering. Corky pushes through to see Nick and his teenaged son walking away. Hasn’t Nick seen him? Corky shouts, “Nick? Hey, it’s Corky—” as he sees, or thinks he sees, his friend glancing nervously over his shoulder even as he continues without slackening his speed, eager to escape Lake Erie Park.

  8

  Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery

  Trying to recall how many times but he could not. He must have been between the ages of six and eleven. And would it have continued? Each Memorial Day morning before the parade Daddy solemn and passionate, clean-shaven, in suit, white shirt and tie, polished shoes and insisting that Mommy dress Jerome too as if for church, this is more important than church and don’t you ever forget it. Taking Jerome by the hand, Daddy’s callused hand, firm, even rough, an impatient edge to Daddy’s patience you never wanted to test the way you’d test Mommy. Never. In Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery behind the church under the arch and into the grassy graveyard where sometimes a cold drizzle fell and sometimes it was steamy hot prematurely hot as summer the sun swollen in the sky by nine A.M. so beads of sweat formed at Daddy’s hairline and ran in slow trickles down his face. Like tears. And there were tears too, sometimes. Which Daddy didn’t hide. And Daddy’s nose running, which he didn’t seem to notice. You didn’t want to see and you’d never tell and when Mommy asked afterward was it all right? was it nice in the cemetery? were there lots of other people there? you knew she really meant had he scared you so you said yes it was nice, it was just Daddy and you it was nice.

  In Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery Daddy and Jerome walked slowly along the rows of graves and at veterans’ graves they stuck six-inch American flags into the earth sometimes beside other flag
s already there, and beside pots of bright-blossoming azaleas, begonias, geraniums. Tim Corcoran bought a small bundle of these flags at fifty cents apiece, and so did other veterans and the parents, widows, or children of veterans who had died in service. So a single grave might have several flags. Most of the dead veterans in Our Lady of Mercy in the 1950s had died in World War II but there were quite a few graves from World War I. And fresher ones, from Korea. Whenever they came to one of these it was always a man Daddy knew, sometimes a man Daddy had been friends with in school and Daddy would say, This could be my grave. And, If I was lucky this would be my grave but probably it would’ve been in the prison camp I died, or alongside the road, and they’d have buried me like they did the others, in a ditch. That was how they did it. So I guess this wouldn’t be my grave after all. I wouldn’t be here, at all.

  The mystery of that: Daddy wouldn’t be here, at all.

  So Jerome wondered, Then where?

  Not in Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery but at home sometimes when he’d been drinking Daddy would tell of how in October 1951 when he was twenty-eight years old and in Korea for only one month his platoon was attacked above the Naktong River. Of how shrapnel hit him in the small of his back and in his right knee. Of how he, and the other surviving members of his platoon, endured a three-week march north of the river and seven weeks of imprisonment in a rural compound before they were liberated. Repeatedly Daddy told of how, had it not been for a young black soldier from Georgia named Lucius Prudhomme who’d helped him walk, almost carried him at times, he would have died along the road. Others died, you’d have thought they weren’t as bad off as him, but they died and were left beside the road. It wasn’t just twenty-two-year-old Private First Class Lucius Prudhomme who’d helped him, it was other soldiers, too, and some of these others black, too. Black men who’d be regarded as “niggers” in the United States, in the North as well as in the South, and in Irish Hill where not a one of them would dare try to live, nor even walk at certain hours of the day or night.

  Lucius Prudhomme died in the prison camp. Timothy Corcoran did not die but was airlifted out with other injured men and hospitalized in Seoul and shipped back home with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star though he was not a hero, hadn’t done anything heroic except get through. But one thing he’d learned, it was not to take any shit from anybody. Know who your friends are, and who your enemies are. And never confuse them.

  Once, when Jerome was very young, Mommy went with them to Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery on Memorial Day morning wearing white gloves and a hat with a veil, one of her pretty hats she wore to church. And white high-heeled shoes that sank into the soft damp gravel and grass. Mommy held Jerome’s hand until he pulled away. Her eyes were restless, drawn upward from the graves to the green-budding trees, to the sky. She too was shy of Daddy in this strange place. It was Daddy, but maybe not. Like when he’d come home smelling of beer, or whiskey—it was Daddy, but not always the same Daddy. When, in the cemetery, Daddy stood quiet at one of the graves you let him alone, you didn’t tease or act silly to get attention. You didn’t sulk. With Mommy and Grandma and the other women you could act any way you wanted but with Daddy, no. If he touched you to take your hand and pull you along that was all right but you wouldn’t want to touch him to interrupt him from his thoughts. His eyes glistening-wet, the glare of them swinging around. That moment when he didn’t know who the hell you were. And where this was.

  Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery. Memorial Day 1992. Corky sees by his watch it’s 4:20 P.M. anxious the day’s sliding by and something’s going to happen but, Jesus, not prepared for, when he and Uncle Sean come to the Corcoran family plot, that first sight of the paired markers—

  TIMOTHY PATRICK CORCORAN

  1923–1959

  THERESA AGNES CORCORAN

  1927–1967

  —and Corky astonishes and embarrasses his Uncle Sean, Jesus! and himself, bursting into tears like a woman.

  Just stands there, crying. Wracking sobs, out of control. His chest like there’s a band tightening around it about to crack his ribs, his breath choked, a fierce heat in his face and his throat actually hurting. It’s been so long since Corky’s cried must be twenty years, he’s forgotten how crying hurts. A sharp cramped pain in the throat like you’d imagine cancer.

  Sean’s staring at him like he’s gone nuts. And Sean fearful too, like he might start in.

  Corky tries to get himself back together. Saying, between sobs, “Shit, I’m sorry—” and “—I don’t know what this is—” then breaking down again, blowing his nose in a tissue, hands shaking so he’s in a panic this really is the start of the D.T.’s, he’ll have to be taken away in an ambulance, put in a straitjacket. He’s trying not to think exactly why he’s crying trying not to think of his father Tim Corcoran, his mother Theresa Corcoran, Jerome’s lost young parents trying not to think Daddy! Mommy! surrendering to the terror of grief recalling those Memorial Day mornings here in Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery he’d believed as a child because he had no reason not to believe would go on forever.

  Somebody’s stuck a six-inch American flag in the moist earth at the head of Tim Corcoran’s grave—maybe that set off Corky’s crying jag. And scattered throughout the cemetery there are others. Veterans still make it a practice to come around, the way Corky’s father did, to mark other veterans’ graves. What good people they are, Corky’s thinking. What good people in the world it isn’t all just shit and double-dealing.

  Corky’s brought the potted pink begonia to place between his father’s and mother’s graves. Since he and Uncle Sean won’t be getting to Holy Redeemer today after all to see Aunt Mary Megan.

  In the Blackhawk Barbecue parking lot Corky’d glanced into the back seat of the Caddy and hadn’t seen the begonia at first, thinking somebody’d stolen the plant, God damn must’ve been those hillbillies on Roosevelt Street!—then he found it upside down on the floor where the pot must’ve tumbled from the seat one of the times he’d used his brakes; he’d more or less forgotten about it. Brushing off the crumbled earth, picking off the broken and wilted buds. Then took the plant back into the restaurant to get some water for it, hoping it will be O.K. and not die in a day or two. Some of these badly wilted buds, maybe they’ll never open. Still, it’s a beautiful plant. Beautiful flowers. Sean thought so, too.

  Corky stoops to place the begonia plant on the grassy earth between the graves. Theresa always liked flowers, she’d like these. The worst of his crying jag’s over. He hopes. Staring at the grave markers which are smooth-faced pinkish-gray granite with rough edges, expensive-looking, hefty, measuring about three feet by four. But the gravesites are so small. When you consider. Final resting place, about the size of one of those Johnny-on-the-Spot portable toilets. That’s a fact you never get used to—big as people are in life, extended through time, the space they take up in the earth is finally so fucking small.

  Still, it’s better than being cremated. Must be.

  Corky’s hiccuping, blowing his nose in a sopping tissue. So far gone for the moment he isn’t even thinking how he needs a drink, how stone cold sober he isn’t going to make it. Sean says, “Corky—?” eyeing him cautiously, touching his arm. Not knowing what to do or say, all his life Sean Corcoran’s disliked touching people or being touched, maybe not all his life exactly but since his brother was murdered. Probably he’s thinking he doesn’t really know Jerome—“Corky”—at all. His brother’s son who lived for years under his roof like a son of his own, he doesn’t know him at all. Grown up into this wise-ass character, small-time politician and hustler, a look in his face on even his best days like he’s bet every penny at the track and he’s watching the horses come in and the news is not going to be good.

  Also, at his age Sean Corcoran’s used to strong-seeming people suddenly cracking. And once they crack, Christ knows if they can get it back together again. All Sean can think to tell his nephew staring at these graves like a man in a dream is, soberly, yet with an air of subtle avuncul
ar reproach as if any fuckhead should be able to figure this out for himself, “Lad, I’d say you need a drink.”

  Corky makes a snorting noise that might be a sob or a laugh. But he’s grinning when he says, “Shit, I can’t ever drink again, Uncle Sean. I’m dead meat if I do.”

  “What the hell? Sure you can.”

  “No. I know it.”

  Sean’s got his arm around Corky’s shoulders to steady him. It’s an awkward and painful stance and now this remark of Corky’s is God-damned embarrassing as a fart let at the wrong moment but Sean’s committed to the gesture and can’t just step away. Mumbling as if ashamed for his nephew Sean says, “That’s what the fuckers brainwash you into thinking. You believe it, you’re off your head.”

  “Who?”

  “The AA people.”

  “I haven’t been there yet. I’m checking in tomorrow morning.”

  “Hell you are.”

  “Hell I’m not. I need help.”

  Now Sean does release him. The men stand side by side breathing quickly not looking at each other. A gust of wind ripples the cemetery’s dense grass, there’s a shivering sound in the leaves overhead. A rainfall of those fuzzy-golden seeds. Corky says, “Tell me about my father, Uncle Sean. Why he died, how he died—anything. Tell me anything.”

  Sean says quickly, as if he’s been expecting this, “There’s nothing you don’t know. There’s nothing to say.”

  “Why didn’t Fenske ever get arrested? Or the men he hired? Was it Fenske who had Daddy killed?”

  The first time Corky Corcoran has uttered aloud the word Daddy in thirty years. He’s fumbling for his pack of Camels his hands shaking so he almost can’t get a cigarette out and, in the gusty air, lighted.