Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Help me! Please help me! O God!

  I will be your servant forever, if You save me O God!

  So “Starr Bright” thrashed about wildly, flailing her arms, kicking, fighting for her life—yet she was paralyzed, and could not move. Waking bathed in perspiration, cold clammy sweat; her muscles rigid, face contorted. Waking—where? In an unknown bed, a bed of damp rumpled smelly sheets, in an unknown room that hummed loudly with cheap air-conditioning that could not dispel odors of whiskey, cigarette smoke, human sweat and semen and insecticide. “Starr Bright” was not alone but beside a stranger, a fattish naked man who lay sprawled on his back in the center of the bed, a sheet pulled to midchest, head flung back and mouth gaping, wetly snoring.

  Mr. Cobb it was. Who’d been unexpectedly rough and impatient with her. The first time, at Kings Lake, he’d been shy, boyish and fumbling like a new husband; last night, reddish-veined pig’s eyes contracting and his vision going inward as Uh! uh! uh! he’d grunted grinding himself stubbornly and then desperately and at last furiously into “Starr Bright.” But I thought you admired me, my dancing; I thought you were “crazy” about me … Twenty pitiless minutes she’d clocked this copulation as she’d clocked their earlier episodes, eight minutes, twelve minutes, sixteen; a part of her brain detached and clinical despite the line of coke she’d snorted with her bulldog-jowled friend whose name, or names, kept eluding her. She hadn’t even pretended to respond, her usual low throaty sexual moaning as if she were being tortured but loving it, loving it but tortured, why bother, Cobb wasn’t paying attention. They’d checked in early at the Paradise Motel for this purpose, were naked in bed trying to make love as Cobb called it; thrashing about on top of the bed for a while; then rose to go out hurriedly not taking time even to shower and cleanse their sticky bodies as “Starr Bright” badly wanted; yes, and to shampoo her hair; it had been two days since she’d cleaned herself thoroughly and how badly she wanted to wash between her legs, her chafed tender thighs, run the shower in the bathroom as hot as she could bear it but Cobb grown suddenly bossy insisted upon going out to buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and several grams of cocaine innocently white and powdery-granular as confectioner’s sugar and so the night had shut abruptly about her like walls pushing inward, threatening suffocation. C’mon, baby! What’d they call you—“Starr Bright”? Loosen up.

  Though the man was a stranger to her, “Starr Bright” seemed to know beforehand it might be a wise move to anesthetize herself. So she’d only pretended to inhale a second and a third line of coke held on a shaky spoon-mirror to her nostrils; in fact, in the secrecy of the ill-smelling bathroom, the only place she could go to hide from Mr. Cobb, she’d quickly swallowed not one, not even two, but a risky three tablets of Valium, the most she ever allowed herself in even the worst emergency situations, or when alcohol was involved. (Trying not to think of women she’d known, dancers like herself, “exotic” or otherwise who’d overdosed on drugs and alcohol, overdosed and died and their names forgotten.) So she’d been more or less dulled against Mr. Cobb’s grinding, grunting and panting; his semi-flaccid penis like a hunk of blood sausage that, though limp, yet has substance, and can be made to hurt, jammed into her; his hard grasping hands like tentacles; his red-rimmed frog’s eyes, his escalating demands. How quickly the man had changed: as if they’d run through a twenty-year marriage in twenty hours, Mr. Cobb aging and coarsening before her eyes. How many minutes, how many hours, precisely where they were, and why she, “Starr Bright,” a top “exotic interpretive dancer” admired by other dancers for her Ice Princess glamor and her evident intelligence and sensitivity, more than once compared to the French film actress Catherine Deneuve—why she was here, in this despicable bed, in a despicable man’s arms, she could not know, could not comprehend. But the Valium had kicked in, the Valium was precious as any savior, she was sinking to sleep again, shivering, cold with sweat like congealed oil, trying discreetly to keep as far as possible from the snoring man in the center of the bed. She knew from experience You don’t want to offend them, don’t want to make them angrier than they are. And sinking into sleep again, “Starr Bright” found herself another time in a swimming pool—in a distant city, in a distant time, she was a child again, nine years old, and she’d been brought to a park by an older girl cousin who lived in town, what a treat for little Rose of Sharon Donner visiting for the day, excited as always when visiting her relatives in Yewville, which seemed to her a large city of mystery and adventure. (And it pleased her, too, that for some reason her sister hadn’t been included. How much more fun without Lily, who was so shy and hanging-back!) But something seemed to have gone wrong: her cousin Beverly wasn’t watching her as she was supposed to, Beverly had gone off with her own friends and so Rose of Sharon in her pink swimsuit found herself surrounded in the pool by children she didn’t know. Hey who’re you? Where’re you from? Older boys of eleven or twelve, skinny strangers with hair wetly rat-slick and narrowed curious eyes that Rose of Sharon believed were friendly eyes, she was a child accustomed to being admired, being liked, of the Donner girls it was Rose of Sharon and never Lily of the Valley people fussed over, poor Lily was so shy, and Sharon was so bright and bold and outgoing and pretty, naturally boys paid attention to her. So she told them her name, and they laughed at such a name—but nice-laughing, teasing-laughing. She told them she was from Shaheen, and they laughed saying Where? for Shaheen was miles away in the country, not even a town just a place. She told them proudly that her daddy was Ephraim Donner, Minister of the First Church of Christ of Shaheen, and that impressed them, she thought, that made them listen! So they invited her for a ride in their big inner tube, which was a truck inner tube, the biggest in the pool. Rose of Sharon had seen other children riding in the tube, so big, shiny-black and floppy, the center of much splashing and hilarity; it seemed to her that only privileged, favored girls were allowed to ride in this tube, head and arms thrust through the opening, legs kicking behind, so of course Rose of Sharon said yes, she hadn’t even glanced around to look for Beverly, in her excitement she’d forgotten entirely about Beverly. The Yewville boys were so friendly, grinning at her so of course she trusted them, she was nine years old and a country child and the favorite of her daddy, so Rose of Sharon Donner trusted these boys though they were strangers and her mother had warned her not to play with children she didn’t know unless Beverly was with her but in the giddy excitement of the pool this was forgotten. Hey c’mon little girl! Blondie Blue-Eyes! Don’t be scared! So she let the boys push her through the inner-tube opening, she was squealing, giggling and kicking as the boys tugged the tube across the pool, and toward the farther end of the pool where the water was five feet deep and Rose of Sharon began to be frightened but the boys doggy-paddling and splashing beside her said not to be scared, not to be scared she was O.K. because the inner tube couldn’t sink. The boys were ducking beneath her and jostling her, pulling at her feet, tickling at first and then pinching; poking their hard fingers into her ribs, between her legs as she began to thrash her arms and legs, panicked, helpless and sobbing. She tried to cry No! no! let me go! but she swallowed water, there was so much noise in the pool no one could hear her, the boys wouldn’t let their pretty little blond captive go, a gang of them now was hooting and chortling tugging her across the pool into the deep water where only older children and teenagers were allowed to swim, and at last a lifeguard intervened, a teenaged girl blowing her whistle and shouting so the boys quickly shoved Rose of Sharon out of their tube and into the water and escaped, and Rose of Sharon sank swallowing water, flailing about and would surely have drowned except for the lifeguard rescuing her, carrying her out of the pool and onto the puddled concrete where she lay sobbing and coughing up water, stricken as a wounded animal. And so ashamed! so humiliated! When she’d thought the boys had liked her so much! Her cousin Beverly was squatting over her, guilty, frightened, saying how sorry she was, how sorry she was please not to tell on her, begging Rose of Sharon not to tell eit
her of their mothers ever, and so the nightmare was ended, and Rose of Sharon never told. For to tell would be to admit how she’d been tricked, made a fool and humbled bawling like a baby among staring strangers.

  Except: the nightmares of childhood never end but continue forever beneath the surface of memory as beneath the surface of choppy murky water. So long as memory and life endure.

  So it was that “Starr Bright” woke agitated and confused, half-choking out of her drugged sleep another time. She was not “Rose of Sharon Donner” now and had not been “Rose of Sharon Donner” for a long time. Luminous red numerals floating in the dark beside the bed indicated 4:46 A.M. There would be no more sleep for “Starr Bright” that night.

  Through discolored venetian blind slats a fluorescent-crimson neon sign flashed in rumba rhythm. PARADISE MOTEL. PARADISE MOTEL. Quietly “Starr Bright” slipped from the damp smelly pigsty of a bed and discovered herself naked. Naked! Shivering in the drafty refrigerated air though her body was covered in sticky sweat and there was a burning sensation between her legs. Dared not waken the man, what was his name, Cobb. Had to escape from him, a dangerous man, cruel, surprising how he’d changed after a few drinks, snorting coke and he’d become a real bulldog, he’d hurt her, bruised her breasts he’d said were so God-damned beautiful they drove him crazy with wanting to suck suck suck the first time she’d undressed before him in the privacy of his Kings Lake motel room, but this time he’d been a different man, squeezing and pinching her breasts, bruising the insides of her creamy-pale thighs, grinding his only part-erect penis into her grunting Uh! uh! uh! as if he’d wanted to kill her, eyes bulging and pink-flushed face swelling like a balloon about to burst. Drunk, and high on cocaine, not a man accustomed to cocaine, he’d turned into a bully, a pig, and he’d lied to her, too, promising she could bathe herself, wash her sticky hair, like all of them he’d lied to her, he had no pity for her suffering.

  Must change my life. Help me O God. I’m run to earth.

  For God had sent her the miracle-dream, a dream of her lost, repudiated childhood. She had not had the drowning-dream, as she called it, for eight years or more. Since West Palm Beach. Or had it been Miami. A sign of Your terrible love.

  Quickly, fumblingly, “Starr Bright” dressed herself in the dark palely raddled by flashing crimson neon from PARADISE MOTEL PARADISE MOTEL outside the window. Stepping into the torn black lace panties Cobb had ripped from her, struggling into the absurdly tight skirt, the phony-gold lamé halter. And where were her shoes? and her Gucci bag? and the blue-sequined purse?

  One day they would ask why hadn’t she fled Billy Ray Cobb and the Paradise Motel. Why not run out of the room, why not run for help into the motel office, bright-lit and open for business at 4:46 A.M. as at 4:46 P.M. For indeed “Starr Bright” might have done so, seeking refuge on foot in Sparks, Nevada, a police station perhaps, except she feared and loathed the police, above all you can’t trust the police. Nowhere to go, run to earth.

  When God sends His sign, it’s after you are run to earth. And beaten, broken utterly. So you cast your eyes upward to Him, there is no one but Him.

  There stood “Starr Bright” hastily clothed now pausing to look through Cobb’s clothes flung onto a chair. The fake-Navajo belt with the brass medallion buckle. The monogrammed shirt smelling of sweat and deodorant, the polyester trousers. By the rhythmically flashing light she could see only well enough to go through the trouser pockets, remove the wallet thick with bills and credit cards, the keys for the rental car. Hands shaking but determined. And there on a table the almost-empty whiskey bottle, somehow she’d taken hold of it, and she raised it to her mouth and drank impulsively, regretted it immediately as she began to cough and Billy Ray Cobb’s snoring ceased and he woke and sat up muttering, “Eh? What? Who’s that?”

  There followed then an episode distended and distorted as in a dream never to be recalled precisely by “Starr Bright” except in quick-jumping flashes, images.

  She told the groggy suspicious man it was just her, it was just “Starr Bright” and he should go back to sleep, but Billy Ray Cobb had flared up in anger swinging his bare legs out of bed, demanding to know, “Baby, why’re you up? It’s fucking night.” And she’d tried to hide the wallet and car keys inside her clothes, turned from Cobb, saying she needed to use the bathroom. But by now Cobb was on his feet. You wouldn’t have believed a man his age, his size and fattish condition could wake up so quickly, must have been adrenaline charging him, swaying but belligerent demanding to know what the hell was going on. He was just a little taller than “Starr Bright” in his bare feet, no more than five feet nine but he outweighed her by one hundred pounds. Saying, advancing upon her, “Yeah? Happens the bathroom’s in this direction, sweetheart. Or were you gonna take a leak on the floor?” And “Starr Bright” was stammering trying to explain she wanted to take a shower, needed to take a hot shower, wash her hair, couldn’t sleep smelly and dirty as she was and Cobb interrupted, “Shower in the middle of the fucking night? You expect me to believe that?” She was about to make a run for the door though knowing the door was chain-bolted and double-locked and she wouldn’t have had a chance to escape and by this time he’d seen the wallet and car keys in her hand, and grabbed her, limp and weak as a rag doll she was as he shook her, slapped her, “What the fuck, bitch? Caught you, eh?” getting a hammerlock on her and grunting dragging her toward the bathroom. “You say you want a shower, eh?—dirty hair washed? Dirty cunt washed? How’s about in the toilet bowl? Think you can put something over on me! Make an asshole out of me! You’re messing with the wrong man, bitch!”

  “Starr Bright” was on her knees. Cobb was slapping, punching her furiously, an undertone of shame in his voice, “—Telling me all that shit last night and I fell for it! What a sucker! Shoulda known you whores are all alike, don’t deserve to live! Going into my wallet! Can’t wait till morning to be paid!” and he’d picked up his wallet where it had fallen to the floor and extracted a handful of bills tossing them into the air in derision and pushing “Starr Bright” down on hands and knees where they fell, saying, “Crawl for it, bitch, pick ’em up, bitch, pick ’em up with your cunt,” and when she refused to move he pushed her down and straddled her, heavy sweating naked body on her back, penis and testicles flopping against her back, “Hey, you like it, babe! You know you like it! ‘Starr Bright’—what a crock of shit! Phony bitch, all of you phony bitches, whores! Don’t deserve to live, you contaminate the world for decent women.” He snatched up his belt and began to strike her with it, the brass buckle against her legs, thighs, buttocks, he was laughing, “Giddyup, horsey! Giddyup, horsey! You like it, eh?—cunt? Sure you do,” and when “Starr Bright” collapsed beneath his weight Cobb ground himself into her, penis like a steel rod now, hardened with fury, loathing, the wish to hurt, and the rattling air-conditioning muffled their cries if anyone had been listening, if anyone had cared to listen here at the Paradise Motel, Sparks, Nevada, but of course no one did, as Billy Ray Cobb hooted and laughed and collapsed onto her, and lay heavily panting, unmoving for several seconds. When he rose from her, “Starr Bright” lay limp on the floor.

  Cobb was immensely pleased with himself, you could hear it in his voice. Not just he’d punished a thief but he was right to do so, it was a good deed he’d done, her punishment deserved. And more: “Now get out of here, ‘Starr Bright.’ Before I get mad.” He prodded her with his foot, he grabbed her by the hair, teasing, “Before I do something can’t be undone,” teasing, “Don’t play no more games with me, cunt, like you’re hurt or something. Like you’re so sensitive or something. This room I’m paying for, get out.” Forcing her to crawl in the direction of the door, through the scattered bills, his fingers gripping the back of her neck. How triumphant he was, how triumphant other men had been at such moments, waves of animal heat rippling from his body that was covered in coarse graying hair like wires. Saying again she didn’t deserve to live among decent women, lucky he hadn’t broken her jaw,
“Starr Bright” fumbled for her sequined purse lying on the floor and he said, “Yeah! Right! Take your trash with you! Stinking up the room.” He unbolted and unlatched the door, opened it as “Starr Bright” managed to stand, her clothes torn, her nose bloodied, Cobb sighted her cork-heeled shoes on the floor and snatched them up and tossed them out the door, “Trash! Stinking! Get out!” and when “Starr Bright” failed to move quickly enough he gripped her again by the back of the neck about to fling her through the doorway after her shoes but in that instant no longer dazed and fumbling for God gave me strength, guided my hand according to His desire “Starr Bright” had the knife out of her purse, held it with desperate tightness and drew its razor-sharp blade swiftly across Cobb’s throat and he cried out more in astonishment than in pain as at once he began to bleed profusely, a virtual fountain of blood springing from his throat, he clutched at it trying to stem the flow, his clumsy sausage-fingers trying to repair the terrible damage in his flesh, and “Starr Bright” leapt free of him as he fell, sinking to his knees, murmuring with what remained of his voice, “Hey, what—? My God, help—help me—”

  No help. None. No pity, and no mercy for she’d been bled dry of such herself. Run to earth, and broken utterly. And suffused with God’s will. God gave me strength, guided my hand and so it was, and so it would be. So “Starr Bright” calmly watched Billy Ray Cobb die as you would see a task through to its necessary and inevitable completion. As you would not even wish to hurry such a task, surrendered to a greater will. Thank you God. Thank you God. Thank you God. The quivering pig-body amid a gathering pool of pig-blood dark as oil staining the cheap nubbed carpet in the flickering crimson-neon winking from the window.