High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread

by Joyce Carol Oates

  He will remain anonymous. Maybe he isn’t even alive any longer.

  The mortality rate for young black men in Detroit is said to be nine times higher than that for their white counterparts. Likelihood of incarceration, even higher.

  At Cass, I cross the wide, windy avenue as swiftly as I can without breaking into a run or turning an ankle like a fool. Slow-moving traffic on the avenue, city buses, trucks belching diesel exhaust, but mostly sidewalks are deserted at this hour at the scruffy edge of the campus.

  Behind me whoever is following me accelerates his pace, crossing Cass against the light on long striding legs.

  Calmly I am thinking It is just a coincidence. This person is not really following me.

  Calmly I am thinking He can’t know that I am armed. As soon as it is revealed, in whatever way it will be revealed, he will disappear.

  I would not have to fire the gun, I was sure. I would not have to kill another person.

  Yet my heartbeat has quickened. Almost, I’m unable to breathe.

  Not panic. A reasonable apprehension, in this place and at this time.

  Sweat breaking out beneath my clothes which are the remnants of winter wear—dark-crimson down coat with a hood, black woolen trousers, knit gloves. For weeks in March the temperature seemed frozen—literally—at 32°F; only grudgingly has the air turned warmer.

  The last time I’d been followed off campus whoever had been following me seemed to become discouraged when, on Cass, a city bus wheezed to a stop to disgorge passengers with whom I mingled like a clumsy white goose among dark-feathered Canada geese—what relief! I’d almost laughed, I was so elated. And when I’d glanced back, the (male, black) figure seemed to have vanished.

  Ninety percent of muggings, rapes, even homicides in Detroit are what the police label opportunistic. Meaning the victim happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck. Nothing personal.

  But this evening there’s no bus. At least, no bus that’s going to stop. And there’s no one on this stretch of pavement except me, conspicuous in my pale skin as a mollusk shorn of its shell.

  White Devel. Enemy Black People.

  My husband had said, You don’t have to teach there. You don’t have to teach at all.

  I’d said, But—I do.

  He said, Look. You don’t.

  It was true: my husband had a good job and could support us both. Some measure of old-fashioned pride lay lodged deep within him. A man should support his wife. A man should not allow his wife to work in demeaning or dangerous circumstances.

  Wayne State is in a high crime area, my husband said. He’d meant to be kindly and not bullying.

  High crime area was an expression commonly heard in the media, seen in print. As commonplace in Detroit and vicinity as the parallel expression exclusive suburb Grosse Pointe.

  What is the proportion of black and white citizens who are armed?

  Recently it was revealed that there are at least two firearms for each citizen of Detroit though in the same news article it was acknowledged that this was a figure compiled from gun registrations only. Many more “firearms” are not registered as they are illegal purchases and of these, many are in the possession of individuals under twenty-one.

  Crime in Detroit is “predominantly black”—and yet, victims-of-crime in Detroit are “predominantly black.” White citizens have fled and are fleeing to “white suburbs.”

  But we have not yet fled. We are stubborn, or guileless. We are not yet ready to make the leap.

  The (male, black) figure is approximately twenty feet behind me. He isn’t gaining on me—he has slowed his pace since running across the street. I can hear something—whistling? Humming? Is he singing under his breath?

  Dark skin. Young, lean, and edgy like a boxer who’s too tall for his weight, and his arms and legs too long. No jacket, bare muscled arms, denim cap pulled low over his forehead.

  He’s a stranger—I think. He is no one I know.

  No one who should know me.

  We are headed east on that short, narrow street off Cass. Suddenly it seems to be dusk—the red-hazy air has darkened. I’m walking swiftly in the awkward way in which people walk when they believe they’re being followed but don’t want the follower to know that they’re aware of being followed—head slightly ducked, shoulders stiff, arms tight against my sides. My veins are flooded with adrenaline like hot acid and I feel a kind of crazy elation—wanting to break into a run. But I know that this would be a mistake. He will know, then. It will be acknowledged between us.

  How exposed I am feeling, a (lone, white) woman. At the same time trying to console myself—He’s a student. He’s from the University. He doesn’t want to hurt me.

  If he could see me now my husband would chide—Why did you stay so late in that building, who did you imagine you were waiting for?

  Furious chiding me—What are you trying to prove? That you don’t need a marriage, you don’t need me?

  Ahead is the parking garage. Five floors, near-empty, my car on the third level. I can’t step inside, into that dark interior. In my panic I think—Should I run? But where?

  Should I fumble in my shoulder bag and reveal it—the illegal, terrifying pistol?

  Once I have done this I will have crossed over, I am thinking. All that is secret will be revealed. And if I “fire” the gun—my life will be changed, irrevocably.

  I know this. This is inescapable.

  I am panting, sweating. A roaring in my ears like a great cataract.

  And then, I’ve made a decision: I have turned to the man who has been tormenting me, and I am holding my shoulder bag in such a way that I can reach inside, if required; and I will not hesitate, if required.

  I am trembling badly but my voice is stronger than I’d expected. I am saying, “Excuse me! Are you—do you—want something?”

  My question seems to have taken the man by surprise.

  “Ma’am? What you sayin?”

  He has no idea how desperate I am. No idea what I am carrying in my shoulder bag. I am not the type, he has been thinking. But whatever he’s been expecting, he has not expected me to turn and confront him.

  Of course, I am very nervous. I am trying not to stammer.

  “I’m asking—are you following me? Why are you following me?”

  “Ma’am! Not following anybody.”

  Wariness in his eyes, that are large, and hooded. And a kind of bemusement. His lips draw back in a wary smile.

  “But I think you are. I think you’ve been—following me. You’ve been following me since...”

  Now that I can see the man’s face, I realize that he’s a former student of mine, from the first semester I’d taught at Wayne State. But it isn’t clear if he remembers me.

  His name is—Ezra? Ezekiel? His last name, I can’t recall.

  Ezekiel had been the first “casualty” among my students—as I’d thought at the time. The first of my Wayne State students to disappear with no explanation from a class of mine.

  Because he’d dropped out of the course without securing permission from the University, I’d had to give Ezekiel a grade of F. I’d have given him an I (“Incomplete”) if he’d requested it, but he had not requested it. Ezekiel’s attendance in the course had been sporadic and unpredictable and in class he’d shifted almost continually, maddeningly in his seat beside a steam radiator, legs too long for the desk, head lifted at an odd angle as if, beneath my voice, or drowning out my voice, he was hearing another, more crucial interior voice, or an intoxicating interior music. Often Ezekiel’s face crinkled in frowns, grimaces. He smiled, but not at me. His eccentric behavior seemed to disconcert some of the other, more subdued students, but except for his occasional blunt stare he’d never seemed threatening to me or to anyone. I had not quite dared to call on him, but a few times he’d lifted his hand to answer a question of mine, with the demeanor of a schoolboy.

  The fact was, I’d felt a tinge of loss when Ezekiel disappeared from my cl
ass. There’s no rebuke to an instructor quite like an empty, abandoned desk in a classroom. No more clear sign of failure.

  Now, I am hesitant to utter Ezekiel’s name, for fear that I have remembered it wrongly. I don’t want to insult him, confusing him with another (black, male) student.

  Maybe, I have remembered him wrongly.

  Ezekiel has thrust his hands deep into his pockets as if to force me to see, he isn’t dangerous. His trousers are tight, no room for any handgun though there might be room for a slender knife or a razor—I am thinking.

  There is something impudent about this handsome young black man’s bemused drawl: “Maa’aam? Maybe I was followin you, seein it was you.” He laughs, loudly. “Thinkin it was you, Mz. Mc’tyre.”

  So he remembers my name. He remembers me.

  Yet, until this moment it hasn’t been clear if he’d known who I was. Like me, he hadn’t remembered. And he mumbles my name as if enunciating it clearly would suggest an awkward intimacy between us.

  We are standing on the sidewalk near the front entrance of the parking garage. There is less than ten feet between us. In my extreme unease I’m hardly able to speak, nor even compose my face. Should I be smiling in recognition of Ezekiel, or in relief? Should I be as wary as before? Should I be frightened?

  Ezekiel removes one of his hands from his pocket, to stroke his jaws that are covered in short bristly hairs. Until this moment, I hadn’t noticed that he has a beard, a goatee. (But Ezekiel hadn’t had a beard when he was in my class, had he? I was sure he had not.) Though he wants to suggest that he’s in supreme control of the situation, Ezekiel is still surprised by my turning to confront him—the last thing he’d expected was this white, lone woman turning to him, to challenge him, in this desolate place.

  He is eyeing my shoulder bag. I think I see this. Eyeing my large bulky quasi-leather shoulder bag in which I carry a paperback textbook and student papers but also car keys and a wallet. Money, credit card. Not much money, but Ezekiel could not know that.

  And the heavy little handgun. Ezekiel could not know.

  Rapidly my mind works—has Ezekiel been planning to follow me into the garage, though it’s clear that he has no reason to enter the garage, and announcing then that he has been purposefully following me; has he been following a solitary woman he didn’t recognize as a former instructor of his; and with what intent?

  With a bright glistening grin Ezekiel asks, as if we’ve just run into each other casually on the sidewalk: “What you doin here, ma’am? You teachin?”

  I tell him yes. Briefly, with a small smile yes.

  Ezekiel is older than I remember, in his early thirties perhaps. Is it ominous, in this chilly weather Ezekiel is wearing a soiled gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut crudely off at the shoulder, as if to display his tight-muscled arms? I can see veins in his biceps, veins in his forehead. He seems to be perspiring: oozing oily beads of sweat, as in a drug high. Is he high on drugs? Is he deranged? A wave of dread comes over me, one of Ezekiel’s hands remains inside his trouser pocket... He is fondling the edge of a knife blade, is he?—or, with equal surreptitiousness, the edge of his genitals. Is he touching himself? Defiantly, in front of me?

  I am staring at Ezekiel’s face. I am (resolutely) not looking at his hand slow-moving inside his trousers. Yet, the terror comes over me, obviously Ezekiel has a knife, Ezekiel would not be without a weapon in the inner city of Detroit if but to defend himself, and if Ezekiel has a knife, he is now drawing his forefinger over the blade, caressing, calibrating its sharpness; he is imagining how he will use this blade, how he will use both hands (of course) seizing my hair, yanking me forward, and down, down on my knees, deftly he will position me so that he can bring the knife blade swiftly across my throat, and with enough force to sever the skin, the tissue, cartilage, a vein, the throbbing carotid artery—this will not be a frenzied slaughter—(I think)—but something like an execution. And very swiftly and deftly executed, for it has been planned and, for all I know, it has already been executed. It has been memorized.

  The fallen woman, suddenly limp, inconsequential on the filthy pavement. Terrified eyes now blank. Mouth open, but no sound emerges—she is mute, her speech has been taken from her. Possibly she has tried to press her fingers against her throat—to apply pressure to the exploding artery. But she has bled out within minutes. All this has happened already, it is foretold. Beneath the back-flung head, a perfect pool of blood.

  Even with the gun, this could happen to me. There is no way I could get the gun out of my shoulder bag, back off and begin to fire—Ezekiel is too quick-witted, and possibly, he is too practiced at wielding a knife.

  Yet, numbly I hear myself say: “Yes. I’m teaching the same class—composition. In the same building, I think the same classroom. At the same time, Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  Ezekiel, who has been gazing at me with rapt attention, as if seeing something in my face of which I am unaware, doesn’t seem to have heard this. He’s making a murmurous sound Uh—yeh?—uh-huh! OK maa’aam!

  Yet, at such a time the bizarre thought comes to me, what it would be like to call such a person brother.

  Ezekiel, my brother. Ezekiel—is that your name?

  As if he has sensed my terror Ezekiel begins to speak rapidly, with a bright damp-toothed smile. He is trying to explain to me—something—that isn’t altogether coherent. Such speech is a way of placating terror—as an adult might address a frightened child while advancing upon the child holding something behind his back, or secreted in a pocket. Half-consciously, I step back. Between us there is the pretext that this is a normal conversation, a friendly conversation; the pretext that I’m able to understand him without difficulty, for I am nodding and smiling as teachers invariably do with students, to show sympathy, and to encourage; here is a (female, white) instructor, a (male, black) student near the campus of a sprawling urban university with a mission to educate all citizens. Yes, it is a reversal, a tacit insult: the instructor is younger than the student. This seems wrong. This seems unjust. Perhaps it is “racist.” Yet, it is unavoidable. I can’t apologize for the person I am, as I can’t apologize for the myriad circumstances that have brought me here, or for the (conspicuous) color of my skin. And I am now recalling, prompted by something Ezekiel says, how at the end of the last class he’d attended he’d told me that he had to go inside for a while and didn’t think he could finish the course. In shame he’d lowered his voice so that I could hardly hear him. So that others standing nearby couldn’t hear him. At the time I had no idea what he meant but later, hearing a night school colleague speak wonderingly of a student who’d actually been arrested in a classroom in Starret Hall, led out of the room handcuffed by two uniformed police officers, I realized that Ezekiel must have meant that he was going inside what was called, somewhat euphemistically, a “correctional facility”—he’d been, to use the familiar Detroit term, “incarcerated.”

  No one went to prison. Criminals were incarcerated.

  Whatever Ezekiel’s crime, it couldn’t have been very serious. Or he’d been allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge. The sentence couldn’t have been long. (Was Ezekiel paroled? Had something happened, he’d been released?) For now Ezekiel is standing before me, his former English teacher, smiling and smirking, not certain what he seems to be telling me, or what his intentions are.

  Still, he is tracing the outline of the knife inside his trousers. He isn’t carrying a gun, there isn’t room for even a small gun inside those trousers. He isn’t touching his genitals—I am sure, it’s a knife blade. Above and to the left of his groin. A slender knife would fit there, as a handgun would not. His bluish-lidded eyes half-close, his fleshy lips retain a dreamy smile. He is imagining it: the swift deep cut. The explosion of blood that is not “white” but a dark, satisfying red. Yet, in a resolutely calm and friendly voice I am asking Ezekiel if he’s taking courses this semester at Wayne State and he shrugs enigmatically—maybe yes, maybe no. (The question has fla
ttered him, I think. It is also unexpected. It is causing Ezekiel to rapidly reassess the situation—and himself.)

  Overhead, the sky is streaked with red, splotched like fraying clouds. The air smells of chemicals, diesel exhaust. I wonder if I should compliment Ezekiel on his muscled arms—Do you work out, Ezekiel? In a gym?—but the thought comes to me that this is too familiar, too intimate, and probably Ezekiel would have to say he’s been working out in prison.

  That is, a correctional facility.

  And I might ask him, blindly, daringly—Is this Slate River? Do you know an inmate approximately your age there, a black Muslim, his name is—Joah? The cousin of one of my students this semester...

  Ezekiel’s bluish-dreamy hooded eyes blink slowly. Pointedly, Ezekiel glances around. No one on the street. No one inside the parking garage. Yet, a half-block away at Cass, there is a stream of traffic. And now, streetlights have come on, as if grudgingly. At any moment, a Detroit police cruiser might turn onto this narrow side street and drive slowly past us. At any moment, two (white) police officers in the cruiser, clearly visible beneath the windshield. More than once I’d felt myself saved from similar ambiguous situations in Detroit, an empty stretch of sidewalk, lone individuals or teenagers behind me suddenly very quiet, and then—the police cruiser... Though afterward recounting the experience to colleagues and friends—(not ever to my husband!)—I’d underplayed my vast heart-stopping relief, and ridiculed my fears.

  As if he’s made a decision, as if (perhaps) he understands perfectly all that has rushed through my mind, Ezekiel says in an oddly elevated voice, as if he hopes to be overheard by witnesses, “Maa’aam, I’m gon walk with you, you look like you need somebody walkin with you.”

  He removes his hand from his pocket. Like an overgrown boy he adjusts the cap more securely on his head.

  Walk with me—where?