I'll Take You There

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I never doubted that others, those others I admired, were solid and whole, not made of scraps and pieces like me. I never doubted their natural superiority, only that I could emulate it. Yet there were those like me with whom I felt a surreptitious kinship. One morning in the Ethics class after Vernor Matheius had ceased attending, the professor had been lecturing with a strained, forced energy on "the perennial problem of good and evil"—the "tragedy of man's divisiveness"—and of how such great thinkers as Augustine, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel had dealt with this "problem"; and it came to me—how hollow, how halting the man's voice; how little any of this mattered, without Vernor Matheius to respond. The wintery glare from the tall leaded-glass window beside the professor's podium fell upon the aging man so cruelly it looked as if his skin was about to crumble into bits, and his eyes that were brave and hopeful were about to dissolve into water. I heard his old-man's voice as he must have heard it himself and felt a rush of confused emotion for him, and pity: for the arc of his life was waning, and even had Vernor Matheius remained in our midst it would not have mattered for long.

  To win Vernor Matheius's attention, I understood that I would have to make myself visible to him, and "attractive"; I would have to reinvent myself; I shopped for secondhand clothing in the city, choosing things I myself would never have wished to wear, or dared: a lime-green suede jacket in a bygone style, only slightly worn at the cuffs and elbows; a ruffled red long-sleeved silk blouse that looked like an explosion on my narrow torso; a tartan plaid wool skirt several sizes too large for me made of an exquisitely beautiful fabric; a sleek-sexy black linen dress with a V neck and a dropped hemline and an unraveling hem. Out of bins marked $3—$5 I pulled a sweater, a gauzy scarf, a belt made of linked silver ornaments. Each of the items had been many times reduced—the suede jacket, for instance, had been marked down from $95 to $43 to $19—and was certainly a bargain; these were quality clothes of the kind I could never have afforded new; but I could not really afford even these bargains, and had had to borrow money from girls in my residence, even as I suspected I would never be able to repay it—I'd become reckless, shameless. And my hair that had grown out unevenly and fell now to my shoulders in an untidy rippled-curly mass needed attention: trimming, shaping, "styling": I found myself one Saturday morning in a neighborhood beauty salon spending $ 12 on my hair; staring amazed at the transformed girl in the mirror as the beautician (a heavily made-up, glamorous woman of approximately the age my mother would have been had she lived) said cheerfully, "Some improvement, eh?"

  10

  " 'Anellia'—a strange name. Never heard it before."

  Frowning, with a skeptic's habitual narrowing of his eyes, Vernor Matheius uttered this name as if doubting it.

  I said nothing, and the moment passed.

  In the gloomily romantic coffeehouse Vernor Matheius spoke almost exclusively of philosophy. It was his true passion. It might have been his only passion. Such a ferocity of commitment and concentration excited me, for I felt the same way, or nearly; I'd grown to distrust all that was mere emotion, fleeting and ephemeral; the world of sliding, collapsing surfaces; the world of my father's drifting cigarette smoke, vanishing into the ceiling of my grandparents' old farmhouse; the world of clock time. And there was the thrill of a common language. A common religion. Almost, I could think, As if we were a couple. Lovers. Vernor was known in this place, and seemed not to mind when his name was spoken familiarly; it struck my ear as risky, and wonderful, that others, strangers to me, could call out "Vernor" so readily, and Vernor Matheius would smile and wave a greeting. Beside a wall of hammered tin squares painted the hue of pencil lead, we sat in a booth with a sticky tabletop; Vernor ordered coffee for us both—very strong, black, bitter-almond coffee of a sort I had never tasted before; swift as a shot to the heart caffeine flew through my veins; my pulse quickened, my very eyeballs began to throb. As if. Lovers. Long ago I had sternly instructed myself that sexual yearning is impersonal; though it may seem so, it is not; sexual yearning is the yearning of nature to reproduce itself, blindly.

  Vernor asked nothing more about my name, or my background. In a voice that seemed to me, in my state of heightened nerves, both aggressive and seductive, he quizzed me about philosophy: for it was strange to him that "a girl like you" would be drawn to philosophy since "so few girls" were. He spoke of Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza. Wittgenstein and Cassirer were his special interests. "The universal laws of structure and operation"—that was the only really worthwhile concern of mankind, in Vernor's opinion. When he'd first enrolled in college he had thought he might be a teacher, but soon discovered, to his disgust, how vacuous, how ignorant, how deadly-dull education courses were; he'd dropped out of college and entered a seminary, hoping to learn of God, the pathways to God, and how he might serve mankind in the effort of discovering God, but soon discovered, to his even greater disgust, only a human, confused and contradictory God— " 'Yahweh' like a collective comic nightmare of mankind." And so he returned to college, and enrolled in humanities courses, but soon discovered he couldn't tolerate history—"For what is 'history' except contingency, a mess of accidents." Most of these were bloody; history was mostly war; an appalling record of mankind's cruelty; cruelty compounded by ignorance, unless it was compounded by a malevolent intelligence; mankind no more rational than ants of differing races, creeds, languages ceaselessly battling one another for dominance; for mere anthills; what is politics but rabid self-interest and aggression, even the current civil rights movement—Vernor uttered the words civil rights movement with a purely neutral detachment as if it were a foreign phrase—was a distraction from the purity of the philosophical quest: to know what is. "Every year, every moment must be equal to every other," Vernor said, frowning as if warning me not to interrupt and argue, for philosophers are trained to argue. "The only truths that can possibly matter, that can really matter, are truths that transcend time." How emphatic Vernor Matheius's voice. A voice of seduction, a voice of pleading. A voice of logic, reason, conviction. A voice like a caress, that left me weak, gripping the coffee mug between my fingers. Vernor Matheius's large head, dark-tinctured face; his eyes showing pale crescents above the iris. His warm yeasty bodily odor mixed with the sharper smell of the coffee and rushed along my veins making me begin to perspire inside my showy clothes. I would be late for my cafeteria job. I would not arrive at the cafeteria at all. Though thinking calmly I can leave. I can stand, turn away. At any time.

  Then somehow we were outside. My eyes blinked against the cold, tears stuck to my lashes. Vernor Matheius was leading me—where? We must have spoken of where. He must have invited me, I must have accepted. Close beside me he walked, nudging me. With what strange familiarity his fingers gripped my green suede jacket at the elbow. We came to Chambers Street. We descended the icy sidewalk. I am free to turn away, to run. At any time. Inappropriately, I recalled my Kappa sister Chris; how, the rumor was, she'd been taken upstairs in the fraternity house, drunk; eager and loving, you had to suppose; and what happened upstairs, how many fraternity men had sex with her, no one would know; Chris herself would not know, and would not wish to know; she'd dropped out of school, and was gone. I had no reason to think of Chris. I am not Chris, I am not a Kappa. Though if I seemed to be drifting from Vernor, his fingers gripped my elbow just a little firmer. " 'Annul-ia'? That's your name?"

  There, the stucco building of the indefinable hue of lard. This place I should not have recognized. I was smiling a small, fixed smile; I was certain that I had chosen this; though I did not know what exactly I had chosen; to what I'd agreed when Vernor Matheius had spoken the name "Anellia" in the coffeehouse and stared at me across the sticky tabletop. Free to leave, to turn away. To run. As we were climbing the stairway; the stairway I should not have known of, and seemed not to know of; the stairway of my dreams that was a crude wood-plank outdoor stairway with a roof but otherwise open to weather, the steps beginning to rot, swaying slightly beneath us. Vernor Matheius was close beh
ind me, I was just ahead of him; I thought He is herding me the way a dog herds sheep and the thought made me laugh. Vernor was joking nervously about his "living quarters"—he was "an underground man aboveground"—there was the surprise of his icy-cold fingers encircling my right leg just below the knee; they were quick, strong, deft fingers; I tried to shake them off as if this was a game; of course it was a game; we behaved as if it was a game, playful and laughing; I thought He would not hurt me— would he? There was a garbagey smell, a smell of rotting wood. I opened my mouth to speak yet could not, the words tangled together. I had to leave, I was late for my job in the cafeteria, I had no money, I was desperately poor and would never be able to repay the girls to whom I owed money, a total of $87.50, a sum that might as well have been $10,000. I could not say these things; I could not say that I loved him but was terrified of him; that I had never been with a man or a boy like this; I was terrified of becoming pregnant; "becoming pregnant" was a thought that terrified me though I had no sexual experience; I could not exert any will contrary to Vernor Matheius's will, the playful grip of his fingers at my knee; as in a dream we are unable to exert any will contrary to the inscrutable will of the dream. It might have been (I thought) that whatever was to happen had already happened; in philosophy there was the theoretical possibility of the isomorphic universe, symmetrical in both space and time; a strictly determined universe that could run forward, and backward; to exert will in such a universe was not possible; to be blamed would be unjust. And so now I was climbing the outdoor stairway at 1183 Chambers Street exactly as I'd wished in my dreams; and yet this was not at all the dream I'd wished; I was frightened, and felt sick; I was trembling badly, as if freezing; the bitter black coffee of which I'd had only two or three sips now rose acid and bilious in my throat. It's the green suede jacket that has brought me here I was thinking. It's the smiling-lipsticked girl in the mirror I was thinking. Biting my lip to keep from laughing, thinking This is what a pretty girl does, it's time you knew. This is what a "desired"girl does, this is what is done to a "desired"girl.

  Vernor Matheius fumbled with the key trying quickly to open the door to apartment 2D before we were seen, and pushed me inside. For once wordless.

  11

  The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

  WITTGENSTEIN

  And now how lonely.

  How alone, and how lonely.

  Where once I'd walked into the residence hall cafeteria as soon as it opened at 7:00 a.m., and took a tray, and got my breakfast, and sat alone at a table near a window where I could read and dream in seclusion, now, in love with Vernor Matheius, I felt such acute loneliness, the physical shock and panic of loneliness, I could not bear to be by myself; eagerly and desperately I sought the company of girls whom I scarcely knew, girls I'd previously scorned, superficial chattering good-natured girls with whom I had nothing (or so I imagined) in common. It was like the nightmare of the sorority again where I'd blindly sought "sisters" yet it was not the company of girls I yearned for but the company of Vernor Matheius whom I feared I would never see again. Even with others, safely (if temporarily) with others, I could not concentrate on them but was thinking of course of him; only of him; my fingernails cruelly etched Vernor Matheius Vernor Matheius in the soft flesh of the inside of my forearm.

  My cafeteria laughter was shrill as coins tossed against the floor, my voice strident. Yet as soon as my "friends" were gone the smile died on my lips, not a smile but a twitch; the manic spark in my eyes was extinguished like a light switched off. Alone, alone. I pushed away into the void like a solitary swimmer pushing out into freezing water; for all swimmers are solitary in such bitter regions of the soul.

  Seeing something in my face, what pain what humiliation what despairing hope, one of the older girls waited for me; waited outside the cafeteria for me; hesitantly she inquired, "Is something wrong? You seem so"—tactful, kindly, not meaning to pry—"so sad, somehow." And I was astonished, so exposed. Flaring up like a struck match, "I'm not sad. I'm not sad in the slightest. What an ignorant thing to say. I've been laughing, haven't I?" I said, offended. Unless in fact I burst into tears. The girl, a tall broad-shouldered girl whose name I did not know or out of arrogance did not remember stood in such a way to shield me from the staring, curious eyes of others. My hot tears spilled out onto my cheeks; my nose ran; was this passion, was this romance, this—? Incensed as an older sister she asked, practicably, "Is it some guy?" and called me by my name, not "Anellia" but my true, ordinary name, the name by which I was commonly known. Some guy! As if she'd reached out to tickle me with rough fingers—some guy! The word so slangy, vulgar, commonplace—guy! Was Vernor Matheius for all his arrogance, brilliance, power over me in essence merely a guy? I had not time to absorb such a revolutionary thought, though such a thought might have saved me; I perceived my benefactor as my enemy, backing away in dislike, stammering, "I—resent such a question. I don't know you and you—you don't know me at all."

  Following that exchange I avoided the dining hall. I ate in my room, or skipped meals altogether.

  How lonely, I wanted to die. To cease to exist. For he had rejected me, repudiated me; sent me away; he had not loved me nor even "made love" to me; my anxiety had been proven causeless, and so contemptible; I was contemptible; he'd sent me away almost as soon as we'd entered his apartment. That was the secret of my hurt over some guy.

  What memory of Vernor Matheius's apartment I'd seen for such a brief period of time, scarcely minutes… Shelves of neatly arranged books; a narrow cot with a thin dark corduroy bedspread pulled up in apparent haste; a flattened pillow in a white, not-very-clean case; curtainless windows, the cracked and stained blinds I'd seen from the outside, from the safety of the ground. And now I am here, now in apartment 2D with Vernor Matheius, how has such a miracle occurred? And if a "miracle" has occurred, is it a "miracle" after all? Beneath my feet were bare, badly worn floorboards upon which a cheap, stained pile rug had been laid; the color of the rug was a vague blurred fleshy-gray of the hue of certain kinds of mold; the very floor was uneven, tilted; like the floors of my grandparents' old farmhouse beneath which the earth had shifted in a way to suggest indifference, or scorn; a child's marble, laid experimentally upon such a floor, would roll unhesitatingly until impeded by a wall. At the rear was a shadowy alcove with a single counter; a sink so small as to seem a child's sink; a dwarf refrigerator set upon the floor. The apartment was airless, smelling of cigarette smoke, coffee, grease; the yeasty odor of a man's body; soiled clothes, bedclothes. In such airlessness my nostrils widened in a kind of swoon; a wave of dizziness washed over me; perhaps I was trespassing into forbidden territory, shocked at my own audacity. This is what a "desired" girl does, this is what is done to a "desired" girl. Staring smiling at a desk which was the most premeditated and accomplished piece of furniture in the sparely furnished room; it had about it an aura of the sacred, the not-to-be-touched, like an altar, and beside it on the wall was a likeness of Socrates as a sculpted head with blind exophthalmic eyes, and another likeness of a stolid bewigged man I believed must be Descartes. The desk itself exuded stolidity and character; how wholly unlike the cramped, battered, uniform aluminum desks issued by the university; it consisted of a large piece of wood set upon filing cabinets, wonderfully expansive for any desk, measuring perhaps five feet by four and a half feet; its sectors might have been marked off by invisible grids for neat piles of books, journals, and papers were placed at intervals, the highest at the rear and the lowest at the front, spines facing outward for ready identification; there was a clay bowl crammed with pens and pencils; there were much-eroded erasers; there was an Olivetti portable typewriter pushed back to clear a space directly in front of the desk chair, grooves in the desktop marking how the typewriter was pushed back, pulled forward, pushed back and pulled forward again. Rolled into the typewriter was a sheet of paper upon which a tight little paragraph of prose had been typed:

  The claim that philosophy is a b
attle against "the bewitchment of intelligence by language" & this very claim postulated in the syntax & content & contours of Language—

  which I would identify at a later time as an argumentative allusion to the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

  Perhaps Vernor Matheius was speaking to me through the pulsebeat in my ears, perhaps he was not; perhaps he was indicating he would help me remove my jacket, perhaps he was not; perhaps he was fumbling with his sheepskin jacket, bulky on his tall, lanky frame like protective armature; perhaps he was not. He will touch me now. Now it will happen. Nervously he was tugging down a window shade, and the frayed material began to tear; he muttered a jokey profanity—"Shit!" And this word, this blunt mechanical brainless expletive in another man's voice: not Vernor Matheius's eloquent voice. As if another, more commonplace and thus more practicable man not Vernor Matheius stood in his place, cursing a frayed window shade. Yet I didn't hear, exactly; I heard but didn't acknowledge; my heart was beating rapidly as I stood rereading the enigmatic paragraph typed on the sheet of stark white paper as if it were a secret, coded message meant solely for me which even its author could not have fully comprehended. It was then that I realized I had been hearing Vernor Matheius's breathing. His breathing like panting. Like a dog's panting. And I smelled the alarm, the fear lifting from his body like heat. "Why'd you come here with me?"—a voice that was raw, harsh; very male; like sandpaper scraping across a splintery wooden surface; a frightened voice; a disdainful voice; not the musical, seductive voice of the lecture hall; not the voice of logic, reason, conviction, irony; not the voice of Vernor Matheius as I'd heard it in my dreams; but a stranger's voice, any-man's voice. I stared at him now, struck dumb; he was frowning, such a frown shifting the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and the lenses of his glasses were opaque with reflected light (as soon as we'd stepped inside the room Vernor had switched on an overhead light and shadows were cast downward on our faces, like appalled skulls we regarded each other out of astonished shadowed eye-sockets); he was saying: "Look, Anellia, you don't want to do this, and I don't, either." We were still in our outer clothes; I had not begun to unbutton the green suede jacket, and Vernor's bulky sheepskin jacket looked more resolutely on his body than it had been outdoors. Yet he touched me, his forefingers gently prodding me toward the door, swiftly he unlocked the door, opened it, murmuring, "—sometime, some other time, Anellia, good-bye—" his voice choked and abruptly then I stood outside the room, in a drafty hall opening onto the stairs, I was blind, blundering down the swaying wooden stairs which only a few minutes before another girl had boldly, tremblingly ascended. Not knowing where I was, or why; not knowing if I was deeply wounded or whether in fact I was relieved, I'd been saved, like one pulled from a rushing river to safety lying spent and exhausted and dazed on the river-bank but safe, saved. It hasn't happened yet.