High Crime Area

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The car radio was tuned now to the Trenton AM station. Blasting rap music, rock, high-decibel advertisements. Fat Joe. Young Jeezy. Ne-Yo. Tyga. Cash Out. She understood how such sound assailing her ears was an infusion of strength, courage.

  Such deafening sound, and little room for fear, caution. Little room for thought.

  It was thought that was the enemy, Agnes understood. Getting high meant rising above thought.

  She exited Route 1 for the state capital buildings. Through a circuitous route involving a number of one-way streets and streets barricaded for no evident reason she made her way to Tumbrel Street which was only two blocks from State Street and from the Delaware River. This was a neighborhood of decaying row houses and brownstones—boarded-up and abandoned stores. It was tricky—treacherous!—to drive here for the narrow streets were made narrower by parked vehicles.

  Very few “white” faces here. Agnes was feeling washed-out, anemic.

  It was a neighborhood of very dark-skinned African-Americans and others who were light-skinned, possibly African-American and/or Hispanic. Eagerly she looked for him.

  Turning onto Seventh Street and State Street which was a major thoroughfare in Trenton she saw more “white” faces—and many pedestrians, waiting for buses.

  Why did race matter so much? The color of skin.

  She could love anyone, Agnes thought. Skin-color did not mean anything to her, only the soul within.

  Mattia’s liquid-dark eyes. Fixed upon her.

  Ms. Agnes I feel like—more hopeful now.

  A half hour, forty minutes Agnes drove slowly along the streets of downtown Trenton. Tumbrel to West State Street and West State Street to Portage; Portage to Hammond, and Grinnell Park; right turn, and back to Tumbrel which was, for a number of blocks, a commercial street of small stores—Korean food market, beauty salon, nail salon, wig shop, diner, tavern. And a number of boarded-up, graffiti-marked stores. Trenton was not an easy city to navigate since most of the streets were one-way. And some were barricaded—under repair. (Except there appeared to be no workers repairing the streets, only just abandoned-looking heavy equipment.) She saw men on the street who might have been Joseph Mattia yet were not. Yet, she felt that she was drawing closer to him.

  She told herself I have nothing else to do. This is my only hope.

  Her husband would be dismayed! She could hardly bring herself to think of him, how he would feel about her behavior now; how concerned he would be. He’d promised to “protect” her—as a young husband he’d promised many things—but of course he had not been able to protect her from his own mortality. She’d been a girl when he’d met her, at the University of Michigan. Her hair dark brown, glossy-brown, and her eyes bright and alert. Now, her hair had turned silver. It was really a remarkable hue, she had only to park her car, to walk along the sidewalk—here, on Tumbrel Street—to draw eyes to her, startled and admiring.

  Ma’am you are beautiful!

  Whatever age you are ma’am—you lookin good.

  Ma’am—you someone I know, is you?

  These were women mostly. Smiling black women.

  For this walk in Trenton she wore her good clothes. A widow’s tasteful clothes, black cashmere. And the cloche hat on her silvery hair. And good shoes—expensive Italian shoes she’d purchased in Rome, the previous summer traveling with her historian-husband.

  They’d also gone to Florence, Venice, Milano, Delphi. Her husband had brought along one of his numberless guidebooks—this one titled Mysteries of Delphi. She’d been astonished to see, superimposed upon photographs of the great ruined sites, color transparencies indicating the richness of color of the original sites—primary colors of red and blue—and extraordinary ornamental detail that suggested human specificity instead of “classic” simplicity. Of course, Agnes should have known, but had never thought until her husband explained to her, that the ancient temples weren’t classics of austerity—pearl-colored, luminous, stark—but vari-colored, even garish. Ruins had not always been ruins. Like most tourists she’d assumed that the ancient sites had always been, in essence, what they were at the present time. Like most tourists she hadn’t given much thought to what she was seeing and her thoughts were naïve and uninformed. Her husband had said The way people actually live is known only to them. They take their daily lives with them, they leave just remnants for historians to decode.

  He had opened that world of the past to her. And now, he himself had become past.

  She thought He took everything with him. No one will remember who he was—or who I was.

  She was beginning to feel very strange. A lowering of blood pressure—she knew the sensation. Several times during the hospital vigil and after his death she’d come close to fainting, and twice she had found herself on the floor, dazed and uncomprehending. The sensation began with a darkening of vision, as color bleached out of the world; there came then a roaring in her ears, a feeling of utter sorrow, lostness, futility...

  At the intersection of Seventh Street and Hammond, out of a corner bodega he stepped carrying a six-pack of beer.

  He was older of course. He must have been—nearly forty.

  His dark hair threaded with gray was longer than she recalled, his eyes were deep-socketed and red-lidded. His skin seemed darker, as if smudged. And he was wearing civilian clothes, not the bright-blue prison coverall that had given to the most hulking inmates a look of clownishness—his clothes were cheaply stylish, a cranberry-colored shirt in a satiny fabric, open at the throat; baggy cargo pants, with deep pockets and a brass-buckle belt riding low on his narrow hips.

  She saw, in that instant: the narrowed eyes, the aquiline nose, the small trim mustache on the upper lip. And something new—through his left eyebrow, a wicked little zipperlike scar.

  It was Joseph Mattia!—(was it?). Recognizing her, but having forgotten her name.

  He’d stopped dead in his tracks. As a predator, sighting prey, though he has not been hunting and is not even hungry, will stop dead in his tracks by instinct, staring. And then very slowly he smiled as an indecipherable light came up in his eyes.

  “Ma’am! You lookin good.”

  Toad-Baby

  Out of the corner of her silverfish eye Momma is watching me to see if I am sleeping. I am not sleeping I am wide awake.

  Came to stay with Momma. Though I don’t live here now.

  I was eleven first time I ran away. Stayed with my friend Sadie but didn’t tell them why, or not exactly. Could not tell anyone exactly for they use your words against you like rubbing a dirty rag in your face saying it is your own dirtiness, you deserve it.

  Cop brought me back that time. Momma and Evander hid how mad they were that I’d shamed them, beat me real bad after the cop left.

  Evander is gone now. Left his little son behind Momma says like you’d leave an ugly nigger-toad behind.

  Momma’s family is disgusted with her for having this new baby who cries all the time. Bulgy toad-eyes, and skin kind of toad-colored, and a drooly little mouth, and floppy arms and legs like there’s no bone inside.

  Momma grabbed and hugged me this time I came in. Hid her hot face in my neck till I pushed her away smelling her breath. It is not normal for a grown woman to hide her face against her thirteen-year-old daughter and cry in such a way.

  Her and me the same height now but Momma is forty pounds heavier, and her skin scalding-hot.

  I am placed in a “foster home” by the county but it is with my aunt who is Momma’s oldest sister, half-sister as my aunt Chloe and Momma had different fathers.

  At school the teacher asks me to help with the math lesson. At the blackboard I was wearing a red-patterned scarf tied at the neck, that was my aunt Chloe’s scarf. Another time, my brass-colored hair was plaited in cornrows, that aunt Chloe had done. I am a big girl for thirteen. And I stand tall. I don’t take shit from even the big boys, just look them eye-to-eye. I’m the one that knows the answer to the math problems not them.

  Who is tha
t girl, another teacher in the hall said looking into the room, she’d mistaken me for a teacher’s aide from the college. I just laughed and did not speak fast or excited but calm as I have learned and clear-eyed meeting their eyes.

  A blush came into my face, they were looking so hard at me.

  But I never tell them anything of Momma, or of Toad-Baby who is my young brother. Even when they ask, and touch my wrist to show they are sincere and want to help, if there is help needed by me, I never say anything that is real but only just Things are OK at home. Things are good.

  Then I laugh, to show that I am all right. If they touch my wrist I throw off the touch without seeming-so.

  Who it was who’d beat my father to death, I don’t know. Momma told police she did not see any faces and did not hear any voices and when she came out of hiding, it was all over.

  I was three years old then. I don’t remember any of that time or even where it was but I know that it was somewhere else, not where Momma lives now.

  It is like a wall that has been hosed down, that time. What was there is faded and torn and even if you touch it with your fingers to help you read what it was, you can’t.

  Momma did not mean to hurt Toad-Baby but Momma is very sad and tired sometimes. And Momma’s breath smells sour, those bad times.

  Sometimes, Momma is angry. Why is this my life? This is not my life.

  Momma says That minute he stuck it in me, if I could remove that. Then I wouldn’t have this ugly nigger-toad-baby. I would not be here in this place undersea. Momma looks at me with her eyes glinting like silverfish and the eyelids scraped raw.

  It’s scary when Momma speaks like this. I wish she would not.

  Momma says A baby is too big to fit inside a woman. Better to have eggs that hatch like birds or snakes, you wouldn’t even have to be there.

  When Evander went away Momma’d had accidents with Toad-Baby dropping him on the stairs where she was stumbling, and the lightbulb burnt out. Bad bruises on Toad-Baby’s head and a “concussion” they said at the ER where they asked me questions as Momma had needed me to come along with her and I told them that my baby brother squirmed and kicked and got loose of Momma’s arms and fell and maybe they believed me, or maybe not.

  Seeing Toad-Baby with his dark, dense hair and mottled skin, they could see he was a mix-race baby. If they held this against Momma they did not show it like Momma’s family did.

  Momma is self-medicated she calls it. Keeping her thoughts from turning bad, she says. Like backed-up drains, the way your own thoughts can strangle you in your sleep.

  Last night here at Momma’s. She’d looked at me strange like wanting to scream at me Why are you here, I don’t need you! Helped Momma with supper and cleanup in the kitchen. And putting Toad-Baby to bed. Trying then to stay awake watching late-night TV. And Toad-Baby fussing and kicking in his crib. And Momma sees that my eyes are shutting and takes advantage getting up from the sofa soft-barefoot-walking into the bathroom to fill the tub and bring Toad-Baby inside to bathe with her because she does not want to be alone. I can’t let Momma shut the door, I will have to bang on the door and break it down if I can, and then Momma’s nightgown is wet and Toad-Baby’s diaper is soaked and has to be changed. My hands are shaking, I promised Momma I would protect him for there is no one else.

  I am Toad-Baby’s only sister. I am eleven years older than Toad-Baby and I think that he will never know me really, I will always be his old sister. And my skin-color different from his. These days will be long forgotten for his skin-color will draw him away from us to live with his own kind and not us, Momma says.

  You won’t let it happen, will you?—Momma is begging me.

  For Momma does not want to hurt Toad-Baby.

  We are lying on Momma’s bed, and baby is between us. Again I am afraid of sleeping though I am very tired.

  Momma has been drinking, so Momma is happy. But Momma’s mood can change, when she is happy. Momma says I can drown only one of you so which one will it be?

  Damn, Momma! That is not funny.

  Momma laughs and shudders. Only thing ’bout me that’s funny is my face.

  But truly, Momma does not want to hurt Toad-Baby.

  Except, Toad-Baby cries so loud. You would not think such a tiny baby can cry so loud, your thoughts are rattled like dried peas shaken inside a cup. And then Momma becomes excitable, and anxious.

  I stayed awake those times. Pinched my cheek, bit the inside of my mouth till it bled.

  You can’t keep your eyelids from closing. No more than you can keep the dark from lifting from the earth.

  Momma, stop! Struggling grunting with Momma to pull the baby out of the tub. The water is at the top, and steaming. Spilling over onto the floor. Momma slaps me so I am knocked down onto the slippery floor trying to get my balance and there is Toad-Baby on the floor and not crying, or kicking. All wet and streaming water Toad-Baby is so little-looking like a floppy doll quiet and not squirming, kicking or shrieking and Momma snatches him up and shakes him and still, Toad-Baby does not cry. And I take Toad-Baby from Momma shouting into Momma’s face, grab Toad-Baby out of Momma’s hands and squeeze his little chest not knowing what I am doing in my desperation laying Toad-Baby back onto the puddled floor and onto his back pressing my mouth against the little snail mouth and breathing, and breathing, and breathing hard and deep inside into the mouth until at last Toad-Baby begins to stir, and fret, and cry. Toad-Baby sucks in air, you can hear. Toad-Baby’s bellowing cries, that Momma has said pierced her heart but Momma is crying now, too. On her knees on the bathroom floor. Momma’s wet hair in her face and it’s a surprise I see that Momma is a girl too—a girl like me but older, and her skin hot like sunburn. And she hugs me and starts to cry, God will bless you, you have protected your baby brother from the wrath of God.

  And so after this, all my life I will be fearful of sleeping. It is a terrible temptation to close your eyes, and sleep. But Toad-Baby’s cries will wake me, long after Toad-Baby is gone into his own life. Long after Momma is gone and I will be an old woman, Toad-Baby’s cries will wake me out of the dark.

  Demon

  Demon-child. Kicked in the womb so his poor young mother doubled over in pain. Nursing he tugged and tore at her breasts. Wailed through the night. Puked, shat. Refused to eat. No I am loving, I am mad with love. Of Mama. (Though fearful of Da.) Curling burrowing pushing his head into Mama’s arms, against Mama’s warm fleshy body. Starving for love, food. Starving for what he could not know yet to name: God’s grace, salvation.

  Sign of Satan: flamey-red ugly-pimply birthmark snake-shaped. On his underjaw, coiled below his ear. Almost you can’t see it. A little boy he’s teased by neighbor girls, hulking big girls with titties and laughing-wet eyes. Demon! Demon! Look it, the sign of the Demon!

  Those years. Passing in a fever-dream. Or maybe never passed. Mama prayed over him, hugged and slapped. He was her baby, her Jethro. She had named him, as she had borne him. But now she could not love him. Shook him. In the wink of an eye, Mama was not young. Shook his skinny shoulders so his head rocked. Minister prayed over him. Deliver us from evil and he was good, he was delivered from evil. Except at the school his eyes misted over, couldn’t see the blackboard. White chalk in the teacher’s fingers striking the board hurt his ears, sharp clicking sound so he winced and wetted his pants.

  Nasty and stupid the teacher called him. Not like the other children.

  If not like the other children, then like who? What?

  Those years. How many years. As in a stalled city bus, diesel exhaust pouring out the rear. Stink of it everywhere. Da had gone away and left them, Mama sat at the kitchen table fat-thighed and her knees raddled. Same view through same flyspecked windows. Year after year the battered-tin diner, vacant lot swooning with weeds and rubble glitter of broken glass and the path worn through it slantwise where children ran shouting above the river. Broken pavement littered like confetti from a parade long past.

  Or maybe it was the pledge
of something vast, infinite. You could never come to the end of it. Wavering and blinding in blasts of light. Desert maybe. Red desert where demons dance, swirl in the hot winds. Never seen an actual desert except pictures, a name on a map. And in his head swelling to burst.

  Demon-child they whispered of him. But no, he was loving, mad with love. Too small, too short. Stunted legs. Head too big for his spindly shoulders. Strange waxy-pale moon-face, almond eyes beautiful if you took care to look, small wet mouth perpetually sucking inward. As if to keep the bad words, words of filth and damnation, safely inside.

  The sign of Satan coiled on his underjaw began to fade. Like the skin eruptions of adolescence. Blood drawn gradually back into tissue, capillaries.

  Not a demon-child after all but a shy anxious loving child with the Bible-name no one could pronounce—Jeth-ro. Betrayed by the eyes of others seeking always to laugh and to sneer. Betrayed by having been squeezed from the womb before he was ready.

  Not a demon-child but for years he rode wild thunderous razor-hooved black stallions by night and by day. Furious galloping on sidewalks, in asphalt playgrounds where his classmates lay fallen, bleeding and dying. The older boys who tormented him, the older girls giggling and poking him through his pants—Jeth’o! Jeth! Through the school corridors trampling all in his way including teachers, adults. Among them the innocent children, casualties of war. Furious tearing hooves, froth-flecked nostrils, bared teeth, God’s wrath, the black stallion rearing, whinnying. I destroy all in my path. I was born without mercy.

  Not a demon-child but he torched the school where they’d laughed at him, rows of stores, run-down wood frame houses in the neighborhood with rotting stoops to the sidewalk like his own. Many times the smelly bed where Mama and Da had hidden from him, when he’d been a baby. And no one knew of the raging flames, and continued as before in ignorance of the demon among them born without mercy.

  This January morning bright and windy and he’s staring at a face floating in a mirror. Dirty mirror in a public lavatory at the Trailways bus station. The man’s face appears beside his, looming above his like a moon. The face larger, stained teeth glistening in a wet sly smile. Maybe at one of the churches, he’d seen this face. Maybe it was Mama who’d introduced them. One of the ministers, to take the place of the elder. And the fingers clutching at his, that little (secret) tickle of the thumb against the palm of his hand, so he’d laughed, and shivered, and was ashamed. And now, that face has followed him here. In the mirror beside his. And the hands touching him, tickling at first, and then harder so he could not break away and he could not breathe for something tarry-black flew up to his face, covering his mouth, his mouth and his nose, he could not breathe and began to fall into the tarry blackness, and the hands gripped him, and the arms gripped him, and the mouth sucked at him, and he opened his mouth to scream but could not. And a door opened and there came a shout Hey! What are you perverts doing! Jesus. And the voice faded, the door was shut again in revulsion. The man-who-was-a-minister was gone. He wasn’t sure, he’d thought it was a minister, and Mama had thought he was, but Mama was sometimes mistaken and when this was so, Mama would not admit her mistake and became very excited if you tried to correct her. The side of his head hurt, he opened his eyes not knowing at first where he was then seeing he was lying on a filthy floor partway inside a toilet stall. And urinals along the wall, filthy. And sink and mirror splotched with filth. And the smells, he could not breathe. Where he’d been dropped, like garbage. Dropped and kicked in the chest, with the hope that his heart would cease beating but it had not. To his shame he saw that his trousers had been opened, the front of his trousers crudely unzipped and the zipper broken and Mama would know, if the zipper was broken. He was breathing now but so shallowly he could not catch his breath. He was crying, and he was whimpering. Someone came to lift him by the underarms, in disgust. Get out of here. Go away from here. Shame! The age you are! Never come back here, go away to Hell where you belong. Barely he could walk, the pain between his legs was so severe. Pain in the crack of his ass, the tender skin broken, bleeding. Barely could he make his way through the bus station waiting room where every eye was fixed upon him in revulsion and mirth.