Lovely, Dark, Deep

by Joyce Carol Oates

  As no one would wish to approach Rob Flint in some future, terrible time—the once-handsome, once-vigorous, once-so-commanding and so masculine a man weakened and frail, emaciated and fading; the voice once so charismatic in self-enthrallment, faint and failing.

  But that was a future time, you could say a time of reckoning. At that time, there was no likelihood that I would be in Rob Flint’s life, nor even a name, a face, an intimate gesture, in Rob Flint’s faltering memory.

  Unless—(this was madness, I knew!—the madness of a certain sort of poetry, not currently in style)—I would be Rob Flint’s wife, and widow.

  There’d come a confused fragrance of blossoming fruit trees and honeysuckle, muddy river-water, a faint stench of chemicals. Some miles downriver were factories not visible from where I walked. Here in the derelict riverfront park were plaques, monuments to Civil War officers, steamboat captains, pioneers. A monument to Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who’d campaigned against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency, and lost. It is natural for men to erect statues of their kind, to commemorate what is meaningful in life, yet little of the outer, public life bears any actual meaning to individuals, who dwell inwardly, intimately with a very few others. At such times it came over me like a sweep of muddy water—the career-life was of virtually no significance, without the inner, intimate life. What madness, to have wished to live through poetry, like a swimmer who clutches at a frail limb, to keep from drowning! Yet, I’d given up much, in this effort. I would give up more.

  Unless indeed, I would become Rob Flint’s (second?) wife.

  Rob Flint was in his late fifties, perhaps. His wife was surely his age, but looked older. Replacing the superannuated wife. There is a small thrill to this, in proportion to the achievement. But it is a thrill.

  I could envision: a provincial life with this man, not here perhaps, for the scandal of divorce and hasty remarriage would make Garrison College impossible, but at another small college of no particular academic or historic distinction, in another fading American town. Disappearing into such a life, as one might disappear into faded wallpaper. Of course—I would continue to write poetry. In the interstices of life.

  At that hour of the morning there’d been virtually no one in the river-park. Storm debris lay scattered on the ground—at the college, I’d been told that tornados routinely whipped through this part of the state. There were rotted trees, gutted tree trunks. Overhead on the interstate were diesel trucks and buses emitting black exhaust and on the inside of the overpass, graffiti-defaced walls. Since high school I’d been a runner and during times of distress there was no happiness for me other than running for in running you are alone in the most elemental and uncomplicated of ways.

  At such times I felt like a long-legged girl. Not a woman in the thirty-ninth year of her life, with no idea what her fortieth year might bring. I yearned to run and to feel a mad strength course through my legs, until my sides clenched with pain, and my breath came short. Run, run! There is no escape otherwise.

  But each morning, after a carefully calculated thirty minutes, I had to turn back. As if a leash were fastened about my neck, jerking me to a halt. Turn, and return along the same embankment path. For the car from the college would be coming for me promptly at 10:00 A.M. For I was a responsible person, as my father understood. I would surrender a final visit with my dying father out of a wish not to violate the expectations of strangers. A woman is as responsible as a man—a woman must forgo the personal life, in the way that men have always done.

  At night, however, though I was as restless as I’d been in the early morning, and with more of a sense of desperation, I dared not walk far from the Bickerdyck Inn. The river seemed ominous by moonlight, threatening. The crude beauty of the river by day was transformed into something very different by night—the “water” appeared living and sinuous, like a vast swarm of snakes. To cross one of the bridges—to feel the spell of the dark, rushing water beneath—I did not dare.

  And there were homeless men, in the area. I’d seen their melancholy camp sites beneath overpasses, by day.

  At the first of the taverns, the River House, I entered a smoky interior like a cellar. There came a blast of music, a smell of beer, cigarette smoke. In my excitement my vision dimmed: I could see figures but no clear faces. With a mild stab of alarm I saw—thought I saw—Rob Flint at the bar, gazing at me with a look of startled interest.

  And other men, lone men. Turning to look at me, too.

  I thought—They are hoping to recognize me. But I am no one they know.

  Boldly, unless it was recklessly, I went to the bar. Space was made for me, like a parting of waters.

  I settled myself upon a wobbly stool. I ordered a drink—gin, ice.

  At the hotel, Rob Flint had urged whiskey upon me. I had the idea that Rob Flint did not travel far without a flask or a bottle of good Kentucky whiskey at his fingertips like one of those emphysema-sufferers whom you see, in public places, wheeling oxygen tanks with them. But I’d only taken a sip or two out of the hotel glass, to placate him.

  Now, sobriety seemed an awkward choice. Like virginity, outgrown.

  I heard myself order the drink in a quiet voice. No one but the bartender—staring just short of rude—could hear me.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  This was the first time in my life I would order such a drink in such a place, as it would be the last. My voice was soft and melodic with a faint Irish lilt. Clearly my voice betrayed its outsider origins. The bartender’s eyes fastened on me like burrs and in a brisk bemused voice he said a second time as he set the drink down before me, “Yes, ma’am.” A slight emphasis on ma’am, as in the punch line of a joke.

  There may have been other women in the River House at this time. In booths at the rear. Yet I had the impression of having made some sort of blunder. As a single woman I often stepped into places, into circumstances, in which, one could surmise, a “woman” had not been expected, yet was not forbidden—a sort of social error, yet not a fatal error. So I felt in the River House, drinking my solitary drink. I was awkwardly out of place but had not committed any outrage for which I would need to be punished by being raped, mutilated or strangled. Of course I understood that no one from Garrison College would have patronized the River House, and so no one would recognize the Caldwalder Poet-in-Residence.

  Probably it had been inferred, I was “someone from the college.” I’d gathered from remarks made to me in the hotel that the college on its several hills north of the city was both admired and resented for few local students were admitted to Garrison College.

  The man at the bar who’d seemed to resemble Rob Flint was not Rob Flint of course. He was younger, less carefully dressed. His eyes on me were frankly curious rather than admiring as Rob Flint’s eyes were admiring. I ignored him in a way that didn’t feel rude (to me at least). I sipped at the gin-and-water, that did not feel comforting but faintly mocking. My tongue had begun to feel numb. The fingers of my right hand were numb. I thought—Am I having a stroke? Is that what it is—to “have” a stroke? I thought it was curious usage, a way of blocking the thought that one doesn’t have a stroke but suffers a stroke as one would suffer a sharp blade piercing one’s flesh. I wondered if my father would “have” a stroke—the elderly ailing are sometimes so struck—and disappear from us. It was an abstract wonder that carried with it a particular daughterly terror and yet it did not interfere with my essential happiness seated on the wobbly stool at the River House. My poet’s brain was heightened though (I would not have wished to confess) I had not even attempted poetry in weeks. In weeks, I had not been capable of thinking coherently. I seemed not to be thinking language-thoughts at all. Such relief, that no one knew me here in the River House! V__ M__ was anonymous, and to most eyes she was invisible.

  Rock music was playing loudly from some unknown source—rock music of a long-ago era. It was belligerently loud, with a pounding and elemental beat, a primitive music for primitive adolescents. We�
��d all been so young then. Some of us had not grown beyond that age. Like the eyeball of a fetal twin absorbed in the mother’s womb before birth, preserved in the fatty tissue beneath the heart, or in the bowels, or in the brain. All our former selves remain inside us, embryonic. I wondered what would remain of my father, in me—what faint, fading DNA coursing through my body.

  When I left the River House after twenty minutes, no one seemed to take note—unless to think That desperate woman! Has to be from the college.

  Next morning, Rob Flint called me at the hotel.

  “I’m concerned about you, Violet. I think you might be putting yourself at risk.”

  NEAR THE INTERSTATE OVERPASS, beside the wide choppy river. In a derelict no-man’s-land of stunted trees, wild honeysuckle and grasses and thistles, scattered debris. And amid that debris, just beneath the overpass, a homeless man who might have been any age between forty-five and sixty-five, metallic-colored matted hair to his shoulders, broken teeth in a glistening canine smile. He’d set a small smoldering fire at the center of his camp, that smelled of garbage. His possessions were rolled into bundles and crammed into a rusted grocery cart. His clothing was filthy, yet colorful—tight-fitting dark-red jacket, brightly green tie, pajama-like sweatpants with yellow and gray stripes, on his knobby feet knitted patterned socks. His battered quasi-leather boots were placed side by side, left-foot/right-foot, before him on the blanket on which he sat. Also on the blanket were books, numerous books, hardcover and paperback, which looked water-stained and warped . . . I could see just one title—When Worlds Collide. A few yards away from the man who stared and squinted at me I stood staring in return, hesitant to speak. The man murmured something that sounded like Hello! G’morning! His words were slurred and buoyant. His accent was Southern. His swollen eyelids blinked slowly. His tongue swiped at his lips, that appeared swollen and cracked, blackened at the corners as if he’d been eating something black as tar. In a faint friendly voice I said Hel-lo! I was panting and sweaty from having run too fast, and too far. Again the homeless man greeted me and added what sounded like, Have you come for me? Who are you?—but these words too were very slurred. On hands and knees he began to crawl toward me—I wondered if he were crippled. He appeared to be moaning, grunting. In amazement I stared at him and could not move away. Foolishly paralyzed in my light-woolen black slacks and gossamer-knit jacket that were hardly appropriate for running, black crepe-soled “walking shoes” inadequate for serious running, the arches of my feet aching. Barely I managed to say to the homeless man Excuse me—I’m sorry to interrupt you, I—I am no one you know . . . With a grunt the man heaved himself to his feet before me, to his full height; almost, I wanted to help him, but dared not come so near. He swayed on his feet, one of his legs appeared shorter than the other. In an uplifted apocalyptic voice he spoke rapidly to me—smiling gat-toothed—grimacing—bloodshot-eyed and a cast in one blind-looking eye—arguing something to me, a rush of words I could not decipher except to understand that there was considerable emotion to it—a grievance?—indignation? Or was he claiming that he did know me, after all? In my strange paralysis I could not seem to move. My legs felt leaden, as if I’d been running for hours and not merely minutes. Before I could step back in alarm, the homeless man grabbed my arm at the elbow, and gave me a shake as he accused me of—what?—something unspeakable, I knew. His expression was contorted as in a terrible orgasm. The bloodshot eyes shone with fury. For now it seemed that the man with the badly matted shoulder-length metallic hair recognized me—had been waiting for me—was berating me for having taken so long to get to him . . . In both hands he seized my shoulders and brought his boiling-hot face to my face, his scummy mouth to my mouth, a fetid breath, stooping he pressed his mouth hard against mine, and caught my upper lip between his teeth, and bit, and bit—such pain!—I screamed and struck at him in terror he would bite through my lip, like an animal . . .

  Then, he released me. With crude elated laughter he released me—I had been powerless to free myself—always I would remember this: I had been powerless to free myself. My lip was bleeding profusely but I felt no pain. In terror and in humiliation I turned—tried to run—not as a practiced runner runs but as a panicked woman runs—a woman no longer young, and the muscles of her legs no longer springy, elastic. In terror and in humiliation and in utter surprise I was running from my assailant in this unknown place that smelled of smoldering garbage, my hand against my bleeding mouth, my badly bleeding mouth. Whimpering with pain and shock, running clumsily from the graffiti-defaced overpass and into the suddenly hot sun, and the mud-colored river close beside me whose exotic name I had forgotten.

  “MISS N____? What has happened to your mouth?”

  Calmly I explained: a fall, on concrete steps. Nothing serious.

  They stared at me, aghast. He stared at me.

  “Have you seen a doctor? Maybe you should have stitches . . .”

  It was nothing serious! I didn’t need stitches. I was sure.

  I smiled, to show that the (disfiguring) upper-lip wound didn’t hurt.

  Or, if it hurt, didn’t seriously hurt.

  “Maybe—a tetanus shot?”

  But I didn’t care to discuss the wound. It was an entirely superficial, temporary wound. Thank you!

  This was painful to me, or rather to my pride: of the fondly eccentric memories they would have of V___ N___, Caldwalder Poet-in-Residence, this stupid little mouth-wound would be foremost.

  AND DID V____ N ____ discharge her duties as Caldwalder Poet-in-Residence, indeed yes she did.

  And did V___ N___ inspire in others an avidity for poetry and a patience in the craftsmanship of poetry sadly missing in herself, indeed yes she did.

  Leaning over earnest young poets’ manuscripts with them and encouraging them to read their work aloud—“The test of poetry isn’t in the eye but in the ear. Trust the ear.”

  And, “Whatever your ‘true subject’ is, it can bide its time. What you’re doing now is apprentice work. Don’t judge yourself harshly. Be patient. Time is on your side—ten, twelve years. Twenty years. Poetry is timeless, you’ll always be young when you return to poetry. Write every day—the way you dream every night.”

  And, “Poetry is what frightens. It is rare, and worth waiting for. But in the meantime, a lesser poetry can be your companion. You should not ever scorn companionship.”

  The young poets seemed grateful for such advice. They seemed grateful to be taken seriously. It is preferable to be scorned than to be humored but most valuable to be taken seriously, which is something V___ N___ could provide.

  Strange that it was not so very difficult for me to discharge my responsibilities as the Caldwalder Poet-in-Residence. Far easier than to discharge my responsibilities as a daughter.

  Several times, it was arranged that V___ N___ join a gathering of poets and writers—“creative writing students”—at luncheons catered by the College. At the head of the table V___ N___ was seated, appropriately for V___ N___ was the adult among gifted young people with shrewd eyes and questions to ask. The luncheon atmosphere was gravely festive, with intermittent nervous laughter and among this laughter, my own.

  Not a wild or a shrill laughter, I think. A sound as of a startled creature that finds itself released and in the same instant is re-captured, as a cage door slams shut.

  My wounded upper lip had begun to throb. Cleverly I pressed an ice-water glass against it, to numb the pain. The more I addressed the students (who listened to me with a flattering sort of attentiveness), the less actual pain I felt; when I quoted lines of poetry, or recited entire poems, the pain diminished. This world is not conclusion. / A Species stands beyond—/ Invisible, as Music—/ But positive, as Sound—

  Such happiness in my voice at such times—such certainty.

  In my life, uncertainty. But in poetry, certainty.

  There seemed to be a kind of hunger in the young writers for someone with whom they could speak openly. I gave them reading lists, pati
ently I read their work and wrote detailed commentary. This is what I am doing, because this is where I am. I felt elated, though very tired. At the end of a typical day at the college my throat was dry from the effort of protracted and enthusiastic speech and my hand ached from writing comments on manuscripts. My head buzzed with words like drunken, elated bees.

  There were hours that moved slowly, like wagon wheels mired in mud. Yet the days of the two-week residency moved with stunning swiftness. I thought—I am safe so long as I am here. The future was a blur, like a mirror that has faded with time.

  A call came from the president’s office: “Well! They love you, it seems. Our ‘Caldwalder Poet-in-Residence.’”

  And: “They say they’ve never met anyone like V___ N___—a person who is ‘known’ taking time with them. They say you are so kind.”

  Rob Flint spoke with great satisfaction. I told him I hoped that some of this might be true, at least.

  Sharply then Rob Flint said, “If I say this is so, it’s so. I don’t exaggerate. And I don’t humor—anyone.”

  The man’s tone was a rebuke. Stung, I broke the connection.

  Mostly I felt relief that my secret, sick self had not been found out. I felt a childish and perverse pride that the poet’s public self appeared so radiant.

  That night, Rob Flint came to see me another time. He had suggested that we not see each other for a while—a day, two days—he had family obligations and was very busy with office work—yet at 11:08 P.M. he appeared breathless and eager at the door to my suite in the Bickerdyck Inn. And he brought with him, in a discreet paper bag, a bottle of Kentucky whiskey. His handsome face was ruddy with emotion.

  “Are you taking notes? Are you writing about us? If you write about me,” Rob Flint said lavishly, “—you’ll disguise me, of course? I’ve seen your poetry, dear Violet, and I know it’s discreet.”

  “It’s impersonal, therefore seems discreet.”

  “It’s very powerful, and it seems personal, because of that power. But it is discreet. You have an uncommonly pure soul, my dear.”