Night, Neon

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Not sure (now) how to proceed. Not (it seems) able to desist.

  Like a compulsive hand washer, required to enact the identical ritual dozens of times a day simply to be able to breathe normally, I now find myself unable not to think of Keisha Olen virtually all the time. Not the woman herself, but the riddle she represents.

  Have I fallen in love? With—her?

  But I am immune to love—that’s to say “love.” No emotions engage me except as fossils of living feeling, transmogrified into language and, through language, into texts.

  True, decades ago such emotions coursed through me like electric jolts, as (no doubt) they course through you, leaving you exhausted and uncertain about who you are—the emotions or the vessel through which they course.

  Take comfort: in time, if you apply the proper strategy, these emotions will drain away like a sutured abscess.

  And so the elaborate strategy I’ve decided upon is a kind of triage: to satisfy the spurious attachment I (seem to) feel for a woman scarcely known to me, by the name of Keisha Olen, I am writing (typing, on my Japanese electric typewriter) a letter to her, which I hope will be the last I will write to her—

  Dear Ms. Keisha Olen:

  I am writing to you as the executive director of the Society of Deserving Americans. Originally established in 1889, the Society has an honored tradition of providing monetary gifts to individuals who are deemed—by virtue of their kindness, good-heartedness, and inner worth—outstanding citizens in their communities—“deserving” of recognition. In bestowing these awards, the Society does not seek publicity and requests from all awardees that its bequests remain confidential.

  This year, only two individuals have been selected as Deserving Americans in the Delaware Valley: you, Keisha Olen, are one of these. Both you and your fellow Deserving American have already received your First and Second Gifts. Your Third Gift is to be a more substantial sum of money, which will be awarded to you if you (1) pledge never to speak of it to anyone, not even a close family member; and (2) pledge to use the money exclusively on or for yourself, and not on family, church, or charitable organizations, however worthy.

  Acceptance of the Third Gift must be in person. It will not be sent through the mail like previous Gifts. You (and your fellow recipient) will be asked to appear at the Delaware River Inn, Herrontown, at five p.m., Monday, April 15. Please arrive promptly. A table will be reserved for you and your fellow awardee in the restaurant. A light meal will be served, at which time you will receive the Third Gift. You must come alone and arrange to leave alone and keep the meeting, and all circumstances surrounding it, confidential.

  G__ G__

  Executive Director

  Society for Deserving Americans

  This (carefully composed) letter is mailed to Ms. Keisha Olen at 54 Mill Run Street, calculated to arrive on the Monday preceding the date of the meeting. It is my supposition that Keisha brings in the mail herself on Mondays, which is her day off from work, while on other days she may not be home when the mail is delivered and may not see it until it has passed through others’ hands.

  The risk is that Keisha will not be free on that date or at that time. For there is no way she can contact me to arrange for another time. This is a risk I must take.

  However, the Delaware Inn is ideal for our meeting. As a local “historic” landmark with inflated prices, it is well known to local residents like Keisha, who rarely patronize it.

  Yes, this has all been shrewdly calibrated. My most ingenious narrative in years, I am thinking!

  And so, by way of this invitation, which to anyone with a modicum of skeptical intelligence would be identified as a ruse, the naïve and trusting grocery store cashier is seduced into agreeing to a meeting with a stranger—a surreptitious meeting with an individual she believes to be a fellow Deserving American. Since she is sure to recognize me as a customer at McGuire’s, this is a (plausible) explanation.

  And does everything go as planned at the Delaware Inn? Yes, but no.

  10.

  On the afternoon of April 15, precisely at five p.m., here is Keisha, hesitantly entering the Delaware Inn: in a dressy blouse and jacket, skirt, and high-heeled shoes. To my disappointment, her eggshell-fragile head is covered by a flowery hat of the kind a Christian lady might’ve worn to church in 1957. Just inside the doorway, she halts, blinking and staring. She is very nervous, like a wild creature that suspects it has blundered into a trap and is poised to bolt away.

  “Keisha! Hello! You’re here—too?”

  Keisha sees me and recognizes me. One of the grocery store customers! She blinks at me, confused and alarmed.

  “What a coincidence! You are the other ‘recipient’ … Congratulations!”—my voice is lowered, discreet. It will take a few seconds for Keisha to comprehend the circumstances: the coincidence that the other of two Deserving Americans summoned to the Delaware Inn is someone known to her.

  To placate any suspicion she might have about this remarkable coincidence, I show Keisha my letter from the Society of Deserving Americans, near identical to her own, which she hurriedly skims; but Keisha has not a suspicious bone in her body, thus no reason to wonder at the coincidence, if that’s what it might be called. Judging from my manner, she has no reason to suspect that I know anything more than she does about the mysterious award we are each to receive.

  A flawless ruse! Presenting myself not as the master plotter of the Society of Deserving Americans, but one of its Deserving Americans.

  Awkwardly, we introduce ourselves. (Of course, I provide a fictitious name.) Yet more awkwardly, we shake hands. (It’s clear that Keisha is not accustomed to shaking hands.)

  For this daunting occasion, which must also be a secretive occasion, Keisha has made herself up like a high school girl at a prom. Her sallow skin glows, her thin lips are fire-engine red. Shadows and dents beneath her eyes seem to have vanished. The scanty eyebrows have been penciled into thin crescents, but there is nothing to be done about the chemo-ravaged, lashless eyes that stare wonderingly at me.

  Naturally, I take charge. Keisha looks to me to lead her. Where, as a customer at McGuire’s, I am somewhat stiff, formal, unsmiling, now, in the foyer of the Delaware Inn, in this startling new setting, I am gentlemanly and affable, smiling easily.

  “Yes, we’re both to be congratulated! This is an amazing honor …”

  “Did you—tell anyone about it?” Keisha’s voice is strained, hoarse.

  “Of course not. It has to be a secret. You didn’t tell anyone, did you, Keisha?”

  “N-No. I did not.”

  “Because I think they would nullify the award if we did,” I tell her sternly. “It would be—I think—a violation of our contractual relationship with the Society, which we have acknowledged by coming here today …”

  This sequence of words is so plausible, so legal-sounding, Keisha nods grimly. It is good for her to be told such a sentiment by me, an older gentleman, seemingly an “educated” gentleman, to assuage any doubts or ambivalence she might have.

  Allowing me then to lead her into the River View Room overlooking the dazzling Delaware. Amid so much that is banal and predictable, a river is always in a way fresh and unexpected.

  Our reserved table?—an affable host escorts us to it, the very table I’d requested, in a farther corner. At this hour of the day the River View is virtually deserted, sepulchral. Unobtrusively I will remove two envelopes from a briefcase to place on a ledge beside the table, as if they have been awaiting us.

  A waiter appears: Drinks?

  Not for her, Keisha murmurs; then, relenting, “D’you have soft drinks? I will have a Coke.”

  Coke! Have to bite my tongue to keep from making a sardonic remark about toxic chemicals manufactured for mass consumption.

  Determined to remain sober, I order a glass of dry white wine. A single, singular glass.

  Now, conversation! Excitement rushes through me like adrenaline through a pathologist about to make the first
, exquisite incision in a fresh corpse sprawled before him.

  “What a—an—occasion! We will celebrate …”

  In my gentlemanly guise I ply my self-conscious companion with low-keyed questions—background, family, how long has she lived in Herrontown, PA—(“Forever”)—how long has she worked at McGuire’s?—(“Seems like forever”).

  Discreetly, I don’t ask Keisha about her health. Not yet, about her marriage.

  Is she unhappy, does her husband abuse her?—no. Not yet.

  As she answers my questions in a halting, hoarse voice, like one unaccustomed to conversation, Keisha glances nervously about the faux-elegant restaurant as if she fears being observed, overheard. I am made to realize that this is a person who is rarely asked such questions, or perhaps any questions at all of a general nature. I am made to suppose that this is a person at whom no one, certainly not a well-dressed stranger, has actually looked, with interest, in a long time.

  Though uneasy, Keisha is also flattered. The fact of the “award” has made her think differently about herself, perhaps—Yes. You are special. Did you ever doubt you were special?

  Keisha is wearing a lemon-colored satin blouse with a floppy bow and white plastic buttons; her jacket is a coarser fabric, a wool-synthetic blend, dark beige. I seem to know that these “dressy” clothes are not new purchases, but years old—from a time when she’d been much younger. Her ears are unusually small, waxy-pale. Her throat is pale, in contrast to the rosy cosmetic face. On the fourth finger of her right hand is the wedding band, still loose; on her right wrist, which is very thin, a loose-fitting, inexpensive woman’s wristwatch. Touchingly, her short, brittle fingernails have been polished fire-engine red, to match her lipstick.

  For some days I’ve brooded about how much cash to give Keisha. A dramatic increase seems plausible, but not too dramatic; better to whet her desire for more money, and then more, to keep her interested and involved—even, to a degree, mildly anxious. And so Keisha’s envelope contains ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Am I in love? Ridiculous!

  Our drinks are brought by the waiter. Wondering who we are, what relationship. Well—let him wonder!

  “Again, dear Keisha—congratulations!”

  Ceremoniously I lift my glass, click it against Keisha’s glass. Dry white wine clicking against a vile dark chemical concoction. Keisha laughs, breathlessly. She is making a valiant effort to be gay, festive—a woman for whom surprises are (probably) not often happy.

  Well, how frequently are surprises “happy” in any of our lives? When was the last time someone rushed up to you crying Good news! Happy news! You won’t believe this!

  Indeed, no one has ever rushed up to me exclaiming in this way. No one has ever burst into a house in which I was living, or into a room in which I’ve been sitting, waiting … Good news! Happy news! You won’t believe this, N__!

  Keisha is drinking the vile Coke, which fizzes at its surface as carbolic acid might “fizz.” I see that the fire-engine red lipstick has smeared onto one of her front teeth. I see that the coppery-brown penciled eyebrows are asymmetrical, as if the hand that applied them was shaky. Like her ears, Keisha’s nose is oddly small and oddly pale, nostrils pinched like slits. Her very face seems too small. Does chemotherapy shrink a face? Or—might the treatment have been radiation?

  Indeed, has Keisha recovered from this treatment, as I’d assumed? From cancer? Had her illness even been cancer? Had there been an illness? For weeks—months—I’ve assumed that I know the outline of the cashier’s life; it’s something of a shock to realize that I know very little about her. The hair loss might be caused by something else altogether—a thyroid condition, a gastrointestinal disorder.

  It soon becomes clear that Keisha has not much to say, apart from expressing a childlike wonderment at her good luck. For, to her, despite the letter she’d received, at which I’d labored more intensely than I labor at most of my prose fiction, she doesn’t really think she might deserve the mystery gifts she has been receiving. To her, as to, perhaps, the class of individuals to which she belongs from birth, there is only good luck and bad luck.

  Bad luck would be cancer. Good luck would be mystery gifts of cash out of nowhere.

  As if good luck were not the consequence of a (human) agent, in this case. Rather, akin to what is (quaintly) called an Act of God—like weather, earthquakes.

  Yes, it is somewhat disappointing to me that Keisha has so little to say to me. My questions encourage her to speak only briefly. I might be a schoolteacher, an authority figure of some vague kind, whose authority is not to be questioned, but whom she would avoid if she could, for she is uncomfortable in his presence; my white dress shirt, dark blue tie, camel’s hair sport coat seem to have intimidated her, which was hardly my intention. Rather, I’d dressed out of respect for her and for the occasion, which is (after all) as remarkable in my life as in hers.

  Indeed you are in love. And indeed, it is ridiculous.

  Keisha is not a beautiful woman, I see now. No doubt I have been mistaking fragility for beauty. The drawn, melancholy features, the effects of illness. Soft, fine, downy hair, lashless eyes that seem to penetrate mine with a kind of helpless candor. Even Keisha’s (relative) youth has been deceiving—she is not so young as I’d thought, surely in her forties.

  And she is (annoyingly) reluctant to order anything to eat, with the excuse that she isn’t hungry at this time of day. “But we are to have a light meal, according to the directive.” I am speaking gaily, giddily. The wine seems to have gone to my brain. “Shall I order for you, dear?”

  Dear. Have I been calling Keisha dear? That has not been my intention.

  Keisha frowns, stroking the nape of her neck. Stroking the baby-fine hairs at the back of her head. It isn’t clear that dear has even registered with her, she is distracted by the setting—white linen tablecloth, plate glass window overlooking the river, sunlight scintillant on the river. The River View menu, bound in a kind of quilted white fabric, absurdly large, pretentious, seems to intimidate her too.

  Is the woman impressed by me?—I wonder. How crude her husband must be, by contrast. With me.

  Of course he is (probably) (much) younger than I.

  To prepare for this momentous day, I had my camel’s hair sport coat dry-cleaned for the first time in nine years. (It was last worn at a funeral nine years ago.) I had my (untidy, straggly, thinning) hair washed, trimmed, blow-dried at the Herrontown Barber. My shirt is freshly laundered, properly ironed, with (onyx) cuff links.

  Yet Keisha seems scarcely to notice my clothes. She is still glancing worriedly about the restaurant—as if anyone in this restaurant would be likely to know her. In her hoarse voice she asks, “D’you think they will come to meet us? Or maybe they are here now—watching us?”

  “Who?”

  “The people who—the Society …”

  For a moment I have no idea what Keisha is talking about. Then I realize, I should seem as wondering and uncertain as she is. I should certainly not behave as if I know more than Keisha knows about our circumstances. Though of course, by instinct, Keisha defers to me, as male.

  I tell her yes possibly. They might. “The letter was indeed somewhat inconclusive. They seem to want to keep it secret. Like the state lottery—who wins. So that people won’t be asking for money from the winners. Or from the Society. Like people on welfare and food stamps …”

  People on welfare. Food stamps. A startling tone here. Does Keisha resent people on welfare and food stamps, or has she been people on welfare and food stamps herself?

  The waiter has been hovering about our table. He is deferential to me, less certain of Keisha—her status, her relationship to me. Judging from the quality of her “dressy” clothes, she is not a relative, surely.

  He is daring to wonder if you are lovers. This woman and you!

  A flush comes into my face. Not sure if I am abashed or prideful.

  “Come, dear! The Society expects us to order
a light meal. It seems to be part of the ritual.”

  Reluctantly Keisha agrees to a fruit salad platter. My order is charcuterie et fromage.

  It’s amusing to me, unless dismaying, that my companion never asks me about myself. Though I have inquired about her life with genuine interest and curiosity, Keisha does not think to ask me a single question. Too shy, I suppose. Women of her class are not comfortable asking questions of what might seem to them a managerial class.

  At McGuire’s, the bantering red-haired McGuire is free to chide and tease his employees, but they dare not chide and tease him in turn. All they can do is laugh, with varying degrees of mirth.

  Also, Keisha is (probably) just not curious about me. Whoever I am, I dwell beyond the range of anyone who might factor meaningfully in her life.

  Our orders are brought to the table: a large, lavish fruit salad for Keisha, served in a hollowed-out pineapple; charcuterie et fromage for me, on a marble platter with a sprig of grapes and fancy Waterstones crackers.

  Keisha stares at her food and laughs forlornly. “Oh! This is kind of—fancy …”

  “Yes, indeed. Very nice.”

  How childlike, the woman’s eyes. Almost, it seems as if the pupils are dilated. Beautiful eyes, though still slightly bloodshot.

  “Just eat as much as you want, dear. You should try to put on weight, you know.”

  Again, dear. Unconsciously the incriminating word has slipped out.

  But Keisha seems scarcely to notice. Perhaps nothing about me is noticeable to her.

  “Guess I don’t have a whole lot of appetite, most days. Also, I have to make supper when I get home. I can’t stay much longer here. I have to try to eat with them, too. I should.”

  Valiantly Keisha lifts a fork, impales a small slice of pineapple. Minutes are required for her to chew the tangy fruit, as I spread brie onto crackers. On the river the sun is losing definition, dissolving into the western sky behind successive hills like something spilled.