Night, Neon

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Prodded by my questions—(I abhor the vacuum of silence in a situation like this, for which I have only myself to blame)—Keisha begins to tell me more about herself. Yes, she’d been born in Herrontown. She’d gone to school in Herrontown. She’d gotten married in Herrontown—both times.

  Both times?—politely, I express surprised interest.

  “The first time, I was nineteen. Y’know—had to get married.” Keisha laughs, daringly. Thinks better of it, biting at her lip. “That didn’t last—that was sad. He enlisted in the Marines—they sent him to the Gulf—when he came back, he wasn’t the same … Anyway,” Keisha says, sighing, trying to spear an elusive single Concord grape on her fork, “it didn’t last, and we had three kids. But—”

  “Are you still on good terms with him?”

  Naïve question! Immediately I regret it.

  Keisha shakes her head, pained. Anyway—there came another husband, seven years later.

  Wanly Keisha smiles. It is clear to me that the woman yearns to confide in me, yes this second marriage is problematic too, but no, she cannot speak so frankly, so intimately to a stranger. Cannot speak of the man who is the husband, the husband right now, she has no choice but to defend and protect.

  Of course I understand. I am the wise elder, the gentleman who understands.

  “Anyway—the kids are okay. I live for those kids. What God sends to me, I can accept, as long as—you know, the kids are okay. That’s what I pray for.”

  Though your husband is a brute. Yes?

  Still, that pained look. For Keisha is seriously thinking. The Deserving American award has shone a light upon her, dazzling her.

  Confiding in me suddenly, in a lowered voice, that she’d had “bad scares” in her life—twice. First when she was just twenty-six and had to have “cysts” removed, but the second time, last fall, the cancer had “spread farther.” Wiping at her eyes, she tells me that only God saved her.

  There’d been surgery: “Mas-teck-nom-y.” Then—“Chemo.”

  God, and Jesus, and prayer. Her kids, her family. Why she had to keep going, not give up. Though she’d wanted to, sometimes—just give up. But grateful to be alive. That the treatment hadn’t been worse. Every day, on her knees, giving thanks. Who’d taken it hard, almost harder than she had, was her husband—“It was like he’d been kicked in the gut, he said.”

  Keisha is about to say more about the husband, then thinks better of it.

  “Well—whoever is giving us these gifts, it’s like they are the answer to my prayers. Because we have been hard hit—financially. Because of course I had to take off from work. There’s no medical benefits at the grocery—of course. There’s not enough ‘margin of profit’—Mr. McGuire says. Lucky just to stay in business. Lucky to have the job. So these gifts, it’s like God is guiding their hands. Knowing how we need the money—my family. They are wonderful people, I guess—Christian people.” Astonishing to hear Keisha speak in such an outburst of warmth and certitude.

  She is going to give the money to those leeches. Her family. Of course she is not going to spend it on herself.

  Trying to remain calm. Merely noting, “Christian? Really? I don’t recall the letter speaking of—”

  “They’d have to be Christian people. Who else would answer prayers like this? Society of Deserving Americans—that wouldn’t be atheists.”

  Keisha pronounces atheists with an odd inflection, as if it were a foreign word whose meaning she doesn’t quite know, except that it is repugnant.

  “Whoever the ‘Society’ is, they are good people. They are people of God.”

  Keisha knows. Keisha is certain. No ambiguity here. No persuading her.

  Suddenly boredom suffuses me like ether. A wave of something like vertigo passes over my brain.

  My experiment! What a farce. A “plot” set in motion—swerving out of my control.

  How badly I’d longed to be close to this person, to have her confide in me as in a friend; such intimacy, such rushes of words, I could not have dared anticipate. And now, facing the woman across a table, scarcely three feet between us, I am overwhelmed with dismay, a wish to excuse myself and depart. The bill has already been paid on my credit card.

  Keisha reaches into her cloth handbag to show me pictures on her cell phone—a succession of smiling faces. One of them is the insolent brute on the bicycle—I recognize him at once.

  “They are the light of my life,” Keisha says, sniffing. “Well, I mean—Jesus is the light of my life. But my daughter Jill, she’s nineteen, just that age when I was married, and—”

  I am calculating how to end this politely and flee. Shall I give Keisha the envelope as I’d planned? Or—shall I not?

  Both Keisha and I are finished with our meals. Neither of us has been very hungry. But I have ordered a second glass of wine.

  How pathetic it seems to me now, my notion of willing this woman one million dollars! No wonder Gopnik stared at me as if I were mad.

  This woman. In my disappointment, I am angry with her. I seem to have forgotten who Keisha is, why she is here.

  Have pity. She is a figure of pathos, not contempt.

  Keisha has laid down her fork. Her eyes move toward her wrist, she is anxious about the time.

  Quickly I assure her that the meeting has been a success, in my opinion. “And here are our envelopes, as promised.”

  For it seems that two envelopes have been placed, unobtrusively, on a ledge beside the window of our table, beside my chair. The one addressed to MS. KEISHA OLEN contains ten crisp bills, and the other, addressed to a fictitious name, contains, as filler, a many-times-folded newspaper page.

  “Oh! Thank you …”

  Keisha takes the envelope from me with an expression more of dread than anticipation. “I guess—I’ll wait to open it later. I’m kind of afraid—what’s inside …”

  This is disappointing to me, I think. But no—the money is hers. She must do with it what she will.

  “And I also, my dear. It will be a private revelation.”

  As Keisha puts the envelope into the deepest recesses of the slightly soiled fabric handbag, so I fold my envelope in two and slip it into an inside pocket of the camel’s hair coat.

  I am feeling such strain, it seems that Keisha and I have been together for hours. In fact, we have been at our riverside table less than one hour. So soon ended! But my predominant feeling is relief.

  We are on our feet. Another time I see that Keisha is thin-limbed, fragile. I am hoping that the money I have given her will help her in some way to thrive. But I am reconciled to the likelihood that surely, yes, she will spend the money on others far less worthy than herself. For that is Keisha’s character, and character is fate impervious to “plot.”

  On our way out of the restaurant, the waiter, whom I have lavishly tipped, bids us good evening. The host, with a bemused air, says “Have a good evening.”

  In the hotel foyer, we shake hands in farewell. Keisha’s hand is shockingly small-boned, cold. I tell her that it was wonderful to meet her and that she is very deserving of her award.

  “Thank you! And you, too …”

  Keisha has forgotten my name, I see. But no matter, it has been a fictitious name, in no way to be confused with the reclusive genius N__.

  I do not want to feel anything further for Keisha. Not in a mood to accompany her to the parking lot, to her car. No. My excuse is a need to use the men’s room.

  And perhaps Keisha is eager to be alone as well. To get into her car, to tear open the envelope. To discover what the miraculous Third Gift is, for which she will be grateful for the remainder of her life.

  Resolved, I will never see Keisha again.

  11.

  Soon after this humbling incident, in the early spring of 2012, I left Herrontown, PA.

  Not the slightest curiosity, what became of Keisha Olen. Or any of them.

  For surely nothing of significance could happen to them.

  What had been significant
in Keisha’s life had been me. And I had no curiosity about me.

  What?—you are offended by this abrupt termination of the story. It is unsatisfying. It is in violation of the rules of fiction.

  But may I remind you, this is not fiction. This is rather the wellspring of fiction. Its (mysterious) origins. You, unlike me, are suffused with curiosity. Your naïveté allows you to wonder what becomes of “characters” after their stories have ended—as if “characters” continue to exist outside a story.

  In the case of Keisha Olen, as in the cases of the morose postal clerk and the stylish librarian, what became of them after I moved to a larger city was of no interest to me. At once, or nearly, I ceased thinking about them.

  Until your (naïve) question—Where do I get my ideas?—I had all but forgotten them. As cattle graze a field, then move on, a writer grazes a territory, then moves on. Nostalgia for where you have grazed is not seemly. Delicious mouthfuls of fresh grass are interchangeable, it does not matter where.

  In fact, you are probably coming to resemble me in this way. In other ways too, you will one day realize.

  In fact I have returned to Herrontown, several years later. For I am required to sell the property on the river, which in my absence has deteriorated like a gangrenous limb.

  Finding myself at McGuire’s. Corner of Humboldt and Depot Streets, nothing much changed.

  Steeling myself to enter the dingy grocery. The interior seems smaller now. Only two checkout counters are open.

  But there is Keisha still at her post!—a stab of emotion leaves me weak, stunned.

  But no. The cashier is not Keisha Olen. A slender young woman in smock and jeans, with a girl’s face, close-cropped sand-colored hair. Many years younger than Keisha would be.

  A roaring in my ears. Though I can see clearly that this young woman is not Keisha. The store owner, McGuire, grayer and stouter than I recall, seems to recognize me. “Hel-lo! Welcome back.” Couldn’t have been certain who I am, or once was. Five or six years have passed.

  Slowly, like a man in a daze, I make my way along the narrow aisles. Like my brownstone, the grocery store has deteriorated. The very floorboards beneath my feet are wearing out. There is a scarcity of frozen foods. The fresh produce is not very fresh. Driving into town, I’d noticed a new Safeway—McGuire’s days are numbered.

  For a moment I hesitate, badly wanting to leave. I’d intended to buy a few groceries but regret entering the store. The roaring in my ears is mounting. My usual “cocky” assurance has vanished. After a few minutes shopping I return to the front of the store, where McGuire seems to be waiting for me.

  No idea how urgently the words would issue from my mouth—“Does the cashier named Keisha still work here? I used to know her—a little—she lived—lives—on Mill Run Street …”

  McGuire ceases smiling. His face registers surprise, pain.

  Like one reluctant to speak who is yet thrilled to speak, McGuire tells me it was a terrible thing—“Her husband murdered her. Beat her to death right in their house. Kids in the house, but couldn’t stop him in time. He had a poker, he’d been drinking. Keisha had been saying how things weren’t going so well between them, her husband had ‘bad nerves’ from the Gulf War. He was jealous as hell of Keisha for having friends.” Fiercely McGuire wipes at his eyes. “Keisha was loved by everyone who knew her. There was no one like her in any of our lives …”

  “When—did this happen?”

  McGuire calls to a big-busted blond woman stacking cans on a shelf: “Shirley? When did Keisha pass away?”

  “She didn’t ‘pass away,’ man. She was murdered.”

  The blond woman speaks with her own particular vehemence, as if in his squeamishness McGuire has somehow insulted the dead woman.

  The way McGuire submits to this, one senses that the two are related, intimately.

  “All right. But when?”

  “Five, six years ago.”

  Briskly a gum-chewing teenage cashier is ringing up my purchases. The exchange means nothing to her, she isn’t even listening. My knees are so weak, I must lean against the counter. The gum-chewing cashier has turned to me, I see her snail’s mouth moving but have missed her words. Patiently she repeats:

  “Paper or plastic, sir?”

  So. I have answered your (stupid) question. Please don’t ask another.

  MISS GOLDEN DREAMS 1949

  Hel-lo! Welcome to Sotheby’s! Come in.

  As you see, your seats are reserved. Today’s (private) auction is restricted to the most elite collectors.

  And I am the most prized item on the bill—Miss Golden Dreams 1949.

  That’s to say the single, singular, one-of-her-kind three-dimensional living-breathing-plasma-infused PlastiPlutoniumLuxe Miss Golden Dreams 1949.

  Not mass-produced. Not “replicated.” Just—me.

  (Re)created from the authentic DNA of—me.

  The most famous pinup in the history of America and the most famous centerfold in the history of Playboy. And, by popular acclaim, the Number One Sex Symbol of the Twentieth Century.

  Do you doubt, Daddy? Approach the platform—(no, Daddy, you can’t climb up on the platform!)—see for yourself.

  My eyes see. This voice you hear is issued from me, it is not a spooky recording of Marilyn’s hushed, breathy, little-girl voice, but the authentic thing. I am the authentic thing. Full-sized, anatomically correct in every crucial way.

  How am I “animated”? I am not animated, Daddy. I am alive.

  In fact I am superior to the original Miss Golden Dreams. She was just a frightened girl, her (flat, perfect) stomach growling from hunger. Those shadowy parts of my brain that once preserved troublesome memories have been (mostly) excised. My teeth are certainly in better condition—whiter, more even, and cavity-free—than they were in 1949. A heated red liquid is circulating in my veins and arteries, serving double duty as one-third more efficient in carrying oxygen to my brain than my old anemic blood—and it’s an aphrodisiac, an added bonus.

  Good thing you’ve brought your checkbook, Daddy.

  How’d you like to own me, Daddy? Take me home with you? Love me?

  Daddy, I know I could love you.

  All you’ve got to do, Daddy, is make a bid for Miss Golden Dreams. And keep bidding. Keep upping the ante. Up—up—up, until your rivals fall behind, panting and defeated.

  Lowest acceptable purchase price for Miss Golden Dreams today is twenty-two million. Highest—hey, there is no highest.

  In fact, it’s predicted that we will set a Sotheby’s record this very day—you, the most elite of Marilyn collectors, and me, Marilyn.

  Yes, Miss Golden Dreams is the original Marilyn nude. The nude. The one you saw as a boy and never forgot. The one that rendered all the girls, at least the girls you knew and the women you would come to know, irrelevant.

  So young! (Practically as young as your granddaughter, but don’t think that.)

  Fun fact: I was paid fifty dollars to pose for this photo.

  Fun fact: I wasn’t “Marilyn Monroe” yet—the studio hadn’t named me. I was Norma Jeane Baker.

  Fun fact: already I’d been abandoned by a husband, divorced.

  Fun fact: occupation starlet, but—already—dropped by my studio.

  Gaze greedily upon Norma Jeane as she was in 1949—more than seven decades ago. That was an era of female beauty like none before or since, and Miss Golden Dreams is the most desirable of them all—the “icon” beside which all other females fall short.

  Flawless nude on red velvet. Soft, sinuous velvet, like the red interior of a heart. Creamy-white baby-soft skin, flawless skin, bright red lipstick smile revealing small, perfect white teeth, blond hair tumbling past (bare white) shoulders.

  Pinnacle of human evolution—a female infinitely desirable, yet unthreatening. An infant, yet a sexualized infant. Sweet-smiling, dimpled cheek, sparkly eyes gazing coyly at you as a little girl would do, partly hiding her face. (For this is Daddy’s girl, but a n
aughty Daddy’s girl.)

  Now, in the twenty-first century, human evolution has passed the point at which the species can be reproduced only by sexual intercourse—that is to say, by the powerful attraction between the sexes; in a (not very romantic) era of artificial insemination, sperm donors, uteruses for hire, and surrogate mothers, a dazzling blond female is no longer essential but has become a luxury item, like an expensive sports car or a yacht—a thirty-room mansion overlooking the Pacific … If you can afford these, Daddy, you can afford me.

  My promise is that, being dazzling blond, and nude, which means barefoot, I will not ever demand equality from you; I will not—ever!—decide that I want to be you by defiling my perfect female body—having ghastly surgery to remove my breasts or to remove my velvety-red vagina and replace it with …

  Ugh!—I know. Just the thought is—nauseating.

  (And people wonder why so many disgusting “trannies” are raped, slaughtered, cast aside—as if rogue females are not inviting misogyny by refusing to be feminine.)

  Not Miss Golden Dreams! Not me.

  Here before you, lying as naked and docile as an infant, is the apotheosis of what was once celebrated as femininity.

  Yes, I am proud of myself—this “self.” Flawless creamy-white skin, moist blue eyes, girl’s pointed upturned breasts and narrow (twenty-two inches!) waist and tender bare feet with toes tucked under.

  What a thrill for you! (And you, and you.)

  That special low-down-dirty thrill knowing that Miss Golden Dreams was paid so little to abase herself, naked; paid so little to pose for the image from which PlastiPlutoniumLuxe Miss Golden Dreams has been fashioned by the miracle of twenty-first-century robo-technology.

  It’s a thrill, too, don’t deny it, that in a fury of sexual competition with your brother-rivals, you will bid millions to own me; and once you have won me, and brought me home with you, and locked the door after me, you will keep me to yourself—for the remainder of your natural life.

  You’re a rich man, you have taste. You’ve acquired Renoirs, Matisses. Those late, erotic drawings by Picasso celebrating the elderly satyr and the always-young voluptuous girl-children who entice him.