DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802189585
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2017-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Since September 5 of this year I have been living at 22 Humboldt Street in a private residence in which I rent a single room and share a bathroom with another tenant, a young woman of my approximate age. Our landlady is a retired University professor.

Humboldt Street is a street of (somewhat run-down) frame Victorian houses that have been partitioned into rooms. Proper lives—family lives—were once lived in such houses. Verandas and front porches, the remains of carefully tended lawns.

In the weed-splotched back yard at 22 Humboldt, an aged, cracked clay birdbath containing what appeared to be the small skeleton of a bird but which turned out to be (when I inspected) some broken twigs.

It is a three-minute walk to The Magellan at the corner of Humboldt and Pitcairn Avenue, fronting Pitcairn.

Though there is a rear entrance to the apartment building. A narrow alley behind The Magellan where a Dumpster and trash cans are kept. A mild odor of rot prevails here.

From the sidewalk you cannot see the water tank on the roof of The Magellan. From room 2D you could (possibly) see the roof of the brownstone apartment building on the other side of the street, where there is said to be an identical, 1,500-gallon water tank.

In one of my courses the Professor inquired of the class how could we recognize the front of an object?

The question was put to us like a riddle which the Professor did not (evidently) expect anyone to answer.

I did not know the answer. I could not guess the answer.

I am uneasy with riddles. I feel always that someone is laughing at me and (indeed) there was a smirk on the Professor’s face when finally no one in the class could think of an answer and so he said, “The front of an object is the side that provides the most information.”

Is this so? I had never thought of such a thing before but it is true, the “front” of a living being tells you so much more about it than its rear or sides.

However, there is minimum of information provided by the weatherworn façade of The Magellan. An entrance, a portico, six steps, a heavy door. Three rows of windows.

Inscribed in a cornerstone, 1931.

Often I linger in front of The Magellan. As if I am waiting for someone to come out and greet me.

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