Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, United States, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780802193650
Google: wmctk6mZSDoC
Amazon: B009W73MLQ
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00


* * *

In the van they rode silently out to the Saw Mill Road.

The child was gripping his hands tight in his lap. The child was having difficulty separating his thoughts from a powerful roaring in his ears.

Now it will happen. You knew it would happen.

The child understood that Daddy Love was both angry and “calm”—the “calm” of Daddy Love when he was very, very angry.

The child had in his hands a thick brush he’d found in the storage shed, much thicker than a common paintbrush, possibly a brush used for some particular purpose around the old farm, like spreading tar, and this brush he’d dipped into something black, yes it was tar, hot steaming tar, and he was spreading the tar across the road in front of the van so that the van would careen into it …

The hot black tar was so thick no oxygen could penetrate it.

Trying to drive the van, trying to breathe, Daddy Love grew faint and lost consciousness and the van veered off the road and downhill rapidly in the direction of the Delaware River …

“Son?”—Daddy Love’s voice was startling-close.

Son murmured yes Daddy.

“Your teachers are impressed with you, they say. Your daddy is proud of you.”

Son murmured yes Daddy.

It was a familiar landscape through which they drove. Returning to the farm on the Saw Mill Road. Yet, it was a strange landscape, without color.

The hot tar had vanished. But the hot tar had taken all the colors with it like it’s said there is no color in anything at the time of a lunar eclipse.

To the right was the Delaware River, a dull muddy-gray like dirty pavement only just visible through the trees. To the left, abandoned and overgrown farmland.

It was early spring. Most of the trees were still leafless, but beginning to bud. This was a special time of year, he knew. Daddy Love said it was his birthday, in April.

He was eleven years old, Daddy Love said. Daddy Love had showed him his birth certificate with a gilt-gold seal from the State of Maine, Hecate County.

He’d been born, this document declared, on April 11, 2002. His parents were Ceila Cash and Chester Cash.

Daddy Love seemed proud of this document. He’d had several printed up, for safekeeping.

“You don’t remember your mother, Gideon. She was a lousy mother blowing smoke into a baby’s face.”

He’d known better than to ask where his mother was. For Daddy Love was in charge of all such information, to be doled out when Daddy Love wished.

“In fact your mother died a horrible death, of cancer, from smoking.”

“In fact your mother died a deserved death. From her habit of smoking.”

Yet, Daddy Love had sometimes said that Gideon’s mother was living in the north of Michigan. He’d looked up Michigan in a book of maps at school and saw the Upper Peninsula—“Traverse City.”

The surprising thing was, Daddy Love himself sometimes smoked. Daddy Love kept packs of cigarettes in secret places in the van and in the house. In the safety-box, as



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