Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780547385419
Publisher: Corvus
Published: 2010-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Now you're fucked, little cocksucker, for life.

Not for life, surely: only remanded to juvenile detention for thirty days.

Pitiless glaring lights in the medical center, where in a cubicle screened off from more serious traumas Zwilich's wounded forefinger was given a thorough cleansing, disinfecting. The young Korean resident doctor examined the finger as if he'd never seen anything so curious. "You can see teeth marks all around. These are human teeth?"

Human teeth had the ring of a joke punch line. Zwilich laughed, a hot flush in his face. He was still shaky, edgy. But yes, he had to concede, human teeth.

"Small, though? A child? Child teeth?"

"Not so small—the child is eleven."

Zwilich waited for the young doctor to inquire if the child was Zwilich's own child—it seemed a natural question; Zwilich was a normal man yet might be the father of a crazed demon-child—but already the doctor was deftly bandaging the finger. Strangely, for all the pain, which still throbbed like flashing neon, the wounded finger hadn't bled much.

In a staff lavatory at Family Services Zwilich had run cold water on the wound, washing away the blood and numbing the finger. He'd have improvised a clumsy gauze bandage for the finger out of a near-depleted first aid kit in the office, but his supervisor insisted that he go to the medical center immediately to get professional medical attention for the bite. For insurance reasons, Zwilich supposed: if such a wound became infected—if, for instance, the finger had to be amputated—Family Services would be liable for a large settlement.

Before Zwilich left the clinic holding his thick-bandaged finger at chest level to minimize the throbbing, the young Korean doctor insisted that he have a tetanus shot.

Zwilich laughed irritably. He was fine; he didn't need a tetanus shot, he was sure. Or rabies.

The doctor said somberly, "Yes, but the inside of a human mouth can be as dangerous as an animal's mouth. Teeth caries contain infectious microorganisms. You'd be surprised."

Zwilich thought, Would I! In his dazed state, nothing could surprise him.

The needle bearing the transparent tetanus vaccine entered Zwilich's left bicep cleanly, with little pain, but shortly after ward, as he left the clinic, his arm began to throb. And the clumsy bandaged forefinger throbbed with pain. A jeering sort of pain, it seemed to Zwilich, recalling the demon-child's look of feral hatred. If he'd been able, César Diaz would have torn out Zwilich's throat with his teeth. Zwilich shuddered, stumbling as if he'd been drinking. He badly needed a drink and so stopped by the Dorsey Hotel, the romantic seedy bar—like the interior of a cave, Sofia had said, and that cave undersea and muted—where frequently he'd met up with her after work. For a while Sofia had been a therapist at the hospital a half-block away; her specialty was pediatric oncology. Wistfully she'd said, If we're going to start a family..., and her voice had trailed off and he'd said quickly, We can. Soon. We will. When things are more in control. He'd meant to say (hadn't he?) under control.

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