New Jersey Noir by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2011-10-27T13:00:00+00:00

AUGUST: FEEDING FRENZY

BY ALICIA OSTRIKER

Jersey Shore

Pink dawn, tide coming in: big fish driving mullets up

into jetty rocks and onto sand, pulling back

in the undertow, jaws agape for small

fry they devour by the hundreds, water

whorling, gulls circling and dipping—

my two little granddaughters gleefully watching.

PART III

COMMERCE & RETRIBUTION

A BAG FOR NICHOLAS

BY HIRSH SAWHNEY

Jersey City

Shezad Ansari—or Shez to his customers, fans, and friends—had once been a successful musician. He’d played keyboards in a psychedelic grunge band called Cold Warrior, which released a Billboard Hot 100 single in ’98. The next few years were good to Shez. Sandra, a film editor, finally agreed to marry him. He went to parties with distinguished actors and directors. He acquired a taste for champagne, caviar, and cocaine. But those days were long behind him. He was now thirty-eight and living, once again, in Jersey City.

He lived alone in the one-bedroom Newport condo his father had bought in 2001 and bequeathed him just two years later. Shez had two sources of income: royalty checks from Cold Warrior’s first album, which covered his property taxes and utilities, and cash profits from the three-and-a-half- and seven-gram baggies of marijuana he sold to the local bourgeoisie. This side business took care of his grocery bills and bar tab.

An unexpected phone call from his ex-wife Sandra made Shez decide it was time to stop selling pot. She called him on a Monday in late February and said she had a real job for him, playing the Hammond B-3 organ on a soundtrack for an independent film. The film’s director, who’d won a Sundance grant, owed her a favor. All Shez had to do was show up to a meeting in Brooklyn that Thursday, and the job was practically his. He told himself that Sandra’s phone call was the start of a new leaf. He grew excited for his renaissance. Life as a normal, functional adult suddenly seemed possible.

Thursday came, and Shez hadn’t sold a bag or restocked his supply of bud in three days. He woke up at noon and entered the bathroom. Mildew clouded the transparent shower curtain, and balls of hair and dust littered the floor. Shez powered up his father’s old transistor radio. WBGO was playing a Lou Donaldson song. He’d fallen in love with the track during his first and only year at Rutgers. He placed his hands on the sink, confronting his hangover in the mirror. The bags under his eyes were puffy from last night, and from countless other solitary nights. A tight ball blazed in his stomach. He was no longer inspired by the thought of a new beginning.

He tugged one of his thick black curls toward his cheek. His hair didn’t need cutting, but his beard was another story. It was unruly, a black and gray bird’s nest, and it made him smile with a mixture of disgust and pride. He looked psychotic, like the shoe bomber. He opened up the medicine cabinet and reached for his stainless steel hair clippers. His father’s expired beta blockers rested beside them though the man had been dead for five years.

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