What I Lived For by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

6

Corky Clinches a Deal

You think I’m not serious?—you think I’m bullshitting? Me? Corky Corcoran?”

Five minutes to midnight. The Bull’s Eye. He’s incensed, insulted. Amid the fever-din of voices, laughter, a stoned jazz quartet hyperventilating what sounds like “Mood Indigo.” How Corky got here exactly, he couldn’t have said, but, shit, he’s here and feeling good about it, his Corcoran, Inc., checkbook opened out on the sticky bar, his pen in hand and he’s hot to close the deal: a cool thirty percent down payment on a price of $400,000, his offer, Corky’s price, which is $85,000 below the price Mrs. Demetrius Crowe, the widow, wants for The Bull’s Eye.

That’s to say, the down payment is $120,000. Corky can make out the check tonight to Mrs. Crowe but he’ll have to postdate it for May 27. Next Wednesday. By which time he figures he can cover the full amount, no problem.

No problem, Corky?

No problem.

What’s capitalism in its essence but the skillful manipulation of funds? Other people’s money, if you’re short on your own.

The lucidity to which a few drinks, if they’re the right drinks, can bring a man! Where there’s quantum theory, there’s hope.

Corky’s at the bar of The Bull’s Eye, wedged in among hard-drinking couples and young-wolfish males in packs, also a shrieking contingent of thirtyish females, midlevel office workers out on a Saturday night to celebrate one of their own getting engaged, or possibly divorced, or, who knows, these days, maybe a successful abortion. Attracted by Corky Corcoran’s boyish-battered good looks and his springy red hair, his rumpled but stylish clothes, loosened necktie, his aloneness, these women have been casting flirty eyes in his direction, even boldly offered to buy him a drink, but Corky’s been playing it cool, just smiling murmuring “No thanks!” and keeping his back turned. He’s got it in his head to close the deal with Chantal Crowe tonight, this very night as if sensing he’d change his mind in the cold sobriety of the next day.

Also, Corky’s had his fill of cockteasing cunts right now.

Arrived at The Bull’s Eye lurching off the Fillmore exit ramp and up South Main till the landmark revolving Bull’s Eye came into sight, neon-lit above the entryway, found a place on the street amid trashlitter, at about ten P.M. after a few drinks at the Seneca House and he’s limited himself here to Johnnie Walker Red Label, neat: the best. Good whiskey clears the head of crap like it clears the sinuses. And Corky’s sick of ale and beer, believe it or not, Christ he’s had enough today to float a battleship. Pisser’s about worn out from so much liquid running through it.

God damn Chantal Crowe!—Corky’s a little drunk but at his most winning, making a playful swipe at her as she sidles past, “Hey Chantal, how’s about you and me having a quiet session?—I’m serious,” slapping the bar with the checkbook, grinning but impatient wishing the old broad would cut the shit. Chantal says in her husky smoker’s voice, fluttering her spiky fake eyelashes at him, “Now, Mr.

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