Them by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9780345484406
Google: hII5sPW7q1IC
Amazon: 0345484401
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 2006-09-11T14:00:00+00:00

The next morning he went to see his mother. She gave him coffee and they chatted. It was the usual conversation: chatting about Maureen’s appetite. She eats everything I make for her, so she’s all right . . . And then he had to go in to see Maureen herself, lying in bed, forever lying in bed and stuffing her face with coffee cake and cookies and whatever sweet crap Loretta gave her, so that her face had broken out, her body grown disgusting. Maureen was going to drive him crazy too unless he put distance between them. St. Louis wasn’t far enough.

He went to pick up Bernard at noon. Bernard did exist; he appeared in a small crowd, materializing out of it. He wore the same coat. Jules leaned back to open the door for him and had the idea that the two of them had been together for a lifetime already and might be sentenced together for another lifetime, an eternal lifetime, like conspirators who wind up together in hell, a sad joke their being together for eternity . . .

Bernard said, “To the airport!”

“Which one?”

“Metropolitan. Hurry.”

It was a-long drive. Jules nearly fell asleep. To keep himself awake he tried to explain about the Cadillac, but Bernard was reading a newspaper and did not seem to hear. Out at the airport Bernard had Jules drive around while he went into one of the terminals to check something. Jules wondered why he hadn’t simply made a telephone call.

Bernard came back on the run. He sighed cheerfully. “It’s all on! Our plans for St. Louis!” He struck the back of the seat with one flat-handed blow, as if to make a point he didn’t really believe in.

Jules drove back to Detroit.

And then . . .

Though he was to have plenty of time to think it over, the event that followed never really became believable to him. Lying in a hospital bed some years later, having nothing to do except regain his strength, he was able to think and rethink that afternoon but he was never able really to believe in it. Bernard instructed him to go to a certain address on Livernois, which turned out to be a sleazy-looking muffler shop. Then on to another address near Grand Boulevard. Jules was able to park on the street in front of the house, since this was a residential neighborhood. “I have to finalize something here,” Bernard said. Jules reached over and got the newspaper out of the back seat and read it, beginning with the comic page.

Time passed.

After a while he looked up uneasily. The street was fairly crowded. People were strolling around. No Bernard. The house he’d gone into was made of brick, old and decrepit. An awning on the front porch was rotted. Jules let time pass, maybe an hour, before he prodded himself into getting out of the car. He stared at the house and a terrible feeling came over him: is this as far as he would go?

He rang the doorbell several times.

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