Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates
Gettin restless, eh? Me, too!
It had turned out to be, as Haley had surmised, that her friend-from-the-army Drina Perrino was involved with another person. But it had not turned out, initially, that Drina was likely to switch her feelings to Haley McSwain, as Haley had believed.
This other person—Opa Han.
So many times over a duration of years Sabbath would hear the name Opa Han yet just once had she caught a glimpse of this person as she and Haley crouched together in the cab of the Dodge pickup in a drizzling rain outside the bungalow in which Drina and Opa lived in North Miami Beach—a female figure of no striking distinction except her hair was jet-black, straight to her shoulders, and her shoulders were wide, and sloping. Opa Han, Drina Perrino.
Only “just friends” but Haley and Drina saw each other frequently and Sabbath was often in their company, as Haley’s kid sister livin with me for a while. Drina Perrino had been a surprise to Sabbath for Haley had spoken of her obsessively as a beautiful radiant blessed individual but in fact Drina was short-tempered and peevish, with plucked eyebrows, a dissatisfied little beet-colored mouth, glittery piercings and studs in her ears, left nostril, and right eyebrow; a round little heavyset woman with thick arms, thick legs, sizable breasts and hips, and a girlish moon-face; “not an ounce of fat” (as Haley marveled) but defiantly firm-fleshed, like a rubber doll. Drina dressed flamboyantly in tight-fitting clothes that outlined her breasts, hips, and belly; her hair was alternately dyed and bleached—chestnut-red, platinum-blond. She rubbed rouge on her cheeks for a bright, febrile look; she made up her “Egyptian eyes” (as Haley described them) with inky-black mascara and green eye shadow; she wore cascades of flashy, cheap jewelry, and high-heeled shoes. Drina was several years older than Haley McSwain but looked younger than Haley whose plain earnest coarse-grained face was coming to be crisscrossed with worry lines (“worry over you-know-who” as Haley joked); though she did not resemble a soldier now, she’d once been a private first-class in the U.S. Army from Hazard, West Virginia. In some earlier life, Drina had been married, and divorced; as Haley McSwain waited patiently for Drina to tire of Opa Han, and turn to her, so it was hinted—(Haley herself joked about this, but Sabbath could not think it a laughing matter)—that Drina’s ex-husband, still a resident of Hazard, entertained a hope of Drina returning to him, too.
Drina exuded an air of glamour, set beside Haley’s sobriety. She’d trained to work as a beautician in the upscale specialties “cosmetology” and “electrolysis” but her employment was sporadic in Miami and South Beach. It seemed—(so Haley surmised, but was too proud to inquire)—that Opa Han, a forty-year-old radiologist at Miami-Dade County Hospital, was supporting Drina much of the time.
Somethin I could do just as well, Haley said. Or better.
She’d give me a chance, I would show her.
Sabbath worried: Haley would do something reckless, dangerous to impress Drina Perrino. To get the attention of a person like Drina you couldn’t be just you.
Like one evening, Haley turned up with a heavy urn filled with red roses, for Drina.
Wouldn’t say but Sabbath had the strong suspicion that Haley had appropriated the urn and the roses from a cemetery or riskier yet, a funeral home.
So excited, had to climb into the pickup and drive a half hour through congested traffic to get to Drina’s place in North Miami Beach and even then, Drina was slow to come to the door, stared and blinked at Haley looming over her—(Haley was at least eight inches taller than Drina)—as if almost she’d never seen Haley before; took the urn and roses from her with a muttered “Thanks!” and a brush of her beet-colored lips against Haley’s cheek but didn’t invite Haley inside. (Of course, Opa Han was there. They’d seen Opa Han’s shiny little red Volkswagen Beetle at the curb.)
Next week is Drina’s birthday, Haley explained. I want to be the first one givin her a present.
Sabbath disliked Drina for how Drina treated Haley. But Sabbath felt a little thrill of excitement at the prospect of seeing Drina, as others did. Drina was a kind of ferment.
For one thing, Sabbath never knew what sort of mood Drina would be in. First time they’d seen each other, and Haley so anxious for them to like each other, Drina had been aloof and sarcastic as if she’d been jealous of Haley’s “sister”; but other times, Drina treated Sabbath as if she was in fact Haley’s younger sister, and so “family.”
What made Drina an edgy person was, Drina was always passing judgment.
Maybe it was a beautician kind of eye—not content with what is but how it could be different, improved.
Sabbath overheard murmured exchanges—Drina’s petulant voice Why’s she always with you? Why’s she so clingy? Don’t she have anybody except her big sister to hang with? and Haley protesting Sabbath is all my family, right now. That has survived.
Drina wasn’t the only woman-friend in Haley’s life, though Drina was the woman-friend in Haley’s life. Other women—Lisha, Luce, Jen-Jen, Zanne, “M”—figured in Haley’s emotions less excruciatingly, yet still Haley felt obliged to lend them money, or invite them to stay with her; less frequently, in difficulties with her own landlord, Haley was invited to move in with one of them. (Of course, Sabbath moved with her. Haley was her “protector” as she’d promised.) At first Sabbath made no effort to remember the women’s names though the women themselves were quite distinct; by degrees, she came to know them, as they came to know her—Sabbath McSwain. Haley’s younger sister who had some kind of accident—or medical condition—like brain damage not visible to the eye.
(Sabbath wondered was this true? She knew—she had a suspicion—that in others’ eyes she wasn’t quite right. Long ago she’d been diagnosed as [maybe] “autistic”—or somewhere on the “autism spectrum.” Not shyness but resistance to looking at another’s face, meeting another’s eyes. Not hearing impaired but just not hearing which is a way of not caring.)
Except when Haley went away for a day or two—or more—a week, ten days—in the thrall of a new person who might/might not be introduced to Sabbath eventually—she and Sabbath were always together. Never would Sabbath forget her gratitude to the woman who’d rescued her, nursed her, brought her back to life.
It was a matter of food. “Nurturing.”
Haley was determined to bring Sabbath’s weight “more back to normal” and so Haley was in charge of meals, and saw to it that her young companion ate everything placed before her.
Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, calcium. The more intransigent greens, kale and chard.
And at least one bowl of ice cream a day. If Sabbath’s stomach reacted queasily to the high-sugar content of ice cream or to a memory of what once ice cream might have meant to her as a child Haley said sternly this is medicine.
Haley loved ice cream. A dozen flavors were Haley’s favorites. So they ate together, before bed.
Separate beds in which they slept, had always slept and would always sleep. Except on nights when Sabbath could not sleep her limbs twisted in nightmares and her brain racing berserk and self-hurting like a vehicle plummeting into a concrete wall when Haley would wrap her in a blanket and hold her in her lanky hard-muscled arms murmuring Hey it’s all right. It’s gonna be OK. Whoever it was, they are far away now. Never gonna hurt Sabbath no more now. OK?
In the months they lived together or shared a common household with others Haley was always bringing home “strays”—cats, dogs, even a pair of part-bald African gray parrots abandoned beside a pile of trash at a curb. Bedraggled and limping, eyes swollen shut, scars, oozing sores, eczema, fits of trembling. Haley McSwain was the one, everyone joked about Haley McSwain the Good Samaritan but Haley took such responsibilities seriously. To Haley there were no actual accidents or coincidences in life and so it meant something that a lost or abandoned creature crossed her path, for this seemed to mean that the creature had been set in motion to cross Haley McSwain’s path at a certain predetermined point of time. Jesus Christ was a human man, but a man who
Haley didn’t trust the ordinary scales in her possession and so she took Sabbath every two weeks to the Miami Cancer Center to have her weighed and examined by a friend who was a “tech” at the Center: this friend, a young Filipino woman named Luce, took Sabbath’s temperature and blood pressure and administered antibiotics if it looked as if Sabbath had some sort of infection—for Sabbath was susceptible to sore throats and respiratory ailments. Luce hoped to return to nursing school to become a fully-licensed nurse and in the meantime took pleasure in helping her dear friend Haley who was known for her generosity, kindness, and Christian heart.
In the Center cafeteria Luce and Haley fussed over Sabbath, urging her to eat. For often, Sabbath had little appetite. Though smiling, trying to smile to please her friends. Yet distracted, as if what remained of her battered mind were elsewhere.
Your sister has had some kind of—trauma? That’s it?
We think so. Some bastid she’d got mixed up with, made a mistake with, like young girls will do—he beat the shit out of her. Like, she has amnesia we think.
Is it known did he—rape her? Or—is it not-known?
They think prob’ly he did. Yeh.
But she don’t remember.
She don’t remember.
Could be a blessing, huh?
That’s what we think.
She does seem like a nice girl. Like—some younger version of you.
Not no young version of me. No. Sabbath is Sabbath—her own self.
Haley’s laughter was a comfort, when you’d forgotten what laughter could be.
IN THE COMFORT of what is now, she’d ceased thinking of what had been back then. Or what was to come.
Had not given any thought at all—(how strange this would seem to her, in retrospect)—to what would happen to her, to her and Haley McSwain, when Drina burnt out on Opa Han and fell back deep in love with Haley.
So then abruptly it happened. All that Haley had confidently predicted years before.
One day Haley was telling her in a solemn voice that Drina and Opa Han are having issues.
Another day telling her in the same solemn voice that Drina and Opa Han are splitting.
It was a time, a complicated time, when Sabbath hadn’t really known what was happening in her friend’s life. When it might have been evident, to another, more perceptive person, that Haley McSwain was drifting from her, attaching herself more firmly to another.
Forgetting to cajole Sabbath into eating, for instance.
Forgetting to buy their favorite shared ice cream—blueberry ripple.
Staying away overnight, so Sabbath slept, or failed to sleep, alone.
It was a time when Drina was having medical issues. It was not a happy time in Drina’s life but it was a time when Haley McSwain was present, and devoted in a way that others were not.
Unknown to Sabbath, Haley had driven Drina to a doctor’s office and later to an outpatient clinic for something ugly-sounding—colonoscopy and biopsy. And the consequence of this was that Drina had to have emergency surgery at that very same Cancer Center to which Haley took Sabbath.
And the consequence of this was that Haley was away for several days—and nights; and when she saw Sabbath again, she was wearing the identical T-shirt and khakis and her sand-colored hair was matted, her eyes were bloodshot and her skin grainy and gray but she was smiling and her voice lifted and lilted like a feather in the breeze.
For it seemed, the emergency surgery of which Sabbath had not known until this moment had turned out to be “very successful—they hope.” And it seemed, Drina now adored Haley, and was so very grateful to her, she and Haley would be living together from now on, through the ordeal of Drina’s post-surgical treatment which would involve both radiation and chemotherapy.
Though she’d heard this news, Sabbath could not comprehend it.
Where would Haley be living? Not with her?
Now with regret Haley was saying that Drina needed to be the only person in Haley’s life. Drina could not bear sharing Haley with even her younger sister Sabbath—“That just isn’t Drina’s way, see. She’s not a family-type person. She has never learned to share. She is in love, or not-in-love; and if she’s in-love, she wants that person all to herself every minute.”
Haley smiled dazedly. Haley shook her head, she could not believe the happiness of her news.
Bravely then Sabbath said she was happy for her—for Haley. She said she was happy for Drina, too—and hoped that Drina would regain her full health.
(Though thinking meanly She still might die! Then Haley would come back to me.)
(And then thinking frightened If something happens to me! Haley would have no room in her heart for me.)
At this time in the fall of 2009 Haley and Sabbath were living in Fort Lauderdale where Haley was a security guard at one of the sleazy-swanky resort hotels on the beach and Sabbath was working at a photocopy store and taking “Intro to Economics” as a night-school course at Broward Community College. And they were living in a communal-type household with several other women ranging in age from twenty-one to sixty-one of whom one was a language instructor at Broward Community College and another was an assistant administrator there. Haley and Sabbath had two rooms at the top of the house: one strewn with Haley’s clothes and possessions and dominated by a part-collapsed double bed with a brass headboard, and the other, the smaller room, sparely furnished with a cot-sized bed, a child’s knotty-pine bureau, books, notebooks and papers in neat stacks and taped to the walls charcoal drawings of girls and women—(predominantly Haley and other residents of the house)—deftly executed in a minimalist style.
Sabbath had overheard Haley saying to other residents in the household that it was a new discovery to her, and she was impressed and proud—her kid sister was some kind of artistic talent—nobody in the family had ever guessed!
Bravely Sabbath faced the loss of her friend though Haley insisted that she would see Sabbath as often as she could, email her and talk to her on the phone as if “almost nothing” had happened.
Haley promised too that she would send money to Sabbath when she could—maybe not as often as she wished.
Drina was sensitive about that kind of sharing too.
Also, Drina would not be working for who knew how long—weeks? Months? And so Drina would have no income, as Drina had no medical/hospital insurance.
She would be paying for Drina’s medical expenses, what she could. And what she could not, she would beg, borrow or steal.
To this, Sabbath could think of no reply. A shivering sensation had begun deep inside.
So! Haley rubbed her hands together. The dazed elation in her face.
Sabbath managed to say, she was very happy for Haley.
Haley said, Oh shit Sabbath, I’m happy for me too. For now.
Haley wrapped Sabbath in her long, tight-muscled arms. For a long time the women held each other not daring to step away, open their eyes, breathe.
MOVED OUT OF THE HOUSE in which she and Haley had lived—disappeared with no farewell to her housemates except on a folded sheet of paper the terse message I am leaving now. Thank you & good-bye. Sincerely, Sabbath McSwain and a half-dozen neatly-smoothed twenty-dollar bills which by her calculation was just slightly above her share of the rent for the remainder of that month.
The women had been Haley’s friends, not hers. She could not believe that they would miss her, as they would miss Haley.
Sabbath took with her only what she could carry. What she was obliged to leave behind she erased from her memory as you’d wash down a wall—quick, crude, effective.
She moved then to Temple Park. She knew no one in Temple Park. In an area of Fort Lauderdale near the ocean Haley was living with Drina in a new place they’d rented together.
Emails she received from Haley each day, or nearly.
Hope you are well! We are doing pretty well here.
Maybe come for s
But such meetings were rare. Sabbath didn’t have a car and it was a distance for Haley to drive after one of her long workdays, for soon Haley was supplementing her full-time employment at the resort hotel with part-time work as a security guard at a shopping center.
In a rotting Victorian house near the University of Florida campus Sabbath rented a single room. The majority of the other residents were students—foreign-born graduate students. Like a wraith she passed among them unobserved. That her skin was white and her national identity presumably Caucasian-American made her less and not more visible in their eyes.
An infinite number of discrete steps in a finite amount of time.
It was Zeno’s Paradox, restated: you were confronted with infinity within finitude. Naturally, your brain would shatter to pieces..
Yet, she persevered. Though Haley had abandoned her, yet she persevered. Though others had thrust her from them as unloved, despised, disgusting yet she persevered and even, by chance, became acquainted with new friends, of a kind: by chance, she was living just across the street from a university residence called International House where she could eat inexpensive “ethnic” meals at long communal tables at which it wasn’t so very unusual to be sitting alone, with just a book for company, or a sketch-pad. She became acquainted with a circle of women associated with Females Without Borders of whom one, Chantelle Rios, would become one of her closer friends.
“Girl, you always alone. Why’s that?”