Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates
It was like a theorem in his geometry text. It was irrefutable. There is no before without after.
In the dark he went to his desk, switched on a lamp, and took up his geometry compass. He stabbed the sharp point into the palm of his left hand and pressed, grunting with the surprise of the pain. The skin was punctured and blood oozed grudgingly out. His upper lip was beaded with sweat. Push it all the way through, like a spike.
The compass slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor gleaming faintly with blood.
Coward.
8.
“The Cheetah”—so David called the boy, in secret.
This was the person, David believed, who’d been crying in the men’s lavatory the first day of the Raineys’ vigil at the medical center.
He was a slender, handsome, foreign-looking boy of about fourteen whose father, too, was a heart patient in the cardiac unit. In room 837, two doors from 833. David began noticing him on the second day. After that, he couldn’t not notice him. The boy was “foreign” though dressed like an American teenager in jeans, T-shirt, expensive running shoes. He spoke English with no evident accent (that David could overhear) though his relatives, crowded into room 837, spoke a language David couldn’t recognize, or heavily accented English the medical staff had trouble understanding. Maybe they were Middle Eastern? Turks, Lebanese, Arabs? Or were they Pakistanis? Or—Portuguese? Their language was rapid, harsh, and sometimes sibilant, teasingly familiar to David (from TV?) yet mysterious. In David’s suburban school there were few ethnic or minority students and most of these were Asian-Americans. The Cheetah was black haired, olive skinned, with distinctive features that reminded David of a cat’s, and he was catlike in his movements, restless, inclined to impatience. Sometimes he appeared stricken with grief; at other times he looked sulky, even bored. He and David often saw each other in the eighth-floor corridor, in the visitors’ lounge, just stepping out of an elevator, with relatives, or alone, eyes turned downward. The Cheetah was taller than David by several inches, about five foot five. He only vaguely acknowledged David, with a glance, though David was certain he recognized him. The Cheetah was the most striking boy of his age that David had ever seen up close.
His father has been struck down, too. Maybe dying.
The Cheetah’s father lay as if near comatose in his bed, breathing oxygen from a plastic tube. His dark-skinned face was ravaged though probably, David thought, he wasn’t any older than David’s own father. He looked like a big man who’d lost weight suddenly, like a partly deflated balloon. His room was the most frequently visited in the corridor, and many of these visitors brought young children with them. The nursing staff repeatedly asked them not to speak so loudly, to watch their children more closely, to “be considerate” of other patients. Always, they obeyed at once; yet shortly afterward, others arrived, and there was more commotion. Mr. Rainey complained that the “foreign” family stayed past 11 P.M. sometimes and woke him on their way out. David would have liked to inquire what nationality they were, what their name was, but didn’t want to appear curious.
There was another boy, older than the Cheetah, about seventeen, who came to visit the patient in room 837 less frequently. They were obviously brothers, the one a taller, heavier version of the other. The older boy, whom David came to call “the Hawk,” was handsome, too; his nose was prominent, beak-like—like a hawk’s. His black hair had been severely trimmed to a buzz cut. The Hawk was a swaggering high school kid in a black Pearl Jam T-shirt, ratty designer jeans, a gold stud glittering in his left earlobe. He, too, was taking his father’s hospitalization hard, you could see that, but he was more readily bored than the Cheetah and prowled about the cardiac unit talking to the West Indian orderlies and nurses’ aides. When the brothers were together, the Hawk was clearly dominant. He talked, and the Cheetah listened. It was easy to imagine their childhood: the older brother bossing the younger. David’s brothers, too, were older than he was, but so much older (Pete by ten years, Billy by six) they’d been protective of him rather than bullying, though mostly they hadn’t had time for him. Seeing the way the Cheetah glanced at the Hawk, alert and even admiring, David felt a stab of envy.
The Hawk took no notice of David but the Cheetah was different, at least some of the time. One night at 10 P.M., when David was sent to get fruit juice for his father, there was the Cheetah on a similar errand. Their gazes locked for an awkward moment. David might have mumbled, “Hi,” and the Cheetah might have mumbled something inaudible in passing.
That night in his dream he was Little Goat! He and the Cheetah were in kindergarten together. Playing on the slide and on the swings. They’d climbed, clambered up a steep staircase. A feeling of overwhelming happiness spread through David.
For the first time since the ambulance had come for his father, taking away Dadda to die amid strangers, David was able to sleep through to morning.
9.
The puncture wound in his hand had come to nothing; he was a coward. His father wasn’t improving and until Mr. Rainey was stronger, the cardiologist couldn’t “proceed.” A voice taunted him, the God-in-whom-he-didn’t-believe. What would you give up to bring your father home?
His eyesight? The vision in one eye? His hearing? What about an arm? Which arm? His right? What about a leg? And what of his “future”—would he give that up? Never play any game again: softball, soccer, basketball? Would he give up his trombone? His friends? His high grades? His special feeling for math? His soul?
A sacrifice must be made. But what?
Around the house he was a sleepwalker-zombie; it wouldn’t be a surprise if an accident happened. Turning an ankle on the stairs and falling. Shutting a car door on his hand. All of them were distracted and not themselves. Mother on the telephone, Mother walking slowly through the rooms she seemed not to recognize. There was nothing for them to talk about except the father’s condition, yet there was so little for them to say of it that they hadn’t already said. Through this, the God-voice taunted the Raineys’ youngest son, the coward.
What would you give up? give up? give up?
He did return to school for a morning. There was a midterm test in solid geometry he didn’t want to miss. He made certain he failed, hoping his teacher wouldn’t be suspicious. He got enough answers wrong so he calculated his numerical grade was about 55%, a letter grade of F.
Maybe that would help?
10.
On the fourth morning Mr. Rainey was strong enough to endure a heart-probe procedure, and afterward Mrs. Rainey was crying, clutching at their hands. “It’s all right! The doctor said there were no blood clots.”
11.
Yet the father’s arrhythmia didn’t respond to medication as the cardiologist expected. There was the probability that, if Mr. Rainey was removed from his intravenous medication, the atrial fibrillation would return. For that was the rhythm which his fifty-one-year-old heart, like a suddenly deranged clock, had taken on. So they might try electric shock.
Admittedly this was a more extreme procedure with some element of risk.
How much “element of risk” the Raineys wanted to know.
The cardiologist’s reply was lengthy, tactful, and, in the end, vague. For each heart patient is a unique problem, each heartbeat a unique beat, and any general anesthetic is a trauma to the brain.
“And to the heart?” Mrs. Rainey asked.
“Well, yes.” The cardiologist cleared his throat.
12.
David wondered if the Cheetah had noticed: room 833 and room 837 were mirror-rooms.
Each was private and of the same proportions, bathroom to the rear, a single window. In each, as you approached, you could see a gowned man in bed, attached to intravenous sacs on poles. In each, you often saw visitors sitting or standing around the bed. Each room exuded the possibility of the empty bed.
After a few days, David began to worry not just that he’d return to room 833 and see his father’s bed empty, but he’d return to see the bed
Yet the Cheetah glanced at him in passing, a swift sidelong look of fear, hurt, anger, and an obscure shame.
13.
He wasn’t spying on the brothers. Yet it happened he saw them everywhere.
In the parking garage, for instance. By what coincidence did Mrs. Rainey park one morning, on level B, close by the “foreign” family’s car? Both cars were large, new-model luxury cars, but the Raineys’ was mud splattered and its chrome fixtures dimmed as if in mourning while the other family’s car gleamed and glittered as if it had been driven directly out of a dealer’s showroom.
The Hawk was driving. In the harsh early sunshine he looked older than seventeen. He drove with a slight edge of impatience, pulling into the parking space and braking almost simultaneously. Beside him was his mother; in the backseat were an elderly white-haired woman, a young girl, and the Cheetah slouched and sullen, a baseball cap pulled down over his forehead. David looked quickly away.
“Those people,” Mrs. Rainey sighed. “Either they all look alike, or they’re everywhere.”
14.
On the morning of the sixth day the father began to cry, whispering he’d failed them. The children were sent out of the room. The cardiologist came to explain the electric-shock procedure in such clinical detail, Mrs. Rainey began to faint—“Oh, God. An electric shock to his heart.”
15.
That night, David opened his window wanting the ache and hurt of cold. Damp sleeting rain like needles. What would you give up? What would you give? Quietly he went downstairs in his pajamas, barefoot. Stepped outside into the harsh cold air. His head, which had felt fevered, like a burning lightbulb, was immediately wet, and it wasn’t much but it felt good.
How long he wandered about in the sleety rain, on the driveway, in the grass, tilting his head back, exposing his throat, he wouldn’t know. Lost track of time. Thinking This might be the last night I have a father.
16.
Next morning, his head ached, his eyes were running, and his nose—“Oh, Davy. You’ve given yourself a cold.” Somehow, his mother knew, scolding him, but kissing him, pressing him against her so he hadn’t any choice but, gently, to push away.
Mother was saying in her new, wondering voice, “The life we live in our bodies, it’s so strange, isn’t it? You don’t ever think how you got in. But you come to think obsessively how you’ll be getting out.”
Later, when they were preparing to leave for the medical center, she laid her hand on David’s arm in that way he’d come to dread. “Your father loves you very much, honey. You know that.”
David nodded, yes.
“He told me. He’s thinking of you. All the time. He wants you to know that. I hope you do.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Desperate to escape, but where to escape to?
17.
Like puppets on a string! That was what the Raineys had become.
Even Mr. Rainey in his cranked-up bed, listening to the beat-beat-beat of his crazed heart.
For no sooner did they arrive in room 833 than they were informed by the head nurse that the electric-shock procedure was postponed until the next morning. When Mr. Rainey’s vital signs might be more stable.
“Hell,” said Mr. Rainey, managing a ghastly-ashy smile, “I’m set to go right now.”
18.
“Hey-hey!”
A sharp little cry not meant for him. As the flat stone came skittering and skidding across the icy pavement.
Behind the medical center, adjacent to the parking garage, there was a construction site and in the foreground, an unused, slightly littered space.
It was truly chance! David hadn’t followed the brothers here, hadn’t had any idea they might be here at all. He’d fled the eighth-floor corridor and the stifling air of room 833 where even the numerous fresh-cut flowers exuded an odor of dread. He hadn’t taken time even to put on his jacket, desperate to flee.
And there, in early winter sunlight were the brothers kicking a stone like a hockey puck between them. It was an idle, desultory game. A cigarette slanted from a corner of the Hawk’s fleshy mouth. The Cheetah, languid and sulky-seeming, wore a gray baseball jacket. During the night the sleet had turned to snow; there was a light dusting on the ground and ice patches on the pavement. The brothers communicated with each other in grunts of challenge or derision. The Hawk was the louder and the more skilled at the impromptu game. “Hey-hey!”—he kicked the flat stone so hard it ricocheted and caught his brother on the ankle; the Cheetah winced, then laughed. David was uncertain whether he should acknowledge watching the brothers or pretend not to see them; he continued along the edge of the pavement as if he had a destination and wasn’t just walking to kill time, as the brothers were playing their aimless game to kill time. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the younger brother run to catch the skidding stone with his foot and give it a sidelong kick. There came the stone as if by magic, skittering in David’s direction, so with a clumsy, eager kick he sent it spinning back toward the Cheetah, and with a haughty nod the Cheetah both acknowledged David’s charitable gesture and dismissed it, sending the stone flying back toward his brother with renewed zest—“Hey-hey-hey!”
Elated, David walked on. The brothers continued their rough play behind him; he didn’t give them a second glance.
19.
Tomorrow morning?
Something would be decided.
David’s mother urged him and his sister to return to school for the afternoon at least. “Some semblance of a normal life”—but neither David nor his sister wanted a normal life right now. Their older brothers Pete and Billy were grimly waiting, too.
In the mirror-room 837, the Cheetah’s father seemed little changed. The door was only partway closed, as if in the patient’s stuporous state privacy made little difference. David passed on an errand, hoping he wouldn’t be seen by anyone inside, and he wasn’t.
The patient continued sleeping as before and several visitors were sitting about watching TV.
Entering the men’s lavatory which he’d come to know in too much detail. And there at a sink, washing his hands, was the boy he’d remember for the rest of his life as the Cheetah.
Loud splashing water from the faucet, and anger in the very sound. The boy’s eyelids looked inflamed as if with fever.
David halted just inside the door. He swallowed, embarrassed. The Cheetah was watching him in the mirror. David tried to show no emotion though a shock ran through him as if he’d carelessly touched an electric wire.
For the first time, the Cheetah smiled. His lips smiled. He was watching David in the mirror. “Somebody in your family sick, eh?” His voice was low and hoarse, almost inaudible.
David said, swallowing again, “Yes. My father.”
The Cheetah nodded, drying his hands on a paper towel. “My father, too.”
David said, “Something happened to my dad in the middle of the night. He hadn’t ever had any heart trouble before. He couldn’t breathe, his heart was racing. My mom called an ambulance. That was last week. They said, in the emergency room, my dad’s heartbeat was two hundred twenty beats a minute.”
“Je-sus.” The Cheetah whistled, as if impressed. “I’ve been seeing you around here, it’s shitty, eh? Y’want to go out back for a smoke?”
“—smoke?”
“Just hang out, then. Get out of this shitty place.”
David smiled uncertainly. He heard himself say, “Okay.”
On his way out of the lavatory the Cheetah cuffed David lightly on the shoulder as a big cat might, in play. He winked at David and drawled, showing the tip of his tongue between his lips. “O-kay. Out back.”
When David left the lavatory, the Cheetah was nowhere in sight.
He returned to 833; his parents were expecting him. It was almost 6 P.M. when an orderly brought his dad a special-diet supper. He wasn’t certain whether he was supposed to meet the Cheetah outside immediately, or another time. He kept glancing at the doorway when someone passed by. The network news came on TV. Every night that he’d been strong enough to sit up, Mr. Rainey watched the news. David’s mother propped pillows behind him. He’d become one of those patients bent upon “cheering up” visitors. He was saying to David, “—should be in school, Davy, shouldn’t you? Don’t want to fall behind and I’m going to be fine in a day or two, you’ll see.” David said “I can’t fall behind, Dad, it’s like a Möbius strip. Anyway, it’s after school now. See?—it’s dark.” He pointed toward the window at the rear of the room as if his father required proof. But his father was laughing, a dry, mirthless laugh, the remark about the Möbius strip was so clever. David reached for his jacket, laid over the back of a chair. His mother called after him but he didn’t hear. He’d let forty minutes pass; he was in a desperate hurry.