Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates
“Oh—God! This is terrible! What has happened to you! Has your mother left you here?—abandoned you?”
Adrienne could not believe this—yet it seemed to be so. Had the child been left for her?
What to do! What was Adrienne to do! She could not bring herself to re-enter the courthouse—which in any case seemed to be shutting down for the evening. Already the higher floors had dimmed their lights, each floor in succession was growing dimmer, like a rotted wedding cake, candles going out.
Adrienne’s mind worked rapidly. If the girl who called herself Leisha had abandoned her two-year-old daughter in such a way, clearly she was an unfit mother; the child would be taken from her by county welfare authorities, and put into a foster home. In the city of Trenton, what a fate!
“You poor baby! Poor dear—darling—Lilith…”
Adrienne picked the child up in her arms. She wasn’t accustomed to a child’s weight, made heavier by the child’s kicking and thrashing. It did seem to comfort the distraught little girl that Adrienne knew her name, and was smiling at her.
“Don’t cry! No need to cry, now.”
The little girl’s eyes were cobalt-blue, very dark; her face was narrow, a sort of feral face, with a look of being hurt, wounded; there was something just discernibly deformed about her. She’d wetted herself, a strong odor of ammonia lifted from her soiled clothing. Yet Adrienne hugged her, Adrienne kissed the chilled little face, murmuring words of comfort. Adrienne thought This is our only purpose on earth: to give comfort to others.
The thought was immensely satisfying to Adrienne. She felt her heart swell with warmth, well-being.
In the crude paper slippers, that were already soaked through, and tattered, Adrienne carried the little girl to her car, which was on the far side of the lot. Her stocking feet were freezing but her face was feverish. Happily she whispered to the little girl—she would take care of her, she promised not to turn her over to police, or to welfare—“You can come home with me, Lilith! You will be safe with me. No one will know.”
The panicked child bit Adrienne’s hand—fortunately her teeth were tiny milk teeth, not strong enough or sharp enough to break Adrienne’s skin. Adrienne was shocked but managed to laugh. “Lilith! I’m not your mommy. You have no reason to be frightened of me.”
At her car, which was a new-model Acura her husband had bought less than six months before, Adrienne saw that something unfortunate had happened. A heavy ridge of earth—chunks of broken concrete, ice, and soil—had been plowed against her front wheels, no doubt by one of the earthmoving machines that had been grunting and grinding in the parking lot when she’d arrived. What bad luck, and at such a time! Adrienne had to set the fretting child inside her car, in the passenger’s seat, and for several desperate minutes kick, claw, and swipe at the dirt, to free the wheels—“God help me. Oh God—help me.” Her hands were filthy, the front of her coat, her legs—she was laughing, and she was crying—it might have been God who gave her the idea to drag a plank over to her car, and insert it behind the left front wheel, on a patch of ice, to provide traction.
“This will do it, Lilith! Let’s try.”
Under a New Jersey statute one was obliged to carry a small child in a child-seat in the rear of a vehicle, not in the passenger’s seat, but Adrienne had no choice except to buckle Lilith in the front seat beside her, as best she could in the oversized belt. “Please don’t cry! You’re safe with me—I promise.” By this time all floors of the courthouse had gone dark.
By a miracle the motor flared into life. Calmly and deliberately despite her desperation to escape Adrienne maneuvered the Acura out of the lot. No police vehicles on the street! No one was following her! The nighttime city appeared to be less frantic than the daytime city and in a maze of one-way and dead-end streets Adrienne worked her way gradually back to Route 1 which would bear her north and out of accursed Trenton.
“We’re safe, Lilith! Almost safe. Please don’t cry, darling.”
Darling. The word was immensely soothing, familiar somehow. It was not a word available to everyone.
On northbound Route 1 sleet rained from the sky. Tiny bits of ice hammered against the hood and roof of the white Acura. Adrienne’s headlights were on bright but she had difficulty seeing the highway. Blindly she drove, happily—she was thinking of how when they were safely home she would give the child a much-needed bath—a hot soaking sudsy bath—she would shampoo the child’s fine, fair hair, and comb it free of snarls—she would dry the child in her largest bath towel, in her arms—she would feed the starving child, and herself. She could prepare a thick delicious tomato soup—scrambled eggs—oatmeal? Oatmeal with raisins and honey. Or she would save the oatmeal with raisins for morning. She would spoon food into the child’s mouth and put the child to bed in the rarely used bed in her guest room. She would sing the child to sleep if the child continued to fret. She would sit by the child’s bedside through the night, to protect her. For there was the child’s cruel mother, and there was the child’s cruel father, from whom the child must be protected. And in the morning all that was confusing would become clear, she knew. She had faith.
DONOR ORGANS
Must’ve been a time of contagion somehow he’d picked up like hepatitis C this morbid fear of dying young and his “organs” being “harvested” rib cage opened up, pried open with giant jaws you’d hear the cracking of the bones deftly with surgical instruments the organs spooned out blood vessels, nerves “snipped” and “tied” your organs packed in dry ice, in waterproof containers to be carried by messenger to the “donor recipient” this sick-slipping-helpless sensation in his gut like skidding his car, his parents’ new Audi they’d trusted him with, on black ice approaching the Tappan Zee Bridge deep in the gut, a knowledge of the futility of all human wishes, volition This is it, you are fucked Only twenty-three years old not old no reason to worry about the future, his mom can worry for him moms are experts at worrying, moms are most useful at worrying yet moms should be shielded from knowing too much about their sons moms should be protected otherwise you feel guilt sick-guilt, like sick-worry about dying young he wasn’t worried really, it’s just his mind maybe there’s a tapeworm burrowed into his brain it’s not normal to be aware of your “organs” wakened in the night when he finally gets to sleep by the rude thump! thump! of his heart dazed thinking someone was in bed with him? was it B., she’d just slipped from bed to use the bathroom and would be back stumbling in the dark, giggling and collapsing on top of him the narrow sunk-mattress bed with smelly sheets of his college dorm room in Mackie Hall but no, can’t be, Jason has graduated, all that’s gone once his brain is fully awake he has no trouble comprehending he’s in his own bed, in his own home he’s safe here Only twenty-three yet he has become obsessed knows people his age who’ve already died that is, already he knows people his age who’ve died “head-on collision” “by his own hand” (gun) “mountain-hiking fall” (Ecuador) “drug overdose” it is morbid to dwell on such things but really he’s kind of anxious so much time to think naturally, you become anxious maybe there is a tapeworm in his brain (can’t suggest this to Mom, Mom would freak) at the same time he’s capable of discussing the issue openly and easily with people, with friends, as he’d done in his ethics class, saying what you’d expect an intelligent person to say Sure I’d want to donate my organs my eyes to some other person in need Greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends he believes this, kind of he is a Christian, kind of being an “organ donor” doesn’t mean that you die for that purpose but that after you die your “organs” are “harvested” this is a crucial distinction this makes him anxious you start off in a car, never return alive and your organs shunted off to be planted in strangers, your eyes inserted in the eye sockets of a stranger, no wonder he can’t sleep she’d twined her thin arms around his neck, mashed her hot yearning face in his neck half the time he hadn’t known what the hell was she serious? was she joking? it was some other
casual after graduation drifted apart B. went to Bangkok to teach in the university’s extension program there B.A., Ivy League university, tuition somewhere beyond $40,000 a year, you’re qualified to teach English “as a foreign language” recently B. has e-mailed Jason out of nowhere out of cyberspace must’ve gotten his address from a mutual friend Hi Jason thinking of you & missing you it’s challenging here but kind of lonely turns out Bangkok is the Sex Capital of the world & a buyer’s market (Germans, American, Japanese males the primary buyers) & at one hundred fifteen pounds I am thirty pounds too heavy & at age twenty-three way too old. Sucks, huh? Surprised by B.’s tone, disturbed and not knowing what B. wants, he’d replied a few times briefly he’d replied wary of too much confiding, that can happen too quickly in e-mail anyway not much news at Jason’s end, job interviews in the city fizzled out summer internship in Hartford a fucking disappointment, not what he’d been promised he’d quit and returned home at Princeton he’d taken economics courses, did O.K. until the math got too complicated courses in environmental studies, ecology played some tennis, soccer like a dream now, it has faded so swiftly the guy he’d been, Jason T., faded so swiftly his friends, too, seem to have changed scattered across the country Mike who’d died (it’s said) in a suspicious hiking-trail accident in Ecuador at 12,000 feet B. who’s in Bangkok, Thailand feels sorry for B., but God damn wishes she’d cease writing to him sends him all kinds of weird attachments maybe meant to be jokes he’s deleting most of these without reading them it’s like B. is stalking him Christ he’s lonely, too he has his own sick thoughts quick death, that’s the best death, skidding on black ice approaching the mammoth bridge in November sleet S K I D D I N G as if floating, airborne delicious weightlessness This is it, man you are fucked he’d been smiling in fact he’d been paralyzed panicked black ice is invisible in headlights hadn’t died, though only just the passenger’s side of the elegant silver Audi smashed mild bruising from the damned air bag none of this he’d
share with B. never share anything with anybody you get naked with any guy knows that like a dream now, the girls Jason had slept with hopes they remember him better than he remembers them smashed out of his mind, some nights it’s O.K., you won’t remember in bio-ethics they’d discussed cloning/euthanasia/“selective breeding”/“selective abortion”/“organ donors”/“harvesting organs” in certain countries lacking human rights laws like China, organs can be ordered by the wealthy and specimens selected from the prison population and their organs “harvested” logical development of science their professor said what science can do, science will eventually do always, science will do moral reasons will be found for what brings profit to the market “greatest good for the greatest number” there is no code of ethics intrinsic in humankind there is only codified law without law, no civilization without civilization, no ethics thinking of this he’s feeling his heart prepare to thump! sweat breaking out in his underarms, crotch his mom has warned him not to “stress” himself he’s got plenty of time to re-apply to law schools that sick-slipping-sensation in the gut at the prospect of returning to school any kind of school a (secret) sensation he can’t tell his mom anxious that Jason will “stress” himself as his father did minor heart attacks then cardiac arrest, aged forty-nine Jason can’t envision himself beyond forty even beyond thirty, he feels very tired the crucial question is who’d want to live that long yet, once you get started, you don’t seem to want to stop freaks him out totally, the prospect of somebody else looking through his eyes for wouldn’t Jason be there, too? somehow, still? in his eyes? wakened in the morning checks his e-mail anxious to see if he has new messages always he hopes for new messages yet anxious to see if B. has written B.’s tone has become openly mocking, cruel B. had not been like this at Princeton Hello Jason it seems that you must be very busy, don’t have time to write to me, what’s it require, 20 seconds of your precious time about 20 seconds is as long as youre good for you self-important white-boy prick shocked, Jason deletes this message stung, ashamed furious nothing you can do for a disturbed bitter person on the far side of the earth looks up Thailand on a world atlas surprised how close it is to Vietnam, Cambodia not far from the Philippines a Filipina woman named Maria had worked for Jason’s family when Jason had been a boy very quiet, reserved Maria who’d been like one of the family Jason’s mom had adored she’d been, he’d been seeing in New York for a while, that seems to be over Jason’s mom understands Jason’s anxiety, she thinks Jason’s mom is sympathetic can’t explain to his mom he can’t be involved, getting naked is repulsive to him no he is not “doing” drugs maybe some weekends in New York but now, no God damn B. continues to send him her vicious messages should delete without reading yet can’t seem to resist in revulsed fascination suicidal hints, Jason isn’t going to fall for when i am not who will you be? where i am going will you follow? what’s this supposed to mean, some kind of crap Zen wisdom he isn’t going to print it out, maybe it’s evidence that B. is cracking up, needs psychiatric help fuck he isn’t going to get involved in their bio-ethics class when suicide was discussed B. was vehement saying suicide is wrong their professor (a world-famous philosopher, a really cool guy they all admired) pointed out that “wrong” is a subjective moral claim and whose claim? by whose authority? in the discussion, Jason said he thought that suicide was O.K. in certain circumstances he was a Christian, kind of not a Muslim! you were pegged as a Christian his mom’s family was Roman Catholic, but not his mom not him in bio-ethics you could see that most of the students were really getting off on it suicide’s a
favorite topic an alternative to graduation (joke) morbid/compulsive thinking of such things when you’re twenty now twenty-three makes him feel dazed and light-headed, the prospect of living to forty which you sort of have to do (don’t you?) if you get married, have kids never make forty-nine hopes his mom is gone by that time, a mother should not outlive her son secretly Jason has felt it’s good, Dad being gone he hadn’t been living with Jason’s mom at that time, temporary separation (Mom said) so when Dad died it was in another city out of state kind of like Dad to get the last word, bad sport playing tenn