What I Lived For

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Corky’s second call, though, is a different matter. For this, he needs a second glass of ale.

  Punching the numerals for Christina’s Nott Street place Hey Chrissie: I’m sorry, you know I love you though guessing she won’t be there, not on a Saturday afternoon Christina?—Jesus, I’m sorry. You know I love you I’d never want to hurt you hearing the phone ringing and seeing the sunlight through the rear windows, the bare smooth floorboards and the rug they’d made love on so many times Christina, it’s me, I made a mistake, can I see you, how soon can I see you each time like the first but Corky’d never had a thought it might be the last Chrissie my God I’m sorry sorry sorry what a relief in knowing she isn’t there. Won’t answer.

  Corky hangs up, hard.

  Anyone observing him sees an angry man.

  A minute or so recovering, before he tries Christina’s home. He’s sweating. Shivering. Running his tongue rapidly back and forth across his saw-notched front tooth. A nervous habit, he’s not aware of, exactly. Christina?—it’s Corky, we need to talk. I’m sorry for but is he sorry, isn’t she the one to make the first move, didn’t she betray him? Corky hasn’t memorized Christina’s home number, never calls her at home, has to look it up in his pocket address book, Kavanaugh, what if Harry answers, what then? Harry this is Jerome Corcoran you know who this is, don’t you? punching the numerals and hearing the phone ring at the other end and his panic’s growing what in Christ is he going to say? to her, if she answers? to him, if he answers? there are simply no words, no words. When Corky hears the phone being answered, not an answering machine but a living presence at the other end of the line, he quickly hangs up.

  Shit, he is shaking. Which means he must love her. Which means she’s got her hooks in him deep.

  “Fuck it.”

  Corky’s quarter drops clattering into the coin return.

  This next call makes him anxious too, but eager, hopeful as a kid. Like receiving a test booklet back in high school, math, physics, chemistry where answers have to be precise and no bullshitting and you know you haven’t done well, you’ve fucked up but still there’s that stab of hope, almost a sick ecstasy of hope, the priest calling his name and Jerome Corcoran coming forward, taking the bluebook from the priest’s hand and even now not daring to look at the red-scrawled numeral that’s his fate. Because as long as you don’t know for sure, there’s hope.

  It’s Howard Greenbaum Corky’s calling, the second person after Christina he’d yearned to speak with when he came to at the morgue, recalling now too he’d had a panicky dream during the night of losing all his money and his property was to be sold for taxes, which could happen, Jesus couldn’t it! Calling Greenbaum at home, never has called Greenbaum at home before, maybe a mistake but Corky’s in no condition to care about etiquette right now, “Yes? Hello?” Greenbaum answers in a voice so vibrant and youthful Corky thinks he’s got the wrong party, but when Corky identifies himself yes it’s Greenbaum, Greenbaum’s voice drops, perceptible disappointment, the poor guy’s been hoping to hear from someone else, a friend, a relative, someone he likes. Corky can’t care about such niceties now, he’s too anxious. Asking Greenbaum more questions about the IRS suit, will they demand interest? will they fine him? could he go to jail?—“I was only following my accountant’s advice, you know that, Howard!” Greenbaum repeats what he said the day before at lunch, reassures Corky, the worst that can happen is he’ll have to pay the federal government $400,000 and Corky laughs incredulously, “The worst! For Christ’s sake, Howard, that is the worst!” and Greenbaum tries to calm him explaining they can appeal the judgment and in time they’ll win, maybe three years, they should win, and Corky laughs louder, “By then I’ll be a pauper! I’ll be dead!” lurching on to speculate how he might lose everything, all the years building up Corcoran, Inc., and he might go under, this deep recession the shit-faced Republicans have led us into, should he dump some property at a loss and take a write-off? should he acquire some property (he’s got one or two in mind, in Union City) and hope to hell the economy improves? a Democrat in the White House by January 1993? and Greenbaum interrupts patient and sympathetic-seeming suggesting why not sit tight for the time being and Corky half-screams, “Sit tight! I’m going crazy, Howard! I’m drowning!” desperate to keep the Jew-genius money man on the phone talking rapidly and not entirely coherently even hinting at one point, he’ll remember this afterward with keen embarrassment, maybe he could drop by Howard’s place? this afternoon? now? to go over some accounts? it’s an emergency it can’t wait until next week but Greenbaum discreetly blocks this saying he has family obligations today and tomorrow, a bar mitzvah to attend, his nephew’s son, and Corky pauses to ask what’s a bar mitzvah exactly, he’s always wondered, is it like confirmation in the Catholic Church, and Greenbaum explains patient and sympathetic-seeming but Corky isn’t listening, Corky’s sweating thinking of how in 1982 the IRS launched an audit on Ross Drummond Realty & Insurance, Inc., and the old man hired the best tax lawyers in New York City and ended up paying both the lawyers and the IRS, Christ was it $2 million?—and that was a victory in the old man’s eyes. A victory! Corky interrupts Greenbaum to speak of this at some length, dropping quarters in the coin slot, in the background in the bar a TV blaring and guys talking and laughing loudly one of them with a hee-haw laugh and Corky sweating and shivering wonders is he going crazy, is he drowning, and Greenbaum asks cautiously, “Is there something wrong, Jerome?—something personal?” and Corky laughs despairingly, “Call me, ‘Corky,’ Howard, I’ve asked you,” and Greenbaum murmurs, not very convincingly, “‘Corky,’” and Corky goes on to say, “No there’s nothing wrong with me personally, what the fuck could be wrong with me personally!—a man doesn’t have any personal life left to him in this country!—the tax laws, and the interest rates, and this latest catastrophe we discussed yesterday, Bender going under, Viquinex that was supposed to be such a terrific investment—” praying Greenbaum will take the ball and run with it, all Corky wants in his desperation is to be talked to by this superior human being with so many facts at his fingertips, mastery of the shifting miasma of economics and the wisdom of centuries, Judaism seems always to have focused upon ethics and thank God for that not like Catholics scared as hell about saving their own individual asses, thank God Greenbaum takes his cue and explains to Corky for possibly the tenth time the financial situation he’s in with his limited partnership investments, the technicalities of the “roll-up” and the advantages of the new reconstituted partnership and of being listed on the American Stock Exchange—“And it’s to be managed by Hallwood, a merchant bank—” “—solid as the Rock of Gibraltar,” Corky finishes for him.

  By this time, Greenbaum’s soothing intelligent matter-of-fact voice in his ear for how many minutes, Corky’s feeling much better. He’s finished his second ale, which has steadied his nerves. He guesses things might not be so bad after all. He’s hungry.

  Thanks Greenbaum and reiterates he’ll have his secretary make an appointment for next week sometime, wishes Greenbaum a happy Memorial Day weekend and “bar mitzah” which even as he pronounces, his tongue clumsy, he suspects he’s gotten wrong, but Howard Greenbaum’s too much the gentleman to correct him.

  In the sports lounge, which is nearly empty except for two other parties, Corky devours a juicy part-raw ten-ounce Bobby Ray’s Sportsburger (with melted blue cheese, pimentos, peppers, anchovies, mushrooms, onions, salsa sauce so hot it brings tears to his eyes) on a crusty sesame-seed roll the size of a heavyweight’s fist. Always at Bobby Ray’s Corky orders the Sportsburger and always it’s delicious, chewing and swallowing such food you know why you were born, no fucking mystery to it. And a generous portion of crinkle-fries, a cross between French fries and potato chips but served hot, greasy salty and hot. And seeing Corky’s finished his crinkle-fries before his burger, the waitress in her U.C. Mohawks T-shirt and matching baseball cap and snug-fitting miniskirt brings him, unasked, a side dish of more. And another tall glass of
Twelve Horse Ale foaming from the tap.

  Corky eats and drinks with such appetite, he can’t keep from smiling. Obviously he’d passed out at the morgue because he was famished. In a state of nerves. Can’t even remember what that cruel bastard Wiegler was talking about when, for Corky, the floor fell away.

  In the bar, on TV, there’s a Detroit Tigers–Toronto Blue Jays game out of Detroit, in the sports lounge, on the five giant TV screens, there’s live coverage of a golfing tournament in California, a replay of a boxing match, a replay of a track meet, live coverage of a Mets game, ceaseless CNN programming. The sports lounge is a large sunken space with green-marble-Formica tables and deep-cushioned chairs, as in a slightly tatty hotel lobby; the main attraction is the wall of silent TV screens but the other walls, windowless, are crowded with posters of bygone sports events, autographed photos of bygone sports heroes, and a panel of framed photos of the U.C. Mohawks in their baseball regalia over the decades, from the team’s inaugural year, 1949, to last year, 1991. Corky’s followed the home team since grade school and recalls certain of his old passions with both embarrassment and yearning. In Union City there’s the saying, What’re the Mohawks for except to let you down?—which is maybe unfair, the team isn’t bad, just unpredictable. Finished last season about dead in the middle of the American League East; this season, they’ve started off strong, which can’t last. If they make it to the playoffs it will be the first time in six years and Corky doubts they’ll make it. Anyway, what is a team these days? It used to be, a player stayed with a team through his career; now, he makes a few mistakes, gets injured, shows the first symptoms of aging, his batting average down and he’s traded off and somebody new brought in. Not to mention the hot-shit superstars. The teams are just commercial products, why not admit it.

  Still, Corky’s a sucker if things get hot. Last year’s playoffs and World Series he dropped more than he made, in a frenzy of betting both at home and via a connection in Las Vegas. Wound up $4300 in the hole so this year he’s going to be more cautious.

  Corky finishes his lunch staring at the giant TV screens. When there’s no sound, human activity looks weird, purposeless. The boxing match ends with one black guy’s arm being raised by the referee (who’s wearing clinical-looking rubber gloves—sports in the age of AIDS) while the other black guy, bleeding from an eye, nose, mouth, is helped shakily to his feet by his handlers. Then a slow dissolve to harness racing at Belmont: Prairie Flower, Blue Vesa, Orion in first, second, third. The golf tournament continues in slow time with cuts to commentators yammering so seriously you’d think it was a World Summit meeting, Corky’s grateful he can’t hear those assholes, hates golf, tried it for a while under the tutelage of old man Drummond the strategy being to make important contacts at the U.C. Golf Club but fuck it it wasn’t worth it, glad-handing pompous old farts, nor was Corky Corcoran much good swinging a club, admit it. Corky’s craving for sports is a craving out of boyhood, a hunger for those shared moments, memories, bound up with certain of his old friends from the neighborhood Nick Daugherty, his cousin Cormac, the McGuirt brothers, later in high school Vic Slattery and his friends. The boxing team, the track team, swimming—for Corky, ways of being with his friends. Never so happy as then. You know it.

  The track meet has ended and is replaced by, what is it?—a dogsledding competition in the Yukon? Fierce blue sky, blinding-white snow, yapping huskies Corky’s grateful he can’t hear. On the screen the Mets continue—slow time, too—against the Phillies—mediocre baseball on both sides. Corky used to follow the Mets closely but since winning the Series they’ve gone to hell, just another boring team, new faces and names Corky can’t keep track of. On the CNN screen there’s a cut from Bush grinning and waving fatuously to some Republican crowd to what looks like a desert encampment, close-ups of, Jesus, skeletal black children with swollen bellies and heads that look distended, like bulbs. Corky, chewing crinkle-fries, looks quickly away.

  So, the world’s unjust, there’s terrible suffering, so who can help it.

  What the fuck, a man’s hungry he’s got to eat.

  Something to make you tie your God-damned shoes morning after morning.

  Our own shit out there, our evil, we can’t acknowledge.

  “Another ale, Mr. Corcoran?”

  Corky nods yes, sure—“Only call me ‘Corky,’ eh?”

  Quick meant-to-dazzle smile, dimpled plump cheek, not a girl any longer but girlish in her ways, kittenish, cute. Playboy-standard breasts in that T-shirt and Corky eyes her like he’s interested or would be if he was free, or had the time, or circumstances were different.

  “‘Corky.’”

  And moving away she swivels her hips for Corky, moves her ass, a generous-sized ass, tosses her streaked brown hair that’s artful snags and snarls. High-heeled white boots, metallic-wet-looking stockings. Fatty knees. Thick calves, thighs. And those tits. Not Corky’s type exactly but in a pinch, any type will do.

  Sharing that pig-snout Polack girl with Vic, Buddy, Heinz, after one of the St. Thomas dances, when they’d taken their good-girl dates home and got together drunk and horny as hell and Vic was the shyest one worried about “ven-er-eal disease” and he, Corky, was the one with the experience, boasting he’d been fucking pigs like that since seventh grade. More like ninth grade but who’s to know.

  Corky steals a glance back at the CNN screen but it’s still famine in Africa, a Caucasian Red Cross officer on TV stooping over a hospital bed in which an adult skeletal black figure lies but is speaking, moving a stick arm. Corky swallows hard trying to concentrate on the Phillies pitcher winding up teasing-slow but the God-damned CNN screen is distracting so finally Corky cursing to himself jerks his chair at an angle so he doesn’t have to look. Doesn’t have to see.

  “Hey, Corky? C’mon in!”

  Corky should get the hell out of Bobby Ray’s and drive home, Corky should not join these guys at the bar for still another ale, sees by his watch it’s 2:48 P.M. and Christ knows he doesn’t want Thalia to suspect he’s been drinking this early in the day, Thalia with her bloodhound nostrils capable of detecting a beery belch at one hundred yards. Surely should not—but one more can’t hurt.

  The bar’s more crowded now, an affable noisy gang of guys watching the Tigers-Jays game on TV, Corky takes up a position beside Artie Fleischman whom he knows, not well, just to say hello, Fleischman’s a UCPD officer, lieutenant in the Fifth Precinct, off duty at the moment in khaki trousers, red-plaid shirt and white T-shirt beneath. Big guy in his forties, heavy jaws, pouchy eyes, easygoing manner, or tries to give that impression, like Budd Yeager. A lot like Budd Yeager.

  Strange: Corky’s had an overnight thought about Yeager, since yesterday, something about the way Yeager came up to him, clapped his hand on Corky’s shoulder, never so friendly to Corky before, never so interested in Corky before, those cold eyes crinkled at the corners and the mouth meant for a smile, slipping Corky nine hundred-dollar bills like it’s a love note when, Corky’s sure, the debt wasn’t that much. What’s it got to do, Corky wonders, with Marilee Plummer?—anything? Or with Corky showing up at Plummer’s place just as the ambulance moved off? For sure, Beck reported him. And Yeager’s onto that.

  Or is it a coincidence, maybe.

  It is a coincidence Corky’s here at Bobby Ray’s, talking and laughing with these guys, Artie Fleischman who’s as friendly as you’d want, for a guy essentially a bastard, who knows how many heads he’s bashed or men he’s shot faced with what he believes to be deadly physical force as the cop handbook phrases it. At the inning break there’s some “flash-bulletin” local news: live TV coverage of Marcus Steadman’s “reputed retreat” in Shehawkin where the City Councilman-evangelical preacher-indicted rapist is believed to be hiding out from the media. A blond female reporter with hyperthyroid eyes is speaking excitedly to the camera, there are quick bold cuts to a small woodframe bungalow in a tidy lot and cryptic close-ups, as in a suspense movie, of shut doors, windows with drawn blinds. I
s Steadman really inside? Trapped, hiding? Like a beast tracked to his lair? Like a guilty man? Refusing to show his face to WSUC-TV’s crew?

  Along the horseshoe bar a dozen or so men are muttering in righteous disgust, anger, impatience, and Corky among them, sentiment’s as solidly against Steadman as if he’d killed Marilee Plummer outright, or maybe their fury at the black man has little to do with Plummer, maybe it’s just a righteous sort of fury, the kind of fury that makes you feel good, you’re with your buddies and this is how your buddies feel, everybody at Bobby Ray’s is white, and male. And when a film clip comes on of Steadman addressing the demonstrators on Thursday evening, on the courthouse steps, the muttering gets louder, nastier—“Nigger prick!” “Black motherfucker!” Corky’s seen this footage before, he’s heard parts of the speech, Marcus Steadman waving his arms before a crowd of his supporters protesting the Rodney King verdict and the Pickett-Johnson incident, the tall black-skinned Steadman with his extraordinary preacher’s voice, big-eyed, mad-eyed, fully in control of the crowd of demonstrators all of whom are black, Where’s justice? where’s black justice? where’s our justice? and the demonstrators crying Yes! and Say it brother! Wave upon wave of voices, keening and wailing and ecstatic, and Steadman looming over them, an ugly bulldog of a man, his face gleaming-oily with sweat, Rise up O my brothers! O my sisters! Where is our justice?