Daddy Love: A Novel

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Really good work, Chet! Very nice.

  Our customers don’t want “original”—this is what they want.

  Maybe more of the smaller purses? We can retail them for fifty dollars.

  And plant hangers. This is the season!

  Gideon had been making macramé things since—so long!—he couldn’t remember what he’d begun. Of course Daddy Love supplied the materials and directed him—each week Daddy Love had orders from his “retailers” to fill.

  Doing macramé knots was easy for Gideon now. Like most of his household chores macramé was an opportunity for him to split his brain off from his hands and think his own thoughts.

  Quick deft skilled hands, a child’s hands. But growing.

  As Gideon was growing.

  Liking the quiet-time when Daddy Love wasn’t hovering over him or talk-talk-talking to him about life, death, good, evil, God and Satan and Fate and he could direct his thoughts elsewhere.

  Trying to remember, for instance, the beginning of the macramé—and what had come before the macramé.

  He’d had another daddy then—had he? And a mommy who’d cuddled with him but not like Daddy Love cuddled with him …

  She’d held his hand, tight. They’d been walking in a big space like a parking lot. She’d been scolding him—maybe. Daddy Love said that his parents had “sold” him to an adoption ring and that he, Daddy Love, had “rescued” him the way you might rescue a doomed animal from animal shelters.

  And if you rescued the animal, the animal was no longer doomed.

  Daddy Love had said You owe your life to Daddy Love. Every breath you breathe.

  Another thing Gideon remembered. Riding on his bicycle along the Saw Hill Road and to the River Road, suddenly he remembered.

  Like a lump of something undigested, rising into your mouth. An ugly taste to make you choke.

  Daddy Love and Son watching nighttime TV. Years ago when Son had been little.

  Eating just half of a Big Mac, a few French fries and sugary coleslaw and Coke out of Daddy Love’s bottle. And Son was secured in the crook of Daddy Love’s arm the way on TV wrestling a wrestler was secured by another, stronger wrestler. Except this was cuddle-time. And there were two TV-people talking about a boy who’d been abducted four years before in the Midwest and the boy had just been found by police only sixty miles from his home and returned to his family at the age of fifteen and the abductor was arrested and the subject of the discussion was Why hadn’t the boy left his abductor for he’d had plenty of opportunities it seemed: his abductor had taken him out in public and neighbors saw him often believing he was the abductor’s son for the two seemed to get along well, in public at least; and the talk-show host who was a favorite of Daddy Love’s had said, in a disdainful voice, Looks to me like the kid could’ve gotten away lots of times. Looks to me like he’d come to like his new life better than with his old family—no school, hanging out, skateboarding, eating pizzas … I’m suspicious of this kind of thing, kids running away from home and claiming to be “victims.”

  Daddy Love laughed excitedly for Daddy Love revered the sarcastic talk-show host and had several times sent the man e-mails praising him. It was Daddy Love’s hope that he might someday be interviewed on the cable channel talk-show and his “true story” be aired to the American public.

  Looks to me like the kid was getting along pretty well with his “abductor.” There’s more here than meets the eye and the “liberal media”—you can quote me.

  Son had been very sleepy after his heavy greasy/sugary mealand soon fell asleep in the crook of Daddy Love’s arm.

  Bicycling two and a half miles into town.

  His backpack strapped to his back.

  At the outskirts of Kittatinny Falls was the First Methodist Church where sometimes Chet Cash and his son attended Sunday morning or Wednesday evening services. And there was the Kittatinny Falls Volunteer Fire Co., where Chet Cash and his son visited when there were tables set up in the driveway at Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day and food was sold that had been prepared by the firefighters’ wives and you could mingle with the firemen and shake their hands and talk with them as Chet Cash did, and buy a casserole or two, loaves of bread, cookies and cakes. (Many young kids at the firemen’s open houses as they were called, many young parents like Daddy Love with whom he could talk in his open frank friendly way.) And there were the houses—large, wood-frame Victorians, attractive and relatively opulent homes built above the Delaware River decades ago for owners of the mills downriver at Lambertville—where Chet Cash shoveled snow after a sudden snowfall, a volunteer snow-shoveler, with his young son at his side; for the houses were likely to be owned by elderly individuals, or women living alone. (So Chet had determined. A week in a new place, Chet knew an astonishing amount about his neighbors through what he called firsthand observation.)

  It was a curious thing to do, shoveling front walks and driveways for strangers. But Chet Cash wasn’t bound by conventional behavior—not Chet! He explained that he’d been brought up to “help” where “help” was needed, and not to wait to be asked. And if the homeowners had arranged for their driveways and walks to be professionally plowed—that didn’t matter.

  Shoveling snow is great exercise, Chet Cash said. It’s like singing—God suffuses your body at such times. You feel good. Helping neighbors is always good.

  Chet Cash and his little boy Gideon were invited into each of the houses. Indeed there were elderly residents in the old Victorian houses and among them two widows living alone in households built for large families. They were touched by Chet’s kindness and solicitude and insisted upon feeding him and the quiet little boy.

  What’s your name, son?

  “Gideon”—that’s a nice name.

  And how old are you, Gideon?

  Raising a son is a challenge, Chet Cash said. Especially alone.

  There were women who could help him, Chet Cash was told.

  He knew. He understood. But his memory of the boy’s mother was so powerful in his heart, he wasn’t yet ready to see other women except as friends.

  The boy isn’t ready for a substitute mother, just yet. The boy is still in mourning.

  In town, Gideon bicycled past West Lenape Elementary on Spruce Street. Bicycled to the intersection with Church Street, and turned right, ascending a hill behind the lumberyard. Ms. Swale’s house was on Church Street, he knew: the address was sixty-seven.

  Behind Ms. Swale’s dull-brick house was an alley. Gideon turned into the alley but had difficulty riding his bicycle here for the ground was rutted and muddy.

  He left his bicycle hidden behind a pile of debris.

  It was late morning. There were children playing in fenced-off yards but no one was in the alley.

  Most of the houses had garages, at the rear of their properties, abutting the alley. These were old garages, for the houses were old. There were broken windows, missing windows. There were rear doors that were unlocked or had never been locked and if you wished you could push one of these doors open and step inside quickly, and no one would have seen.

  Kittatinny Falls was a small community, population 645 people at the last census in 2005. It was not a community where people locked their garage doors and often even their house doors went unlocked.

  A beautiful blessed place to bring up a child. The cities are finished—God has departed from our cities.

  In the alley he determined which house was Ms. Swale’s. Which garage.

  He’d heard—like Daddy Love, Gideon had a way of acquiring information without seeming to be acquiring it—that Ms. Swale lived with her mother and another family member possibly a sister or a grandmother.

  In the backpack he’d brought the sixteen-ounce container of kerosene, with a tight-screwed lid. And a twelve-inch fuse, and a box of wooden matches.

  In the garage behind Ms. Swale’s house was a single vehicle—Ms. Swale’s white Ford Taurus that had scratches and scrapes on its fenders. Most of the
garage was used for storage and the car had been carefully driven into place, and parked, with but a few inches’ clearance on each side.

  Trash cans, gardening implements, bicycles and a single tricycle in the garage. Cardboard boxes, wicker baskets. Even an old decayed macramé planter. The windows were thick with a coating of grime and yet sunshine through one of the windows was so refracted, a transparent rainbow hovered in midair. She’d said Your son is very gifted, Mr. Cash! Even if he has—probably—appropriated some of these images from the Internet.

  Deftly his hands worked. As if he’d performed this ritual many times before: distributed kerosene in careful dribbles about the stale-chilly space in every corner of the garage and as far beneath the Ford Taurus as he could manage, and positioned the container, with an inch or so of liquid remaining, against a cardboard box filled with Styrofoam, and attached the twelve-inch fuse to it, and, with the first swipe, lit the wooden match.

  Quite an imagination! You should be proud, Mr. Cash.

  On his bicycle halfway home when he’d heard the Kittatinny Falls volunteer fire alarm, wailing in the distance like a stricken and incredulous animal.

  4

  CHURCH OF ABIDING HOPE TRENTON, NEW JERSEY MAY 2012

  Shall we not say, we are made in God’s image?

  Shall we not say—dare to say—we are made in the image of God’s love?

  This Sunday morning he’d been taken by Daddy Love to the Church of Abiding Hope in Trenton. Not often had Son been taken by Daddy Love to witness Preacher Cash among strangers.

  In this congregation of mostly dark-skinned worshippers. A scattering of “whites”—single, not-young women—and among them the Preacher’s son with his eerily pale putty-colored skin that was yet, to the discerning eye, a colored skin.

  Son in a trance of wonder. Son hearing his daddy’s preacher-voice so calm so consoling so subtly modulated, it was difficult for Son to believe This man is my father!

  Reverend Silk had invited Reverend Cash to give a guest sermon in his church.

  Gideon was feeling tremulous, sickish. Gideon could hear and feel his stomach rumbling in discontent with the hastily eaten cold-cereal breakfast at dawn of that day, at the faraway farm on the Saw Mill Road, Kittatinny Falls. Daddy Love had driven them in the van without stopping along the narrow twisting River Road which was Route 29 south. Daddy Love had said, You will observe silence, son, in the Church of Abiding Hope.

  The Preacher lifted his hands. The Preacher’s stone-colored eyes shone with an exuberant light.

  Bless you my brother in Christ! Bless you my sister in Christ!

  Know that we are kin in Being—inside our separate skins.

  Very still Gideon sat in the front pew, to the side. It was astonishing to him—how Daddy Love had transformed himself into the Preacher who was another person, almost.

  Like Daddy Love was two persons, in himself.

  There was Daddy Love who cuddled and kissed and fed and comforted and there was Daddy Love whose cuddle-kissing hurt terribly and whose temper flared like kerosene bursting into flame.

  There was Daddy Love who protected.

  There was Daddy Love who disciplined.

  Preacher Cash was a kindly man you could see. And a kingly man—he wore a black coat and black trousers and a brilliant white shirt but his vest was a scarlet velvet fabric. His dark beard bristled and his hair threaded with silver fell to his shoulders. He appeared taller than Daddy Love—for his backbone was straight, his shoulders very straight.

  The joy of the Lord God, I bring you.

  And His joy in you, His beloved children in whom He is well pleased.

  In this beautiful blessed Church of Abiding Hope.

  Gideon did not wish to lock eyes with the Preacher. He had been told to sit quietly and so he sat quietly with his head bowed yet observing, through his eyelashes, the Preacher moving among the congregation.

  These are starving souls Daddy Love had told Son.

  All of humankind are starving in their souls—except some are aware and others are not.

  The seed of Jesus Christ falls upon fertile ground and upon fallow ground.

  It is the task of the Preacher to bring the seed of Jesus to both the fertile and the fallow for all are brothers and sisters in Christ.

  For more than thirty minutes the Preacher spoke passionately to the congregation of starving souls. No one could look away from him—all were mesmerized.

  Most were women—older, dark-skinned women—festively dressed, with large flowered hats. Gideon would have estimated the average age to be about fifty. Though there were a few young children—grandchildren, with their grandmothers?

  He did not have a grandfather, or a grandmother. Daddy Love said, I am your family, Son. I am all that stands between you and the river.

  Thinking such thoughts, Gideon was feeling anxious. The sensation in his stomach had not faded.

  In Trenton, there were frequent sirens. On their way to the church on State Street they’d seen both a speeding police cruiser and a speeding ambulance, each with a siren wailing.

  It had been much talked-of in Kittatinny Falls—the “arson fire” in Ms. Swale’s garage. Local police and sheriff’s deputies were investigating the fire but had no suspects yet and now more recently there’d been two additional fires set in garages in Kittatinny Falls.

  The three fires were within a radius of a mile of West Lenape Elementary School.

  Daddy Love had said, reading of the fires in the local weekly paper, You know anything about this, Son? Sounds like kids to me. Or—a kid.

  Laughing Daddy Love had said Reminds me of something I did when I was a kid in Detroit. Burnt out some neighbors that deserved it.

  Gideon’s heart had clutched at these words. But Daddy Love meant nothing by them. (Did he?)

  It was hard for Son not to think that Daddy Love could read his thoughts.

  Long ago, when he’d first come to live with Daddy Love as Daddy Love’s “adopted” son, Daddy Love had certainly had the power to read his thoughts.

  Any kind of mutinous thought, Daddy Love could discern. Son understood this!

  Gideon sneered at such fear. Now he was eleven years old, no one could read his thoughts.

  Recalling how years before in Trenton—a residential neighborhood called Grindell Park—Daddy Love had taken him to a playground in shorts and a T-shirt and he’d been allowed to play on the swings and slide and Daddy Love had drifted back to his van parked at the curb and after a time—it might have been as long as an hour, or as short as fifteen minutes—Gideon had become uneasily aware of someone observing him; a man, a stranger; standing a little distance from the playground, and then drifting about it, circling, an object in his hands that resembled a camera, possibly a video camera; and Gideon felt a wild elation swinging higher, and higher; thinking He will take me away. He has come for me.

  There were other children in the playground, other children swinging on the swings, but their mothers were with them. Gideon was the only child who appeared to be alone.

  After a while, Gideon stopped swinging. He was very tired and yet very excited. At the curb, the van remained. You could not see into the tinted windows even if you stood close beside it. And you would think, seeing the van parked at the curb, at Grindell Park, that there was no one inside the vehicle.

  Gideon detached himself from the swing and walked in the direction of a water fountain. The man with the camera was aware of him and after a moment began to follow him.

  He will take me home. To my real home.

  He is a policeman, plainclothed.

  From TV with Daddy Love, Gideon knew about “plain-clothed” police. He knew about “undercover” police officers.

  Yet, the man with the camera did not look like a police officer for he was fattish and flush-faced and seemed very nervous.

  He approached Gideon in a sideways sort of walk as if he was facing another direction but his feet brought him to Gideon at the water fountain.<
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  His voice was hoarse and drawling—H’lo little boy!

  Gideon looked quickly away. Daddy Love had warned him never to speak with strangers except when Daddy Love was present and then only if Daddy Love gave him permission.

  H’lo little boy—where’s your mommy?

  You don’t have any mommy—here?

  Are you alone here?

  What’s your name?

  The man now stood beside Gideon breathing quickly and smiling down at him. He was older than Daddy Love. His black plastic glasses slid down his nose. His lips were damp.

  Did your mommy leave you here and go away somewhere? That isn’t a good idea, you know. Somebody had better watch over you, eh? The man took Gideon’s hand. Gideon tried to pull away but the man held his hand harder.

  Then it happened, Daddy Love appeared.

  Daddy Love came quickly with long strides and Daddy Love’s shoulder-length hair flared about his stern frowning wrathful face and the flush-faced man saw him, released Gideon’s hand and turned away anxious and stumbling and Daddy Love overtook him seizing him by the shoulder and shaking him and speaking to him harshly as Gideon stared but could not hear through the roaring in his ears.

  The flush-faced man tried to move away but Daddy Love walked close beside him shoving and punching at him with the flat of his hand. Daddy Love was taller than the flush-faced man who was very frightened now and apologetic.

  For several minutes Daddy Love spoke with the flush-faced man but now more quietly. If the mothers in the playground noticed the men, they gave no sign.

  It was late afternoon now. Most of the children had been taken home by their parents by now.

  Gideon hovered at a little distance, uncertain. He was fearful of Daddy Love’s wrath turning upon him.

  At last, Daddy Love released the man, who had taken his wallet from his pocket and hurriedly removed the bills, to hand to Daddy Love who took the bills with a sneering frown, and shoved them into his pocket.