Joyce Carol Oates - Broke Heart Blues

by Broke Heart Blues(lit)

Actually-this was funny! --tried to fight his older, bigger brother who could pin him in three seconds, like a TV wrestler, flat on the floor with the of one hand.

  At the age of only seven, Johnny was brusque, bossy. If you had charge, you took charge. Seeing him walk with his dead father's swagger, Mommy stared and laughed weakly. "Oh Johnny. You're the one."

  were sudden fierce kisses and hugs of Mommy's, and bouts of tickling that left Johnny hot-faced and trembling. Farley, sullenly sucking a thumb, watched from a corner. Or, turning his face to the wall, did not watch.

  Shirleen slept her thin fretful whimpering sleep. Mommy often came to the motel room at dawn, a rose-sepia light like neon breaking across the desert beyond the blind-slatted window, through his life John recall the ache of excitement, almost unbearable excitement, when mother returned to them, back from her waitress job, or her job, or a dinner-date as she called such appointments with a man friend whose they would never see and whose name they would never hear, in a whisper, for usually only Johnny would be awake, kicking off the spikeheeled shoes she hated, flopping onto the hastily made-up bed, reaching for the bottle of Early Times and the cloudy tumbler already on the bedside table from the previous evening, a cigarette already bobbing in her mouth.

  Sometimes Mommy was in a good mood, sometimes Mommy was in a bad mood. But always Mommy would pull Johnny onto the bed beside her, him close against her. And tell him her stories, which often had do with how close, how heartbreakingly close she'd come to winning a amount of money that night. If only I could get a decent stake, would please come along and set me up with a decent stake, is that too fucking much to ask? Mommy allowed Johnny to sip her glass of whisky, it was a taste that stung, that burned, that brought tears to his eyes but he liked it.

  Mommy allowed Johnny to draw a few puffs on her cigarette as she smoothe his damp spiky hair off his forehead. Mommy said so much airconditioning everywhere in Nevada her bones were chilled to the marrow, it was Johnny's duty to warm her.

  By Greyhound they moved, the four of them, to Vegas. It was the Year and Mommy'd had a vision, you could call it a vision from God it was on TV, crowds of screaming, laughing revelers in tuxes, low-cut gowns, masks lifting their champagne glasses to toast the New Year as in the sky above fireworks and sparkles exploded like those wild, crazy at the end of the world promised in the Book of Revelation. (In Lubbock, Texas, Mommy'd gone to church with her family, United Methodist. When tried to think of those days, already eight years ago, a heavy sensation came over her brain. ) She'd snapped her fingers and declared, "Our luck is due to change. I promise." The biggest surprise was that, out of nowhere it seemed, Grandpa Heart came to live with them.

  Not in a room as Johnny expected, but in an apartment. And afterward in a house. There were checks from the U. S. Air Force, there was Mommy's jobs and friends, there was money sometimes from Grandpa Heart's poker skills and occasional jobs, never really enough but, as Mommy promised, at least they wouldn't starve. Grandpa Heart that would be so, too. It was he who regimented the household, he called it. He described himself as an Old Testament ascetic in the wrong time and place. He believed in discipline, in no-nonsense and everybody pulling his own weight. He was a drinker but took pride in holding his liquor some persons of his acquaintance who set a poor example for the young and impressionable. The first week of living with Mommy, Johnny, Shirleen, Grandpa Heart lectured Mommy on her "ramshackle white-trash ways." He would not tolerate it, he said. He was accustomed to orderliness.

  A towering, imposing figure, with flowing white hair and a thick white beard and severe eyes, like heated balls of glass. With a quick temper, harsh and comical by turns, in cowboy hat, vest and cowhide boots, the Lamarca children's first grandparent. Their only grandparent.

  "Children, your summoned me in her hour of need. I will never abandon you." Yet Heart was often gone for a day or more, pursuing his "poker skills." When he returned, he was upset if the household was messy. He lectured Johnny, who was fascinated by the flamboyant old man, in the necessity for schedules, things in their rightful places, no clutter. He perceived the world of both nature and humankind as a "galaxy of blind chance" you nonetheless bend to your will as you might dam a river, pour over the earth, spray insecticide through the rooms of your dwelling, gestures that would prove in time futile for the river will one day rise up and destroy the dam, vegetation will push up through the cracking it like ice, roaches and ants will return as they wish in biblical plenitude. "Yet the wise will persevere, for it is only they who will survive."

  Heart insisted that meals be served at regular hours even if he, Leander, or Mommy herself wasn't present, even if the food set on the kitchen table was heated-up frozen dinners, soup out of cans, canned beans or Spaghetti-Os, slices of slick processed cheese on slices of Wonder Bread, potato chips. Even if breakfast was stale doughnuts, frosted cereal sprinkled with just-rancid milk, more potato chips. "Regular hours. Three times a day.

  day." Even if there wasn't a Lord God the kids should be trained to say grace-"say grace" in Grandpa Heart's Texan drawl was a prissy, yet severe commandment--before these meals, in preparation for the day when children would find themselves in the blessed company of those who grace because they abided in an America in which the Lord God was stranger. Of course, it fell to Johnny to lead these prayers, as fell to Johnny to prepare most of the meals. Bless this food O Lord and bless us who are about to partake of it. Amen! It was easy to do, it made Johnny feel important and who knew, maybe there was a Lord God fussy enough to care that somebody thanked Him three times a day like clockwork. (So through John Heart would utter this prayer silently. One day coming to believe in God if not in the Lord God of the Bible he'd imagined as a child, in the image of Aaron Leander Heart. ) It was Grandpa Heart who insisted that Johnny return to school. Sure, Johnny was quick, sharp, like no other kid his age, but he needed schooling, too. Grandpa Heart scolded Mommy saying, "Girl, you've got no right to make this child into an adult long before his time. You had you one husband already. It's selfish, it's wrong, it's unnatural.

  And you could get arrested." Mommy said, flush-faced, "'Unnatural'? -you'd better watch your mouth, Aaron Leander." But before Grandpa Heart's bristling authority even Mommy had to give in. At least school and other visible matters the vigilant old man could monitor.

  It was in Vegas that Mommy who was

  "Mrs.. Lamarca"--"Mrs.. Anthony Lamarca"--"Dorothy Lamarca"--"Dorrie Lamarca"--came to realize how much pain she had to endure hearing the name of her lost love casually uttered by strangers. In the startling lucidity of a sober afternoon she'd had to go to the dentist, and was ashamed to turn up smelling of whisky) she came to the revelation that it was damaging to her to continue bearing that name.

  She wasn't strong enough, or good enough. Now that Tony was dead forever, her husband was dead and would never be her husband again and it'd been her own fault for running off, marrying an Air Force pilot so you could argue she'd gotten what she deserved, there were those in family including her mother and sisters who might argue that but must it be forever? "I'm not thirty years old yet for God's sake! This is Vegas not fucking Lubbock, Texas." Grandpa Heart raised his glass and said he'd drink to that--"One hundred percent right, girl. Took you long enough to catch on." He told her she was too young, too damn good-looking and too smart to be a widow. "What kind of man wants to meet a widow? What kind of employer wants to hire a widow? If Aaron Leander Heart, a wise, practical nononsense man, had a choice of hiring a woman who wasn't a widow, and a woman who was, you can bet your socks he'd hire the woman who wasn't." Grandpa Heart said he'd never met this flashy Lieutenant Lamarca anyway.

  Grandpa Heart had long been estranged from his wife and family in Lubbock. Whether he and Mrs.. Heart were officially divorced wasn't clear. ) It was Grandpa Heart's idea that Mommy reinstate her maiden name which happened to be his name, and change the kids' name to Heart, too.

  "That way we're all family. On the books like in the blood. I'll rest ea
sy knowing the Heart lineage will persevere through time. For we are of pioneer stock, settled in north Texas in the sacred year of her independence 1835." thought this was a great idea. Mommy said she was proud of the

  "Heart" which was, to her ears, a beautiful name. So she went to the Las Vegas County Courthouse to arrange for the change and while she was at it, filling out forms, providing copies of birth certificates, paying a fee, she decided, impulsively, what the hell, she'd change her first name, too--to Dahlia. She'd always hated Dorothy, the name put her in mind of squat ugly old aunt, and Dorrie was even worse, some squat ugly boat.

  She chose the name Dahlia because dahlias are such beautiful flowers, she'd tried to grow dahlias in San Angelo until the slugs got them. So "Dorothy Lamarca" became

  "Dahlia Heart" and Grandpa Heart took the family out to Caesars Palace for a celebration supper and even snuffling Farley and fretful, startled-eyed Shirleen, now eighteen months old, fell in with the-mood. Of the children, Johnny was the one not so happy about changing his name because he remembered his daddy and loved his daddy and believed with part of his mind that his daddy might one day come looking for them how would he know how to find them if their name was changed. 7--but Mommy kissed him, and teased him, and let him sip her drink, and him to five dollars to play the slots (surreptitiously, since he was too young by thirteen years) and he won $68. 50 within a few minutes, he conceded it was a pretty good idea. The name Heart seemed beautiful to him, too.

  Next, Mommy peroxided her hair which was a fair, wavy brown to a sunny, silky blond and eventually to platinum blond which, she said, was the classiest blond, and worth the extra effort. Their little adobe bungalow on Arroyo Seco stank for days. Ever afterward, Mommy would have her done in a beauty salon. Next, she went on a crash diet of low-cal sodas, raw vegetables and canned tuna, and dry white wine, slimming down in less than a month from a size ten dress to a size six. Grandpa Heart took with his latest poker winnings, a cool $855, to purchase a new wardrobe and numerous pairs of shoes. ("We were mistaken for some lecherous old oilman and his youngest wife! --what a hoot. ") With puttylike makeup of the kind the Vegas showgirls used she began to make her more exotic. Always she'd taken her healthy good looks for granted, bothering with moisturizer, foundation cream, eye makeup. Since high she'd been noticed by boys and men, often more noticed than could accommodate, but Grandpa Heart warned, "This is Vegas, girl.

  you're not getting any younger." Vegas was a challenge, all right, and Dahlia Heart meant to meet it. Johnny observed her covering her face with steaminghot cloths, plucking at her eyebrows, rubbing cream into her skin until it glowed. Rouging her cheeks, outlining her lips with a special to make them appear larger, more sensuous. Eyes like the iridescent-glittering "eyes" of peacocks' tails were painted on over Mommy's own eyes, and appeared enlarged, shimmering with emotion. "What Dahlia' is, I intend, is some mysterious story not yet happened." There was a season in Dahlia Heart wore exclusively black in the evenings, black silk, black satin, black chiffon, clinging black jersey and see-through black lace.

  There was a season in which Dahlia Heart wore exclusively red. "How does "Dahlia' look, Johnny?"

  "Real nice, Mommy."

  " Real nice' is for saps, Johnny.

  "Mommy, I'

  you're a knockout." Mommy laughed delightedly and kissed him.

  Mommy's transformed face, Shirleen squealed in excitement and alarm, crawling beneath a table. Nearsighted Farley blinked without recognition.

  Johnny, sighting his mother in the street by chance alone, or in the company of a man, a stranger, her bone-white hair ablaze with light, her mouth a savage red slash in her perfect face, in her snug-fitting clothes and spike-heeled shoes, followed her for blocks as if mesmerized. You grew there.

  Inside your mommy. That's why no one can love you like your mommy loves you.

  And you can love no one like you love your mommy. Johnny saw how men at her.

  It was a mystery why.

  "What you see isn't what you get in this world," Mommy had told him, with the air of one imparting a secret. "You never get what you see, you only get to see it." And she laughed happily, showing the moist darkly red interior of mouth.

  Now Dahlia Heart, in her early sixties, was living with her third husband, a retired stockbroker, on a thousand-acre ranch in Casa Adobes, north of Tucson, Arizona. If the snapshots she sent her son John were reliable, she was still a platinum blond, very beautiful, with a nearly unlined face and a jauntily serene smile. "This woman is your mother?" Nola Leavey said to John Heart, astonished. "She looks about forty years old." EC)ahlia was posed in a white bathing suit and wide-brimmed straw hat beside a pool of water bright as neon. Dahlia was posed in jodhpurs, silk blouse riding hat on a sorrel horse with a long silky mane--Miss Thunderbolt 6 me written on the back of the snapshot. The photo John Heart studied longest, as if it were a puzzle to be decoded, showed Dahlia beside a smiling, darkly tanned and handsome older man in shorts and T-shirt, a riding crop in hand, in the background, in a corral, were several horses. Christmas Greetings from Dahlia 6 Raymond, Casa Adobes.

  Come visit anytime!

  But John hadn't visited Casa Adobes. He had no plans to visit Casa Adobes.

  According to wistful remarks of Dahlia's, neither Farley nor Shirleen had visited Casa Adobes, or was likely to do so.

  Every several months Dahlia called John, leaving a message on MR. FIXLT's answering machine. Because John rarely answered his phone directly.

  Johnny? Please call. I miss you, it's been so long. John would return his mother's call, though not immediately. He'd wait for a good day--a carpentry job, a paint job that had gone especially well.

  Something he could feel proud about. Or things were going well with Nola Leavey and her children.

  So he'd open a beer and call Dahlia out in Arizona, and after they spoke for their usual fifteen-twenty minutes he'd be too restless to remain indoors, he'd drive on his motorcycle for hours along the shore of Lake Ontario, stopping at a familiar sequence of taverns, and drinking. It wasn't purposeful but it happened. Nola dreaded these episodes. Now that she and John were more or less living together she couldn't help but know John's personal life, as much of it as he chose to reveal to her. Nola said, urgently, taking both John's hands in hers, stroking the callused fingers, "Stay home tonight.

  Don't go out. You lose yourself when you drink, and it's like I don't know you. It scares me." John wasn't a man comfortable with women telling him what to do even when he knew what they told him was good practical common sense. But he liked his hands held in that way by Nola Leavey, he loved the way her quick nervous fingers stroked his, as if that was a of calming him, taming him, keeping him with her, as in his deepest self he did truly want to remain with her and not risk death riding his motorcycle, bareheaded, at ninety miles an hour along the lakeshore road. He said, to kiss her cheek, "O. K. , honey, I won't. This time, I promise. I mean, I'll try." But, after a typical conversation with Dahlia, it happened.

  Stranger yet, from Nola's perspective, was the frequency with which, during these conversations with his mother, John fell silent. If he'd made the call from Nola's house, and if Nola happened to be in another room, unaware that John was still on the phone, she might call to him, lean in the doorway--"John, honey? "--and he'd hold his hand over the receiver, indicating he was on the phone and couldn't reply just then. Nola surprise. She'd whisper, "How can you be so quiet on the phone?

  mother doing all the talking?" In fact, Nola didn't know that Dahlia too was likely to have fallen silent at such times. Except for the ice cubes tinkling quietly in her glass, two thousand miles away. Their silences tense, a strain. Will you never speak of it? Never accuse me? Oh, Johnny.

  When John hung up at last, Nola would look at him expectantly.

  didn't he ever speak of his mother? What had happened, or hadn't happened, between them? There was that clouded look in John's eyes, he'd shift his shoulders meaning he was restless, in another minute he
'd be out the door and on that damned motorcycle racing along the lakeshore and he rr. ight not be back until dawn and then he might be drunk, he might not return at all, but drive out Barndollar Road to his trailer, where he'd fall on his bed, too exhausted to pull off even his shoes. He laughed Nola's worried face and said, "Yes, right. My mother does all the talking."

  "I They hadn't wanted him to sacrifice himself.

  They'd wanted him to sacrifice himself He would not think of it. Rarely thought of it. He wasn't the of man to dwell upon the past, his own or anyone else's. Anyway, it had happened a long time ago. He'd been acquitted.

  Frankly, he was too busy. MR. FIX-IT, in his sky-blue Ford pickup.

  TOOLS--WILL TRAVEL! A familiar sight, in and around Iroquois Point, York, population 2, 200. Never without work, sometimes with too work. Working through the night in the converted barn, radio high, whistling with the music, a can of beer turning lukewarm as he lost himself in the task at hand. Sawing, planing, sanding, inhaling smell of fresh-cut wood, rubbing linseed oil into wood, with the grain.

  "You're happiest when you're working, with wood. I wish I could you so happy," Nola said.

  "You make me a lot happier than wood ever does. And you know it. But she didn't know it, did she. Constantly needing reassurance.