Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “In St. Bart’s this year.”

  “St. Bart’s! That’s wonderful.”

  “Last week in January.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Quickly Mariana went to get a calendar. Fortunately, the calendar included the first month of the new year. Each of the January days was blank. And beyond the month of January there was nothing—the calendar had come to an end.

  “St. Bart’s is even nicer than Bermuda. I’ll look forward to this.”

  “Yes, I think so. I think you should look forward to it.”

  Why did Pearce speak so—condemningly? Since Mariana had driven to Bangor, Maine, to visit her very sick cousin, Pearce had behaved with an air of hurt reproach like one owed an apology.

  Mariana tried to recall St. Bart’s. She’d gone to so many Caribbean resorts with Pearce, she could not distinguish one from another, for in all instances they’d mostly stayed within a hotel compound; except for brief guided-tour trips into “native culture,” her experiences of the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and coastal Venezuela had blurred together like wetted Kleenex.

  “There will be a cruise, too. Ty Hemmings’s yacht.”

  Ty Hemmings was CEO of Extol Pharmaceuticals. Mariana had been on Hemmings’s dazzling-white Catalina yacht several times. She bit her lower lip, trying to smile. A wave of utter nausea swept over her. Brightly she said, “Maybe we can fly down with—is it Kevin and Sarah?—you know, that nice couple from Far Hills—he’s a lawyer, too—we spent time with them last year, in Jackson Hole. We could share a—”

  “Tyrell is no longer with Extol, I’m afraid.”

  “No longer with Extol!”

  “In fact, Kevin has been gone at least eight months.”

  “But—where did he go? Was he—transferred?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea, Mariana. You look as shocked as if these people were our close friends.”

  “They were—nice people . . .”

  In fact, Mariana couldn’t recall their last name. She dreaded Pearce asking her but clearly the subject no longer interested him.

  It was several days after Mariana returned from Bangor. These days, and these nights, she’d been unusually restless, distracted. Her sleep was erratic and disturbed and she would have said dreamless except dream-shreds returned to haunt her during the day at weak moments, making her heart jump, and her mouth water with a terrible intensity of thirst, or hunger; there was a hard, harsh pulse in her groin, a yet more terrible intensity she could not identify except to know that she had never experienced it before in this household. She found herself lapsing into an open-eyed trance while driving her car, or preparing meals, or preparing for bed; her mouth was frequently dry, and her eyes welled with moisture; she felt as if she were under a spell, hypnotized—by something subaqueous—not visible surfaces but the deeper being itself. With a pang of yearning she thought Is there something beneath, waiting? Does this something know me?

  Pearce hadn’t asked her much about her Bangor visit. But then, it wasn’t like Pearce to inquire into Mariana’s life apart from her life with him.

  Pushing her hair back from her forehead in a way to signal headache, unease, exhaustion she’d told him that her cousin Valerie was terribly sick, she’d lost thirty pounds and it was heartbreaking to see her and to see her children—the oldest was eleven, the youngest six—looking so anxious; and Pearce murmured something husbandly and placating that at the same time signaled Thanks! That’s enough and when Mariana glanced up she saw that he’d moved away, and in the adjoining room TV voices flared up, companionable and familiar.

  That night in bed Pearce slept heavily, turned away from Mariana; whether she couldn’t sleep for his snoring or whether she could not have slept in any case, Mariana didn’t know, but after a discreet interval she slipped from the bed and went along the corridor to the guest room—the room in which a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species was still slightly protruding from the bookshelf—and in that bed she lay deliciously alone, drifting to sleep as if sinking slowly beneath the surface of dark water and suddenly there came an arm—a man’s hard-muscled arm—along her side—in her silk nightgown she was sleek, slender—for a long moment fixed in place as if mesmerized, or paralyzed—then, she felt a surge of strength in all her limbs—she felt the kick of joy—sheer rapturous joy—in her chest, and in her throat; though trying to tell the man in a hoarse whisper No! You shouldn’t be here, he has a gun—a rifle; no please, I can’t—even as she and the man were grappling together, in the bed; it was a bed with a quaint brass headstead; Mariana was pleading with him, begging him No!—please; Mariana was pushing at him, clawing at him; yet at the same time she and the man were no longer in the bed but were descending the darkened stairs and the irises of their eyes were dilated so powerfully, they could see in the dark; only the faintest moonlight was required, for them to see in the dark. At the rear of the house they were on all fours, in the snow-stubbled grass, and in an adjoining field; there was a brackish smell from the lake, beyond the icy banks where a dark current ran swiftly, shattering rays of moonlight; her heart beat in such happiness, she laughed aloud; her companion was laughing aloud; her shoulders and chest were thick with muscle and her back and haunches and at the nape of her neck hairs bristled in anticipation; her companion was nipping at her playfully, and to draw blood; for it was playful, to draw blood; it was very exciting, to draw blood; she was made to realize how bold, how brash this male creature was, to approach her; to approach a female; for her sharp incisors could tear out his throat, if she wished; at a fever pitch of excitement they were trotting side by side tongues lolling and slathering saliva and the smell of panicked prey emboldened them, something small, furry and shrieking was lifted in their jaws, tossed into the air and seized in mid-air and devoured in mid-air, flesh blood bones gristle; on the redwood deck above the snow-stubbled grass there had come a two-legged figure to observe them, an individual whose face was hidden in shadow, a thick-bodied man, short of breath, panting; for this man was unaccustomed to physical exertion, and excitement; a cowardly hunter, who would hunt his prey from a little distance, thrilled at the prospect of killing at a little distance; Mariana was astonished seeing him on the redwood deck above her and her companion, in the excitement of the moment she’d forgotten the man’s name, and even that he had a name; that he was an individual man, and her husband; or, he had been her husband when she’d lived in that house with him. She knew to think almost calmly He will kill us! That is the coward’s power.

  The hunter lifted something to his shoulder, and aimed: a rifle, or a shotgun. There came a sharp retort, and a smell of something singed, and at once Mariana and her companion leapt instinctively apart so that the hunter above them couldn’t sight them together in the scope of his weapon; for neither had been hit, and each knew exactly what stratagem to undertake, again by instinct and without needing to communicate; bodies carried low against the ground and heads lowered they trotted in opposite directions in the snowy grass beneath the deck; again there came another deafening shot, a hard-cracking shot that had to be a rifle and not a shotgun; for this was the weapon Mariana’s husband had used, deer hunting years ago; cursing them now, cursing them as filthy beasts the hunter hurried to the farther end of the deck, leaning against the railing; for he was very short of breath, and in poor physical condition; lifting his weapon and aiming—but uncertain, where he meant to aim—as Mariana pads soundless behind him without his knowing to leap onto his back, in that instant bringing the hunter down, and causing his weapon to fall harmless onto the redwood deck, of no more consequence than a toy gun; Mariana’s mate has leapt up onto the deck to join her as their prey thrashes on the deck screaming and in mid-scream silenced for in that instant the hunter’s throat is torn out; they are tearing at the heavy, limp, flaccid body, the belly is ripped open, entrails torn out; the softer, exposed parts are devoured first, then smaller bones, and then larger bones, backbone, thigh-bone, femur—skull—soft spongy brains sucked
out and swallowed until at last nothing remains of the prey except a damp greasy dark-tinged stain in the redwood deck; nothing remains except mangled, bloodied and unrecognizable clothing, and the dropped rifle; for already the pair have departed, already they are flying over the snowy crust through the forest where the night lies all before them, where to roam.

  San Quentin

  How you kill a person, he is asking.

  How a person die, he is asking.

  What it mean—kill, die—he is asking.

  Enrolled in Intro Biology to seek why.

  His name is unpronounceable—Quogn. He is five feet one inch tall. He can’t weigh more than one hundred pounds. He is not a scrappy featherweight with swift lethal child-fists like rock, he is a slight bald boy with a curved back. His face is a patina of scars and blemishes and his minnow-eyes are shy behind his black plastic glasses that fit his narrow head wrongly. Smiling eager in Intro Biology to show how serious he is saying, How is a person die, how that happen. Is like an animal maybe but why.

  He thinks of this all the time he says. Like wake or sleep or in-between. Some-kind voice saying to him How you did this thing, how this happen, you!

  And she your old sister she be good to you.

  San Quentin: where you never meant to do what you don’t remember you were accused of doing so long ago it almost doesn’t matter where you were when it was claimed you’d done what you were accused of doing which of course—you swear—you hadn’t done, or not in exactly that way, and not at that time.

  They wear long-sleeved white T-shirts beneath short-sleeved blue shirts with P R I S O N E R in white letters on the back. They wear blue sweatpants and at the waist in white letters C D C R and on the left pant-leg in vertical white letters

  P

  R

  I

  S

  O

  N

  E

  R

  and all of their clothing loose-fitting as pajamas.

  There is something in his mouth that causes his words to emerge contorted and bright with spittle. There is something in his throat that stammers like a small frog in spasm. The minnow-eyes glimmer and dart. He is a diligent student, he will read slowly and in silence pushing his stubby forefinger along lines of print. He will hunch his shoulders close to photocopied pages from Life: The Science of Biology which is a massive textbook too dangerous to bring into the facility.

  There comes a squint into the ruined boy’s-face. There comes a look of intense fear but determination. With a plastic spoon he “dissects” a sheep brain in the biology lab. Under the instructor’s guidance, he and eight other inmate-students. The “dissection” is clumsy. The sheep brain resembles chewy leather. His lab partner has a dark face like erosion and dreadlock hair to his shoulders. He is explaining he is not sure he had ever seen a live sheep—maybe pictures, when he be boy in school in San Jose. He is saying why does a live thing stop being live—what makes a live thing be dead. One minute and then the other—and be dead.

  He wonders if the live-thing be like fire that it be blown out and gone or if the live-thing be like Holiness that it not be killed but taken up to Heaven.

  He has question is easier for a thing to live than to die—like weed? Like cockroach?

  There are ten inmate-students registered in Intro Biology but always each week one will fail to come to class. Yet never Quogn—he is most eager student.

  Never can you really understand what Quogn is saying. Yet you nod, smile and nod for you are weak in such ways.

  You have learned, Quogn has enrolled in Intro Biology before. Several times it may have been. For he is not so young as he appears, for he appears scarcely more than sixteen. So small, and his back curved so you feel sorry for him but also exasperation and impatience for he speaks slowly and with difficulty and with a look of wonderment—How is possible, a thing die? What is it mean, take a thing life from it—how?

  He is a “lifer”—sixty years to life.

  Each class is three hours. Three hours!

  In San Quentin, time passes slow as backed-up drains.

  In San Quentin, murderers dressed like a softball team.

  San Quen-tin, voluptuous sound!

  San Quen-tin, a hard caress.

  Each class he is grimmer, broke-back like an upright snake and staring with minnow-eyes at the instructor. Shy and clumsy unless he is resentful and furious with the plastic spoon, that cracks between his stubby fingers with a startling little crack! that draws the other inmate-students’ eyes to him.

  Is a split plastic spoon now a weapon. You will wonder.

  Your heart cringes. Such wonderment, you keep out of your eyes.

  Wants badly to know, it is all the God-damn fuckin wish he has to know, how you can kill a person living, how does a person die. For does the person who die say to herself it is all right now to die, she is sick tired fed-up and to die, or is it the other way—it is the one who kill who is the cause. Tryin to figure this out, there is some answer to this to be revealed.

  Through the semester he stare at the lecturer, and at the blackboard where the lecturer scribble words with colored chalk. At lab time the others in P R I S O N E R clothing avoid little Quogn like you avoid a little mangy sick dog might suddenly yip and bury ugly yellow teeth in your ankle. Wants so bad to figure these facts but the weeks pass, the dry cold winter season is past and it is spring and the sun blinding just outside the Quonset-hut classroom where the prisoners go singly to use the outdoor urinals glimpsed from behind the white horizontal bar P R I S O N E R across the back of the blue shirt for nowhere is P R I S O N E R to be avoided, you have made of yourself a ridiculous sight, no one dares laugh.

  And now it is ending. And now, it is last week. He has not passed Intro Biology—(again)—for he has not done most of the work and what work he has handed in, is incomprehensible like a child’s scribbling in pencil on sheets of torn and curiously soiled paper. Yet he is not angry with instructor, or does not give that impression. He is sad, he is anguished-seeming not angry, his blemished face contorted as if in the pain of actual thought saying he think about it all the time but don’t know more than ever—what it is.

  Stil I am not given up. I have sixty-year yet, to figure out.

  Why there be spiders there—these place I am put. They said, you have hurt & you are bad person to be punish & I tell them, I am not that one, but I am thinking it is the same one, the knife-for-cutting fish in his hand and the handle slippery like fish-guts.

  How it began Mam say she love both us like the same. Mam say of my old sister she is not a lit girl any longer & Mam say, she my lit girl.

  She also my lit girl til I am deadandgone.

  She be my old sister from before daddy be with us.

  They said, It is best thing for she, & for you. You are sugar-blood-dibetees. You are fat. For she fat lady, in the place where I was waiting by the chairs, where you can sit & drink from—in your hands, & the water spil out but you can lick with the tongue like a cat-lick. I heard boy say, That lady so fat—man she is fat. So they laugh. & one say,

  Oh—her. & they look at me where I am waiting. I am face like head, too big face.

  Like a faucet turned on—hot. & no one to turn it back. The sharp thing that was in my hand, that came to hurt her, that Mam could not take from my fingers, she too fat to take breath. I was shamed, my old sister so fat they laugh at us, and Mam like to say, they both my lit babies.

  Daddy is not there now. They say Daddy is here—in this place I am put to be punish. But in the yard where I see him it is not Daddy but some other & a mistake to stare, it will be hurt to you, if you stare.

  Finly when it was over, they came for me where Mam told me hide under the kitchen where they be spiders in your hair & eyelashes & if you open mouth to breathe, in mouth—nasty!—the light was bright & their voices loud & they say What did you do! What did you do! & it was never explained to me either, all those years ago.

  Intro Biology I am taking, this i
s why. I am not given up hoping please you will help me.

  Anniversary

  Never be alone in the facility—even in the ‘safety zone.’ Always be in the company of at least one other person.”

  Never be alone. This was wise advice.

  The inmates use urinals in the yard—try not to look in that direction.”

  She looked, of course—she and her companion both, in a nervous and involuntary reflex—but there was no one at the long trough-like urinal against the side of a building, nor was there anyone at the toilet—a lone, terribly exposed lidless toilet like an installation in an art exhibit—a few yards from the urinal.

  Vivianne’s companion and co-instructor in the volunteer-teaching program asked why was the outdoor toilet so public?—he hoped it wasn’t to embarrass and humiliate the inmates.

  Their guide, a civilian who was a co-director of the State Prison Education Program, said, not sharply, but with an air of subtle reprimand: “Of course not. If you saw what ‘toilets’ were provided for inmates in the yard a few decades ago, you’d know what an improvement this is.”

  Respect is the key. You must respect the inmates in order that the inmates respect you.

  They’d driven to Hudson Fork, New York: the Hudson Fork Maximum Security Correctional Facility for Men. It had been a drive of nearly two hours but during that time they had not spoken, much—to Vivianne’s disappointment her young companion/co-instructor had talked on his cell phone for much of the trip, to a series of friends. And then, yes, as if he’d only just realized, he’d shut up his phone to discuss with Vivianne the “expository writing” course they were to teach together for the next ten weeks—Vivianne as Cal Healy’s assistant, since she’d applied late to the program, and had had no previous experience teaching in a prison.

  Vivianne said she’d photocopied an essay by James Baldwin, she thought they might pass out to the students, to read for the second class meeting. Cal said, “Great! I have lots of things for them too.” But he didn’t tell Vivianne what these things were, for his cell phone rang at that moment.