The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  She my baby, doctor. I no want to lose. Me got seven children—

  Yes, you told me.

  But this my baby. You understand. She very sick. You good doctor—

  Oh my God! To get away from her I turned again to the kid. You better get going after more bottles before the stores close. I'll come back Friday morning.

  How about that stuff for my face you were gonna give me.

  That's right. Wait a minute. And I sat down on the edge of the bed to write out a prescription for some lotio alba comp. such as we use in acne. The two older women looked at me in astonishment—wondering, I suppose, how I knew the girl. I finished writing the thing and handed it to her. Sop it on your face at bedtime, I said, and let it dry on. Don't get it into your eyes.

  No, I won't.

  I'll see you in a couple of days, I said to them all.

  Doctor! the old woman was still after me. You come back. I pay you. But all a time short. Always tomorrow come milk man. Must pay rent, must pay coal. And no got money. Too much work. Too much wash. Too much cook. Nobody help. I don't know what's a matter. This door, doctor, this door. This house make sick. Make sick.

  Do the best I can, I said as I was leaving.

  The girl followed on the stairs. How much is this going to cost, she asked shrewdly holding the prescription.

  Not much, I said, and then started to think. Tell them you only got half a dollar. Tell them I said that's all it's worth.

  Is that right, she said.

  Absolutely. Don't pay a cent more for it.

  Say, you're all right, she looked at me appreciatively.

  Have you got half a dollar.

  Sure. Why not.

  What's it all about, my wife asked me in the evening. She had heard about the case. Gee! I sure met a wonderful girl, I told her.

  What! another?

  Some tough baby. I'm crazy about her. Talk about straight stuff . . . And I recounted to her the sort of case it was and what I had done. The mother's an odd one too. I don't quite make her out.

  Did they pay you?

  No. I don't suppose they have any cash.

  Going back?

  Sure. Have to.

  Well, I don't see why you have to do all this charity work. Now that's a case you should report to the Emergency Relief. You'll get at least two dollars a call from them.

  But the father has a job, I understand. That counts me out.

  What sort of a job?

  I dunno. Forgot to ask.

  What's the baby's name so I can put it in the book?

  Damn it. I never thought to ask them that either. I think they must have told me but I can't remember it. Some kind of a Russian name—

  You're the limit. Dumbbell, she laughed. Honestly—Who are they anyhow.

  You know, I think it must be that family Kate was telling us about. Don't you remember. The time the little kid was playing there one afternoon after school, fell down the front steps and knocked herself senseless.

  I don't recall.

  Sure you do. That's the family. I get it now. Kate took the brat down there in a taxi and went up with her to see that everything was all right. Yop, that's it. The old woman took the older kid by the hair, because she hadn't watched her sister. And what a beating she gave her. Don't you remember Kate telling us afterward. She thought the old woman was going to murder the child she screamed and threw her around so. Some old gal. You can see they're all afraid of her. What a world. I suppose the damned brat drives her cuckoo. But boy, how she clings to that baby.

  The last hope, I suppose, said my wife.

  Yeah, and the worst bet in the lot. There's a break for you.

  She'll love it just the same.

  More, usually.

  Three days later I called at the flat again. Come in. This time a resonant male voice. I entered, keenly interested.

  By the same kitchen table stood a short, thickset man in baggy working pants and a heavy cotton undershirt. He seemed to have the stability of a cube placed on one of its facets, a smooth, highly colored Slavic face, long black moustaches and widely separated, perfectly candid blue eyes. His black hair, glossy and profuse stood out carelessly all over his large round head. By his look he reminded me at once of his blond haired daughter, absolutely unruffled. The shoulders of an ox. You the doctor, he said. Come in.

  The girl and the small child were beside him, the mother was in the bedroom.

  The baby no better. Won't eat, said the man in answer to my first question.

  How are its bowels?

  Not so bad.

  Does it vomit?

  No.

  Then it is better, I objected. But by this time the mother had heard us talking and came in. She seemed worse than the last time. Absolutely inconsolable. Doctor! Doctor! she came up to me.

  Somewhat irritated I put her aside and went in to the baby. Of course it was better, much better. So I told them. But the heart, naturally was the same.

  How she heart? the mother pressed me eagerly. Today little better?

  I started to explain things to the man who was standing back giving his wife precedence but as soon as she got the drift of what I was saying she was all over me again and the tears began to pour. There was no use my talking. Doctor, you good doctor. You do something fix my baby. And before I could move she took my left hand in both hers and kissed it through her tears. As she did so I realized finally that she had been drinking.

  I turned toward the man, looking a good bit like the sun at noonday and as indifferent, then back to the woman and I felt deeply sorry for her.

  Then, not knowing why I said it nor of whom, precisely I was speaking, I felt myself choking inwardly with the words: Hell! God damn it. The sons of bitches. Why do these things have to be?

  The next morning as I came into the coat room at the hospital there were several of the visiting staff standing there with their cigarettes, talking. It was about a hunting dog belonging to one of the doctors. It had come down with distemper and seemed likely to die.

  I called up half a dozen vets around here, one of them was saying. I even called up the one in your town, he added turning to me as I came in. And do you know how much they wanted to charge me for giving the serum to that animal?

  Nobody answered.

  They had the nerve to want to charge me five dollars a shot for it. Can you beat that? Five dollars a shot.

  Did you give them the job, someone spoke up facetiously.

  Did I? I should say I did not, the first answered. But can you beat that. Why we're nothing but a lot of slop-heels compared to those guys. We deserve to starve.

  Get it out of them, someone rasped, kidding. That's the stuff.

  Then the original speaker went on, buttonholing me as some of the others faded from the room. Did you ever see practice so rotten. By the way, I was called over to your town about a week ago to see a kid I delivered up here during the summer. Do you know anything about the case?

  I probably got them on my list, I said. Russians?

  Yeah, I thought as much. Has a job as a road worker or something. Said they couldn't pay me. Well, I took the trouble of going up to your court house and finding out what he was getting. Eighteen dollars a week. Just the type. And they had the nerve to tell me they couldn't pay me.

  She told me ten.

  She's a liar.

  Natural maternal instinct, I guess.

  Whisky appetite, if you should ask me.

  Same thing.

  O.K. buddy. Only I'm telling you. And did I tell them. They'll never call me down there again, believe me. I had that much satisfaction out of them anyway. You make 'em pay you. Don't you do anything for them unless they do. He's paid by the county. I tell you if I had taxes to pay down there I'd go and take it out of his salary.

  You and how many others?

  Say, they're bad actors, that crew. Do you know what they really do with their money? Whisky. Now I'm telling you. That old woman is the slickest customer you ever saw. She's dr
unk all the time. Didn't you notice it?

  Not while I was there.

  Don't you let them put any of that sympathy game over on you. Why they tell me she leaves that baby lying on the bed all day long screaming its lungs out until the neighbors complain to the police about it. I'm not lying to you.

  Yeah, the old skate's got nerves, you can see that. I can imagine she's a bugger when she gets going.

  But what about the young girl, I asked weakly. She seems like a pretty straight kid.

  My confrere let out a wild howl. That thing! You mean that pimply faced little bitch. Say, if I had my way I'd run her out of the town tomorrow morning. There's about a dozen wise guys on her trail every night in the week. Ask the cops. Just ask them. They know. Only nobody wants to bring in a complaint. They say you'll stumble over her on the roof, behind the stairs anytime at all. Boy, they sure took you in.

  Yes, I suppose they did, I said.

  But the old woman's the ringleader. She's got the brains. Take my advice and make them pay.

  The last time I went I heard the, Come in! from the front of the house. The fifteen-year-old was in there at the window in a rocking chair with the tightly wrapped baby in her arms. She got up. Her legs were bare to the hips. A powerful little animal.

  What are you doing? Going swimming? I asked.

  Naw, that's my gym suit. What the kids wear for Physical Training in school.

  How's the baby?

  She's all right.

  Do you mean it?

  Sure, she eats fine now.

  Tell your mother to bring it to the office some day so I can weigh it. The food'll need increasing in another week or two anyway.

  I'll tell her.

  How's your face?

  Gettin' better.

  My God, it is, I said. And it was much better. Going back to school now?

  Yeah, I had tuh.

  KATHERINE ANNE PORTER (1890-1980)

  Katherine Anne Porter is a short story writer's short story writer— from the first, with the publication of her early stories "Maria Concepcion" and the much-anthologized "Flowering Judas," her reputation has been that of a supremely gifted stylist. Though her output of prose fiction is in fact small, its quality is uniformly high. Choosing a single story to represent Porter is a difficult task, for there are several Porter "voices"—including, most memorably, the muted, ironic voice of "He," a small masterpiece.

  Born in Indian Creek, Texas, Katherine Anne Porter lived a long, varied, and at times tumultuous life. In the 1920's and 1930's she traveled a good deal, married and divorced twice, and published the first of her exquisitely crafted books, the story collection Flowering Judas (1930), the novella Noon Wine (1937), and the collection Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939). Her European experiences provided her with the rich background material of The Leaning Tower and Other Stories (1944). For decades, Porter worked intermittently on a long novel, Ship of Fools, which was finally published in 1962, as a major literary event. When Porter's Collected Stories appeared in 1965 it was awarded both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

  The most powerful of Katherine Anne Porter's works of fiction are based upon memory—"the constant exercise of memory," as she spoke of it in her Journal. The gritty details of "He," the slowly accumulating weight of resentment and bitterness, surely do derive from Porter's memory of rural Texas in the early years of this century; but the employment of these meager materials, and the subtlety of the narrating voice, are pure Porter—which is to say, inimitable.

  He

  LIFE was very hard for the Whipples. It was hard to feed all the hungry mouths, it was hard to keep the children in flannels during the winter, short as it was: "God knows what would become of us if we lived north," they would say: keeping them decently clean was hard. "It looks like our luck won't never let up on us," said Mr. Whipple, but Mrs. Whipple was all for taking what was sent and calling it good, anyhow when the neighbors were in earshot. "Don't ever let a soul hear us complain," she kept saying to her husband. She couldn't stand to be pitied. "No, not if it comes to it that we have to live in a wagon and pick cotton around the country," she said, "nobody's going to get a chance to look down on us."

  Mrs. Whipple loved her second son, the simple-minded one, better than she loved the other two children put together. She was forever saying so, and when she talked with certain of her neighbors, she would even throw in her husband and her mother for good measure.

  "You needn't keep on saying it around," said Mr. Whipple, "you'll make people think nobody else has any feelings about Him but you."

  "It's natural for a mother," Mrs. Whipple would remind him. "You know yourself it's more natural for a mother to be that way. People don't expect so much of fathers, some way."

  This didn't keep the neighbors from talking plainly among themselves. "A Lord's pure mercy if He should die," they said. "It's the sins of the fathers," they agreed among themselves. "There's bad blood and bad doings somewhere, you can bet on that." This behind the Whipples' backs. To their faces everybody said, "He's not so bad off. He'll be all right yet. Look how He grows!"

  Mrs. Whipple hated to talk about it, she tried to keep her mind off it, but every time anybody set foot in the house, the subject always came up, and she had to talk about Him first, before she could get on to anything else. It seemed to ease her mind. "I wouldn't have anything happen to Him for all the world, but it just looks like I can't keep Him out of mischief. He's so strong and active, He's always into everything; He was like that since He could walk. It's actually funny sometimes, the way He can do anything; it's laughable to see Him up to His tricks. Emly has more accidents; I'm forever tying up her bruises, and Adna can't fall a foot without cracking a bone. But He can do anything and not get a scratch. The preacher said such a nice thing once when he was here. He said, and I'll remember it to my dying day, 'The innocent walk with God—that's why He don't get hurt.' " Whenever Mrs. Whipple repeated these words, she always felt a warm pool spread in her breast, and the tears would fill her eyes, and then she could talk about something else.

  He did grow and He never got hurt. A plank blew off the chicken house and struck Him on the head and He never seemed to know it. He had learned a few words, and after this He forgot them. He didn't whine for food as the other children did, but waited until it was given Him; He ate squatting in the corner, smacking and mumbling. Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat, and He could carry twice as much wood and water as Adna. Emly had a cold in the head most of the time—"she takes that after me," said Mrs. Whipple—so in bad weather they gave her the extra blanket off His cot. He never seemed to mind the cold.

  Just the same, Mrs. Whipple's life was a torment for fear something might happen to Him. He climbed the peach trees much better than Adna and went skittering along the branches like a monkey, just a regular monkey. "Oh, Mrs. Whipple, you hadn't ought to let Him do that. He'll lose His balance sometime. He can't rightly know what He's doing.''

  Mrs. Whipple almost screamed out at the neighbor. "He does know what He's doing! He's as able as any other child! Come down out of there, you!" When He finally reached the ground she could hardly keep her hands off Him for acting like that before people, a grin all over His face and her worried sick about Him all the time.

  "It's the neighbors," said Mrs. Whipple to her husband. "Oh, I do mortally wish they would keep out of our business. I can't afford to let Him do anything for fear they'll come nosing around about it. Look at the bees, now. Adna can't handle them, they sting him up so; I haven't got time to do everything, and now I don't dare let Him. But if He gets a sting He don't really mind."

  "It's just because He ain't got sense enough to be scared of anything," said Mr. Whipple.

  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mrs. Whipple, "talking that way about your own child. Who's to take up for Him if we don't, I'd like to know? He sees a lot that goes on, He listens to things all the time. And anything I tell Him to do He does it. Don't never let anybody hear you s
ay such things. They'd think you favored the other children over Him."

  "Well, now I don't, and you know it, and what's the use of getting all worked up about it? You always think the worst of everything. Just let Him alone, He'll get along somehow. He gets plenty to eat and wear, don't He?" Mr. Whipple suddenly felt tired out. "Anyhow, it can't be helped now."

  Mrs. Whipple felt tired too, she complained in a tired voice. "What's done can't never be undone, I know that as good as anybody; but He's my child, and I'm not going to have people say anything. I get sick of people coming around saying things all the time."

  In the early fall Mrs. Whipple got a letter from her brother saying he and his wife and two children were coming over for a little visit next Sunday week. "Put the big pot in the little one," he wrote at the end. Mrs. Whipple read this part out loud twice, she was so pleased. Her brother was a great one for saying funny things. "We'll just show him that's no joke," she said, "we'll just butcher one of the sucking pigs."

  "It's a waste and I don't hold with waste the way we are now," said Mr. Whipple. "That pig'll be worth money by Christmas."

  "It's a shame and a pity we can't have a decent meal's vittles once in a while when my own family comes to see us," said Mrs. Whipple. "I'd hate for his wife to go back and say there wasn't a thing in the house to eat. My God, it's better than buying up a great chance of meat in town. There's where you'd spend the money!"

  "All right, do it yourself then," said Mr. Whipple. "Christa-mighty, no wonder we can't get ahead!"

  The question was how to get the little pig away from his ma, a great fighter, worse than a Jersey cow. Adna wouldn't try it: "That sow'd rip my insides out all over the pen." "All right, old fraidy," said Mrs. Whipple,"He's not scared. Watch Him do it." And she laughed as though it was all a good joke and gave Him a little push towards the pen. He sneaked up and snatched the pig right away from the teat and galloped back and was over the fence with the sow raging at His heels. The little black squirming thing was screeching like a baby in a tantrum, stiffening its back and stretching its mouth to the ears. Mrs. Whipple took the pig with her face stiff and sliced its throat with one stroke. When He saw the blood He gave a great jolting breath and ran away. "But He'll forget and eat plenty, just the same," thought Mrs. Whipple. Whenever she was thinking, her lips moved making words. "He'd eat it all if I didn't stop Him. He'd eat up every mouthful from the other two if I'd let Him."