Since she moved to the former mill town on the Delaware River, Juliana has not returned to these taverns. Not since meeting Patrick.
Since she has ceased drinking, Juliana has lost interest in bars, taverns, cafés. Though, admittedly, the sight of neon is a strong attraction.
Especially, Juliana would never drive to the Black Rooster alone, without a companion.
Solitary women seem to be more at risk now than they’d been when Juliana was in her early twenties. Risks she’d taken walking alone late at night, those nights she’d returned at midnight from the Mon ey Bar, she would never take now.
Has the world changed, Juliana wonders. Or has her perception of the world changed.
Sober now, she perceives the world as a sober place. Not hills and valleys but a plateau.
Still, she carries her (secret) weapon with her wherever she goes. Even to work, in a run-down urban neighborhood in Trenton, and even in the daytime, for (of course) she doesn’t remove the ice pick from the very bottom of her tote bag; most of the time she isn’t aware that it is there.
Not long ago something terrible had happened to a young woman, employee of a local hair salon, who’d gone for drinks at the Black Rooster with coworkers, was followed out of the tavern by an unidentified male patron, who came up behind her in the parking lot, struck her on the side of the head with his fist, and knocked her unconscious. He’d dragged her into a wooded area nearby, cut her clothing with a shears, and torn off her underwear, slashed her skin, “tortured” her with the shears, and left her for dead …
This was the third or fourth sexual assault against young women in the area since Juliana and Patrick moved to the mill town eighteen months before.
Juliana has read of the incidents, fascinated and repelled. All the young women have survived the attacks, but none have consented to be interviewed. If Juliana had gone to school here she would have a circle of friends and acquaintances who would know about these attacks—she would know someone in law enforcement, or at the hospital—but she’s an outsider, she has no access. All she knows is what the media has released.
Juliana does recall having read—No arrests have been made.
The cruelty of the world, to some young women. She, the pregnant fiancée, soon to be wife, is treated with tenderness by her devoted lover.
Patrick insists upon feeding her. In an iron skillet he sautés organic farm free-range chicken. Trout, salmon. Portobello mushrooms, red onions, peppers. He prepares rich soups—lentil, black bean, fish chowder. Juliana is ravenous with hunger when she sits down to eat, but after a few mouthfuls she has had enough, or more than enough.
Fatten her, stuff her. As if (in secret) Juliana is trying to lose weight, and so when they are together and Patrick is in charge, he must oversee her eating, make certain that she gains weight as it is normal for a pregnant woman to gain weight.
How many times this fall Juliana has driven past the Blue Moon Café on Front Street. Always slowly. It’s a kind of test, she realizes. Like walking a tightrope.
Though there is no likelihood that after so many months, and in her new delicate condition, she is likely to lapse.
Seeing now through the window that the Blue Moon is becoming crowded. Thursday evening, nearing six p.m.
Friday evening would be too crowded, rowdy. Saturday would be impossible. And earlier in the week, not so convivial. Thursday is the ideal weeknight for Juliana; inside there will be a companionable din of voices, laughter. Mostly men. If there are women in the Blue Moon, they will be with companions. Rarely alone.
Eyes gliding over Juliana if she sits at the bar, curious. Do we know you?
It has begun to rain, suddenly. Neon in rain, dreamy and blurred, beautiful.
Patrick won’t be home yet, probably. Juliana can be a little late returning. If he calls her worriedly, she can answer her cell phone, reassure him she’s all right.
Thinking—Just this once. No harm to it.
Fated, without volition, seeing an empty parking space on Front Street near the Blue Moon. If she’d had to park in the rutted-gravel lot behind the café, she’d have driven home without stopping.
Club soda, she will order. Slice of lemon. Over ice cubes.
Her mouth is dry. Her mouth is parched. Hours on the phone, bright fluorescent lights at the law office, exhausting.
Not vodka. (Never vodka!) Though maybe, if circumstances seem right, a single glass of white wine …
Just to celebrate. Her happiness.
That escape, from the poet. Finding Patrick, who adores her and trusts her absolutely.
And so it has happened, Juliana has parked the car on Front Street. As she enters the Blue Moon Café (for the first time), she feels her pulse quicken—recalling entering such cafés in the past (for the first time), she has embarked upon an adventure, the outcome of which she cannot know.
That is part of the happiness, the not-knowing.
In the window, blue neon, but inside on a wall, red neon lettering—MOLSON’S.
At once Juliana feels at home in the Blue Moon Café. There is even an old jukebox, she is sure that she can play Johnny Cash here. There are well-worn black leather booths, bar stools. The interior isn’t too crowded. Yet not too empty. Another woman, perhaps two women, in one of the booths. Otherwise, all men. At the bar, all men. Eyes move upon her, alert with curiosity, not unfriendly. But no one Juliana will know, no one who knows her.
On one of the walls, framed photographs of high school sports teams. Football, baseball. Local kids now grown up, patrons of the Blue Moon.
No doubt some of these boys are in the Blue Moon tonight. Aging athletes bearing a residue of pride.
Juliana shakes rain out of her hair. Juliana feels ready to laugh, she has no idea why. Sitting at one end of the bar, facing the mirror behind the rows of glittering bottles. Her tote bag, faux gold-glittering, out of the way at her feet, between the legs of the bar stool where she can keep an eye on it unobtrusively.
Politely the bartender greets Juliana; warily he smiles at the solitary young woman who has entered the Blue Moon Café, no one he recognizes.
It is an entirely new place to Juliana—Blue Moon Café. Yet it is utterly familiar. When she uses the women’s restroom, she will recognize the low ceiling, stained sink, exposed plumbing, and uneven tile floor. She will recognize the smells, the mild sour stink, not unpleasant, in an odd way comforting.
What will she have? Club soda to begin, with ice. Then (she thinks) maybe, a (single) glass of white wine, depending …
Juliana is in no hurry. This (secret) interlude in her life, she deserves.
Like a rift, an odd tuck in wallpaper. A puckering, an incongruity. Hidden by furniture, no one ever knows. Not a blemish if invisible!
On the TV above the bar is the replay of a recent sports event, or highlights of that event. All is urgent-seeming, yet all is (merely) replayed, it has become history. The hotly contested game has been won and lost. The athlete interviewed before the game has been vindicated or has been humiliated. In the house on Mill Street, Patrick may be home after all, watching TV news, likely it is PBS. Likely it is urgent news of the day about which all informed American citizens should know. If Patrick calls her cell phone, Juliana may not answer, or if she answers, she may say quickly in a lowered voice—Oh honey, we’re on a conference call. Can’t talk now. See you soon!
Glancing around to see a man approaching her. Politely asking if the stool beside her is taken. Seeing that Juliana is alone.
Juliana laughs, pushing hair out of her face. Why does he need to ask permission to sit on the bar stool beside her? No need to ask, the bar stool is unoccupied, isn’t it?
In the mirror behind rows of bottles Juliana’s face is blurred and indistinct, as if undersea. Barely Juliana can recognize herself.
Gripped in her warm hand, the glass containing her drink has lost its icy edge. Soon lukewarm liquid that has gone flat, from which romance has fled. Juliana is intrigued by the stranger,
who has seated himself beside her with an almost formal deliberation—hands on the bar as if to steady himself as he sits on the stool, taller than Juliana, observing her sidelong. He is in his late thirties, perhaps. Fair skin, red-tinted hairs on the backs of his big-knuckled hands, thick wrists. A sulfurous smell—tobacco? Incongruous in this setting, he is wearing a white cotton shirt, long sleeves rolled to the elbow. His forearms are tight-muscled, covered in coarse red hairs. A wristwatch with a leather band, on his left wrist. And his eyes, crinkled at the corners like kindly eyes, or eyes with a habit of squinting.
Juliana feels light-headed, faint with anticipation. In that instant, suffused with a kind of joy.
The man beside her is asking what has she been drinking? Is she ready for something stronger?
Acknowledgments
Thanks and much gratitude to the editors of the magazines, literary journals, and anthologies in which these stories originally appeared:
“Detour” in Harper’s
“Curious” in Salmagundi
“Miss Golden Dreams 1949” in Collectibles, ed. by Lawrence Block
“Wanting” in Narrative
“Parole Hearing, California Institution for Women, Chino, CA” in Boulevard. Reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, 2021, edited by Lee Child and Otto Penzler.
“Intimacy” in Vice
“The Flagellant” in At Home in the Dark, ed. by Lawrence Block
“Vaping: A User’s Manual” in The Nicotine Chronicles, ed. by Lee Child
“Night, Neon” in American Short Fiction
ALSO BY JOYCE CAROL OATES
The Barrens
Beasts
Rape: A Love Story
The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense
The Museum of Dr. Moses
A Fair Maiden
Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares
Daddy Love
Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong
High Crime Area: Tales of Darkness and Dread
Jack of Spades: A Tale of Suspense
The Doll Master and Other Tales of Terror
DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense
Pursuit
Cardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas of Suspense
NIGHT, NEON
Mysterious Press
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Copyright © 2021 by The Ontario Review
First Mysterious Press edition
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021905825
ISBN: 978-1-61316-230-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61316-231-6
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Night, Neon Page 27