I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The window is very high, to the cieling.

  The panes do not fit well. There is leakage.

  The desk is a large one, and old.

  There are bookshelfs with many books looking old and used.

  There is a swivil chair behind the desk.

  The Instructor E. SCHEGLOFF is seated in this chair.

  The Instructor E. SCHEGLOFF shares this desk with other instructors.

  There is a skull in a blue sky on the wall!

  The Instructor E. SCHEGLOFF put this picture on the wall. Reaching to above her head, and her hands trembled with the strain.

  I did not have a tape to measure the room but beleive it is maybe 20 feet by 30.

  And the cieling maybe 12 feet high.

  There is an overhead light and a light on the desk.

  The clock above the door is broken, the hour hand gone.

  It is strang to see a clock broken in that way.

  You look at it a long time wondering, what is wrong.

  When the Instructor remains here late the windowpanes darken. You cant see outside.

  When the Instructor remains here late there is danger.

  A woman by herself is in danger. In danger of beasts.

  I would protect E. SCHEGLOFF I promise.

  I beleive I am summoned for that purpose.

  Her face I could not see in my cell clearly.

  It is a very beutiful face like an angels.

  Seeing you then at your desk, when you did not see

  me (and your hair like mine!) I wanted to say

  I would protect you I promise forever.

  I wanted to say I am not a beast

  for if even my hands did what they said,

  which I beleive was not so,

  I did not give up HOPE.

  Erma read Arno Kethy’s “Descreption” several times. She was in a haze of alarm and sympathy. Surely the man was mentally unbalanced, and yet…“He’s speaking from the heart. He isn’t stopping to think how it must sound.” She was alone in the bedroom of her small apartment, it was midnight. That morning in the pool she’d gotten chlorine in her eyes and through the long day her eyes had been stinging and watering and it was difficult for her to read Kethy’s small cramped words, crowded and urgent, on a lined sheet of tablet paper without margins.

  Erma was upset, that Kethy had somehow watched her at her desk in Greer Hall. He’d certainly been waiting for her in the stairwell. To protect her? Summoned for that purpose.

  She knew she should show Kethy’s compositions to someone else. The program director in the Night Division. “But he trusts me. I can’t betray him.”

  Erma was agitated, on her feet to stare at herself in the oval mirror of her bureau beside the bed. Your hair like mine! She plucked at the braid, quickly unraveling strands of hair. From now on, she would wear her hair loose. Better yet, she would get it cut. How could Kethy imagine her hair resembled his! Her cheeks burned with the insult.

  Beutiful face like an angels.

  Arno Kethy was in love with Erma Schegloff. Was that it?

  “But he doesn’t know me. It’s his delusion.”

  Arno Kethy was stalking her. In the guise of protecting her.

  Yet truly he believed he was protecting her. He would not wish (Erma was certain) to harm her.

  (Or was this, Erma wondered, a delusion of her own? To be so convinced.)

  He’d known that evening that Greer Hall was deserted and Erma’s corridor was darkened and he’d remained after their class, to protect her. In case there was danger, she needed him.

  Seeing herself as in a hallucinatory flash pushing again through the double doors into the stairwell and there was that figure of nightmare Arno Kethy with his stitched-looking face and staring eyes, squatting on the landing and smoking a cigarette. I beleive I am summoned.

  “He might have hurt me then, if he wanted. We were alone.”

  The incident had happened on a Tuesday night. On Thursday, Kethy handed in the second assignment, “Descreption.” It was weeks late. He’d passed it up to the instructor, several times folded, by way of another student. When Erma received it, she saw Kethy slouched in his seat, as if hiding; his ropey-muscled forearms lifted to shield his face. Since the other night, they were known to each other. There was the connection between them, irrevocable. He’d seen her face, her terror of him she’d tried to hide. She’d seen his face, the shock and adoration in his eyes. During class, as she taught, Erma was aware of Kethy as she hadn’t been previously. While speaking she lost the train of her thought several times and noticed students looking at her quizzically.

  It was midwinter malaise on the campus. Many students had flu. She was disheartened, a little. Seven students of thirty-two were absent that night.

  When class ended, Erma didn’t go upstairs to her office. She could not. She remained in the classroom to speak with those several students who’d arranged for conferences with her. “This will save us all a hike up those stairs. Those steep stairs.” When she left the building in the company of another student, a woman, she had the idea that Kethy might be close by, watching.

  You see? I don’t need you to protect me.

  But that night, in her apartment, the door locked and bolted and the telephone off the hook (in case her former lover should call, for he’d been calling, late, several times that week) and no sirens to interrupt her solitude, Erma read and reread Arno Kethy’s “Descreption” and could not decide: was it a voice of madness, or a voice of radiant insight? Might the two be conjoined?

  Nor could she decide if it was a declaration of love, or a subtle threat.

  A woman by herself is in danger. In danger of beasts.

  She wondered what would happen if her former lover drove to see her. As she’d forbidden him. If Arno Kethy saw them together.

  She went to bed, turned off the light, at 2 A.M. Though knowing she couldn’t sleep. In this unfamiliar bed, in this unfamiliar place. She shut her eyes. There was Kethy, squatting. Gazing at her with hurt, hopeful eyes. And in the swimming pool. Was that why her eyes had been bleeding all day? Glimmering of a ponytailed man in the pool’s choppy aqua water in the instant before Erma Schegloff drew breath, to dive in.

  THESE WERE SNOWY blinding-bright Midwestern days. Flat land, enormous sky. Erma’s eyes wept behind dark glasses.

  She was remembering (she hated remembering!) how back in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the squat ugly asphalt-sided house near the railroad tracks where she’d lived a captive for eighteen years, her parents, sullen and demoralized by life, debilitated by physical ailments and alcohol, had ignored her brothers’ relentless teasing of her. Erma! Er-ma where’re you hiding! Little bich. There was Judd, six years older than Erma; there was Tommy, three years older; and there was Lyle, eighteen months older. Who’d most resembled Erma. Lyle with dark features, thick-lashed intelligent eyes glistening with hatred. Lyle with a speech impediment he’d exaggerated out of spite. Little bich. C-c-cunnnt. You in here? Kicking at the bathroom door with its notoriously loose lock. Giggling when the door flew open and Erma was revealed, frightened, embarrassed, rising from the toilet and trying to adjust her clothing. Lyle who chased her, tickled and pinched her, one Hallowe’en night in a Batman mask squeezing, squeezing, squeezing his fingers around her neck until Erma fell unconscious to the floor.

  “You kids. What’re you kids doing, God damn you.”

  Much of it, the “teasing,” had been in or near the bathroom. At the top of the stairs. A single poorly heated bathroom for the six of them. Filthy toilet, filthy sink and tub. There’d been a year when Erma’s mother, recovering from a gallbladder operation, hadn’t done any housework. Erma’s father was often gone from the house. Downstairs, watching her daytime TV, Erma’s mother had been indifferent to cries and thuds overhead. Once, aged thirteen, Erma had desperately slapped Lyle as Judd and Tommy looked on laughing and Lyle had flown into a rage and punched her in the back so hard she fell stunned, unable to breathe. Their mother y
elled at them hoarsely, up the stairs, “Shut up! I’ll get your father to beat the shit out of you! You kids make me sick.”

  ARNO KETHY WOULD have protected her from Lyle. From all her brothers.

  Unless (she didn’t want to consider this!) Arno Kethy was one of her brothers.

  NOW, A DECADE later, Erma was gone from Erie, Pennsylvania, and guiltily plotted never to return. Not for her father’s angina and alarming weight loss, not for her mother’s swollen joints, blackouts, and “nerves.” Not for Judd’s wedding, and his fatal car crash barely a year later. Not for Lyle’s mysterious “trouble with the police.” Speaking two or three times a month on the phone with her parents, she liked it that the line crackled with distance. You could hear the howling cleansing wind of the prairies. You could hear stinging particles of snow. Before each of her calls home Erma was nervous, anxious, but she called dutifully, and she put a smile into her voice. For now they were older, seriously ailing, and their meanness as curtailed as vicious dogs on leashes. “When am I coming home, I’m not sure, Mom. My term doesn’t end until…After that, I have a summer research grant…” But she sent them checks. Considering her poverty, generous checks.

  She was a captive paying her kidnappers ransom in order to remain free.

  Oh, gratefully! That was why she smiled.

  ASSIGNMENT #3: ARGUEMENT

  Sometimes its just simple, you want to improve

  your Life to where it is worthwhile as a citizen.

  Its hard to argue what would be my exact hope

  as I did not gratuate from high school.

  I had trouble with all my subjects especally

  English where the teacher hated me. Even gym,

  I failed. The coach hated me!

  They think if you are quiet, you are hating them.

  You are thinking of ways to hurt them.

  My arguement would be, what does the US expect

  if you treat us like shit? Eight years, on

  Death Row and saying they are sorry afterward,

  sorry I am alive they mean. That the appeal

  went so slow. (A man in the block, his appeal

  went faster and was rejected, and so he was

  put to death, and the new law applied to me,

  that would have saved him, was not on the books

  yet. A laugh on him.)

  I drive my car at night, for I am lonely.

  There are so many houses in this city.

  Sometimes, you don’t pull your shades

  to the window sill, Im thinking.

  Could toss a bomb through any lighted window.

  People watching TV, or having supper.

  What about us out here in the Night.

  I quit Mayflower movers. Its not a life

  to plan for. I cant beleive—I am 39 yrs old.

  Where is my life taken from me, I dont know.

  My arguement is to return to schooling, where

  I took a wrong turn. If I had sertain skills

  as with computers. I started Accounting too

  but have not done too good. My mind is fixed on

  sertain issues. There is the wrongness of putting

  a man to death, if he is innocent or even if

  he is not. I would wish to marry one day

  but at Edgarstown I was injured in sertain ways

  and (I beleive) contacted diseases, but

  the insurance will not cover it. They said

  it was before I went in, in another State.

  There records but no records (they say) of this.

  My conviction was overturned and so I was free,

  still I would wish sometimes to murder you them all.

  I was not born a beast, that is my arguement.

  3.

  It’s time. It can’t be avoided. Erma went to consult with the program director. Mr. Falworth was an earnest, harassed-looking old-young man of about forty who didn’t seem to recognize her until she told him her name twice. “My hair,” she said apologetically. “I’ve cut my hair.” Her long braid had vanished. Her hair was wavy and insubstantial as feathers, framing a winter-pale, scrubbed-looking face. Falworth smiled a quick but vague social smile, saying his hair, too, had departed in the service of remedial composition; he made a fluttering gesture with his fingers across the dome of his near-bald head. Such a gesture meant simply I like you, I’m a decent guy. But don’t bring me trouble. Erma had brought with her a number of student compositions to show Falworth, a sampling of the range of her grades; among them were Arno Kethy’s three ungraded compositions which she intended to show him matter-of-factly, as if Kethy were an academic problem merely, and not a personal problem. As they conferred, Erma began to doubt the wisdom of what she’d planned. She had rehearsed saying to Falworth What do you make of these, I can’t grade them by any standards I know, it’s like prose poetry isn’t it, or is it just illiterate, unacceptable, this student isn’t following the guidelines is he, what do you advise, Mr. Falworth? She supposed the program director would be shocked. But possibly he wouldn’t be shocked. The Night Division, Erma had been told by other, more experienced instructors, accepted virtually all applicants who were residents of the state. The legislature looked at numbers, not academic records. No doubt there were mentally disturbed patients among the Night Division’s clientele, even criminals. No doubt there were frequently problems for new instructors, especially women. Falworth might have just the answer. He might call in Arno Kethy to see him. He might speak severely with Kethy, he might suggest that Kethy drop out of school. Since Kethy’s third composition seemed to contain a threat of violence, Falworth might report him to authorities.

  Or, what was equally likely, he might be annoyed with the inexperienced young woman instructor who’d come to him with such a problem. Would a male instructor have had this problem? As they conferred, through most of an hour, Erma realized that she couldn’t betray Arno Kethy; he was emotionally disturbed, but he trusted her; he would never hurt her. I would protect you I promise. Erma slipped Kethy’s handwritten papers into her brief case; if Falworth noticed them, he wasn’t about to ask for more compositions to examine. He said briskly, “You appear to be doing very well, Erma. This is good work.” This was meant sincerely and Erma felt a wave of relief. Some guilt, but mostly relief. The consultation was ending on a positive note. Falworth saw her to the door of his office, a gesture she guessed he didn’t ordinarily make with visitors. He asked if she would like to teach in the program in the fall, possibly two courses, for more than double her current salary, and Erma heard herself say yes, possibly she would. “I’ve never had an experience like this before.”

  “Our most successful instructors always say that,” Falworth said with a smile. “It’s the others, the ones with problems…” His voice trailed off into disapproving silence.

  Erma Schegloff had said the right thing.

  NEXT DAY, she made inquiries after Kethy, Arno C. in the registrar’s office. But Kethy had no transcripts predating that semester when he’d enrolled, as a special student in the Night Division, in Composition 101 and Accounting 101. No high school transcripts or letters of recommendation seem to have been required. Erma went to the office of the dean of the Night Division and was allowed to look through a similarly meager file for Kethy there. (Aluminum filing cabinets filled most of a room, containing thousands of students’ files, since 1947! It was a daunting vision, like looking into a vast mortuary.) Here there was a poorly photocopied letter dated September 1989 from a county parole officer attesting vaguely to Arno C. Kethy’s punctuality, willingness to cooperate with authorities, and “adoptive nature,” which Erma supposed must mean “adaptive nature.” Yet the letter was only a form letter addressed to To Whom It May Concern; it concluded with a disclaimer—

  Arno C. Kethy is of above average intelligence it is believed, but not easy to communicate with. The report of the court psychiatrist is that he is a “borderline” personality capable of knowing right from wrong and th
erefore sane under the law. He has always claimed total innocence for his actions even those of which he has been found guilty on the testimony of witnesses and circumstantial evidence.

  Whatever Kethy had done, or had been convicted of doing, in this instance, had been before 1989. And 1989 was a long time ago.

  Erma saw that Kethy’s address was 81 Bridge Street.

  But how is he borderline? Dangerous?

  He reveals himself in words like a poet.

  MAYBE (ERMA CONCEDED!) she’d regret it. But she showed Kethy’s most recent, most disturbing composition to no one. She lay the single, much-folded sheet of tablet paper on top of the bureau in her bedroom, a primitive piece of Shaker furniture painted robin’s egg blue and decorated with tiny pink rosebuds, a girl’s bureau with a romantically fogged oval mirror in which Erma’s own face, girlish, rather pale, somber yet often smiling, floated; and after a week she’d read and reread it so many times, it no longer seemed threatening. It was a poem in prose. She could hear Kethy’s anguished voice reciting it. And it was written for her, Kethy’s instructor. I was not born a beast, that is my arguement. Erma thought of Shakeseare’s Caliban. Milton’s rebellious Satan in Paradise Lost. She still hadn’t attempted to grade him for how could she grade a man’s soul?

  He reveals himself to me. Alone.

  THERE CAME THURSDAY evening, their next class. When Erma hurried into the room breathless and invigorated from the cold, already Kethy was hidden in his corner, remote and downlooking. Among so many other individuals, Kethy might be ignored even as the instructor was sharply aware of him; his searching eyes. She knew he would be struck by her hair. The thick braid between her shoulder blades, suddenly missing.

  Now it was late February in this snowswept Midwestern city and the winter term was beginning to wear. Flu was locally rampant; nine students were absent. Erma had looked forward to teaching Zora Neale Hurston’s self-portrait “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”—a choice she assumed would meet with enthusiasm since it was zestfully written yet a serious glimpse into the soul of a brilliant black woman writer; but to her surprise and chagrin, Reverend E. G. Eldridge loudly objected on the grounds of Hurston’s “mocking tone” and “ignorance of the place of Jesus Christ” in the lives of black Americans. In turn, others objected to the reverend’s bold, blustery statements. Students who’d been silent all term joined in. But Eldridge dominated, clearly accustomed to being the authority in any gathering. Erma found herself in the instructor’s perilous position of disagreeing strongly with a student yet wanting to respect his opinion and wishing to be, or to appear to be, neutral. As others, mostly women, black and Caucasian, defended Hurston, and the Reverend and a few others attacked her, Erma stood uncertainly before them, no longer in control. She might have been observing, from a few yards away, a suddenly raging brushfire. When a black woman said to Eldridge with withering scorn, “This Hurston a genius, man, and you a sorry asshole,” Erma was shocked, stammering, “Oh, Lorett! That isn’t very—polite.” Eldridge shot back, baring his teeth in fury, “You, woman, are just plain ig-nor-ant.” Erma said, trying to regain their attention, “Mr. Eldridge, please—” Eldridge turned to the young woman instructor to whom, for weeks, he’d been excessively courteous, his usually benign face creased with disdain, “Ma’am! Ex-cuse me! You are not qualified to speak on this subject!”