I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  And after class Mrs. Halifax instructed Rickie Swann to please see her after school.

  THAT WAS EARLY November. Their affair would continue for eleven months. As soon as our eyes melted together we knew. We were each helpless in our fate.

  For what Mrs. Halifax saw in Rickie Swann’s face was the old-young eyes of her soul-mate. Her lover. Oh, not the lover—not the lovers—she’d actually had, in her life; not her husband Dwayne Halifax, for sure! What a soul-mate is, is your destiny. In an instant you know. Not that Mrs. Halifax understood what the trauma was, in Rickie Swann’s heart. (One day, he would tell her. He would tell her all his secrets as she would tell him all her secrets, or almost all.) On that November afternoon darkening early with storm clouds and smelling more virulently than usual of sulfurous chemicals there sat Rickie Swann before her, fists jammed into his armpits in the most hostile of boy-postures. His jaws, covered in a soft silvery down, trembled. His eyelids trembled. Mrs. Halifax was inspired to switch off the overhead lights. She was one to dislike fluorescent lights at any time knowing how they cast shadows down upon her girlish face. “You can speak to me, Rickie. Open your heart.” Mrs. Halifax was feeling tender as a fresh sliced-open melon. Spilling seeds, juice. She who’d long hardened her soul against the disillusions of her life as a woman; as, as a young idealistic teacher with an education degree from Rutgers at New Brunswick she’d had to harden her soul against the bureaucracy and stiffling intellectual mediocrity of the East Orange, New Jersey, school district. In the shadows, the walls of the classroom dissolved. The bulletin board, the floating clock face. There was just enough dimming light from the windows to see Rickie Swann staring at her. Mrs. Halifax was beginning to feel faint. Oh, what was happening to her! What was happening to this boy! “There is something locked in your heart, Rickie. You must open it to me. I am your friend…” Her hand reached out boldly to stroke his hair. His limp greasy tattered-looking hair. Her cool fingers stroked his warm forehead. Rickie squirmed, shivered like a frightened animal, swallowed hard. That first touch. A flame between us. Mrs. Halifax was deeply moved, the boy had not shrunk from her. Never had she touched any pupil so intimately in her nine years of teaching and this boy had not shrunk from her. She asked him again what was wrong, urged him to speak his heart to her, and he began to stammer that he was “so afraid”—“something was going to happen soon”—and Mrs. Halifax asked what would happen soon and Rickie said, as if the words were being pulled from him, “Something! Like lightning that can’t be stopped.” Mrs. Halifax moved carefully, as you might move to comfort a shivering German shepherd. She pulled up a chair close beside Rickie Swann, and she framed the boy’s face between her hands, and she looked him in the eyes so close, it was like bringing your own face up against a mirror, seeing your breath steam on the mirror and so close you can’t see yourself but can only feel. Gently she asked, “Who would this happen to, Rickie?” and Rickie shook his head vehemently as if he didn’t know, or if he knew he could not say, and a single tear distinct and pristine as a glittering gem spilled out of his eye and ran slowly down his cheek and Mrs. Halifax not knowing what I did I swear in that instant knowing only that this had happened between us before, in another lifetime long ago stopped the tear with her lips. And all this while the boy was unmoving and now not breathing waiting for what had to be, had to be.

  Following this, things happened swiftly between Mrs. Halifax and Rickie Swann.

  NEVER WOULD HE betray her. Never would he speak a word in corroboration of her felonious behavior. Never would he accuse her, never would he refer to her as other than “Mrs. Halifax”—or, sometimes, more formally, “Mrs. Halifax my teacher.”

  His own guilt, whatever he’d done, he would accept. But not that Mrs. Halifax his teacher had conspired with him to commit it.

  ENTERING THE REAR, kitchen door of her two-story wood-frame and brick home on Cedar Drive, East Orange Mrs. Halifax heard muffled laughter in the TV room. Scarcely daring to breathe she came to the doorway seeing only shifting TV shadows. A hulking silhouette on the Barcalounger. It was nearly 10 P.M. A weekday evening! Mrs. Halifax would tell her husband Dwayne she’d been—where?—at a PTA meeting at the school. Her swollen, pale mouth would insist, yes she’d told him she wouldn’t be home until late, he should order a pizza for himself, wasn’t pizza Dwayne Halifax’s favorite favorite food? It was! Greasy Italian sausage, melted mozzarella cheese in yard-long sticky skeins, inch-thick chewy-dough crust that would set Mrs. Halifax’s sensitive bowels aflame, such was Dwayne Halifax’s favorite food which she was hoping he’d ordered so she’d feel less guilty. Not that she felt guilt for loving Rickie Swann! Never would Mrs. Halifax feel guilt for loving Rickie Swann, her love for the boy was the single pure clean selfless and innocent love of her life. There was only innocence between them. She was preparing to defend her love for Rickie Swann when she heard the moist rattle of snoring. Dear Dwayne had fallen asleep in the recliner. Thank God! As increasingly Dwayne was doing in the evenings since he’d lost his last job and his mysterious health symptoms had emerged. Poor Dwayne who’d once been a tight end on the Rutgers football team, with a head of shaggy curly hair, now nearly bald, pot-bellied and with a strangely shriveling right leg at the age of only thirty-seven, only five years older than Mrs. Halifax but looking at least fifteen years older, almost overnight it seemed Dwayne had become the type of man you might love but wouldn’t be in love with, not if you were a normal very intensely female woman like Mrs. Halifax. Noooooo. Also Dwayne Halifax had been a vigorous alpha-type male in his earlier life but of late he’d become one of that category of left-behind Americans you might say. A high-tech computer whiz straight out of college hired at a six-figure salary then in the mid-1990’s abruptly “downsized” and with no choice but to re-enter the work force on a far lower level of income and distinction, he’d taken a course in real-estate at the local community college and was hired by the region’s largest realtor then again abruptly downsized with plummeting real-estate sales in the wake of a recession, next, still robust and hopeful, vowing not to be discouraged he’d taken first aid, lifesaving and lifeguard training and showing up for his first day as a lifeguard at Jersey City Beach he was met by State of New Jersey health officials armed with documents shutting the beach for reasons of toxic chemical and cloacal bacterial contamination. It was following this new disappointment that Dwayne Halifax began to turn inward upon himself, increasingly brooding and withdrawn, and his right leg began to atrophy as a local doctor tentatively diagnosed, it was possibly the onslaught of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”) or a milder sclerosis, though perversely, and Mrs. Halifax supposed this must be a positive sign, Dwayne’s appetite was wholly unaffected, you should see Dwayne Halifax eat. Well, let him have his pleasures at least. What remained to him. She was smelling pizza-smells, and beer. In her stocking feet, holding her shoes she tiptoed to the snoring, open-mouthed man on the Barcalounger and gave him a breathy kiss on the forehead. Blessed with the love of Rickie Swann, Mrs. Halifax felt a surge of affection for her husband. She would take care not to wake him. Often he slept in the TV room now. Long groggy bouts of sleep, sometimes as many as fourteen hours at a stretch. Not for an instant did it occur to Mrs. Halifax God I hate him, wish he would die die DIE and certainly she did not think The boy will kill him for me, instead she pulled a quilt up over his bulky body and switched off the TV and lights that he might sleep undisturbed through the night. In her loins that still throbbed in the aftermath of passion, staining her black stretch panties was the boy’s silky semen seeping out of her, the hot deep secret core of her being, her eyeballs shuddered in their sockets as on tiptoe she ascended the stairs Oh Ricki-ie. Rick-ie Swann. I love you so.

  “KIDDO. Where the hell’ve you been?”

  At 10 P.M. Mrs. Swann had begun to worry about her son, yes and she was suspicious of the way he pushed past her avoiding her eyes and with his greasy hair swinging in his face like he was hiding behind it, and his
mouth looked swollen and raw (had he been kissing some hot-chick little cunt?) and the scent of his underarms made even her practiced nostrils pinch. Over his shoulder he growled, “Go to hell, Mom. I got homework.”

  Never would Mrs. Swann acknowledge their meeting in the bowling alley. Never would Rickie allude to it. Fuck if he would. Fuck if he gave a fuck about that shit. He didn’t need his scrawny old mom now. He’d learned not only his heart was in the possession of somebody who would never never break it, it had already happened before a thousand years ago. It was, what Mrs. Halifax called it, sacrosanct.

  THOSE MONTHS! Madness.

  They could not keep from each other. They could not bear being apart not knowing exactly where the other was. Mrs. Halifax bought Rickie Swann a cell phone for his (secret) use. In Mrs. Halifax’s fourth-period class Rickie sat now attentively at the rear of the classroom staring at Mrs. Halifax with a look of dreamy stunned boy-desire. Often his mouth grew slack and damp. He loves me. Adores me. Mrs. Halifax made every effort to keep her eyes from drifting onto Rickie Swann for if she allowed herself to acknowledge him she was in danger (she, Mrs. Halifax!) of stammering and blushing and losing her concentration. In Rickie’s proximity she felt a tugging sensation in her body, in her breasts and belly, a sweet helpless slipping-down sensation like the moon’s tide; she had all she could do to keep from moaning aloud in sexual need. Her classroom teasing was less cruel, more noticeably playful. She was looking flushed and youthful and gave off a new lilac fragrance. Never now did she twist her hair into a knot, always she wore it loose and sensuous on her shoulders. To her pupils’ surprise, she even brought them home-baked peanut butter cookies to celebrate Columbus Day: “To honor the fact that the New World yet exists, boys and girls, to be discovered by each and every one of us in our own way.”

  HERE IS A FACT. That first time together in the front seat then the backseat of Mrs. Halifax’s Chevy station wagon immediately the lovers knew they’d kissed before with such eagerness and desperation. Immediately they knew they’d many times declared their love. Clutching at each other in the vehicle parked in the dark-dripping interior of Edison Township Park. “Oh Mrs. Halifax, I—I guess I l-love you,” Rickie Swann stammered, and Mrs. Halifax said, in a swoon of joy, “I love you too, Rickie. My darling!” Mrs. Halifax pressed her cheek against the boy’s head and rocked him in her arms. They were partly unclothed. Where their skins touched, they scalded. Mrs. Halifax was the one to lead. Their damp yearning mouths, hands. Alternately they were shy and emboldened with each other. Almost at once Mrs. Halifax ceased to think of herself as a married woman; she would never again think of herself as Mrs. Dwayne Halifax. Rickie in a paroxysm of need pushed his groin against Mrs. Halifax’s belly. Madness overcame her like warm lava in which she might drown. Kissing the boy, tonguing and stroking him, that beautiful lanky boy-body, the lean stubbled cheeks, hard flat flank of his thighs, and between his legs his boy-penis suddenly quivering and hard and larger in her fingers than she would have expected, and no sooner in her fingers than a violent shudder ran through the boy’s body drawn tight as a bow and he groaned and shook against her and his penis erupted in a silky liquid that made Mrs. Halifax weep, it was so exquisite. The moment so perfect. They would be lovers for the remainder of their lives. Now there is no going back.

  THOSE MONTHS. In Mrs. Halifax’s station wagon. In motels on Route 1. Rarely the same motel twice. Days Inn, Bide-a-Wee, Econo-Lodge, Sleep E Hollow, Holiday Inn (Rahway, Metuchen), Travellers Inn, Best Western. Mrs. Halifax and her teenaged son (Brian/Jason/Troy/ Mark). Only Mrs. Halifax entered the motel lobbies, but her adolescent son was sometimes glimpsed in the parking lot, or in the video arcade, or, if there was an indoor heated pool, there. Once they were safe inside their cozy locked room they luxuriated in lovemaking, Jacuzzi bathing, take-out McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Chinese and Italian food, giant Pepsis (for Rickie) and six-packs of beer (for Mrs. Halifax). In poems Mrs. Halifax would grope to express their happiness. Our souls we surrender. There is no I, no thee. A thousand thousand years ago for all Eternity. Though knowing it was reckless Mrs. Halifax couldn’t resist giving Rickie presents for his fifteenth birthday in January. Music videos of his favorite bands, a Hugo Boss T-shirt, Nike jogging shoes. He’d have to find some way to hide them from his mother’s sharp eyes. (Maybe tell her he’d found money somewhere? A wad of bills, on the sidewalk? He could say it was behind the Shamrock bowling alley, see how Mrs. Swann reacted.)

  Sometimes their lovemaking was so profound, it was almost scary.

  Other times, they tumbled together, breathless and squealing and playful as lascivious puppies.

  This beautiful boy Rickie Swann who might’ve been Mrs. Halifax’s son. But he wasn’t her son and that, Mrs. Halifax knew, was the very best luck. For if he’d been her son he wouldn’t have adored her the way he did. And she couldn’t have adored him, every square centimeter of his perfect boy-body, Even pimples, skin eruptions on his back she kissed. Never did she allow Rickie to say he was ugly, never never. Never that he was stupid, he was not stupid. Both Rickie and Mrs. Halifax were in awe of Rickie’s indefatigable boy-penis, so very different from the pathetic limp skinned-looking penis of Dwayne Halifax Mrs. Halifax shrank from glimpsing by chance with the mortication of self-disgust you feel for an old discredited ridiculous and humiliating crush you’d had for somebody now glimpsed on the street and hardly recognizable, he’s so old.

  On the occasion of Rickie’s fifteenth birthday. In a top-floor suite of the Rahway Hilton. As Mrs. Halifax toweled Rickie dry after their languorous Jacuzzi and restyled his hair in what she called the Elvis look, slicked back from his forehead in a sexy pompadour. There in a careful voice she inquired what birthday presents had he received from Mrs. Swann, and Rickie sniggered, “Are you kidding? Not a goddamn thing.”

  “You don’t mean your mother…forgot? Oh, Rickie.”

  “Think I give a shit, Mrs. Halifax. I don’t.”

  She saw, in the bathroom mirror, that her lover spoke the truth.

  Though sensing that Mrs. Swann was her deadly enemy. And that, one day, well—

  But Mrs. Halifax was determined not to think of that day. Not yet.

  HERE IS A FACT. Rickie was receiving higher grades at school. For Mrs. Halifax tutored him as they lay naked together nuzzling and tickling and kissing and doling out rewards to him for each correct answer he gave. And of course Mrs. Halifax helped him with his homework in all his courses. Sometimes taking his hand in hers and pretending to guide his pen as he wrote. And what came out in Rickie’s large looping handwriting was unexpectedly smart, made sense, and Rickie’s grades in English began to be B-, even B. Mrs. Halifax also tutored him in “deportment”—“winning friends and influencing people.” Her model was ex-President Bill Clinton who could charm the pants off, well—anyone! You smile you make eye contact you speak clearly and never mumble and never never appear sullen or slouch-shouldered. Rickie had to admit, he looked pretty cool when Mrs. Halifax groomed him. The Elvis look plus the Hugo Boss T-shirt and Nike shoes. Rickie had to admit he hadn’t liked himself much, in fact he’d kind of despised himself before falling in love with her. He didn’t tell Mrs. Halifax, though, of his crazy plan to murder his mother with a hammer. Not that it had been an actual plan. Now he had other, better things to think about. Lots better things. So, fuck Lenore Swann. Though that woman scared him sometimes sniffing around him like a dog including even his crotch if he was careless enough to pass by her so he’d push away—“Christ sake, Mom! That’s disgusting.” And Mrs. Swann would say, “There’s some hot high school chick getting into my kid’s pants, I just know it.” But what could Mom prove? Not a thing. She never went to PTA meetings and would never meet Mrs. Halifax. She can’t smell Mrs. Halifax on me after the Jacuzzi so fuck her!

  THE PLAN WAS, they would wait until Rickie was out of school. They would wait until he graduated from high school at least. Then they would elope. He’d be eighteen, a legal age. They would move away to
the Southwest where Rickie’d never been and was dying to go. Lying in their king-sized bed in the Travellers Inn their twenty bare toes wriggling together beneath the sheet as they leafed through U.S. Road Maps: A Scenic Guide marveling at color photos of the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite, Red Rock Canyon, plotting their escape from the prying suffocating world that surrounded them in East Orange, New Jersey. Drifting to sleep in each other’s arms thinking of dogs’ names—Gallant, Greywolf, Duke, Cleopatra—for the greyhounds they hoped to adopt from the dog tracks, and the palomino ponies they hoped to buy at auction to spare these beautiful doomed creatures, as Mrs. Halifax spoke vehemently of them, the slaughter-house.

  God help us. God who has sanctified our love, help us now.

  It was not Mrs. Halifax’s fault! As somehow in the late winter and early spring of the new year, things began to go tragically awry.

  Not Mrs. Halifax’s fault that the driver of an uninsured pickup speeding above the limit at 69 mph in a 55 mph zone lost control of his vehicle and careened across two lanes of traffic on Route 1 in Metuchen to sideswipe her station wagon at dusk of a rainy weekday in March when Mrs. Halifax was driving her lover home after a snatched hour of happiness in the Metuchen Holiday Inn. Lucky for Mrs. Halifax and Rickie they hadn’t been killed in a head-on collision but not so lucky they were so abruptly exposed.

  “Ma’am, this boy is your son, you say?”