Black Water

by Joyce Carol Oates

  for the Kellys—

  THE RENTED TOYOTA, DRIVEN WITH SUCH IMPATIENT exuberance by The Senator, was speeding along the unpaved unnamed road, taking the turns in giddy skidding slides, and then, with no warning, somehow the car had gone off the road and had overturned in black rushing water, listing to its passenger's side, rapidly sinking.

  Am I going to die?—like this?

  IT WAS THE EVENING OF THE FOURTH OF JULY. ELSEwhere on Grayling Island, along the northern shore in particular, there were parties, strings of cars parked along the narrow sandy roads leading to the beaches. Later, when it was sufficiently night, there would be fireworks, some of the displays lavish and explosive in brilliant Technicolor like the TV war in the Persian Gulf.

  They were in a desolate unpopulated part of the Island, they were very possibly lost. She was framing her mouth, summoning her courage, to say the word lost.

  As with the condom she'd been carrying in her purse for, how long. Her kidskin bag, and now her pretty floral-patterned Laura Ashley summer bag. In fact she'd carried it, the identical item, in an earlier bag as well—that big rakish straw bag with the red leather trim that finally fell to pieces she'd had it so long. The condom was neatly and tightly wrapped, it had a chaste pharmaceutical scent, it took up little space. Not once in these many months had she so much as touched it, preparatory to revealing it, preparatory to suggesting to whoever it was, whichever man, friend or professional acquaintance or near-stranger, that he use it, or even contemplate using it. You were prepared for any emergency but finally you could not speak, there were no words.

  They were somewhere in the marshlands of Grayling Island, Maine, a twenty-minute ferry ride from Boothbay Harbor to the northwest. They had been talking companionably together, and they had been laughing easily together, like old friends, like the most casual of old friends, and Kelly was trying discreetly to steady The Senator's hand so that the remains of his vodka-and-tonic wouldn't splash over the rim of the plastic cup he held as he drove, and then, suddenly, as in a film when spasms like hiccups begin and the picture flies out of the frame, so suddenly, she would never comprehend how suddenly, the road flew out from beneath the rushing car and they were struggling for their lives sinking in black water splashing across the windshield seeking entry as if the dreamlike swampland on all sides had come now alive reaching up to devour them.

  Am I going to die?—like this?

  BUFFY HAD BEEN HURT OR HAD SEEMED SO. WITH Buffy, so much was display, you never knew. Saying to Kelly Kelleher, Yes but why leave now, can't you leave a little later?—and Kelly Kelleher mumbled something vague and embarrassed unable to say, Because he wants me to: he insists.

  Unable to say, Because if I don't do as he asks there won't be any later. You know that.

  ON ALL SIDES A POWERFUL BRACKISH MARSHLAND odor, the odor of damp, and decay, and black earth, black water. The chill fresh stinging smell of the Atlantic seemed remote here, like memory, borne inland in thin gusts by an easterly wind. And no sound of the waves, here. Only the nocturnal insects. The wind in the stunted vine-laden trees.

  Gripping the strap of the shoulder safety-harness Kelly Kelleher who was not drunk smiled thinking, How strange to be here yet not know where here is.

  They were hurrying to get to the ferry in Brockden's Landing, which would be leaving for the mainland at 8:20 P.M. It was approximately 8:15 P.M. when the rented Toyota unobserved by any witness plunged into the water—the creek? stream? river?—which neither The Senator nor his passenger Kelly Kelleher had known might be there at the apogee of a hairpin curve.

  Approximately thirty feet ahead, unsighted too, was a narrow wooden bridge of badly weathered planks; but there had been no warning sign of a bridge, still less of the dangerous curve preceding the bridge.

  Not now. Not like this.

  She was twenty-six years eight months old too young to die thus too astonished, too disbelieving, to scream as the Toyota flew off the road and struck the surface of the near-invisible water as if for an instant it might not sink but float: as if the trajectory of its flight might carry it, the very weight of it, across the water and into the snaky tangle of rushes and stunted trees and vines on the farther shore.

  You would expect water in such a place to be shallow, just a ditch. You would expect the guardrail to be more substantial. You would not expect to be, so suddenly so rudely so helplessly, in the water black as muck and smelling of raw sewage.

  Not like this. No.

  She was astonished, and she was disbelieving, and it may have been that The Senator too shared this reaction, for the Fourth of July on Grayling Island at Buffy St. John's parents' place had been celebratory and careless and marked by a good deal of laughter and spirited conversation and innocent excited anticipation of the future (both the immediate and the distant future—for, surely, one determines the other), thus it was virtually impossible to comprehend how its tone might change so abruptly.

  Several times in her life Kelly Kelleher had experienced accidents of a similar abrupt and confusing nature and each time she had been rendered incapable of screaming and each time from the first instant of realizing herself out of control, the fate of her physical body out of the control of her brain, she had had no coherent perception of what in fact was happening.

  For at such moments time accelerates. Near the point of impact, time accelerates to the speed of light.

  Patches of amnesia like white paint spilling into her brain.

  SHE HEARD, AS THE TOYOTA SMASHED INTO A GUARD-rail that, rusted to lacework, appeared to give way without retarding the car's speed at all, The Senator's single startled expletive—"Hey!"

  And then the water out of nowhere flooding over them.Over the hood of the car. Over the cracked windshield. Churning in roiling waves as if alive, and angry.

  AT BROWN UNIVERSITY, WHERE SHE HAD GRADUATED summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in American Studies, Kelly Kelleher, baptismal name Elizabeth Anne Kelleher, had written her ninety-page senior honor's thesis on The Senator.

  Its subtitle was "Jeffersonian Idealism and 'New Deal' Pragmatism: Liberal Strategies in Crisis."

  She had worked very hard: researching The Senator's three campaigns for the Senate, his career in the Senate, his influence within the Democratic Party and the likelihood of his being nominated as his party's candidate for president, and for her effort she had received a grade of A... Kelly Kelleher's undergraduate grades in her major were usually A's... and nearly a page of handwritten commentary and praise from her advisor.

  This had been five years ago. When she'd been young.

  Meeting The Senator that afternoon, her small-boned hand so vigorously shaken in his big gregarious hand, Kelly instructed herself, Do not bring the subject up.

  And so she had not. Until much later.

  When, things having developed so rapidly as they had, it would have been to no purpose not to.

  Scorpio for the month of July, she, Buffy, and Stacey had read giggling in the new Glamour the night before: Too much caution in revealing your impulses and desires to others! For once demand YOUR wishes and get YOUR own way! Your stars are wildly romantic now, Scorpio, after a period of disappointment—GO FOR IT!

  Poor Scorpio, so easily bruised. So easily dissuaded.

  That sullen haughty look that so annoyed Artie Kelleher, the father: that inward-gnawing look that so worried Madelyn Kelleher, the mother. Yes I love you please will you let me alone?

  Poor Scorpio, twenty-six years eight months old, yet susceptible, still, to adolescent skin problems! The ignominy of it, the rage. Her thin fair skin that was too thin, too fair. Those mysterious hives, rashes. Allergies inflaming her eyes. Yes and acne, near-invisible but gritty little pimples at her hairline...

  When her lo
ver had loved her she'd been beautiful. When she'd been beautiful her lover had loved her. It was a simple proposition, a seemingly tautological proposition, yet it resisted full comprehension.

  So, she would not try to comprehend it. She would embark upon a new life a new adventure a wildly romantic adventure, reckless Scorpio.

  KELLY KELLEHER HAD TACTFULLY SUGGESTED THAT The Senator turn on the Toyota's headlights, and now as they made their way deeper into the marshland following what appeared to be an abandoned secondary road the headlights bounced and careened with the car's speed since The Senator, impatient, muttering under his breath, was driving erratically swinging the car along the bumpy road not minding how the remains of his vodka-and-tonic splashed over the rim of the plastic cup, onto the seat and onto Kelly Kelleher's thigh, the cotton-knit fabric of her new summer shift. The Senator was what is known as an aggressive driver and his adversary was the road, the gathering dusk, the distance between himself and his destination, and the rapidly shrinking quantity of time he had to get to that destination, pressing down hard and petulant on the gas pedal bringing the car's speed up to forty miles an hour, and then hitting the brakes going into a turn, and then pressing down hard on the gas pedal again so that the car's tires protested faintly spinning before taking hold in the sandy glutinous soil, and then hitting the brakes again. The giddy rocking motion of the car was like hiccups, or copulation.

  The way, Kelly uneasily recalled, her father had sometimes driven after one of his and her mother's mysterious disagreements the more mysterious and the more disturbing in Kelly's memory for being wordless.

  Don't ask. Sit up straight. It's fine. It's all right. You know you're someone's little girl don't you?

  They would have a late dinner at the motel. Room service—of course. Impossible to risk the dining room. Any restaurant in Boothbay Harbor at the height of the tourist season.

  She was not apprehensive, and she did not think, when the time came, she would be frightened. But she was alert. Sober. Memorizing the adventure.

  How the headlights in wild drunken swings illuminated the road that was scarcely wide enough for a single car and illuminated with a beauty that made her stare the swamp water in sheets outspread for miles on every side like bright shards of mirror amid the tangled vegetation.

  At dusk, inland, darkness rose from the earth even as the sky retained light. There was a pale-glowering moon flat as a coin. Dyed-looking shreds of reddened cloud in the western sky and in the east at the ocean's horizon a sky shading subtly to night, bruised as an overripe plum.

  Thinking, Lost.

  Thinking, An adventure.

  Thinking coolly even as her teeth rattled in her head as the man beside her braked the car, accelerated, braked, braked harder and accelerated harder, that she was not frightened, what she felt was excitement: that adrenaline-charge: as, on the beach, earlier that day, she'd felt the urgency of a man's desire, and vowed to herself, No I will not.

  Even as that sly tickle of a thought ran through her head, Yes why not?

  Poor Scorpio.Cunning Scorpio.

  Thinking of how it had been chance, this Fourth of July on Grayling Island. She'd had other invitations. She hadn't been desperate for invitations for the long weekend. But she had decided to accept Buffy's invitation, and now she was here, now she was here, seated close beside The Senator on this wild wild ride to the ferry at Brockden's Landing, unsure where here was as night came on.

  You're an American girl, you deserve to make YOUR wishes known and to have YOUR own way once in a while.

  Just before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher wrinkled her nose smelling... was it raw sewage?

  Just before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher saw that she was gripping the strap at her shoulder so hard, her knuckles had gone white.

  Just before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher at last said, as tactfully as possible, raising her voice without seeming to raise it—for The Senator seemed slightly hard of hearing in his right ear, "I think we're lost, Senator."

  As a little girl Kelly had once spoken loudly to an uncle of hers when the family was seated at Thanksgiving dinner, and though Uncle Babcock was forever asking others to repeat themselves, and was forever complaining of people mumbling, he'd taken offense at Kelly's raised voice. Staring coldly at her saying, "Miss, you don't need to shout: I'm not deaf."

  So too perhaps she had offended The Senator, who did not reply, sipping clumsily from his plastic cup and wiping his mouth on the back of his sunburnt hand and peering straight ahead, as if, unlike Kelly Kelleher, he could see through the shadowy swamp-thicket to the ocean that could not possibly be more than a few miles away.

  And then The Senator said, a chuckle deep in his throat like phlegm, "This is a shortcut, Kelly. There's only one direction and we can't be lost."

  "Yes," said Kelly, very carefully very tactfully, licking her lips which were parched, staring ahead too but seeing nothing except the headlights illuminating the tunnel of road, vegetation, mirror-shards glittering out of the shadows, "—but the road is so poor."

  "Because it's a shortcut, Kelly. I'm sure."

  Kelly!—her heart tripped absurdly, her face went hot, hearing her name, that name given her by schoolgirl friends, on this man's lips. So casually so intimately on this man's lips as if he knows me, feels affection for me.

  Just before the car flew off the road.

  KELLY-, A NAME THAT SUITS YOU.

  Yes? Why?—her hair whipping in the wind.

  Green eyes?—they are green aren't they?

  How tall he was, how physical his presence. And that dimpled grin, the big chunky white teeth. He made a playful swipe at lifting Kelly Kelleher's dark sunglasses to squint at her eyes and, adroitly, Kelly fell in with the gesture lifting the glasses herself meeting his frank examining gaze (blue: the blue of washed glass) but only for a moment.

  And his grin wavered, just perceptibly. As if, for that moment, he was doubting himself: his manly power.

  Murmuring, as if in apology, even as, by so doing, he was flattering Kelly the more, Yes, green—lovely.

  In fact Kelly Kelleher's eyes were rather more gray than green: pebble-colored, she thought them. Of no distinction except they were wide-spaced, large, attractive, "normal." But the lashes so pale, brittle, thin. Unless she used mascara, which she disliked, the lashes were scarcely visible.

  In fact Kelly Kelleher's eyes had once been a source of great vexation and anguish to her parents, thus to her. Until the operation when things were set right.

  From birth, Kelly had had an imbalance in her eye muscles, the name for the defect (you could not escape the fact, it was a defect) strabismus, meaning that, in Kelly's case, the muscles of the left were weaker than the muscles of the right. Unknowing, then, the child had been seeing for the first two confused years of her life not a single image registered in her brain as normal people do but two images (each further confused by a multiplicity of details) unharmoniously and always unpredictably overlapping, the left-eye image often floating about, un-moored; so instinctively the child compensated by focusing upon the stronger right-eye image, thus the left eye wandered the more like a minnow in the eyeball until it seemed (to the anxious elder Kellehers, Artie and Madelyn poor Daddy and Mommy peering into their baby's eyes repeatedly for the first twenty-four months of her life, waggling fingers in front of her nose asking questions trying to keep the worry, the alarm, at times the impatience out of their voices—poor Daddy especially for "abnormalities" really upset him, no doubt it was a family trait, laughingly defensively acknowledged: an emphasis upon physical health, physical well-being and attractiveness, normality) that Kelly was impishly and stubbornly gazing at all times to the left, over your head, beyond your range of vision, even as, with her "good" right eye she was looking you direct in the face as requested.

  One of the doctors said exercise, a strict regimen, another of the doctors said an operation as soon as possible, in some cases the child doesn't out
grow it and in the interim the weaker eye may become permanently atrophied, and Mommy and Grandma Ross (Mommy's mommy) wanted the exercises, give the exercises a chance, and there was a nice therapist, a young woman, wearing eyeglasses herself optimistic about correcting Kelly's problem but weeks passed, months, Daddy could scarcely bear to look at his darling little girl sometimes, he loved her so, wanted to spare her hurt, harm, any sort of discomfort, and what irony, Artie Kelleher complained, laughing, angry, throwing his arms open wide as if to invite, as in a TV program the talk-show host so invites, an audience of anonymous millions to share in his bemusement, yes in his resentment too, his bafflement—what irony, things are going boom! boom! boom! in my business, like riding an escalator to the top floor, expansive-economy times these early years of the 1960s in building, construction, investments, you name it it's going up, what irony, my business life is absolutely great and my private life, my life-at-home—I can't control!

  Speaking reasonably trying not to raise his voice (for, sometimes, Kelly was within earshot) so Mommy tried to respond in the same way though her voice trembling, hands trembling, you would not notice perhaps except for the beauty of her hands and her rings: the diamond cluster, the jade in its antique gold setting: as Daddy pointed out he was simply looking ahead, suppose the exercises don't work, it certainly doesn't seem that the exercises are working does it, all right use your imagination Madelyn look ahead to when she goes to school, you know damned well the other kids will tease her, they'll think she's a freak or something, do you want that? is that what you want? so Mommy burst into tears, No! no! of course not! no! why do you say such things to me!

  So one day, it was a weekday but Artie Kelleher took the morning off, the elder Kellehers drove their little girl into the city, a forty-minute trip from the suburban village of Gowanda Heights, Westchester County, New York, and there in Beth Israel Hospital on leafy East End Avenue, there, at last, Elizabeth Anne Kelleher's "bad" eye was corrected by surgery, and recovery was swift, if not precisely painless as promised; and forever afterward the eye, the eyes, the girl, were, as all outer signs indicated, normal.