Read Online A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page A

ducked, and stumbled away, terrified of the silence he and Rafe were caught in and by the fact that Rafe did not seem to understand what it meant. That whirring, whipping thing! Carleton had his knife out, and as Rafe moved at him Carleton ducked beneath his arm like Dempsey bending his knees to crouch and spring at the giant Jess Willard sinking the blade high into his chest, where it skidded against bone.
    “Now you lemme alone! Fucker.”
    Carleton's voice was raw and pleading. Make a man plead like this, with strangers to witness, you'd be making a man goddamned mad and that could be a mistake.
    Carleton's heels made crunching noises in the cinders. Gnats were stuck to his forehead, eyelids. His lips. The blade had gone in, Carleton knew that, but Rafe did not yet know it. Eyes watching them closely and the silence sharper than before even the females' tittering had ceased. Rafe moaned, turned and swung, whatever-itwas he'd gripped with both hands struck Carleton's shoulder and numbed him but in the same instant Carleton turned, switched his knife to his other hand bringing it up from his knee, frantic to make a hit, catching Rafe in the thigh in a long tearing cut. This time Rafe yelped with pain. “Now you stop! Fucker”—Carleton heard himselfpanting, begging. The thing in Rafe's hand fell to the ground. Rafe rushed at Carleton and seized him in his arms. Muttering in Carleton's ear like he was trying to explain something to his friend not wanting the others to hear. Yet gripping Carleton hard, staggering against him so Carleton had no choice but to slash at him with the knife. He felt the sharp slender blade cutting in, catching cloth and tearing, rising, sinking, and still Rafe didn't release him. Rafe clutched at him drawing breath in long languorous-sounding shudders and Carleton began to sob trying to work himself loose, he slashed the slippery blade now across the back of Rafe's neck where the flesh is tender, where his own flesh burned and pulsed with a mysterious skin rash, and Rafe grabbed Carleton's head with both his hands, his thumbs in Carleton's eyes wanting to gouge out his eyes and Carleton was the one yelping now
Stop, stop!
and the groping knife blade plunged and sank another time striking bone, and striking through bone, stabbing, plunging, meeting no resistance now against the falling man's broad, bent back so it appeared that Carleton might be striking his friend with only his hand, his fist, in a gesture of brotherly affection. And at last Rafe released him, and fell.
    Carleton jumped craftily back. His muscles thrummed with energy. He saw his friend writhing on the cinders, bleeding from a dozen wounds Carleton would believe to be flesh wounds, glancing blows he'd made in self-defense like you'd slash at a vicious dog with a tree limb whipping the limb back and forth, only just flesh wounds yet the man was making a high-pitched moaning sound hugging his bleeding belly, his belly Carleton would swear he'd never touched. Carleton cried in triumph, “Call me a hillbilly! Nobody better call me a hillbilly, a Walpole ain't no hillbilly white trash!” It pissed him how Rafe was pretending to be hurt bad, swaying the judgment of witnesses, Carleton slammed his fist down hard on the top of Rafe's head the way you'd pound a table, and Rafe's head thudded against the ground, and Carleton was crouched over him shouting up at the faces, “See? Y'all see how a Walpole exacts justice.” And there came a roaring in Carleton's ears like a sudden wind blowing south and east out of the Cumberlands blowing up a fierce hail-spitting storm so in even this moment of triumphCarleton Walpole is being made to wonder will he ever get to where it's quiet, ever again.

4
    South Carolina:
spring. A woman in a dark dress stood in the entranceway and waited until everyone passed by and settled inside. It was hot. The schoolroom smelled of something nice—wood and chalk and something Clara did not recognize. The woman