Read Online Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Man-Woman Relationships, Young Women, Legislators, Traffic accidents, Drowning Victims
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is precious.
And
so it was a matter of her strength, her will. The
concentration of her soul. Not to give in. Not to weaken. The black
water was rising by choppy degrees to splash over her chin, her mouth, but If I can keep my head up it was a matter of knowing what to
do and doing it.
Why
had she hesitated to say they were lost, why hadn't she told him to turn the
car around, to reverse their course, oh please!—but she had not dared offend
him.
The
black water was her fault, she knew. You just don't want to offend them. Even the nice ones.
He was nice. Even knowing they were so closely watching,
memorizing him, certain of his remarks, his jokes. The way, in the spontaneous
heat of a tennis volley, he gripped his jaws tight, bared his teeth.
You come to despise your own words in
your ears... your "celebrity."
And how unexpectedly sweet he'd been to
her. Kelly Kelleher. So radiant and assured
there on the beach, wearing her new glamorously dark sunglasses the lenses
scientifically treated to eliminate ultraviolet rays, and she knew she looked
good, she was not a beautiful girl but sometimes you know, it's your time and
you know, no happiness quite like that happiness.
You're
an American girl: you know.
Yes
she'd gained back a good deal of the weight. No her hair was no longer coming
out in distressing handfuls, it was gleaming again, glossy, her mother would be
relieved. A bitter childish thing to have wished G----- dead but Of course I
don't feel that way any longer, I think of you as a friend.
Still
she had hesitated not wanting to utter aloud the word lost, had her own mother not warned her no man will
tolerate being made a fool of by any woman no matter how truthfully she speaks
no matter how he loves her.
And
then suddenly it was all right: the air bubble had stabilized.
So
strangely shaped, luminous it seemed to her, her blinded eyes, bobbing against
the seats now suspended from the ceiling but it has stopped
leaking away she was certain, she would hold it fast to her
sucking lips sucking like an infant's lips until help came to save her.
Almost sternly, reproachfully he was
saying, "—the Gulf
War has given your generation a tragic idea of war and of diplomacy: the
delusion that war is relatively easy, and diplomacy is war, the most expedient of
options."
And though she was flattered, how could
she fail to be flattered by a famous man addressing her so earnestly, and
paying so little attention to the others, quickly she said, "There is no
such thing as 'my' generation, Senator. We're divided by race, class, education,
politics—even sexual self-definition. The only thing that links us is
our—separateness."
The
Senator considered this remark, thoughtfully.
The
Senator nodded, thoughtfully. And smiled.
"Well,
then! I stand corrected, eh?"
Smiling at her. Frankly staring. What was the girl's name?—it was
clear to all that indeed The Senator was impressed with the attractive
articulate friend of the girl with whom Ray Annick was currently sleeping.
And
how raw and beautiful this northern shore of Grayling Island—the smell of the
salt air, the bright fresh open ocean, the saw-toothed and precipitous
white-capped waves so beautiful this world you want to sink your teeth into it,
thrust yourself up to the hilt in it, oh Christ.
Kelly, kelly ! —she heard her name being called from above, Kelly! now on all
sides of her, loud, jarring, her name rippling through the black water.
Here,
I'm here. Here.
As the water splashed and churned about
her mouth, foul-tasting water not water, like no water she knew. But she was
holding her head as high as she could, her neck trembling with the effort. She
had pushed her face, her mouth, into a pocket of waning air in a space she
could not have named except vaguely to indicate that it was beyond the
passenger's seat of the cap sized vehicle,
beneath the glove compartment?—a space where her knees had been when she'd been
sitting. Her knees, her
And
so it was a matter of her strength, her will. The
concentration of her soul. Not to give in. Not to weaken. The black
water was rising by choppy degrees to splash over her chin, her mouth, but If I can keep my head up it was a matter of knowing what to
do and doing it.
Why
had she hesitated to say they were lost, why hadn't she told him to turn the
car around, to reverse their course, oh please!—but she had not dared offend
him.
The
black water was her fault, she knew. You just don't want to offend them. Even the nice ones.
He was nice. Even knowing they were so closely watching,
memorizing him, certain of his remarks, his jokes. The way, in the spontaneous
heat of a tennis volley, he gripped his jaws tight, bared his teeth.
You come to despise your own words in
your ears... your "celebrity."
And how unexpectedly sweet he'd been to
her. Kelly Kelleher. So radiant and assured
there on the beach, wearing her new glamorously dark sunglasses the lenses
scientifically treated to eliminate ultraviolet rays, and she knew she looked
good, she was not a beautiful girl but sometimes you know, it's your time and
you know, no happiness quite like that happiness.
You're
an American girl: you know.
Yes
she'd gained back a good deal of the weight. No her hair was no longer coming
out in distressing handfuls, it was gleaming again, glossy, her mother would be
relieved. A bitter childish thing to have wished G----- dead but Of course I
don't feel that way any longer, I think of you as a friend.
Still
she had hesitated not wanting to utter aloud the word lost, had her own mother not warned her no man will
tolerate being made a fool of by any woman no matter how truthfully she speaks
no matter how he loves her.
And
then suddenly it was all right: the air bubble had stabilized.
So
strangely shaped, luminous it seemed to her, her blinded eyes, bobbing against
the seats now suspended from the ceiling but it has stopped
leaking away she was certain, she would hold it fast to her
sucking lips sucking like an infant's lips until help came to save her.
Almost sternly, reproachfully he was
saying, "—the Gulf
War has given your generation a tragic idea of war and of diplomacy: the
delusion that war is relatively easy, and diplomacy is war, the most expedient of
options."
And though she was flattered, how could
she fail to be flattered by a famous man addressing her so earnestly, and
paying so little attention to the others, quickly she said, "There is no
such thing as 'my' generation, Senator. We're divided by race, class, education,
politics—even sexual self-definition. The only thing that links us is
our—separateness."
The
Senator considered this remark, thoughtfully.
The
Senator nodded, thoughtfully. And smiled.
"Well,
then! I stand corrected, eh?"
Smiling at her. Frankly staring. What was the girl's name?—it was
clear to all that indeed The Senator was impressed with the attractive
articulate friend of the girl with whom Ray Annick was currently sleeping.
And
how raw and beautiful this northern shore of Grayling Island—the smell of the
salt air, the bright fresh open ocean, the saw-toothed and precipitous
white-capped waves so beautiful this world you want to sink your teeth into it,
thrust yourself up to the hilt in it, oh Christ.
Kelly, kelly ! —she heard her name being called from above, Kelly! now on all
sides of her, loud, jarring, her name rippling through the black water.
Here,
I'm here. Here.
As the water splashed and churned about
her mouth, foul-tasting water not water, like no water she knew. But she was
holding her head as high as she could, her neck trembling with the effort. She
had pushed her face, her mouth, into a pocket of waning air in a space she
could not have named except vaguely to indicate that it was beyond the
passenger's seat of the cap sized vehicle,
beneath the glove compartment?—a space where her knees had been when she'd been
sitting. Her knees, her
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