Read Online The Rescuer by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
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lost—oh Christ!—money to the boys.
How much, I asked.
Too much, Harvey said.
How much, please tell me.
Harvey flung his arm over his face, shivering and shuddering. He seemed about to speak further to me but then I heard his shallow erratic breathing, indicating that he’d fallen back to sleep.
All that I knew was that the three men had been playing poker and drinking and (just possibly) smoking hashish after Maralena had gone home at midnight and I’d lain on my bed partially undressed, and fell asleep to voices laughing and cursing in the other room.
It is family life almost.
They would not hurt family—would they?
* * *
The situation seemed grave to me. Soon, Leander would come by to collect.
More than a finger-stub. More than a part of an ear.
There was thirteen hundred dollars in my bank account. I would write a check for half this amount, to give to Harvey—if Harvey would promise me he wouldn’t spend it on something else but give it to Leander.
“Of course,” Harvey said eagerly.
“But—you promise? You will give it to Leander?”
Harvey insisted, yes.
I didn’t trust Harvey. But I didn’t think that I had any choice in the matter.
* * *
In my bedroom, which was also my study, we’d listened to music from Maralena’s iPhone. Heated dance music it sounded to me, a Latin beat, rap from the islands Maralena said, the DR where she’d been born and from which she’d been brought—by her mother—at the age of five. Much of what Maralena confided in me I didn’t understand, mesmerized by her rich warm musical voice and by her rich warm fragrant skin, the Maralena eyes, the Maralena nose, the Maralena mouth tasting of wine kissing me, lifting her wineglass to my mouth, urging me to drink, red wine that was nutty-sweet, a dark-nutty-sweetness that numbed the interior of my mouth and the interior of my skull as Maralena kissed my forehead, my nose, my mouth and Maralena kissed the ticklish inside of my neck so that I squirmed breathless and helpless and I was lying on the sofa that Harvey and I had dragged into the room which served now as my bed, badly stained and sagging sofa of a kind you’d see abandoned behind a Dumpster, but over this I’d draped a blanket so you couldn’t see the stains and wear and tear of decades and Maralena was sharp-voiced suddenly wanting to keep me from falling asleep, shaking my shoulders and her talon fingernails sinking into my skin—“You, girl! Lyd-ja! Wake up!”—her voice urgent, alarmed; so that I thought She has fed me something. Some drug but the thought was a frail straw not nearly substantial enough to jolt me into wakefulness.
And there came, later, maybe only a few minutes later, or in the middle of the night, which is not a true “night” in Trenton but a glowering-dark riddled with light like wormholes, and punctuated with sharp percussive noises like the snap! of the soul as it breaks from the writhing body, the boy with the Maori mask-face, the boy with the headdress of greased and pungent-smelling dreadlocks tumbling down his muscled back, and Maralena pushed at him, and he pushed at Maralena, Noooo she was pleading, or maybe she was laughing-pleading, for you don’t say Noooo to Leander, not a serious Noooo and there came a creaking of the sofa springs, and Leander’s rough fingers scrambling down my body like a ravenous rat, and between my legs these fingers were poking, between my helpless legs these hard probing fingers defined themselves grabbing, pinching, squeezing, poking-into; and feebly I tried to detach myself, muttering in my sleep in an extinct language I tried to protest, and Leander grunted swinging his legs onto the sofa, prying my legs apart, and Maralena was faint now at the door or already outside the door calling back over her shoulder Damn ol’ swine, that girl too white for you—you break her li’l white neck asshole you gon regret it.
In the morning my neck ached—my spine, the small of my back, the
How much, I asked.
Too much, Harvey said.
How much, please tell me.
Harvey flung his arm over his face, shivering and shuddering. He seemed about to speak further to me but then I heard his shallow erratic breathing, indicating that he’d fallen back to sleep.
All that I knew was that the three men had been playing poker and drinking and (just possibly) smoking hashish after Maralena had gone home at midnight and I’d lain on my bed partially undressed, and fell asleep to voices laughing and cursing in the other room.
It is family life almost.
They would not hurt family—would they?
* * *
The situation seemed grave to me. Soon, Leander would come by to collect.
More than a finger-stub. More than a part of an ear.
There was thirteen hundred dollars in my bank account. I would write a check for half this amount, to give to Harvey—if Harvey would promise me he wouldn’t spend it on something else but give it to Leander.
“Of course,” Harvey said eagerly.
“But—you promise? You will give it to Leander?”
Harvey insisted, yes.
I didn’t trust Harvey. But I didn’t think that I had any choice in the matter.
* * *
In my bedroom, which was also my study, we’d listened to music from Maralena’s iPhone. Heated dance music it sounded to me, a Latin beat, rap from the islands Maralena said, the DR where she’d been born and from which she’d been brought—by her mother—at the age of five. Much of what Maralena confided in me I didn’t understand, mesmerized by her rich warm musical voice and by her rich warm fragrant skin, the Maralena eyes, the Maralena nose, the Maralena mouth tasting of wine kissing me, lifting her wineglass to my mouth, urging me to drink, red wine that was nutty-sweet, a dark-nutty-sweetness that numbed the interior of my mouth and the interior of my skull as Maralena kissed my forehead, my nose, my mouth and Maralena kissed the ticklish inside of my neck so that I squirmed breathless and helpless and I was lying on the sofa that Harvey and I had dragged into the room which served now as my bed, badly stained and sagging sofa of a kind you’d see abandoned behind a Dumpster, but over this I’d draped a blanket so you couldn’t see the stains and wear and tear of decades and Maralena was sharp-voiced suddenly wanting to keep me from falling asleep, shaking my shoulders and her talon fingernails sinking into my skin—“You, girl! Lyd-ja! Wake up!”—her voice urgent, alarmed; so that I thought She has fed me something. Some drug but the thought was a frail straw not nearly substantial enough to jolt me into wakefulness.
And there came, later, maybe only a few minutes later, or in the middle of the night, which is not a true “night” in Trenton but a glowering-dark riddled with light like wormholes, and punctuated with sharp percussive noises like the snap! of the soul as it breaks from the writhing body, the boy with the Maori mask-face, the boy with the headdress of greased and pungent-smelling dreadlocks tumbling down his muscled back, and Maralena pushed at him, and he pushed at Maralena, Noooo she was pleading, or maybe she was laughing-pleading, for you don’t say Noooo to Leander, not a serious Noooo and there came a creaking of the sofa springs, and Leander’s rough fingers scrambling down my body like a ravenous rat, and between my legs these fingers were poking, between my helpless legs these hard probing fingers defined themselves grabbing, pinching, squeezing, poking-into; and feebly I tried to detach myself, muttering in my sleep in an extinct language I tried to protest, and Leander grunted swinging his legs onto the sofa, prying my legs apart, and Maralena was faint now at the door or already outside the door calling back over her shoulder Damn ol’ swine, that girl too white for you—you break her li’l white neck asshole you gon regret it.
In the morning my neck ached—my spine, the small of my back, the
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