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Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
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experience it. But to feel it is to be scared & happy at once & to know that nothing matters but that you do what you want to do & what you do you are . & I knew I was moving into the future. There is no PAST anybody can get to, to alter things or even to know what those things were but there is definitely a future, we are already in it.
How, Things Play Out
31
My name for him was SQUIRREL. That was my secret name & the name you may know of him is something else.
Q__ P__ did not mean for such to happen. SQUIRREL was not a wise choice of a specimen. I knew that, & have always known. I was resolute (how many times I have instructed myself!) SUCH WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Anyone with a family to care about him, Caucasian & suburban & living in Dale Springs!
Grandma is to blame for much of it. She would be hurt to know but that is so. Of course, not Q__ P__ her only grandson, nor anyone else, would ever disclose such a cruel truth to a woman so old.
Maybe I am wrong to say it is Grandma’s blame , I think probably it is no one’s. It is superstitious & retro to think in terms of blame, fault, guilt . Last night watching the TV coverage of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter confirmed this. Dad invited me over to the house to watch with them this historic event but I said Thanks Dad, I’ve got too much work to do ( work I am doing for you, Dad was the message) & stayed in my shitty caretaker’s quarters & ate my Hot Italian Sub from Enrico’s & got pissed on a couple of bottles of dago red. They said the explosions on Jupiter were millions of times greater than any manmade explosion on Earth but it was just little black puffs going off on the screen. Flashes & fireballs & plumes of flame. Meteor trails how many millions or billions of miles away colliding with Jupiter’s atmosphere & going off. Fragment Q hit about the time I nodded off.
How is there BLAME in those fireball plumes. If they explode on Jupiter or Earth. If they are fated by the Universe since the beginning of time or manmade. So there is no BLAME in Grandma. I am wrong to be pissed at a woman so old. Who is so good to me.
It was like this. Grandma requested would I drive her to places because she does not drive a car any longer & that was O.K. by me—sometimes. (For Grandma paid me, of course.) Would I drive her to some other old woman’s house, or to visit some pathetic old cripples in some nursing home & wait around for her & drive her back home & that was O.K. If I was free & didn’t have too much caretaker shit to do at the house or homework from Dale Tech. (In fact the semester was over, the courses were ended.) & then Grandma got the idea to hire me for yard work, mow the lawn (which is approximately one half-acre) & trim the hedge & sprinkle fertilizer in the rose beds etc. & that was O.K. in theory. Grandma would pay me $50 to $75 cash for just a few hours’ work & I did not need to be too thorough, she never came out to examine it. An operation for cataracts or something in one or both of her eyes so maybe she couldn’t see too well & I didn’t inquire. Grandma slipped these bills to me saying This is just between you & me, Quentin. Our little secret! meaning not Dad nor the IRS would know.
Maybe Grandma was lonely & that was why. Trying to get me to stay for supper etc. There was another old woman, a widow who was a friend of Grandma’s & sometimes I would drive this other old woman to her home & she would tip me, too. Like a taxi service. In my 1987 Ford van with the American flag decal in the rear window.
32
Even before SQUIRREL it was a season of many plans!—buzzing my head like ideas from outer space! I would wake in my van not knowing where I was in a parking lot of some tavern in some city unrecognizable to me & it’s morning & fierce pounding sunshine in my eyes like spikes—& in a cold calm check the rear of the van, the neatly folded plastic garbage bags & plastic sheets etc., & discover no evidence. Or I would wake in my
How, Things Play Out
31
My name for him was SQUIRREL. That was my secret name & the name you may know of him is something else.
Q__ P__ did not mean for such to happen. SQUIRREL was not a wise choice of a specimen. I knew that, & have always known. I was resolute (how many times I have instructed myself!) SUCH WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Anyone with a family to care about him, Caucasian & suburban & living in Dale Springs!
Grandma is to blame for much of it. She would be hurt to know but that is so. Of course, not Q__ P__ her only grandson, nor anyone else, would ever disclose such a cruel truth to a woman so old.
Maybe I am wrong to say it is Grandma’s blame , I think probably it is no one’s. It is superstitious & retro to think in terms of blame, fault, guilt . Last night watching the TV coverage of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter confirmed this. Dad invited me over to the house to watch with them this historic event but I said Thanks Dad, I’ve got too much work to do ( work I am doing for you, Dad was the message) & stayed in my shitty caretaker’s quarters & ate my Hot Italian Sub from Enrico’s & got pissed on a couple of bottles of dago red. They said the explosions on Jupiter were millions of times greater than any manmade explosion on Earth but it was just little black puffs going off on the screen. Flashes & fireballs & plumes of flame. Meteor trails how many millions or billions of miles away colliding with Jupiter’s atmosphere & going off. Fragment Q hit about the time I nodded off.
How is there BLAME in those fireball plumes. If they explode on Jupiter or Earth. If they are fated by the Universe since the beginning of time or manmade. So there is no BLAME in Grandma. I am wrong to be pissed at a woman so old. Who is so good to me.
It was like this. Grandma requested would I drive her to places because she does not drive a car any longer & that was O.K. by me—sometimes. (For Grandma paid me, of course.) Would I drive her to some other old woman’s house, or to visit some pathetic old cripples in some nursing home & wait around for her & drive her back home & that was O.K. If I was free & didn’t have too much caretaker shit to do at the house or homework from Dale Tech. (In fact the semester was over, the courses were ended.) & then Grandma got the idea to hire me for yard work, mow the lawn (which is approximately one half-acre) & trim the hedge & sprinkle fertilizer in the rose beds etc. & that was O.K. in theory. Grandma would pay me $50 to $75 cash for just a few hours’ work & I did not need to be too thorough, she never came out to examine it. An operation for cataracts or something in one or both of her eyes so maybe she couldn’t see too well & I didn’t inquire. Grandma slipped these bills to me saying This is just between you & me, Quentin. Our little secret! meaning not Dad nor the IRS would know.
Maybe Grandma was lonely & that was why. Trying to get me to stay for supper etc. There was another old woman, a widow who was a friend of Grandma’s & sometimes I would drive this other old woman to her home & she would tip me, too. Like a taxi service. In my 1987 Ford van with the American flag decal in the rear window.
32
Even before SQUIRREL it was a season of many plans!—buzzing my head like ideas from outer space! I would wake in my van not knowing where I was in a parking lot of some tavern in some city unrecognizable to me & it’s morning & fierce pounding sunshine in my eyes like spikes—& in a cold calm check the rear of the van, the neatly folded plastic garbage bags & plastic sheets etc., & discover no evidence. Or I would wake in my
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