High Crime Area by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

the window. Freaky Jethro. Sick perv. Fag.
    In the place they are living now, row house on Mill Street he’s pressing his knuckly hands against his ears not hearing his drunk Mama shouting why is he home so early, has a job in a lumber yard five-minute walk away so why isn’t he there? Pushes past the drunk fat woman and into the bathroom, shuts the door and there in the mirror Oh God it has returned: five-sided star, pentagram . Unmistakable sign of Satan. Embedded deep in the right eyeball below the dilated pupil.
    No! No! God help.
    Goes wild, rubs with both fists, pokes with fingers. He’s sobbing, praying. Beats at himself, fists and nails. His sister now pounding on the door what is it? What’s wrong? Jeth? And Mama’s voice loud and frightened. It has happened, he thinks. First clear thought Has happened, now everyone will see. Like a stone sinking in water, so clear and so calm. Because he has always known the prayers were useless. On your knees bowing your head inviting Jesus into your heart but why should Jesus come into your heart that’s so freaky-ugly, and the heart of a fag? Sign of the demon would return, absorbed into his blood but must one day re-emerge.
    Pushes past the women and in the kitchen paws through drawers scattering cutlery that falls to the floor, there’s the long carving knife, his fingers shut about it like fate. Again pushes past the women without taking notice of them, shoves aside his heavyset sister as lightly as he lifts lumber, armloads of bricks. Hasn’t he prayed to Our Father to be perfect as a machine, many times? A machine does not think, and a machine does not feel. A machine does not starve for love. A machine does.
    Inside the bathroom and the door shut and locked behind him against the screaming women. Whispering to the frightened face in the mirror Away Satan! Away Satan! Jesus help me . Steadying his right wrist with the fingers of his left hand, in the fingers of his right hand gripping the carving knife, bringing it to the eyeball, unable to resist wincing, blinking, jerking away with a whimper—but again forcing himself to bring the tip of the knife to the eyeball, and with a boldness borne of desperation inserting and twisting the accursed eyeball. Yes! Now! It is in . Pain so colossal it could not be measured—like the sky. Burning cleansing roaring sensation as of utter surprise, astonishment. A blast of fire. The eyeball is not easy to dislodge, it is connected by sinewy tissue to the interior of the socket, he must pull at it with his bloody fingers, moaning, not knowing that it is he who is moaning, sawing with the sharper edge of the knife. Manages to cut the eyeball free, like Mama squeezing baby out of her belly into this pig trough of sin and filth and defilement, no turning back until Jesus calls you home.
    He drops the eyeball into the stained toilet, flushes the toilet with shaky slippery-excited fingers. And the sign of the demon is gone .
    One eye socket empty and fresh-bleeding like tears and he is on his knees praying Thank you God! Thank you Jesus! weeping with joy as angels in radiant garments with eyes of blinding brightness reach down to embrace him not mindful of his red-slippery mask of a face and not mindful that he is freaky, a perv or a fag, for he is none of these now, now he is himself an angel of God, now he will float into the sky above the Earth where, some wind-blustery January morning you will see him, or a face like his, in a furious cloud.

Lorelei
    Please love me my eyes beg. My need is so raw, I can’t blame any of you from looking quickly away.
    Not you, not you, and you—none of you can I blame. Only just love me, can’t you? Love me ...
    That Sunday night, desperate not to be late, I had to change trains at Times Square, and the subway was jammed, both trains crowded, always I knew it would happen soon, my destiny would happen within the hour, except: it was required that I be at the