Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates

Khan. Our own war criminal politicians. Quite right.”
    “Haider isn’t a Hitler or a Genghis Khan. She’s a lonely old woman who imagines she’s a writer. She may be permanently disabled, after her stroke. I just don’t want to make things more desperate for her, it was enough to win the case.”
    “Very well, Andrew. We’ll let it go. For now, at least.”
    “I don’t want this to continue any longer, please. I’d be terribly ashamed if anyone knew we were persecuting this woman. I don’t intend to give ‘C. W. Haider’ another thought.”
    “Good! It’s rare that the object of a lawsuit is so generous, but ‘Andrew J. Rush’ is obviously not an ordinary man. Can you promise not to contact her, at least? In the hospital or at home?”
    “Of course! I have no reason to contact her.”
    “You’ve told me already that you did contact her, by phone.”
    “That was to appeal to her, to drop the complaint. I don’t have any reason to contact her again.”
    “Well—you might imagine that you could convince her you’re ‘innocent.’ You don’t seem to realize that ‘innocence’ isn’t the point in the law—it’s what the law determines that establishes ‘innocence’ or ‘guilt.’ Whether you stole every one of your twenty-eight novels from C. W. Haider’s shelf of manuscripts, or not a single line, doesn’t matter; it’s only what the judge has ruled that matters. What other people, like the litigious C. W. Haider, might think is of zero significance.”
    This was damned insulting but I forced myself to murmur in assent.
    “Maybe we’ll speak again. I hate to leave it like this. As a professional, I think my advice is valuable to my client—it isn’t just a matter of sentiment. At least, promise me that you’ll steer clear of the woman.”
    “Of course, I won’t. I mean—I won’t try to contact her.”
    “And if she harasses you again, call me immediately.”
    “Yes.”
    “D’you promise? You will cell me immediately, if she gives you trouble again.”
    “Yes. I will call you immediately.”
    “And what I’ll do, Andrew, is hit her with all I’ve got. No more Mr. Nice Guy, eh? We will bury her .”
    That night I was in bed fairly by midnight. Too exhausted even to take up my pen and yellow legal pad and sit sipping whiskey at the battered little table immersed in the seductive prose of Jack of Spades.
    But I slept only intermittently. Sighing, and squirming, like a great fish caught in a net.
    And who is wielding the net?

13 Immunity
    You have immunity now.
    No one will believe the witch if she accuses you.
    Frequently Jack of Spades teased.
    Frequently Jack of Spades taunted.
    In the interstices of my “own” life—my writing-life as Andrew J. Rush—the sibilant words sounded like leaking gas.
    Especially in my attractive study built above the old stable. In what had been my place of refuge I felt vulnerable, edgy.
    Anything you wish to do, C.W. is your target.
    See what is before your eyes! The most delicious challenge.
    “I have absolutely no interest in C. W. Haider. I am not even going to make inquiries about her health.”
    This was so. This was my resolve.
    In the weeks following the summons, and the hearing. In the weeks following the collapse in the courtroom. The screams.
    Jus-tice!
    Yet it seemed that my work was not going well. The meticulous twenty-page outline of Criss-Cross suddenly did not make sense. Much of my work-time was spent listlessly rereading, revising. Before the summons, I had been at approximately page 120 of the novel but now, with daily corrosion, I had barely half that much that I could bear to read.
    All that I’d labored diligently at, through the crisis, now rang hollow in my ears. My prose, mocked by the wild-white-haired woman in the courtroom, was revealed as flat and unconvincing. My “characters” whom I had, I’d thought, lovingly created, and whose pencil-drawn likenesses were tacked to the corkboard beside my table, seemed