JOYCE CAROL OATES
him? Is he interested in my stillness,
Vince who is so busy with mouth and
hands? I am twenty-five years old but
I have not accumulated twenty-five
years. . . . There is nothing in me. No
years. My life is like a story being told
by a camera, on a screen, with my face
in th·e center, a story that keeps renew–
ing itself in episodes, but which does
not add up. There is no story-line, no
progress. And the heroine does not get
older. She never changes because, in–
side her, there is nothing - it has been
scooped out to prepare her for a sickness
of her own, yet even that sickness eludes
her.
1969
I come to visit her, out of breath–
the visiting hour on Wednesday evening
- it
is already seven-thirty! I am going
to demand tonight that she tell me the
truth. Earlier today Vince walked with
me around the Fisher Center, around
the parking lots, past the General Mo–
tors Building and the expensive res–
taurants, the two of us walking, him
bent toward me to explain the world
as he must explain it to peopIe, again
and again. Does he hate his wife now,
because he has finished his explanation
of the world to her? She knows every–
thing about him. She is forty-three years
old, a good-looking woman, no fool. But
she knows all
his
jokes. She could finish
his sentences for him,
his
mannerisms
are as familiar to her as her own . . .
perhaps they are her own. She is al-
