Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online

of
them
. He’d never been!
    Daddy Love ceaselessly, ingeniously inventive. Daddy Love had invented the Preacher, for instance.
    The Preacher’s dark garb, with the surprise of the Preacher’s crimson vest and neck-scarf. The Preacher’s grave and gracious manner, the blessing of the Preacher’s fingers, and the Preacher’s joyful smile.
    Daddy Love was younger than the Preacher, for sure. Daddy Love was not so self-regarding and so pious. Daddy Love liked to joke, and the Preacher had never been known to joke.
    Daddy Love considered the Preacher in the way that you might consider an uncle who’s good-hearted and sincere and just not
cool
.
    If women touched the Preacher’s hand, or drew their fingers along his arm, or leaned to him, to smile, to murmur in his ear inviting him to have dinner with them, the Preacher did not quite know how to respond except with a stiff smile. But Daddy Love knew.
    The Preacher was intriguing to Daddy Love, but only for a limited period of time. The Preacher did make money, upon occasion. You could not lock eyes with the Preacher’s gravely kindly gaze and not feel the urge to open your wallet to him for in giving money to the Preacher you are giving money to Jesus Christ Himself—so it seemed. Yet with relief Daddy Love tore off the Preacher’s clothes, folded them and put them away in his trunk, in the rear of the van. With relief Daddy Love shook and shimmied in his body, loose-limbed as a goose, a younger guy, a guy with a sly smile, a guy who grooved to rock music, rap music, a guy you’d like to have a drink with.
    Daddy Love was a man whom other men liked. And certainly, a man whom women liked.
    Children, too. Boys younger than twelve.
    Daddy Love was that restless American type. Except he’d settled (more or less) in the East, or the Midwest, he’d have looked like a rancher in Wyoming. Or a (slightly older) hitch-hiker making his way to the West Coast.
    Daddy Love couldn’t say was he happiest in motion, in his van, which he’d painted and repainted several times since its purchase, traveling east or traveling west on I-80, or was he happiest once he’d come to rest for a while, a few months at least, maybe a year, once he’d established a home-site. Wherever Daddy Love was, there was his kingdom.
    Such strategies of evasion, flight, and escape! No ordinary individual could hope to understand.
    Son you are coming home!
    Soon you will be home, and safe.
    Son d’you hear me? I think you do son.
    Daddy Love loves
YOU.
    Through the countryside of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and across the Delaware River into New Jersey, these many hours, hours bleeding into hours, Daddy Love never ceased to address the child behind him, in the rear of the van.
    Daddy Love is bringing you to your true home for Daddy Love is your true Daddy who loves
YOU.
     
    Inside the ingenious Wooden Maiden the child made not a whimper.
    Inside the gag, not a muffled cry.
    Daddy Love was a stern daddy and yet loving. He’d taped a split to the little broken finger. Child-bones heal quickly but must not heal crookedly.
    The child would learn quickly: each act of disobedience, however small, would be immediately punished.
No exceptions!
    Zero tolerance!
    And when the child obeyed, and was a true son to Daddy Love, immediately he would be rewarded with food, water, the comfort of Daddy Love’s strong arms and the gentle intonations of Daddy Love’s voice.
This is my son in whom I am well pleased.
    Quickly then the child would learn. They all did.
    He’d read of “conditioning”—the great American psychologist B. F. Skinner and before him the nineteenth-century Russian Ivan Pavlov. But his natural instinct was to reward, and to punish, in such a way as to instill love, fear, respect for and utter allegiance to Daddy Love in the child-subject.
    The child was to be played like a musical instrument. Sometimes gently, and sometimes not-so-gently. For Daddy Love was always in control.
    When he’d first sighted