High Crime Area by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

that Kelsey and her friends hadn’t come upstairs to steal from her! They’d respected her privacy, she wanted to think.
    How stricken with embarrassment she’d have been if Kelsey had looked into the bathroom and seen the pills so openly displayed. Immediately her niece would have known what this meant, and would have called her mother.
    Mom! Aunt Agnes is depressed and suicidal —I thought you should know.
    At least, Agnes thought that Kelsey might have made this call.
    â€œZeke! Thank you.”
    And, “Zeke—how much do I owe you?”
    From a young musician friend, a former student, now years since he’d been an undergraduate student, she’d acquired what she believed to be a higher, purer quality of “pot”—she’d been embarrassed to call him, to make the transaction, pure terror at the possibility—(of course, it was not a likely possibility)—that Zeke was an undercover agent for the local police; she’d encountered him by chance in an organic foods store near the university, he’d been kind to her, asking after her, of course he’d heard that Professor Krauss had died, so very sorry to hear such sad and unexpected news... Later she’d called him, set up a meeting at the local mall, in the vast parking lot, she’d been awkward and ashamed and yet determined, laughing so that her face reddened. To Zeke she was Professor Krauss also. To all her admiring students.
    A Ziploc bag Zeke sold her. Frankly he’d seemed surprised—then concerned. He’d been polite as she remembered him, from years ago. She told the ponytailed young man she was having friends over for the evening, friends from graduate-student days, Ann Arbor. He’d seemed to believe her. No normal person would much want to get high by herself, after all.
    As soon as she was safely home she lit a joint and drew in her breath as Kelsey had taught her—cautiously, but deeply. The heat was distracting. She didn’t remember such heat. And the dryness, the acridity. Again she began to cough—tears spilled from her eyes. Her husband had said What are you doing, Agnes? Why are you doing such things? Just come to me, that’s all. You know that.
    Mattia.
    Running her forefinger down the Mattia listings. There were a surprising number—at least a dozen. Most young people had cell phones now. The Mercer County, New Jersey, phone directory had visibly shrunken. Yet, there was a little column of Mattia s headed by Mattia, Angelo.
    His first name hadn’t been Angelo — she didn’t think so.
    Maybe—had it been Eduardo ?
    (There was a listing for Eduardo, in Trenton.)
    Also listed were Giovanne, Christopher, Anthony,Thomas, E. L. Mattia ...
    None of these names seemed quite right to her. Yet, she had to suppose that her former student, an inmate-student at Rahway State Prison, was related to one or more of these individuals.
    Impulsively she called the listing for Mattia, Eduardo .
    If there is no answer, then it isn’t meant to happen.
    The phone rang at the other end. But no one picked up. A recording clicked on—a man’s heavily accented voice—quickly Agnes hung up.
    Later, she returned to discover the phone directory which she’d left on a kitchen counter, open to the Mattia listings. She stared at the column of names. She thought— Was the name “Joseph”?
    It had been a traditional name, with religious associations. A formal name. When Agnes had addressed the young man it was formally, respectfully— Mr. Mattia.
    Other instructors in the prison literacy program called students by their first names. But not Agnes, who’d taken seriously the program organizer’s warning not to suggest or establish any sort of “inappropriate intimacy” with the inmate-students.
    Never touch an inmate. Not even a light tap on the arm.
    Never reveal your last name to them. Or where you live, or if you are