Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page A

down, bowed, his dark hair spiky and wild, uncombed, his eyes straining in their sockets to see, to make sure nothing was being kept from him, hidden from him—that was Willard Harte. Everyone knew Willard Harte. He was from Yewville and everyone in Yewville knew him.
    Jesse felt his father’s presence, as if that face was really in the window, spying on them. So he said daringly, hoarsely, “What is he going to do now? Are we going to move?”
    “Go ask him yourself,” Jean said quickly.
    Their mother did not reply. She was wiping Bob’s mouth.
    “Ma,” Jesse said deliberately, “are we going to move again?”
    “Are we going to move?” Shirley asked, surprised. “How come? When?”
    “Shut up,” Jean said. “You keep out of this.”
    “Where are we going?” Shirley asked. She had a full, moonish face dotted with freckles. She gaped at Jean. In this family, Jean often knew secrets; what passed between their mother and father, unvoiced, might be put into words by Jean.
    “He’s going to ask some people … maybe ask around.…” their mother said evasively.
    “Ask around what?” said Jesse.
    “To see if he can sell it,” their mother said.
    “All it says is
Closed
. Nothing about being for sale,” Jesse said.
    His mother glanced up at him. Pale, transparent, fed by tiny glowing veins, her face seemed to be confronting his boldly. Her eyes were a faint gray, a faint green, slightly slanted, almond-shaped, their playfulness now gone stern.
    “Jesse, if you want to know so much, go ask him yourself,” Jean said angrily. “Go on out, you’re so smart—big goddamn loudmouth!”
    “Jean,” their Mother said.
    “Don’t ‘Jean’ me, Ma. Listen, Ma, don’t ‘Jean’ me,” Jean said quickly.“I’m not a goddamn little baby like these two. Don’t look at me sideways like that. Today is Christmas assembly and he tries to start a fight right away, and
he
is acting crazy like always—outside tramping around, what if somebody sees him! I heard him drinking last night. Stumbling around in the dark. Why’s he always going out like that, out late and up early, roaming around like a bum—the kids ask me about him, they say they see him as far away as town, on foot—Now he put that goddamn sign up and boarded everything up, and the kids are going to ask me about it—just in time for Christmas assembly—”
    “Don’t talk to me like that,” their mother said.
    “I wish I was dead!” Jean said.
    She began to cry. The dog ran in from the other room, barking. Bob stared at Jean, amazed, and struggled to get down from his mother’s lap.
    “You hate me! I wish I was dead!” Jean cried, jumping up.
    “Sit down and be quiet. Who hates you? Who the hell hates you?” their mother said in a light, hot, sullen voice. She was brushing at the front of her bathrobe. Short fluttery motions of her hands, as if brushing off crumbs. She eyed Jean sideways, turning her head sternly, severely aside. Jesse saw how her eyes pinched at the corners.
    “Cut out that sniveling. It’s only more trouble,” their mother said.
    Jean’s face, streaked with tears, was not so pretty now.
    “Do you want more trouble?” their mother said.
    “Jesse started it,” Jean said.
    “I only asked if we were going to move. If he was going to sell the gas station,” Jesse said. He felt shaky, uncertain. The tension in this room was between his mother and Jean; it seemed to exclude him. By raising his voice, by avoiding their eyes, he was able to blunder into it, to capture some of it for himself. He said recklessly, “Sure, this morning the kids on the bus will see the sign—why’d he have to put a sign up anyway? And they’ll kid us about it, they’ll want to know what happened—”
    “So tell them to go to hell,” their mother said.
    “But what is he going to do?”
    “I don’t know. Ask him when he comes in. Ask him yourself.”
    This confession of his mother’s—that she knew no more than Jesse