Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Although reminiscent now, the mood of Joyce Carol Oates’s short story seems appropriate today. The story tells of the adventures of a teenage girl, its title a perfectly timed metaphor as we forge ahead into an uncertain future. Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) dedicated this work to Bob Dylan. It allows the reader a glimpse into the thoughts of a young writer of her time. Below is the third of four installments.

(For continuity, the last sentence of the last paragraph is, “Ellie’s lips kept shaping words, mumbling along with the words blasting in his ear.")

“Maybe you two better go away,” Connie said faintly.

“What? How come?” Arnold Friend cried, “We come out here to take you for a ride. It’s Sunday.” He had the voice of the man on the radio now. It was the same voice, Connie thought. “Don’tcha know it’s Sunday all day and honey, no matter who you were with last night today you are with Arnold Friend and don’t you forget it!–Maybe you’d better step out here,” he said, and this last was in a different voice. It was a little flatter, as if the heat was finally getting to him.

“No. I got things to do.”

“Hey.”

“You two better leave.”

“We ain’t leaving until you come with us.”

“Like hell I am–”

“Connie, don’t fool around with me. I mean, I mean, don’t fool around,” he said, shaking his head. He laughed incredulously. He placed his sunglasses on top of his head carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig, and brought the stems down behind his ears. Connie stared at him, another wave of dizziness and fear rising in her so that for a moment he wasn’t even in focus but was just a blur, standing there against his gold car, and she had the idea that he had driven up the driveway all right but had come from nowhere before that and he belonged nowhere and that everything about him and even about the music that was so familiar to her was only half real.

“If my father comes and sees you–”

“He ain’t coming. He’s at a barbeque.”

“How do you know that?”

“Aunt Tillie’s. Right now they’re–er–drinking. Sitting around,” he said vaguely, squinting as if he were staring all the way to town and over to Aunt Tillie’s back yard. Then the vision seemed to get clear and he nodded energetically. “Yeah. Sitting around. There’s your sister in a blue dress, huh? And high heels, the poor sad bitch–nothing like you, sweetheart! And your mother’s helping some fat women with the corn. They’re cleaning the corn–husking the corn–”

“What fat woman?” Connie cried. “How do I know what fat woman, I don’t know every goddam fat woman in the world!” Arnold laughed.

“Oh, that’s Mrs. Hornby...Who invited her?” Connie said. She felt a little light-headed. Her breath was coming quickly.

“She’s too fat. I don’t like them fat. I like them the way you are, honey,” he said, smiling sleepily at her. They stared at each other for a while, through the screen door. He said softly, “Now what you’re going to do is this: you’re going to come out that door. You’re going
to sit up front with me and Ellie’s going to sit in the back, the hell with Ellie., right? This isn’t
Ellie’s date. You’re my date. I’m your lover, honey.”

“What? You’re crazy–’’

“Yes, I’m your lover. You don’t know what that is but you will,” he said. “I know that, too. I know all about you. But look: it’s real and you couldn’t ask for nobody better than me, or more polite. I always keep my word. I’ll tell you how it is, I’m always nice at first, the first time. I’ll hold you so tight you won’t think you have to get away or pretend anything because you’ll know you can’t. And I’ll come inside you where its all secret and you will give in to me and you’ll love me–’’

“Shut up! You’re crazy!” Connie said She backed away from the door. She put her hands against her ears as if she’d heard something terrible, something not meant for her. “People don’t talk like that, you’re crazy,” she muttered. Her heart was almost too big now for her chest and its pumping made sweat break out all over her. She looked out to see Arnold Friend pause and then take a step toward the porch lurching. He almost fell. But, like a clever drunken man, he managed to catch his balance. He wobbled in his high boots and grabbed hold of one of the porch posts.

“Honey?” he said. “You still listening?”

“Get the hell out of here!”

“Be nice, honey. Listen.”

“I’m going to call the police–”

He wobbled again and out the side of his mouth came a fast spat curse, an aside not meant for her to hear, but even this “Christ!” sounded forced. Then he began to smile again. She watched the smile come, awkward as if he was smiling inside a mask. His whole face was a mast, she thought wildly, tanned down onto his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup on his face but had forgotten about his throat.

“Honey–? Listen, here’s how it is. I always tell the truth and I promise you this: I ain’t coming in that house after you.”

“You better not! I’m going to call the police if you–don’t–”

“Honey,” he said, talking right through her voice, “honey, I’m not coming in there but you are coming out here. You know why?”

She was panting. The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before, some room she had
run inside but which wasn’t good enough, wasn’t going to help her.

The kitchen window had never had a curtain, after three years, and there were dishes in the sink for her to do–probably–and if you ran your hand across the table you’d probably feel something there.

“You listening, honey? Hey?”

“–going to call the police–”

“Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and can come inside. You won’t want that.”

She rushed forward and tried to lock the door. Her fingers were shaking. “But why lock it,” Arnold Friend said gently, talking right into her face.

“It’s just a screen door. It’s just nothing.”

One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn’t in it. It pointed out to the left, bent at the ankle. “I mean, anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if he needs to, anybody at all and ‘specially Arnold Friend. If the place got lit up with a fire honey you’d come runnin’ out into my arms, right into my arms and an’ safe at home–like you knew I was your lover and you’d stop fooling around. I don’t mind a nice shy girl but I don’t like no fooling around.”

Part of those words were spoken with a slight rhythmic lilt, and Connie somehow recognized them–the echo of a song from last year, about a girl rushing into her boyfriend’s arms and coming home again–

Connie stood barefoot on the linoleum floor, staring at him. “What do you want?” she whispered.

“I want you,” he said.

“What?”

“Seen you that night and thought, that’s the one, yes sir. I never needed to look anymore.”

“But my father’s coming back. He’s coming to get me. I had to wash my hair first–’’ She spoke in a dry, rapid voice, hardly raising it for him to hear.

“No, your daddy is not coming and yes, you had to wash your hair and you washed it for you. It’s nice and shining and all for me, I thank you, sweetheart,” he said, with a mock bow, but again he almost lost his balance. He had to bend and adjust his boots. Evidently his feet did not go all the way down; the boots must have been stuffed with something so that he would seem taller. Connie stared out at him and behind him Ellie in the car, who seemed to be looking off to Connie’s right into nothing. Then Ellie said, pulling the words out of the air one after another as if he were just discovering them. “You want me to pull out the phone?”

“Shut your mouth and keep it shut,” Arnold Friend said, his face red from bending over or maybe from embarrassment because Connie had seen his boots. “This ain’t none of your business.”