Confessions of a Book Store Owner

by Joyce Carrol Oates

You’re looking at me I wish you wouldn’t. Undressing me with your eyes like on the bus after schoool. Oh you may think— but say you’re a woman my mother’s age, or— no, some dirty-minded guy, trying to trap me in a net with your eyes a net of eyes but you can’t.

This— in fifteen minutes’ time precisely I am going to peel and eat eat some of it slow slow slow I’ll eat it slow. I know how to wait. I am practiced in waiting in a solitude you can’t know, seeing me with just your eyes. I will peel it slow slow slow smelling that smell I love, I love that rich ripe smell, it’s a fiery smell sort of, it’s a smell like burning wires from your nostrils straight to your brain. Oh God, my mouth is— watering. That’s disgusting isn’t it, that’s disgusting I hate that, like at, sometimes at nigth even, I’ll wake up, I’m asleep I’ll wake up screaming Mama Mama! —like it isn’t even me alive, bleating like a ridiculous little baby for mama’s milk, but somebody I don’t even know. I hate that. I’m a good girl, I’m a straight-A honors student, don’t look at me with your eyes in judgement, you nasty ones. I hate that, I hate to lie I hate lies and liars, but sometimes I have to lie, saying I ate some food I didn’t, saying I didn’t loose any more weight— that’s the sort of lie I’m forced to tell to keep prying eyes away, to keep prying thoughts away, wanting to enter my head like buzzing wasps.

Oh I know it’s you who own the world— but inside here. Inside here it’s me, it’s mine. You can’t enter. I can step out of this any time I like— but none of you can step in.

This— oh it’s almost time. I will peel it I will smell it I will bite into it one segment at a time, just one, my mouth alive, afire, tears in my eyes… Am I shaking? Am I trembling? Oh I’ll hide away in a toilet stall to eat my orange, I don’t want anybody watching I hate that, my girl friends even I hate that. There’s Cathy—she hides away too— but we don’t talk about it. Just looking at each other, we know. The Kingdom of God is within is what we know, God’s hunger, burning throbbing aching— the saints knew too, but they are all dead mostly. Except— Mother Theresa? But we’re not Catholic. We’re not anything.

It used to be, I’d stick my finger down my throat. I don’t have to do that anymore; I’m in control. The first time I did that it came to me just like God allowed me to know, it was Thanksgiving, it was nine of us at the table, Mama and Aunt Tess serving the food, and there was this, this gravy. This turkey gravy in this gravy bowl. And I saw how it was slick with fat I mean oily globules of fat— oh so disgusting so gross— and Mama saying, Take some gravy take some turkey take more mashed potatoes more stuffing more butter more cranberry sauce more turkey more gravy. Afterwards, I locked myself in the bathroom… I knew what to do… It felt so good after I knew I was saved.

So I went from 126 pounds to 120, to 115 to 109. Then it got harder, for a while… seems like certain kinds of flab are stubborn to melt away… Mama started asking, waht’s going on was I on a diet or something was I trying to starve myself what’s going on. One day she barged into my room fouling the air with her cigarette, and took hold of this ratty old sweater I was wearing— my favorite old sweater I used to wear around the house. And she pulled it tight and seeing how thin I was— she got scared. I saw it in her eyes. She was asking, Oh Jill oh Hun what’s going on what’s wrong what’s going on. And I— I said, Mama don’t touch! Don’t touch! Leave me alone don’t touch!

Now I weigh 93 pounds. Or this morning I did. But I’ve had some diet coke since then— four cans of diet coke— so I’m… heavier. Yesterday I had a 7-Grain Date Bar. Divided it into quarters cuz it weighs four ounces so I could spread out eating it over four hours in my room in the dark after they’ve all gone to bed— I’m happiest then. I can be happy at school, too, in a different way. Inside here. I divide up the diet coke, the diet chocolate cream, coffee— if it doesn’t make me too spaced out. What I hate is running to the bathroom a dozen times a day my stomach bloating I hate that you can see it can’t you, can’t you, it looks like I’m, you know, going to have a baby, pregnant or something. But I’m not oh no never I’m not no never.

I’m so happy you can’t know, you can’t trap me with your eyes, nor no Mama either with hear tears and threats and coercion, no other word but COERCION, she can’t get me can’t touch me. They say— the doctor she made me go to. The therapist. Oh, and the woman PhD that came to talk to as at assembly— telling us it’s a medical problem. An illness. Trying to scare us with— irreversable liver damage. But it isn’t. It isn’t physical at all. It’s here It’s God inside me. It’s mine. Like you— you’re all babbling in some foreign language.

My days my nights I love how they are divided— like this orange. Divided into segments I can pick apart with my teeth slow on the far side of my hunger, the face… the voices… You. Oh. Sure. I see you. I hear you. I talk with you. I smile at you. But I don’t care about you. I don’t. Not a one of you. Always I am thinking of this. Always I am thinking of… dreaming of… oh it’s like a fire, it hurts, it burns, the inside of my mouth is alive with fire wanting to bite to chew to eat eat eat alive like scurrying ants the hunger and the food collide— and it’s a pain. But it’s a good pain.

Sometimes— when I’m not weak or sick or— I know I must conserve my strength. I’ll like… crawl up the stairs… if nobody else is around…

I don’t want to be touched, I said. I don’t love you or anybody, love hurts my skin hurts don’t touch I said stay clear.

Now it’s time, it’s time, it’s that time now, I’m safe, nobody can see, I’m locked in this toilet stall, it’s the middle of the hour, nobody can barge in trap me with their eyes, I’m safe. I can’t be touched.