Murder For Love

At the Paradise Motel, Sparks, Nevada by JOYCE CAROL OATES

How many of you pigs. Emissaries of Satan. Adulterers in your hearts and fornicators. How many rapists and despoilers of the innocent, how many creatures groveling in lust. How many of you deserving of God's wrath "Starr Bright" might have killed had 7 not been run to earth before my time 7 cannot know for such knowledge is not given to us in the wisdom of the Lord God. Amen.

In the desert, through planes of shimmering light, the hazy mauve mountains of the Sierra Nevadas in the distance, the light fell vertical, sharp as a razor blade. The sky was a hard ceramic blue that looked painted and without depth. "Starr Bright" woke from her druggy reverie of the past several hours and wondered for a moment where she was, and with who. A familiar-unfamiliar succession of motels, restaurants, gas stations, enormous billboards advertising casinos in Reno and Las Vegas- they were approaching the city limits of Sparks, Billy Ray Cobb behind the wheel of his classy rented steel-gray Infiniti with the red leather interior. "Starr Bright" removed her dark-tinted white-framed sunglasses to see better, but the glare was blinding. She wasn't a girl for the harsh overexposed hours of morning or afternoon, her soul best roused at twilight when neon lights flashed into life. But why am I here, why now? And with who? Not knowing she was awaiting God's sign. Beside her, proud and perky behind the wheel of the Infiniti, was Mr. Cobb of Elton, California, a manufacturer's representative-as he'd introduced himself the previous evening. Mr. Cobb was a thick-necked man of forty-six who perspired easily, with heavy-lidded frog's eyes and a damp, hungry smile. He wore sporty vacation clothes-this was his vacation, after all-an electric-blue crinkled-cotton shirt monogrammed B.R.C. on the pocket, checked polyester trousers creased at the thighs, a "Na-vajo" leather belt with a flashy brass buckle. A black onyx ring on his right hand and a gold wedding band on his left hand, both rings embedded in fatty flesh. Out of the corner of her eye "Starr Bright" saw Mr. Cobb peering at her and she quickly replaced the dark glasses. She was heavily made up, her face a flawless cosmetic mask. She knew she looked good but in this damned white-glaring desert sun she might look, if not her age precisely, for "Starr Bright" never looked her age, but, perhaps, thirty-one or -two, not twenty-eight as she'd led credulous Mr. Cobb of Elton, California, to believe.

She was "Starr Bright"-an "exotic dancer" at the Kings Club, Lake Tahoe, California. An independent woman trying to make a decent living amid the moral confusion of contemporary times. Before Lake Tahoe she'd been living in San Diego, California, or had it been Miami, Florida? And there'd been Houston, Texas.

Before that, memory faded. As a dream, even the most vivid and disturbing of dreams, fades rapidly upon waking.

It was not yet 6:00 P.M. And bright as midday. Yet Billy Ray Cobb was eager to check into a motel. Pawing and squeezing "Starr Bright" in the front seat of the Infiniti, panting and florid cheeked. The red-leather interior smelled of newness, the air-conditioning hummed like a third presence. "Starr Bright" was flattered by her new friend's sexual attraction to her, or should have been. "I'm crazy about you, baby," Mr. Cobb said, an edge to his voice as if he suspected that "Starr Bright" might not believe him. "Like last night, you'll see."

So they did not drive on to Reno as "Starr Bright" had been led to believe they would. Might it have made a difference if they'd gone on to Reno?

Seemingly by impulse, Billy Ray Cobb turned in to the Paradise Motel on Route 80, one of numberless "bargain-rate" motels along the strip, just inside the Sparks city limits. "Starr Bright" could not have said, half-shutting her aching eyes, if she'd been here before. A salmon-colored imitation-Spanish-stucco single-story motel past its prime advertising bargain ROOMS & HONEYMOON SUITES! and HAPPY HOUR 4-8 P.M.! If "Starr Bright" was bitterly disappointed, smelling beforehand the insecticide-odor of the shabby room, she gave no outward sign; she was not that kind of girl.

With her ashy-blond hair and her strong-boned striking face and her long dancer's legs, "Starr Bright" was accustomed to the close scrutiny of men, and knew to keep her most mutinous thoughts to herself. Never to bare her teeth in a quick incandescent flash of anger, nor to frown, or grimace, bringing the fine white lines of her forehead into sharp visibility. Never to raise her thumbnail to her teeth like a desperately unhappy teenage girl and gnaw at the cuticle until she tasted blood.

While Mr. Cobb checked them into the Paradise Motel, "Starr Bright" strolled restlessly about the poolside area, an interior courtyard flanked by thin drooping palm trees that looked brittle as papier mâché. The kidney-shaped pool, in which several near-naked swimmers splashed, smelled sharply of chlorine. And there was the odor of insecticide pervading all. "Starr Bright" checked swiftly to see if she recognized anyone-if anyone recognized her-for, having been acquainted with so many men, over a period of years, she was always vigilant.

This evening, poolside at the Paradise Motel, Route 80, Sparks, Nevada, there appeared to be no one whom "Starr Bright" had reason to know, nor to be known by. Thank you, God.

Of the dozen or so guests in the courtyard, several, all but one of them fleshy young women, had placed themselves recklessly in the sun-visitors to the Southwest, obviously. Oily, gleaming bodies in scanty bathing suits, dreamy-shut eyes. Painted finger- and toenails like "Starr Bright's" own. There were pastel-bright drinks with melting ice cubes, empty beer and Perrier bottles accumulated on the wrought iron tables. From overhead amplifiers, rock-Muzak made the air vibrate, the pulse quicken. "Starr Bright" felt a wild impulse to dance. That erotic beat, the percussive rhythm, look at me, here I am, why are none of you looking at me?-here is "Starr Bright"! She was wearing a short, tight silky-black skirt that came barely to mid-thigh, and a gold lame halter top that fitted her breasts tightly, and her long blond smooth-shaven legs were bare, her bare feet in cork platform heels. A thin gold chain around her left ankle, a tiny gold heart dangling. Pierced earrings that fell in glittering cascades nearly to her shoulders, a half-dozen rainbow-colored bracelets tinkling on each arm. Crimson lips moist as if she were quick-breathing, feverish. And the glamorous dark glasses that hid bruises, or the shadow of bruises, beneath her eyes. Why will you not look at me? I am more beautiful than any of you.

"Starr Bright's" first celebrity was at the age of thirteen, when she'd won first prize in a young people's talent competition in Buffalo, New York. How many years ago: don't ask.

When they stop looking, and their eyes go through you, one of the older dancers at the club in Tahoe had told "Starr Bright," you're dead meat. So be thankful for the rude stares. Those pigs are money in the bank.

But no one seemed to notice "Starr Bright" at poolside. Which was God's sign, too, in its own way. Though "Starr Bright" could not have known at the time, just as she did not know, but would learn afterward from Nevada newspapers and TV, that Billy Ray Cobb was signing them into the Paradise Motel as "Mr. & Mrs. Elton Flynn" of Los Angeles, California.

Attention was in fact drawn to noisy-splashy activity in the pool. A voluptuous young woman in a tiny yellow bikini was squealing and kicking, hugging an inflated air-mattress striped like an American flag to her breasts, as a tanned muscled young man tickled her; their cries and laughter pierced the air. What exhibitionists! "Starr Bright" stared, a bit envious. But she was disapproving. So close to naked, so vulgar, the young woman and the young man seemed virtually to be making love in the pool. The bright water heaved and rippled about them. Others were staring openly, grinning; the lovers behaved as if they were oblivious, though obviously delighting in being observed. Look at us, how happy we are, what pleasure our bodies take in one another, aren't you all jealous! The young woman's arms flailed, her breasts nearly sprang out of her bikini bra, her strong legs thrashed and the young man pushed himself boldly between them, aiming a mock-bite at her throat, as the air-mattress slipped from them and they began, wildly squealing, to sink. "Starr Bright" pursed her lips and looked quickly away.

It was at this point that Billy Ray Cobb caught up with her. A vexed little frown, pouty-sagging lips, his heavy-lidded eyes veined with red as, panting just slightly, he closed his fingers around "Starr Bright's" wrist. He said two things to her but afterward she would not be able to recall which he said first. One was "Wondered where you were, baby!" and the other was "Looks like the fun's already started, eh?"

Not in her scratched oxblood-leather Gucci overnight case but in her midnight-blue sequined purse with wallet, makeup supplies, designer condoms, and amphetamine and Valium tablets did "Starr Bright" carry her protection. A pearl-handled German-made stainless steel knife with a slender five-inch blade. Kept wrapped in tissue at the bottom of the purse, its razor-sharp blade untested. The knife was protection, not a weapon. Still less a concealed weapon. So far as she knew, the knife was not illegal in any of the several states in which "Starr Bright" had been a resident since acquiring it several years before. Protection after she'd been falsely arrested in a cocktail lounge of a Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston, Texas, by two plainclothes vice-squad detectives who'd detained her for five hours during which time they'd forced her to commit upon their persons sex acts of a particularly repulsive nature. Never again will "Starr Bright" be humiliated, never again made to service pigs on any terms but my own.

That night, "Starr Bright" dreamt so strangely!-obsessively, with much anguish, of the air-mattress in the motel pool.

She had scarcely seen it, had virtually no impression of it except it was made of plastic, stripes the colors of the American flag red white and blue, about five feet long perhaps, not a child's but a grown-up's float, an object of salvation if one were in water over one's head, in danger of drowning. "Starr Bright" was not a capable swimmer, water frightened her, the eerie buoyancy that cannot be depended upon, the disequilibrium, loss of control. In her dreams she was naked in the water, she was clutching at the air-mattress gasping for breath, her heart pounding as someone, a man, faceless, heavy bodied, tried to pull her from it and into the water to drown. Sometimes the man was Billy Ray Cobb, sometimes he was a stranger-or were there two men, or more?-laughing at her terror, which was a female's ridiculous, contemptible terror, their fingers hard and pitiless as steel yanking at her ankles, her bare legs, arms, gripping the nape of her neck. "Starr Bright" was naked and defenseless in the water, which was a dark choppy water and not the synthetic bright turquoise of the motel pool. If only she could grab hold of the air-mattress and pull herself up onto it she could save herself-but her arm- and shoulder-muscles were weak, flaccid, her feeble strength was rapidly fading, her mouth filled with poisonous water it would be death to swallow. And the jeering laughing, and the hard, hurting male fingers.

Help me! Please help me! Oh, God!

"Starr Bright" thrashed about wildly, flailing her arms, kicking, fighting for her life… and woke suddenly to find herself in a strange bed, a damp rumpled bed in a room that hummed loudly with air-conditioning that yet did not dispel the odor of whiskey and cigarette smoke and human sweat and the underlying stench of insecticide. She was not alone but beside a stranger, naked, a fattish man who lay sprawled on his back in the center of the bed, head flung back and mouth ajar, wetly snoring.

Mr. Cobb it was. Who'd been unexpectedly rough, impatient with her. Reddish-veined pig's eyes contracting and his vision going inward oh! oh! uhl as he'd grunted grinding himself stubbornly and then desperately into her. Twenty-two solid minutes she'd clocked it as the night before she'd clocked their earlier episodes eight minutes, twelve minutes, sixteen, a part of "Starr Blight's" brain detached and even clinical despite the generous lines of coke she'd snorted with her froggy-eyed friend whose first name, or names, momentarily eluded her. They'd checked into the Paradise Motel in the early evening and had sexual intercourse then gone out again hurriedly not taking time even to shower and cleanse themselves as "Starr Bright" so badly wanted, yes and to shampoo her sticky hair as well, scrub thoroughly between her chafed legs and run the shower as hot as she could bear it but Mr. Cobb had insisted upon going out at once to purchase a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey and several grams of cocaine innocently white and powdery-granular as confectioner's sugar and so the night had shut about her like walls pushing inward, threatening suffocation. C'mon, baby! Loosen up, baby! Though Mr. Cobb was in fact a stranger to her yet "Starr Bright" seemed to know how necessary it might be to anesthetize herself, she'd only pretended to inhale a line of coke held on a shaky spoon-mirror to her nostrils, in fact in the secrecy of the ill-smelling bathroom she'd hurriedly swallowed not one, nor even two, but three tablets of Valium, the most she allowed herself in even emergency situations, or when alcohol, too, was involved. So she'd been amiably dulled against Mr. Cobb's grinding, grunting, panting, and his hard grasping hands, his red-rimmed frog's eyes, his escalating demands. How many minutes, how many hours, where exactly they were, and why she, "Starr Bright," a top "exotic dancer" admired by the other girls for her Ice Princess glamor and her obvious intelligence, was here she did not know, could not comprehend. And sinking to sleep again, drenched with sweat, shivering, trying to keep as far away as possible from the snoring man in the center of the bed, "Starr Bright" found herself this time in a swimming pool in a distant city, she was eight or nine years old and she'd been brought to Atwater Park by an older girl cousin who lived in the city, little Shirley Lott from Shaheen visiting for the day, shy and excited as always when visiting Yewville which seemed to her a large city, fraught with mystery and adventure. But something had gone wrong, her cousin was not watching her as her mother had requested, but drawn off with her own friends and out of earshot and so Shirley, in her pink-puckered swimsuit and her white rubber bathing cap with the strap that buckled a little too tightly beneath her chin, found herself surrounded in the pool by children she didn't know. Several older, bigger boys stared at her, skinny strangers with hair wetly rat-slick, eyes alert asking who she was, where was she from? and Shirley told them and they smiled at her as if they liked her and invited her to come for a ride in their inner-tube across the pool. Shirley was wary at first trying to see where her cousin Tildy had gone, but she couldn't see Tildy, the boys seemed so friendly, grinning at her so she trusted them, yes she was flattered too. Shirley Lott was a pretty little girl much prettier than her younger sister Gwendolyn and her daddy loved her best, she could see it in his eyes he loved her best, and she had boy cousins her age and older, all of them members of the First Methodist Church in Shaheen where Ephraim Lott was the minister and so Shirley trusted these Yewville boys though they were strangers to her and she'd been warned by her mother not to take up with children she didn't know unless Tildy knew them, many times she'd been warned but in the excitement of the Atwater pool she forgot. Come with us! Don't be afraid! the boys said, and there was Shirley allowing herself to be pushed through the opening of the boys' inner-tube that was so slippery and bouncy in the water, she'd squealed with childish excitement paddling and kicking as immediately the boys tugged her toward the farther end of the pool where the water was six feet deep and Shirley began to be frightened but the boys swimming beside her said it was okay, she was okay, nothing would happen to her, she was safe inside the inner-tube. But the bolder boys were ducking beneath her and tugging at her feet, pinching her thighs, poking their fingers between her legs as she thrashed helplessly, panicked, sobbing, No! No! Let me go! swallowing water, choking. But the boys wouldn't let their little-girl victim go, they'd captured her in the inner-tube and were tugging her in noisy triumph across the pool into the deep water where only older children and teenagers were allowed to swim, and at last someone intervened, an older girl who knew the boys and shouted at them to leave Shirley alone, what the hell did they think they were doing?-as the boys shoved Shirley out of the inner-tube and into the water and she began to sink and would have drowned had not the girl caught her, and hauled her out of the pool and onto the puddled concrete where she lay sobbing and coughing up water, stricken as a wounded animal. The boys had fled from the pool shrieking with laughter, carrying their inner-tube with them, and Shirley's cousin Tildy at last took notice of her, the circle of onlookers gathered around her, and came running to her, and the nightmare was ended. Except the nightmares of childhood never end but continue forever beneath the surface of memory so long as memory endures.

This time, "Starr Bright" woke sobbing and choking out of her drugged sleep. It was 4:46 A.M. There would be no more sleep that night.

Through a cracked Venetian blind a fluorescent-pink neon sign flashed rhythmically. PARADISE MOTEL. PARADISE MOTEL. "Starr Bright" slipped stealthily from the damp rumpled pigsty of a bed shivering in the air-conditioned chill though her naked body was covered in sticky sweat. She dared not wake Cobb, had to escape from him, a dangerous man. He had hurt her, bruised her breasts, the insides of her thighs, grinding himself against her oh! oh! uh! as if he'd have liked to kill her, eyes bulging and flushed face swelling like a balloon about to burst. Drunk, and high on cocaine, he'd turned into a beast, he'd lied to her, too, promising her she could bathe herself undisturbed, shampoo her hair, like all of them he'd lied to her; he had no mercy.

/ must change my life. Help me, God. I'm run to earth.

For God had sent her, sinner though she was, a miraculous dream, a dream of lost childhood. She had had no such dream for a decade, or more. It was a sign of His terrible love.

Quickly and fumblingly "Starr Bright" dressed herself in the dark. Stepping into the black satin lace panties Cobb had ripped from her, struggling into the tight-fitting skirt, the fake-gold lame halter. And where were her shoes? and her overnight case? and her sequined purse?

One day they would ask her: why hadn't she simply fled Billy Ray Cobb and the Paradise Motel? For indeed "Starr Bright" might have done so, seeking refuge on foot somewhere in Sparks, Nevada, in the early morning hours of whatever day, whatever month and year scarcely known to her panicked mind. For indeed it would not have been the first time in the more than twenty years since she'd left her home in Shaheen, New York, that she'd fled, on foot, in such haste and desperation. It would not have been the first time she'd known herself, in a fury of self-loathing and disgust, run to earth.

But instead there was "Starr Bright" stealthily examining Cobb's clothes flung across a chair. The "Navajo" leather belt with the brass buckle. The monogrammed shirt, polyester trousers. By the dim-flickering pink glow from the window she could see just well enough to go rapidly through the trouser pockets, remove a wallet, car keys. Her hand shook but was unerring. And there, on a table close by, the near-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's, and somehow she had it in her hand and drank impulsively, regretted it at once as she began to cough and Billy Ray Cobb's snoring stopped and he woke muttering, "Eh? What? Who's that?"

There followed then a space of time distended as in a dream never to be recalled precisely by "Starr Bright" except in quick-jumping flashes, images.

She told the angry suspicious man it was just her, "Starr Bright," but already he was fully awake though groggy, swinging his legs out of bed, demanding to know, "Why're you up? It's fucking night." And she tried to hide the wallet and the car keys inside her clothes, turned away from Cobb, saying she needed to use the bathroom. And by now Cobb was on his feet. Swaying but belligerent. He was no more than an inch or so taller than "Starr Bright" at five feet eight but he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. "Yeah?" he said, advancing upon her, "-the bathroom's in this direction, babe. Or were you gonna take a leak on the floor?" And, stammering, "Starr Bright" said she needed to take a hot shower, needed to wash her hair, she couldn't sleep smelly and dirty as she was and Cobb said, "Hot water in the middle of the fucking night? What's going on here?" and she was about to run for the door but he'd seen the wallet and keys in her hand, and grabbed her, began slapping her, "What the fuck, bitch? Caught you, eh?" shaking and slapping and getting a hammerlock on her head dragging her in the direction of the bathroom, "You want a shower, eh?-your dirty hair washed? How's about in the toilet bowl? Think you can put something over on me! Fuck with me! Billy Ray Cobb!"

"Starr Bright" fell to her knees. Cobb cursed her and released the hammerlock but slapped and punched her, furious, shamed, "Telling me all that shit last night, and I fell for it. What a sucker! Shoulda known you whores are all alike, don't deserve to live! Going into my wallet! Can't wait till morning to be paid?" and with a grunt picked up his wallet where it lay on the floor, extracted a handful of bills tossing them into the air and pushing "Starr Bright" down on hands and knees amid them where they fell, telling her to crawl for it, pick them up, pick them up with her cunt, and when "Starr Bright" did not he straddled her, his heavy sweating naked body on her back, "Hey, you like it, babe! You know you like it! 'Starr Bright'!-phony name! phony bitch! all of you phony bitches!-whores! Don't deserve to live, you contaminate the world for decent women." He took up his belt with the brass buckle and began to strike her buttocks, laughing, "Giddyup horsey! Giddyup horsey! You like it, eh?-cunt? Sure you do!" and when "Starr Bright" collapsed onto the floor Cobb ground himself into her, penis like a steel rod, until at last he cried out, hooting, and laughing, and collapsed onto her, and lay unmoving, heavily panting, for a beat. When he rose from her, "Starr Bright" lay limp.

"Now get out of here, you. Fast. Before I get serious and do something can't be undone." Prodding her with his foot, seizing her by the hair. "Don't play no more games with me, cunt. This room I'm paying for, get out."

Cobb forced "Starr Bright" to crawl on hands and knees through the scattered bills, in the direction of the door, fingers gripping the back of her neck. How triumphant he was, how an angry satisfied joy irradiated from his body, waves of animal-heat! Saying she was real lucky he hadn't broken her jaw, he'd been known to break the jaws of whores, filthy things not deserving to live among decent women, and when "Starr Bright" fumbled for her sequined purse which lay on the floor he said, "Yeah! Take your trash with you! Stinking up the place!" He marched to the door, unbolted and opened it as "Starr Bright" rose shakily to her feet, clothes torn, nose bloodied, Cobb sighted her cork-heeled shoes on the floor and snatched them up and tossed them out the door, "Trash! Stinking! Get out!" and when "Starr Bright" did not move quickly enough to suit him he gripped her again by the nape of the neck set to fling her through the doorway after her shoes but in that instant suddenly no longer dazed and fumbling as if God gave me the strength: guided my hand "Starr Bright" had the knife out of her purse, held it tightly and drew its razor-sharp blade across Cobb's throat and he cried out in astonishment and horror beginning to bleed at once profusely, clutching at his throat as if to stem the flow, and "Starr Bright" leapt free of him, panting, as he sank to his knees, "What-? My God- Help me-"

"Starr Bright" watched Billy Ray Cobb die. Amid a pool of blood dark as oil staining the carpet in the dim-flickering pink-fluorescent glow from the window.

"Now you see! Now you see! All of you!"

In the light of early morning, not yet dawn, an eerie calm prevailed. It was the silence of the western desert, the vast western sky. Below, in the courtyard of the Paradise Motel, the kidney-shaped swimming pool was deserted of course, smaller than it had appeared the previous evening. And there was the air-mattress floating at the deep end, not striped like the American flag as "Starr Bright" had believed but only red and blue-inflated plastic, a bit worn. A toy for adults, something sad about it. Almost imperceptibly it floated atop the rippleless turquoise water that was like a skin stretched over something living, invisible, inviolable, unknowable.

It was not yet 6:00 A.M. In no haste, "Starr Bright" left room 22 of the motel, quietly crossed the empty courtyard to the parking lot at the rear; unlocked the steel-gray Infiniti sedan with the rental license plates; placed her scarred Gucci case on the passenger's seat, and her midnight-blue sequined purse atop the case. An observer, had there been one, would have noted a tall, poised, coolly attractive blond woman in white linen trousers, a pale blue silk shirt, flat-heeled shoes. Her ashy-blond hair, still damp from the shower, was brushed back neatly from her face. Her eyes were hidden behind tinted glasses so dark they might have been black. Her flawless cosmetic mask betrayed no sign of alarm, nor even of especial concern. As if I'd been here before. In His sign. And all yet to come, in His terrible mercy.

In the eastern sky, beyond the imitation-Spanish facade of a neighboring Holiday Inn, the morning sun was emerging out of a pearl-opalescent darkness of massed clouds. A fiery all-seeing eye. Beneath its scrutiny "Starr Bright" drove the unfamiliar car out of the parking lot of the Paradise Motel and turned left on the near-deserted Route 80 as if this had always been the plan, a fate prescribed for her clear and unerring as a road map. She would drive south and east on Route 95 into Vegas where, amid a sea of cars at Caesars Palace, she would abandon the Infiniti. She meant, for as long as she could, to keep that fiery eye before her.