Mickey J. Corrigan

Shirley Jackson on Shirley Jackson
"Some people marry houses"
—Anne Sexton

Houses were in my blood
my great-greats built San Francisco
mansions for the robber barons
Victorians for the rest of us
raised in tight lipped families
rejecting others' otherness
disapproving always
when I married a Jew
bohemian intellectual writer
an outsider like me.

Stanley thought I was great
a master of Gothic horror
I thought him untrustworthy
sleeping with all the coeds
at the little red whorehouse
on the hill
his campus
his fat-faced tomatoes
at the Vermont college
up the street from the house
I bought with my royalties
after "The Lottery"
made my name.

But I became stuck
afraid to stay
afraid to leave
subsumed in a husband
children, our house
that lonely island
in a sea of ruin
backdrop to the small
domestic incidents
writ large
beginning and ending
with a house
the only place
in those days where
a woman had control.

Shirley Jackson on Witchcraft

The constant strain to be
someone other than myself
a troubled struggle between
what I wanted
and what was expected of me

from a young age I was too
fat, sloppy, smart, uninterested
in the socially acceptable
my mother belittling me
I had so little self-
confidence, so much shame
about my looks, my habits
kicked out of college
for skipping class.

In my childhood bedroom
hunched over my desk
I heard voices
a kind of devil visit
a kind of mythic rite
a kind of passage
from the world
of rejection
to a place
of understanding
and I began to write
about fear, fear
about the problems
that defined women's lives
when behavior fails to conform
when refusing to play the role
leads to tragic psychic results.

My work pulled me
from a nightmare state
writing my way out
writing my magic:
transforming the everyday
into money, beauty, love
a special world of acceptance
of truth and freedom
a home for my children
a respite for my readers
a kingdom for myself.

Shirley Jackson's Husband
(Stanley Edgar Hyman)

For many years she was only
my wife Shirley Hyman
not the famous author
the witch who wrote
with a broom
the Virginia Werewoolf
of séance fiction but
a devoted mom
a fun-loving friend
a dining and drinking
partner to me

a lifelong scholar
of myth and ritual
she too embedded
such symbols in her work
but I thought she didn't
grasp the deep meaning
of what flowed from her
like water from a faucet
we needed money
with my low pay
four growing kids
loans from her family
our friends, publishers
continuous dire straits
my own writing dull
her books sparkling gems.

I had this rule:
no affairs with students
or none near our home
spending nights in New York
and she knew, she accepted
a man's way far away
but when my book flopped
and hers sold like mad
and her best friend moved in
upstairs in our house
I fell in love
and that made my wife
so angry, so crazy
she couldn't write
too many tranquilizers
too many bottles
too much bourbon

taken in terror
of her own mind
and this went on
for a year, maybe two
until her analysis
led back to writing
the taps open again
she was once more
Shirley, herself.

Shirley's Demon Lover
(Dylan Thomas)

She didn't talk about it
nor did I
but we knew
we had something
the night I spent with her
at her home in Vermont
the snow came down thick
the others inside
watching TV, drinking
while we played in the yard
romping, roughhousing
we were both round
people with appetites
smarter than others
geniuses, famous
outsiders who loved.

She said she had dreams
where the devil appeared
in various disguises
he took her places
he made her cross water
he tried to convince her
they were husband and wife
and I wondered if that
demon lover
was me.

She had been faithful
to her cheating spouse
I had a reputation
of sleeping around
when out from under
my Irish wife's angry eyes
and my drinking, hers
a fatal affliction
five years later
I was dead

and she wrote about it
in her diary thus:
someday I will know
clearly how I felt
about Dylan.

Shirley Jackson's Widower
(Stanley Edgar Hyman)

She liked to toss bombs
stand back, watch them
EXPLODE
and I didn't know
she had one ready
after twenty-five years
making my coffee
my meals, the diet food
my doc ordered, drinking
canned slim shakes with me
driving me in her Morris Minor
laughing at my drollery
and overlooking, getting over
my many slip-ups, sins

and we were getting along
we were good that afternoon
she went upstairs to nap
after a pleasant summer
back out in the world
lecturing, traveling
to read her work
her voice dour, direct
projecting the doom
beloved by her fans

and busy writing
a new novel
in a different voice
comic, lighthearted
widow on a trip
to a new city
a new name
a new life
unencumbered
by husband
children
homemaking:
no HOUSE
no haunting
responsibilities.

Her agent was puzzling
over a vague letter
in which Shirley said
she would soon be off
on a wonderful journey
where she would meet
lots of new people

and was going alone.

And when I finally
went upstairs
to wake her:
BOOM
she was gone.

 

Mickey J. Corrigan writes poetry and pulpy fiction. Her work has appeared in literary journals and books from small publishers in the US, UK, and elsewhere. Cyberwit is publishing Whiskey Straight Women which includes poetry biographies of well-known women writers whose lives were soaked in whiskey and ink.