Bound.(Lowest Ebb)(Joyce Carol Oates)

A "lowest ebb" implies something singular and finite, but for many of us, born in the Depression and raised by parents distrustful of fortune, an "ebb" might easily have lasted for years. When I was growing up, my parents, my younger brother, and I lived with my mother's Hungarian parents on a small farm in upstate New York, which failed by slow, excruciating degrees in the nineteen-forties and fifties.

Always the fear prevailed that we would lose the farm. I think my city-born father must have hated it, hated the ceaseless labor of it, and yet nothing was more terrible to contemplate than losing property; it was all that stood between you and oblivion. To possess something was to be vulnerable to losing it. Possession was audacity in the face of imminent loss.

Yet the most desperate period of my life, financially speaking, was my years as an undergraduate at Syracuse University, which I was able to attend on a New York State Regents scholarship. Beyond the tuition, there was pressure to come up with money for room and board and other expenses. Above all, I lived in constant fear of doing poorly academically, and being shipped back to Millersport, where my farm tasks awaited.

At Syracuse, I was privileged to work in the university library for a dollar an hour, for as many hours a week as I could manage. This was my first "real" job; I could now consider myself an adult. Yet, in my immaturity, in my naivete and idiocy, I'd pledged a sorority, and for this impulsive act I would pay, financially and emotionally, for a long time. I had not realized how many hidden costs would show up each month on my bill. This was a nightmare; there always seemed to be special assessments, dues I hadn't anticipated. And fines. Because I worked at the library, I had to miss numerous meetings and sorority functions, and for each event missed a fine was levied. When I missed "ritual" functions, the fines were higher. Now a fever came upon me to resign from the sorority, which I couldn't afford and felt no kinship with. I could not believe I had made such a mistake. But joining a sorority is akin to those cruelly ingenious fish traps in which an unwary ...