Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Arnold Friend makes me shiver. I think Joyce Carol Oates does a wonderful job in describing her antagonist, Arnold Friend. The name alone gives me the creeps. I felt the perversion and creepiness of Arnold Friend as I read this story. How he held himself and how he moved was terrifying to me. I would watch the scenes play out in my head and get the willies. "...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." (517) As Connie actually started looking at him it was as if he was fake, "His whole face was a mask..., plastered makeup."(517+518)
Oates also did a great job of portraying the sheer terror that Connie felt at times in the story. She noticed with shock that Ellie wasn't a kid, either. She became dizzy a few times. She could not identify a room she was in. I wonder if she was just so terrified she was going into shock, losing her mind, couldn't think. When she tried to get through on the telephone, "...she was so sick with fear..."(520) I could feel Connie's fear throughout the story.
A part of the story that I cannot figure out is when Connie is sun bathing in the backyard and she becomes almost hallucinogenic. She opens her eyes and doesn't really know where she is. The look of her house startles her and, "She shook her head as if to get awake." (512) The story says it is too hot, heat can affect people. The first time I read through this story though, I thought Connie may have been tripping out on Acid or such.