The Sacrifice

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Sybilla fretted licking her lips. She had the look of one who is gazing into a blinding light, trying bravely not to flinch.

  “If you’d rather not speak directly of the rape even to your mother, that will be honored. You are a young, shy girl—you are a virginal girl—except for this rape. In your soul, you are virginal. You can write down what happened to you—as you did with the Pascayne police. The fewer words, the better. The simpler our message, the more effective. It is not expected that the surviving child-victim of a violent sexual assault will remember ev’y least little detail of that assault. We will swear by your words. We will not ever let you be ‘questioned’ or ‘interrogated’ by any police officer or prosecutor except we are right beside you, and you are not obliged to reply in any case. You are a minor, and you are exempt from many laws that pertain to adults. You are your mother’s child, and Ednetta Frye is your guardian. And Reverend Marus Mudrick is your spiritual counsel, and Byron Mudrick is your legal counsel.”

  Ednetta was glancing distractedly through the document, which was a single page of several paragraphs. A surprise to see her name at the bottom—Ednetta Frye. Beside this, Ednetta signed her name.

  Sybilla fumbled the pen signing beside her name, dropped the pen and had to snatch it up, with a wild little laugh.

  “Like signin for a record, Mama! Like this my first ‘hit-single.’”

  As he was about to escort Ednetta and Sybilla from his office, Reverend Mudrick said, “This is for you, Sister Ednetta, and for your daughter Sybilla. It is a gesture of my faith in our cause and a prophecy of what lies ahead for you.”

  Counting out ten one-hundred-dollar bills into Ednetta Frye’s quivering hand.

  The Crusade

  Black girl, white cops, kidnap, rape, assault & left to die.

  Quickly then it became a poem. An incantation. These few words uttered again, again and again.

  “There’s this ‘Occam Razor’—he say how the simplest you can make things, the more effective they be. More urgent the sound, the more it will be heard. And the angrier the voice, the more emotion it will arouse.”

  In the final, tense two weeks of a trial of eight-months’ duration—a class action suit brought against the Passaic County Board of Education on behalf of a number of African-American custodial employees claiming to have been wrongfully dismissed from their jobs in the years 1978 to 1985—he hadn’t had time for more than cursory research into the Sybilla Frye case. He’d made a few telephone calls to contacts in Pascayne, he’d questioned a few potential witnesses, but he hadn’t yet spoken with Ednetta Frye face-to-face, nor had he spoken with Sybilla Frye even on the phone; he was working approximately ninety hours a week, and he was exhausted, but hopeful, for the lawsuit would be adjudicated soon, and the long effort would be over. And the plaintiffs would win. And the settlement, though not large, would constitute a great moral victory. Byron Mudrick would burst into tears in the courtroom, and his clients would embrace him.

  Hope is a stimulant. His heart raced with hope. But hope can cloud judgment, as he should have known by now. He was forty-three, not a young man.

  He’d taken a deep breath. He’d gripped his brother Marus’s arm at the elbow as if to steady Marus, or himself. For Marus had been speaking passionately about the Frye girl—what had been done to her, how she and her mother had been traumatized by the assault, how dazed and helpless they were, like victims of war. Byron had often seen his brother in elated, excitable moods, but he’d rarely seen him so moved—genuinely moved, Byron thought.

  He’d brought his face close to his brother’s face, regarding him searchingly. The eyes of twin brothers, each peering into the soul of the other.

  Byron was thinking But he has deceived you in the past. He has begged forgiveness, but he has deceived you. Why would you believe him now?

  (It was true: Byron had been shocked to learn, belatedly, that his preacher-brother Marus Mudrick had been an FBI informant in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Marus had been an anti-Communist informant relaying confidential information about the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Howard University anti–Vietnam War protesters, and others, to the FBI; he’d told Byron defensively that he was an American citizen as well as a black man, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. And Byron had said, incredulously But you informed on our brothers, our black brothers and Marus said We are all brothers in Jesus. We are Christians before we are black but the Nation of Islam is not Christian. We hate and abhor godless communism. It had not seemed to Byron that his brother was speaking coherently or honestly but in the end, he’d forgiven Marus. But he had not forgotten.)

  Yet now, Byron was weakening. Marus had shown him a photograph of Sybilla Frye, who looked younger than fifteen, with swollen and discolored eyes and mouth, creased forehead. This was a child who’d been kidnapped by “white cops” and held captive for several days, raped repeatedly, and beaten. Dog feces had been rubbed into her hair and onto her body and racist epithets had been scrawled on her body. She’d been hog-tied and left in the filthy cellar of a boarded-up factory on the Pascayne waterfront and only through the accidental discovery by a neighbor had her life been saved. In a voice that trembled with indignation Marus said This is a lynching in which the victim has been let live, that her humiliation and shame will endure through her life.

  Byron felt a sensation of vertigo as if he were crossing a narrow board above an abyss. For he had daughters, of whom the oldest was sixteen and the youngest eleven. He adored and feared for his daughters in this world that, for all the gains of the past two decades, was yet a vicious, racist world. He’d spent much of his legal career dealing with the consequences of racism—direct racism, indirect racism (where the victims of racism harm one another as tortured or starving animals might harm one another, being unable to reach the source of their misery). He’d represented countless individuals who’d been mistreated by white cops—the least of their problems had been false arrest. He knew how cops—some, not all—but a sizable some—treated poor women of color who were helpless against them. The thought of his daughters being subjected to such horror made him feel—literally—sick.

  He asked Marus simply: did Marus believe the girl?

  Marus said Yes. Yes he did believe.

  Still Byron gripped his brother by the elbow. Here was the “elder”—larger—Mudrick brother Marus with his smooth handsome face, the fattish dignity of a Buddha. Byron leaned close to Marus in a way that only an intimate might do, peering into his brother’s eyes.

  You are sure, Marus?

  Yes. She is telling the truth, and I am sure.

  Byron regarded his brother for a long moment, then decided to believe him.

  “We movin forward now. We ain’t never movin back.”

  The Mudrick brothers were not strangers to righteous crusades. But rarely had they joined forces as they would in the crusade for justice for Sybilla Frye.

  “My brother Byron with us now, an his staff workin with mine, we will have an army.”

  The sexually abused Sybilla Frye had been so traumatized, she was near-mute in public. Only her mother could communicate with her. Though sometimes, at his specially convened news conferences, Reverend Mudrick would approach the girl and address her in a kindly, lowered voice, and elicit from her timid responses that signaled Yes or No.

  The first news conference of the Crusade for Justice for Sybilla Frye was held at Care Ministry of Central New Jersey headquarters on Fort Street, Newark, on November 11, 1987. Rows of chairs had been set up to accommodate 150 individuals who’d been invited by the Reverend’s staff, of whom forty-two came: journalists who worked for newspapers and news services, and journalists who called themselves “freelance”; writers of whom some were published, and some were not; academics associated with Afro-American Studies departments in the Newark area; civil rights activists and associates of varying ages; a scattering of social workers, welfare workers, lawyers and paralegals, law students from By
ron Mudrick’s classes at Rutgers-Newark Law School. Gazing out over the small but rapt audience, which was almost exclusively black and about equally divided between male and female, Reverend Mudrick cried: “Welcome, sisters! Welcome, brothers! You are blessed by the Lord: you will find yourselves at the fulcrum of history, by answering my heartfelt appeal on behalf of a martyred Christian black girl.”

  As the harrowing story of Sybilla Frye was revealed to the public for the first time, Ednetta Frye and her daughter Sybilla appeared stiff with fear, or anxiety; at Reverend Mudrick’s insistence they were seated just behind and to the left of the podium at which Reverend Mudrick stood to speak. Mrs. Frye was perceived to be an attractive black woman in her early forties, who looked as if she’d been through an emotional ordeal; her gaze was downcast and she was dressed in the dark, somber clothing of a mourner, with a skirt that fell nearly to her ankles, and black leather pumps with a low heel. Around her neck was a small gold cross on a chain. Close beside her, so that the two could grip hands, sat Sybilla Frye, who wore schoolgirl clothes—dark pleated skirt, white cotton long-sleeved blouse, white socks, prim little patent leather shoes. Sybilla’s hair had been fashioned into pigtails: she looked much younger than fifteen. Her face no longer bore obvious marks of the beating she’d received several weeks before but when she was observed walking she carried herself like one who anticipates pain in her back, hips, and legs.

  Sybilla, too, wore a little gold cross on a chain around her neck.

  To the right, rear of the podium sat Byron Mudrick, known also to most of the individuals in the room. To some, Dr. Mudrick was their mentor, their professor. Small of stature, yet stern-faced, he resembled the more flamboyant Marus Mudrick like a younger, less consequential but staunchly loyal brother.

  Reverend Mudrick wore one of his custom-made dark three-piece suits, with an elegant silver silk necktie and a gold watch chain across his vest. His oily, dense hair had been freshly barbered. His gold-rimmed eyeglasses shone. Those who were familiar with Marus Mudrick’s sermons and public addresses were not surprised that the Reverend began speaking so very softly, individuals at the back of the room could barely hear him; by degrees, his beautifully modulated voice that was a subtle blend of New Jersey and Virginia would rise, gain strength, fill every corner of the room. Outrage was Reverend Mudrick’s highly combustible fuel—stoking the outrage of his listeners. In a voice quavering with emotion he described the “Nazi-racist white atrocity” that had been perpetrated upon the “black child Sybilla, on her way home from school” in Pascayne, New Jersey, just the previous month, that had never been reported in any newspaper or on any news program: “A shameless ‘whitewash’—‘white boycott.’ A ‘gag-rule’ from on high, some are sayin the governor of New Jersey conspirin with the Pascayne police chief an head of the state police.”

  In Pentecostal tones, fierce, then subdued, then again fierce, and again subdued, with grandiloquent gestures of his beringed hands, and tears brimming conspicuously in his large, alert eyes, Reverend Marus Mudrick continued to shock and outrage his audience, as Sybilla Frye hid her face in her hands, weeping, and Mrs. Frye comforted her, as one might comfort a young child. All eyes in the room were riveted on the Fryes—the loving and protective mother, the stricken and abused daughter.

  In the audience were several photographers who’d been encouraged to take photographs when they wished. If it seemed surprising to some observers that a child-rape victim was to be so publicly identified, and openly photographed, no one remarked upon it, or protested.

  “That which has been concealed, will now be revealed.”

  Often it happened at Reverend Mudrick’s news conferences that Ednetta Frye would have to comfort her weeping daughter, as Marus Mudrick spoke in his ever-escalating, stormy and impassioned voice; sometimes, both mother and daughter broke down, and had to be escorted from the room as audiences stared in rapt silence.

  “My sisters and brothers, you seein brave people here—Sybilla Frye an her mother Ednetta Frye darin to come forward to charge their accusers an not hidin away like the ‘white cops’ been expectin these black sisters to do—under threat of death not just to them but their family. Jesus watchin over them—but they need our prayers! They needin all the help we can give them.”

  Within hours of the first press conference, word began to spread of the abused black girl in Pascayne: the Care Ministry was flooded with calls, answered by Reverend Mudrick’s staff who directed callers to the Pascayne Police Department and the Pascayne Journal, as well as soliciting donations to the Crusade for Justice for Sybilla Frye; in time, callers were also directed to the mayor of Pascayne, local New Jersey state congressmen and U.S. congressmen, U.S. senators, the govenor of New Jersey. Angry and incredulous callers were urged to walk into Pascayne police headquarters and demand justice for Sybilla Frye, and to “ply” the media with appeals for justice.

  Soon then, brief articles on Sybilla Frye began to appear in the press and on TV. In a few, photographs of Reverend Marus Mudrick and the Fryes began to appear.

  The first news item in a major, white publication was in the Newark Star-Ledger on November 15, 1987; though on page six of the Metropolitan section the article was beneath a striking headline—

  ABDUCTION, RAPE CHARGES MADE AGAINST UNIDENTIFIED PASCAYNE POLICE OFFICERS

  The Newark Star-Ledger was the preeminent daily newspaper in New Jersey, one of a chain of papers that included the Trenton Times, in which a similar article appeared on November 16, on page three of the first section.

  On November 18, Reverend Mudrick scheduled a second news conference, this time in an auditorium at Rutgers-Newark Law School, which had been secured by Byron Mudrick. To this conference came an unexpected number of persons, estimated to be as many as three hundred; predominantly black, yet including a number of white-skinned individuals as well, many from out of town. Black publications like the Chicago Messenger, Black Digest, and Essence were represented by more than one reporter each. As many as a dozen photographers arrived, as well as TV news reporters and camera crews from local New Jersey stations, to whom Reverend Marus Mudrick willingly gave interviews.

  At last the Pascayne Journal published its first story on the subject beneath a headline on page three of the first section: “Pascayne PD Denies ‘Groundless’ Charges in Alleged Rape.” The Newark Star-Ledger and the Trenton Times, as well as other Jersey papers, featured articles titled “The Crusade for Justice for Sybilla Frye”—“Cover-up Charged by Reverend Marus Mudrick in Alleged Rape Case”—“The Mysterious Case of ‘Sybilla Frye,’ Pascayne, NJ.”

  In all of these articles, Reverend Marus Mudrick, identified as an African-American Episcopal minister and a civil rights activist, a “former aide” of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., was quoted, at length. In some articles, “Civil Rights Activist-Attorney” Byron Mudrick was also quoted.

  Neither Ednetta Frye nor Sybilla Frye was quoted in the press, for both were inaccessible to journalists.

  The Pascayne Police Department was flooded with calls. Reporters arrived at police headquarters and at the Red Rock precinct. There were roaming photographers. TV news reporters appeared with camera crews, stationed on the street and causing traffic jams. Initially these were local New Jersey stations, then they were network affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC. Pascayne patrol officers were approached on the street by reporters before they’d been informed who “Sybilla Frye” and “Marus Mudrick” were. Reporters and photographers for the Associated Press, the United Press, USA Today arrived. There was a frantic search for Sybilla Frye and her mother Ednetta, but canny Marus Mudrick had made arrangements for them to stay with friends of Reverend Denis in another area of the city; eventually, Ednetta and Sybilla would be moved several times, as Marus Mudrick said for their “protection.”

  Photographs were taken of the Frye residence in the weatherworn brownstone at 939 Third Street. Photographs were taken of the derelict Jersey Foods factory from the outside, and inside the dim-lit cel
lar. If there’d been a “crime scene,” this scene was thoroughly trampled.

  Then, a great leap to the front page of the tabloid New York Post: “Black Minister Charges Cover-up in Pascayne, NJ, Race-Rape Case.”

  After a cautious interlude, quick in the aftermath of the Post the New York Times began to report, initially on an inside page in the city news section, then on the lower-left front page.

  “Man, this crossin the Rub’icon! Crossin the Hudson! We in the New York Times now! An this just the beginning.”

  To his staff, Marus Mudrick appeared jubilant. And on the phone speaking with “Sister Ednetta” (who never saw a newspaper but watched TV news and listened to the radio through the day) he was triumphant. To his brother Byron, Marus appeared slightly dazed, like a man who has had too much to drink, too quickly.

  “They believin the girl—lib’ral white folks? Jews the kind sure don’t want to be racists like the redneck crackers.” Marus’s jowls shook with laughter.

  They were in Marus’s inner office at the Care Ministry. Telephones had been ringing through the day. Reporters were even now waiting out on Fort Street. Reverend Marus Mudrick was to be interviewed in the morning on NJN-TV—New Jersey Network—and later in the day, by a reporter for the Trenton Times. Byron said: “They should believe her. It’s got nothing to do with ‘Jews.’ The girl is telling the stark, terrible truth.” He’d studied the articles in the New York Times with a stab of something like shock, dismay. It was astonishing to him—the “Crusade for Justice for Sybilla Frye” had made the priceless front page of the great newspaper that, for the many years Byron Mudrick had labored in civil rights litigation, for the many brilliant but hard-won cases he’d fought for his clients, for all the doubts, despair, misery and self-disgust he’d had to endure, had steadfastly ignored him.