A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Yet whenever I was alone, or drifted away in my thoughts from others (including even my younger children pulling at my sleeves or nudging their heads against me, in their way of pleading Dad-dee look! that tore at my heart) it was of that I was made aware.

  Lately he’s been arriving early. Before the police guard.

  How many minutes?—could be ten minutes, twelve . . .

  He is a murderer, and also a coward. Hiding himself inside among women whom he victimizes—butchers.

  Voorhees. One of those on the List.

  Had Stockard uttered these words to me? Or had Stockard communicated these words, without speaking?

  His eyes shone with feeling behind rimless glasses, octagonal in shape. He had no need to say—The murderer must be stopped! One of us must stop him.

  At work, laying shingles for the roof of a house overlooking a ravine in a residential neighborhood of Muskegee Falls (a new “colonial” of a size that could contain two houses of the size of my own as the lot itself was three acres, six times the size of my property), as I hammered nails each blow of the hammer was a strike to the heart—A baby is being hammered to death, a baby is being sucked out of its mother’s womb, a baby is denied birth, a baby will die. And a woman’s or a girl’s body has been violated by the abortionist’s instrument as her soul has been violated. For those who are meant by the Lord to be mothers are often brainwashed, and have no idea to what they are consenting.

  A woman does not know her own mind. Especially a woman who has become pregnant, whose mental state has been thrown into disruption by what are called “hormones.”

  All of the women of my acquaintance, my mother, my sister, and my dear wife Edna Mae, have acknowledged this. And troubled women whom it was my task to comfort, when I was a lay minister in our church. Often a woman will say, she did not mean what she’d said when she was angry or upset, a kind of madness had come over her. It is that time of month. Or it is hot flashes. As Satan speaks through the female mouth that becomes ugly and contorted. And there is a feeling of Satan in her thoughts. The weakness of a woman or a girl in “giving in” to a man is not the worst sin, but one to be forgiven as Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene. But it is a fact—A woman must be protected from the most terrible mistake of her life.

  The thought that our own precious children might have died by the abortionist’s hand, if circumstances had been different. For there is a blindness to fate, that cannot be comprehended.

  A child is yourself. And yet, of course a child is not yourself, and unknowable.

  We are here on earth to protect and love one another and it is to the least of these, the children and infants, we are most responsible.

  On the roofs of strangers’ houses such thoughts came to me often. All my worklife it has been such, beginning at age fourteen in Sandusky where my father was a carpenter and roofer and first brought me to work-sites with him. My father was not a man easy in his speech and it was rare for him to touch me (or any of my brothers or sisters) except at such a time when he might grab my hand to secure me as I stepped onto a roof—Got you!

  Like a blessing it seemed, Dad gripping my hand tight.

  It is distressing to me, there is not so much roofing and carpentry work now available to a boy so young. It is not likely that I can bring Luke to a work-site with me and expect Fischer Construction to take him on.

  Nor is it clear that Luke wants to work as I do. Or that he would be so capable with his hands as I was at that age.

  When you climb onto the roof of any building, you are elevated above your natural state. There are thoughts that come to you only on the roofs of such buildings because the first fact is, when you straighten your back, and lift your eyes, the sky will open above you in a way that is different from when you are on the ground. Trees are not above you, some trees are beneath you or you are on a level with them. At fourteen such climbs onto the roofs of houses were exciting to me, it was thrilling to take up a hammer and to work beside my father and to know that my father was damn proud of me as he would say (if not to me, to others), and to see the envy in the eyes of the other men, that my father had such a son as Luther, and such a good worker, and never complaining or bored like other boys. I was not yet prepared for the wisdom of the Lord (for there was coarseness in my soul at that age) yet from the start the “opening” of the sky made a strong impression on me. It is hard to explain what this was except I knew myself filled with the unease of knowing that no act of mine would be unobserved and unjudged.

  This is the first fact, the “openness” of the sky, and the second is, the (usual) roof will be at a slant beneath your feet and so this is different from your standing on the ground flat-footed. You do not take any roof for granted, for it is likely to be at a slant and you must be alert at all times. This is not true for standing on the ground. Even a drunken man will take for granted, the evenness of the ground. For the roof, you require work-boots with grip-soles. You require a cap to shade your eyes from the sun. You require gloves. In a bad dream you are on a (steep-slanted) roof exposed, and you do not have a hat or gloves or sturdy work-boots and when you search for the ladder you see that the ladder has been removed and there is no way down.

  Sweat breaks out everywhere on your body, when you see that the ladder has been removed.

  If you jump from the roof you may break both legs. You may break your back, your neck. You make your way around the roof, weak-kneed, squatting on your heels, searching for the ladder that is not there; and it is strange, no one is around. Never in actual life are you alone on a roof with a hammer in your hand, not once in memory since the age of fourteen, yet in the dream, the ladder has been taken away, and the other men are gone including the foreman, and the sky overhead is—“open.”

  In the early years the excitement was, each morning, what new thoughts would come to me that day!—for always there are new thoughts, that press from the sky.

  It was then, the Lord often spoke to me. Jesus spoke to me, to console me in a time of trouble but also, to rejoice with me in a time of happiness.

  For you do not always know that you are happy, unless it is revealed to you.

  That you are blessed, as with children and a loving and devoted Christian wife, and a (mostly) steady job even in times of “recession”—this, you may need to be informed by one whose knowledge is greater than your own.

  Except since Daphne, the thoughts are not new. Like flypaper, where the flies are caught and buzzing. And no fly that is caught on the sticky paper will ever be free of it though more flies will appear, trapped and buzzing.

  These are buzzing thoughts.

  In the hot months especially this was so. The stink of tar paper softening in the sun, that is a smell like mice, mice-carcasses, in a cellar. From a distance I could hear the others talking together. And there was the noise of hammering. But the buzzing thoughts intervened.

  My heels dug into the (slanted) planks, and my breath came thick and with effort. Sweat trickling down my sides. The stink of my body oozing sweat like tears.

  But since Stockard had spoken to me, and an understanding had passed between us, it was a new time. The sky was pearl-colored, and bright. You could not see the sun but still, the air was bright. There were clouds of such astonishing forms, it was a temptation to stare at them for long minutes. It was a temptation to observe the clouds passing. And now the summer was gone, it had come to be late October and a white light seemed to reflect upward from the tar paper.

  The light of Heaven. Your eyes are open now.

  My hammer-blows were forceful, precise. Driving three-inch nails into the shingles, securing them in descending rows. With each blow of my hammer came the questions—who would be next? Who would be the next to step forward? To strike against the enemy? As my comrades have bravely stepped forward in Florida, in Kentucky, in Michigan, in New York, and in Ohio.

  Defending the unborn. Justifiable homicide.

  It had tugged at my conscience, that a comrade in the Army of
God, James Kopp, known to me only by name, had assassinated the abortion doctor Barnett Slepian in Buffalo, New York, nearly one year ago, on Veterans Day (November 11) 1998, and was now sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Many of us are praying for him, that he will not sink into despair. Some years earlier, the martyr Michael Griffin had stepped forward to assassinate the notorious abortion doctor David Gunn at a women’s clinic in Pensacola, Florida, and had traded his life for his. And there was Terence Mitchell in Traverse City, Michigan—whom we prayed for last year—found guilty of homicide and sentenced to life in prison.

  In Livingston, Kentucky, there was Shaun Harris who’d shot down the abortionist Paul Erich, and had not yet come to trial . . .

  Now the Lord had turned His eye upon Luther Dunphy and I could not hide. On the roof of the house overlooking the ravine, the rich man’s house, in the eye of the sun pounding on my head through the cloth cap, into my brain. As if it were a problem in geometry in my son Luke’s textbook I was made to realize that there is a next person to act and that this person would be—me.

  “Only say the word. My soul shall be healed.”

  There had been other sharp turns in my life. These turns that had altered the course of my life, usually without my realizing at the time, but only later. But never a turn so clear as the Lord’s mission for me.

  For the remainder of that day I worked harder than anyone else in our crew. Harder than the younger men who spend too much time talking and laughing together, uttering profanities, telling dirty jokes. As if your own lips are not polluted, in the telling of dirty jokes. And such laughter, over-loud, like hyenas braying, wears away the soul.

  You, Luther Dunphy. You are the chosen one.

  You, to bring down the abortion murderer Voorhees that your Christian brethren may rejoice.

  There is an agitation in hammering nails but it is a controlled agitation. All carpentry is a controlled action, to a purpose. One nail, and another nail. A sequence of nails, in the construction of a house. How many nails, how many blows of the hammer!—the Lord God looks upon Luther Dunphy in wonder, in whom He is well pleased.

  “Luther? Hey—”

  Voices from below lifting in my direction which I heard (of course I heard) but at a distance, through the distraction of the more urgent voice whispering in my ears.

  The foreman Ed Fischer was calling to me. And another, calling my name. But in the shock of realizing that Luther Dunphy had been singled out by the Lord, and that Luther Dunphy was me, I could not seem to reply but stared down at them dumbly.

  SURE LUTHER DUNPHY was an excellent roofer. Luther was a super employee in every way. Responsible, reliable, never hurried, never did a careless or half-assed job, never drank on the job, never got into a fight with anybody, worked with us for eleven years and only took time off, maybe six weeks, recovering from an accident that almost killed him. And even then, he came back as soon as he could, and you could see the pain in his face sometimes but he never complained.

  It was rare for Luther to lose his temper unlike most of these guys we work with. Nor did he use profanities or obscenities unlike these guys who it’s fuck this, fuck that, every fucking thing, that’s all they can say . . . It wasn’t such a surprise to learn in the news, he’d studied to be a minister in some Bible school in Toledo, before he moved here.

  Except, it was obvious Luther took care what he said. He wouldn’t talk behind anybody’s back, for sure. He never got angry—that you could see.

  With this recession we’re not building as much as we used to. Some guys I had to lay off, but I tried to use Luther Dunphy as much as I could. He had the experience, and the skill, and this family with young kids, so sure, there was worry there, he’d have a worried look in his face if I told him his workhours were cut back. But he never got angry.

  Sometimes, Luther would “go off”—he would look at you, if you spoke to him, but he wouldn’t see you—in his eyes there was a kind of blank, like in eyes that are open when a person is asleep . . .

  This terrible accident he had last year out on the highway—one of his young children was killed, and Luther was driving. Nobody ever talked to him about that—how the hell would you know what to say . . .

  We knew that Luther was a member of that evangelical church—what’s it called—St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus. We knew that he was active in the anti-abortion picketing at the Women’s Center, that they call a “vigil.” But nobody would’ve guessed it would go so far—that Luther Dunphy of all people would shoot down two individuals in cold blood, even if they were baby-murderers themselves, Jesus nobody could have foreseen that.

  THE MIRACLE OF THE LITTLE HAND

  The first time I knew of the Little Hand was stunning to me.

  It was a time when Edna Mae had newly come into my life. And the St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus had come into my life. It was a time of great happiness but a time when often I would feel a choking sensation in my throat, that made it very difficult to breathe, and I could not speak, and tears brimmed in my eyes, of the kind of tears that come into your eyes in dry heat, and not in sorrow; for I was not sorrowful or backward-looking, but joyous, that I would soon be married, and my dear Edna Mae and I would begin our family.

  At the church there were pamphlets for us to take, and to pass to friends and neighbors, and to leave in selected places, and one of these had on its cover a picture of a little hand you could see had to be the hand of an infant so small it had only just been born; or had not yet been born.

  The Miracle of the Little Hand

  In the midst of an abortion as the abortion doctor was about to forcibly remove with his bloody instruments the (living) infant from its mother’s womb suddenly the doctor saw a movement at the mouth of the womb, and felt a touch—as he stared in astonishment the little hand of the infant closed about the finger of the doctor and squeezed as if to cry

  I am alive! I am alive! Don’t kill me, I am alive!

  And so it came to pass, the abortion was halted. For neither the doctor nor the nurse in attendance (who had witnessed the Little Hand) could proceed. From that hour onward, the doctor did not perform another abortion but came to be a defender of the unborn, organizing other doctors in the crusade against abortion. The nurse did not ever assist with any abortion again, and helped to organize other medical workers in the crusade against abortion. The young mother too experienced a change of heart and chose to keep the baby, who came to full term and was born after a normal delivery at a healthy weight of — pounds.

  So it is, the Little Hand clutches at the hearts of all.

  Edna Mae had given me the pamphlet to read. Quietly then Edna Mae approached me, and touched my arm with her hand, and saw that my face was ashen, and that the love and the terror of the Lord were in my heart, and silently she embraced me.

  DEFENDING THE DEFENSELESS

  There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby, and a dead conscience.”

  These were the words of Mother Teresa. A Roman Catholic saint she was, of whom we had not heard. Her words uttered in the voice of Professor Willard Wohlman.

  The question was, What is your own conscience? What is God telling you?

  How do you know when you have been chosen by God to behave in a way of disobedience to the state?

  How do you know when it is God’s wish that you should take the life of another, by your own hand?

  In June 1998 we drove two hundred miles from Muskegee Falls which is on the Muskegee River (forty miles north of Marion, Ohio) across the width of the state to Huntington, West Virginia, to hear the renowned Professor Willard Wohlman speak on “Christian pro-life” issues. The title of the evening was Defending the Defenseless: Life Advocacy in the Age of Abortion.

  Soon after Daphne this had been, in the fifth month of grieving, and so Edna Mae had accompanied me, for my dear wife had difficulty remaining alone in the house without me, with just the children and not their father, for a reason so strange
to me I cannot speak of it here for it is of the renowned Professor I wish to speak.

  Edna Mae saying to me You have to watch me, Luther. You have to be in the next room at least. It is not enough just to think of me and to pray for me, that is not enough, Luther.

  At home, the older children would look after the younger. And there was Edna Mae’s sister Noreen to come by each day to oversee.

  He is Professor Willard Wohlman of a distinguished New England university. He has written many scholarly books and has served as an adviser to the President on issues of morality and ethics. He has appeared on television. He has debated abortion, contraception, “planned parenthood” and “same-sex” marriage. His most renowned book is The Sacred Vision in the Secular World which was a best seller for many months. Of his essays it is “One Man, One Woman: Christian Marriage” and “The Conscience of a Christian” that Edna Mae and I have read and discussed together.

  Sometimes now I think it is Professor Wohlman’s voice which I hear in my head in the way that the words of the Lord are communicated to me, and the two come together in a single voice like rolling thunder.

  A dead baby. A dead conscience.

  What is God telling you?

  At St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Huntington, in a hall beside the church Professor Wohlman spoke. The event was sponsored by the American Coalition of Life Activists. Some eighteen of us, from our church in Muskegee Falls, who belonged to the Army of God of Broome County, and some others (like our pastor who did not wish to officially “ally” himself with the Army) drove to Huntington in several vehicles to attend this meeting.

  The Coalition is made up of Protestant and Catholic organizations that have united in common opposition to the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade of 1973. There is a distrust of the (atheist/socialist) state and federal governments interfering with individuals. It is a fact, abortion is murder—this belief is shared by all of us.