Rape

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Immediately you saw them, you knew them. You understood then that you would never forget those faces.

  There had been others. Maybe seven, eight. Maybe more. It had been so confusing. And others had come, drawn by the commotion. Out of the park. From the roadway. Maybe.

  You could positively identify just five. These had been the most aggressive, the first to rush at you.

  Marvin Pick. Lloyd Pick. Jimmy DeLucca. Fritz Haaber. Joe Rickert.

  Each of these young men had police records in Niagara County for petty crimes. All had juvenile records sealed by Family Court. Both Picks and DeLucca had served time in a juvenile facility. Haaber had been on probation in 1994 for having assaulted his girlfriend. Rickert was on parole from Olean Men’s Correctional Facility, where he’d served time for robbery and drug possession.

  All of the suspects lived in the Twelfth Street/Huron Avenue neighborhood of the city, east of Rocky Point Park. About a mile from where you and your mother lived on Ninth Street.

  So close! You would not wish to think how close.

  After you’d identified the suspects, you were told that they had already been taken into custody by police in the early hours of July 5. Along with numerous other young men they had been brought to the precinct for questioning in the gang rape/assault. It was clear to police that many of the detained men knew about the rape whether they had participated in it or not. “Word gets around. These guys know one another.” Clothing and shoes belonging to some of the men had been confiscated for examination. Bloodstains on these items would be matched against your mother’s blood and your own, as semen found in and upon your mother’s body would be matched against the suspects’ DNA.

  Skin tissue beneath your mother’s broken nails would be matched against their DNA.

  It was possible that more suspects would be brought in, the detectives said. “These punks, they’ll inform on one another if they think they can save their sorry asses.”

  The police investigation had begun without your knowledge, like a great eye opening.

  Defense

  IT IS A FACT, the suspects’ lawyers would insist. Bethel Maguire is twelve years old. Bethel Maguire was confused, panicked at the time of the assault. Bethel Maguire had not witnessed any actual act of rape perpetrated upon her mother, for she had been by her own admission in hiding during the rape, in a corner of the boathouse in darkness.

  She had not seen any rape. She had seen only the blurred, uncertain faces of a number of young men, in the park outside the boathouse.

  The path beside the lagoon was poorly lighted. The interior of the boathouse was not lighted at all.

  How can the child be sure? How can we believe her? How can a child of twelve swear? How can a child of twelve testify?

  “That Girl, Teena Maguire’s Daughter”

  AS SOON AS YOUR mother and you were dragged into the boathouse at Rocky Point Park you began to exist in after. Never again could you exist in before. That time of your childhood before you and your mother became victims was gone forever, remote as a scene glimpsed at a distance, fading like vapor as you stare in longing.

  “Momma! Momma don’t die! Momma I love you don’t die.”

  You had thought she was dead, on the boathouse floor. Crawling to her. To where they’d left her. Racked in pain, frantic. You had hidden in the darkest corner of the boathouse and you had pressed your hands over your ears and you had heard the ugly sounds of your mother being assaulted and you had reason to believe that you had heard the sounds of her death and so through your life it would seem to you that your mother had died, and you had been a witness to her death who had died, too.

  After would be years. You are still living those years. After would be the remainder of your mother’s life.

  * * *

  WHAT YOU DIDN’T REALIZE. What no one could have told you. How the rape was not an incident that had happened one night in the park in the random way of a stroke of lightning but the very definition of Teena Maguire’s life, and by extension your life, afterward. What had been Teena, what had been Bethie, was suddenly eclipsed. Your mother would be That woman who was gang-raped in the boathouse at Rocky Point Park and you would be That girl, Teena Maguire’s daughter.

  Off-Duty

  DROMOOR DROPPED BY ST. MARY’S. Inquired at the front desk how a patient named Maguire was doing, in intensive care.

  The heavily made-up receptionist frowned into a computer. Type-type-typing rapidly. Frowned importantly saying such information was confidential unless he was a family member, and was he?

  Dromoor considered showing the woman his badge. Saying he’d been the officer to first see Martine Maguire. He’d been the one to see what had been done to her. And so he had a right to know if she would live.

  The receptionist was staring at Dromoor, waiting. He’d been so still, his thoughts had plunged inward.

  “Sir? Are you a family member? Or . . .”

  Dromoor shook his head no. Turned and walked away. Fuck it he couldn’t get involved, he had promised himself. Married and a father and his wife already anxious about him and he wasn’t the type, not the type to get involved.

  The Vigil

  AT ST. MARY’S. VISITING hours from 8:30 A.M. until 11:00 P.M. now that your mother is out of intensive care and in a private room on the fourth floor.

  Grandma is paying extra for the private room, which Momma’s insurance won’t pay for. Grandma and you, you practically live at St. Mary’s now. God only let my daughter live. God help us in our hour of need. God have mercy on us. Let my daughter live. I will never ask anything of You again.

  At first it was not known whether Teena Maguire would ever recover what is circumspectly called “consciousness.” After two days at St. Mary’s you were released but your mother remained on a life support system in the intensive care unit, her condition was “critical.” In a coma, for her skull had been “concussed.” There had been “pinpoint hemorrhaging” in her brain. She was not able to breathe on her own. She was fed intravenously. A catheter drained toxins from her body in a continual thin stream. Speaking to your grandmother, the neurologist was awkward, evasive. It was like a bad joke hearing this professional in his hospital whites utter such words as We can only hope for the best.

  You saw hope rising into the sky. A flimsy kite torn by the winds off Lake Ontario. You laughed, you were so scared.

  Then, on the morning of the sixth day of the vigil, your mother began to open her eyes. She began to wake, intermittently. All that day and into the next. You could feel Momma forcing herself up out of sleep like a swimmer breaking the surface of a heavy viscous water like molten lead. You could feel her effort, the tremulous strength of her will. Her bruised eyelids fluttered. Her wounded mouth quivered. “Momma!” you whispered. You were holding one of her icy hands, Grandma was holding the other. “Teena! We’re here, honey. Bethie and me. Both of us. We won’t leave you. We love you.”

  Eventually your mother woke from her sleep. At first she was childlike, trusting. What had happened to her was vague as an explosion or a car crash or a building collapsing on her head. Her shaved head swathed in white gauze and her chalky-pale skin had a look of something newborn you wished only to protect.

  Childhood was over and yet: as long as your mother could not remember what had happened to her you could behave in the old way of before.

  Casey came, after several days. Gaunt and poorly shaved and strangely shy, swallowing hard. On the street it was known what had happened to Teena Maguire, in the newspapers it had been more delicately expressed. To Casey’s face no one would wish to say That Maguire woman, she had it coming.

  Casey’s visits with Teena Maguire were brief and very awkward. In his shaky hands he brought flowers hastily purchased in the hospital gift shop. The first time, a dozen waxy-red roses. The second time, a tinfoil-wrapped pot of white mums. His moist eyes stared and stared at the swollen-faced bruised-eyed woman in the hospital bed. He loved Teena Maguire but you could see that
he was terrified of what was hidden beneath the white gauze that tightly covered her head. He was terrified of what injuries, the worst of them internal, had been done to her in that part of her body hidden by bedclothes. The last he’d seen of Teena Maguire they’d all been drinking and happy celebrating the Fourth of July. The last he’d seen of Teena Maguire she’d been another woman. Leaning to kiss his cheek saying Love ya, Casey! Call me in the morning.

  There had been no next morning. For Casey and Teena there would never be another next morning.

  The room is filling up with flowers and cards. Even when Casey ceases to visit, he will send a floral bouquet from the gift shop downstairs. A card signed Love, Casey.

  A few of the nurses at St. Mary’s know your mother from high school when she was Teena Kevecki. They drop by the room to see her, trained not to show surprise, shock, embarrassment, or indignation at the sight of any patient. Trained to call out, “Teena, hello! How are they treating you here?”

  When relatives enter the room, it isn’t the same. Their eyes fix on your mother’s battered face and swathed head. They search for words that elude them. The women take Grandma aside to ask cautiously if Teena will have permanent facial scars. They ask about the mysterious “internal” injuries.

  You don’t hear Grandma’s replies. You try not to hear.

  Can’t sleep except when Momma sleeps. Can’t eat except when Momma eats. Can’t smile except if Momma smiles with her swollen, lacerated mouth.

  You are reverting to childish behavior, you want only to crawl into bed beside your mother and be held by her. Though Momma is not strong enough to hold you or comfort you or even kiss you unless you poke your fevered face close to hers, against her wounded mouth.

  Your arm! Yanked out of its socket with a crack! you imagined you had heard. Now it has been forced back into its socket yet still you are in pain much of the time, your arm feels useless to you like a dead girl’s arm. Your eyes are reddened from crying. Your back, sides, thighs are covered in bruises from where the one named Haaber kicked you. Where’s the little cunt where the fuck is she hiding? But in Momma’s hospital room you are safe, and you can sleep. Patches of sleep drift by like clouds. You smile seeing Momma’s dreams fleeting and shining like vapor. Momma wait! Take me with you. Lower your head to rest it on your crossed arms, on the bed. Next thing you know Grandma has come into the room waking you. A nurse is bringing Momma’s dinner on a tray, her soft-diet food.

  Momma lets you help her with her meals. Though by now she can feed herself. Apple juice, bouillon, puréed carrots like baby food. And strawberry Jell-O. So delicious, you and Momma plan you will make Jell-O all the time when she comes home.

  Outside your mother’s room you overhear one nurse asking another That poor girl, the daughter. They didn’t rape her, too, did they?

  “Bethie? Something happened to us, I guess? But you’re all right, honey? Are you?”

  Momma is so anxious, you tell her yesyes!

  She sleeps so much. In the midst of watching TV her head droops, she’s asleep. You want to snuggle beside her. You want the vigil never to end.

  One day in reproach pinching your arm as if she’s only just thought of this: “Bethie, you didn’t fall off that porch, did you? Is that what this is all about? Some fireworks went off, you lost your balance and fell off that damn old porch?”

  * * *

  Momma is out of the room wheeled away and taken downstairs to another floor for a CAT scan. You’d had a CAT scan, too, but don’t remember what it means: something to do with the skull, the brain.

  Maybe the hemorrhages have ceased. Maybe the leaky blood has been reabsorbed by the brain. Maybe Momma will soon be well. You don’t want to think beyond this, for now.

  Another flower delivery is made for Teena Maguire. You will have it perched on her bedside tray when the nurses bring her back. Not a very big bouquet, one of the smaller, cheaper ones. But it’s pretty: pink, red, white carnations and spiky green leaves. When Momma returns you show her the card, excited.

  But Momma is squinting, can’t see to read. And she’s confused, suspicious. When you tell her the name is “Dromoor” she says she has no friend by that name. She says, her voice rising, “I don’t want anybody’s damn pity, Bethie. Tell them that.”

  Two NFPD detectives come to the room. Promise not to stay long. Not to tire or upset the patient. Just a few questions to ask. A few pictures of “suspects” for her to look at.

  By this time, arrests have been made. Charges filed. Bail has been set at $75,000 for each of eight young men in custody.

  * * *

  By her twelfth day in St. Mary’s, Teena Maguire is beginning to remember something of what happened to her. You see the stricken look in her face sometimes, her mouth opening in a silent cry. She knows now that it wasn’t a car crash. It wasn’t an accident. She knows that you were involved but that you weren’t hurt as badly as she was. She knows that it happened on the Fourth of July, in the park. She has heard the word assault. It’s possible that, given the nature of her injuries, she is thinking rape. Yet her knowledge is vague. She is so hopeful, trusting. The detectives speak patiently with her as you might speak with a frightened child. “I don’t knknow,” she murmurs, beginning to tremble. “I’m afraid I just don’t know.” They have no luck showing her photographs of the suspects, for her bloodshot eyes fill so rapidly with tears, Teena is virtually blinded.

  And so tired! In the midst of the interview with these awkward strangers, Teena Maguire falls asleep.

  In the corridor your grandmother demands to know when those animals will be sent to prison.

  The vigil at St. Mary’s. The end of your childhood.

  Naps. Meals on trays. Afternoon TV. Now that your mother can manage soft-solid foods, her appetite is returning. The gauze has been removed from her head, her scalp is tender, pinkish-pale, near-bald, but covered in soft, fair down like the down of a fledgling bird. At last Momma is free of the damn bedpan she’d hated, makes her slow shaky determined way to the lavatory leaning heavily on you and pulling the IV gurney. She jokes about slipping out of the hospital like this, running away home.

  Home! What was Momma thinking?

  Long days ebbing into dusk, and into night. The routines of a hospital. Routines of convalescence. Each night at 11:00 P.M., you and your grandmother leave your mother’s room, Momma is already asleep. Wave good night to the nurses on the floor who smile at you, think you are a brave girl as your mother is a brave woman, fighting for her life and fighting now to recover. You would not wish to think for a fraction of a second that anyone at St. Mary’s—nursing staff, aides and attendants and custodians, gift shop salesclerks, cafeteria workers, the heavily made-up receptionist at the information desk—would not like you, would wish you harm.

  Relatives of the suspects. Friends, neighbors.

  Girlfriends.

  That woman. What did she expect? Asking for it, the bitch.

  Dressed like a hooker. Her word against theirs.

  Who knows what was going on in that park in the middle of the night?!

  You’ve seen the eyes. Drifting onto you and your grandmother Agnes Kevecki. You’ve seen, and looked quickly away.

  Grandma doesn’t seem to notice. Not Grandma! She’s convinced that all of Niagara Falls is on her side, wanting those animals to be put away for a long time.

  In the elevator the panic hits you, each night. Leaving your mother’s room. The safety of that room. The vigil. Staring at the lighted numerals above the door moving swiftly from right to left flashing the floors as you descend to the ground floor. That sick-collapsing sensation in your stomach as the elevator door glides soundlessly open.

  “Grandma. I’m so scared.”

  Grandma doesn’t hear you. Lost in her own thoughts.

  The enemy. Waiting for you. When you leave the hospital, when you return to the house on Baltic Avenue. For of course they know where you live. They know where your mother Teena Maguire lives: the rented du
plex on Ninth.

  They know all about Teena Maguire. The Picks, the Haabers, the DeLuccas, the Rickerts. These are East Side families, with numerous relatives. There are more of them than there are Keveckis and Maguires. Many more.

  The Family Services woman says please don’t worry.

  The detectives say trust us. Don’t worry.

  There is a hearing scheduled for next month. (Though it will be postponed. You will come to learn that anything connected with the court, the law, legal issues, lawyers will be postponed. And postponed.) A hearing is not a trial but the preparation for a trial. You will be required to answer questions in court though you have already answered these questions many times. You have told, retold, and retold all that you can remember until you are sick with the telling as you are sick with the memory of what you must tell and retell to strangers who seem always to be doubting you, frowning and staring at you, assessing the validity of Bethel Maguire’s testimony.

  If Teena Maguire is well enough, she will be required to answer questions at the hearing. Your mother’s testimony is more crucial than yours, the detectives have told you. Without her testimony, the case against the suspects will be circumstantial, weak.

  You don’t know why. You don’t understand why this is so. They hurt your mother so badly, beat her and tore her insides and left her to bleed to death on the boathouse floor.

  Yes but this has to be proven. In a court of law.

  Not enough that it happened. That Teena Maguire almost died. It has to be proven, too.

  “Grandma, I’m scared. . . .”

  “Of what, honey? The parking garage? My car is parked right where we can see it. We got here so early.”

  Grandma loves you, but Grandma can’t protect you. For how can Grandma protect you? She lives alone, an aging woman not in the very best of health herself, in her red-brick house on Baltic Avenue, a five-minute drive from the Twelfth Street/Huron Avenue neighborhood where the suspects and their families live. The “suspects”—as they are called—have been warned by police not to approach either your grandmother’s house or your mother’s house and not to approach anyone in your family at any time nor to attempt to contact anyone in your family and yet: they are the enemy, they are free on bail, they would wish to silence you. You know what they are. You remember them from the attack. Rushing at you, jeering and laughing. A wild-dog pack. Glistening eyes, teeth. Fuck we should’ve killed them both, those cunts. When we had the fucking chance.