Rape

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Your grandmother rose stiffly. Her heart fluttered when she was becoming upset. A daily handful of white and green pills monitored her blood pressure yet even so at such moments a pulse beat heavily in her head.

  “Ms. Diebehkorn, there is no ‘must’ in this house for my daughter and my granddaughter. Good-bye.”

  The second time Diebenkorn came to the house on Baltic Avenue, your grandmother refused to answer the door. You slipped out to speak to the prosecutor on the front porch.

  It was a damp, overcast day at the Falls. Sky like a dirty bandage and wind from the river smelling like wet chalk.

  Diebenkorn began by apologizing profusely. She’d been taken by surprise by Kirkpatrick. Bushwacked! Her entire team! That would not happen again, Diebenkorn promised.

  “Everybody in Niagara Falls knows that the rapists and their attorneys are lying. Absolute lies! The entire story is concocted, an invention of Jay Kirkpatrick. The defendants originally told police, when they were brought into custody, that they didn’t know Martine Maguire, had never seen or heard of Martine Maguire. They told police they’d never been in the park that night, which is a preposterous lie, we have a dozen witnesses who saw them. And now, this claim of . . .” Diebenkorn paused, panting. You could see the pupils of her eyes contracting. She was speaking to a thirteen-year-old girl, an assault victim. She was speaking to the daughter of a rape victim. Yet she had no choice but to continue, vehemently, like a runaway trailer-truck, “. . .‘consensual sex.’ ‘Sex for money.’ Ridiculous! Any reasonable jury will reject it. I will see to it that they reject it. And the preposterous claim that a second pack of rapists rushed in—oh, impossible! How a defense attorney can argue such nonsense with a straight face, I don’t know. Believe me, Bethel. And tell your mother.”

  Blankly you stared at Diebenkorn. You had a new habit of going empty-eyed and uncomprehending when it suited you. It would be a stratagem to serve you through years of public school in Niagara Falls at times in the very presence of enemies. You saw that Diebenkorn had smeared a dark crimson lipstick on her thin lips and that there was lipstick on her front teeth.

  Diebenkorn said, guiltily, “It is true, I have to concede. Kirkpatrick has a staff of legal investigators whose mission it is to uncover dirt about the victims of his clients. His courtroom strategy is to attack the victim, in this case Martine Maguire, to make it appear that she brought her misfortune upon herself. Kirkpatrick believes that if a jury feels that a victim deserves her punishment, they will not wish to punish the defendant but will identify with the defendant. ‘Juries want to vote not guilty, it’s the generous Christian gesture.’ ” Diebenkorn laughed with a strange excitement.

  She continued to plead. To threaten. (Just a little. Subpoena? Martine Maguire in her sickbed?) She promised that she and her team would not be “bushwacked” a second time. At the trial, they would have notification of the defense witnesses, they would know beforehand what lies, innuendo, slander were to be presented in court. They would have a chance to rebut. And the rape shield laws in New York State prevent certain kinds of disclosures, Schpiro would be forced to comply. And the forensic evidence—semen, blood, hair, fiber—was overwhelming. The testimonies of the victims, mother and daughter, would be damning. If Teena withdrew her cooperation, the rapists could plea bargain much lighter sentences than they deserved, and that would be unjust.

  You told Diebenkorn you didn’t guess that your mother would cooperate with her anymore. You didn’t guess that your mother would give much of a damn about unjust.

  “Bethel, my life is bound up with this case, too. It isn’t just a ‘case’ to me it’s—it has to do with my life as a woman, too—for when one woman is viciously attacked, the way your mother was, all women are being attacked. That’s why rape must be punished as a serious, violent crime.” Diebenkorn paused, wiping at her eyes. She appeared to be deeply moved. “Bethel, will you at least ask Teena if I could speak with her? Just briefly, today? The defense senses our hesitation, Kirkpatrick is moving now for a ‘swift trial.’ I know that I have disappointed Teena, and others, but I promise that I will make up for it. Please give me a chance!”

  You didn’t think there was much hope but you were a good girl and invited Diebenkorn to step inside the vestibule while you ran upstairs. You hoped that Grandma wouldn’t discover her and ask her to leave.

  Upstairs you knocked softly on Momma’s door. No answer.

  She had not been out for several days. Not since John Dromoor had brought her home.

  You knocked again on Momma’s door. You opened it, to peer inside. The room was darkened, your nostrils pinched against a smell of slept-in bedclothes, perspiration. Momma was lying on top of her bed, on a rumpled quilt bedspread, bare-legged, in just her bathrobe, on her side, unmoving.

  Momma don’t die. Please Momma we saved you once don’t die now.

  Strange to see your own mother sleeping. Unaware, oblivious.

  There was no black pool of blood beneath her. You could hear her breathing. A harsh rasping sound like fabric being torn. Yet Momma was peaceful-seeming, lying on her side as a child might lie with her hands clenched between drawn-up knees.

  You did not speak. Your heart was beating quickly as if in the presence of danger.

  Quietly you shut the door. If Momma could sleep, that was good. It was your duty to let her sleep.

  In any case you knew how Teena Maguire felt about the rapists now. You’d heard her tell your grandmother why should she give a damn, let the fuckers rape other women. Nothing to do with her.

  Downstairs, Diebenkorn waited eagerly. Those damp doggy eyes.

  You hesitated. You bit your lower lip. It was a TV moment, or maybe a court-moment. It was not a rehearsed moment, not exactly.

  “Oh gosh! Ms. Diebenkorn! I’m afraid all Momma says to say to you is,” in a lowered voice, with a semblance of a blush, “ ‘fuck you.’ ”

  “Self-Defense”

  ON OCTOBER 11, 1996, Dromoor killed one of the rapists with two shots from his .45-caliber police service revolver.

  You learned this news from Teena.

  “The first of them. He’s dead.”

  Teena spoke dazedly. Her eyes burned with fever.

  The first of them. You would wonder if these were Dromoor’s words, carefully chosen.

  You would wonder if Dromoor had called Teena from the parking lot, on his cell phone. Except no, such a call might be traced. He would have waited, to call from a public phone some distance from the shooting. But he wouldn’t have waited long.

  Next you saw TV news. And next the Niagara Journal.

  DeLucca, James. “Jimmy.” Twenty-four, unemployed at the time of his death. Resident 1194 Forge Street, his parents’ home in Niagara Falls. Survived by . . .

  There was DeLucca on the TV screen. Photo taken when he’d been in a glittery doped-up mood. Greasy dark hair falling in his face. Presley/greaser style. Some girls would think he was sexy. An overgrown kid. This photo didn’t show DeLucca as he’d looked in the courthouse in his neatly pressed serge suit and neatly tied necktie and neatly combed haircut but more the way he’d actually looked that night in Rocky Point Park. Careening into you. Whooping, yelping. One of the dog pack yipping as he’d leapt to block you with muscled arms outstretched like it’s a rough basketball game, somebody has passed you the ball, you are vulnerable and trapped and the target and DeLucca is the guy laughing as he crashes into you.

  Hey babygirl! Babygirl gonna show us your titties, too?

  In the living room, blinds drawn. Turning from one TV channel to another to follow the news. Momma stares at the screen with her fever-eyes, hands clamped between her knees. Grandma watches murmuring to herself. And you.

  Why two bullets? Where one would’ve been fatal?

  Carefully it would be explained by NFPD spokesmen that two shots are a NFPD requirement. If an officer has made a decision that deadly force is necessary he is trained to fire two shots.

  Dromoor was only follo
wing his NFPD training.

  The shooting had occurred in a parking lot behind the Chippewa Grill, 822 Chippewa Street, on the East Side of town. Twelve-fifty-eight A.M. of October 11, 1996. Ray Casey was the primary witness. Ray Casey would be interviewed many times. Fact is, Ray had been making the rounds of the East Side taverns. Since the break-up with Teena he’d been spending more and more time alone, drinking. Driving his car along the river to Youngstown and back. Stopping at country taverns where no one would have heard of what-happened-to-Teena on the Fourth of July in Rocky Point Park.

  Teena Maguire, who was Ray Casey’s lover. Almost they’d decided to live together, in Casey’s house. When Casey’s divorce came through.

  Now you didn’t dare speak to him about Teena Maguire. Not a word about any of it.

  Casey had near about cracked his estranged wife across the mouth for certain remarks she’d made about Teena Maguire.

  As for Teena she would not see him now. Would not speak with him on the phone. Ray leave me alone, I’m so tired. I don’t want your pity. Somebody better put me out of my mercy. I mean misery.

  He felt so guilty about Teena! Wanted to love her like he’d done but she wasn’t the same person now. Never would be again. The hurt was deep inside her, it would never be healed.

  Or maybe Casey had not loved her enough. That was the test, maybe. A woman raped by how many men: even she didn’t know.

  At the Chippewa Grill, Casey had not been in a belligerent mood. This could not be claimed against him by witnesses like the other time, at Mack’s Tavern. It was DeLucca who’d sighted Casey and recognized him. Are you following me, asshole? DeLucca had asked. Casey looked blank at him not seeming to know who the hell DeLucca was. But when he left the tavern there was DeLucca waiting to jump him.

  Dromoor happened to be at the Chippewa, too. Off-duty. Not in his police officer’s uniform and he didn’t much resemble a cop wearing a ratty gray sweatshirt, khakis. Dromoor, too, was drinking in a neighborhood several miles from his own. Why this was, Dromoor could not say. He offered no explanation. It just was. He had not shaved for two days and his jaws were covered in stubble like wires. At the bar Dromoor drank three glasses of ale: Black Horse. Watched TV, Roy Jones, Jr. outboxing an opponent in Vegas, bloodying the man’s face humiliating him through twelve excruciating rounds without knocking him out like that’s too much trouble. Dromoor admired cruel-sly boxers like Jones, all over his opponent and inside his head and makes it look easy like some kind of dance. Dromoor watched TV but refrained from commenting on it like others at the bar one of whom was Ray Casey who was more vociferous, the kind of guy who talks to the TV screen like he’s expecting it to talk back.

  Was it possible, Dromoor and Casey were aware of each other without so much as glancing at each other like creatures of identical species among natural enemies?

  No news reports would suggest this. No official statements issued by the NFPD would suggest this.

  Approximately 12:30 A.M., Dromoor decided to leave.

  Going where?

  Home.

  A coincidence, Dromoor decided to leave the tavern almost immediately after Ray Casey left. Casey whom Dromoor had not seen at the bar, to whom he certainly had not spoken. Dromoor was leaving a few minutes after Jimmy DeLucca, also undetected, had left, slipping outside to wait for Casey in the parking lot.

  Must’ve been like this. The chronology of events. What links events is never so clear as the events themselves.

  Possibly, Casey used the men’s room on his way out. Possibly, Dromoor did, too.

  Such things aren’t planned. Definitely, they are not rehearsed. You get one time, only.

  This thing with DeLucca, Casey: possibly there’d been tension in the air, at the bar. Possibly these two had been aware of each other. Guys hating each other’s guts. One of them thinking the other has got a serious grudge against him, he’d better take the first strike.

  It feels like instinct. Deep in the gut. You’d have to know the men’s personal histories to know otherwise.

  Casey would insist, he hadn’t been drinking heavily. Not for him. Only just beer. Shit, he could handle beer. He had a DWI since the thing with Teena Maguire and for sure did not want a repeat. Still, his judgment was somewhat impaired. Must’ve been. Why take such a risk, if he’d been fully sober? DeLucca spoke to him, or of him, a certain epithet to which Casey took offense. Possibly Casey only overheard this epithet, but knew it meant him. At another time and in another mood Casey wouldn’t have risked fighting with this juiced-up punk a decade younger than he was, and twenty pounds heavier. But Casey was in the mood.

  He used the men’s room. He left the tavern. Outside in the parking lot the juiced-up punk was waiting.

  Just came at me, Casey would say. Marveling, almost.

  Just came at me unprovoked. Drunk son of a bitch saying he was gonna kill me.

  At this time, approximately 12:55 A.M., Dromoor was exiting the tavern. Immediately he heard the men’s raised voices. He understood this was a fight, he would break it up. Dromoor had no hesitation acting on his own, without a fellow officer. His instinct was to move in the direction of any disturbance of the peace, to intercede. Before he saw the struggling men he heard Casey being beaten: groaning, crying out in pain. And another man grunting, and cursing. When Dromoor came closer he saw that Casey was fallen, and DeLucca was kicking him in the groin area. From out of his jacket pocket DeLucca drew a weapon: a switchblade Dromoor estimated to be between six and eight inches in length.

  Immediately Dromoor called out identifying himself as a NFPD officer. He instructed the aggressor to throw down his knife, to keep his hands where Dromoor could see them. DeLucca cursed Dromoor and continued to kick at Casey, who was bleeding from the mouth. DeLucca began to make swiping gestures at Casey with the knife, missing the fallen man’s face by a fraction of an inch.

  Now Dromoor was running. Showing his NFPD shield. DeLucca made a certain obscene gesture at Dromoor with the switchblade and told him to keep the hell away. Dromoor continued to advance, now drawing his weapon. It was clear to DeLucca, both Dromoor and Casey would testify, that DeLucca saw Dromoor’s weapon, and heard his instructions. Dromoor ordered DeLucca to drop the knife. Dromoor ordered DeLucca to step away from Casey. Instead, DeLucca lunged forward, swiping at Dromoor with the knife, and Dromoor fired two shots in the area of the aggressor’s heart, from a distance of less than three inches. DeLucca stumbled backward at once, dying.

  It was over within seconds. It was nothing like Roy Jones, Jr. tormenting an opponent through twelve long rounds.

  Afterward Casey would claim that the police officer had saved his life! Absolutely.

  Crazy drunk guy wanting to kill me, saying he was gonna cut my throat like a hog’s. I guess he knew who I was. I never knew who he was till after. Then it made sense.

  The wildest luck, Dromoor had come along.

  And you and Police Officer Dromoor were not acquainted?

  No. We were not.

  You did not know that Dromoor was a police officer until he identified himself?

  I had no awareness of him previously. In the tavern, I had not seen him.

  And you did not recognize James DeLucca?

  Definitely I did not.

  Though James DeLucca was one of the accused in the rape case involving your friend Martine Maguire?

  Must’ve been he looked different than he had. Or I never saw his face too clear.

  You would learn DeLucca’s identity only after his death? This would be a total surprise to you?

  I am totally surprised every day in my life. This was not so astonishing to me.

  Dromoor was interrogated at NFPD headquarters.

  Dromoor had shot and killed a man in alleged self-defense. There was a civilian witness to corroborate his statement, but only one witness. The shooting was widely reported in area newspapers and on TV. Much was made of the fact that the dead man was scheduled to be tried on charges of rape and aggravated assa
ult along with several others in what was locally called the boathouse rape case.

  And you were entirely unaware of the identity of James DeLucca at the time of the incident?

  Yes, Detective. I was unaware.

  It was a total surprise to you, to learn James DeLucca’s identity after the fact?

  No, Detective. It was not a total surprise.

  It was not, Officer? And why not?

  Dromoor remained silent for a long moment, frowning at his clasped hands. His hair, recently cut, gave off a sullen glow, like pewter. The interview was being taped. Dromoor spoke slowly, each word to be chosen with care.

  Because I am not surprised by much in life, Detective.

  You did not recognize James DeLucca, though you had seen him in a courtroom at close range, hardly a month ago when you’d given a statement in a case involving DeLucca?

  I did not see DeLucca’s face clearly in the parking lot, I had not seen him in the tavern.

  And were you and Raymond Casey acquainted before the shooting?

  No, Detective. We were not.

  You did not know of Raymond Casey’s connection with Martine Maguire at the time of the shooting?

  No, Detective. I did not.

  It was purely a coincidence, was it? Like a shake of the dice? You, and Raymond Casey, and James DeLucca in a parking lot together, and no other witnesses? Only just what comes up, comes up? Only just chance?

  Dromoor knew he was being baited. But would not acknowledge it as if to acknowledge it would be to diminish both his own and his interrogator’s dignity.

  No, Detective. Not just chance.

  Like what then, Officer?

  Like it was meant to be. Like if there is God, or even if there is not. There was a purpose, and I discharged my sworn duty as a police officer.

  Dromoor was not penalized beyond thirty days’ desk assignment. He surrendered his police service revolver for thirty days. It would be thirty days before he returned to active duty, and by this time he would be in training as a detective at the Eighth Precinct. The older detectives liked Dromoor, he listened respectfully and intelligently and rarely spoke unless spoken to. When they interrogated suspects and when they discussed cases Dromoor observed them with the attentiveness of a young raptor among his elders. Soon he was accompanying the Eighth Precinct’s senior detective, helping to secure crime scenes, taking photographs. It was a good time for Dromoor. He felt good about the future. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. In time.