Rape

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Marv followed the caller’s precise directions. It was nearing dusk when they entered Fort Niagara State Park. It’s always a shock to see the lake, the water so close. Where the river rushed into the lake the hard blue water moved in long shudders.

  “Think that’s him? The ‘legal investigator’?”

  A station wagon parked up ahead. Facing the entrance. Lloyd only grunted knowing his brother wasn’t asking an actual question.

  With restrained eagerness Marv drove the Taurus bumping along the rutted and rain-puddled roadway. He pulled up beside the station wagon, a Ford, not new, that had hanging from its inside rearview mirror a pair of tiny white baby’s shoes. If he’d had time to think the baby shoes would have placated him. A legal investigator, working for Mr. Kirkpatrick. But just a family guy, like anybody.

  The driver was wearing a Buffalo Bills cap pulled low over his forehead. He appeared to have no hair, the sides of his head were shaved bullet-smooth. Though it was past sunset he was wearing dark glasses. Marv braked his car, rolled down the window smiling in nervous anticipation.

  “I guess you got something for us? Me an’ Lloyd?”

  In the late morning of the following day the bronze Taurus, left not in a parking place but in the middle of the puddled roadway, would be examined by a New York State trooper called to the scene by park authorities. The car was unlocked, the key was in the ignition. The gas gauge showed a quarter-full tank. There appeared to be no recent damage to the car. A case of Coors in the backseat, three cans remaining. The trooper called in the license plate and learned that the car was registered to one Marvin Pick, Eleventh Street, Niagara Falls. Pick was registered as out on bail awaiting trial in Niagara Falls for several felonies.

  Eventually, the Taurus was towed from the park and impounded as evidence. Rumor on the street and in the NFPD Eighth Precinct was, the Picks had jumped bail and fled into Canada. Their bail would be retained by the county. Their father Walt Pick would declare bankruptcy and die of a stroke within eighteen months. Within a few hours of the discovery of the Taurus, Marvin Pick and Lloyd Pick would be reclassified as fugitives from justice, should be considered dangerous.

  “Teeeeena!”

  YOU WERE VERY FRIGHTENED. Standing at the upstairs window the room in darkness behind you. Watching as the bronze car on oversized tires cruised taunting-slow past the house.

  Turning right onto the next street. Circling the block, returning to cruise past the house the driver leaning out the window showing his face.

  You thought It’s them. Come back to finish the job.

  You wondered if your mother heard. She was locked away in her old, girlhood room at the rear of the house.

  Momma had not eaten dinner. You had not seen her for two days. Sober was not much cherished by Teena Maguire. Sober is no protection against your thoughts.

  “Hey Teeeeena! Teeeeena!”

  They’d circled the block another time. Marvin Pick, you recognized. Just one other guy with him, must be his brother Lloyd.

  You wondered if in their sick way they loved Teena Maguire. They loved how they’d broken her, made her their own. In the courtroom you had entered trustingly, when the rapists’ lawyer had uttered his terrible words like curses, you’d seen how avidly the rapists had watched your mother. The Pick brothers with their smoldering recessed eyes and part-opened mouths.

  “Teeeeena!”

  Hyena laughter. Tires screeching in a quick getaway.

  Except: you’d seen. You were the witness, clearly you had seen.

  You’d given Dromoor’s cell phone number to your mother as he’d asked you. But of course you’d memorized it first.

  Help us please help us John Dromoor we are so afraid.

  Hawk

  KEEEEER-R-R!

  The hawk’s cry, startled-sounding and shrill. Mixed with the wind like it was, you weren’t sure what you were hearing.

  Soon after the call from Teena’s daughter, Dromoor drove out to Fort Niagara State Park. Wanting to check out the site.

  He was off-duty, in civilian clothes. Still, Dromoor carried his weapon.

  A cop is never off-duty. A cop is always a cop.

  Let his mind drift and settle. See what’s here. Rocky shore, slate-blue mean-looking water in ceaseless waves crashing against pebbly sand. He was watching hawks rising out of pines along the bluff, rising to maybe hundreds of feet, in their hunt.

  Predator birds these were. Fascinating.

  Dromoor did not know the names of these dark-feathered broad-tailed birds other than hawk.

  Some species of hawk that, as they rose into the air, from beneath you could see a flash of white on the underside of the tail. And that weird squealing cry: Keeeeer-r-r!

  Reminded him of Teena. Teeeeena.

  It was notable how, high overhead, the hawks became suddenly weightless. They scarcely needed to move their wings. The wind bore them as if they were swimming. The wind was the hawks’ element as completely as if these gusts, random in velocity and in direction, were but the hawks’ breaths.

  He squinted watching one of the hawks. How, beginning its downward plunge, it accelerated its speed. Jesus! Took your breath away how the bird swooped, seized its prey in beak and wings, and bore it aloft again in a single fluid motion.

  Dromoor owned a rifle, now. He was coming to see the beauty of a sleek long-barreled gun, smooth-gleaming wood stock. Yet he would not wish to shoot one of these birds. He would not wish to shoot any living creature except in self-defense or in defense of another.

  Help us please help us John Dromoor we are so afraid.

  He felt good about DeLucca. He believed in justice but not in the judicial instruments of justice. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

  Taking the law into your own hands, fuck what’s wrong with that?

  Dromoor smiled. Thinking he trusted his own damn hands, not anybody else’s.

  Letting his mind soar and drift. Scarcely needing to think, he would trust his instinct. He was still soaring with the high from shooting the rapist DeLucca, many times he’d replayed the squeezing of his trigger finger, instanteous crack! and the target immediately collapsing, falling to the ground.

  Casey had been awed. Casey had not known what to expect but Jesus there it was.

  Once you squeeze the trigger if you knew what you were doing your target is gone.

  Once your target is gone, he doesn’t testify against you.

  NFPD Internal Affairs had ruled self-defense in the DeLucca shooting. There had never been much doubt inside the precinct but still IA might have ruled excessive force, which would mean an indictment for Police Officer Dromoor on a count of first-degree manslaughter.

  A more serious charge, second-degree homicide, had never been likely.

  At the precinct the verdict had been met with much approval, enthusiasm. The media, ever vigilant in the Maguire rape case, seemed to concur. When Officer Dromoor was approached for comment he would say tersely “No comment.” Dromoor was perceived as a somber, frowning man. Husband, father of small children. Not one to be inveigled by the media into saying anything questionable nor even allowing himself to be photographed looking other than somber, frowning.

  Self-defense is the best offense Officer Dromoor believed. Not likely he’d tell the media this.

  And now he was training to be a detective. His mind seemed to work pretty well that way, too. A police officer on the street is quick reflexes and a sharp eye for danger, a detective is more like playing chess. It’s a game and you have time to make your move. You can see the other guy’s moves, right out there on the board. What you can’t see, you have to figure out. What’s a detective but a guy using his brains figuring out, If I did this crime, why’d I do it? And who am I? Dromoor liked that feeling.

  It was seeing around two corners not just one. Sometimes, three.

  Like, not calling Teena Maguire from any phone to be traced to Dromoor. Not ever. If Teena chose to call Officer Dromoor, that could be explained.
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  Like, firing two shots into DeLucca’s heart. As Dromoor had been trained.

  In the U.S. Army as at Police Academy shooting instructors repeated: You don’t owe the enemy the first shot.

  Some people, the instinct is strong not to kill. Not to hurt. Their instinct is dangerous to their survival, and has to be overcome.

  Dromoor had not been born with that instinct, apparently. If he had, it had died in the Persian desert. His inchworm soul coiling up and dying in the hot sun.

  His wife accused him, sometimes. Not she didn’t love him like crazy but she was scared of him, a little. Saying she never knew where his mind was and what he was thinking even when they were making love sometimes she knew It’s some other woman is it? Dromoor only just laughed, wouldn’t dignify such a question by any reply.

  He had a way of not answering that had become more pronounced in the past few years. His wife believed it had to do with him becoming a cop, carrying a gun. Seeing the kind of ugly things a street cop sees.

  In fact Dromoor wasn’t in love with Teena Maguire.

  He didn’t think so. It wasn’t that. Not so simple.

  Just some feeling he had about her, and the girl. The daughter.

  Because he’d been the first on the scene. Maybe that was why. He was the one.

  Now he walked along the bluff above the lake for approximately thirty minutes. Met no one, you wouldn’t expect to. It was damn cold out here. Returned to his station wagon, smiling to see Robbie’s baby shoes hanging from the mirror. He guessed, the Picks saw those baby shoes, they’d have a good feeling.

  Watching the hawks, he’d made his decision. Not even thinking but just watching the hawks.

  Dromoor felt good about DeLucca. He seemed to know, he’d feel even better about the Picks.

  How Things Work Out

  CASEY WAS GONE AT last from Teena Maguire’s life. He had ceased telephoning, for his calls were not returned. He would not again humble himself coming to the house on Baltic Avenue as, one Friday evening in November, he’d driven over uninvited and was told by Teena’s embarrassed mother Agnes Kevecki that Teena was not home.

  Saying, “Teena has gone out, Ray. I’m not sure where.”

  Casey had been drinking, you could see. But he was clean-shaven and somber in appearance. He had always liked Teena’s mother, and she had liked him though she had not approved of Teena “seeing” a married man with young children.

  “Who with, Agnes? D’you know who with?”

  Casey’s voice broke, enunciating who with.

  “Ray, I’m afraid I do not.”

  Casey nodded. All right. He must see the logic of this, probably he knew it was for the best.

  “Tell Teena I love her, okay? Can’t say I’m gonna miss her because I been missing her since, you know. Since that night. So tell her good-bye, will you?”

  “Yes, Ray. I will.”

  You’d been upstairs on the stairway landing, listening. You knew maybe you should come downstairs, say good-bye to Casey, too. But you held back. Just didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to risk crying.

  Soon after you would hear that Ray Casey was “reunited” with his family. There was talk of Casey and his wife selling their house, moving over to Grand Island, maybe Tonawanda. Out of Niagara Falls where there’s too many bad memories.

  For the best Teena said. Maybe it is God’s will. How things work out.

  Media Frenzy

  LOCAL TELEVISION, RADIO NEWS. Newspapers. Tabloids.

  Since the headlining on the morning of July 5, 1996, of the sensational ROCKY POINT GANG RAPE it was rare for more than a few days to pass in Niagara Falls and vicinity without ROCKY POINT RAPE CASE figuring prominently in local news. GANG RAPE: MOTHER, DAUGHTER VICTIMS? was a far more intriguing headline than the usual headlines concerning contaminated landfills, EPA lawsuits against local chemical factories and oil refineries. Through July/August/September/October you could not escape the inch-high headlines and their accompanying photographs, often in full color.

  NOTED BUFFALO ATTORNEY KIRKPATRICK ENGAGED

  IN DEFENSE OF FALLS YOUTHS ACCUSED

  OF GANG RAPE

  NIAGARA CO. GRAND JURY INDICTS 8 FALLS YOUTHS

  July 4th Gang-Rape, Rocky Point Park

  SCHPIRO NAMED ROCKY POINT RAPE TRIAL JUDGE

  DEFENDANTS PLEAD “NOT GUILTY” IN ROCKY POINT

  RAPE TRIAL

  The tabloids were not so restrained. You would see some of these by chance, on newsstands or in stores. You would wish to quickly avert your eyes but sometimes could not. TEENA blazoned on the front pages of these publications signaled TEENA MAGUIRE, ALLEGED GANG-RAPE VICTIM whose story was many times recycled, with variants, on inside pages. The tabloids had offered your mother thousands of dollars in return for her “confidential” story but your mother had not replied. You too had been approached, and had literally run away. (Reporters and photographers waited for you outside Baltic Junior High, the first week of school.) Soon then the tabloids turned nasty: TEENA CHALLENGED BY ALLEGED RAPISTS: SEX CONSENSUAL, FOR $?

  The most sensational of the local tabloids ran lengthy interviews with mothers of the several of the “alleged rapists,” including Mrs. Pick, Mrs. DeLucca, and Mrs. Haaber. One of these, ripped from the paper and shoved inside your locker at school, was headlined GRIEVING MOTHER VOWS “DEFAMATION” LAWSUIT AGAINST TEENA: “That Woman Has Destroyed My Son’s Life.”

  Eventually, there were unexpected developments. Even larger headlines, photographs.

  DELUCCA, 24, SHOT AND KILLED BY

  NFPD OFF-DUTY OFFICER

  DEFENDANT IN ROCKY POINT GANG-RAPE CASE

  DELUCCA SHOOTING BY OFF-DUTY NFPD OFFICER

  DROMOOR

  RULED SELF-DEFENSE AFTER INVESTIGATION

  And in late October:

  PICK BROTHERS VANISH FROM FT. NIAGARA PARK

  Defendants in Rocky Point Rape Case Missing

  PICK BROTHERS “JUMP BAIL” SAY POLICE

  DECLARED FUGITIVES

  FALLS BROTHERS JOIN “MOST WANTED” LIST

  After a press conference hurriedly called by Jay Kirkpatrick:

  HIS CLIENTS “HOUNDED” OUT OF U.S. BY POLICE

  DEFENSE LAWYER KIRKPATRICK CLAIMS

  And:

  ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE REPORT “NO SIGHTINGS”

  OF MISSING DEFENDANTS IN ROCKY POINT RAPE CASE

  Nationwide Alert, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

  Grandma was always saying, “Hide these damn things from Teena, Bethie. She doesn’t need to be reminded.”

  Yet Teena must have known. Since DeLucca’s death, and since the Pick brothers had vanished, you could see that your mother was less anxious. She and Dromoor keep in touch. That must be.

  You felt a stab of jealousy, you knew so little about Dromoor.

  The Picks had been the ones who’d frightened Teena most. She had believed there was no escape from Marvin Pick in particular. He had been the one to accost her, initially. He had known her, and she had known him, if only slightly. Screaming Teeeeena! and grabbing at her and the others roused to frenzy, in his wake.

  Even if the Picks had been convicted and sent to prison, one day they would be eligible for parole. They would return to Niagara Falls bent on revenge. Teena had this fixed in her mind, unshakable.

  Yet she’d been mistaken, hadn’t she? For both Marvin Pick and Lloyd Pick seemed to have vanished. And Teena did not seem to worry that they might be hiding anywhere, and might swoop on her to harm her.

  Somehow Teena seemed to know that whether living (in Canada?) or dead (in the choppy waters off Fort Niagara?) neither of the Picks would ever harm her again.

  You Lived!

  YOU LIVED THROUGH IT. For years you would live through it and only when you graduated from Baltic Senior High and the cobwebby cohesiveness of peers, classmates dissolved with no more resistance than actual cobwebs would you escape it.

  There wasn’t money for a private school. If you’d transferr
ed to Holy Redeemer, where there were boy and girl cousins of yours, things would have been easier.

  But you lived through it. That fall, eighth grade at Baltic Junior High. Approaching the school and in the crowded corridors of the school feeling the eyes move upon you. Those classmates who were related to the rapists or who were their neighbors or friends. Those classmates who were sympathetic with the rapists, the guys, because they’d heard nasty things about Martine Maguire, and about you.

  What you were doing was ratting. Ratting to the cops, ratting to the DA. Nobody likes a rat.

  You were fearful to enter a lavatory. Girls inside, older girls the meanest. Her! There she is, damn liar. In each of the toilet stalls in the girls’ lavatory nearest your homeroom, there were lipstick scrawls HATE B.M.—FUCK BETH M.—from which you learned to avert your eyes quickly.

  On the outside of your locker, through most of eighth grade, you would discover ugly words, drawings in spray paint. School custodians could not remove these easily. Sometimes they didn’t remove them for days. B.M. SUKS COKS. FUK B.M. There were clumsy cartoon drawings intended to symbolize, you guessed, female sex organs? You tried to lessen the dramatic impact of these by scratching at them with your fingernails until they became meaningless or even benign symbols, like lopsided suns or moons.

  The girls who had lockers on either side of yours pretended not to see. Not the graffiti, and not you.

  If

  IN HIS EYES YOU saw it. A tawny yellow gleam as in a video game.

  If he hadn’t been high on crystal meth. If he hadn’t been drunk. If he hadn’t been an asshole. Would’ve been so easy.

  Seeing Fritz Haaber, seeing you. On the street. At the mall. Staring at you, face tight as if his skin had shrunk, his teeth and jaws were more prominent, bony bumps in his forehead. Haaber had shaved off his mustache for court appearances. He looked younger, thinner. His hair too had been neatly trimmed. Since Marvin and Lloyd Pick appeared to be out of the trial, the Haabers had borrowed money to hire Kirkpatrick as their lawyer. Except for Fritz Haaber, the remaining defendants had changed their pleas to “guilty” and would negotiate deals with the prosecutors, but Haaber, with his previous assault record, was pleading “not guilty.”