Rape

by Joyce Carol Oates

  So there would be a trial.

  Marvin Pick had scared Teena the most, Fritz Haaber scared you.

  At the Niagara Mall with your grandmother, you were coming out of JCPenney and there was Haaber walking with another guy. Both wearing reversed baseball caps, sheepskin jackets, soiled jeans. Haaber’s yellow eyes moving on you, his face tightening with anger.

  Haaber was forbidden to approach you. Haaber was forbidden to speak with you. Yet it was unmistakable, the message he sent.

  Oh Christ wishing he’d killed you! Slammed your head against the boathouse floor when he’d had his fucking chance. Broken you with his fists, his stomping feet.

  And fucked you, too. When he’d had his chance.

  If. If only. Would’ve been so easy, when he’d had his chance.

  So scared, trembling so, Grandma had to drive you home.

  You hadn’t wanted to tell her about Haaber. She had not seen him, would probably not have known him. There was not much of your life as a thirteen-year-old you told your grandmother about, and even less did you tell your mother.

  The stuff at school, all that you spared them. Your worry that Momma would be arrested, charged with contempt of court, if there was a trial and she refused to testify.

  Your worry that Momma would die.

  You spared the adults in your household. You learned how if a thing is not spoken of, even those closest to you, who love you, will assume that it doesn’t exist.

  In your marriage, you would cultivate this wisdom.

  But you were terrified of Haaber. You seemed to know He will kill me. And so you told your grandmother about him, crying hysterically in the front seat of your grandmother’s car. You told your grandmother thinking She will tell Momma, Momma will call Dromoor.

  Forgiv Me?

  NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 22 three days before the trial was scheduled to begin doused himself with gasoline. Lit a match.

  Left behind a note shakily written that would be identified as his handwriting:

  God forgiv me and my family I am very ashamed. This will make things right

  F. H.

  He’d been drinking heavily. He was desperate, he had the shits and red ants were crawling over his brain night and day. At the same time he was goddamned fucking innocent of doing anything to those females and everybody knew this including the females yet he was convinced the jury would not believe him, his lawyer said if he took the witness stand, which it was crucial that Fritz Haaber do, to present his side of things, like how his semen got inside the Maguire female and how her blood got splattered onto his clothes and caked up in the soles of his jogging shoes, the cunt prosecutor could ask about his “past history of abuse toward women,” so he was fucked, he was fucked either way, what he’d begun to talk of obsessively was cutting out across the bridge to Canada like those motherfucker Picks, leaving him and the other guys behind, cocksucker traitors, if you want to know the truth it was Marv’s idea to gang up on the females, if you want to trace the truth to its source Marv was to blame but Marv was gone, him and Lloyd were gone, and Jimmy DeLucca went nuts and got himself shot down dead like everybody is saying Jimmy must’ve provoked the cop on purpose, suicide-by-cop it was a known thing, he’d read about in the tabloids and saw on TV. High on crystal meth DeLucca wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, pulling a blade on a guy with a gun. Jesus!

  Why hadn’t Marv and Lloyd took him with them?! He’d always gotten along with those guys, he thought.

  Now it was too late. Customs & Immigration over in Ontario were primed to look for him. All the border crossings between New York and Canada. He’d be arrested and sent back to Niagara Falls in shackles. It was fucking unfair, Marv and Lloyd abandoning their friends to clean up their shit after them.

  He ever saw them again he’d murder them. Bastards!

  Got to make a good impression on the court Kirkpatrick was saying. All the Haabers and any other relatives around should attend every session. Dressed neatly, and sitting where the jurors can see them. Jurors take note of families. Jurors are not very bright but they have certain expectations. Like they would expect Fritz to testify, seeing that he was claiming innocence. They would wish to study his face. Kirkpatrick believed that jurors in such a case were inclined to sympathize with the defendant if you provided reasonable evidence for such sympathy. But Fritz’s mind drifted when Kirkpatrick talked. Fucker charging such a “fee” you could not comprehend it. Three hundred fifty per hour in court! And a ball-buster “retainer.”The Haabers were fucked, this was costing the grandparents, too. Like a taxi meter ticking, a lawyer-mouth. Once he got this shit behind him if he wasn’t sent to Attica Fritz had got to thinking maybe he’d try to be a lawyer himself, these guys really made money for just shooting off their mouths it was mind-fucking. There was nothing actual to it, being a lawyer. He, Fritz, had worked at every kind of shit job from Parks & Recreation he’d started summers in high school to busboy at the Niagara Grand to driving short-haul lumber and gravel deliveries in secret, he wasn’t a Teamster and could get his head broke if any union guys caught him. Every kind of degrading shit job you could imagine but all of them real, actual. None of them just words. This legal bullshit the lawyers and judge tossed at one another with straight faces showing this was serious stuff, not bullshit like everybody including them knew.

  This other time he’d been arrested, one of the other times, previous “assault and battery” when Donna’d had to go to the ER, she’d testified against him and gotten an injunction and it was in Fritz’ favor she’d been his girlfriend not some crazy female not of his acquaintance. The judge had said two years, Fritz had almost shit his pants before the old fart added to be served on probation, Fritz and his mother had both been practically bawling, so grateful. But this time it was different. Kirkpatrick warned him. Not to expect probation if the jury came in with guilty, the judge would give him the maximum. If the jury came in with guilty.

  A jury is as bright as the dumbest member of the jury Kirkpatrick said. You need only strike a kindred chord with one of them, and you’re home free, son.

  Easy for the fucker to say. Kirkpatrick with his thousand-dollar suits, his fucking Jaguar. Snooty downstate way of talking made everybody else sound like their noses were stuffed. Looking at Fritz and his parents who were good decent Catholics like they were a bad smell in the room Kirkpatrick was too polite to acknowledge.

  Now the Picks had jumped bail, everybody else’s family was worried as hell they might try it, too. But Fritz had promised he would not no matter how desperate.

  Since Fritz had been arrested, dragged into the NFPD van in handcuffs and roughed up at the precinct, he had not been himself. One of the cops had used a choke hold on him. Something had got ripped in his neck. His bowel problems dated to that night. Coming down from the meth high, his brain was fried. Couldn’t sleep nights but during the day sometimes in his parents’ house hearing Mom’s TV. It was comforting, like being a little kid again and you’ve got a stomachache, earache, your mother lets you stay home from school. That night at the park, Fourth of July, the high school baseball tournament and there were teenage cheerleaders in satin costumes swinging their asses and titties. Frits wasn’t sleeping but he would see these girls and groan aloud like one of them was grabbing his cock. Fritz had a thing for younger girls, his buddies teased him. A female over twenty was a turnoff, they knew too much and made actual wisecracks about the size of your cock. A young girl, really young like Maguire’s daughter, is a different case. No wisecracks, she’s gonna be scared as hell and respectful.

  Fritz had to concede it was just as well probably Bethel Maguire had squirmed out of his grasp like a crazed eel. He’d have fucked the little bitch till she was dead meat. That kind of high, nothing can stop you. Like electricity charging through you. So now he’d be up for murder, he’d be really fucked.

  Except if he’d killed the girl, or somebody’d killed her, and the mother, none of them would’ve been caught, maybe. No witness
es! Fritz Haaber wouldn’t have been picked out of the police lineup by Bethel Maguire, wouldn’t be in the shit he was in now breaking his mother’s heart. Your own fucking fault, see? You didn’t act when you had the fucking chance.

  Now it was too late. The trial was starting. He could never get to the girl. He’d be watched, under surveillance. Sure he’d seen her a few times in the neighborhood, he’d parked across from the junior high to observe her departing, he’d followed her a little and she had not seen him, and at the mall the other day, just an accident he’d seen her there but he had followed her for a few minutes and it was fascinating watching her, this girl of maybe thirteen, not a pretty girl but sweet-faced, ashy-blond hair like the mother, walking with her grandma and the two of them wholly oblivious of being observed like with a telescope, almost Fritz came to think she could not see him he was invisible! A great feeling but fuck it she’d glanced up and seen him, and he liked it how scared she’d been, her face going dead white and looking like she was going to faint. Wild! A real rush! But Fritz knew, better get his ass out of there fast. Before the old-bag grandma sighted him, too, and started screaming.

  He’d thought maybe some NFPD cops might come banging on his parents’ door looking for him that night. Some crap about harassment of witnesses there was a law about. But no.

  Bethel Maguire had not told. In her heart, Bethel Maguire had a thing for Fritz Haaber, huh?

  Fritz was worried about this “forensics” shit. He knew it was real and all that, it was “hard science.” He’d seen it on TV. Some kind of X-ray of semen, blood, hairs, clothes fibers. Like a jigsaw puzzle Kirkpatrick said these parts were, all of them scattered and the jurors were supposed to fit them back together to see if there should be a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty.” That was not so easy. You could distract and confuse the jurors, Kirkpatrick said. Because there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful. Which was why Kirkpatrick insisted that his clients testify, and to memorize what Kirkpatrick had scripted for them. Already Kirkpatrick had led Fritz through his testimony so many times Fritz believed his brain was cracking. He was absolutely going nuts. No meth, not even dope, but he was allowed some beers. Needing to relax for Christ sake. He told Kirkpatrick he had not slept through a night nor had his bowels been normal in memory. He was lonely, too! His friends were keeping their distance for now. Even his relatives. And girls. They seemed scared of him, even girls who knew him from grade school. Even his girl cousins for Christ sake! It was insulting.

  So when this call came, Fritz was primed for it.

  A woman for him, saying it was urgent she speak to Fritz Haaber. Fritz took the call on the portable phone going off where his mother could not eavesdrop.

  Afternoon of November 22. Three days before the trial. Christ he was nerved up! This female voice low and sexy in his ear saying she’d been seeing his picture on TV, in the papers. In the Falls Clarion the interview with Fritz’s mom who sounded like the most wonderful supportive mother, that had made her cry almost. “That Woman Has Destroyed My Son’s Life.”

  She knew some things about that Teena Maguire, her and her mother both knew plenty. She’d tell Fritz if he was interested. The kind of thing that should be aired in court, so the jury knew who this woman was. But mostly she just wanted to see Fritz. Her name was Louellen Drott. She’d transferred to Baltic High from Holy Redeemer and she’d graduated in 1993 she said. Fritz figured by this that she was three years behind him, he’d been class of ’90 though he had not graduated. As the girl talked he was trying to recall Louellen Drott. The name Drott was a familiar name. There was a Drott Car Wash. There was a Drott who’d been a rookie for the Buffalo Bisons a few years back. Louellen said it was crucial that she see him that night. She had things to confide in him, and she had a rosary to give him. She knew from his photos that he was telling the truth about what had happened in the boathouse. He had warm sincere eyes that would not lie.

  Louellen’s voice was so sexy in his ear. Fritz shallowed hard. He knew that this was something special. It was like he was a wrongly condemned man, and Louellen was fated to save him. He could almost see her and he liked what he saw. She’d have long wavy hair possibly red-blond sliding over one eye. She’d be a petite girl. Fritz was five feet nine, he hated tall clunky girls who came on strong like lezzies. This Louellen Drott was not one of these.

  In a lowered voice Louellen said there was this place where she worked, out by the airport, the Black Rooster Motel. She did not say exactly that she was a chambermaid at the motel but Fritz guessed this for she said she had access to all the rooms, and he could meet her in one. They would be “very private”—“no interruptions”—Louellen promised. The room at the farthest end of the motel was number 24 and she would be there waiting for him at 7:00 P.M., she would have DO NOT DISTURB hanging from the doorknob but he should just come inside, she’d be waiting.

  Fritz said okay. His voice was weak asking should he bring a couple of six-packs? Or like maybe wine?

  Louellen laughed saying no just bring yourself, Fritz. She would provide all that was needed, she promised!

  Fritz felt close to swooning. Almost he could hear himself telling Marv Pick Did I get laid last night! Man.

  Fritz shaved, and changed some of his clothes. Told his mom not to wait supper for him. Drove out the airport road. Fast-food restaurants and gas stations and industrial sites FOR LEASE and a strip of brightly lighted tacky motels at the end of which was the single-story cinder block BLACK ROOSTER. A neon sign flickered VAC NCIES. Fritz was so excited by this time, he’d been chewing the end of his cigarette. Fact was, nobody had been nice to him since the thing in July. Nobody gave a damn about Fritz really. Even before the thing in July. Donna had dumped him. None of her friends would go out with him. His mom gave her weepy interviews and prayed for him but he’d seen her stare at him sometimes, he knew that look of wonder and revulsion. Fritz’s old man could not remain in the same proximity with Fritz for more than five minutes. His brothers and sister hated his guts. They were damn jealous, all the attention he was getting. All the money being pooled for his “defense.” But Louellen Drott, she’d seen into Fritz’s heart. She had a rosary for him. Before they fucked, they would say the rosary together. Or after they fucked. Or both. Louellen had been secretly in love with Fritz Haaber he guessed back at Baltic High. If Fritz got sent away to prison, Louellen would visit him. She would be faithful to him. The only fucking individual Fritz would consent to see and Louellen’s picture too and interview would be printed in the Clarion.

  When Fritz got paroled, they would be married. The 6:00 P.M. Fox TV News would do the interview.

  * * *

  It was off-season at Niagara Falls. Not many tourists this lousy time of year. Only a few rooms at the Black Rooster were occupied. These were nearest the highway, and farther from the airport runways. Fritz turned his car into the cinder lot and drove slowly to the end, where an outside light burned at number 24. Inside number 24 the interior was warmly lighted, the blind drawn. She is waiting inside. Oh Christ. Fritz counted just three vehicles parked outside the single-story motel. Two were parked by the manager’s office and the third, a Ford station wagon, was parked in front of number 19.

  Overhead, an airliner was just landing. Deafening screeching noise, made Fritz’s teeth vibrate. It gave you a nervous rush like the first chords of heavy-metal rock. Breathless climbing out of the car pocketing his keys approaching the door where, sure enough, DO NOT DISTURB was hanging. “Louellen?” He turned the knob. The door was unlocked as she’d promised. His heart was beating so it hurt. In a hoarse hopeful voice he said, “Hello? Anybody here? This is Fritzie.”

  He’d love it for Louellen Drott to call him Fritzie. No one had called him Fritzie for a long time.

  “Destroyed Son’s Life”

  THE CHARRED AND UNRECOGNIZABLE corpse would be discovered in the late morning of November 23, 1996, at
the end of a narrow access road a quarter mile from the Niagara Falls Airport, in a no-man’s-land of underbrush and stunted trees. It would require no experienced medical examiner to determine that the body had been dosed with gasoline and set afire. An empty gallon can of gasoline was close by the corpse. A car was parked on the roadway, key in the ignition. Except for the car, identification of the corpse would have required some time. NFPD officers called in the license plate, and were informed that the vehicle was registered in the name of Fritz Haaber, 3392 Eleventh Street, Niagara Falls, New York.

  Carefully placed on the car’s dashboard ledge above the steering wheel was a handwritten note framed by a crystal rosary:

  The handwriting, though shaky, was identified as unmistakably that of left-handed Fritz Haaber. The rosary, the notepaper, the steering wheel of the car, the car door handles and interior, the gallon gasoline can: all were covered with Fritz Haaber’s prints. On the ground close by the burned corpse was a book of matches from Arno’s Fine Italian Foods & Pizzeria, which Fritz Haaber frequented, and this book of matches too was covered in Fritz Haaber’s prints. It had been dropped some inches to the right of the body, approximately where it would have been dropped by a left-handed individual like Fritz Haaber holding the matchbook with his right hand and striking a match with his left.

  Another time Gladys Haaber, the deceased young man’s mother, would be interviewed for a cover story in the Clarion. Her grieving mother’s portrait would appear beside a blown-up snapshot of her son Fritz taken several years before, in happier times when the boy was clean-shaven, no mustache and no straggly hair falling into his face and no jeering grin. It was never doubted by Gladys Haaber or by any of the Haabers that Fritz had taken his own young life in despair of being hounded by the Niagara County DA’s office and that slut Teena Maguire for a crime he had not committed.