The Sacrifice

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Just tell these good people your name, dear. They have come to help you.”

  Sybilla was trembling. She spoke in a whisper, inaudibly.

  “Just a little louder, dear.”

  “Sy-Sy-b’lla F-Frye . . .”

  The audience murmured sympathetically. Cries of S’b’lla! S’b’lla!

  Iglesias had a sudden impulse to stride to the pulpit, push the hulking Reverend aside and seize the girl’s hands in hers—explain to her, and to her naïve mother, that Marus Mudrick had a reputation for exploiting “black victims” in the past: collecting money on their behalf, brokering interviews and media features, using them to promote himself and dropping them when the public lost interest.

  He is not your friend. You are making a mistake to trust him.

  If you could trust me . . .

  Yet when a collection basket was passed, Iglesias slipped a five-dollar bill into it. She’d been deeply moved.

  In farewell Reverend Mudrick blessed the audience and urged them to take the crusade to the enemy—to repeat after him “JUSTICE FOR SYBILLA FRYE—JUSTICE FOR SYBILLA FRYE” as they left the church. “March then along Camden Boulevard—to Pitcairn Bridge—in a peaceful and orderly manner—and across the bridge, and to City Hall where the mayor and his white minions are hiding. Chanting loud so all can hear ‘JUSTICE FOR SYBILLA FRYE’—‘JUSTICE FOR SYBILLA FRYE—JUSTICE FOR SYBILLA FRYE.’”

  The chant was taken up at once. A frenzied excitement rippled through the crowd. Pressing her fingers over her ears Iglesias managed to exit the church, just barely. She hadn’t noticed so many black youths in the church, unless they’d been waiting outside in the street—now shoving, jostling, chanting “JUSTICE FOR S’B’LLA FRYE—JUSTICE FOR S’B’LLA FRYE.”

  Police were waiting for them. Flanked like soldiers.

  Iglesias thought panicked If there is gunfire!

  On all sides were cries of elation, and warning. Cries of fear.

  Move along! Move along! Police officers were shouting.

  Portions of the unruly crowd were dispersing. Allowed by police officers to cross wide, windy Camden Avenue, which had been blocked off for traffic, and make their way along side streets. But others were trapped on this side of the avenue, and others were resisting the officers’ orders. Iglesias wasn’t sure how to proceed. She would have liked to help disperse the crowd—but had no idea how. As she hesitated, she was being shoved, struck. The chant of “JUSTICE FOR S’B’LLA FRYE” continued ragged and halting and yet ferocious on all sides. Iglesias’s training was to control such a situation—physically—but she could not; she wasn’t with fellow officers, she wasn’t in uniform, she had not the authority of a police officer. She found herself on the street, pushed into the gutter. A line of patrolmen surged forward with batons drawn. What remained of the crowd was being forced back. There were cries, screams of fear, fury, pain. Individuals slipped or were pushed, and fell. A heavyset woman with a ravaged dark skin yanked at the sleeve of Iglesias’s leather coat. Her stylish black fedora was knocked from her head. The back of her neck felt exposed, vulnerable. She managed to slip free of the clutching woman, trying to make her way to the line of uniformed officers.

  She cried out to them, her fellow officers—“I’m a cop! Hey! Here!” Her badge was in her hand, but suddenly her hand was struck, and the badge was lost.

  The heavyset woman was pursuing her: “You a cop? You sayin you a cop, bitch?” Another, younger woman tore at her hair. She was called bitch, spic, cunt, slut. She was being punched, kicked. She lost her balance in the tight-fitting boots and was grabbing at arms, panting, falling.

  Her hair was in a tangle on her shoulders. A coin-sized swath of hair had been torn from her scalp. She was bleeding but not seriously. She was bleeding from a scalp wound which can mimic serious bleeding but is not. Her stylish clothes, stained with blood. She was frightened, but she would not panic. In the New Jersey Police Academy she’d been trained not to panic. Dared not draw her weapon here. Seen with a weapon, she’d be shot by police. A few yards away, a black man in his twenties was being subdued and arrested by six police officers, bleeding from a cut in his scalp. Other black men, a black woman. Subdued, arrested. One of the men was shirtless, and his muscled dark chest glistening with blood. Police were shouting, beating back the crowd. On Camden Avenue were police vehicles advancing like tanks. Amid the screaming young people were older men and women unable to escape. Appalling to see children here—some of them clutched in adults’ arms, crying in terror. Sirens, deafening. A furious-looking black woman clawed at Iglesias’s face. The smoke-tinted glasses were knocked off. There was an explosion—gunfire, and a smell of gun-smoke—so close to Iglesias’s head, she was blinded, stunned. She fell to the pavement amid screams and desperation as people tried to get away, her left hand was trampled, and her left arm, she could not get to her feet to protect herself, something was wrong with her legs, and with her vision—so suddenly gone . . .

  “Reassigned”

  First you think I am alive.

  Astonishment washes over you, bright and vivid and narcotic—I am alive, still.

  Not until later the pain.

  Humiliation, and shame.

  Still, I am alive. I made it.

  She would recall the gunshot—close beside her head. She’d thought—she’d assumed—she’d been shot.

  Lifted onto a stretcher. Dazed and bleeding from head and facial wounds, and her clothes torn. Oxygen fitted to her nose and mouth, she could not breathe deeply enough.

  But vaguely she was aware of voices urging her—Breathe!

  Vaguely aware of ambulance doors being slammed shut, and the vehicle propelled into motion.

  Her brain was faltering, dying. She’d been struck a savage blow to her right temple. She’d been kicked, trampled, terrible pain in her ribs, her lower back, left arm and left leg. Something wet and sticky in her hair. The leather coat had been torn, she would never wear her fancy leather coat again. She could feel her face swelling. A loose tooth. Her badge was gone, they’d taken it from her. She would not discover until later that her 9 mm police service revolver was gone.

  In the brightly lit ER, trying to explain—something . . .

  Trying to explain who she was, why she had to be allowed to leave, why she didn’t want anyone in her family called . . .

  I am a police officer. Detective Ines Iglesias. Pascayne PD. My ID is in my . . . My badge . . .

  And when she returned to the precinct after several days’ “sick leave” at once she was summoned to the Lieutenant’s office.

  Disgusted with her. Could barely bring himself to look at her.

  “Clear your desk, Iglesias. You’re out of here.”

  So abruptly, Iglesias had barely stepped inside the Lieutenant’s office. The door had not been shut—he hadn’t asked her to shut it.

  She was stunned and disbelieving. She wasn’t sure what she had heard.

  “You’re off the Frye case. You’re being reassigned. But you’re out of this precinct, so clear your desk and get out.”

  She was stammering—her words were indistinct—I don’t understand . . .

  It must have been, Iglesias had been expecting a very different greeting from the Lieutenant. She’d cut short her sick leave eager and anxious to return to the precinct. She’d been prepared to tell the man

  Thank you Lieutenant I’m fine. I was never in serious danger.

  The Lieutenant had not the slightest interest in Ines Iglesias’s medical condition. Her still-swollen mouth, bruised eyes hidden behind dark glasses, the wincing limp with which she walked—(and this limp much less in public than in private)—these aroused in the man a roiling contempt he would only allow her to infer from the way in which he could not bring himself even to look at her, fully in the face.

  “No need to close the door when you leave, Iglesias. But leave.”

  The Good Son

  Zahn, Jerold (“Jere”). Born March 22, 1960. Died December
11, 1987. Patrol officer, Pascayne Police Department and lifetime resident, Pascayne, New Jersey.

  Nine-twenty A.M. that day which was approximately eighteen hours after he’d got the terrible news he was at his parents’ house repairing the roof. Squat-climbing the peak of the roof in cold stark overbright December sunshine. Dark glasses protecting his red-veined eyes. He’d always been a good handyman, carpenter. Throwing himself into tasks at his former house. He was the good son though it embarrassed him to be so named, through childhood and now into adulthood approaching the (hard-to-believe) age of thirty.

  Maybe he’d anticipated the news. Had to be an open secret at the precinct by this time nearly two weeks after the Camden Avenue disturbances.

  Or maybe, just maybe there was no actual connection. Between anticipating the news, and receiving the news. And driving across town to his parents’ house to repair a section of (rotting, leaking) roof-shingles. And once he’d done with hammering on the roof—(which was how his mother Mimi Zahn knew Jere had come over: heard him before she saw him, hurried to a window to see, yes Jere’s car was in the driveway which was like her youngest son to just show up unannounced at the house, immediately throw himself into the carpentry and handyman tasks his older brothers with their busy lives and families wouldn’t have thought of doing for their parents)—he carried the ladder around to the garage to replace burnt-out floodlights on the garage roof and while he was up there, to secure a loose drainpipe.

  Taking care then to place the heavy long ladder back in the garage exactly where he’d found it which was where, in fact, he’d put the ladder a few months ago which was the last time the ladder had been used by anyone in the Zahn family.

  Too wired to stop work. Anxious to clear away debris from last week’s storm scattered through the backyard in time for trash pickup later that week. Jere is such a good person. Even as a boy he was always the first to volunteer help. His dad and I just wish he did more for himself not always other people . . . Which meant a mother’s concern that her youngest son was living alone at the age of twenty-seven, no (apparent, desirable) prospects for marriage, obsessed with his job (which by calling a mere “job” Mimi hoped to minimize) as a new recruit in the Pascayne Police Department.

  Rookie cop Jerold Zahn. Rank Police Officer I.

  The Zahns were proud of him. Anxious for him.

  He hadn’t had an easy time at the New Jersey State Police Academy in Sea Girt. Never certain why, when he’d been so excited about being accepted. Graduating in the lowest third of his class of cadets.

  In the Pascayne PD, in the Red Rock precinct which was the worst precinct in the city, highest crime rate, blocks of burnt-out buildings, Zahn was the rookie feeling the most stress.

  (Not that Jere complained to anyone. He’d never been the kind to complain.)

  (On the Pascayne North High varsity team Jere Zahn was known for having finished a championship game limping on a sprained ankle. Another time, concussed for as long as a minute flat on his back on the ground but insisted on going right back into the game.)

  In a haze of grief the Zahns would claim We had no idea. No warning but in fact Mimi had been concerned, something in the boy wasn’t quite right. The intensity with which he threw himself into handyman tasks. Anything you’d ask him to do and some things he volunteered, you hadn’t even thought to ask like thinning the old straggly shrubbery around the house, replacing cracked bricks in the patio. And his old room, he’d cleared out and painted a pale yellow for his mom’s sewing room, his own idea entirely.

  So that day December 11, 1987, when Jere turned up at the house before 9:00 A.M. (after his dad left for work at 7:30 A.M.) without having called first, hauled the long ladder out of the garage and leaned it against the side of the house with a thud and climbed the steps rapid and unerring and then heavy-footed on the roof hammering in a fury of concentration for the remainder of the morning—she’d sensed that something was possibly wrong but was determined to make a joke of it, a jest, that was the Zahns’ way, four boys and a younger sister and their dad a great kidder so Mimi had learned to laugh as the first line of defense. Tugging open a second-floor window to call out to her son overhead (and out of sight) who failed to hear her and so she’d gone outside into the backyard to call plaintively up to him—Jere? Hi! Did you tell your dad you were coming over, honey?—shivering hugging herself in just a cardigan sweater, and her son on the roof a startling sight in bright cold sunshine in his old hunter-green high school hoodie, knitted wool cap pulled down over his creased forehead, boyish face grim and unsmiling. He seemed embarrassed, possibly annoyed, his mom outside in the cold calling up to him through cupped hands, he was hoping neighbors wouldn’t hear. Jere’s way to shrug and say No big deal when people made too much of the least little thing he did for them. Mimi chided him come inside and get warm, she’d make him something hot to eat reasoning he’d had just cold cereal and coffee for breakfast as usual if he’d bothered to eat at all. With a grimace he waved at her I’m OK Mom, I’m almost done with this, go back inside Mom OK? Definitely he was embarrassed by her solicitude but she could see he was losing weight, since summer he must have lost at least ten pounds. Actually becoming lean-faced which wasn’t like any of his brothers. And his eyes ringed with a kind of adult fatigue she’d never seen in Jere before.

  Henry had said to the older sons Spend some time with Jere can you? Invite him over for supper? He needs something I’m not sure that your mother and I can supply.

  After he’d cleared away a sizable portion of the fallen tree limbs in the backyard and raked brush into a pile Jere came into the kitchen to get warm, removed his hoodie and wool cap and Mimi couldn’t resist brushing hair out of his face as she’d done without thinking for most of his life. Jere’s hair was white-blond, pale-silvery-blond like her own, though her own was mostly gray now, and Jere’s eyebrows and lashes pale like hers, almost invisible so growing up he’d hated the color of his hair which was freaky he’d complained, like a girl’s hair. Mimi had felt a mother’s (small, finite, contained) heartbreak assuring him Don’t be silly, honey! You are a very good-looking boy. Girls would kill for hair natural-blond like yours.

  And Jere’s eyes, ghost-eyes, pale eyes, pale blue or gray, like Mimi’s eyes also, that looked raw, vulnerable.

  She’d insisted, he had to sit down for a few minutes at least, have something to eat so he said with a smile OK, Mom, you’re the boss and she felt a little thrill of triumph—thinking she would keep her son with her for a while longer, and the big house not so empty, and when Henry came home she would tell him with a quiet kind of pride Jere came over this morning and surprised me, repaired the roof and changed the outside garage lights and we had a nice talk like we haven’t had in a while. He told me . . .

  Instead after he’d eaten only about half the food on his plate—(scrambled eggs, bacon and toast which was a special breakfast in the Zahn household)—he’d seemed to lose appetite suddenly, and ceased eating; and Mimi asked him if something was wrong, and evasively he’d said Nothing is wrong, Mom. I’m OK. She knew that he’d been seeing a young woman named “Kim”—“Kimba”—who wasn’t ideal, from Mimi’s perspective, being a single mother, and not younger than her son, and this person Mimi had not ever met, and hoped she would not. And yet—I want Jere to be happy. I want him to get married, someday. He can’t live alone, he needs someone to take care of him.

  She knew that since the “disturbances” on Camden Avenue following a meeting in a black church, when so many police officers were involved in quelling a near-riot, things had been tense in the Pascayne Police Department, particularly in Jere’s precinct in Red Rock. (It was their son’s bad luck, to be assigned there. But Jere never complained even to his brothers or his sister with whom he’d always been close, so far as Mimi knew.) Jere said of the incident that it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, and the fact was nobody got killed, nobody got seriously injured, no police cars were overturned and burned, and there was “zero”
looting.

  His father had said When a class of individuals can’t support themselves, have to live on food stamps and welfare, and no jobs, it’s a powder keg. Thank God worse didn’t happen.

  They’d heard of a black teenager in Red Rock charging white police officers with kidnapping and rape, and how preposterous these charges were—totally unsubstantiated. Jere’s father had asked him about it and Jere had said with a shrug he didn’t know anything about it except people said it was a “race-thing.”

  Jere had had enough of his mother’s breakfast, and was eager now to get back outside and finish clearing the yard. Through a window she observed him for a while, working fast, pushing himself as if punishing himself; she could see no logic to it, no reason, but their youngest son had often behaved this way. As young as twelve, in seventh grade, when Jere had begun to play on sports teams, and to be a player whom coaches singled out for particular attention.

  She thought of putting on a fleece-lined jacket and joining her son outside. Vigorous exercise in fresh air would be good for her—cheer her. Helping Jere rake debris into those big black plastic trash bags which was a task requiring two people. But she knew—oh, she knew—Jere wouldn’t have liked that. He was a sweet boy but sad-hearted and right now he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

  Well—Mimi assumed Jere would come back inside to say good-bye but around 2:00 P.M. she noticed his car was gone from the driveway.

  He was going to tell me, I think. I see that now.

  I didn’t, then. I guess I . . . missed it.

  First thing was thinking of Mimi. Thinking of Mom.

  In fact he’d come over to tell her. That was why he’d come.

  Then, lost courage. Sick-hearted.

  Intending to tell her when no one else was around. Just Mom, and she could tell Dad later, in her own words, and he wouldn’t be there, and that would be a way of doing it. And his parents would tell his brothers and his sister, in a way they could. But he needed to tell her in some way that wasn’t direct.