A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  At last, Ellen Farlane arrives at the principal’s office breathless—“Naomi! Come with me, dear.”

  Naomi is stunned. She has had no warning it would be her—the heavyset middle-aged woman who’d been her father’s nurse-assistant at the Center—panting and flush-faced and calling her Naomi, daring to take her arm.

  Stammering she asks if something has happened to her father but Ellen Farlane will only repeat what the principal has said—your mother called, it is a family emergency.

  In Ellen’s station wagon, in the rear seat, Naomi slips in beside her little sister Melissa—how strange to see Melissa here! Both girls are stiff with fear.

  Naomi should comfort her sister, she knows. This is expected of a big girl of twelve.

  All she can do is grip Melissa’s small hand. She is hoping that Melissa will not cry for then there is the danger that Naomi might cry.

  Ellen Farlane drives to the high school to pick up Darren. Naomi is thinking how strange it is, how offensive, how she hates it, to be captive in a stranger’s vehicle, a station wagon where, on the floor at her feet, are remnants of others’ lives—a torn envelope, a woman’s glove, a child’s plastic toy. It’s as if she has already lost her own place in the world. She shuts her eyes to review the math lessons of the past several days, rapidly working out in her head problems in ascending order of difficulty—

  73 = 343

  (-10)4 = 10,000

  137=

  but it is very distracting to multiply thirteen exponentially to the power of seven—(13 × 13 × 13 × 13 × 13 × 13 × 13)—within seconds she becomes hopelessly confused.

  When she blunders in math, when she can’t comprehend a formula, she feels an acute stab of pain in the gut, a thrill of something like nausea. Stupid. Failure. Ugly. Don’t deserve to live.

  At the high school Darren is waiting by the rear entrance in his unzipped fleece jacket. He is not alone: a somber-looking woman is waiting with him, probably someone from the principal’s office. Like Naomi he too registers shock at the sight of their father’s assistant Ellen Farlane—for a confused moment he must think, as Naomi had, that their father is still in St. Croix and not in Ohio after all, and it’s at the Port Huron Women’s Center that whatever has happened to Gus Voorhees has happened.

  White-faced, stiff-moving, Darren grabs at the handle of the rear door and climbs inside.

  It is shocking to Naomi, her brother is livid with rage.

  “He’s dead. He’s been shot. What else? Fuck.”

  IN THE DRIVEWAY of the rented farmhouse on Salt Hill Road there are vehicles we have never seen before. One of these is a Michigan State police cruiser.

  Police! Has someone been killed—in the house?

  Before we can enter the house our mother rushes at us, to hug us. It is cold, snowflakes are falling, lightly, wetly—yet there is our mother outside bare-headed and without a jacket waiting for us which we feel to be wrong, and which we do not like. We see that our mother is crying and that her face is sallow and swollen and we do not like that at all, we are offended and frightened that strangers will see her in such a state. Also, her hair is disheveled and she seems totally unaware.

  Each of us in turn our mother hugs, tremulous, kissing us haphazardly, like a drunk woman, so we shrink from her, in fear. How can it be, this woman is our mother—we do not want this distraught woman to be our mother.

  We do not want to be the children of such a mother, and we do not want to be the children of disaster.

  “Something has happened to your father . . .”

  We stop hearing. We do not hear.

  Your father. In Ohio.

  Shotgun attack. This morning.

  Shot down in driveway.

  Assailant in custody.

  We hear some of this. We do not hear—(we are certain)—any words that resemble Your father is dead.

  Inside the house there are two uniformed police officers. They greet us solemnly and we see in their faces unmistakably—Your father is dead.

  Yet, this is not revealed to us. It is believed to be a good idea to take us into another room, while our mother speaks with the officers.

  Soon then, it is revealed that our mother is preparing to be driven to Muskegee Falls, Ohio. She speaks evasively saying that she will be “seeing” our father there and that she will call us as soon as she can.

  Is our father in the hospital?—we ask.

  Evasively our mother says yes, she thinks that our father is “in the hospital”—but she isn’t sure.

  There are “conflicting reports.” She is “waiting to hear.”

  A friend is driving her to Ohio, one of the (male) volunteer escorts at the Port Huron Women’s Center. It is astonishing to us to learn that they are leaving as soon as the friend arrives.

  We beg our mother to let us come with her. Even Darren begs but our mother says no.

  Oh honey not a good idea. Not right now.

  Someone will take care of you.

  The phone rings. Ellen Farlane answers it and when she places the palm of her hand over the receiver and tells our mother who is calling our mother shakes her head sharply—No.

  (Who is it? Why won’t our mother speak to him? The fleeting thought comes to us, the caller might be our father and in her distraught state our mother is making a terrible mistake.)

  We follow our mother upstairs into the large bedroom where she stuffs things hurriedly into a bag. It is the sort of haste for which our mother often scolds us and some of these items—wallet, car keys—fall onto the floor. We ask our mother why can’t we go with her, we want to go with her, we want to see Daddy and our mother shakes her head—No.

  Darren says, “He’s dead isn’t he?”—but Naomi speaks over her brother saying, “Is Daddy in the hospital? Is that where you are going?”

  Evasively our mother shakes her head as if she hasn’t heard us. She’s unsteady on her feet and so when she descends the narrow steps to the first floor Darren follows close behind her prepared to grab her arm if she falls.

  Downstairs, the phone rings again. The police officers have stepped outside, we can hear the frantic squawk of the police radio.

  Ellen Farlane tries to get our mother to drink a glass of orange juice before she leaves for Ohio—a half-glass, at least—but our mother can only bring the glass to her lips, and then lower it.

  Someone gives her an apple, out of a bowl on the table.

  This is a bowl of Macintosh apples, which are Daddy’s favorite apple. Children like Macintosh apples less, the skins are so tough, and get stuck between your teeth.

  Take the apple, our mother Jenna is urged. Try to eat the apple in the car.

  At another time we would be bemused, such things are being said to our mother by strangers in our kitchen.

  There is something astonishing about it, the things that are said at such times.

  I will call you. Someone will call.

  Arrangements have to be made. I have to be there.

  Don’t be afraid—I will be thinking of you.

  The plan seems to be that we will stay with friends in Ann Arbor named Casey. Then, in a day or two, our mother would join us.

  Then, the plan is that we will be driven to Birmingham, to stay with our grandparents for a few days.

  A few days! This is upsetting.

  We don’t want to stay with our grandparents in Birmingham if our father isn’t with us. This would not seem right.

  In pleading voices we ask why we can’t come with our mother to Ohio and our mother says more sharply that that is not a good idea.

  There are many things she has to do in Ohio, our mother says. But maybe after that. Maybe in a day or two . . .

  Our mother’s voice is hoarse, almost inaudible. The pupils of her eyes are tiny as pinpricks. Still she hugs us, or tries to—Darren edges away, shrugging her off. Melissa is eager to be held but Naomi is stiff, resistant.

  Our voices ask, what has happened to Daddy? Is Daddy—hurt?

&nb
sp; Is Daddy in the hospital in Ohio?

  Is Daddy—

  (The voices do not say dead. It will be months before the voices can say dead.)

  Our parents’ friend arrives to drive our mother to Ohio. We are kept in another room, we are not allowed to witness their meeting though we hear an uplifted (male) voice—Jenna! My God.

  There are too many people arriving at the house on Salt Hill Road. There is not enough room for so many vehicles in the driveway and there is not enough room in the downstairs of the house for so many people. There are even more police officers!

  Are we in danger? Is the family of Gus Voorhees in danger?

  Our mother leaves the house. We see her walking unsteadily in the driveway and wonder what the police officers are thinking.

  We’d overheard our father remark to our mother, months ago when he’d still been working at the Port Huron Center—The police resent us. That’s pretty obvious.

  Through the daytime hours there were two officers assigned to guard the Center. There were volunteers (both male and female) who helped with security and with escorting women and girls into the building past the gauntlet of protesters. Even so, the facade of the Port Huron Center had been defaced by graffiti several times and many mornings there was evidence of vandalism—overturned trash cans, garbage scattered across the property.

  “Mom?—Mom, wait!”—it’s Naomi who has run after Jenna, waving frantically as the vehicle backs out of the driveway; but the driver knows better than to stop. All Naomi can see of our mother is that she has hidden her face in her hands.

  She is a coward. We hate her!

  LATER WE WILL LEARN, there were death threats made to the family of Gus Voorhees on this day and for days following.

  These were calls received by several women’s centers with which our father had been associated as well as by abortion providers in Michigan and Ohio who’d had no contact with our father.

  Message to the wife of baby killer Voorhees how’d you like your kids murdered? Eye for an eye?

  So much time has passed yet it is only eleven o’clock in the morning! Naomi stares at the clock face, the hand seems to have frozen.

  She is very tired. She has been crying, for her father is dead.

  Still, no one has uttered the word dead.

  If you are a child like Naomi who is a harsh critic of herself you are likely to be astonished when—at last—the world punishes you as you’d thought you deserved.

  Because I am ugly and stupid and clumsy it is not fair to punish my father. Please don’t let that happen . . .

  The shock of a family emergency is that the child learns it has nothing to do with her.

  The phone rings, rings. In another room someone answers it.

  Ellen Farlane is telling Naomi and Melissa that they must be brave, this is a terrible thing.

  But they are safe. They will be safe.

  Nothing will happen to them.

  Friends of Jenna’s have arrived. There is much hugging, there are tears. Naomi runs to hide in the upstairs bathroom.

  The plan is, we might stay with these friends until our mother returns from Ohio or until we are summoned to Ohio. Darren is beginning to say no, Darren is beginning to balk, but Naomi and Melissa are not strong enough to say no.

  The phone rings. We determine that it isn’t our father who is calling. We slip away to hide.

  There is a place in the cellar we can hide, except we are afraid of the cellar. The bad smell in the cellar. The smelly bad things Mom found in the cellar, so nasty they could not be named.

  The plan is, someone is coming soon to drive the three of us to Ann Arbor within the hour and there we will stay with the McMahans, which is upsetting to us for we have never visited with the McMahans without our parents. Naomi begins to feel anxious, for what will she talk about with these people? She doesn’t really like Mr. McMahan so much, he is a lawyer who is always disputing her father, contradicting Gus and questioning his “data” though of course Mr. McMahan and Gus are old, close friends and respect each other. (The men have told the tale many times of how they’d both “pledged” Sigma Nu as freshmen at U-M—then, soon afterward, when the nature of fraternity life was revealed to them, as well as the monthly amount in dues and fees they’d have to pay, both men had “depledged.” The point of the story is, the children surmise—Who would believe it? Gus Voorhees, Lenny McMahan—Sigma Nu fraternity?) Still, Naomi has noticed how Mr. McMahan rarely nods in agreement when Gus speaks, as others do, as if he knows more of Gus Voorhees than the others, and isn’t so easily won over.

  HE’S DEAD. They killed him.

  Who—? Who killed him?

  The ones who’d said they would. Shot him down this morning.

  Darren speaks flatly, bitterly. Of course, it is true. All this while we have known.

  Except, Melissa has not known. It will be a long time before Melissa ceases to ask—Where is Daddy? When is Daddy coming home?

  Why can’t we go live with Daddy?

  There will be a funeral for Gus Voorhees, but not in Ohio. The funeral will be in Ann Arbor where we will all be staying.

  Not today, not tomorrow.

  But when is today, and when is tomorrow?

  Darren speaks flatly, bitterly. Darren has said he will never forgive our mother.

  Why?—Naomi asks; and Darren says because our mother didn’t want to move to Ohio to be with our father, if we’d all been living there this would not have happened.

  But how do you know that? How can you say that?—Naomi asks, astonished; and Darren says Just go to hell. You don’t know shit.

  Soon after, Naomi hears a furious braying sound outside, in the old hay barn—her brother playing his trumpet like a summoning of the dead.

  BY THE TIME Leonard McMahan arrives at the house at Salt Hill Road the sky has darkened. Our mother has not yet called home and Ellen Farlane has heated chicken noodle soup for us and has helped us pack our things—pajamas, toothbrushes, socks and underwear, clothing and school things.

  “I hope we never come back to this fucking place.”

  “We have to come back. We have school.”

  Naomi has considered saying We have fucking school to impress her foul-mouthed brother but at the last moment she doesn’t dare.

  Soon, however, she will dare. Fuck this fucking place she will dare.

  Fuck you I hate you fuck-face who the fuck do you think you are just go to hell—will you?

  Seated in the Michigan State Police cruiser two police officers remain on the property, at the crest of the driveway. When Naomi listens closely she can hear the cacophonous sound of their radio.

  What are the police officers talking about? Are they laughing? Are they thinking—Well, he got what he deserved. Killing babies like he did what’d he think would happen to him someday.

  Driving to Ann Arbor in pelting icy rain. In the front seat Leonard and Chrissie McMahan sit stiffly, not knowing what to say to the Voorhees children who have lost their father—who will never see their daddy again. The McMahans’ words of sympathy and comfort have trailed off into an awkward silence. So many times they have said You will be all right. Nothing will happen to you. Your father was so proud of you and he loved you so much. Your mother is a very brave woman.

  It is all bullshit, Naomi thinks. No one wants to be brave! What you want is to be alive.

  This is the beginning of a succession of displacements. Being driven from one (temporary) residence to another. Sometimes their mother is with them, and sometimes not. Sometimes the three of them are together, and sometimes not. (In time, increasingly not.) Being sympathized-with, comforted. Hearing the formula words. Your father was a great, brave man. Your father was loved by all who knew him. Your father would be so proud of you if he knew.

  Proud is like brave, Naomi thinks. Alive is what matters.

  After a while there will be fewer tears. A kind of wet ash instead of tears streaking their young faces.

  It is the abrupt end o
f childhood. Even for Darren who is fifteen years old who might (plausibly) have thought that he wasn’t a child any longer, it is the abrupt and irrevocable end.

  On this trip to Ann Arbor along icy-rain-lashed roads Darren has let his head fall against the car window beside him numbed to the vibrations of the glass against his skull, he has not been listening to anything the McMahans have been saying and if he had been, he would have taken no comfort, for it isn’t comfort Darren wants, it is revenge. Melissa is just a little girl, she has only a vague comprehension of dead, death which is like an enormous space it hurts to try to see, the up of it, and the down of it, and it’s a whitely blinding space like a vast warehouse, her brain hurts seeing it; and so, Melissa has fallen asleep exhausted. Beside her Naomi has been rethinking the situation, maybe she isn’t being punished, maybe she isn’t important enough to be punished, or to bring about a punishment of her father; in fact, there might have been a mistake, her father is in another hospital in Ohio not the one her mother was told he was in, her father was shot by an anti-abortion protester but it was only a warning shot and when they arrive in Ann Arbor there will be a message waiting for them from their mother. Good news after all! Sorry to alarm you but Daddy says hello.

  Beyond this, Naomi hasn’t imagined. Not just yet.

  “REMAINS”

  Mrs. Voorhees?”

  Was this a question? Did such a question imply that she had a choice?—she was, or she was not, Mrs. Voorhees.

  “Step through here. Please.”

  So it wasn’t a question. It was a commandment.