A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Did he seem—well? Did he . . .”

  “Did he seem well? What the Christ is that—well? The man is on trial for his life, he’s been locked up for a year, you’re asking does he seem well? What the fuck do you think, ‘Edna Mae’!”

  No mistaking the contempt in Norman’s way of pronouncing Edna Mae. The word fuck was so utterly shocking, possibly Edna Mae had not even heard it. (Dawn hoped so.)

  Quickly Jonathan said, “He’s doing OK, Edna. He’s holding up. We’ll go see him next Saturday—some of us. He knows it’s hard for you. Try not to worry.”

  Try not to worry. Edna Mae blinked away tears, this was the kindest thing anyone in the Dunphy family had said to her since the trouble began.

  One thing different about the trial, there were not so many Right-to-Life people in the courtroom or outside on the steps. Not so many demonstrators with picket signs. “It’s like people are forgetting Luther. Some other ‘soldier of God’ is taking his place.”

  Norman spoke ironically. But it was so: an anti-abortion protester had been arrested recently for shooting up a women’s medical clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Jake Rachtel too was aligned with the Army of God and Operation Rescue and spoke of himself as a “soldier of God.” Just a few nights before Tom McCarthy of The Tom McCarthy Hour had praised the “brave martyr” who’d held more than one dozen women and girls hostage in the clinic, had wounded (but not killed) three medical workers, getting himself wounded by law enforcement with a bullet lodged near his spine.

  Dawn was listening to the adults’ conversation. She had not gone to school that day: rather, she had approached the school building but had been unable to force herself to enter. It was terrifying to her, her daddy was being tried and she could do nothing about it . . . Much of the day she’d spent wandering at the scrubby outskirts of town and in the partly abandoned train yard, at one point descending into a steep ravine littered with debris where, in overturned rusted oil drums, puddles of stagnant water had accumulated and each puddle had glittered excitedly as if both welcoming her and excluding her.

  Jesus, are you here? Jesus please—help my daddy!

  Badly Dawn wanted to ask her uncle Norman more about her father but she knew from past experience that her uncle would reply to her curtly without so much as glancing at her. Norman was friendly to Luke and the younger children but didn’t seem to like Dawn, and did not trouble to disguise the fact.

  Why, she didn’t know. Because Uncle Norman thought she was homely?

  Homely was a word the men used. Homely referred exclusively to girls and women.

  It made her feel bad, to be homely. But after a while, it made her feel angry and wanting to hit somebody, hard.

  What was unfair was that Dawn had often felt invisible in the family when Luke had been present; but now that Luke lived somewhere else, Dawn was still invisible.

  “There’s nobody has forgotten Daddy! Not in our church either. They talk about him and pray for him all the time.”

  (This was not true, maybe. Edna Mae hadn’t taken Dawn and the younger children to Muskegee Falls to Reverend Dennis’s church for some time for they only went if Luke or Mary Kay was willing to drive them. Edna Mae rarely drove at all now.)

  Norman regarded Dawn and Edna Mae with a look of pity.

  “Well. Good. But there’s a problem, I think.” Norman had changed the subject, and was looking shrewd now. “About money.”

  It had long been a troubled issue among the Dunphys, what to do about the defense fund sponsored by the Army of God. So far as Edna Mae knew there had been contributions to the fund from “all across the United States and some foreign nations as well”—as the website boasted. But Luther had been adamant that he did not want and would not accept charity. Repeatedly he’d refused to dismiss the lawyer appointed for him by the Broome County public defender’s office and hire a private lawyer. It seemed to be Luther’s belief that God would care for his family, somehow. Nobody needed to stoop to begging.

  Unknown to Luther, Edna Mae had been accepting what were called gifts, or loans—from persons sympathetic with the family’s plight, who contributed to the Army of God fund or to similar funds for Luther Dunphy. And there had been donations from the St. Paul Missionary Church, generous at first, but in recent months diminished.

  The Dunphys had been helping to support Luther’s family too, but grudgingly. Many times it had been pointed out to Edna Mae that Luther’s elderly parents had not “money to spare”; Luther’s brothers and cousins had their own needy families and had not “money to burn.” Not one of the Dunphys intended to take out a second mortgage to pay for the mess Luther had got himself into.

  Norman said, “Y’know what I’d like? To see how damn much money there is in that fund before they skim off the top.”

  “‘Skim off the top’—? What do you mean?”

  “This ‘Army of God.’ Who the hell are they? People send money for Luther that goes to them. All I can figure from the website is their ‘headquarters’ are someplace in Illinois, a post office box! Sons of bitches are using my brother to make money.”

  “But—they give Mawmaw money . . .”

  “Sure. They give her something. But if we investigated, what’d you think we would find?”

  Dawn was openmouthed. She’d never thought of such a thing!

  “We’d find the bastards are stealing from us.”

  Edna Mae protested weakly. She did not believe, truly she did not believe, that anyone was stealing from Luther. She could not believe this for everyone had been so nice to her, and so sorry for what had happened.

  “They do give us money, Norman. Hundreds of dollars—since last year . . . Luther would be so upset if he knew—the one thing he can’t accept is ‘charity.’ Please don’t let him know anything about this, I beg you.”

  Norman rose to his feet abruptly. He was ready to leave, he’d had enough of his infuriating sister-in-law.

  “If my brother is so ‘upset’ with charity, why the hell’d he abandon his family for the rest of us to support? God damn son of a bitch thinking he is Christ-almighty, maybe Christ-almighty should support him.”

  The Dunphys left. In their wake, dirtied plates, glasses, cutlery and crumpled napkins. And that smell of masculine indignation, rage like something singed. Edna Mae wept silently unable to move from her chair. Dawn started to clear the table, throwing things into the kitchen sink and running water hot until steam blinded her eyes. Her lips moved silently—Jesus help us. Jesus show us the way, the truth, and the Light.

  THE GREAT TRIBULATION:

  SEPTEMBER 2001

  . . . do not run in the halls or on the stairs. All students return to your homerooms immediately. Repeat: all students return to your homerooms immediately and quietly and do not run.

  She had not been listening. But she was listening now.

  Waking from her trance. Waking at once, and quickly standing as others in the classroom were standing confused and frightened, clutching their books.

  . . . . in orderly fashion file out of your classrooms and in orderly fashion return to your homerooms at once. Repeat THIS IS AN EMERGENCY all students will please return to your homeroom for further instructions immediately and quietly and do not run in the halls or on the stairs.

  Defiantly she’d been pressing the flaps of her ears against her ears to drown out the teacher’s droning voice. Pressing the flaps of her ears against her ears to create a muffled/buzzing sound that was comforting, entrancing. It was a new habit she did in her classrooms, head lowered, shoulders hunched at her desk at the back of the room, eyes lowered or half-shut, or frankly shut, forehead furrowed as in an intensity of thought utterly detached from and in opposition to the droning effort of the teacher at the front of the room chalking numerals or words onto the blackboard which blurred and faded if she stared at them.

  Some sort of moisture flooded into her eyes when she tried to see. She did not think that her eyesight was poor. She did not accept that she mig
ht need glasses. (She saw sharply outside. Outdoors! Saw what she wanted to see.) It was the nature of what she was expected to look at, and understand, there at the front of the room, she bitterly resented.

  She had not been thinking of algebra but of her father seventeen miles away in the courthouse in Muskegee Falls. She had not been thinking of algebra or of her other classes on any of the days of the new school term but she had been thinking of her father in the courthouse in Muskegee Falls and feeling sick with guilt that she was not there; and sick with dread that her father was being tried.

  It was not possible to concentrate on schoolwork as it was not possible to sleep at night while her father was being tried. No things were possible of normal life yet she was obliged to pretend as if they were. Not-hearing what was said to her sometimes, cruel remarks flung in her direction like carelessly flung stones that might strike their target or might not—That’s Dunphy. Her father is the crazy one with the shotgun, on trial for his life.

  On the front walk, girls from the high school suddenly approaching her, surrounding her, and one of them saying in a bemused voice—What kind of point are you trying to make? Like, you’re not FEMALE? So—what are you? Look like you belong in the Stone Age.

  She’d heard a reference to Stone Age in the past—had had no idea what the words meant. One of her teachers remarking to the class that there are “some people” living in the United States today who want to turn back the calendar to the Stone Age and she’d wondered uneasily if this was a remark addressed to her or about her or her family . . .

  She’d felt such shame. Wanted to shrink up like one of those inchworms you step on, on the sidewalk, curl up to make themselves smaller.

  No. She’d felt such rage. Flaring up inside her sudden and hot. Fingers flexing she’d have liked to make into a fist to hit the girl in her smirking face and draw blood.

  And when the other girls screamed, rush at them striking with both fists the smirking faces until all were bloodied and retreating in terror from the wrath of the Hammer.

  Jesus had said I bring not peace but a sword. In Dawn’s vision the sword of Jesus was a hammer.

  Sleepless nights had yielded the Hammer of Jesus. Somehow the vision had come to her fully formed. She’d wanted to speak of it to another person, to Reverend Dennis (maybe) but was unable to force out the words when she’d had the opportunity.

  She knew only a little of the Great Tribulation. This would be a time of hardship, trouble, disaster, the “last days” just before Jesus returned to establish His kingdom on earth and to convert the Jews of Israel . . . None of this was clear to her. She had never listened very carefully. She had no idea when it would come—in a hundred years, in a thousand years, in a few years. She could not think that her father’s being tried in the Broome County Courthouse was in any way related to such a massive prophecy but of course in such matters Dawn Dunphy could not know with any certainty.

  Truth that passeth understanding. The way, the truth, and the Light.

  It was her habit now at school to deliberately not-hear. For they had “passed” her into ninth grade, she knew—it was no secret. Other students known to be barely literate unable to read, write, do math at their grade level similarly “passed” out of eighth grade and into ninth grade were expected to quit on their sixteenth birthdays and give the school district no more trouble but Dawn Dunphy did not intend to quit but to graduate.

  Her daddy had told her he would be proud of her if she graduated. Her daddy had been unhappy, that Luke had quit on the morning of his sixteenth birthday. She had said—I will, Daddy. I will graduate. I promise.

  Seated at the back of the classroom where no one listened. The dead zone all coarse-mouthed boys and among them the sole girl Dawn Dunphy in shirt untucked over dungarees and frayed size-ten sneakers with her hair crudely shorn (scissor-cut by her aunt Mary Kay) to expose the back of her neck. Through the first week of algebra class she had tried to pay attention despite the boys’ stupid mutterings and jokes, she had tried to make sense of what the teacher was saying, jotting numerals and equations onto the blackboard in clicking white chalk . . . But somehow then she’d given up, thinking of her father being tried.

  The Hammer of Jesus! She’d have liked to wield such a hammer if it was a giant hammer like something coming out of a cloud to devastate the courthouse and the men’s detention facility like Samson bringing down the walls of the temple.

  In ninth grade she did not have Miss Schine for homeroom. She did not love Miss Schine (who had betrayed her) but she missed her very badly. But there was no excuse for wandering over into the eighth grade corridor for all who saw her (including Miss Schine) would know why she was there and would mock and laugh at her.

  In Miss Schine’s homeroom (which had also been her English class and study hall) Dawn Dunphy had been seated in the front row of seats. But in her new homeroom, she was seated at the very rear of the room. And in all her ninth grade classes, she was seated at the very rear of the room. Bitterly she hated this, her teachers dismissing her, expecting her to quit at sixteen like the other poorly performing students and troublemakers, “learning disabled” boys and girls for whom no one had patience.

  Abruptly then on this Tuesday in September the class was interrupted. You could almost not recognize the principal’s voice over the loudspeaker, it was so strangely agitated, breathless.

  This is an emergency announcement. All students are to immediately leave their classrooms and return to their homerooms for further instructions . . .

  Filing out of the classroom and into the corridor, that was already crowded, chaotic. You would think there was a fire at the school except the fire alarm wasn’t ringing, they were accustomed to the deafening alarms ringing for fire drill once a week and now there was silence except for the loudspeaker voice repeating the emergency announcement like a robot except it was a real person, you could hear breathing and a faint stammering of words.

  Like others she’d grabbed her things. Books, backpack. Her heart was thudding in her chest for she was imagining the Hammer of Jesus striking the school . . .

  One minute pressing her fingers against her ears to muffle sound and to hear more clearly the BEAT BEAT BEAT of her blood and the next minute on her feet with the others trying not to push, shove, panic on the stairs and then in homeroom sinking into her desk at the back of the room, that had been shoved sideways in a scramble by other students to get to their desks, disoriented by the blank looks of the adults, blank frightened looks of adults usually composed and in control and in possession of all knowledge.

  Then, when they were seated, the loudspeaker voice continued in a jagged lurching fashion:

  “It has been announced that the United States has been attacked by a foreign country. There have been bombings in New York City and in Washington, D.C. It is not known if the President of the United States has been killed but it is known that thousands of people have been killed by ‘terrorist’ explosions and more attacks are expected. It is being advised that you remain in your homerooms until further notice when you will be allowed to return to your homes . . .”

  In Dawn’s homeroom the teacher Mrs. Lichtman had to sit at her desk, suddenly faint, very white in the face. Terrifying to see a teacher so frightened, and not to know what was happening and what would come next. The usually smirking boys were as quiet as the others, abashed and apprehensive. Amid them Dawn Dunphy sat entranced as if Jesus had answered her prayer in a way she had not expected and could not comprehend, just yet.

  We listened for airplanes, we believed that bombs were being dropped. We were led to believe that an invasion had begun from a foreign country. Our principal Mrs. Morehead kept repeating what she’d said like that was all she knew and all she could say and she did not know how to stop. And then at last, the loudspeaker was switched onto radio news, and we were listening to radio news without knowing what any of it meant, still we were waiting for bombs to fall on our school, and for airplanes to crash into our s
chool, and it was only after parents began to arrive at the school to take kids home that we could leave, and all of us went home to watch TV with our parents all that day September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed and we watched the twin towers explode and collapse and explode and collapse a thousand times in a flaming cataclysm like the wrath of God.

  IN MUSKEGEE FALLS at the Broome County Courthouse the trial of Luther Dunphy was interrupted. Jurors were dismissed until further notice, the courtroom and the courthouse were cleared, the defendant Dunphy was returned in handcuffs and ankle shackles to men’s detention. The trial would not resume until the following Tuesday by which time it was determined by Broome County law enforcement that the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Muskegee Falls was not high.

  Nationwide the United States remained in a state of high emergency.

  The Broome County Courthouse would be secured with extra Ohio State Police guards both in the courtroom and outside the building. Each person who entered the courthouse and passed through the metal detector was scrupulously examined and many were questioned at length. There were (unsubstantiated) rumors of bombs set to explode inside and near the courthouse but it was never made clear whose bombs they were supposed to be—Muslim terrorists or Right-to-Life activists.

  AFTERNOON, EVENING, and into the night of September 11, 2001, they watched TV news in the house on Depot Street. At first they shifted restlessly from channel to channel but settled finally on the familiar cable-news channel that broadcast The Tom McCarthy Hour.

  Never had Edna Mae been so riveted by the TV screen. Never had she allowed the younger children to watch the kind of TV she feared would give them “bad thoughts” and “nightmares.” But things seemed different now, a curious excited calm to Mawmaw observed by Dawn and by Luke (who’d come to his aunt’s house to watch news of the “terrorist attacks” with his family, when his workhours were cut short) as if all that Mawmaw had feared and hoped-for had come true and there was no point in trying to shield her young children from knowledge of God’s terrible wrath.