A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Yes, well. Nobody with that name lives here anymore.”

  “The Dunphys? Do you know the name?”

  Big-shouldered, hostile, the woman shrugged.

  “Do you know—when did they move away?”

  Again the woman shrugged. Her gesture signaled not I don’t know when they moved away but Why should I tell you if I know when they moved away.

  “Do you happen to know where they moved?”

  The woman shook her head, no.

  “Are there any other Dunphys in Muskegee Falls? Anyone I could speak with?”

  The woman shook her head, no.

  A large ungainly straggly-haired dog came limping out to join the truculent woman. A Labrador-terrier mixture, with a stump of a tail. Sensing the woman’s unease the dog bared its yellow teeth and began to bark at the girl in the baseball cap as if knowing very well the significance of the small black object in her left hand.

  Obviously it was fraudulent on Naomi’s part. No one would be seeking one of the Dunphy children without knowing about Luther Dunphy. To pretend otherwise was deceit. Yet Naomi felt she had no choice but to maintain the awkward deception even as the woman stared at her unsmiling and the straggly-haired dog beside her growled.

  “I wasn’t a friend of Dawn Dunphy—I mean, we weren’t close. But I heard she’s become an athlete—a boxer . . .”

  How strange, the name Dawn Dunphy on her lips! Naomi was sure she’d never spoken this name aloud in her life.

  “Nobody living here with that name—‘Dunphy.’ Not for years.”

  The woman spoke in a loud voice. Clearly, Naomi was dismissed.

  Yet she was staring at the house. She could not tear her eyes from the house. For it was so ordinary a house. And she had known that beforehand. A house in which the murderer of her father had plotted her father’s murder, and in which he’d kept his weapons. In the cellar perhaps.

  Had she been allowed access to the house by the scowling woman, had she been allowed to film the interior, even the cellar where (she speculated) the weapons might have been kept—to what purpose?

  “I said, miss—there’s nobody living here, or anywhere around here, with that name. OK?”

  “Yes! I’m sorry.” Naomi smiled, inanely. The camera felt unwieldy in her hand, redundant. “Very sorry . . .”

  Awkwardly turning to walk to her car parked at the curb beside the badly dented trash can. Glancing back she saw the woman unmoving in the driveway, standing her ground with the snarling dog beside her, staring at Naomi as if she’d sighted the enemy.

  She is living in the murderer’s house. There is some shame to this. Of course she does not want to be reminded.

  IN THE COMPACT rented car south on Front Street to Mason Street and so to Woodbind. Left on Summit. Another left on Howard Avenue. The route the murderer had almost certainly taken on his way to 1183 Howard on that morning.

  She’d devised a timeline. It is always helpful to devise outlines, structures. From all that she’d learned over a period of years arranging the (probable) sequence of events, imagining parallel trajectories: Luther Dunphy leaving the two-story clapboard house on Front Street, approximately four miles from the Women’s Center, sometime in the early morning of November 2, 1999, in his pickup; Timothy Barron, Women’s Center volunteer, leaving his home in his minivan and arriving at Gus Voorhees’s residence on Shawnee Street, three miles from the Center, at approximately 7:10 A.M., to pick up Gus and to drive together to the Center . . .

  She drove to Shawnee Street in another part of Muskegee Falls. This was a residential neighborhood of single-family houses, larger and set in larger lots than those on Front Street; at 88 Shawnee, which was the address of her father’s rented apartment, was a graceless foursquare beige stucco building with a sign advertising prestige condos 1-, 2-, 3-bedroom.

  She wondered if the building had changed much in the past eleven years. She wondered if her mother had ever seen the inside of the apartment.

  She recalled Gus saying that the rental was “temporary.” He intended to move to another apartment, in a building nearer downtown. Or had he said (Naomi had been a young girl then, and it was before the murder, she would not have remembered each precious word her father uttered) that he was “waiting to hear” if Jenna might change her mind about moving to Ohio—“In which case we’ll rent a really nice house. You kids can help pick it out.”

  Shortly after 7:00 A.M. of the morning of November 2, 1999, with no knowledge that within a half hour he would be dead, Dr. Voorhees had emerged from this building to get into a Dodge minivan driven by Timothy Barron. Together the men drove to the Women’s Center.

  By 7:30 A.M., both Gus Voorhees and Timothy Barron would be dead.

  No one was ever to know what the men had talked about, en route to the Center.

  Naomi hoped it had been a friendly exchange. She hoped the men had liked each other. She hoped they had not ever been in fear of their lives as they approached the Women’s Center where hostile demonstrators were beginning to gather.

  Driving the route to Howard Avenue Naomi felt a mounting sense of unreality. For all that had happened years ago could so very easily have not happened.

  There was nothing intrinsic in the geography of the place. There was no fatedness. Gus Voorhees might so easily have been elsewhere, including Huron County, Michigan. Luther Dunphy might so easily have been distracted by other matters in his life—a child’s illness, or his own. A change of heart. A change of mind. You had to conclude that it was purely chance, without meaning.

  He killed them. They died. That is all there was.

  Soon, before she was quite prepared, she found herself back at 1183 Howard Avenue. But the Broome County Women’s Center was gone and in its place the canary-yellow Peony Christian Daycare Center. That is all there is.

  YET, SHE WOULD PERSEVERE.

  Calling Madelena to leave a message—I am discouraged but I will not give up.

  In a hoarse voice adding—I love you.

  AT LAST, Thelma Barron consented to see her. But only for less than an hour, and only for a recording and not a video.

  “No one needs to see my face in your video. It’s enough, you will use my father’s face.”

  Thelma Barron spoke flatly, resentfully. The word use was inflected, scornful.

  A middle-aged woman, with ironic eyes. An intelligent woman, doing her best to be courteous with a stranger.

  Badly Naomi missed the solace of the camera. For a camera lens is turned away from us allowing us to hide behind it. There is the illusion of invisibility, innocence.

  Instead, she would record the interview—the other daughter’s words. The two would sit across from each other at a weatherworn picnic table behind the Barrons’s handsome old Victorian house on Mercy Street, in a backyard in need of mowing and raking. Naomi’s cheeks burned to hear the other’s words that were alternately faltering and angry, wounded and incensed.

  For a long time we could not speak of it. Your father’s name was bitter to us.

  This grief we felt, that our father we loved so much had been killed because he had volunteered at the Center, and he had died beside Dr. Voorhees—and no one knew or cared except his family and a few others.

  In the news stories always the headline was VOORHEES. Always the focus was VOORHEES. The name is terrible to us to this day, we cannot speak it aloud.

  After they died, it was VOORHEES who was honored. It was VOORHEES’S picture you would see. It was VOORHEES that was the martyr. On the anti-abortion websites it was stated that Timothy Barron’s death was COLLATERAL DAMAGE and in a war COLLATERAL DAMAGE is to be regretted but not to be avoided.

  I am sorry to speak like this to you—Naomi. I know that there is a terrible wound in your heart too. But I am not a “sister” to you. That will not be.

  Dr. Voorhees was not our father’s friend though our father wished that Dr. Voorhees would be his friend. He had invited your father to our house for supper more than once, and
always your father had an excuse.

  Dad would speak of Gus Voorhees as his friend, proudly. But it was not to be.

  Our loss is a more bitter thing than yours and unjust because your father is acclaimed and honored and will not be forgotten while our father Timothy Barron is forgotten by all but a few.

  Let me tell you—our father was a truly good man. He was retired from the U.S. Army where he had had the rank of major. He had served in the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1971. In his private life he had dedicated himself to helping others, he would say that was why he had been allowed to live while other men in his platoon had died. He had returned he said from Hell.

  Because Dad was a big man people misunderstood him for Dad was a quiet man and in his heart he was gentle. He would say, he had made himself into a “warrior” to protect his country. But he did not have the soul of a “warrior”—he said. He would compare himself to one of our dogs who was a sheepdog-collie mix. We would joke how Andy could scare off a burglar if the burglar just saw him but if Andy saw the burglar, he would run in the other direction—Andy never even barked, if he could help it. His bark was like somebody coughing. Andy weighed one hundred fifteen pounds at his heaviest . . .

  Nobody grieved for Dad more than Andy. Poor sweet dog would whine and whimper and could not stay still. The first week or so Dad was gone, Andy was beside himself. His tail would thump, he’d try to convince himself that Dad was on his way into the house, he’d get excited, but then it came to nothing and you could see the life die out in his eyes. Andy is an old dog now and sometimes still he will go out into the driveway and lie stretched down waiting for Dad to turn into the driveway.

  It breaks your heart. You can’t tell an animal what has happened to change his entire life and take away his happiness.

  Our father had always been supportive of women and girls. It wasn’t just that he had four daughters and one son. That was how Dad felt.

  Some people in the family were surprised and maybe did not approve—Dad said “women’s rights” are the wave of the future.

  All us girls, his daughters, Dad made sure we were educated—so we could do better than him, he said. (Dad did pretty well in his life! He owned Barron’s Auto Supplies here in town with one of his brothers.)

  Our grandmother, Dad’s mother, had done volunteer work too. Church, school, hospital, hospice. Grandma was a volunteer at the Muskegee Falls Animal Shelter until a week before she died at age eighty-seven and the day she died was just a day after the anniversary of Dad’s death last year.

  We are not angry toward the Voorhees family—of course. We are over that now. I’m sorry if I spoke harshly and without thinking. I did not think that I could speak with you at all which is why I did not answer your first letter. There is no interest on our part in a “documentary” on Dr. Voorhees. It is very painful for any of us even now to recall what happened to our father. And justice was just so slow, the trial kept getting postponed . . .

  For three years our father Tim Barron was an escort at the Broome County Women’s Center and in those years he did not encounter any opposition out of the ordinary. Being a big man, he was not naturally fearful of anyone who hoped to push him around or intimidate him. Of course, the protesters at the Center were mostly peaceful. The most they did was shout at the women entering the Center, sometimes—they did not physically threaten them. The majority participated in prayer vigils and tried to provide counseling to the pregnant women if any would listen—of course, they never did. But when Gus Voorhees came to head the Center, that was changed. There was a lot of publicity and much of it was bad. The protesters were angrier and more confrontational, and there were more of them. Dad noticed the change almost overnight. He would say somebody was going to be hurt. Stronger security was needed from the police. Right away too, nasty things appeared on anti-abortion websites. Broome County was singled out. Dr. Voorhees was singled out. Army of God is strong in Ohio especially rural Ohio. Operation Rescue is still strong. (We all know people who are involved in these organizations. Some of us went to school with them. But we did not ever think any one of them would murder any one of us.)

  Now I am not intending to upset you, Naomi. But it was widely believed around here that your father behaved provocatively in giving interviews as he did to the local newspaper and on local TV. I know, Dr. Voorhees believed that if people understood the mission of the Women’s Center, which is to give medical care and advice to “any and all” women regardless of their ability to pay, they would not be angry; but Dr. Voorhees seemed not to understand that just his presence, his words, whatever he was saying, was inflammatory in some quarters, and only made things worse. He was brash and outspoken and believed himself “in the right.” I think that Dad tried to tell him this but if he did, Dr. Voorhees did not listen.

  Dad understood the risk he was taking every day he went to the Center. He was a brave man but he was not an abortion doctor himself, he should not have been shot down as he was.

  It was claimed by the pro-life people that Luther Dunphy did not shoot my father, that someone else did. Because Luther Dunphy refused to acknowledge that he pulled the trigger.

  It is still being claimed that one of the law enforcement officers shot Dad, not Luther Dunphy. Which is ridiculous since law enforcement had only hand guns, not shotguns. And witnesses saw Luther Dunphy turn fast after he’d shot your father—and aim his shotgun at our father—then he pulled the trigger again. They said there was a “glazed” look in Dunphy’s face and no emotion.

  He was a cold-blooded murderer with a heart of stone. He did not deserve to live and breathe in the same air shared by decent people.

  Those weeks before his death Dad was getting up early to drive the doctor to the Center. He had particularly volunteered to drive Dr. Voorhees in case there was an attack on the van. The plan was, the doctor would duck down, and Dad would drive the van as fast as possible to escape. Dad did not sleep well the last eight years of his life, so getting up early was not difficult for him. He had undergone chemotherapy for cancer—colon cancer. It had been just stage two when the doctor caught it, but Dad had a hard time with chemo that wiped him out, he’d say—“Like something rubbed off a blackboard.” All of Dad’s curly hair fell out—when we first saw him, with no hair, we burst into tears, it was such a shock. But Dad laughed at us—“Hey kids, I wasn’t going to win any beauty contest anyway, was I?” That was Dad’s kind of humor. Everybody loved him.

  By the time Dad met your father he was finished with the chemo and his hair had grown back, but not like it was, not curly, and very thin and dry. He did not tell your father about his medical history because he was not the type to speak of private things. He was not the type to cause others to worry about him. So, almost, we never quite trusted Dad, after the cancer—we’d ask him how he was, and he’d say “Fine” but we never knew what that meant; so we’d ask Mom and she would say, “Why do you think he’d tell me?” The opposite of self-pity was what our father was but that left us feeling anxious. Once, he said, your father happened to mention to him that he—that is, your father—was going to have to postpone some of his surgical appointments because he had bronchitis and “couldn’t stop his damn coughing”—and Dad thought that was such a confidential thing to say, to share, like he and Dr. Voorhees were old friends or even closer, like brothers—Dad was very touched . . .

  He was a good man, murdered like a dog.

  We are not sorry that the Broome County Women’s Center has closed. In all the stories of the Center, the staff did not speak of Timothy Barron except slightingly. Of course they will say—“Tim was a wonderful man”—“Everybody loved Tim”—“We miss Tim.” But that was it. All serious focus was on Dr. Voorhees. All the media gave a damn for was Dr. Voorhees. We understand the reason for this but it did not make it any easier to bear. When people talk of Gus Voorhees as a martyr even today we want to say yes and our father Tim Barron was a martyr too.

  Excuse me, I am feeling very upset. It has b
een a while since I have spoken like this to anyone. In our family we never speak of it now and the young children know nothing of it, and we don’t want to upset them and make them bitter. But I think—I am not able to speak with you any longer now.

  What is your name?—Naomi?

  I am sorry, Naomi. Please turn off that damned machine and go away now.

  The next interview was friendly, even chatty. Far from being kept outside at a rickety picnic table Naomi was invited inside to sit at a Formica-topped table in a kitchen, and to share a sixteen-ounce just-slightly-flat bottle of Diet-Coke with the daughter of a Muskegee Falls police office who had “passed away” several years before.

  Oh well—my dad did not actually witness the shootings. That was a misconception.

  Him and the other officer were just en route to the scene. They were scheduled to arrive at 7:30 A.M. and the shootings were just before that and the call came to them in the cruiser to get to the scene at once. They hardly had time to put on the siren, they said.

  Dad would think—almost—that he’d heard the gunfire. He heard the screams as soon as they pulled up. He dealt with the panicked people. He was the one who “arrested” Luther Dunphy. He put cuffs on the man.

  SHINGLED ROOF. Small country church shaped like a box. And of the hue of cardboard. Box-shaped country church. Small country church, brown-aluminum-shingled, new-looking roof, set in an uncultivated field, dun-colored grasses, gravel driveway, hand-painted sign—ST. PAUL MISSIONARY CHURCH OF JESUS SUNDAY SERVICE 9:00 A.M., WEDNESDAY PRAYER MEETING 7:00 P.M.

  This was on the Schylerville Road. Approximately six miles from downtown Muskegee Falls in a rural area of farms, ramshackle country houses, trailer homes.

  She had made telephone calls. She had hoped to meet with the minister of the church but she’d been told that that was not possible for Reverend Dennis was “away” and “would not be back” for twelve days.