Rape by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

CTOBER 11, 1996, Dromoor killed one of the rapists with two shots from his .45-caliber police service revolver.
    You learned this news from Teena.
    â€œThe first of them. He’s dead.”
    Teena spoke dazedly. Her eyes burned with fever.
    The first of them . You would wonder if these were Dromoor’s words, carefully chosen.
    You would wonder if Dromoor had called Teena from the parking lot, on his cell phone. Except no, such a call might be traced. He would have waited, to call from a public phone some distance from the shooting. But he wouldn’t have waited long.
    Next you saw TV news. And next the Niagara Journal .
    DeLucca, James. “Jimmy.” Twenty-four, unemployed at the time of his death. Resident 1194 Forge Street, his parents’ home in Niagara Falls. Survived by . . .
    There was DeLucca on the TV screen. Photo taken when he’d been in a glittery doped-up mood. Greasy dark hairfalling in his face. Presley/greaser style. Some girls would think he was sexy. An overgrown kid. This photo didn’t show DeLucca as he’d looked in the courthouse in his neatly pressed serge suit and neatly tied necktie and neatly combed haircut but more the way he’d actually looked that night in Rocky Point Park. Careening into you. Whooping, yelping. One of the dog pack yipping as he’d leapt to block you with muscled arms outstretched like it’s a rough basketball game, somebody has passed you the ball, you are vulnerable and trapped and the target and DeLucca is the guy laughing as he crashes into you.
    Hey babygirl! Babygirl gonna show us your titties, too?
    In the living room, blinds drawn. Turning from one TV channel to another to follow the news. Momma stares at the screen with her fever-eyes, hands clamped between her knees. Grandma watches murmuring to herself. And you.
    Why two bullets? Where one would’ve been fatal?
    Carefully it would be explained by NFPD spokesmen that two shots are a NFPD requirement. If an officer has made a decision that deadly force is necessary he is trained to fire two shots.
    Dromoor was only following his NFPD training.
    The shooting had occurred in a parking lot behind the Chippewa Grill, 822 Chippewa Street, on the East Side of town. Twelve-fifty-eight A.M . of October 11, 1996. Ray Casey was the primary witness. Ray Casey would be interviewed many times. Fact is, Ray had been making the roundsof the East Side taverns. Since the break-up with Teena he’d been spending more and more time alone, drinking. Driving his car along the river to Youngstown and back. Stopping at country taverns where no one would have heard of what-happened-to-Teena on the Fourth of July in Rocky Point Park.
    Teena Maguire, who was Ray Casey’s lover. Almost they’d decided to live together, in Casey’s house. When Casey’s divorce came through.
    Now you didn’t dare speak to him about Teena Maguire. Not a word about any of it.
    Casey had near about cracked his estranged wife across the mouth for certain remarks she’d made about Teena Maguire.
    As for Teena she would not see him now. Would not speak with him on the phone. Ray leave me alone, I’m so tired. I don’t want your pity. Somebody better put me out of my mercy. I mean misery .
    He felt so guilty about Teena! Wanted to love her like he’d done but she wasn’t the same person now. Never would be again. The hurt was deep inside her, it would never be healed.
    Or maybe Casey had not loved her enough. That was the test, maybe. A woman raped by how many men: even she didn’t know.
    At the Chippewa Grill, Casey had not been in a belligerent mood. This could not be claimed against him by witnesses like the other time, at Mack’s Tavern. It was DeLucca who’d sighted Casey and recognized him. Are you following me, asshole? DeLucca had asked. Casey looked blank at him not seeming to know who the hell DeLuccawas. But when he left the tavern there was DeLucca