A Book of American Martyrs Read online

  THE WHITE BOX

  Hey Nao-miii! Something for you.”

  It was a white box. But not a clean white box.

  One of those boxes for doughnuts, with grease stains.

  This was not the Grand Rapids Montessori school now. We had moved to Saginaw, Michigan. With each school there were fewer names I would care to know and I did not know the names of these girls grinning at Melissa and me.

  Afterward I would surmise that they were not the ones who’d prepared the box for us. Whoever had imagined this “gift” had to be older. In middle school or even in high school.

  “Hey Naomi. You c’n take it, for your sister and you.”

  (I did not want to think that the actual words were nasal-mumbled for your chink sister and you.)

  They were excited. Their eyes darted and glittered.

  Yet I seemed to think—Do they like me? Really?

  My hands were shaking with excitement, or with dread.

  “Go on, open it Nao-miii. It’s for you.”

  My heart leapt with hope. Lifted like leaves sucked by a sudden wind. For I was so lonely here wherever (most recently) here was.

  As I unfastened the string crudely tied around the box, squatting over it, and Melissa staring silently at the box, I tried not to see how there were others, older children, boys as well as girls, standing at a little distance by the corner of the school wall, watching.

  I opened the box. A nasty smell lifted.

  I blinked, and stared. Melissa gave a little cry.

  I kicked the box from me, and grabbed Melissa’s hand, and pulled her blindly with me, back into the school.

  Hot clumps of bile rose into my mouth, I was stooped, gagging.

  Vomit on the floor, and on my sneakers. And poor Melissa terrified asking what was it? what had it been?—for she hadn’t seen what was in the box, not clearly as I had.

  THAT NIGHT Melissa woke screaming in the bed next to mine.

  After Mommy had switched off our bedside light in the shape of a fuzzy sheep I had lain with my eyes shut tight trying not to see the box, and what was mangled and bleeding inside the box, and I had not been able to sleep.

  “It was just a dream, honey. A bad dream.”

  Mommy hugged Melissa who was whimpering and shivering.

  Mommy asked me if I had any idea what it was that had so frightened my little sister—the “bad dream.”

  No idea.

  In Mommy’s arms Melissa quieted, after a while. I felt such jealousy seeing them, my mother who was so beautiful (I thought) and my little sister who was so pretty, huddled together. The white woolly sheep that was our bedside lamp cast a warm light outward but caused sharp shadows, shadows like knife-blades, in the folds of the bedclothes of both beds, and in the space beneath the beds where something might be hiding.

  “It’s this place—Saginaw. We’re not wanted here. We don’t want to be here.”

  Mommy spoke in a hoarse whisper. Mommy was hugging Melissa who clung to her panting. There was an air of reproach in Mommy’s voice that meant Your father is to blame. Not me!

  “You’re sure that something hasn’t happened, Naomi? To Melissa? To you? At school?”

  I shook my head no. I was not happy at being wakened even if, in fact, I had not been asleep.

  And what could I have told my mother? There were no adequate words.

  WHEN I ASKED DARREN, Does Daddy kill babies?—my brother grimaced and said loftily that wasn’t what they called them.

  I did not understand this. What was them? Who was they?

  Darren said, Feet-usses. They call them feet-usses, stupid.

  “SO CLUMSY”

  Another time on the stairs to the gym at Saginaw Elementary South the big Biedenk girl pushed me from behind, caused me to fall and turn my ankle. Trying not to cry, the pain came so hard.

  See how you like it bitch! Your old man’s a damn fuckin baby killer.

  IT HAD BEEN an accident on the stairs. I would explain to adults.

  I was in a hurry, I hadn’t looked down. I missed a step. I fell.

  My own fault I am so clumsy.

  “A BABY KILLER LIVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD”

  When these (mustard-yellow) flyers first appeared, stuffed into neighbors’ mailboxes and beneath the windshield wipers of neighbors’ vehicles, shoved inside screen doors, nailed to telephone posts on our block—torn, tattered, wind-blown—flattened against chain-link fences including (even) our own—floating facedown in puddles like mute dead things—we did not know for our excuse was We are children, we are not required to know.

  And what little we knew we did not acknowledge for to know a thing is not the same as acknowledging that you know a thing, especially to your parents; and if you do not acknowledge that you know a thing, you are not obliged to know it nor are you obliged to remember it.

  Darren knew, but Naomi did not. Melissa did not.

  Not for a long time not for years Melissa did not.

  And yet: Melissa we’d seen stooping to pick up one of the ugly mustard-yellow flyers from the rain-slick sidewalk near our house, staring at it, smoothing it with her small hands and staring at it, perplexed? curious?—seemingly not alarmed or frightened; folding it and slipping it into her backpack as if for safekeeping.

  ALSO: small white wooden crosses pounded into the ground, in the night, in front of the clinic headed by Gus Voorhees that had to be hurriedly removed by staffers when they arrived in the morning which we had not seen with our own eyes and consequently would not remember.

  AS WE DID NOT HEAR the chanted Our Father, Hail Mary!

  As we did not hear the singsong verse like a lullaby gone wrong:

  Free choice is a lie,

  Nobody’s baby chooses to die.

  APPLICATION, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES*

  Tell us about your background. Where you were born, where you grew up, your childhood and family memories. Why you want to attend the University of Michigan and what you hope to discover here.

  BECAUSE IT WAS a story related to us many times. We were a family in Ann Arbor.

  Because I was born in the university hospital in Ann Arbor, April 7, 1987.

  Because we were happy then.

  Because there are special facilities at U-M for students with disabilities.

  Because my father Dr. Gus Voorhees graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from the School of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and from the U-M medical school with a specialization in obstetrical surgery and public health. Because my father had expressed a wish that all of his children would attend the University of Michigan and it is my hope to attend in honor of him.

  Because my father did not abandon me but loved me.

  BECAUSE MY FAMILY is broken now. Because I am broken.

  Because by attending the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, I will be living in the place my parents lived.

  Because it has been related to me that my young mother pushed me in a stroller on Ann Arbor streets, on walkways and across the university campus when I was a baby. Because my young father carried me in a backpack when we hiked in the arboretum.

  Because it has been related to me that we lived in a rented “duplex” on Third Street and later in an apartment building on State Street. Because it has been related to me that my parents’ favorite restaurant was Szechuan Kitchen on State Street where there were tables outside in a courtyard, in warm weather, and there, I would be seated in a high chair.

  Because it has been related to me We were so happy then!

  Because it was the time before Daddy was gone away from us so much.

  Because it was a time when, when Daddy was away, there was not a fear that Daddy would not return.

  Because I remember none of this time clearly and what I do remember is the kind of memory you would have of a film you had seen only once long ago.

  Because it is the kind of memory you would have of a film you had not believed to be important at the time while what was import
ant to you was if you were hungry, and if you had to go to the bathroom—the urgency of needing to be taken quickly to a bathroom by your mother before there was an accident.

  Such petty anguish, the (physical) being of a child. These are our first memories and we do not cherish them.

  And so I am hoping that, if I am admitted to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, I will remember some of the happiness of my lost life.

  BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY of Michigan at Ann Arbor is one of the great public universities in the United States.

  Because my parents believed in public education and not in private education because my parents had faith in “democracy” which is not so popular today.

  Because they had hope for their children. Because I am one of their children.

  Because I am trying to understand—the responsibility of the “bloodline.”

  Because my father did not believe in questioning what you know instinctively to be your duty.

  Because my father Gus Voorhees enrolled as a freshman at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor when he was eighteen years old and it is my quest to discover how he became the person he was subsequently—if it is possible to know such a thing.

  Because in a few months I will be eighteen years old.

  BECAUSE THEY MET in that place—Ann Arbor, Michigan. Without that place, and that time, they would not have met.

  My brother Darren would not be alive. I would not be alive.

  Our sister Melissa would be alive but living in Shanghai (?). Or perhaps, Melissa would not be alive.

  On a trip to China in the 1980s traveling by boat on the Yangtze River he’d seen corpses of infants swirling in the mud-colored water.

  Girl babies we were told.

  Because he’d seen, and had not forgotten.

  Because there is so little we can do. Yet it is our duty, to do it.

  Because he had not lost faith and because I am hoping to learn what faith is.

  BECAUSE WHEN MY FATHER was murdered on November 2, 1999, all his memory of our family was obliterated in the instant of a shotgun’s explosion.

  Because we are that family, we have been obliterated in that instant.

  Because what is lost can be retrieved only with effort.

  Because if I am admitted to U-M at Ann Arbor I will continue the archive of my father Gus Voorhees’s life (and death). Because I will use the university library to research thoroughly and methodically as I have not (yet) attempted.

  Because years were lost when I could not begin.

  Because randomly and haphazardly I began the archive after my father’s death not knowing what I was doing as a rat will save items woven into a nest and now that I am older, and am less disabled, I will continue the archive more deliberately. Because my mother was angry with me when she discovered what I had been doing that I had not been doing deliberately but (it seemed to her) secretly because I did not want her to see it and so it was hidden away in an inadequate place where there was dampness, and much of the material has been torn, rotted, and ruined. Because my mother presumed that what I was doing was deliberate and secret because it appeared that way to her who had no idea what I was doing because I did not know myself what I was doing because my thoughts were scattered and it was not clear to me, that “Naomi” was the same person from one day to the next and that this person was to be trusted.

  Because if I am admitted as a freshman to the University I will behave then like a freshman at the University. Because I will mimic the behavior of other students that is visible and from this I think that I can successfully deduce behavior that is not visible.

  Because my mother said I am sorry, I can’t be your mother any longer.

  Because my mother said You must make your own way. I am sorry.

  BECAUSE AFTER MY FATHER died there was a sickness in my soul.

  Because as a girl I hated those who had both parents living.

  Because there was a terrible rage in me even as I smiled at them thinking Some day you will know. Some day they will be dead.

  Because it has been years, the murderer is still alive in the Ohio prison.

  Because we are waiting for his death—his execution.

  Because it is a sick hateful thing, to be waiting for another’s execution.

  BECAUSE IF I am admitted to the University I will use every facility in the library to research the life and death of Gus Voorhees. What has been done haphazardly and childishly will be done with care, I vow.

  Because there is microfilm in the library, I will learn to examine. I will use computers.

  I will search for letters, snapshots, manuscripts—every sort of documentation. I will search.

  I will interview people in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti who knew my father. People who knew my parents. Doctors and staff at the hospital, women’s health center. Friends, neighbors. I will go to them and I will say Do you remember me, I am Gus Voorhees’s daughter Naomi.

  “FALSE ALARM”: JUNE 1997

  Were your parents happy?

  What was it like to be a child of Gus Voorhees?

  And for your mother—what do you think it was like for Jenna Matheson to be Gus Voorhees’s wife for sixteen years?

  “BECAUSE I SAY IT’S NOT.”

  My weird brother Darren had it fixed in his brain, the way something stringy might fix itself between your teeth, and slowly drive you crazy if you couldn’t remove it, that our mother’s decision, or rather our mother’s sudden change-of-plans, was not a good idea.

  I persisted—“Why not? What’s the difference?”

  “It’s not good to change plans impulsively.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  Exasperated my brother glared at me. Deliberately my eye sought out the patches of acne on his forehead and cheeks, that kept Darren from being a strikingly attractive boy.

  He said, with the righteous stubbornness with which he practiced his braying trumpet outside in the garage where my mother had banished him with a plea of Darren, please! Some of us are trying to retain our sanity: “She should call first.”

  “How do you know she hasn’t called?”

  “Because I asked her. And she said ‘That isn’t necessary.’”

  Darren had caught the haughty calm of our mother’s voice but not the quaver beneath. Such mockery, if that’s what it was, made me uneasy for the obvious and abiding truth was, I loved our mother much more than I loved my difficult brother.

  “Why don’t you call Dad yourself, then? If you think it’s so crucial.”

  “Why should I call Dad! She’s his damn wife.”

  In Darren’s lips she was a hateful hissing word meant to shock.

  He added: “She’s got some agenda, she doesn’t want us to know about.”

  “‘Agenda’—what’s that?”

  “Some idea. Some reason. God damn motive.”

  Lanky, loose-limbed Darren. At thirteen he was nearly as tall as our mother and he loomed over me when he wished as if to threaten me with his very being. Out of a strange sibling shyness he seemed to avoid Melissa whom he did not wish to bully but with whom he found it difficult to speak.

  Essentially, Darren was protective of his younger sisters. If it came to that. For such protectiveness is a responsible brother’s duty.

  “Oh, hell. Who cares.”

  Darren spoke in sudden exasperation, disgust.

  We were upstairs in the narrow low-ceilinged hall that buzzed faintly at times with flies you could not always see. Rudely my brother pushed past me as if my questions had annoyed him. Might’ve avoided bumping into me if he’d tried but he didn’t try, breathing loudly through his mouth like an animal hot-panting, eager to get away before he committed worse damage to his sister.

  In a family of more than two siblings there is the inevitable oldest sibling, could be a girl, in this case a boy, burdened with a precocious knowledge of family politics that excludes the other siblings who remain therefore young,
oblivious. Such responsibility is thankless, Darren seemed to know beforehand, as it is unavoidable.

  One day I would be asked if my brother had been an angry child, or an unusually emotional child, before our father’s death, and I would say protectively My brother was a normal boy for his age, his class, and his time. We were a normal family and we were happy except when we were confused about whether we were happy or not because we were made to think about it, and to wonder.

  And did we love one another?—yes. We did.

  “YOU KIDS! C’MON! We’re late.”

  From downstairs Mom called us. That voice!

  A bright voice, a happy-seeming voice, a voice of motherly no-nonsense. The TV-Mom voice at the (playful) edge of patience lifting up the stairs—“Get down here, mes amis, or we’re leaving without you!”

  Here was a festive voice. You might almost think.

  Not the voice we’d (over)hear on the phone pleading begging Gus please return this call. Gus I am so worried about you where are you darling.

  Melissa was already downstairs—or already outside, buckled into her seat in the station wagon—for (adopted, ontologically insecure) Melissa was never late.

  Indeed, if Mom had wanted us to leave the house promptly at noon it was now several minutes after noon and it was proper for her to betray exasperation.

  Quickly we descended the stairs. In the lead Darren was heavy-footed as often he was in the (rented) house on the Salt Hill Road which he resented, as if he’d hoped to break the wooden steps.

  Close behind him Naomi did not—quite—dare to be too close for fear of treading on her brother’s heels which would provoke Darren to turn furiously upon her, striking her with the flat of his hand as you’d discipline a too-eager dog.

  Sometimes (it might be confessed) Naomi trod upon her brother’s heels out of younger-sister mischief, or sibling-spite; such small assaults were deliberate enough, yet easily confused with accidental assaults for which it was unjust to be blamed.