A Book of American Martyrs Page 6

  In a soft-falling snow this happened. Out of a sky of banked clouds like soiled snow. And my voice raised in disbelief, and in fury—No! God damn you NO.

  But there came at once the impact, the front of my vehicle slamming against the rear of the vehicle in front of me, at some speed below fifty miles an hour, but not much below; and the two vehicles skidding, spinning like bumper cars at a carnival; and almost immediately a third vehicle, unseen by me until then, a station wagon driven by a young woman with her elderly mother in the passenger’s seat was struck by our skidding vehicles, and swerved also onto the median, and came to a thunderous crash against the guardrail.

  No time to think—I am in a crash. I will die.

  No time to pray—Jesus help me! God help me!

  So swiftly this happened, my vehicle had skidded into the others, and the vehicle like the others would be totaled, metal crumpled like an accordion; and there came the terrible impact, and then—silence like the silence after a thunderclap, that has rent the sky.

  Then, cries of surprise, fear, pain . . .

  In the confusion it seemed that my vehicle had exploded, this was the air bag striking my chest and upper arms, and releasing too some sort of acid, that would badly burn my face. And it seemed at this point that I lost consciousness, for my head had been whipped forward, as if it might be flung off my neck, and a sour taste arose in my mouth, of bile. And then, I was no longer behind the wheel but had been flung outside onto the pavement. It would be told to me that I had unbuckled the seat belt but I would not recall this. I would recall crawling on hands and knees on the freezing pavement, and trying to crawl in broken glass, or in something shattered like Plexiglas, and my mouth was filled with blood, and a pressure on my chest would not allow me to breathe.

  Out of the confusion came cries and shouts, and footsteps near my head, and soon then a deafening siren, and I knew myself being lifted but had no idea where I would be taken. I could not see and yet, a jangle of blinding lights flooded my eyes, and I could not breathe, and yet my lungs were being made to breathe a freezing-cold air that pierced my chest.

  In a speeding vehicle, I was being transported to a hospital in Springfield which is eighteen miles away. At the time, I did not know this. Nor did I understand that it was a crash that had occurred. I did not know that other vehicles were taking other crash victims to the hospital—I did not know the word for ambulance, or for hospital. What was strange was, and would seem wonderful to me, I did not feel fear. I did not feel panic. I did not even feel regret except a mild disappointment, that I would not now be going home as I had planned; I would not see my dear family again nor any human face again, it was given to me to know. And a beam of light descended before me, that was a kind of highway, for it had taken the place of the highway, and would lift me into it, and still I did not feel terror for—(though I could not see Him)—I felt the presence of Jesus within me.

  It would seem to me—(though I did not ever see Him with my actual eyes)—that my life was “saved” by Jesus; at the same time, it was given to me to know that my life was in Jesus, and that there was no distinction between Jesus and Luther Dunphy.

  And so, there was no fear. It was like slipping into water that is warm, and tranquil—you cannot tell where your skin leaves off, and where the water begins. And the water buoys you aloft, as if you were an infant with no need for an agitation of your arms and legs or for any kind of fear.

  For how long I remained in this state of tranquility and calm, I do not know. It would be told to me later that I had arrived in the ER unconscious and with low blood pressure, in a state of shock. It would be told to me later, the terrible news that others had died in the crash, though there was another survivor like myself, in the same hospital; and that I was on life support for forty-eight hours.

  It is very strange to “awaken”—as if you have chosen to “awaken”—when this is not the case: you do not have any choice. The surprise of opening my eyes in a room of white walls, beeping machines, and air like the interior of a refrigerator, and seeing the faces of strangers, that kept slipping from me like a film that is dissolving, for I could not maintain the attention required to remain awake for more than a few seconds. And still later, there came my dear wife Edna Mae (though somewhat confused with my mother when she’d been Edna Mae’s age) to touch my hand, and to weep over me, and to pray for me; and others whom I knew, whose faces were familiar to me. And so I knew, that Jesus had sent me back to these people for it was not yet my time to join Him.

  My skull, it was said, had been fractured in a thin crack along the crown. Injuries to the vertebrae of my lower back, and both arms badly sprained, and my right shoulder dislocated, and broken ribs, and overall trauma as they called it. And many facial lacerations and bruises and the acid-burns. And two black eyes! Yet the pain was a floating sensation, that I could climb upon as you could climb upon an air mattress in a swimming pool; and if I maintained diligence I did not sink into the pain, and did not feel the worst of the pain, that seemed to be happening in a distant place inside my own body, like an ugly noise that is heard in a distant room, throbbing and pulsing. Though afterward it would be evident to me that this sensation was the consequence of morphine being made to drip into my vein, and was not good for me, and so as soon as I could make my wishes known to the medical staff I told them No more morphine!

  In St. Paul Missionary Church we do not believe in drugs (except prescription, when unavoidable), marijuana, alcoholic beverages, tobacco. We believe that at all moments of your life your soul is in communication with Jesus and that this communication must not be defiled, as you would not defile a newly washed window.

  And later they would tell me, what sorrow it is, your poor darling little girl was taken from you. And Edna Mae had to be kept from me in the hospital, for she wept and sobbed so badly. But I did not recall that any child of mine had been in the vehicle with me. I was sure that this was so.

  When I could speak calmly I said No. She was not with me. There was no one with me.

  And they said, Luther, she was! Your daughter Daphne was with you, in the baby-seat in the back, for you were bringing her home from her grandmother’s, and she has died of her injuries in the crash.

  (Was it the baby of whom they spoke? My little girl who was but three years old? But I was certain, no child of mine had been anywhere near the crash.)

  Later it would be revealed, the identities of the others who had suffered in the crash, of whom two had died; and yet the identity of the driver who had fled the scene, who had not been apprehended, having committed vehicular manslaughter, would not be ever known.

  How many times I protested—I did not bring Daphne with me! I did not.

  God has seen fit to punish my wickedness in many ways but not in that way for the child was innocent, and God would protect her.

  When I returned home from the hospital it was some time before I could walk without assistance, and then without a cane. And it was a long time before I could return to work, and then with much slowness and caution (of pain, in my lower back in particular). But with the help of God, I did return. I did not once complain, for I was grateful of my life; and I understood that, when my life is taken from me, by God, it will be a time not of sorrow but of rejoicing.

  It happened that, my dear wife would not speak of Daphne as the others did. Edna Mae did not try to convince me that our three-year-old daughter had been in the vehicle with me for Edna Mae would not speak of the little girl at all. And others in the family told me, there was no need to think of it.

  It is over now. God has taken her to His side, she is with the angels now.

  After some time, it was possible for Edna Mae to embrace me, and for me to embrace Edna Mae, and not to speak of our loss. It seemed clear that Edna Mae forgave me, for my error in taking the vehicle out onto the highway at that time, in the falling snow where visibility was poor, and a fine film of ice was forming on the pavement.

  The fury in my heart at
the driver of the pickup truck, that may have displeased God, I did not mention to Edna Mae, or to anyone.

  I do not think that my vehicle was speeding at the time of the crash. There was never any accusation of that. Nor that I had failed to respond quickly enough, to jam my foot against the brake pedal, and to turn the steering wheel to avoid the crash though turning the wheel was to no avail, it seemed.

  Though it is true, my thoughts were distracting to me. Like gnats in a cloud about my head such thoughts made me vexed and impatient and filled my heart with belligerence, that the sight of the pickup failing to stop for the stop sign and instead venturing out onto the highway did not make me fearful (as it should have) but of a mind to punish.

  No! I will not slow down for you.

  God damn you.

  A jubilance of rage filled my heart like the cry of a trumpet—but almost at once, my foot was on the brake. Except too late.

  Though it would be told to us, who’d survived the crash, that there was nothing we could have done to save ourselves.

  Whatever happened to our Daphne, she was gone from our lives. For as long as I was injured, I understood that this was my punishment for what had happened, though it would be told to me that it was not my fault. Skull fracture, brain swelling—dislocated shoulder, lower back—though I did not take “painkillers” (as they are called) yet my memory was poor, and for a long time my eyesight was splotched as when you have gazed too directly into the sun. If you said to me “Luther, we are going out at noon,” ten minutes later I could not remember that you had said anything at all; and at work, once I was able to return, Ed Fischer had to instruct me carefully what to do more than once.

  Sometimes I would remember that something important had been told to me, but I would not remember what it was. And other times I would not remember that something had been told to me at all.

  YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME. Jesus has taken her to dwell with him.

  This was explained to me by our pastor, as by others in our church who prayed for my recovery and also the recovery of Edna Mae who seemed to fall ill, even as I grew stronger.

  It was a discipline of mine, when I was at home, and later when I was returned to work, to study the accident from every angle. Plainly I could see that there was no three-year-old in the vehicle, in the child’s seat in the rear.

  How many times in my lifetime as a father have I buckled a small child into the rear seat, sometimes children into two child-seats beside each other, and I did not do this, I am sure, on that day. What had flashed through my mind in the crash was the thought—If I die, at least no one else will die with me.

  Somewhere behind my eyes I would see it begin. A sick sensation in my gut for there was no way to stop it. The pickup truck on County Line Road—hardly slowing at the stop sign—pushing out into the right lane about two hundred feet ahead—(the driver, invisible to me, making a quick decision that he can accelerate fast enough to avoid being struck by the first vehicle speeding toward him)—(yes it is a chance a driver might take—it is a chance I had probably taken in my own lifetime more than once, but never when anyone was in the vehicle with me)—for there is the expectation that, though you don’t have the right-of-way, you can rely upon traffic to (probably) slow down for you.

  And so, the driver in front of me braked his vehicle, before I could begin to brake mine. So my vehicle slammed into the rear of his, amid the sound of brakes shrieking—and then, the crash like an avalanche that seemed to go on, and on.

  You are shaken like a rag doll. You are lost to yourself.

  Once a crash has happened, it cannot be undone. But before the crash happens, there is a strange sensation almost of slowness when (you think) you have enough time to make a decision, you believe you have time, turning your wheel in another direction (for instance) that will avoid the collision, or begin braking sooner, or later—and the crash might be averted, or would happen differently.

  In slow motion I would see the accident. Waking from sleep I would realize, I was seeing the accident. Speaking with another person I would see the accident. As in a film in which everything is clear at first, and then begins to break up, and to melt. And I would hear the brakes, that were the brakes of my own vehicle, and I would hear the sickening sound of skidding, swerving, crashing. And I would hear the screams. I did not hear a child cry.

  My vehicle (which was a 1993 Dodge sedan I had taken for inspection only a few weeks before, and which was deemed in good condition despite ninety thousand miles on the odometer) struck and recoiled from the vehicle in front of me, and was thrown against the median guardrail. After the stunned first moments of the crash I could feel the air quiver, I could feel vibrations in the air like vibrations in water, there was a shuddering of metal, and smashed glass in shapes like frost, the dented squeezed-together hood that looked as if a giant had lowered his foot upon it, and his weight.

  There was a hissing as of steam. And the shouts, calls for help.

  The crash was one of the turns of my life, I would realize later. At the time I was not able to comprehend its meaning. For a long time afterward my head often pounded with pain, and my neck, and back—my legs, knees—even my feet—which was distracting for I am not a man who cares to show pain to others, or any kind of distress to signify self-pity. And so I could not work out if the accident had been the fault of Luther Dunphy in a way no one (else) would know; or whether the accident had been just partly my fault; or whether it was entirely the fault of the driver of the pickup, and my involvement in it like the others’ involvement was accidental.

  Yet, I understood that my relationship with God was almost certainly closer than the relationship of anyone else involved in the crash with God, and my relationship with Jesus.

  Our minister all but told me this, in counseling me after the crash. There are Christians whose ties to God are more intimate, and of whom God expects more than He expects of other Christians, that is just a fact—Scripture is filled with such individuals. Our minister has said, as in Biblical times, so it would be now.

  Many times I tried to appeal to God, but God only granted me to know that it was all that I could ask, to be allowed to live after my injuries.

  In the ER in Springfield, I had (possibly) died. I believe that my heart had been “restarted.” The cardiologist had told me something like this. I did not want to know details but I understood that the prayers of my family had persuaded God to have mercy on me.

  Yet it seemed wrong to me, and a bitter thing—(I mean, in secret; I would not have defied God)—that God had taken my little girl’s life, and not mine. For when I returned home, Daphne was not there any longer.

  Though my darling little girl had not died in the crash, she had passed away at this time, and was now gone.

  Many times I imagined how, if God had given me a chance, I would have said unhesitating to Him, “Take my life, and spare hers”—and I would have laughed in saying so, a bright flame lighting up my face, and my voice loud in jubilance as (a long time ago) it had sometimes been, when I had been drinking in my days of ignorant and blind bachelorhood.

  THAT POOR CHILD! She was a little Down’s child, they are called—Daphne. The sweetest girl, we loved her so much.

  Edna Mae and Luther loved her, and all of the family—her brothers and sisters including even that mouthy girl with the weasel face what’s-her-name—Dawn. Her grandmother Marlene Dunphy (who lives next-door to us) was always begging Edna Mae to let Daphne visit with her because Daphne was so happy all the time, you could see her little round face light up at just the sight of you and she’d make these excited little giggles and wave her hands. She liked to be held, and hugged, and kissed—she liked to cuddle and never shrank away like another child would do, who gets restless being hugged too tight and if it goes on a little too long.

  There was something wrong with Daphne’s mouth. They said her mouth was wrongly shaped, too narrow for her tongue. And sometimes, you would see her tongue like a dog’s tongue panting. But you
got used to it. You couldn’t always make sense of what she was saying because of this oversized tongue and also her voice was high-pitched like a chattering bird but usually you could guess it was something like I love Grandma—she’d been taught to say.

  It’s as people say, the Down’s babies are special to God. Daphne was not the only one of these in Muskegee Falls. And there are the “retarded”—“mildly retarded.” They are certainly special compared to other children—so-called normal.

  There has never been a “brattish” Down’s child. On some online Down’s site Marlene Dunphy showed me, this was stated as a fact of medical history.

  Marlene had some online connection with parents and grandparents of Down’s children, she spent time on. But Edna Mae and Luther had no interest in this. You could not even raise the subject to them, Edna Mae would be upset and Luther would be furious.

  The Dunphys’ little girl Daphne was the youngest of the children and the last baby (it was supposed) Edna Mae would have. What Edna Mae herself thought no one actually knew. Before she was married she’d been trained as a nurse or maybe a nurse’s aide and used to talk of returning to work when the children were older not just because they needed the money—(it was pretty obvious they needed the money, all those children and the way the house needed fixing up, the old battered car Luther had to drive, and somebody always sick)—but because she liked to work, loved to work in a hospital or nursing home setting (she said), because helping people made her happy, it was why we are on earth (she said). Definitely Edna Mae Dunphy was happiest with a small baby in the house. Nursing a baby at the breast, that made her happy. Taking care of a sick child, that made her happy. There are women like that—I am not one of them, but I know two or three of them—(right in my family)—this is a state of mind pathetic because eventually the babies will grow up, and there’s a time when they don’t want you even to look at them let alone touch and hug them, and you will be yearning for these big hulking kids to be small again and there is nothing to take their place.