Free Rape by Joyce Carol Oates

would be reported The atmosphere quickly became too unruly for the judge to control .
    Dromoor had seen the derailment. Sick in the gut, had to escape.

Part II

Wind Drives Us Crazy
    A T THE F ALLS SHE leaned over the railing. The wind blew cold spray into her face, clothes. Within seconds her clothes were soaked and clung to her thin body. Tourists perceived her as a drunk or drugged or deranged woman and kept their distance from her. On her head she wore a silk scarf that loosened in the wind, slipped from her head, and was blown out above the thunderous water; without the scarf, her hair was revealed as sparse, tufted, without color. Now she was perceived as possibly a sick woman, one who has lost her hair to chemotherapy.
    Her face was a chalky-white face that looked as if, mask-like, it might be torn from her too, to be blown away into the frothy water.

Genius!
    T he woman’s word against theirs. Anybody can cry rape. Reasonable doubt is all a jury needs. Who can prove, disprove? Kirkpatrick is a genius, isn’t he? Best damn criminal lawyer in upstate New York. Of course you’ll have to refinance your home, sell your second car. Beg borrow steal, the guy isn’t cheap. But just the man to call when you’re in deep deep shit .

The Broken Woman
    I T WAS THE END for Teena Maguire in Niagara Falls, she could not bear it. Never would she testify now. Never would she reenter any courtroom. No faith in any fucking courtroom! No faith in any fucking prosecutors, judges. Serve her a subpoena, threaten her with contempt of court she would not .
    After the hearing that day she’d collapsed and had had to be hospitalized again for shock, exhaustion. She was diagnosed as anemic. She was diagnosed as severely depressed. She was diagnosed as suicidal. She was put on a regimen of antidepressant medication, which after a few weeks, she refused to take. She began seeing psychotherapists, rape counselors, but soon ceased. She was too tired to get out of bed in the morning. She was too tired to shower, shampoo her hair. She would not see women friends she’d known since high school. She’d ceased even to speak with Ray Casey on the phone. Often she refused to see her own mother in whose house on Baltic Avenue she was living.
    Often she refused to see you.
    *   *   *
    Leave me alone can’t you for Christ’s sake. I’m sick. I’m so tired. I can’t give a damn about you or anybody else .
    Teena Maguire claimed she could not remember what had happened to her in Rocky Point Park in July, or in the Niagara County Courthouse in September. She’d been pretty much beat up each time. Could not remember faces, couldn’t identify. Could not remember names. It hurt her head to try to think. She was giving it all up, she made no effort to remember. Teena’s pathetic. Worthless. Piece of shit. Who gives a damn about Teena she’s a fucking joke huh?
    Sometimes she took the damn medication, more often not. Make her sick. Constipated. Head-not-right. Better to drop by the package store around the corner and buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of cheap Italian red wine. Couldn’t afford good whiskey, not Teena! The dentist-brothers had hired another receptionist. They’d given her three months’ salary, she’d be eligible for unemployment. If she could force herself to go downtown and apply. Of course, she’d given up the row house on Ninth Street. She’d moved back with her mother. If she tried, she might get men to buy drinks for her, in which case she could drink reasonably good whiskey, bourbon, vodka, but it was not worth it for her to listen to the men, to smell the men, and to see their faces in whatever haze of drunkenness their faces floated in at the periphery of her wavering vision. Nor could she bear to be touched by any man. No, no! God, no. Panicked,screamed, scratched at them, disturbed other patrons and so she was not welcome in these