He was sickened by the anti-abortion propaganda but mesmerized as well. Where other boys his age were discovering pornography Darren had discovered a very special pornography just for him.
It was like touching himself—his genitals. He did not want to, such weakness disgusted him, but in his half-sleep he found himself doing so, his hand moved of its own eager volition. And in his private hiding places for reading forbidden material his fingers moved of their own perverse volition turning pages.
Like refuse bobbing in water, the celebration of his father’s murder went on and on. Like excrement, among the refuse. Who could have predicted, there would be so much rejoicing?—so many strangers with strong opinions? Individuals who had (evidently) (without knowing him) detested Gus Voorhees and rejoiced in his murder.
And all of them self-identified Christians, rejoicing in the deaths of abortion doctors.
Of course, there had been other deaths—“executions” as they were called. Voorhees was only the most recent triumph.
And since Voorhees’s death, and the removal of his name from WANTED: BABY KILLERS AMONG US, the abortion doctors listed below him had been moved up. At number four, where Voorhees had been, was a Dr. Friedlander aligned with an abortion clinic in Tallahassee.
The list was an invitation to “execute.” Darren wondered if Friedlander and the others knew about it, and if they monitored the anti-abortion sites. Probably, yes. For how could they resist?
Yet, his father had insisted that he did not look at these publications. He had (surely) not allowed Jenna to look. (But Jenna would not have wished to look.) But now, Darren was alone. No one to observe.
There was a particular fascination with the murderer—Luther Dunphy.
His father’s murderer! His mouth went dry.
Luther Dunphy, 39. Muskegee Falls, Ohio. Lay minister, St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus. Roofer, carpenter. Wife Edna Mae, two sons and two daughters. Formerly of Sandusky, Ohio. “Pray for me.”
In these pictures Dunphy was smiling faintly, shyly. He had the guarded look of a man who does not smile often or easily. In one picture taken outdoors on a summer day he stood with his family—wife, children. The scrawny grinning wife held a baby in her arms. The elder of two daughters, thick-set, plain-faced, about ten years old, smirked at the camera. There was a thin-faced boy—in the photo, about Darren’s age. Darren felt a thrill of sheer hatred for this boy, whose father was alive and not dead.
Luther Dunphy was a tall hulking slope-shouldered man who in several photographs wore a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. His head appeared small in proportion to his body. His upper arms were muscled. His face did not suggest the face of a murderer and was in fact a face of no distinction except that on his cheek was a discoloration like a mashed red berry.
Staring at Dunphy, Darren felt hatred like black acid rising at the back of his mouth. It filled him with rage, that his father’s murderer was still alive and that, in some quarters, among avid Christians, Dunphy was revered as a kind of hero, a “soldier of Jesus” and a “martyr.”
Luther Dunphy is currently incarcerated in the Muskegee Falls Men’s Detention as police investigate the alleged shootings attributed to him. So far, Dunphy is said to have “cooperated” with the investigation. There have not yet been discovered any co-conspirators in the alleged shootings. Dunphy is not available for interviews and has indicated that he will refuse most requests. The Broome County Court has appointed a lawyer to represent him but Luther Dunphy is said to have declined legal counsel. Through his minister Reverend Dennis Kuhn of the St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus, Muskegee Falls, Dunphy has stated that he does not consider his alleged actions of November 2, 1999, “murder” or “homicide” but “an act of God” as he was “defending the defenseless”—he was preventing the abortion-doctor Voorhees from performing abortions “that day and all days to follow.”
Luther Dunphy has further stated that he will not participate in any trial for it is only God’s judgment that applies to him. But, he has stated that he will “not contest” his legal situation. He has told Reverend Kuhn that he does not wish donations to a defense fund but asks his supporters to “pray for him.”
With difficulty Darren read these words. Not for the first time he read these words, and not for the last time. His eyes misted over, irritably he wiped away tears.
“‘May your soul rot in Hell.’ That’s my prayer, fucker.”
CHILDREN OF THE DECEASED
He’d said There is no evil.
We could not believe him now.
STUNNED AND TRANCELIKE those days pushing through a scrim of something clotted like the mucus that sticks eyelashes together and blurs vision.
Not for a long time was it believable that our father had died for there was always the possibility that the phone would ring and it would be Daddy. Or, Daddy would come home unannounced—just walk in the door.