Mudwoman - Joyce Carol Oates

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11:40 P.M. Returning—alone—for Alexander Stirk was frequently alone—to his Harrow Hall residence, Stirk had been accosted on a dimly lit walkway beside the chapel by several individuals—seemingly fellow undergraduates; in his confusion and terror he hadn’t seen their faces clearly—not clearly enough to identify—but he’d heard crude jeering voices—“fag”—“Fascist-fag”—as he was being clumsily shoved and slammed against the brick wall of the chapel—nose bloodied, right eye socket cracked, lacerations to his mouth, left ankle sprained when he was thrown to the ground. So forcibly was Stirk’s backpack wrenched from his shoulders, his left shoulder had been nearly dislocated, and was badly bruised; the backpack’s contents were dumped on the ground—leaflets bearing the heraldic fierce-eyed American eagle of the YAF—(Young Americans for Freedom)—to be scattered and blown about across the snow-stubbled chapel green.

      Evidently, campus security hadn’t been aware of the fracas. No one seemed to have come to Stirk’s aid even after he’d been left semiconscious on the ground. M.R. found this difficult to believe, or to comprehend—but Stirk insisted. And it was wisest at this point not to challenge him.

      For already, Stirk had been interviewed by the campus newspaper in a florid front-page story. Bitterly he’d complained of “unconscionable treatment”—that several witnesses to the attack, in the vicinity of the chapel, had ignored his cries for help as if knowing that the victim was him.

      Alexander Stirk had a certain reputation at the University, for his outspoken conservative views. He had a weekly half-hour program on the campus radio station—Headshots—and a biweekly opinion column in the campus newspaper—“Stirk Strikes.” He was a senior majoring in politics and social psychology, from Jacksonville, Florida; he was an honors student, an officer in the local chapter of the YAF and an activist member of the University’s Religious Life Council. When high-profile liberal speakers like Noam Chomsky spoke at the University, Stirk and a boisterous band of confederates were invariably seen picketing the lecture hall before the lecture and, during the lecture, interrupting the speaker with heckling questions. Stirk’s particular concern seemed to be, oddly for a young man, abortion: he was resolutely opposed to abortion in any and all forms and particularly opposed to any government funding of abortion.

      But he was also opposed to free condoms, contraception, “sex education” in public schools.

      It was so, evidently—Stirk had roused angry opposition on the campus including a barrage of “threatening” e-mails, of which he’d turned over some to authorities. He’d been, by his account, “insulted”—“called names”—told to “shut the fuck up”; but until the other evening he’d never been physically assaulted. Now, he said, he was “seriously frightened” for his life.

      At this, Stirk’s voice quavered. Beneath the supercilious pose—the posturing of a very bright undergraduate whose command of language was indeed impressive—there did seem to be a frightened boy.

      Warmly M.R. assured Alexander Stirk—he had nothing to fear!

      University proctors had been assigned to his floor in Harrow Hall and would escort him to classes if he wished. Whenever he wanted to go anywhere after dark—a proctor would accompany him.

      And whoever had assaulted him would be apprehended and expelled from the University—“This, I promise.”

      “President Neukirchen, thank you! I would like to believe you.”

      Stirk spoke with the mildest of smiles—unless it was a smirk. M.R. had the uneasy sensation that the young man who’d limped into her office was addressing an audience not visibly present, like a highly self-conscious actor in a film. There came—and went—and again came—that sly smirk of a smile, too fleeting to be clearly identified. For his meeting with President Neukirchen Stirk wore a dark green corduroy sport coat with leather buttons, that appeared to be a size or two too large; he wore a white cotton shirt buttoned to the throat, and flannel trousers with a distinct crease. Except for the luridly swollen eye and mouth, Stirk gave the appearance of a pert, bright, precocious child, long the favorite of his elders. Almost, you would think that his feet—small prim feet, in white ankle-high sneakers—didn’t quite touch the floor.

      How strange Stirk seemed to M.R.! Not so much in himself as in her intense feeling for him, that was quite unlike any sensation she’d ever experienced, she was sure, in this high-ceilinged office with its dark walnut wainscoting, dour hardwood floors and somber lighting grudgingly emitted from a half-dozen tall narrow windows. The president’s office on the first floor of “historic” Salvager Hall—old, elegantly heavy black-leather furnishings, massive eighteenth-century cherrywood desk, Travertine marble fireplace and shining brass andirons and built-in shelves floor-to-ceiling with books—rare books—books long unread, untouched—behind shining glass doors—had the air of a museum-room, perfectly preserved. Visitors to this office were suitably impressed, even wealthy graduates, donors—the portrait over the fireplace mantel, of a soberly frowning if just slightly rubefacient bewigged eighteenth-century gentleman bore so close a resemblance to Benjamin Franklin that visitors invariably inquired, and M.R. was obliged to explain that Ezechiel Charters, the founder of the University—that is, the Presbyterian minister founder of the seminary, in 1761, that would one day be the University—had been in fact a contemporary of Franklin’s, but hardly a friend.

      Reverend Ezechiel Charters had been something of a Tory, in the tumultuous years preceding the Revolution. His fate at the hands of a mob of local patriots would have been lethal except for a “divine intervention” as it was believed to be—the noose meant to strangle him broke—and so Reverend Charters lived to become a Federalist, like so many of his Tory countrymen.

      A Federalist and something of a “liberal”—so the founding-legend of the University would have it.

      But twenty-year-old Alexander Stirk hadn’t been impressed by all this history. Brashly he’d limped into the president’s office on his single, clattering crutch, lowered himself with conspicuous care into the chair facing the president’s desk, glanced about squinting and smirking as if the anemic light from the high windows hurt his battered eyes, and murmured:

      “Well! This is an unexpected honor, President Neukirchen.” If he’d been speaking ironically, President Neukirchen, in the way of those elders who surround the just-slightly-insolent young, hadn’t seemed to register the irony.

      For M.R. was strangely—powerfully—struck by the boy. There was something pious and stunted and yet poignant about him, even the near-insolence of his face, as if, unwitting, he was the bearer of an undiagnosed illness.

      “The police were asking—could I identify my assailants?—and I told them I didn’t think so, I was jumped from behind and didn’t see faces clearly. I heard voices—but….”

      M.R. had questions to ask of Stirk, but did not interrupt as he continued his account of the assault. She was thinking that most of the individuals who came to her office to sit in the heavy black leather chair facing her desk wanted something of her—wanted something from her—or had a grievance to make to her—or of her—as president of the University; most of them, M.R. would have to disappoint in some way, but in no way that might be interpreted as indifferent. Uncaring. For it was M. R. Neukirchen’s (possible) weakness as an administrator—she did care.

      She was not a Quaker. Not a practicing Quaker. But the benign Quaker selflessness—the concern for “clearness”—and for the commonweal above the individual—had long ago suffused her soul.

      All that matters—really matters—is to do well by others. At the very least, to do no harm.

      And so, M.R. didn’t want to question the injured boy too closely, nor even to interview him as the police had done in the ER; she didn’t see her role, at this critical time, as anything other than supportive, consoling.

      Almost as soon as the news had been released, bulletin e-mails sent to all University faculty and staff, there’d been, among the more skeptical left-wing faculty, some doubt of Stirk’s veracity. And among students who knew Stirk, who weren’t sympathetic with his politics, there was more than just some

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