August. In a later variant of the story which began to be told sometime after Rhonda’s seventh birthday when her father seemed to be no longer living in the large stucco-and-timber house on Broadmead with Rhonda and her mother but elsewhere — for a while in a minimally furnished university-owned faculty residence overlooking Lake Carnegie, later a condominium on Canal Pointe Road, Princeton, still later a stone-and-timber Tudor house on a tree-lined street in Cambridge, Massachusetts — it happened that the story of the stabbing became totally appropriated by Mr. Karr as an experience he’d had himself and had witnessed with his own eyes from his vehicle — not the Volvo but the Toyota station wagon — stalled in traffic less than ten feet from the incident: the delivery van braking to a halt, the pedestrian who’d been crossing against the light — Caucasian, male, arrogant, in a Burberry trench coat, carrying a briefcase — doomed — had dared to strike a fender of the van, shout threats and obscenities at the driver and so out of the van the driver had leapt, as Mr. Karr observed with the eyes of a front-line war correspondent — Dark-skinned young guy with dreadlocks like Medusa, must’ve been Rastafarian — swift and deadly as a panther — the knife, the slashing of the pedestrian’s throat — a ritual, a ritual killing — sacrifice — in Mr. Karr’s version just a single powerful swipe of the knife and again as in a nightmare cinematic replay which Rhonda had seen countless times and had dreamt yet more times there erupted the incredible six-foot jet of blood even as the stricken man kept walking, trying to walk — to escape which was the very heart of the story — the revelation toward which all else led.
What other meaning was there? What other meaning was possible?
Rhonda’s father shaking his head marveling Like nothing you could imagine, nothing you’d ever forget, the way the poor bastard kept walking — Jesus!
That fetid-hot day in Manhattan. Rhonda had been with Daddy in the station wagon. He’d buckled her into the seat beside him for she was a big enough girl now to sit in the front seat and not in the silly baby-seat in the back. And Daddy had braked the station wagon, and Daddy’s arm had shot out to protect Rhonda from being thrown forward, and Daddy had protected Rhonda from what was out there on the street, beyond the windshield. Daddy had said Shut your eyes, Rhonda! Crouch down and hide your face darling and so Rhonda had.
By the time Rhonda was ten years old and in fifth grade at Princeton Day School Madeleine Karr wasn’t any longer quite so cautious about telling the story of the stabbing — or, more frequently, merely alluding to it, since the story of the stabbing had been told numerous times, and most acquaintances of the Karrs knew it, to a degree — within her daughter’s presence. Nor did Madeleine recount it in her earlier breathless appalled voice but now more calmly, sadly This awful thing that happened, that I witnessed, you know — the stabbing? In New York? The other day on the news there was something just like it, or almost… Or I still dream about it sometimes. My God! At least Rhonda wasn’t with me.
It seemed now that Madeleine’s new friend Drexel Hay — “Drex” — was frequently in their house, and in their lives; soon then, when they were living with Drex in a new house on Winant Drive, on the other side of town, it began to seem to Rhonda that Drex who adored Madeleine had come to believe — almost — that he’d been in the car with her on that March morning; daring to interrupt Madeleine in a pleading voice But wait, darling! — you’ve left out the part about… or Tell them how he looked at you through your windshield, the man with the knife — or Now tell them how you’ve never gone back — never drive into the city except with me. And I drive.
Sometime around Christmas 1984 Rhonda’s mother was at last divorced from Rhonda’s father — it was said to be an amicable parting though Rhonda was not so sure of that — and then in May 1985 Rhonda’s mother became Mrs. Hay — which made Rhonda giggle for Mrs. Hay was a comical name somehow. Strange to her, startling and disconcerting, how Drex himself began to tell the story of the stabbing to aghast listeners This terrible thing happened to my wife a few years ago — before we’d met —
In Drex’s excited narration Madeleine had witnessed a street mugging — a savage senseless murder — a white male pedestrian attacked by a gang of black boys with switchblades — his throat so deeply slashed he’d nearly been decapitated. (In subsequent accounts of the stabbing, gradually it happened that the victim had in fact been decapitated — even as, horribly, he’d tried to run away, staggering forward until he fell.) (But was decapitation so easy to accomplish, cutting through the spinal cord? — Rhonda couldn’t think so.) The attack had taken place in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses and no one intervened — somewhere downtown, below Houston — unless over by the river, in the meat-packing district — or by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel — or (maybe) by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, one of those wide ugly avenues like Eleventh? Twelfth? — not late but after dark. The victim had tried to fight off his assailants — valiantly, foolishly — as Drex said The kind of crazy thing I might do myself, if muggers tried to take my wallet from me — but of course he hadn’t a chance — he’d been outnumbered by his punk-assailants — before Madeleine’s horrified eyes he’d bled out on the street. Dozens of witnesses and no one wanted to get involved — not even a license plate number or a description of the killers — just they were “black” — “carried knives” — Poor Madeleine was in such shock, these savages had gotten a good look at her through her windshield — she thought they were “high on drugs” — only a few yards from Madeleine my God if they hadn’t been in a rush to escape they’d have killed her for sure — so she couldn’t identify them — who the hell would’ve stopped them? Not the New York cops — they took their good time arriving.
Drex spoke with assurance and authority and yet — Rhonda didn’t think that the stabbing had happened quite like this. So confusing! — for it was so very hard to retain the facts of the story — if they were “facts” — from one time to the next. Each adult was so persuasive — hearing adults speak you couldn’t resist nodding your head in agreement or in a wish to agree or to be liked or loved, for agreeing — and so — how was it possible to know what was real? Of all the stories of the stabbing Rhonda had heard it was Drex’s account that was scariest — Rhonda shivered thinking of her mother being killed — trapped in her car and angry black boys smashing her car windows, dragging her out onto the street stab-stab-stabbing…Rhonda felt dazed and dizzy to think that if Mommy had been killed then Rhonda would never have a mother again.
And so Rhonda would not be Drex Hay’s sweet little stepdaughter he had to speak sharply to, at times; Rhonda would not be living in the brick Colonial on Winant Drive but somewhere else — she didn’t want to think where.
Never would Rhonda have met elderly Mrs. Hay with the soft-wrinkled face and eager eyes who was Drex’s mother and who came often to the house on Winant Drive with presents for Rhonda — crocheted sweater sets, hand-knit caps with tassels, fluffy-rabbit bedroom slippers which quickly became too small for Rhonda’s growing feet. Rhonda was uneasy visiting Grandma Hay in her big old granite house on Hodge Road with its medicinal odors and sharp-barking little black pug Samson; especially Rhonda was uneasy if the elderly woman became excitable and disapproving as often she did when (for instance) the subject of the stabbing in Manhattan came up, as occasionally it did in conversation about other, related matters — urban life, the rising crime rate, deteriorating morals in the last decades of the twentieth century. By this time in all their lives of course everyone had heard the story of the stabbing many times in its many forms, the words had grown smooth like stones fondled by many hands. Rhonda’s stepfather Drex had only to run his hands through his thinning rust-colored hair and sigh loudly to signal a shift in the conversation Remember that time Madeleine was almost murdered in New York City… and Grandma Hay would shiver thrilled and appalled New York is a cesspool, don’t tell me it’s been “cleaned up” — you can’t clean up filth — those people are animals — you know who I mean — they are all on welfare — they are “crack babies” — society has no idea what to do with them and you dare not talk about it, some fool will call you “racist” — Oh you’d never catch me driving into the city in just a car by myself — even when I was younger — what it needs is for a strong mayor — to crack down on these animals — you would wish for God to swipe such animals away with His thumb — would that be a mercy!
When Grandma Hay hugged her Rhonda tried not to shudder crinkling her nose against the elderly woman’s special odor. For Rhonda’s mother warned Don’t offend your new “grandma” — just be a good, sweet girl.
Mr. Karr was living now in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for Mr. Karr was now a professor at Harvard. Rhonda
