Ray Annick
Black Water (Joyce Carol Oates Edition)Ray Annick is Buffy St. John’s lover, a lawyer-friend of The Senator, and the person the Senator turns to after the car crash that leaves Kelly Kelleher trapped in Indian Creek. Their friendship and shared history make Ray a trusted connection, but the call also places him at the point where a desperate confession begins to turn into a story about blame and political danger.
Identity and Connections
Ray is known at Buffy’s Fourth of July gathering as her lover and as a friend of The Senator. He and the Senator had gone to school together at Phillips Academy, and Ray was also a lawyer-friend of his. The gathering brings together overlapping personal and professional connections: Ray is close to Buffy, acquainted with Kelly, and sufficiently trusted by the Senator to be summoned in a crisis.
Ray is among those who can attest that Kelly and the Senator had not been lovers before the accident—or even acquaintances. They had met that afternoon at the party. That fact matters because the collision occurs on the same evening as their first encounter, after a sequence of rapid intimacy that neither their prior relationship nor any shared history explains.
Place in the Fourth of July Gathering
The party at Buffy’s cottage is the setting in which Ray’s different relationships converge. He introduces Kelly to the Senator, who arrives with the conspicuous energy of a famous man campaigning through handshakes. Kelly initially views him skeptically as one of the political class; over the following hours, her impression changes. Ray’s introduction therefore links the party’s social world to the short, consequential encounter that follows.
Ray is not shown directing the couple’s later departure. At about 7:55 p.m., the Senator and Kelly leave for Brockden’s Landing, with roughly twenty-five minutes to reach the ferry. The wrong turn onto Old Ferry Road leads them onto an unmaintained, rutted road that should have been closed. The Senator loses control of the Toyota on the way toward Indian Creek. Ray is still back at the gathering when the Senator eventually seeks him out by telephone.
The Emergency Call
After escaping the submerged Toyota, the Senator reaches the highway on foot, limping through the marsh with one shoe on and one off. He crosses to a telephone booth in the parking lot of Post Beer & Wine, covered in black muck and still in a state of visceral panic. He first gives the woman who answers the St. John residence the name Gerald Ferguson, then asks for Ray. When Ray comes to the line, he recognizes the caller as the Senator and knows at once that the call means trouble: Ferguson is a legal associate, not Ray’s friend, and would not contact him at that hour without a serious reason.
The Senator says that there has been an accident and that Kelly is dead. He is sobbing, furious, and incredulous, and he immediately offers an explanation that makes Kelly responsible: he claims she was drunk, became emotional, grabbed at the wheel, and caused the car to swerve. He says that people will accuse him of manslaughter. The novel establishes the accusation as the Senator’s claim in a panicked call, not as an independently confirmed account of how the crash occurred.
Ray’s Response and Narrative Role
Ray’s reaction is first a shocked repetition of the news. He then cuts off the Senator’s account, insists that he not tell the story over the phone, asks where he is, and promises to come get him. His urgency is practical and controlled: rather than allow the conversation to continue, he moves it toward an in-person response. The Senator gives him the location.
The call reveals the limits as well as the force of their friendship. Ray responds immediately to a former schoolmate and legal associate in crisis, but his interruption does not establish that he accepts the Senator’s version of events or has already decided what to do about it. His role is crucial precisely at this threshold: Kelly remains trapped in the submerged car, while the man who escaped has reached a telephone and is already framing the accident in terms of his own exposure. Ray becomes the person summoned into that aftermath, with the distance between the Senator’s account and Kelly’s experience left starkly visible.
