Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  “What?”

  “Let’s take all of our clothes off.”

  We were sitting on these boxes facing each other.

  I shook my head.

  “Why?” he said.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Are you afraid?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Why would you be afraid with me, Carly? I’m not like other people, other boys.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just never thought about it before this moment. I would have to think about it first. So would you. It’s different with boys, you know. They don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not like other boys!” he said angrily. “Look.”

  He stood up and unbuttoned his shorts and took them off. He had on boxers and he removed them. I couldn’t believe he’d just done it that easily. I couldn’t help staring at his penis, the hair around it. I think I stared for a long time. He started laughing.

  “Now your turn.”

  And it wasn’t a dare type thing that made me do it. I just was very turned-on, but more than that he was so relaxed and he made me feel the same way. I took off my shorts and folded them and put them on a box and then I pulled down my panties and let them fall around my feet. I stepped out of them. It was summer and I was tanned on the legs and shoulders and arms and stomach, but my boobs and my ass and coochie were as white as winter. And so I stood there not knowing what to do next, and of course Truman was staring at me but by then I was beyond feeling shy or uncomfortable.

  Then I decided it was my turn to experiment. I cocked my one foot perpendicular to my other leg and waited. I folded my arms. I wanted to see what he would do next. He stared for a long time as if he were studying that part of my body to write something about it later. I didn’t move. I watched his face and his eyes. He seemed to be transfixed and yet I still didn’t move or say anything. The silence was weird but it wasn’t eerie. I just thought while I was watching him, This is Truman. This part of him where I feel as if I am on display is what I know about him. I remember clearly thinking about that while I waited. It was a thought that still brings shivers to me because it, the thought, was charged with love.

  After what seemed hours of silence and watching he finally turned his face to mine and said, “I want to touch that.”

  I nodded and my knees began to shake. He moved into me and took his hand and gently caressed the parts that were getting wet. I felt waves of warmth go through me and then he took his fingers when he felt that I was wet and put them inside me. I put my face into his shoulder and didn’t move, but I could hear my own breathing as if it were attached to an amplifier. Sooner than I wanted he pulled his fingers out and then he moved back, closed his eyes and smelled his fingers. I looked down at his penis and I saw that it was very hard. I moved into him and took it in my hand. I felt what it felt like and then I pulled it up and down. But suddenly he jerked back from me.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  I pointed to his penis.

  “Do you want me to lay down so you can put that in me?”

  “No,” he said.

  He turned away, pulling on his boxers and shorts, his shirt and his shoes, his back to me the whole time. I watched him do it and I couldn’t move. He turned around to look at me and smiled his Truman smile. I wanted to slap him but instead I began to cry. I put my face to my hands and cried. I knew that he was watching me and I didn’t care. He walked away and down the stairs. I waited until I didn’t hear him anymore and then I put my clothes on and I went home.

  Amy

  Twelve days after Truman’s death

  I feel like I am always floating. I can’t go outside because I’m afraid even the slightest breeze will take me away somewhere and I won’t be able to return. I have to stay near until Truman returns. I am afraid if I leave he will be here and need me and I won’t be able to help him. It is my greatest worry.

  But inside the house, there are other dangers. If I detect the slightest brush of air on my face, I sit and curl into a ball. The air coming from the bottom of the refrigerator or the air blowing from the ducts for heat or air conditioning will blow me toward Truman’s door, and even closed it will make me go in and see him not there. I made Ethan close the door the day I learned Truman had been killed, and I told him I will not go in there. I told him I can’t go in there. I think he understands, but I don’t care if he does or he doesn’t. If I don’t go in and not see him there, then there is always the chance he will come back to me.

  I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy or anything, but when Ethan returned from identifying the body he was very vague, very closed-lipped. And of course the casket was closed because Truman was beaten so badly. I didn’t have to be told that—I can read the newspapers like anyone else. His murder even made the Times, I guess because they considered it a hate crime, because Truman is gay. I don’t know. A reporter wanted to interview us and I told Ethan if he spoke a word to anyone connected with a newspaper or magazine or television I would leave him. I will not allow people to pry into our private life and disseminate information about our son. I don’t trust any of it anyway.

  I don’t trust it one bit and I am not certain I even trust Ethan when he tells me that Truman is gone from our lives. How can that be? Who would hurt him? He is so tender and I can’t believe what they’ve told me. His face was so brutalized that he wasn’t even recognizable. And it’s not that Ethan wasn’t reeling with despair when he returned, but he’s been able to go on; he’s been able to get back to business and he goes outside with no fear of what will happen, and I can’t. I won’t.

  I have everything delivered. Even the wine that helps prevent me from floating. But I’m glad he’s not feeling the same danger as I feel. One of us needs to be careful otherwise we will both disappear. I know that if I drink enough wine I can go out to the front patio and sit as the day drags to an end. The night keeps the air heavy and the wine makes certain that I am weighted down. I can feel it in my legs and in my arms. A heaviness sets in and I can sit out there for hours until there is complete darkness. I listen. I only have to hear his voice in the trees, in the leaves as they are taken by a slight breeze. I want to run when I feel the air lift my hair or ripple my dress, but I can’t because I can hear his voice, his plaintive plea for help. I’ve told Ethan this and he knits his forehead and looks at me with a sadness he never directed toward me before.

  He often initiates conversations like this one from the other day:

  “We need to go see someone, Amy. We need to try and work through this together, lean on each other. It will never go away, the pain will never leave, but we have to learn to find avenues to help us cope with it.”

  “Yes, like the business,” I said to him, softly so he wouldn’t detect my urge to slap him.

  He looked down at the floor as if there was something of great interest there. He shook his head.

  “Nothing helps,” he said. “Nothing.”

  And then he looked at me and I saw tears welling in his eyes. I can’t stand that. I can’t stand when he does that, because he is doing that to show me that my Truman is gone, just as he urges me to go into his room so that I know he is gone, too. He wants me to begin to pack his things so that the room won’t become enshrined. But I know what he has in mind. He wants me to see for myself that he is not there. That my Truman will never return.

  We pass each other late at night. I walk around in my bare feet feeling the carpets, the rugs, the floors I use to love, feeling my feet against those surfaces, and I will sometimes pass Ethan with his glass full of whiskey, drinking one after the other so that he can sleep. We don’t speak. What is there to say? He has his own ideas and I have mine. He can think what he wants. I let him. I let him believe what he will believe about me. That I have finally begun to get out and start over. He doesn’t know that I never go anywhere, that I ignore the phone, the voicemails—I erase them without listening to them; I can’t stand the incessant drone of goodwill. I know that the people who call are trying to be
sympathetic, but I also know that, without realizing it, all they really want is to pry into what I think about Truman. About his being gay and if I think that was the reason he was so beaten, so hurt, so wanting me next to him when he was lying face down in that mud.

  That’s the part that I truly can’t bear: my Truman lying in the mud without me to hold him, to press my face and cheek against his soft blond hair, to smell his Truman smell. How could I have been robbed? What God would’ve done this? I used to believe that God was magnanimous, that he was kind. Now I know him for who he is. Now I know that he waits for me to go outside so that he can blow a great breeze when I am not drinking my wine and I will be carried away, never to return to the possibility.

  There is possibility in everything, I used to tell Truman. It doesn’t matter. It does not matter. You are Truman Engroff. You have the whole world waiting for you, and I and your father know what and who you are, what magic you carry in that great brain of yours.

  And so I wait and avoid his door and the outside unless I have tanked myself up with wine. Who used to say that? He got tanked up! I don’t recall, but that’s what I do until my arms and legs begin to weigh me down. And then I go outside and listen. I wait. I know I must wait.

  Ethan

  The day of Truman’s death

  My dear sweet boy. I couldn’t ask anyone else to identify him. I had to. I knew I did. Truman would have wanted it that way. He was a brave young man. I often thought of him in contrast to his great-grandfather, my grandfather, a one-star general. My son matched up to him by every measure. I remember the day he called me into his room. He was thirteen.

  “Dad, I need to talk to you.”

  I was rummaging in the refrigerator for a snack. Amy is a fantastic cook, but we never eat until after eight. She says it’s uncivilized to eat at six in the evening like most Americans do. I looked out from the door of the refrigerator and I could see on his face that something was wrong. With Truman I was used to something being wrong. He has always been a complex kid and he’s always in some turmoil, although it is usually mild turmoil. Teachers who don’t like him, Carly and him arguing, his aggravation at not being driven to school like his friends were, his anger at me or his mother for some infraction. I could tell this was something different. Maybe it was the sag of his shoulders or that his black eyes didn’t look so black, or maybe it was just the fear I saw as he stared back at me.

  “What’s up, Tru?”

  “Not here. In my room.”

  I closed the refrigerator door and followed him, watching him as we walked up the stairs: a perfect concave between his shoulder blades, a perfect curve at the bottom of his spine, a perfect Truman butt. My Truman has a great body. He’s tall and lanky, but also incredibly strong and athletic. On the soccer field he was always the fastest kid. He was just never aggressive enough, though I didn’t dare say anything. He took everything as if it were a criticism, even when it was meant as constructive feedback.

  He twisted as he flopped onto his bed, facing me. I sat down on an overstuffed coach he’d persuaded his mother to buy for his room. I knew he was experimenting with cigarettes and I felt confident he was going to tell me he was smoking. He always came to me about subjects that required discussion of lifestyle. Truman knew that his mother would always need me to negotiate the terms of whatever was a new addition to his interests. Amy had found matches in his room and had come to me, alarmed. I reminded her of the period we’d tried smoking, how young we’d been. Truman would not become addicted to cigarettes, I knew. He was too cognizant of his body and the damage cigarettes would do to it, smoker’s cough, compromising his endurance. Truman was not flippant or indifferent about so many things other teenagers found irrelevant to their own lives.

  He looked at me, then he put his hands to his face and began to cry.

  “What, Truman?” I asked.

  I wanted to go to him but I didn’t. Truman didn’t always like to be touched. He hardly ever cried even when he was a kid, so I was alarmed by the sudden show of emotion.

  He shook his head, still hiding his face.

  “Please,” I said. “Tell me what’s wrong, Truman. Whatever it is, we can fix it.”

  He shook his head again.

  I got up and went to the bed and sat down beside him, put my arm around his shoulder. We didn’t speak, but his body was trembling under my touch.

  “Truman, you have to tell me,” I finally said.

  I knew it wasn’t grades. We had been over that with him so many times. I had a feeling it was something that would scare the hell out of me, but I had no idea what that something was.

  “What do you think about me, Dad?”

  I laughed and pulled him closer to me. I felt slight relief at the question. His shoulders were becoming broad, and I could feel his developing strength.

  “You know how I feel about you, Tru. You are one of my favorite people I’ve ever known, plus the fact that you are my son and I love you.”

  I had told him this many times before, and he had always accepted it as part of our relationship. It was true. In my forty-eight years there was no one I’d enjoyed more.

  “What if I told you something that would change that?”

  “Nothing would ever change that, Tru. Nothing.”

  He took a deep breath and let out a sigh. I could feel him tremble.

  “Try me,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. I wondered what it could be. Drugs? A girl pregnant? I couldn’t imagine.

  Finally he took his hands from his face and turned to me, face streaked with tears.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m gay, Dad.”

  He watched me intently as his shoulders slumped, my arm still around them.

  “Why do you say that, Tru?”

  I had never anticipated this moment. I needed to gain control of what was going on in my head so that it would match what I said to him. I’d thought so often of Truman taking my name for his future children, thought of all of us tossing the ball around, having dinners in celebration of our Engroff destiny. I had always wanted things different from the way I’d been raised.

  “It’s not like it’s a revelation, Dad. I’ve been feeling it since I was a kid.”

  This, from a thirteen-year-old boy.

  “But what about all the girls…”

  “That’s why I know,” he interrupted. “I’ve been around all these girls—Carly the most—and even though I love her and I like being around other girls, I’m not attracted to them.”

  He began to cry again. I stroked his hair.

  “When I was your age, Tru, I was in love with my best friend. Guys go through a stage where they only want to be around the guy they have a close friendship with. It’s only natural.”

  He nodded his head. “It’s not like that, Dad. I think about weird things with guys.”

  He looked at me to see my reaction. I just nodded.

  “I always thought the feelings would go away, but they haven’t. They’ve gotten more intense.”

  “I don’t care,” I finally said.

  I didn’t feel generous making that statement. I could tell now that Truman had been agonizing over this for a long time and I didn’t want him to feel pain from my reaction, whatever that was. But I knew I truly didn’t care that he was gay. He was my son and that was all that mattered. I wondered why I wasn’t feeling more of something else: hurt, alarm, anger, shock. We were quiet for a long time, just sitting there in his room, the only sound our breathing. Finally I said, “I have a deal, Tru.”

  “What?” he said.

  “How about if we just keep this between the two of us? We can talk about it whenever you like and we’ll see how you feel now that you’ve told me. Now that you alone don’t have to feel the burden of your…of these feelings.”

  He shook his head and smiled his Truman smile.

  “Do you want to see someone? A therapist or someone you would feel safe talking to?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll talk t
o you if it’s okay.”

  I leaned in and kissed him on the lips. A few tears ran down my cheeks, and he wiped them away.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry it’s this way.”

  “No,” I said. “No. It isn’t that. I’m just happy you came to me, Tru. I’m happy you trusted me enough to tell me.”

  “I knew I would tell you. Mom wouldn’t understand or she’d worry too much or she’d try and convert me somehow.”

  I laughed out loud. “If it’s alright with you, we’ll keep your mother in the dark for a while. We’ll see how you feel about all this and then, if nothing changes, we’ll tell her.”

  “No, Dad. I’ll tell her when I think the time is right.”

  “I know you will, Tru.” I took his face in my hands. “You are a remarkable boy. I don’t know if you’ll ever know how much I love you.”

  “I do, Dad. I do know.”

  I got up from his bed and walked to the door. I turned and he was lying on his back on the bed, his legs crossed.

  “You don’t worry about anything anymore,” I said. “Whatever you feel is right. I know that about you. I’ve always known that about you. You’re my son and that’s the only thing that matters.”

  “I know,” he said and then I closed the door softly behind me.

  A sheet was thrown over him except for his head and neck. I didn’t have to get close to know it was my Truman. I could tell by the hair, the same hair I’d tousled so many times in his short lifetime. The outline of his chest and stomach, his strong thighs, his big feet, size thirteen, outlined beneath the sheet. Amy said we could never keep him in shoes. I had to look away when I saw what had been done to his face. I won’t describe it. I can’t bear to even think about it. I get up in the middle of the night because sometimes that moment is looming above me in the darkness of the room. I slip out of bed and go down to the kitchen for some whiskey.

  There was a patrolman with me and, beyond the metal gurney my son lay on, there was a tall man wearing a greenish smock that almost matched his thinning gray hair. He neither smiled nor looked toward me. I remember that. He was probably impatient to get down to his work of butchering my son even more, cutting him open in order to find out how Truman had died. But I already knew how he had died. Someone who should not be on this earth murdered him. That’s all that needed to be known. I had the urge to ask the man in the smock if he had children. I wanted to tell him that what he was about to do he was doing to a boy whose parents loved him. A boy who thought thoughts he couldn’t possibly imagine. But I was too shaken, too weak to speak.