Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  When I turned, the patrolman gently took my elbow and guided me to the steel door. When we got on the other side he said, “I’m sorry, sir. I really am sorry.”

  He didn’t have to ask if that was Truman Engroff. I knew that he knew that already. His voice was soft, not like you would expect from a cop. The words so tender in contrast to what I knew and had just seen that it made me stop and weep. It could have been hours or only a few minutes. However long it was, the patrolman never moved and never released his hand from my elbow. When I was through, he led me up a set of stairs and into a brightly lit foyer and then outside. We stood there for a moment and I had to remember if this was the way I’d entered the building. I remember that the sun was still bright but closer to the edge of the horizon.

  The two of us were there in that position for a long time.

  Finally the patrolman said, “Detective Parachuk has the case, sir.” He hesitated, still standing next to me, then spoke again in the same soft voice. “The town of Persia has handed the investigation over to the state police. They already know they are not equipped to handle the…magnitude of this. Even so, Detective Parachuk will be the lead investigator. Everyone will have to answer to him.”

  I knew from elections that Parachuk was the chief of the Persia Police Department.

  I think I looked at him for the first time then. He was a handsome young boy, probably only five or six years older than Truman. He looked back at me but he had the decency not to smile or even appear sad. He just met my own look.

  “He’s a good detective. You couldn’t have asked for a better one.”

  Anger flared in me.

  “I didn’t expect to ask at all.”

  “He asked me to tell you that he will want to see you and your wife very soon. He needs to ask you some questions.”

  “When?”

  “Within the next few hours. He wants to find whoever did this. He will need your help to do that.”

  “That’s my Truman in there. He isn’t coming home tonight. He isn’t coming home tomorrow.”

  I felt tears stream down my face again and, again, to his credit, he didn’t move, didn’t try to console, didn’t look away or seem embarrassed. He just watched. I wondered if he too had suffered tragedy.

  “How old are you?” I was finally able to ask.

  “Twenty-five, sir.”

  “My Truman is seventeen. He’ll be eighteen in September.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at him carefully. “I need to get home to my wife.”

  “Do you want me to drive you?”

  “I don’t know how else I would get there,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “You drove here, sir. I believe that’s your car over there.” He pointed to my black Lexus in the first row of a sparse parking lot.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I fished in my pocket for my keys and finally pulled them out. My hands were trembling.

  “I think I should drive you home, Mr. Engroff.”

  I shook my head, but I didn’t move. He didn’t move either. We assumed our original positions. Suddenly I felt a rage come into my chest so unexpectedly I had to take a deep breath.

  “I want the people who did this caught.” I think I may have shouted it.

  “Why do you say people, Mr. Engroff?”

  I turned to him abruptly.

  “My son was gay. They killed him in this fucking town, because he was gay and was not afraid to be that.”

  “He must’ve been a good boy, Mr. Engroff.”

  “How the fuck would you know?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked out at the parking lot.

  “I just sense it, I guess.”

  “He was,” I said. “He was from a different world. There was no one I ever knew who was anything like him.”

  I looked at him a moment longer and I don’t know why, but I remember putting my hand on his shoulder and resting it there for a moment. Then I took my hand away and walked to my car and went home to tell my Amy that her son was dead.

  Carly

  Six days after Truman’s death

  Tommy Beck was a year ahead of us in school. He was always cute and as he entered high school he definitely turned to hot. He was one of the best athletes the town of Persia ever produced. His junior year he was a state champion wrestler at the 171-pound class. He was also named all-county athlete of the year in football and in baseball. By the end of his junior year he had more strike-outs than any other pitcher in the entire Hunterdon-Warren County area. He was headed for a scholarship and even though he wasn’t a great student he was in all the honors classes and mostly made B-minuses and Bs. I think a lot of that had to do with his stardom as an athlete, though. And the fact that he was so damn cute and had a beautiful smile. He could even make the most rigid male teachers like him, like Mr. Jenkins, who hated sports and hated kids and hated teaching. I think the last marking period of his British Lit. class he gave Tommy an A. That was fucking unbelievable.

  I started liking sports—mostly softball—when I was in eighth grade. My dad used to take me out in the backyard and throw the ball with me and I think right away he saw that I had good hand-eye coordination. After a few months he was throwing the ball as hard as he could and I would suck it into my glove easily. He loved doing it and he would laugh out loud at times when he threw balls very fast and a little errant and I would get them anyway. When tryouts took place for seventh- and eighth-graders for the Persia Tigresses team my dad took me down on a very nice Saturday morning and signed me up. I’ll never forget the feeling when, after the final tryout, I was handed my first uniform. I remember when I got home I put it on and paraded around the house with my mom and dad patting me on the back and telling me how adorable I looked, and then I went over to the Engroffs’ house so I could show Truman.

  I was allowed to just walk into the Engroff home like I lived there. I loved that feeling. I usually went through the garage and into the laundry room then through the kitchen and the living room and up the stairs to Truman’s room. Truman’s door was always closed and you always had to knock. That was one door you didn’t just walk through. When he finally opened the door he looked at me and then turned without saying anything. I stepped inside and closed the door tentatively. He went over to a wall calendar that had pictures of African animals photographed in the wild. I’d looked at the pictures many times. With his index finger he sought out the month April. Then he turned and looked at me carefully from top to bottom.

  “You’re off by six months, Carly.”

  “What?” I asked.

  I could feel my heart beating, as it often did when I wasn’t sure where Truman was going.

  He peered at the calendar again.

  “Yep, six months.”

  “What are you fucking talking about, Truman?”

  “Halloween is in October, Carly.”

  I was about to laugh, but then I remembered that I’d told him I was excited because I thought I would make the team. My lips trembled as I took my cap off and sat down on his couch. I put my face into my hands and began to cry. I’d been happier about showing Truman than about showing my own parents. I could tell he was purposely letting me know he didn’t give a shit I’d made the team. I heard him sit on his bed and I knew he was watching me. It was quiet for a long time, except for my crying. I eventually stopped and I looked up at him. He was sitting perfectly still, staring at me with a look of genuine Truman concern.

  “I made the team,” I finally said.

  “Look, I don’t care.” He shrugged his shoulders, still staring at me. “I care about you. I do. But I don’t care that you made the team. In the scheme of things it has zero importance.”

  “It means something to me!” I said.

  “What does it mean to you?”

  I couldn’t think of what it did mean. I thought of things I’d heard adults say, how it would build character or create a sense of competition or teach me teamwork, but I knew none of those
would impress Truman.

  “It means something to me,” I said, pointing at my chest. “I’m not smart like you. But I’m good at this.”

  “You’re the smartest girl I know,” he said.

  “I don’t feel smart and when I’m out there on the field or at bat I do feel smart and strong and where I should be.”

  I looked around his room. There was the couch I was sitting on, the calendar next to his bed, and on the wall behind his bed a portrait of him drawn in charcoal during a visit to Central Park when he was younger. His mother had hung the picture there and Truman had never taken it down. He had shelves full of books he did or didn’t read. It would’ve been hard to tell. I never saw him reading, but I constantly wondered how he was so smart. His father was always encouraging him to read and Truman was always resisting. There was a full-length mirror on the door of his closet and a large window behind me overlooking the Engroffs’ beautifully manicured lawn. From it you could see their swimming pool with patios and stone steps leading to gardens and beyond that, lovely old trees.

  “Well, you look cute anyway. I like your ponytail coming out the back of your hat. But don’t expect me to come and see you play, Carly. My days of sports are over, thank God.”

  Truman had played soccer since he was five and he was very good at it. But he had told me in confidence he hated every minute of it. He couldn’t understand the concept of chasing a ball around and kicking it into a net. Finally, the previous fall, he’d begged his parents not to sign him up for the soccer team. They eventually gave in to his pleading.

  I especially remember that one time in his room with my uniform on because something changed between us then. It wasn’t a big change, but it was a change. I wanted to impress him just as I’d always wanted to, but I saw that he really didn’t care. And it wasn’t just him being Truman, getting under my skin to see how I would react. He genuinely wasn’t interested in sports or any of the normal things other kids were interested in. He was different and I liked that about him, but I was a normal kid and I wanted to do normal things. He’d touched me where no one else had touched me that past summer and I thought of him all the time because of it, but now I had to do things that made me feel like myself. Truman was part of the reason I hadn’t played softball sooner even though my dad had tried to encourage me—I’d resisted because of Truman. I’d known instinctively that he would disapprove.

  And it was then that I became interested in Tommy Beck. His younger sister, Samantha, played on our team, and Tommy used to come and watch her play. He was in ninth grade and already on the varsity baseball team. I wasn’t exactly friends with Sam; she hung with a different bunch of girls. But she was friendly to me and I could tell that part of the reason was because Tommy was interested in me. I knew Sam well enough that she had my cell number, and Tommy began texting me the summer after softball was over, and I was even invited to Sam’s birthday party in July. Tommy was there.

  He was already tall for his age. He had black hair and very blue eyes and I knew every girl at Sam’s party was jealous that he was only paying attention to me. Almost the minute I saw Tommy Beck I liked him, not because of his hotness, but because he had confidence. Everything about him—his walk, his smile, the way he moved his hands—showed self-assurance. Girls love that in boys and I loved that about Tommy. Truman had some of that same quality, but it was so mixed up with other parts of him that I didn’t understand or didn’t see clearly. I have to admit: Tommy was kind of refreshing. I always felt like I was betraying Truman by having those feelings, but as Truman and I got older, it became easier to distance myself from him. I also have to admit that it was less of a loss with Tommy paying so much attention to me.

  Of course Tommy also wanted to take my clothes off, but I wouldn’t let him. Not at first, anyway. It was different with Truman, though I’m not sure I can ever explain why. If I said that Truman was more like family, that would sound totally weird. The idea of incest completely creeps me out. But it was true. We were always like brother and sister, but with that other edge of something that made me love him and always want to be with him. That made me want him to kiss me and touch me. Not that what happened above the Engroffs’ garage ever happened again. It didn’t, but I wanted it to, or at least fantasized about it.

  Tommy was more like what boys were like. He hung out with his jock friends a lot and spent time with me when he wasn’t with them. In the late afternoon we would go to his house or my house and hang out. Kiss or go swimming, and he would always get hard and want me to touch him. I wouldn’t though. He said it was painful and I did feel sorry for him because of that, but I just couldn’t for some reason. I think it had to do with Truman, really. I kept waiting for Truman to make it clear that we were something more than just friends. I know that sounds contradictory after saying that I felt saner with Tommy, but Truman is Truman. There was never anyone like him.

  I think Tommy could sense that. He knew that Truman and I were close friends. I couldn’t help but talk about him and I think Tommy was jealous. He would call Truman a fag and gay and say how fucked up he was.

  “What guy plays soccer the way that kid did and gives it up? You have to be fucked up to have talent like that and then just stop doing it. What does he do, anyway? He has no friends except you, and you spend your time with me, which is a smart thing to do.”

  “You have to know Truman to understand,” I would say. “He’s different than other people. He’s too smart for his own good.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe. You couldn’t prove it by his grades, from what Sam says.”

  “Grades don’t mean anything to him.”

  “So what, he’s not going to college?”

  “He doesn’t fail. He gets straight As in math. He just doesn’t read any of the stuff he’s supposed to read in English and history.”

  “His old man probably thinks he can get him into college with his money. Those people are assholes if you ask me.”

  I felt like saying “No one asked you,” but I didn’t. I just kept quiet mostly, but I defended Truman.

  “Probably spends all his time in his room jerking off thinking of guys.”

  “Don’t say that, Tommy! I mean it!”

  “Alright, alright. I’ll keep quiet about your friend. But I’m telling you, Carly: He’s a weird kid and he always has been. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing never talking to people and his asshole attitude like he’s better than everyone else. Just going home every day by himself. And what about when he was wearing black all the time? Black hair, black eyelashes and shit like that. You’re going to tell me that’s not fucked up? Really, Carly?”

  “Why do you care about it?” I finally said.

  “I don’t. Believe me, I don’t. I just think it’s fucked-up weird that you want to hang with him so much. That’s all. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t give a fuck what he did.”

  This was the general trend of our conversations whenever Truman came up. I didn’t like it and I tried never to say anything about Truman in front of Tommy, but that was hard. Truman was a part of me. Keeping Truman out of my life was like taking one of my arms off. I would still be able to function, but the disappearance of it would always remind me that part of who I was as a whole person was gone. I would feel always like I had a phantom limb.

  Ethan

  The day following Truman’s death

  Detective Parachuk came to our home the day after Truman’s murder. He was a tall man, thin, with black hair and dark brown eyes. His eyes reminded me of Truman’s. I remember it was cool outside. My sister and brother had driven in from Connecticut and North Carolina, respectively, and were arranging everything for Truman’s funeral. Amy and I were incapable of doing anything. My siblings are both older than me and they quietly did the work that had to be done. There were no moments of reminiscing about Truman’s visits to their houses. None of that. I will love them both more than I ever had before for knowing what we needed, and what we needed to avoid.


  Since I’d told Amy that it was in fact Truman on a slab in a cold room where they would perform an autopsy, I hadn’t seen much of her. She wanted only to be alone with her thoughts, I guess. I’d slept in one of the guest rooms the night before. I don’t know where Amy slept. I suppose she stayed in our room. My brother, Robert, came to me once during that day after Truman’s murder to ask about the logistics of the minister, the funeral home, the newspapers to be notified. I helped him as much as I could, but I think I was fairly useless. Robert contacted people who would have to be notified, although since the murder appeared to be linked to a hate crime, I think it was covered nationally. Robert screened phone calls from reporters, but the trucks and press and bright lights outside our property for the first few days was unavoidable. Robert hired men to guard the property so that no reporters wandered in and around our house. I don’t know how he did that, but he did.

  Detective Parachuk turned up in the late afternoon. His had a face creased look, probably from smoking, although I smelled no hint of tobacco as he sat across from me in our living room. He was handsome, I suppose. I imagined he was in his early sixties. He wore cologne I couldn’t identify. I watched him as he looked around the room. I wondered if he felt the same way the two young officers had felt, or the way I imaged they had felt: Privilege deserves heartache, too. We had a grand piano in the corner of the room and he stared at the pictures sitting on top of it—Truman at all stages of his short life. I watched the detective look at the photographs. I couldn’t look at them myself. I knew them all by heart: Truman in his crib sleeping; Truman standing in front of the house on his first day of nursery school; Truman at the piano pounding on the keys, his baby-white hair falling in his eyes as if he were imitating Van Clyburn; Truman in front of a Christmas tree and piles of toys; Truman in my arms, the three of us standing with Sandwich’s slice of ocean behind us; Truman with Carly Rodenbaugh on their first day of school in front of a yellow school bus, both of them beaming.