Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  “What did you do above the garage all those times?” I whispered into her ear. I felt her stiffen but I wouldn’t let her go, and she leaned into me, shaking her head and crying softly. “I know it’s love that keeps him here. I know you know that. What you did up there is the most tender avowal of his life. Thank you.”

  And then she pulled away from me forcefully and put her hands to her face and wept.

  The people behind her waited patiently for her to stop. When she did, she said, “I’m sorry, Amy. I wish I could bring him back right now.”

  But before I could say anything she was already in Ethan’s arms, her face buried in his shoulder.

  They both cried softly as Ethan patted her back and said, “Oh, Carly, Carly. What will we do?”

  But it couldn’t erase what I felt and knew. I knew the truth, and Carly did, too, and that was all I needed to go on with this whole service. And as I stood there nodding to people, allowing them to kiss me on the cheek and hold me, I thought that in the past I would’ve gone to God for help to get through this. How absurd that seemed now. What did people think he would do? Hadn’t he already done enough? Hadn’t he already made all crimes his own so that people would remain cleaved to him as the sole provider of benediction?

  Carly

  Four days after Truman’s death

  I should’ve been standing up there with them. Truman would’ve wanted that, I think. But I understood why they didn’t have me there. I understood. Both of them were so brave and I was such a coward, standing in that line crying the whole time, no one understanding the great ocean-like wave of grief I felt every time I thought of Truman dead; every time I thought of his murdered body. The closer I got to them and the casket the more dread I felt. If I could, I would’ve turned around and left. But my father would’ve never let me do that. My mother couldn’t come. She was too upset. She said she could not see the Engroffs with that poor, lovely Truman in that casket behind them. She said she would go to the funeral so that she could stand away and in the open space.

  I am a coward, I thought, as I moved forward in the line and closer to Truman, closer to the truth we both shared and no one else did.

  Truman and I used to talk about death sometimes and it always seemed so distant. It was as if we were talking about it on an intercom from different rooms. We talked about whether there was a God. Once, I asked if he thought God would be just a force present in all of human history. Truman said a presence for all living creatures, not just the shitty humans. I pretty much agreed with him. Why just humans? Why not all things that live? We’d smoked a little weed and the gargantuan thought of all that had lived before us and would live after us was so weighty that I just started to laugh. Truman said my laugh was infectious and it made him laugh, too.

  But now I think of all the times we talked about death when we smoked, and even when we didn’t smoke, and I wonder if Truman had some premonition about his own death. He wasn’t exactly morbid, but he was alone much of the time, especially as he and I saw less and less of each other. It was true that when I scored a little weed he would be the first one I would go to. Tommy hated when I smoked; he said it was disgusting and for people who were weak, and it was much more fun being around Truman anyway.

  I knew he went to see friends in New York, like Logan Marsh, who’d graduated the year before and was two years older than Truman and me. He said he felt more comfortable in the city where there were people like him. He wanted to go to NYU after he graduated.

  “I can’t get into Columbia like my parents,” he told me one rainy afternoon when I’d gone to his house after not seeing him for a few weeks.

  Truman had already told me he was gay. It made sense to me, especially after that one time above his garage. I’d felt so empty for the longest time after that. I wanted only to be with him and he’d not allowed me near him for months, as if he’d been disgusted by what we’d done. I had to reason it was just Truman being fucking Truman, but then I think he sensed how hurt I was and so he told me.

  I didn’t believe him at first. He wasn’t anything like what I had always viewed as gay, always such drama in their actions and behavior, talking loudly with flamboyant gestures. Truman was more like an old man in some ways. He was never interested in hanging out with a bunch of friends or going to parties. He told me he’d gone to parties at Columbia, when he’d visited Logan and some other boy whose name I don’t remember, and it was easy for me to see him there with kids who’d already graduated high school. Kids living in New York and going to dark bars and museums and walks in Central Park.

  I don’t think Logan was gay, though. We smoked weed a few times together, but I always saw him as too into himself, and Tommy hated him, too.

  “He thinks his shit don’t stink. Just like your friend Truman. They’re perfect fuck-buddies.”

  But then he wouldn’t say anything after that. He knew I didn’t like it and if he wanted to do what he wanted to do, he had to behave.

  It was that rainy day, though, that I realized Truman was embarrassed about his poor performance as a student. He’d scored perfectly on the SATs, but he had low Cs in all his classes. Both his parents had gone to Columbia. I think that’s where they met. Ethan was so smart and I think, in some weird way, Truman resented his father. It was nothing I could exactly put my finger on; they got along and joked around together and his father always looked at him with just this incredible fucking love, but on Truman’s part there was something there. Don’t ask me to tell you what it was, because I can’t. Anyone who knew Truman well enough knew that he was always much closer to his mother. It might’ve been the fact that his father was just so wrapped up in his work and in Amy. Maybe that Freudian thing where the son hates the father never left Truman and they were both competing for Amy’s love.

  But it would’ve only been on Truman’s part. His father loved Truman. I know that for a fact, because all I had to do was watch how he looked at him. I saw.

  I also know Truman always wanted to please his father, and not getting into Columbia was going to be a disappointment for him and for his parents. Truman had a Columbia pennant in his room with that awful light blue background and I used to tease him about it. Why would he have that if he wasn’t somehow trying to please his dad? And then there was the whole thing of his great-grandfather Truman being a general in the army and the expectations of this family who had excelled in every way. And I think that’s why he was so much closer to his mother, because she didn’t care about any of the stuff normal parents care about, like my mom and dad do.

  I have to go to Princeton and my dad’ll make sure I do. Amy was just happy when Truman was being Truman, I guess. He didn’t have to fucking perform or excel or any of the bullshit me and my friends have to do for our mothers so they can brag about us at cocktail parties or whatever.

  “I should’ve worked harder,” Truman said. He took a hit of weed and held it in his lungs for a long time. When he exhaled he laughed. “This wacky weed has taken away my drive.”

  He looked at me suspiciously.

  “It’s your fault, Carly. You always make me think of getting high.”

  “What difference does it make if you don’t go to Columbia?”

  “None, really. I just wanted to go there because they went there.” He nodded toward his door. “It would’ve been cool. Three generations of Engroffs going to the same school.”

  He took another hit and laughed. “I don’t know what I would’ve done there, is all. I guess just walk around campus and feel the thrum of the Engroffs.”

  “I hear NYU is a great school.”

  He cocked his head toward me and smiled. That’s when it was always melt time for me.

  “There is absolutely no one better than you, Carly Rodenbaugh. You don’t know a thing about NYU.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I know, for instance, that it’s a very good school.”

  “I’ll tell Dad that. ‘Dad, Carly says it�
��s a very good school…for instance.’ He loves you so I know it’ll be the zinger. I think he wants to get in your pants, anyway.”

  “What a fucked-up thing to say, Tru. You can be so fucked up, you know that?”

  The thing was, I’d always had a small crush on his dad. He was really handsome—like his son—and he had this really sweet way about him. He was always putting his hand on my shoulder or touching my arm. Nothing perverted, just sweet. Plus he was soooo smart and so different from the other people in Persia.

  Truman just smiled. “You know he does, Carly. Who wouldn’t who is straight and male? That’s why I can’t see what you see in… Never mind.”

  That was the thing about him. I knew how he felt about Tommy and yet he tried not to say much about him. I could count the times on my fingers he ever even mentioned his name. He was so fucking frustrating. I guess I expected him to talk me out of even being with him, but he didn’t. It hurt me, because it seemed like he didn’t care enough to say how he felt. I probably would’ve dropped Tommy in a minute if he’d told me to. I know that sounds so fucked up, but that’s how much he meant to me, how much I wanted always to please him.

  “Never mind what?” I asked.

  “Don’t digress, Carly. Make believe you’re on the ball field. Stay focused.”

  “You’ve never liked Tommy. Admit it.”

  He took another hit and held it in his lungs longer than he normally did. I knew he was thinking. Finally he let out a cloud of smoke.

  “I’m sure he’s nice to you, Carly. I can’t imagine you being with anyone who isn’t.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He’d been sitting down with his back against his bed, and he stood. I was sitting with my back against his couch. He stood over me unsteadily, looking down at me with his smile.

  “Okay, Carly. Okay.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “First, if I were straight I’d marry you right now. We’d run away like Holden Caulfield always wanted to do with Sally or whatever her name was. Only we’d do it. You’d go with me. I know you would because you love me and I love you. There is nothing better than that. Nothing better. And if it wasn’t for the little thing about me I’d be the happiest person in the world with you. I really would. I could pump gas and we’d live in a cabin and all the things young people dream about doing when they’re in love. That’s what I would want to do.”

  Tears started coming down his cheeks and dripping on my bare legs. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I’d never seen him cry before, and he was crying about me, about us.

  “That’s what I’d want to do, Carly. Only I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair for you.”

  He leaned over me and put his hands on the top of the couch and looked out at the beautiful lawns—the Engroffs called them that, “our lawns,” surrounding the house. I watched his shoulders shake and I wanted to get up and wrap my arms around him, but I didn’t. There were times I knew not to touch him. We were quiet together for a long time and then he turned to me. His face was streaked with tears.

  “You asked for it.” He took another deep breath. “Tommy Beck is Neanderthal. I don’t know if they use silverware in that house. I’m almost sure they don’t. It would be a violation of their living standards. He is a perfect example of a boy who followed in his father’s footsteps…or wait, his father’s knuckle-marks. The only reason he’s made it through high school to this point is because he can do things with his body and do things with balls other more developed humans can’t. I don’t know what you see in him, Carly. I have my suspicions, but I will keep them to myself. He’s obnoxious, rude, and yes, Carly, his humor is scatological. But you would know better about that. I know you won’t be with him much longer, which is the only thing that prevents me from never speaking to you again.”

  He stopped talking. I stared at him and realized it’d stopped raining. The light from the late autumn sun made his hair even more golden and part of his beautiful face was in shadow and my being so stoned made him look even more exotic, more perfect. There was a long silence and I was trying to think of something to say, something stinging so that I could hurt him for what he’d just said. But I couldn’t get any anger up to do it. I wasn’t angry. I was still too full of emotion about what he’d said about loving me, about us being together. No anger came. None.

  Instead I began to laugh. At first it was like just fucking blurting out a laugh, sort of quiet, but then I thought about what he’d said about Tommy and then I started to laugh loudly, uncontrollably, so that I rolled over on my side and held my stomach and I laughed until it hurt. Truman and the room and everything else disappeared, everything but his words, and they were all mixed up and tangled and soon I was sobbing and I couldn’t stop that, either, until Truman finally lay next to me and put his arms around me and began to stroke my hair. I felt the strength of his arms and I never wanted to leave that floor, that room, that house, that sun, that beautiful, beautiful moment.

  So I’m a coward in line with the rest of the mourners and then finally I’m embraced by Amy. She was holding me as if she could literally, physically absorb me. I love Amy, and I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but I was weirded out. I could feel her fragile body, a body I’d always thought was strong and full of energy, and now it was like holding a bird with only heart and bones and no flesh.

  “Drink wine,” she whispered in my ear, so seriously I couldn’t help but giggle. I could smell the alcohol on her breath and in her pores. It was so strong, badly disguised by the perfume I was so familiar with, that I finally had to tear myself away from her otherwise I would have gotten sick.

  And beyond her was Ethan. He looked as if his body had been run through a car wash and then blown dry so the only thing left of this person I had loved all of my childhood was a bleached, dried-out shell. He held me, and I buried my face in his shoulder and I could feel Truman. For the first time I realized that Ethan Engroff and his son were the same person, only now he was nearly as dead as the son he’d loved lying in the box behind him.

  And all the time he held me I couldn’t say the words I wanted to say to him: how I felt now and had always felt about his and my Truman. Truman who was always sprawled out on his bed and me across from him on his couch for so many days and for so many years, and always it was him looking at me with his black, Truman eyes. How could it be that Truman was dead? How could it be?

  Detective Parachuk

  Two days after Truman’s death

  I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve never encountered a more distraught woman. I knew she was on Klonopin, because I’d spoken with her physician. He told me he’d considered hospitalizing her because he was concerned she might be suicidal.

  Once we’d confiscated Truman’s computer (his cell phone was never found)—it was easy to break his password, which was the name of his childhood dog and the number 9—we found nothing of much interest. Some gay porn sites (they must not have interested him because there were only two bites), e-mails to Carly Rodenbaugh, mostly about school and scoring pot, a few e-mails to a boy at Columbia—Logan?—and one particular e-mail to a boy in Cincinnati he’d befriended on Facebook. We were doing a check on him with the Cincinnati P.D., but it didn’t seem like it would come to much. He had 678 people on his friends list and all would be checked out, a laborious task. His Facebook profile was that he was born September 6, 1993, was interested in men, was a student at Persia High School and believed the universe beyond this globe was the only matrix of logic and reason.

  Every inch of the park—trash, drains, inside World War I and II and Vietnam War artillery and statues—had been checked, and we’d found no cell phone, no baseball bat or other blunt object. A subpoena was in the works to acquire all his phone records, both incoming and out-going, but the process was full of legal jumping-through-the-hoops bull.

  I met Amy Engroff in the same living room where I’d met her husband the day before. Her washed-out eyes reminded me of a sky where the earliest part
s of high rain clouds are moving in. She never once looked at me during the interview. I was already seated when she entered the room. She was wearing a flowery dress with shoes like ballet slippers.

  “I’m sorry I have to talk to you under these circumstances, Mrs. Engroff.”

  She walked directly to me and extended her hand. I took it and it was as if I was touching something made of cold papier-mâché.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure you are.”

  She released my hand. After an unsteady journey to the couch she finally sat opposite me with her knees pressed together, her hands listless in her lap. Under any other conditions I would’ve thought she was beautiful. Even looking so pale and tired, she was.

  “What do you want to know, Mr.…?”

  “Parachuk,” I said. “I’ve already spoken to your husband about the circumstances of Truman’s death.”

  She looked at me as if I’d said her lawn needed manicuring.

  “Whatever did he say? I can’t possibly imagine. Truman was found dead in the park. He was beaten to death. He only identified him.”

  From where I sat I could see the photograph of Truman in what his father had called his “black period.” She turned and looked, too.

  “Truman is Truman,” she said.

  “How do you mean?”

  She smiled, a twisted gesture.

  “That’s a wonderful question. A grand question. That question would be like me asking you how you do a police procedure. I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what you meant even if you told me.”