Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  “Bullshit! You don’t know the first thing about what I want. You’ve gone around here in a fog since Truman’s death, and I’ve been completely shut out. For what reason? I love him as you do. Your grief isn’t any larger than mine…”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “I know all about your grief, but what are you doing about it? What have you done about it except allow people to come into our lives? What has that detective done except ask us questions? I heard you with the Beck man on the phone, placating him, telling him about the ‘despair’ I’ve been experiencing.”

  “So tell me what I should do, Amy.”

  “Kill whoever did this to us! That’s what you should do. Someone is walking around on this earth who has destroyed our lives. He walks around with impunity while we walk around in this house as if it were a tomb…and it is, Ethan. I feel cold all the time and the slightest stirring of air is liable to take me away from here before I can get Truman back. Don’t you see, can’t you see for yourself we have to settle the score so some warmth can come back into this house…”

  “You blame me, Amy, because you think I didn’t accept Truman for what he was. I’ll remind you he came to me before you. I’ll remind you he was fearful of how you’d react if you knew the truth about him…”

  She laughed so loudly I was startled for a moment. “Yes! Fuck yes, Ethan! He entrusted you to watch over him. He had faith you would make sure he was safe from all the watchful eyes in this fucking town, all the watchful eyes in this world. Where is it? In Uganda where gays are murdered? This town is no different, this country is no different. You and I never really talked about the politics of our son’s plight in this horrible country where gays are second targets. And do you know why, Ethan?”

  “No, Amy, I don’t know why. Please tell me. I’m curious.” I wanted to walk over and strike her. I’d never wanted to do that before, but now she was accusing me of something that just wasn’t true. I’d put no labels on him. I’d only looked at him as Truman, my son.

  “Because if you can’t face something, you just ignore it. You just put it somewhere in that compartmentalized brain of yours and that’s where it stays. Then you don’t have to worry about it any longer. You don’t have to wring your hands over it. Do you know that your sister, Angela, wasn’t even aware Truman was gay? And you didn’t tell your grandfather, either. Holy shit! The one-star general. God forbid he should know the boy named after him was gay! And do you know what I say about all of them? Fuck them! That’s what I say!”

  “You don’t know the first thing about how I feel about our son. If you did, you wouldn’t be saying the things you’re saying right now. I want you to know something, Amy. You pigeonhole people, including Truman. In your eyes, I am insular and private, and I will always be that way. Truman was gay and sensitive, and anything he did or said beyond that tightly bound construct you ignored. I can’t argue with you because there’s no point in it. There’s never been any point in it. I am who you think I am and that is all. I’ve spent twenty years wondering how I could possibly escape from the fucking doomed prison you’ve placed me in, the prison you placed Truman in. At least he’s free from it…no! Fuck no, he’s not. He will never be free because you won’t let him lie in peace, will you Amy? He has to stay where he’s always stayed.”

  I was trembling with a rage I hadn’t felt since the day I’d seen my son on that table dead. I walked up to her and stuck my face in hers.

  “You still have me incarcerated, Amy. You still have me to keep in my fucking place, don’t you?”

  I expected her to pick up the wine glass and smash it across my face, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have felt it. And after a long time of looking at her face—her eyes were somewhere outside of the room—I turned and walked out. And the horrible thing was that at that moment I felt the loss of Truman more acutely than I’d ever felt it. I went to the library and poured a large glass of whiskey and drank half of it down, my hands so palsied much of it spilled down the front of my pajama top. I began to cry in a way I’d never cried before. And as I downed the rest of my whiskey, I thought of Amy’s words.

  Kill whoever did this to us!

  How was I to do that? I didn’t even know who had done this thing, or how to find them. She was right, though: I’d been entrusted, as his father, to protect him. Hadn’t Rich Beck called me because of his own duty to his son? He hadn’t hesitated even though he knew we were grieving. He did what fathers do. He put himself out there no matter what the danger or what was in jeopardy.

  Kill whoever did this to us.

  The demand calmed me. The words, circling around in my head, became a balm. If I could do what Amy wanted me to do, perhaps I could lie down afterward and close my eyes and sleep the sleep of the dead.

  Amy

  Twelve days after Truman’s death

  I thought he was going to touch me. He was so close to my face I could feel his breath and that alone was like touching, but just beyond his shoulder I saw a hand and knew it was there to pull him away if he had any intentions of touching me. Oh the fear I felt with his breath coming onto me in such exhalations, and I wanted to grab the glass of wine and smash his face with it. And it was never like that when he would put his tender body upon and above my own and I could feel his skin, his pores against my own, and he would penetrate me like some hot and febrile dream of fluid, so soft and probing, and then the liquid would decant into me.

  And then I could feel it grow each day like some seed I’d planted in the soil outside the dayroom, the warm sun heating the soil of my body. And I could feel it take root, extending tendrils and small little runnels of cells, expanding and developing until my stomach began to stretch to take on the bloom that was Truman. Truman. Even then he was demanding to know when and how he would arrive into the light outside the darkness of me, and then I rejoiced that I’d had Ethan’s touch. I loved that I’d had his gentle velvety heat inside my own heat, that we’d combined to make this swelling sensitive being who kissed me on the top of my head and every day kept me from floating away.

  And then the burning, blazing hatred had descended upon the fecundity, drying it up so that, like a seed pod in a desert of waste, I could feel myself grow so light that even the slightest breeze, the slightest stir of air, would take me so far from the center of my Truman that I would never be able to return.

  And he had his breath blasting like a hot dry furnace on me and I was certain I would be pushed away, and that is when I saw the hand ready to reach out and pull him away so that I wouldn’t fly apart. And I waited then to see what he would do and then he turned and walked away from me and the room and I hurriedly picked up the wine and drank it and I could feel the weight of it holding me against the storm of his lingering breath, and then I knew I was protected.

  Ethan

  Two weeks after Truman’s death

  I was standing at the corner of the bar in the sunroom fixing myself a martini exactly fourteen days after Truman was murdered. It was ten a.m. I had the pitcher raised, stirring the gin and the slight amount of vermouth. I looked up and Amy was standing at the French doors with the telephone receiver in her hand. She looked old and tired and sad. She held the receiver out to me, her hand trembling slightly.

  “It’s for you.”

  “Tell whoever it is I’m not in.” I picked up the martini glass in my left hand and began to pour from the pitcher.

  “You tell them,” she said.

  She put the receiver down on the back of a wingback chair and left the room. I watched her as she made her way toward the kitchen. Her walk was unsteady, I think, but I could’ve been wrong. When she disappeared from my sight, I took a sip of the gin. It was cold and clean tasting and it gave me an instant jolt back to where I’d been five hours before. I figured the entire pitcher would get me where I wanted to be, and I was determined to get there. My brother had called on the phone the evening before and he wanted me to come down and visit him for a week or so. He�
��d included Amy, but he knew it was only a gesture, and in honesty he had invited me because he wanted me away from my wife. He’d heard from someone, probably Susan or Lester, that I was having a bad time, that I was drinking too much. I would get drunk and then I would either pack or I wouldn’t and I would take a limo and fly to Charlotte. I’d booked a flight for the evening but I didn’t know if I would go. The thought of packing seemed daunting.

  I contemplated whether to pick up the receiver still lying on the back of the chair. I thought it was probably my brother or sister. It was Sunday, and if it’d been Parachuk, Amy would’ve told me. Finally I answered.

  “Ethan, John Collier here. I was about to hang up.” I was surprised to hear his voice. I hadn’t thought of him for years. “Jesus Christ, Ethan, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry for your loss. Truman…your grandfather called me last night in D.C. My God, this is just terrible.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  “I won’t ask how Amy is doing. I could just tell from her voice.”

  There was a long pause on the line and I tried to think of the last time I’d seen John Collier. I guess it was the last time he’d campaigned. Amy and I had gone to the Sheridan for a victory dinner, but mostly we did it for my grandfather. Collier was a Republican and Amy and I didn’t care much for his politics. But he was a family friend and a good man when he wasn’t acting as a senator.

  “I’m going to be honest with you, Ethan. Your grandfather tells me you have the local police trying to find out who the hell did this awful thing to your son. By God, I can’t tell you how shocked I was when Truman told me. It’s a damn awful thing to hear.”

  Like most politicians, John Collier could talk. But it was nice of him to call. He didn’t have to do that. I was moved by the gesture. But I also knew he had something on his mind. I waited for him to speak.

  “I’m sure the police are doing all they can over there, Ethan, but dammit, you should’ve called me. I know a few people in the bureau, you can well imagine, and I want them to get involved in this. Hell, Ethan, what’s it been now since…how long has it been?”

  “It’s been two weeks.”

  “That’s just it. Two weeks too long. Hell, there’s probably never been anything like this in that town of yours…what is it…Persia?”

  “Yes,” I said and emptied my glass. I poured another as I listened to him.

  “Your grandfather means a hell of a lot to me, Ethan, and I don’t want that old war horse feeling like he’s got his hands tied to his feet on this thing. I never heard him so upset as he was last night.”

  “He hasn’t called me since the funeral,” I said, not sure why I would impart that information.

  “Too damn upset, I imagine. And I know you and Amy can’t be thinking of anything right at the moment. Hell, Ethan, I’ve been thinking about nothing else since I was told last night! I can’t imagine how you two are coping. Anyway, I’m going to get some agents involved in this. Whoever the son of a bitch is who did this has to be found and brought to justice.”

  The gin was making me a little drunk, and I felt like laughing. I knew John Collier was sincere in what he said. But he was a politician after all, and it seemed like he was talking to one of his constituents, which I guess he was. But I knew he was close to my grandfather and so I was touched by his concern. Old Truman was eighty-seven and not in the best of health. He had an appetite for good food and good whiskey and fine cigars. I knew I’d have to call him in a few days to make sure he knew I was thinking of him. The fact that he’d learned Truman was gay and was still devastated by his death was very important to me, and would’ve been to Truman, too.

  “I can’t do anything right now, John. I’m flying down to my brother’s later today, and I’m just not capable of doing much beyond getting out of bed each morning, for the time being.”

  “You don’t have to worry about a thing, Ethan. I’ll take care of everything. How is Amy?”

  “She’s holding her own,” I lied.

  “Well, you’ll both be in my prayers, you can damn well be sure of that. I have to stay down here in this godforsaken town for some important votes, but as soon as I get back up there I’m going to come and see you two.”

  “That will be nice, John,” I lied again.

  “Is there anything I can do in the meantime, Ethan?”

  “No, thank you. There really isn’t. I’m just taking it a day at a time.”

  “Well, you just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “I will, John, and I appreciate the call.”

  “You take care now, and call Truman. He’ll wanna here from you.”

  I hung up the phone and drained my second glass. I didn’t really want the FBI involved. I was afraid it would set Amy off even more. Plus, I didn’t know what they could do that Nelson Parachuk wasn’t already doing. I supposed they could cross-reference similar cases to see if there had been other murders of gays in the area, but I could feel in all parts of me that this murder had not been done by some transient. Whoever had killed Truman lived in this town—about that, at least, I agreed with Amy. I decided I’d drink the rest of my pitcher and then call on Nelson Parachuk on a Sunday morning. I knew where he lived, and now that I’d once again been reminded that grief wasn’t enough in this situation, I wanted some answers about who killed my Truman.

  I was sure Wendy Parachuk thought I was a Jehovah’s Witness, or maybe a salesman, until I identified myself. Instantly her look of irritation turned to sympathy. She was a pretty woman with blonde hair and a small nose with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge. She had a slight figure and an attractive smile. I knew I’d seen her in town, but I couldn’t place her in a specific context. She opened the door and invited me into a modest but very neat and clean house. If they had children, they were made to look after their own messes, or else Nelson Parachuk’s wife was a stay-at-home mom. Either way, the house was immaculate. That boded well, I thought, for Parachuk’s investigative thoroughness. Maybe.

  She led me into what must’ve served as both a TV room and a study, with a wall of bookshelves bracketing a window looking onto the corner of another ranch-style house nearby. The television was on, quietly, in the corner, a Sunday news show discussing the economic woes of the country and world. I sat at the edge of an ottoman as Wendy Parachuk went to tell her husband I was here. I was impressed she wasn’t disturbed by my visit, but it could be that the four glasses of gin had clouded my judgment. I scanned the books as I waited: mostly historical biographies and historical novels, the same kind of material I was interested in. At the end of one shelf was a length of books devoted to children. It was either for their own children or grandchildren; it was hard to tell the age of either of the adult Parachuks.

  Parachuk entered soon after, wearing a pair of wool slacks, a white shirt and a cardigan sweater. He had comfortable slippers on his feet. He’d just shaved, which was evident by a small patch of shaving cream just beneath his right ear. He smelled of toiletries.

  “I’m sorry to call on a Sunday,” I said.

  “I don’t mind,” he said, his smile genuine and appealing.

  He had an Eastern European face, square and serious. Now that I was seeing him for the second time, I realized he must have been in his early fifties or late forties, which meant he’d married a woman who hadn’t aged much or was much younger. I guessed that the books at the end of the shelf were either reminders of a past they both shared, or for grandchildren. I hadn’t noticed any pictures in the room.

  “I’ve come to ask about the progress made on Truman’s…” I couldn’t finish the question and I suddenly felt tears welling in my eyes.

  He sat down in an overstuffed chair opposite me. He folded his hands together, his arms resting on his knees.

  “We’ve canvassed who may have seen or heard something in the area where we found Truman.” He shook his head. “Nothing to this point, I’m afraid to say. I spoke with Carly Rodenbaugh and she didn�
��t really have any ideas to help us with. Her boyfriend was Tommy Beck.”

  “Yes, Tommy Beck. Did you speak with him?”

  “I did, actually. Aside from having an overbearing father and a slight jealous streak…”

  “What do you mean ‘slight jealous streak’?”

  He looked at me for a flash of a second, not with anger, but perhaps with frustration. Some emotion I couldn’t discern.

  “He had a fight with a boy last summer. It had something to do with Carly. I wouldn’t have known about it except that Carly told me when I interviewed her. She said she thought he was jealous of Truman, too, but she wasn’t certain of that. No red flags went up when I questioned him. I haven’t erased him from the list of people of interest, but he seemed not to be the type who would do what was done to your son. Getting into a fistfight is one thing…”

  “It’s been two weeks, detective. My wife is having a lot of trouble with this. I’m having a lot of trouble with this.”

  “We’re doing as much as we can. I questioned Logan Marsh and there wasn’t much there.” I saw a shift in his demeanor for a flash. What did that mean? “We’ve questioned most of the friends Truman had on Facebook, those who seemed relevant or who seemed like they might know something. We are going to go over that list again. We are going to go from house to house, business to business, in the area of the square once again to see if anyone heard anything, saw anything. We suspect the weapon was a baseball bat but we haven’t turned anything up.”

  “Did you search the Beck boy’s house for a bat? He plays baseball, doesn’t he?”

  “We have to have reasonable cause to do something like that.” He looked at me with something close to admonishment, and I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “It didn’t help that your wife called Mrs. Beck accusing either her son or husband of the crime.”

  “She’s sick with grief,” I said too loudly. “And nothing’s been done to find the killer.”

  I looked down at the floor and shook my head.