“No, Tommy.” I let out a sigh and pulled away from him. “We’ve been through this before. You made a deal and I let you. Out to the field, mister.”
He came toward me again, his eyes fierce with desire. It was hard for me to resist, but I wasn’t letting him touch me with my period. No way.
“We haven’t made love all week, Carly. Please.”
I picked up the bat and ball from the grass and then picked up the glove and threw it at him. “Your turn in the outfield.”
He let the glove go past him without even trying to catch it. It landed on a patch of grass coming up through the clay at home plate.
“Look, we haven’t made love for maybe even longer than a whole fucking week. Fuck me going out to the outfield. I need you and you know it.”
“I’m not, Tommy. I’m not doing anything tonight.”
I walked over to where the glove lay and put it down the barrel of the bat. I walked over to where his glove was near the backstop and put that over the bat also. When I was through, I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders.
“I love you, Tommy Beck, but the answer is no tonight. I want to go home and go to bed.”
I started walking toward the service road and I could feel Tommy watching me. I wasn’t going to turn around. He’d either follow me or not. At some point, I think after I got my sandals back on and then hit the service road, I heard and then felt the whiz of the ball go past my head. I couldn’t believe it. I turned and he was standing near the dugout glaring at me.
“You fucking asshole,” I shouted. “You ASSHOLE. You came this close to hitting me in the head!”
He shrugged and didn’t say anything. I turned and kept walking. I could feel the gravel under the thin souls of my sandals. Near the municipal building it was darker, only one lone light at the entrance to the door. As I walked I tried to listen for Tommy coming up behind me, but the wind blocked out any chance of that. I couldn’t hear anything but tree branches hitting each other. As I got closer to the square, I saw someone was sitting on the bench that faced the dead soldier’s memorial. At first I thought it was Tommy and he’d run around the front of the municipal building. I knew he’d want to apologize, that’s most of what he did anymore. But then I realized it was Truman. He was sitting on the back of the bench with his feet on the seat. He seemed to be studying the stone edifice, his chin in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. I felt myself smile.
He was alone. Only Truman would be in the square in the middle of the night staring at a stone memorial. I was sure he didn’t hear me coming up on him. I hadn’t seen him in school the whole week and I was glad to see him now. I was hoping Tommy was mad enough that he’d walked off, leaving me to make my own way home. I wanted to sit quietly with Truman. Maybe he even had some weed he’d share with me.
For the first time I heard the rumble of some thunder at the edge of the darkness in the distance toward Chatham. How many miles is that away? I remember thinking. Truman must’ve heard it, too, despite his concentration, because he turned to look and then he saw me. I saw him smile his Truman smile, the smile that could make me happy no matter what.
“Playing with yourself, Carly Rodenbaugh?” he said.
I thought he was being a jackass but then I remembered I was carrying a bat with two gloves.
“What are you doing here, Truman?”
“Trying to figure out what these guys are doing here when they should’ve been somewhere other than dead on some foreign land.”
I got within the circle of light from the one overhead lamp and I could tell from his face he was happy to see me. He had on a pair of jeans, no socks, a black Moby T-shirt and a jeans jacket. His hair was shorter than the last time I’d seen him. He stood from the bench and came over and hugged me. It felt good being in his arms, smelling his smell, the smell of Old Spice and something indigenous to Truman.
He pulled back and looked at me the way an uncle you haven’t seen in a while looks at you. My goodness, Carly, but you’ve grown up since last time I saw you.
“Well, have you?” he finally said.
“Have I what?”
“Been playing with yourself.”
I laughed. Truman Engroff always made me happy, and especially that night. I was so glad to see him. I was tired of all the complications of Tommy. Not that Truman wasn’t complicated. God, how did I get involved with these sorts of boys? But with Truman it was different. I know that if he’d said at that moment, Let’s run away together, Carly, I would have done it.
“No, really, Truman, what are you doing here? Where were you tonight?”
He walked over and sat down on the bench. He patted the empty space next to him. I leaned the bat at the edge of the bench and sat beside him. Where the fuck was Tommy?
“Ethan and Amy wanted to get it on tonight, so I thought I’d give them a little time alone.”
“What makes you think that?” I looked at his profile. He was the kind of person who’d get better looking the older he got. He had both of his parents in his face, his expressions, the way he moved.
He turned and looked at me, suddenly intense. “I just know. I know all.”
“Are you high, Truman?”
He smiled at me. “If I am, you want to know because…because you want some, too.”
“Fuck you. I just wonder because I never know.”
“Never know what? If I’m high or not? That’s not a very kind thing to say.”
“I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that when you say things like, ‘I know all,’ if most people said that I’d just think, they’re high, but with you…”
“With me what?”
“Don’t keep asking me questions.”
“What questions?”
I pushed his shoulder hard.
“You don’t know your own strength, Carly. It’s from all that jock stuff you do with that jock guy.”
I looked out into the dark beyond the circle. Was Tommy listening in on what we were saying? What Truman was saying.
I wanted to change the subject quickly. “So where were you tonight?”
“Where were you?” He leaned around me and looked at the bat and gloves leaning against the bench.
“I was hitting the ball with Tommy up on the ball field. For some reason the lights are on tonight.”
“See, I told you. The two jocks hitting the ball.”
“Shhh, Truman! Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?”
“Oh, my God, you’re frustrating. Please stop! Tell me where you were tonight.”
“I will in a minute. But first tell me if you’ve been hitting the baseball all night long with your jock friend.”
“No, Truman, I haven’t. I went to the movies with Caroline. You’d approve of that. You like Caroline.”
“What’d you see?”
“Shutter Island.”
“How was it?”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked at the names on the memorial for the hundredth time. Private Paul Price, Union Soldier, 1839–1862: Flowers have been spread on the path to Heaven. Linstrom Holbrooke, World War I, fallen soldier on the battleground of Chateau-Thierry, 1897–1918. Forty-three men from this small town in New Jersey, dying in six wars. This was my and Truman’s place. I always felt so close to him whenever he let me inside for just a while.
“Were you really thinking of those men?” I said.
“Yes, I was.” I knew he’d know what the question meant. “I mean, Jesus Christ, what would you think if you were so far from home and you knew you might be seconds away from dying? Our age, Carly. Or maybe a little older.” He nodded over to the names. “Pick a name.”
“Lindstrom,” I said.
“Okay. French soil. An hour away from Paris. In all, in that May-to-July battle for the Marne, 67,000 Americans died. Lindstrom Holbrooke was one of them. Twenty-three. What did he want, Carly?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Did he have a wife and kids?”
“Who knows? Must’ve been a farmer or small business guy, right? Maybe he liked New York, went to restaurants, the theatre, museums. Took the train in and his parents were suspicious about him going into the city so often.”
“Maybe he was married and his wife was pregnant and he had a mistress in the city. She put a lot of demands on him. His wife did, too. So he joined the army. Get away from it all for a while.”
“So who did he think of just before he died?”
“None of them,” I said. Truman looked at me with admiration.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said. “He thought about the farm, about the fields he’d never walk on again, the barn he’d never go into again, the cows he’d never smell again. He thought about the glass of red wine he’d never have in a Paris café.”
“There’s a lot of nevers for these guys. A whole wall of incomplete lives for something nobody has ever been able to figure out. Most of it because of some male thing or something that makes so many people end up etched on stones like this one. And what really gets me is that their fathers send them off proudly.”
“Not all fathers. Ethan wouldn’t send you off. He’d rather go himself.”
He laughed loudly. “Why don’t you just say you’d like to sleep with him, Carly! It never stops with you and my dad.” He nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. “Amy will never forgive you.”
“Fuck you, Truman. Let’s be serious for a minute. Your dad would never send you to war. He’d get you out somehow, even if he had to send you to Canada.”
Truman looked at the wall of stone for a long time. “Both of them, I guess. Amy wouldn’t let me go, either. But I wouldn’t need them. I wouldn’t go no matter what. The reason why is right in front of us. Those wars are forgotten, or will be forgotten, and so are they.”
He nodded toward the names on the walls. “I’ve thought about that a lot, Carly. I’m sure the immediate families were devastated by the loss of these boys, but then what? After that they just become names.” He nudged me again. “Only you and I keep them slightly alive.”
“And maybe one of these guys would have written a great book or invented something.”
“Yes! That’s what I meant before. Incomplete. Who knows? No one knows!”
“And they never will,” I said sadly. “You should write some poems about them. You know, like Spoon River Anthology.”
“Nope,” he said, and I knew he meant it. “Too much hard work. I’d rather just come out here every so often and think about them, or think for them.” He pointed toward the names. “Lindstrom. Thinking for him. Something like that.”
I laughed. “I never thought of it that way. That’s what we do when we come out here. We’re thinking for them.”
“Yeah, like Lindstrom over there thinking about his cows more than his mistress or his wife.”
“I don’t know all, but I know certain things. A guy with the name of Lindstrom is going to love his cows.”
“I wonder what Strom Thurmond thought about just before he kicked the bucket. Chickens?”
“Who’s Strom Thurmond?”
“Never mind, Carly.”
We were quiet for a long time. There were rumbles of thunder in the far distance, louder than before, and the wind was coming on stronger. It blew my hair around. I love the wind. Always have. When I was a little girl my dad use to say if there was a God, it was him blowing tender kisses to us down on earth. I wanted to put my hand on Truman, touch him somewhere, but we’d gotten so distant I would never do that. I was afraid he’d tell me not to or make fun of me. I wouldn’t be able to stand if he ever laughed at how I felt toward him. I couldn’t take the risk. I thought of the times we’d been above his garage kissing each other and I knew they were always the most tender times I’d ever had, the sweetness of our lips touching and my heart racing with the touch of his hands on my face, my neck, my arms and legs. Sweet, sweet Truman. I looked at his profile as he looked out beyond the lighted part of the square. He was right. I did have a thing for his dad, but only because he reminded me of Truman or Truman reminded me of him or whatever. At least when I saw Ethan he had no hesitation about putting his arm around me, kissing me on the cheek. It felt good even if it was once removed.
“I can’t wait to leave this town,” I said. I wasn’t sure why.
“Why? Being the most popular girl in the school, the prettiest girl in the school, playing softball and dating your jock boyfriend isn’t enough for you?”
“Fuck you, Engroff!” a voice said loudly in the dark behind the memorial. We both jumped a little. I’d almost forgotten I’d been with Tommy. He walked into the light. “I might be a jock but you’re a loser.”
“Jesus Christ, Tommy! You scared the shit out of us.”
He walked onto the square of concrete where the memorial stood, and the benches across from it. He stood in front of the memorial.
“What other bullshit were you saying about me?” he said angrily.
“You would know,” Truman said. “You’ve been standing in the dark almost the whole time.”
“No I haven’t, asshole.”
“Yeah you have…what is it? Tommy or Tom nowadays? I saw you out there listening. And of course you assumed we were talking about you.”
I got up from the bench and walked over to Tommy, stood in front of him so I blocked him from Truman.
“Go home, Tommy. You nearly hit me with the fucking baseball before and right now I don’t really want to see you.”
“I was joking around, Carly. I didn’t realize it was going to get that close to you.”
I could feel Truman looking at the back of my head. I felt embarrassed talking to Tommy in front of him. I looked into Tommy’s eyes and it scared me. I could see that anger that always seemed to be behind what could and should have been a blue tenderness, like the tenderness I’d just felt with Truman. I felt like I was being pulled in two different directions, one of them so frightening it was like looking down a well where you knew far down there was black water, scary and inescapable. It had taken this moment, I realized, when Tommy and Truman were both present, for me to see the incredible contrast between the two of them.
“Go home, Tommy! I want you to leave me alone.”
He peered around me to look at Truman, and I turned too to see Truman back in his original position, sitting on the edge of the back of the bench as if he wanted to have a better view of what was going on between Tommy and me. I almost laughed thinking about it. Truman always the observer, always wanting to watch something unfold, detached and entertained at the same time.
“What? So you can sit with your little girlfriend over there and talk about dead people? Jesus Christ, Carly, get real.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “You had no right to be listening in on a conversation that had nothing to do with you.”
“But he thinks everything is about him, Carly,” Truman said.
Tommy shot out a finger at him. “You shut the fuck up if you know what’s good for you.” His anger beginning to boil now. But I didn’t care at this point. I just wanted him to leave. “I was just fucking around, Carly. But can we go away from him and talk for a minute?”
“No,” I said too abruptly. “No, we can’t. I mean, look at you! You get stranger every time I see you.”
He put his hands on my arms and started to walk backwards, trying to pull me with him. His hands were squeezing me so hard it hurt. I wrenched myself free from him. “Stop it, Tommy! I don’t want to talk right now. If you want to talk tomorrow, we can do that, but what I want you to do right now is leave!”
He let out a laugh. “Me strange? You wanna talk about strange? Look behind you.” He leaned around me again and looked at Truman.
“You’re pathetic, Carly. I knew you’d changed, but I didn’t know how much until right now.”
Those words coming from Truman shocked and hurt me. I turned to him and he looked at me like he didn’t even know me.
“How long have you
been with this guy?” Truman said to me, his voice full of disdain. He came down from the bench and stood there smiling, but it wasn’t a smile I’d ever seen from him before. I realized that if I let him walk away, it would all be over between us. I knew he felt the same way I did at that very moment. Some beautiful something had been broken between us in that instant, the intimacies we’d both loved for so much of our lives together.
What was it? Ten minutes at the most, but in those few minutes we’d been the old Truman and Carly. Best friends, and I knew Truman had felt it, too. Yes, we’d smoked weed together occasionally, but this had been different. This had been like before. And then Tommy had walked in and it was like taking a needle on one of those old records my dad still listened to and scratching it across some beautiful piece of music. It was abrupt and ugly.
“Long enough to know how fucked up you are, pal,” Tommy shouted. He grabbed my arms again and pulled me around to look at him. “Carly! Look at me.” He shook me as if he were trying to bring me out of a trance. “Look at me! Let’s get out of here. Leave the weirdo over there to commune with the dead.”
I wrenched away from him again. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone, Tommy!”
“Go with him, Carly. You deserve each other. I don’t want anything to do with either of you.”
I looked at Truman and I couldn’t believe he was saying this to me. I felt completely betrayed. How could he not see that I wanted nothing more to do with Tommy? For a moment I’d felt free, but now with Truman looking at me like I was some stranger, my anger made me suddenly scream, and I did.
I think it was one of those moments that I will look back on and wonder for all the time I’m alive why I did it. Or why what happened next happened. Suddenly Tommy pushed me out of the way and walked toward Truman.
“I told you to shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
Truman stood looking at him without the slightest fear, with almost an amused look on his face. Tommy reached him and pushed him so hard Truman went backwards over the bench. Tommy went over it, too, and landed on Truman, getting his arms around his neck in a wrestling hold I’d seen him perform in competition. Truman never said a word, didn’t try to defend himself. He just lay there as docile as if he were dead. I ran around the bench and grabbed Tommy by the arm and tried to pull him away.
Beneath the Weight of Sadness Page 25
