Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  I had to think what Matt Linquist would be doing now. “I’m a lawyer in Patterson. Mostly doing stuff I don’t want to do. I started out with the ACLU. I should’ve stayed there.”

  She smiled brightly after taking a bite of her venison burger. She pointed down at the plate. “I was raised on venison. Like every other man in this area, my father hunted. I even tried it once, but I couldn’t kill anything, let alone those pretty animals. Let someone else do it.”

  “So you’re a doctor. Where’d you go to medical school?”

  “University of Pennsylvania.”

  “Ah,” I said, smiling. “Our rivals. I went to Columbia. So’d my wife.”

  She wiped her hands on her napkin and then offered her hand. We shook hands and laughed.

  “Have you ever been married, Bea?”

  “Nope. Never got around to it. Almost, once.”

  We both ate for a while in silence. Knowing her background: This wasn’t the way I’d planned it. Lois would’ve been the obvious choice, but as we sat there, I realized I probably couldn’t’ve pulled it off going in that direction. I wasn’t equipped with the facility some men had. I’d never been that way.

  Finally she said, “Do you have kids?”

  The question surprised me. Since Truman had been gone, I’d only been around people who knew not to ask a question like that, who knew that the subject of my son’s existence was inviolable. But of course that was one of the first questions people our age asked each other. It was part of being an adult, part of any introductory conversation.

  “Yes,” I said, “I have a son. He’s seventeen years old. Truman.”

  “I’ve never had children. I always found ways for that not to happen. I guess I regret it in a way.”

  “Don’t,” I said. “A lot of things can happen when you have children. A lot of things you don’t anticipate.”

  She looked at me levelly. “You and…Truman don’t get along.”

  I shook my head and thought about how to answer that question. How could I say only one thing about Truman and not say everything? How was there a way to sum up how empty I felt without him in the world?

  “We get along very well,” I finally said. “But his whole life I’ve worried about his welfare, I’ve worried about my responsibility to make certain he’s safe.” I smiled at her. “And that’s hard when you have a son who wants to hack away at his own path to the future.”

  “I would think that’s what every parent would want.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly what they want.” I took a sip of my whiskey. “So why didn’t you have kids?”

  She laughed and covered her mouth. “For one thing it’s hard to find someone to have kids with.” She nodded her head in the direction of the bar. “Not a lot of choice in the gene pool around here.” She looked down at her drink and twisted the glass around, clicking the ice. “I guess I got too busy watching out for other people’s kids, too. There’s some pretty sad stuff going on in an area like this. Not that here has any exclusivity on the vile ways kids are treated by adults sometimes, even adults who’ve brought them into the world.”

  I looked over to the bar and got Lois’s attention. I pointed to our drinks and put two fingers in the air. I wanted to drink more bourbon so I could get the idea of Truman out of my mind, get back to the very welcome distraction Bea was providing. I looked back at her and she smiled.

  “I guess I could have one more. I’m off tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m over at the Colton Point Motel. Maybe we could have a nightcap there. I only have whiskey in my bag, though.”

  She looked at me curiously and then smiled. “I haven’t been so smoothly romanced by a guy in a long time.”

  I put my hands in the air in surrender. “I didn’t mean it that way. Really. I just came up here to get away from things, get some hiking in, maybe, do another thing or two. I didn’t expect to meet someone like you or that I would invite someone like you back to my motel room.”

  She rested her chin on her hands and stared into my eyes. I’d bet children felt instant comfort by the green of them. I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.

  “I like whiskey,” she finally said.

  There are those moments in my life where everything seems to fall into place as if the universe has rested its laser beam on me. How could I have anticipated that taking Beatrice Kimble back to the Colton Point Motel would’ve been something far more profound than what I’d thought would only get me to where I needed to go? She opened her legs to me in the way I knew she must’ve opened her heart to the children she treated. I was overwhelmed by her sexiness, by her composure when I entered her, as if we’d been lovers for years. And yet I could instantly sense it had been a long time since she’d been with a man. What’s more, I didn’t have an ounce of guilt or regret—at least at that moment. Throughout our entire marriage, I’d never been unfaithful to Amy. Never even thought of being with another woman. But ever since I’d entered that room and seen my boy’s lovely body violated into un-Truman, all I’d previously thought to be sanctified now seemed ground to dust.

  As we made love, I realized the flush that I’d seen on Bea was not the result of alcohol, but a tender and tantalizing rigidity I hadn’t anticipated. Beatrice was a name I associated with blue hair and gossip, but it was splendid on Bea, in the same way that an iceberg off the Florida coast would be splendid. She was lovely and tender and, when I awoke in the morning, her body entwined in my own, my resolve had begun to wane. I knew, though, I had to marshal whatever it took. I wasn’t doing this for me or Amy, but for my dead son, and so I sat up in bed with my back to Bea and I waited for her to wake. When she did, and placed her hand on my bare shoulder, I didn’t turn but looked at the opposite wall with the painting of the Grand Canyon, which was probably displayed in every room, and said to my new lover, “I need to buy a gun.”

  Her hand froze on my back. What would I have thought had our roles been reversed? I didn’t know.

  “I don’t understand,” she finally said.

  “I was arrested in protest of the Iraq war. I have a record because of it.”

  I felt her sit up. She pulled her hand away, but I didn’t want to turn toward her. I was fairly certain if I did, I would tell her the truth.

  “This is why I’m here?” she asked. I could sense the hurt in her voice.

  “Not now it isn’t. It was.”

  There was a long silence and I could feel her breath on my shoulders. It felt accusatory.

  “Why?”

  “Why what,” I said.

  “Why do you need a gun?”

  “I can’t tell you why. I just need one.”

  She laughed. “You’re not going to knock off a convenience store, are you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “If I do this, will I ever see you again?”

  “If you’d asked me that eight hours ago, I’d’ve said no. Or I might have said yes, but I’d have been lying. But now I don’t know.”

  I felt her roll over so that her back was toward me.

  “Don’t do me any favors,” she said.

  “I’m trying to be honest with you. I didn’t say that to hurt you. I said it because I needed someone to buy me a gun. I had no idea this would be…” I stopped there because I didn’t know how to finish.

  “I feel like hitting you,” she finally said. “You probably think I’m a whore.”

  Then I did turn. Her back was to me, and I lay next to her and put my arms around her waist. “I think you’re lovely.”

  She spit out a laugh. “Jesus Christ.” She shook her head. “I imagine you lost your license to practice.”

  “It was suspended for a year,” I lied.

  “So next you’ll tell me you’re still happily married. Or maybe that’s why you want the gun. You’re not happily married.”

  I smelled her hair, shampoo still lingering, and her neck and her shoulders, and I had the urge to make love to her again without
remorse or regret or guilt. My life had changed so dramatically in two months. I felt like I was another person but in the same skin. I had even had a moment of lusting after Carly Rodenbaugh. The world would never be the same for me, and lying next to this woman only confirmed that fact.

  “I don’t need it to kill anyone, Bea. I need it for protection. You may or you may not know that Patterson, New Jersey, is not the safest town to live in, even the nicer parts. My house was broken into twice. People have no respect for anything anymore.”

  She laughed and I felt the heave of her shoulders. She remained facing the wall. “You’d fit right here. When you say ‘people,’ I imagine you mean blacks.”

  “No, I don’t. I mean people who think the law doesn’t pertain to them. I mean people who are so full of hate and self-importance they think their idea of justice is embraced by everyone.”

  “And that, you think, is the kind of people who broke into your house?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. But I do know that if I’d been inside my house with a gun at the time those people decided they could just come in and take what they wanted, I would probably not be here right now.”

  “So you thought you would come up here and charm the pants off some woman and then get her to buy you a gun?”

  “I thought I would pay someone to buy me a gun. I never thought I would be next to you this morning, Bea. Please believe me. I thought maybe Lois would do it for me if I offered her money.”

  “From the arrows she shot across to me, I think she’d’ve done it for other reasons. Like I said, there isn’t a lot to choose from in this area.”

  She sat up suddenly and turned to me. She had perfect breasts, probably because she’d never had children. I felt a sudden intense desire. She pushed me flat on the bed, her hands on my chest. “Okay, Matt Linquist. I’ll buy you a gun. I don’t know why I will. I’ll probably regret it, but I’ll do it for you.”

  She leaned down and kissed me, putting her tongue inside my mouth. Her breath was sweet, and for the second time in less than a day I was about to fuck a woman who wasn’t my wife.

  Carly

  Five Days after Truman’s death

  You think it is Tommy, but it is not. It has nothing to do with him. I hope he dies right now. I hope he is caught and put in prison for the rest of his life, strapped to a table and injected with something to kill him. Truman. No. It cannot be. Tommy could not have done that! No way! I still cannot believe my Truman is dead. I cannot believe I stood there and watched it happen, that I didn’t run and take the bat away from Tommy. That I didn’t stand between Tommy and Truman. That I didn’t go to the police right away. That I didn’t.

  I remember I went inside the house and I could hear the rain coming down so hard. I thought for certain it would wake my father, or that he’d already be up waiting for me. I know if I’d walked into the living room and he’d been sitting there, his face etched with concern, I would’ve told him everything. Why didn’t I tell him? Everything would’ve been different from that moment on. Yes. Everything would’ve been different. Everything. I would’ve never been able to walk into the Engroff house again, never put my arms around Amy or Ethan, never been able to walk into Truman’s room and smell him, sense his presence.

  But I wasn’t thinking that then. Not when I ran home. I wanted to get in my shower and wash away the shouting, the fists I’d seen Tommy use on Truman’s body. I scrubbed and scrubbed and it would not go away. I got under the covers and put the comforter over my head. I could still hear the sound of the rain crashing down, against the window, and it was like Truman’s voice telling me to do something. And all the time I lay there and heard Truman’s silence, all the time Tommy was attacking him and I knew that his silence was directed toward me. I knew he was saying to me, Why were you with this person? What could possibly have made you want to be with this person? And all the while I’m saying to Truman, I only wanted you. You know that! It is just like you, God damn you, to be private in your murder! Not a word from you. Not a look of admonishment toward me. And all the time I knew you were totally fucking against me hooking up with Tommy Beck, but you never said a word. You never once said, “I don’t understand what you like about him. You are so much smarter and more interesting than that.”

  And when my father came up after church and told me the news about Truman, the first thing I thought was Tommy did not do that. There is no way the boy I have slept with the past few years has murdered my Truman. No way. And so I did not say I was there the morning Truman was killed. I couldn’t.

  And Ethan. If he knew I’d been there, how could I have ever looked at him again? How could I ever again see my Truman in his face, his actions, the way he smiles?

  Carly girl. Go upstairs and make Truman smile. Go up there and do your magic. I felt privileged. I always felt privileged there. All three of them made me feel privileged. A genuine friend of the Engroff family. Such a good friend I could just walk in the side door and go through the kitchen and head on upstairs. Not say a word if I didn’t feel like it. Just head on upstairs and knock on Truman’s door—no matter who you were, you always had to knock—and then go in. Go into the inner sanctum of Truman Engroff’s private world. I was allowed in there and very few other people were.

  But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be a part of him. I wanted to share everything with him. And he just wouldn’t let me, wouldn’t let anyone. But the Engroffs love me. They trust me. Amy knows I mourn as much as she does. I suffer as she does.

  Drink wine, she said, and I knew I couldn’t ever tell them. A boy I’d actually let enter my body, whisper in my ear, trace the full length of me with his lips. How do I tell Ethan and Amy that? How do I tell my father and mother that?

  He calls me every day. He texts me. He attempts to reach me on Facebook. He comes up to me in the hall. I cannot stand the sight of him.

  Please Carly, he whispers. Please believe me when I tell you I did not do that! Please, won’t you believe me? But that is as far as he goes. He doesn’t dare go any further. He knows there is that thin line that, if crossed, would push me to go to the police. To walk in and finally tell Detective Parachuk what I saw. That I was at that square and so was Tommy Beck. But I couldn’t. I can’t.

  When I was told by my father that Truman had been murdered, bludgeoned to death, and I thought of the long night in my bed with the rain thundering down, the covers felt as if they weighed more than my entire seventeen fucking years of living. It was more than I was capable of pushing off me to walk into my parents’ room and announce I’d just witnessed the only boy I’d ever loved beaten to death by an imposter: a stealer of my heart, of my virginity, of my Truman.

  When my father sat next to me on my bed and I wept into his smell and the heat of his body and his strength, I was thinking, And all the while the rain kept thundering down on the roof above me, and I could visualize Truman out there, alone, with the other dead, unable to speak his outrage, unable to turn his Truman eyes toward me with absolute admonishment. If he could have, this is what he would have said: This is what you chose, Carly? This is the way my life ended? How could you do this to me? How could you forsake my life for such a violent, dull-witted person? I thought I knew you better than that. I thought you were the Carly who I could always trust in to be by my side, to accept me for who I am. I thought you loved me, Carly Rodenbaugh. I thought we were lovers sharing our life with no one else. I thought.

  And still, I said to myself, Tommy could not have done that.

  And the next morning, before we all knew about Truman, my father knocked on my door. I’d heard them stirring when the black became grey through my window and I began to hear the birds, like the final violation of what had happened in the black hole of night where all of my life was pulled into a vortex of anger. I wondered: How could the birds sing? How could my father knock on my door? Carly-Barly, are you awake? Didn’t he know, couldn’t he hear the hate under the covers that still would not release me, or see th
at he could no longer give me pet names? No one could after what I’d done. Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

  The sun is coming out today. I took Tug for a walk and it’s going to be the first, the very first real day of spring. Not our fault you stayed out way too late. And then the knocking again. My father. He was the one person who trusted me always. The only person to know about Truman without really knowing about Truman. How in the hell did that kid get so goddamn smart? Stick with him, Carly. There ain’t too many out there who can match wits with you, Carly-Barly. I like that kid.

  I remember once, a few years ago or more, he came to my room and sat down next to me. I could smell him, his cologne, the first whiskey on his breath. He is handsome. My father is handsome. I could feel the heat of his love next to me.

  “Why are you crying?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Of course I knew, but I didn’t think I could say. My handsome father put his arm around me.

  “Is it Truman?” he asked.

  I began to cry again and he pulled my head into his chest. I felt so protected at that moment. My lovely father.

  “I don’t know what I can do,” I finally said. “He’s so fucking frustrating.” It was the first time I’d ever ever used the word “fuck” in his presence.

  “Why?” he finally said.

  “We’ve always been friends, right? I mean, it’s always been Truman and me. Our whole lives. And now I feel like a stranger.”

  “When did this come about?” he asked.

  I couldn’t tell if he was placating me. I was only fifteen. Not old enough in the eyes of most adults to be truly heartbroken. But my father knew how close Truman and I had been for nearly our whole lives. Because of that I think he took this moment seriously.

  “It’s been gradual. I mean, I feel like I’m not welcome. No, that’s wrong too. I’m welcome, but I’m not allowed to know everything about him anymore.”

  My father laughed. “Carly, he’s a boy. He’s fifteen. He’s trying to figure out who he is. Boys at that age have no idea. They know so little about themselves that they begin to withdraw, if they’re smart, and make a lot of noise if they’re not. Truman is smart, so he’s not going to do a lot of sounding off and he’s going to pull back from the world. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”