by Ivan Blake
“I guess she was in the kitchen, cooking or cleaning up after breakfast, when she got the call from Principal Dell’s office saying Floyd had left school without permission after some sort of fight. She thought he’d come straight home, only he didn’t show up until almost suppertime.
“In fact, Mr. Balzer got home before Floyd. She saw him park the pickup back of the house, get out, scream something, and bang his fist on the hood of the truck. Then he disappeared down among the sheds.
“Mr. Balzer runs his company from an office in town. His drivers park their rigs behind the Balzers’ house when they’re not on the road, however. He has a couple of sheds and mechanics back there for fixing them. Every day, when he comes home for dinner, I guess he checks with the guys to find out which trucks are running and which still need work. Anyway, Floyd’s mother figured that’s what he was doing.
“About fifteen minutes later, Floyd arrived. He didn’t come into the house either. Instead, he headed out back as well. Floyd has his own shed behind one of the garages. It’s a kind of clubhouse, with a record player, a new Nintendo, and girls’ pictures on the wall, and magazines, and stuff. Mrs. Balzer wasn’t allowed to go in there because Mr. Balzer said a boy needs a place where he can learn to be a man.
“Because there are these big floodlights back there, his mom could see Floyd was hurt and having trouble walking, so she called after him. He didn’t answer. She wanted to follow him, but didn’t because she was afraid her husband would be mad at her for coddling Floyd.
“A little later, she heard music playing, then voices yelling. She was kind of surprised because she hadn’t seen anyone else go down to Floyd’s shed. The shed wasn’t visible from the kitchen so somebody might have gone there from another direction. Anyway, after the yelling ended and the music stopped, she heard nothing else.
“When the meal was ready, she called Floyd and his dad from the back steps. They didn’t answer. She phoned the main garage, and asked one of the mechanics working late to tell her husband and son their supper was ready. The guy said he hadn’t seen either of them all afternoon.
“Immediately she sensed something was wrong, so she walked down to Floyd’s shed, called out to him and knocked on the door. No answer. Maybe Floyd had gone off with his friends when she wasn’t looking, so she started back to the house. Then she saw her husband staring at her from the cab of a parked truck. Just sitting there. I guess she got scared, so she went back to the shed and banged on the door again, then pushed it open. Before going inside, she looked back at her husband, half expecting him to scream at her to leave the boy alone. He was still sitting there, head down on the steering wheel. She went inside the shed...and found Floyd.
“Floyd’s feet weren’t more than six inches from the ground. A box had been kicked to one side. The noose dangling from the rafter was so tight around Floyd’s neck, the mechanics had to cut into his flesh to get it off. The moment Floyd kicked the box away, he must have regretted it because he’d fought desperately to loosen the noose. His throat was shredded and fingernails ripped away.
“Even worse, his eyes were swollen shut and lips split and bloody. He’d been beaten to a pulp before even getting on the box...or before someone put him up there. Floyd’s mom said she almost didn’t recognize him. For an instant, she thought it might not be him, perhaps a friend of his. Then she knew the truth, and she screamed and screamed.”
“What did Floyd’s dad do?”
“I guess it seemed like forever before anybody came. First, the mechanics working late ran in, and then, sometime later, Floyd’s dad. One of the mechanics had already lifted Floyd down. Mr. Balzer started screaming and hugging Floyd’s body and sobbing. He screamed he would make somebody pay for Floyd’s death...that he’d make the Chandlers pay.”
“My family, Balzer said my family? Why?”
“Don’t know. Maybe because you stole Floyd’s girlfriend, and that’s why Floyd killed himself?”
“Mallory was never Floyd’s girlfriend. She had a business arrangement with Floyd’s dad.”
“What?”
“Ed Balzer has been paying Mallory to pretend to be Floyd’s girlfriend—to conceal the fact Floyd was gay.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“You knew Floyd was gay?”
“No, but I knew he wasn’t the macho idiot he pretended to be,” Gillian said.
“He had me fooled.”
“Floyd and I were close once, back before my father died.”
“Close?”
“We were kids, played together all the time, for years. Floyd was always over at our house. We liked the same books, liked hanging out down at the beach, and drawing and stuff. Believe it or not, he wanted to be a painter one day. Back then, he was...well...very sweet, gentle even. Then the fight between our dads and the accident, and Floyd changed. He wasn’t allowed to come to my house anymore. Started being the tough guy. Then in high school, he hooked up with Mallory, and we rarely spoke after that.”
“So Floyd had lots of reasons to kill himself—a dad determined to beat his son straight, a girlfriend taking money to put up with him, and a secret life made public in the most humiliating way possible. No wonder the poor slob hung himself.”
“I’m not sure. I knew Floyd. I always thought he was sort of brave, what, with a drunk and a bully for a dad. I just don’t think he would hang himself.”
“His dad then? You think his dad beat him up...and hung him as well?”
“He was only a few feet from the shed and didn’t come running when the screaming began, like he knew what he’d find.”
“Does Floyd’s mother think that?”
“God no, I hope not. I’m sure she’d go mad if she thought her husband killed her son. Besides, I think she’s afraid of him. I think he beats her as well.”
“This just gets worse and worse,” Chris whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.
“That’s why no one in town wants to believe it. It’s so much easier to think losing a girlfriend and being humiliated by a cartoon made Floyd kill himself.”
“Only the police insist the cartoon is a lie, so how can they think he would kill himself over a lie?”
“I’m not saying the explanation makes any sense.”
“Rather than confront Ed Balzer, the police would prefer to blame whoever drew the cartoon for pushing Floyd over the edge.”
Chris put his hand over Gillian’s. “I promise, it wasn’t me.”
“I know, but someone did.”
“Maybe Floyd told a buddy what his dad did to him?”
“I don’t think so. Floyd’s reputation as the richest and toughest kid around was too important to him to ever tell his jock buddies any different.” Then she added, “Mallory Dahlman?”
“Kind of obvious isn’t it...but she says no.”
“Well, somebody drew the cartoon, somebody who knew the most intimate things about Floyd, somebody who realized how fragile Floyd was, somebody extremely cruel who wanted to cause Floyd the worst kind of pain. Know anybody else like that?”
He didn’t answer.
* * * *
Chris bundled up as best he could be in his tiny, damp sleeping space and thought about death.
A north-easterly gale off the Atlantic howled up through the orchard and whirled around the house. Every window rattled. Rafters groaned and cracked. Shutters whistled and creaked and occasionally banged against the old house. Out in the darkness, shapes—probably leaves and branches and sea mists—cavorted and pranced about. Inside the attic, drafts like frozen fingers probed every corner and even beneath Chris’s icy sheets.
Several days had passed since Chris had seen or heard anything from Doctor Meath. All the same, he’d checked the pop-bottle alarm system before turning in.
Whatever would Floyd’s family inscribe on his headstone? Not the truth, that’s for sure, not that he’d been gay, and beaten to death by his own father. Headstones often lied, of that Chris was pretty certain.
The truth of who Floyd Balzer had been in his short, pathetic life had only begun to emerge after he died, after his nightmarish days were cut short, and after his battered corpse had been cut down from the rafters of the tiny shed.
What did Abner Willard’s gravestone say? O Death the Healer...Pain lays not its touch upon a corpse. It would have been comforting to think Floyd’s death had put an end to his pain.
It had become clear to Chris in the past few days most people in Bemishstock didn’t want to hear the truth about Floyd Balzer, least of all his family. They preferred the lie. So, if the truth of who one was in life remains a secret in death as well, then does it follow one’s pain continues right along with the lie?
Chapter Twelve
Monday, November 25
Floyd’s funeral was scheduled for eleven a.m., and students were expected to show up for early classes before going to the service. Everyone attending would be released from school at ten-thirty for the short walk across town to the grand old Episcopal Church. Chris had arranged to meet his parents in the parking lot of Millie’s Coffee Shop, midway between the school and the church, so they could go to the service together.
The bus ride to school was somber—none of the usual shouting and taunts and bouncing around from seat to seat. Even the Gobbler had on a dark suit. He didn’t acknowledge Chris and Gillian as they climbed aboard. Chris sat with Gillian who had on a dress, not that he could see much of it because she was bundled up in a duffel coat and tuque against the raw November wind. Even so, Chris found himself transfixed by the sight of her knees; not boney or scraped as he had expected, but smooth and shapely.
“Are you looking at my legs?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t!” she said, and punched his shoulder. Their eyes met, and Gillian frowned before looking away in embarrassment.
“Hey, thanks for dinner on Saturday,” Chris said. “I loved it. And thank your mom for the work. I needed the cash.” Over the weekend, Chris’s mom and dad had driven into Bangor for some medical thing, and they’d taken the two young ones along, so Chris had been home alone. Mrs. Willard had offered some work bottling new cider and then invited him to dinner. He’d had a terrific time. After supper, he and Gillian had played Cribbage and then chatted until well past midnight about books and music, about songs she’d composed and stories he’d written, and about Gillian’s dreams of travel and Chris’s nightmares of Mortsafemen. Mrs. Willard had asked if Chris was okay with sleeping alone in an empty house, and he’d said sure. Truth to tell, he’d been scared silly. He’d locked the attic hatch and slept on the couch in the living room with all the lights on. Gillian and Madelyn had arrived Sunday morning with a thermos of hot coffee and cinnamon rolls, and they’d eaten breakfast together, chatting about nothing in particular until the time came for Gillian and Madelyn to go to church.
As the bus rolled round a curve, Gillian leaned against Chris. She looked up into his face and found him staring at her once again. This time, she smiled back and touched her mittened hand to his.
The bus didn’t stop at the Dahlmans’ place. Chris guessed Mallory would probably be part of the Balzer family cortege. He shook his head and said, “Bizarre.”
“What is?”
“Mallory and Floyd.”
“Do you miss her?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just she probably played a big part in Floyd’s death, and yet, at his funeral, there she’ll be, weeping and playing the grieving girlfriend. It’s like the final insult to poor old Floyd.”
“She’s cold.”
“Calls for some kind of retribution.”
“What?”
“Mr. Duncan’s book?—the one I showed you on Mortsafemen, the guys with the axes?—anyway, it says they punished people who defiled the dead because defilement causes the departed great suffering in paradise. Retribution, they called their punishment. That’s what Mallory needs, retribution.”
Cars packed the schoolyard. Parents waited to take their kids to the funeral when classes were dismissed mid-morning. People had parked at the school to make room at the church since its small lot would be filled to capacity with Floyd’s extended family.
Two police cars were pulled up by the school’s front door with their lights flashing. As Chris walked into school, the officers glared and whispered to one another.
In the school foyer, Chris saw Principal Dell, the School Board Chairwoman, and Chief Boucher, in heated discussion. When they realized they could be overheard, they took their conversation into the school office and shut the door. On his way to class, Chris overheard several students chattering about some teacher getting fired.
Chris had expected the atmosphere in the school to be grim and sad in anticipation of the funeral, but no. The place buzzed with excitement as if something strange was about to happen. Curiously, there were no morning announcements over the PA. Usually, Principal Dell played a chorus of We are the World and then babbled on about the most inane stuff. Chris expected the funeral would have given Dell the perfect opportunity to intone about the loss of a young life or the sadness of the day or the proper deportment of students attending a funeral. Instead, the PA remained silent. Apparently Floyd’s funeral was already old news. Even our death, it seems, earns us barely an instant of attention.
* * * *
The funeral went remarkably well: a huge crowd, nice hymns, and lots of tears. Best of all, there was no repeat of Chris’s clash with Balzer Senior. Drunk and oblivious to Chris’s presence, Ed Balzer stumbled down the aisle to the pew reserved for family of the deceased. His wife supported him on one side and Mallory on the other as he staggered forward. Mallory played the grieving girlfriend to perfection, dabbing away tears, patting Balzer Senior’s shoulder when something moving was said, and nodding vigorously in agreement with all the tributes. You had to wonder what recompense she’d extorted for her masterful performance.
Floyd’s mother said a few moving words about the gentle child she’d nursed. An aunt told a charming story about Floyd’s first steps. Not once during the service however did Ed Balzer raise his head. He didn’t sing, didn’t speak, didn’t even acknowledge the casket as the hockey team carried it up the aisle. The only time he showed any interest at all was when Floyd’s teammates took the lectern to remember their captain. They ended their bizarre tribute with a chant that they were going to get the bastard who’d humiliated their leader. For several seconds, the soaring church nave rang with the phrase, “We’ll kill the prick that done our Floyd.” Ed Balzer jumped up and joined in their chant, exhorting the rest of the congregation to join in until his wife, in a rare display of strength and rage, pulled the drunken slob back down into his seat.
Chris and his parents sat in the last pew, spoke to no one, and slipped to the side of the church when everyone else followed the casket outside. They waited in the shadows for the crowd to disperse before leaving. Chris watched Gillian accompany her mother into the church hall where a light luncheon was to be served. Interment was to follow the luncheon. Attendance at the interment was limited to the immediate family. No doubt Mallory would be there.
Chris remained dry-eyed as he left the church, unmoved because, knowing all he’d learned of his former tormentor, he’d been left with the profound sense that nothing anyone had said about Floyd during the service had anything to do with the lonely, gentle and beaten soul Floyd might really have been.
“Can’t even spare the poor kid a tear, you piece of shit,” the police chief said as Chris passed him on the church driveway.
He said good-bye to his parents in the coffee shop parking lot. He declined their offer of lunch, said he wanted to get back to class before the crowd, and set off for school.
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Gillian ran up alongside and blurted out, “Mr. Duncan’s been fired.”
* * * *
“What? No!” Chris felt like someone had just kicked him in the groin.
“It’s true. He’s been ordered to clean out his desk and leave the school by the end of lunch hour.”
“Why?”
“Early this morning, an anonymous letter showed up at Principal Dell’s house. It accused Mr. Duncan of immorality, of encouraging homosexuality, and of failing to get a student in need the help he required. And attached to the letter was a handwritten note from a student to Mr. Duncan. Apparently the note thanked Mr. Duncan for helping the boy see that his feelings for other boys were nothing to be ashamed of.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Madelyn! She told me right after the funeral. Her mom’s the Chair of the School Board, right? Well, Madelyn’s mom got a call from Principal Dell early this morning about the letter and the note, and she told Madelyn when they were driving to the funeral.”
“I don’t get it. So some student confessed to Mr. Duncan he’s gay, so what? What does that have to do with Mr. Duncan?”
“I guess it’s clear from the note Mr. Duncan admitted to the boy he’s gay too, and that lots of other people are as well. That’s partly why the boy wanted to thank Mr. Duncan—for helping him feel less alone.”
“Have they talked to the boy?”
“They can’t.”
And it hit Chris. “Because Floyd Balzer wrote the note.”
“Yes.”
“So even though Mr. Duncan didn’t do anything, I guess Principal Dell thinks he shirked his responsibility…because he didn’t tell anybody else about Floyd’s problem, not the school counselor, not even his parents.” It all made a nightmarish kind of sense. “So Dell sees Mr. Duncan as being partly to blame for Floyd’s death.”
