Abandoned Prayers

by Gregg Olsen

  When it came time for Stutzman to leave, Yost was feeling closer than had seemed possible only five days before. They had gone from pen pals to lovers. In spite of his connection to so many deaths, Stutzman seemed gentle and caring. Yost did not want to lose him.

  “I want you to leave something here so you’ll have to stop by on your way back west,” Yost said, as Stutzman prepared to pack for his trip to Ohio.

  Stutzman grinned and handed over Danny’s Christmas present, a soccer ball.

  “Until I get back,” he said.

  Yost knew how much Stutzman’s son meant to him, and there could be no doubting now that Stutzman must have felt something for John Yost. Why else would he leave the soccer ball? Yost just knew Eli Stutzman would return after Christmas.

  The Gremlin pulled out of sight, down the snowy street, toward the main highway. Stutzman slipped out of town as quietly as he came.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  December 20, 1985

  It was about 4:30 P.M. when Stutzman’s Gremlin turned off the County Road and drove up the lane to Al Jorgensen’s farm. The Missouri man figured icy road conditions must have slowed Stutzman down on U.S. 70 to Kansas City, the route he had said he would be taking.

  The bare-chested photograph Stutzman had sent hadn’t prepared Jorgensen for how good-looking the man was in person. His eyes were a deeper blue than chips of glacial ice, and his form rippled with more bulk than Jorgensen thought the man’s small frame could support. Stutzman was taller than his host by an inch or so, and Jorgensen hoped Eli would not be disappointed with him physically. It was true Jorgensen was older, but he was in fairly good shape.

  “From hard work,” he liked to say.

  Jorgensen was nervous. Eli Stutzman was the first gay man he had ever had in his home. He asked how Danny was—he expected when they began corresponding that he would meet the boy whenever his father came through Kansas City. Stutzman had written and told him on the telephone how close they were.

  “They were inseparable since his wife died,” Jorgensen later recalled.

  Stutzman repeated the line he had practiced for a week: “Danny wanted to stay in Wyoming with his friends.”

  The friends, Stutzman said, were an unconventional family of two men and a woman. One of the men, a school-teacher, was married to the woman, also a teacher. Stutzman said the husband had been his lover.

  Jorgensen’s fantasy was that sex with Stutzman was going to be wonderful, a joyous experience. Ecstasy at last. He could hardly wait. But he was also afraid, aware of the taboos, aware that he had been raised to believe that what he wanted to do with Stutzman was considered immoral.

  Yet, in the end, none of that mattered much. Sex with Eli Stutzman was joyless. The naked men jacked off and went to sleep. It was over in a sudden, quiet flash.

  Jorgensen later likened the experience to that of a prostitute and a john. Not that Eli Stutzman was paid for his services, but there was an emptiness about the act. It might have been Stutzman’s style, but it wasn’t what Jorgensen was after.

  “It was obvious he didn’t care about it,” Jorgensen later recalled. “It was like he just did it to pay the motel bill.”

  He thought that Stutzman might be preoccupied with his mother’s illness and his son spending the holidays without him. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have a lot on his mind. Christmas was less than a week away, and Eli Stutzman must face the holiday alone, without his loved ones.

  Jorgensen felt sorry for him.

  Stutzman’s Gremlin had been packed to near capacity. Bags of clothes, tools, and even work boots filled the backseat and the majority of the area beneath the hatchback. From his letters and phone conversations, Jorgensen had gathered that Stutzman was a transient type, going wherever there was work. Stutzman indicated he might be in Ohio for a while, maybe getting a job doing construction.

  Stutzman said he had been having difficulty with his antifreeze—the car had been running hot since he had left Colorado—and the two men worked on it Saturday morning. It was a chance to get to know each other as friends. After the previous night, sex was out.

  Among his bags of clothing was one filled with Amish clothes: shirt, coat, broadfall trousers, and black felt hat. It was Stutzman, in fact, who pointed them out.

  “My cousin is getting married, and I’m going to his Amish wedding when I get back to Ohio,” Stutzman explained. “Since I was shunned I haven’t had the chance to see too many of my relatives and old Amish friends.”

  “Are they going to allow you to come to the wedding?”

  Stutzman smiled and nodded. “An Amish wedding is a happy gathering. They will be a little more likely to welcome me to this than to any other Amish gathering.”

  Jorgensen again felt sorry for Stutzman. Being shunned by the whole community must have been a horrible ordeal. As a gay man, he could relate to it.

  Chuck Freeman was doubled over in hysterics. A letter Stutzman had written to a potential lover in Alamosa, Colorado, had been returned to the ranch because of an insufficient address. Freeman had gotten his hands on it and ripped it open, and now he howled as he read Stutzman’s description.

  “. . . I’ve got a big dick—11 inches—and low hanging balls . . .”

  He showed it to Byron Larson, who had thought Stutzman was a weirdo of the first order anyway. The letter only confirmed his opinion.

  “It’s bad enough to tell something like that to your girlfriend, let alone your boyfriend,” Larson said.

  Stutzman claimed he had lost his horse ranch in Colorado when his lover died in a car wreck. Since his lover’s family did not recognize the gay men’s relationship, they had kicked him off the ranch. He was now odd-jobbing it.

  As the next couple of days passed, it became increasingly evident to Jorgensen that Stutzman had become adept at playing on people’s sympathies. Like other gays, Jorgensen felt, Stutzman had perfected crying when he had been required to deal with his family while denying his sexual feelings.

  He could turn it on when he needed it.

  Stutzman talked about his late wife Ida and the tragedy of the barn fire. According to him, his wife’s funeral was a disturbing and painful ordeal of its own. “A lot of Amish came—close to two hundred. They seemed more concerned with watching me and judging my reaction than . . . with her death,” Stutzman remembered.

  When Stutzman drove away on December 23, neither man had any real visions of being lovers. Yet, Jorgensen still kept after Stutzman.

  “He was hot on the griddle,” he said later, “and I wanted to see what would happen with us.”

  Stutzman had said nothing of Texas. Al Jorgensen never even knew he’d lived there.

  Christmas Eve 1985

  It was late Tuesday afternoon, the time of a winter’s day between daylight and the chilly edge of evening, as Eli Byler walked between outbuildings on his North Canton, Ohio, farm. Snow had powdered the ground like talcum powder, and the crackling of a fire left no doubt it was Christmas Eve.

  The Gremlin with New Mexico plates pulled up the lane, with Eli Stutzman behind the wheel. He hadn’t called or written that he was coming. In fact, Eli Byler hadn’t communicated with him since the fall when Stutzman had been in Ohio putting up some siding at Dr. Bissell’s. The Christmas Eve visit was unexpected.

  “Where’s Danny?” Byler asked, when he noticed that Stutzman was alone in the car.

  “Danny’s in Wyoming skiing. You know how much he loves to ski! I couldn’t take him away from that and the foster family—he’s gotten close to the kids.” In fact, Danny’s reality was that of a frozen corpse, laid out on an embalming table in Lon Adams’s funeral home in Hebron, Nebraska.

  Stutzman grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “You know kids . . .”

  Byler wondered what kind of a father would let his son stay in Wyoming while he returned to Ohio for Christmas. It didn’t seem right. Danny idolized his father and wanted to spend every minute he could with him. All they had was each other. On the
other hand, Byler could understand that Danny, being an only child, probably missed the companionship of other kids.

  Stutzman said he had spent a couple of days with Danny in Wyoming skiing and had originally planned to bring Danny along with him. But the 9-year-old had wanted to stay.

  Byler figured his own children might choose to play with friends instead of going to see grandma. But what parent would give a child that age the power to make his own decisions?

  Stutzman seemed tired. He made a few phone calls, then visited with the Bylers, who insisted he stay with them as long as he was in Ohio. They also invited him to Christmas Eve dinner with Gail’s parents.

  When they unloaded the car, Byler noticed a big toolbox and a sleeping bag in the hatchback area. The door on the driver’s side was broken and couldn’t be opened from the inside. To get out, Stutzman had to crawl across to the passenger door.

  “I borrowed the car from a friend. My truck broke down,” he said.

  On Christmas morning, Stutzman excused himself from the living room, where the family had gathered to open presents. Stutzman said he was going to call Danny in Wyoming to wish him a Merry Christmas.

  It must be hard to be around someone else’s children on Christmas when your child is so far away, Byler thought.

  Stutzman went into the den and dialed. No one could hear his conversation with his son and no one tried to listen. Nearly an hour later he emerged.

  “How’s Danny?” Byler asked.

  “He’s doing fine. He got a lot of nice things for Christmas. He seems real happy, but he misses me.”

  Stutzman had a sheepish look on his face and wasn’t forthcoming with details about what his boy had received for presents. Byler didn’t think much about it at the moment, but later he figured Eli must have felt guilty about not being with his son.

  “I would have felt guilty, too, if I wasn’t with my boy on Christmas,” Byler said later.

  At 8:40 A.M., Christmas Day, Stutzman called Al Jorgensen and talked for nine minutes. Stutzman let him know that he had seen his mother and was now staying with friends.

  “It was just a friend checking in,” Jorgensen later said of the call.

  Stutzman called John Yost next. He told his Kansas lover that his mother had taken a turn for the worse and was likely to pass away any day now.

  “I’m going to stay a little longer than I planned,” he said.

  Stutzman shared Christmas dinner with friends in Canton. He told them the same story: his boy was skiing in Wyoming. The next day he told Byler that the hostess had chided him for not bringing his son with him for Christmas.

  Eli Byler could scarcely argue with the woman’s sentiments.

  “A boy’s place is with his father,” he said.

  “Danny doesn’t need these anymore,” Stutzman told the Bylers, giving them a pair of brown paper bags filled with clothes: Pants, shirts, socks, even underwear, all folded, all clean and very neat. The Bylers appreciated the clothes—it was nearly impossible keeping growing boys dressed. In Colorado, he had also given them some of Danny’s clothing that he had outgrown.

  Yet the clothing in the paper bags were not castoffs. They had been packed carefully. The bags contained enough clothing to outfit a child for weeks. In addition, Stutzman gave the Bylers a coat he said Danny had outgrown.

  The vinyl coat was too large for their son Josh. But they didn’t think anything of it; they hadn’t seen Danny since they had vacationed at Stutzman’s Colorado ranch.

  The coat stayed in Josh’s closet for a year, until he had grown large enough for it to fit properly.

  Later, Gail Byler would be sickened when she learned that the coat had been worn by Danny the day he died.

  Stutzman gave the Bylers’ daughter a book on horses, and the little girl was thrilled. She loved horses as much as Danny had. He also gave her a beaded Indian purse.

  Byler had never been one to pry, but there were a few things he wanted to ask Stutzman, and since Eli was there at Byler’s doorstep, it seemed as though the conversation was meant to be. As he sifted through his questions, he discarded the most personal. He didn’t want to know about his friend’s sexuality—though he had heard the rumors. The answer might be more than he could handle, and might change a decade-long friendship.

  He’d heard that the Kratzers had received pornography in the mail. He figured Stutzman might look at it just for kicks. At least maybe the old Eli Stutzman he knew might.

  That left him with Texas. The rumors had circulated all summer that Stutzman had been involved in a murder in Texas. None of his friends had been able to corner him and ask him about it.

  “Eli, let’s talk about what happened in Texas.”

  The question was asked, and now Byler would get an answer and could put the nonsense, all of the innuendo, to rest. Eli Byler wanted the information firsthand.

  But just then the phone rang, and Byler went to answer it. When he returned, the moment had been ruined, and Stutzman never answered his question.

  On Sunday, Eli went to church with the Byler family. He seemed so much better, so much more relaxed than he had been in September. Byler felt that whatever had been troubling him back then must be gone by now. Byler was glad to see his friend happy.

  Stutzman came and went during the couple of weeks he stayed at Byler’s place. Whenever he left he told them he was going down to Apple Creek to see his mother, who he said was still very ill.

  Stutzman returned to the Bylers’ one day visibly upset. He said his father had met him on the porch and told him not to come there again. Old One-Hand Eli didn’t want to see him anymore. His father was as mad as Stutzman had ever seen him.

  Stutzman said that later he had managed to sneak a visit with his mother.

  At the midpoint of his stay in Ohio, Stutzman went down to Benton to visit friends, and, later, to house-sit while they were away. He never said who they were or how he met them.

  Al Jorgensen wrote Stutzman in care of Eli Byler’s address. He wanted to know how things were going with his mother’s health, and had he had a good time at his cousin’s wedding?

  Stutzman wrote back on December 31 that he was staying at the trailer belonging to the gay man he had traveled to Key West with. The man and his lover had moved to Texas and needed someone to watch their place. Stutzman had agreed to.

  It was closer to his parents’ farm than the Bylers’ place, so he could more easily see his mother.

  It was shocking at first to see the condition of my mother. I don’t believe at all she realizes who people are. My sister doesn’t think so either. I haven’t been able to see change either way since I’ve been here. I wish they would put her in the hospital, but dad doesn’t think it’s necessary. So far I’ve managed to see her every day for awhile. Dad hasn’t said too much so far to me about being around, surprisingly.

  Stutzman indicated he had made it to the Amish wedding and had a good time.

  There were some that looked at me out of the corner of their eyes, but most of them were pretty good.

  He wouldn’t be planning any ski trips—not until his mother’s condition improved.

  Jorgensen wondered when the Amish were going to leave Stutzman alone and accept him for the nice guy that he was? Staring at him with accusing looks—it was so unfair.

  No wonder the guy has a hard time communicating feelings—he’s afraid, Jorgensen thought.

  January 11, 1986

  The Bylers took Stutzman down to see Liz and Leroy Chupp, now farming in Kentucky. Stutzman again repeated that Danny was skiing in Wyoming.

  “He’s in ski competition now. He has gotten real good,” Stutzman said, adding that the boy had won some races.

  “We talked about it for some time,” Liz Chupp later recalled. “The Amish don’t ski, so we were real interested in learning about Danny. Eli seemed so proud.”

  Stutzman left the Bylers on January 17, saying he was going back to New Mexico to return the borrowed Gremlin. Before leaving he paid
for his phone charges.

  “I can’t believe it that I didn’t notice that there were no calls to Wyoming,” Byler said later.

  As January gave way to February, the unbearable winter chill of the snow-powdered Kansas prairie only made John Yost feel more lonely. He wondered if Eli Stutzman felt the same.

  The weeks apart had erased any of the concerns he’d had about his new lover. The murder in Texas, the dead wife, the dead lover from Colorado—none of it mattered. Too many things about Stutzman were just right.

  He found Stutzman’s phone number in New Mexico and dialed it—it was the number to the trailer house on Chuck Freeman’s Aztec ranch. The number, however, had been disconnected. Maybe Eli was still there? Maybe he just couldn’t afford to pay his bill? Yost searched again, this time pulling up the number of a friend of Stutzman’s who lived near the ranch.

  The man who answered the phone said Stutzman had moved to Texas. He didn’t have a phone number, but the man provided an address in Azle, Texas.

  Yost mailed a valentine and waited. He didn’t want to be pushy; he just wanted Stutzman to know how much he cared and how much he wanted to see him again. No strings. No pressure. He would wait.

  Stutzman, meanwhile, mailed his last car payment—$176—to Neil’s Auto Plaza on February 8. One can only wonder why he told Eli Byler that the car had been borrowed, yet bragged to John Yost about the great deal he’d gotten on it. . . .

  Yost received an answer of sorts from Eli Stutzman on Valentine’s Day.

  There was no return address on the small white envelope postmarked Fort Worth, Texas. Inside, Yost found the three photographs he had given to Stutzman when they first met through the ad. There was no explanation or good-bye. As far as Yost was concerned, Stutzman had sent him a “Dear John” letter.

  But why? Yost’s first reaction was to find Stutzman and talk with him. Maybe Stutzman needed help? Maybe he was in some kind of trouble?

  Weeks passed. Maybe a month or two. Later, when he tried to put it together, Yost could never be sure. All he knew was that he was not going to let Eli Stutzman slip out of his life forever. He got his telephone number from Stutzman’s friend in Ohio. The number was to a place in Azle, Texas.