“Unbelievable, guy. Unbelievable. No one else had the balls to do it.”
“I would’ve gone in,” Lennie said.
“Fuck you,” Mark and Troy both said. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Truman was still shivering badly, his hair plastered to the side of his head. Finally he looked at me.
“Time to go, Carly. You know how Amy is about dinner.”
He walked over to his bike and I followed him. We both got on and, without Truman even looking at the five locals, we rode off to the Engroff house. Truman never said a word all the ride home, but I could tell he was freezing. I was, too.
When we got to the house and walked through the kitchen, Amy saw Truman and her eyes widened.
“What happened?” she said, hurrying toward him.
He walked past her and continued to the stairs and the upstairs bathroom.
“Fell in the water,” he said as he climbed the stairs. “Smells like soup.”
“It is,” she shouted after him. “Clam chowder. Your favorite.”
After he disappeared from our sight, Amy looked at me with concern in her eyes.
“What happened, Carly?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “He just fell in.”
Before she could ask me more, I excused myself and climbed the stairs to the guestroom, where the thought of my being cold had disappeared. In fact, my whole body felt warm, my face flushed and my legs burning with each step I took toward the bedroom where Truman was stripping off his clothes to climb into the shower. Each step that got me nearer to his door and to him I was thinking to myself,
I love you, Truman Engroff. I love you so fucking much.
Ethan
Four days after Truman’s death
How can I explain what I felt during the funeral, seated there with Amy’s family and my own in chairs arranged so that we faced the casket with Truman inside it? I listened to our pastor, John Bender, speak about Truman as if he knew him, as if he’d been an integral part of his congregation along with Amy and me, when in reality we hadn’t been to more than a handful of services there in twenty years. But what really kept running through my mind were all the people beyond our small circle of grief, their umbrellas protecting them from the light rain that fell throughout the funeral. I looked out at each of their sullen faces and I wondered which of them saw my Truman as some aberrance. Their blueprint took them through their lives confident that they would receive final grace while those who deviated were doomed. I’m sure that some of them, people I counted as friends, felt sympathy for Amy and me, but I also knew there were people in that gathering of supposed mourners who were there only to reinforce their own belief that what had happened to Truman did not happen to those who followed the rules, who married, had children and grandchildren and retired; they got to die with white on their heads and in their souls.
Rain came down as flowers and dirt were thrown on the lowered casket of my boy, my lost boy. And I looked out into the crowd of those faces and I wondered which one of them had done this to my son.
Carly
Six days after Truman’s death
Tommy Beck. Why did I feel about him as I did? Was he hot? Yes. Sweet? Most of the time. But there was also something about him that was so mysterious, and I think that was the part of him that I was attracted to more than any other. I was never completely sure what he was thinking or how he felt about me.
He said he loved me when we would lie together naked in one or the other of our beds when our parents were at work, and at those times I was sure it was true. I would still feel my heart pounding from our lovemaking, still feel him inside me, and he would kiss my shoulders, my back, my legs, and I would know.
“You glow afterward, babe.”
I would stretch out my entire body, and it felt as if I were totally immersed in warm water.
“I love how you glow. Your entire body is pink after I fuck you.”
“Don’t say that, Tommy.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s vulgar.”
“Yes,” I would say, “but it isn’t just that. It’s everything about it. It’s us lying here like this, together.”
I would run my hands down the length of his body. He was tight with muscle. It seemed like there was danger in his body, and I loved that. Not that he would ever hurt me, but it was there. I guess it was kind of primal in a way or some shit like that. I don’t really know. But I know that after sex, he often said, “I love you.” Other times too, if I was upset with him, he would remind me how much he cared for me, how much the time we spent together meant to him.
There was the other side of him though, and I knew one day it would make me not want him anymore. Not only was he a user—I knew he used people to get what he wanted—but he was also boring aside from the passionate lovemaking. He didn’t read; he didn’t care about art or the fact that we were only thirty-five miles from Manhattan. So many times I asked him to go with me to the city, to the Village, just to walk around and watch people or go to a museum.
“I don’t do that shit, Carly. You know that. All those freaks walking around stoned or whatever the fuck they are.”
“I do what you want. I go to your games and your parties.”
“That’s where it’s at. I mean you’re not gonna deny for a minute the people I hang out with are cool. Whenever I think of the Village, I think of your friend Truman and his friends and you know how beat they are. What the fuck do they do but get high and make stupid observations?”
“Oh, and you don’t get high, Tommy?”
“Yeah, okay, but on beer. Fuckin’ beer, Carly. It makes me charged. It makes me want you more.”
I remember one time I was at a party and there were a lot of kids there—someone’s parents had gone away for the weekend and there were only supposed to be a few people getting together to drink some beer and shit. But word got around and by the time Tommy and I got there I think there were probably a hundred kids there, and there was a pool, and so people were swimming and grilling and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun. And of course Tommy and I were two of the kids who had been officially invited, because Tommy Beck was invited everywhere. That was another thing I liked about him. He was probably the most popular kid in school even though he was not the smartest or the funniest by a fucking long shot.
Tommy can get pretty fucked up on beer, and I can always tell because his eyes get really red and the blue in them turns to a kind of gray and he doesn’t laugh so much. I mean at first he does. Busting with his friends and talking about how the Giants are the best team or the Yankees or whatever and how some people are assholes, but all in fun. Just really funny shit. But the thing about Tommy and drinking is that he downs beer like it’s water. I mean, he doesn’t sip it, he chugs it. And at some point this switch goes off in him, and it’s almost instantaneous. It’s like he’s laughing his ass off and then the next minute he’s all sullen and shit.
I forgot what I was wearing that night, but Tommy is always telling me I’m the hottest girl at Persia High.
You are fucking smoking, Carly! Believe me about that!
And I will also admit right now that a lot of other boys at that school paid attention to me. I mean it wasn’t like they would come on to me or anything, exactly, but they would send out signals and I could feel them. They also knew I was hooked up with Tommy Beck and that I was verboten. One of the guys though, Steve Brown, who was this really cute guy, would talk to me a lot. We had study hall together and we sat across from each other and he was funny and
smart.
Even Truman liked him, I think.
So he was at the party, and I think he was with this girl named Wendy and they’d hooked up a few times together, and at one point I was out beyond the pool area, because this kid’s parents had a really big house, and there were a few kids there with weed. So I went out near these bushes where it was dark, away from the lights, and eventually there were four of us, including Steve, smoking a blunt. I didn’t know where Tommy was, but I knew he’d been drinking a shit-load of beer and in all the commotion I’d seen him with Katie Barry, who he was always saying was so hot, and so I thought, fuck him.
Steve started telling me this story and it had something to do with this shark he and his father had caught off the Margate Bay. When they got the thing on board it scared the shit out of both of them because it was so big, and they threw it back into the water. I don’t know if it was really that funny, but I was so stoned it seemed funny at the time.
And it’s like when you have something happen and it’s not until much later you can piece the whole thing together because it happens so suddenly, like a bird streaking across your vision and it’s only afterward you realize it was a sparrow. That was the way it was with Tommy, because Steve was just taking a hit from this blunt and then it disappeared, the sparks going away from his face and being replaced by Tommy’s fist, and almost as instantly Steve’s nose moving as if it were part of a Halloween mask that you can disfigure for fun. Almost as instantly the blood began to gush from his mouth and nose and in slow motion he put his hand to his mouth the way people do when they have just seen a gruesome accident.
Tommy hit him again, this time on the side of the head, and I could see his ear swell immediately like it’d been inflated with air, and almost as quickly Steve went down on all fours, and I saw Tommy kick him in the side.
“You motherfucker! You’re trying to get into Carly’s pants, you motherfucker!”
Tommy went to kick him again, but by this time I’d gotten between them and I began slapping him on his face and neck and shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice even though by then the two other people with us were pushing him back.
Steve.
He was still on all fours, and the blood was streaming onto the grass and Tommy was shouting, “Fuck you, you perverted fuck. You think you can get Carly high and then fuck her? Is that it, you perverted fuck?”
More people had come out to see what was going on, and now a few guys were holding Tommy back. He tried to go after Steve again. I kept hitting at him, slapping at him, and then someone grabbed me, I don’t remember who it was, and pinned my arms to my sides.
“You asshole!” I shouted. “You fucking asshole! What are you doing, you fucking asshole!?”
“Carly,” he said, his words slurring and his face getting all remorseful.
I pulled away from whoever was holding me, tearing my blouse in the process, and I went at Tommy again, slapping his face twice, hard, and he just stood there, a few guys still tugging at him and him not defending himself.
Steve was still on the ground and some girl was bending over him and somehow she’d produced a towel or a rag and she handed it to him and he held it in front of his face.
“My nose,” he said, the blood dripping into the towel. “Is it okay?”
And then almost as an afterthought he said, “My nose.”
I could see that his nose had been punched to one side and normally I would’ve been sick, but I guess there was so much adrenaline flowing through me I wasn’t affected by it. People were helping Steve up and leading him toward the house. I was being constrained by the same person again, and I looked at Tommy who was now standing there, breathing hard, watching Steve being half-carried, half-steadied away from us, and then Tommy looked at me with his look that meant,
I love you, babe.
And once again I wrenched myself free.
“You fucking, fucking asshole!”
I walked past him and toward the house and the lights, and I heard him say, “Carly,” softly, and then I heard him begin to cry.
Amy
Five days after Truman’s death
Truman is in the ground. I keep telling myself that. My lovely Truman is in the ground. It rained the day they lowered the casket. I sat next to Ethan, the both of us watching as the rain fell on my son’s casket, the spattering of each of the drops like some cold needle in my heart.
Truman used to kiss me on top of the head as if I were the child, as if I were the one who needed comfort and consoling. He began to do that when he turned ten.
Hey, Mom,
and then a kiss on the head. He could tell when I was upset with Ethan, even though I tried not to show it in front of him. Ethan working too much; Ethan joking around too much; Ethan not spending enough time with his son; Ethan in his
mood.
Ethan’s moods. Thank God Truman never, ever adopted that trait of Ethan’s, at least not at first. After fifteen years I no longer asked Ethan what was wrong. I no longer wondered if it was me or Truman or both of us. I would just allow him to be by himself.
Please, Amy, just let me be by myself and then I’ll be okay.
Sometimes it was three fucking days of
being by myself.
Truman would put his beautiful little hand on my cheek.
Hey, Mom.
Meaning:
He’ll come around. He’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.
Ethan’s silence was brutal. But I know and knew he couldn’t help it. The moment Truman was born I knew he was going to be sensitive, with his wisp of blonde and his black eyes.
“He’s going to be you, Amy,” Ethan said when he first held him. “Thank God he’s going to be like you.”