He was, like, the smartest kid in the school even though he always got lousy grades in every class except math. He had no interest in that. He was always more interested in people and that’s why he saddened me at times. He made me feel like the most important person in the world and then he would abandon me for weeks on end, wanting to know someone else. Like I said, mostly girls. He also had a few boys who were friends, but he would lose interest in them quickly. He lost interest in most people pretty quickly, but never me, or at least not permanently. I was like the house you can always go home to when you need to recharge your batteries. And all he had to do was call and I was there.
We started kissing when we were about nine or ten. I didn’t mark down the date exactly, I’m not that fucked up, but I know it was early and it was good. But Truman had this weird disconnect from people, even in intimate situations, and when we kissed I got the vibe that he was feeling what I was feeling. He always seemed to see other people as part of an intricate experiment. It was definitely that way with us and kissing. We used to go to the room above the Engroffs’ garage where they stored a lot of shit they didn’t use or Christmas stuff or whatever and we would spend hours up there kissing until my lips became sore.
“How do you feel?” he would ask me.
I didn’t know how to answer, really. How does any kid feel at nine or ten when it comes to that part? I felt thrilled, I guess. I felt bigger than I really was, but I don’t know if that interested Truman. I don’t know why he kept taking me into that room. I just know I went willingly. He was always very handsome and I feel a little faint when I think of him, when I think of my Truman.
There was this one time when we were definitely thirteen and we were up above the garage kissing and talking. He could talk about remarkable stuff. And it was always so earnest and immediate, like you could be inside his thinking and be able to get at the shit that was going on in there. I mean, it was Truman, and some of it was just his meddling in other people’s lives to see what the outcome would be. That’s what I meant about everyone he knew…it was like his interest in them, and me in particular, was for a fucking experiment.
But anyway, the time when we were thirteen and up in the room above the garage and we’d been kissing, something different happened. I think I never loved anyone like I did Truman. I know that sounds, like, silly coming from a girl who is only seventeen. I
know
it does, but I was always in love with him, always deeply in love with him. I remember it was a warm day and we both were wearing shorts and T-shirts. It was very hot up above the garage and we were sweating our asses off.
“Let’s take off our shirts,” he said.
His voice was just beginning to change and it had ripples of sound. “Shirts” bass and “off’ soprano. By then I had a few boys who wanted to get my shirt off and I was mostly turned off by them, because it seemed like if it actually happened they would probably shit their pants. Truman wasn’t like that. I never thought he was afraid of anything or any situation. It was like he was beyond that emotion.
So I did. And he did. My boobs are small even now, but they were just beginning to bud then and he looked at them for a long time. I felt a little embarrassed because of his eyes. They were so black.
Finally he looked at me.
“Can I touch them?”
I nodded my head. I suddenly felt like those other boys, scared shitless. My breath caught in my throat. He moved his hand to my chest and started to stroke them and then he started to play with my nipples.
“Wow,” he said. “They sure stand out.” Again with the ripples in the voice.
“I want to kiss them.”
I nodded again.
I felt this warmth flow through me. It felt like I was suddenly up to my waist in warm water. It was hard to control my breathing. He pulled away and looked at my eyes again. I have green eyes and he always loved to look into them.
“How does that feel?”
“Jesus, Truman,” I sighed. I couldn’t shout it. My voice felt like it was in my ears. “How do you think it fucking feels?”
By the way, I swear more than Truman. I always thought he thought it was immature or degrading or something to swear. I don’t know. We never really talked about it. I just knew he disapproved or thought it was stupid or something. I would say fuck or shit or whatever and he would kind of look at me with his eyes, not saying anything.
“I mean what’d it do to you?”
I could still feel my nipples sticking out of my boobs like those suction darts that stick to your body until air releases them. Only this was so different. It wasn’t like playing with myself or anything, not like that.
“It felt good. It felt very good, Truman. Why do you have to ask such stupid questions sometimes?”
I put my hand on the back of his head and pulled him back to my nipples. He started to kiss them again and this time held my boobs at the same time. I wanted him to keep doing it forever. I had never felt my body in such a way before. Finally though, he stopped, and I suppressed a groan of disappointment.
“I like doing that,” he said. “I like making you feel good, Carly.”
He smiled his Truman smile and kissed me on the cheek. But then his smile changed and I knew he was thinking.
“What?”
“Let’s take all of our clothes off.”
We were sitting on these boxes facing each other.
I shook my head.
“Why?” he said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Are you afraid?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Why would you be afraid with me, Carly? I’m not like other people, other boys.”
“I know,” I said. “I just never thought about it before this moment. I would have to think about it first. So would you. It’s different with boys, you know. They don’t have to worry.”
“I’m not like other boys!” he said angrily. “Look.”
He stood up and unbuttoned his shorts and took them off. He had on boxers and he removed them. I couldn’t believe he’d just done it that easily. I couldn’t help staring at his penis, the hair around it. I think I stared for a long time. He started laughing.
“Now your turn.”
And it wasn’t a dare type thing that made me do it. I just was very turned-on, but more than that he was so relaxed and he made me feel the same way. I took off my shorts and folded them and put them on a box and then I pulled down my panties and let them fall around my feet. I stepped out of them. It was summer and I was tanned on the legs and shoulders and arms and stomach, but my boobs and my ass and coochie were as white as winter. And so I stood there not knowing what to do next, and of course Truman was staring at
me
but by then I was beyond feeling shy or uncomfortable.
Then I decided it was my turn to experiment. I cocked my one foot perpendicular to my other leg and waited. I folded my arms. I wanted to see what he would do next. He stared for a long time as if he were studying that part of my body to write something about it later. I didn’t move. I watched his face and his eyes. He seemed to be transfixed and yet I still didn’t move or say anything. The silence was weird but it wasn’t eerie. I just thought while I was watching him,
This is Truman. This part of him where I feel as if I am on display is what I know about him
. I remember clearly thinking about that while I waited. It was a thought that still brings shivers to me because it, the thought, was charged with love.
After what seemed hours of silence and watching he finally turned his face to mine and said, “I want to touch that.”
I nodded and my knees began to shake. He moved into me and took his hand and gently caressed the parts that were getting wet. I felt waves of warmth go through me and then he took his fingers when he felt that I was wet and put them inside me. I put my face into his shoulder and didn’t move, but I could hear my own breathing as if it were attached to an amplifier. Sooner than I wanted he pulled his fingers out and then he moved back, closed his eyes and smelled his fingers. I looked down at his penis and I saw that it was very hard. I moved into him and took it in my hand. I felt what it felt like and then I pulled it up and down. But suddenly he jerked back from me.
“Don’t,” he said.
I pointed to his penis.
“Do you want me to lay down so you can put that in me?”
“No,” he said.
He turned away, pulling on his boxers and shorts, his shirt and his shoes, his back to me the whole time. I watched him do it and I couldn’t move. He turned around to look at me and smiled his Truman smile. I wanted to slap him but instead I began to cry. I put my face to my hands and cried. I knew that he was watching me and I didn’t care. He walked away and down the stairs. I waited until I didn’t hear him anymore and then I put my clothes on and I went home.
Amy
Twelve days after Truman’s death
I feel like I am always floating. I can’t go outside because I’m afraid even the slightest breeze will take me away somewhere and I won’t be able to return. I have to stay near until Truman returns. I am afraid if I leave he will be here and need me and I won’t be able to help him. It is my greatest worry.
But inside the house, there are other dangers. If I detect the slightest brush of air on my face, I sit and curl into a ball. The air coming from the bottom of the refrigerator or the air blowing from the ducts for heat or air conditioning will blow me toward Truman’s door, and even closed it will make me go in and see him not there. I made Ethan close the door the day I learned Truman had been killed, and I told him I will not go in there. I told him I can’t go in there. I think he understands, but I don’t care if he does or he doesn’t. If I don’t go in and not see him there, then there is always the chance he will come back to me.
I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy or anything, but when Ethan returned from identifying the body he was very vague, very closed-lipped. And of course the casket was closed because Truman was beaten so badly. I didn’t have to be told that—I can read the newspapers like anyone else. His murder even made the
Times
, I guess because they considered it a hate crime, because Truman is gay. I don’t know. A reporter wanted to interview us and I told Ethan if he spoke a word to anyone connected with a newspaper or magazine or television I would leave him. I will not allow people to pry into our private life and disseminate information about our son. I don’t trust any of it anyway.
I don’t trust it one bit and I am not certain I even trust Ethan when he tells me that Truman is gone from our lives. How can that be? Who would hurt him? He is so tender and I can’t believe what they’ve told me. His face was so brutalized that he wasn’t even recognizable. And it’s not that Ethan wasn’t reeling with despair when he returned, but he’s been able to go on; he’s been able to get back to business and he goes outside with no fear of what will happen, and I can’t. I won’t.
I have everything delivered. Even the wine that helps prevent me from floating. But I’m glad he’s not feeling the same danger as I feel. One of us needs to be careful otherwise we will both disappear. I know that if I drink enough wine I can go out to the front patio and sit as the day drags to an end. The night keeps the air heavy and the wine makes certain that I am weighted down. I can feel it in my legs and in my arms. A heaviness sets in and I can sit out there for hours until there is complete darkness. I listen. I only have to hear his voice in the trees, in the leaves as they are taken by a slight breeze. I want to run when I feel the air lift my hair or ripple my dress, but I can’t because I can hear his voice, his plaintive plea for help. I’ve told Ethan this and he knits his forehead and looks at me with a sadness he never directed toward me before.
He often initiates conversations like this one from the other day:
“We need to go see someone, Amy. We need to try and work through this together, lean on each other. It will never go away, the pain will never leave, but we have to learn to find avenues to help us cope with it.”
“Yes, like the business,” I said to him, softly so he wouldn’t detect my urge to slap him.
He looked down at the floor as if there was something of great interest there. He shook his head.
“Nothing helps,” he said. “Nothing.”
And then he looked at me and I saw tears welling in his eyes. I can’t stand that. I can’t stand when he does that, because he is doing that to show me that my Truman is gone, just as he urges me to go into his room so that I know he is gone, too. He wants me to begin to pack his things so that the room won’t become enshrined. But I know what he has in mind. He wants me to see for myself that he is not there. That my Truman will never return.
We pass each other late at night. I walk around in my bare feet feeling the carpets, the rugs, the floors I use to love, feeling my feet against those surfaces, and I will sometimes pass Ethan with his glass full of whiskey, drinking one after the other so that he can sleep. We don’t speak. What is there to say? He has his own ideas and I have mine. He can think what he wants. I let him. I let him believe what he will believe about me. That I have finally begun to get out and start over. He doesn’t know that I never go anywhere, that I ignore the phone, the voicemails—I erase them without listening to them; I can’t stand the incessant drone of goodwill. I know that the people who call are trying to be sympathetic, but I also know that, without realizing it, all they really want is to pry into what I think about Truman. About his being gay and if I think that was the reason he was so beaten, so hurt, so wanting me next to him when he was lying face down in that mud.