Charlene Gutsman
Charlene Gutsman died on Friday. They, the faceless and formless They, who stumbled upon the tragedy and got to claim the first grisly bits of it for themselves when telling the story to anybody who would listen, found her in Hawthorne Park on the northern edge of town early Saturday morning. Poor, poor Charlene Gutsman. Even her name sounded fat. That was, in part, why it was such a shock. When the paper was printed with the obituary, my mom looked at the picture—an unflattering yearbook photo of a pasty girl with pale, greasy hair hanging limply on either side of her round face, small eyes hidden in a hollow carved out from all that shiny flesh, and a crooked smile straining hard to hold up her big cheeks so they didn’t droop too close to her double chin—and asked, “Is that really her?” in that sort of raised, hushed tone of quiet disbelief. Later on, I would realize that she was surprised that out of any of the perfectly decent looking seventh grade girls in our town, Charlene was the one that got picked up. She may as well have been asking, “Don’t pedophiles have standards?”
I learned about Poor Charlene’s death on Saturday afternoon. I was drawing when I heard my mom come home, calling out a greeting without looking up. I kept drawing when I heard her heels click-clack down the hall, kept drawing when I saw her stop in my doorway from the corner of my eye, and only stopped when she asked, “Did you know a girl named Charlene Gutsman? She was in your grade,” in the faux-casual way that anybody would ask such a random yet leading question. I knew, generally, where these sorts of inquiries led. As a receptionist for the only optometrist in town, my mom knew practically everybody in the county with eyes, and, as a result, was privy to all sorts of gossip. She often approached me with a “do you know” or “have you heard of” sort of question, something to establish a foundational understanding, so I could indulge with equal interest in the sordid secrets of our small town. But this question was different, either by my own bias upon hearing that name or my mom’s unnaturally somber tone. I didn’t know why, but the two things paired made a tight little knot form in my stomach, hard, and rough-textured, like the pit of an old peach. I told her, “Yeah, I know her. Why?”
“She died last night,” my mom said with an air of significance, a very particular annunciation of the news because that was how people spoke of death. It was a finality. A grim reminder of mortality. My mom didn’t know that Charlene Gutsman existed before that day, but it would be awfully callous to speak about the death of a child without some heavy emotion, some pretense that this abstract loss meant anything to her. I didn’t understand the complexities of those specific, unspoken social rules, but it wasn’t difficult to intuit how I should mimic the behavior.
That’s why my eyes widened, my eyebrows shot up, and my voice raised up a note or two higher when I asked, “How?”
“She was picked up when she was walking home from school,” my mom said, “and dumped at the park sometime last night.”
“Oh,” I said. Hearing that a girl I knew had been kidnapped and murdered was a peculiar feeling. It settled heavy and cold in my stomach, creeping and crawling into the bloody viscera of my insides and lodging this conceptual sense of disgust deep into my nervous system. But the nervous flutter had an element of thrill to it, like I was suddenly involved in the disturbing, alluring, and deliciously frightening events in a crime drama TV show. And, in the deepest depths of my brain, I felt a twisted sort of jealousy that even my unconscious shied away from articulating. But then those feelings were mashed against reality, against the name and image I had of Poor Charlene Gutsman, and those thoughts fell away. I had no idea how to react, no idea what emotion was appropriate. At thirteen, my feelings exploded outwards in primal gusts on either extreme end of the emotional spectrum, emerging in grand episodes which I hadn’t yet learned to control. Now, hearing of an actual and genuine tragedy, I felt this sickening slosh of cold, liquid dread. My mom must have misinterpreted my silence, coming further into my room and sitting on the edge of my bed. I had the foreboding impression that I was in trouble, like I should have apologized, like I had done something very, very wrong.
“Were the two of you friends?” she asked. My eyes rolled around my room for an answer, suddenly feeling very lost for familiarity. The early autumn sunshine slanting through the windows was dip-dyed in sweet tangerine from my curtains, warming the entire space in a friendly orange and painting her skin in the hue. The color was usually such a comfort, but now it made her seem alien and strange, my room taking on the uncertain dimensions of unreality, hazy with dust and unnatural air. The cold was spreading, I could feel it all the way in my fingertips.
“No,” I said. No, we were not friends. Poor, poor Charlene Gutsman didn’t have friends.
“What’s the matter?” she pushed. I didn’t reply at first, just looking at my mom with this ache growing in my chest. Somehow, I couldn’t believe the lipstick pink frown she was wearing. That soft sympathy in her voice was familiar but hollow. She was digging for information. This was gossip. Charlene Gutsman, poor Charlene Gutsman, meant nothing to her. And why should she? Charlene was a child she didn’t know, a stranger. There was no reason to grieve for a stranger; people died every day. And what I felt, was that grief for a dead girl? I barely knew her. No, I don’t think it was grief. But there was something more, an admission I needed to make. My mouth opened, I drew in a breath, but I couldn’t say it, couldn’t manage the words for all the conflict they represented. I didn’t say anything at all. After that, my mom told me about the new curfew, and about the buddy system. I told her I knew these things; I told her I would be smart and safe. And then I returned to my drawing, and she left my room. I cried a little after that. I don’t know why. It just happened, growing and growing until the tears began to drip against the page and smear the blues and greens.
On Monday at school, there was a general, grim atmosphere. With a graduating class of fewer than one hundred students, even a single missing face was impactful. Everybody whispered about it, breaking off into clusters to ask their friends if they had heard the news yet, everybody hoping to share the details they had heard and exchange their versions of the events so they could take part in the gruesome sensation sweeping through the town. Everybody wanted to feel as if they were a part of it in some way. They all said, “Poor, poor Charlene Gutsman.” I had gym class first period. Every girl in my class complained about how unfair the time slot was, and how cold and miserable mornings were. But, on Monday, every girl was quite pleased with it because we all got to watch Mrs. Kinsey clear out locker 202. She said nothing, announced nothing as she pulled out the stinky XXL girl’s gym clothes, a pair of ratty Sketchers, the green tube of extra-strength deodorant, and a few loose sheets of paper. Everybody watched solemnly like this ritual had some sort of significance. Then, in complete silence, Mrs. Kinsey slammed the locker shut with a cruel clang of metal. She left it lockless and empty, bearing no ghost or memory of the dead girl. When Mrs. Kinsey disappeared into the office, the buzz of conversation picked up with such perfect timing it almost felt scripted. Girls clumped up and whispered, casting sidelong glances at the empty, apathetic monument of locker 202 and saying things like, “Poor Charlene. She was such a kind girl. It’s such a terrible shame. We were such good friends.” And it was the same as it had ever been. “Poor Charlene,” we all used to say, watching her big, flabby body jiggle beneath the unflatteringly tight white of her gym shirt as she lumbered through the mile run. Well, in her case, it was a mile walk. But if she did run, we would all act impressed, we would all say, “Look at her. I’m so glad to see her trying. She’s so admirable.” I sat by my locker on the textured concrete bench and listened to the other girls talk amongst themselves. The part of me that always wanted to be included, that longed for the validation of that mean little huddle that stank of body spray and antiperspirant, urged me to join in. “Poor Charlene,” I would say.
“On Friday, I–” But the guilt was hot in my lungs, behind my eyes, and everything else was cold. My eyes squeezed shut, the words flaking off into shards of glass-like ice and dropping into my stomach. The urge to cry again hit me with a fresh wave of sickening guilt. We all treated Poor Charlene so heartlessly. I never thought about it when we spoke; I never considered how terribly I treated her. I thought I was a good person, and good people didn’t mistreat others. Disgust drew up from the deepest part of my guts, painful and bloody, and I kept thinking that it was their fault, that I wasn’t the one who started saying things like that about Poor Charlene, that my judgment of her was a product of the people around me, and it wasn’t my fault. Then I actually did start crying, curling over my knees to hide my face. Given time and the perspective of adulthood, I think I’d come to the conclusion that the worst part of that harsh reflection of my actions wasn’t responsibility, but the shame and directionless anger that I could never absolve myself of the guilt by apologizing to her. Most people say they wish they could have done more, but I knew I could have done more. And poor, poor Charlene Gutsman was dead. The forgiveness I so desperately wanted would never come.
#
I saw Charlene’s mom when I passed the front office on my way to third period. I knew it was Mrs. Gutsman because of how big she was, her massive form cutting through by the crisscrossed wire set into the windows that looked out into the hall. She overfilled the wooden frame of one of the little chairs arranged around the edges of the room, flab drooping over the armrests and chins wobbling as she cried. Tears glistened on her ruddy, wax-like cheeks. The skinny, curly-haired receptionist Ms. Langley was talking to her, a look of concern pinching her narrow features as she pawned off tissue after tissue. I wondered what she was saying. What could anyone say to Poor Charlene Gutsman’s grieving mother? Was she telling her that, until now, nobody cared even a little bit about Poor Charlene? How could someone diplomatically and kindly explain that their child was nothing more than a whale-sized eyesore, the literal elephant in the room? While she was alive, Poor Charlene wasn’t the responsibility of anybody in the school. Not when she showed up in the same unwashed clothes, not when she got laughed at or ostracized, and not when she stared hard at her desk with tears glazed over her little eyes. Everybody knew her, of course, she was the only two hundred-something-pound thirteen-year-old in the whole town, but she was still invisible. And yet, now that the worst thing possible had happened to her, the entire school—the entire town—painted itself red and proudly proclaimed that she was their responsibility after all. Poor Charlene! She is our tragedy, our pain, our dearest, beloved, darling Charlene Gutsman.
On Friday, blissfully ignorant of what was to come and brimming with restless excitement, I escaped from the drab school halls and into a weekend I had been looking forward to since Monday. When it came to entertainment, all my town had was a four-screen movie theater, a library, and the local rec center. Once, there had been a bowling alley that stank of cigarette smoke from the bar. If I really thought hard, I could dig up trace memories of a roller rink with an ancient projector they used to splash old music videos onto the painted white brick. But those things no longer existed, and as a result, parties hosted at the rec center were a huge deal. All of my friends would be there to eat pizza, play games, and generally enjoy time together without parental intervention. My shoes crunched on the dead, dry grass as I made my way towards the line for the buses. While I scanned the crowd for any of my friends, my eyes settled on a familiar figure lumbering down the sidewalk. Charlene was twice as wide as anyone else and hard to miss. Her blond hair glinted like dull straw in the sun. Did she walk home? Poor Charlene, I thought with a sudden burst of genuine sympathy. She looked so sad, so pathetic as she made her lonely way down the road while other kids lined up for the buses or waited to be picked up by their parents. On some impulse of guilt or pity, I began to run towards her. The two of us weren’t friends, not really, but she sat in front of me in math class, so we had at least spoken. Surely it couldn’t hurt to at least invite her to the rec center party. “Charlene!” I called, cutting past the noise of the crowd. She immediately looked behind her shoulder, a look of panic on her face. I stopped in front of her, breathing hard, and then my thoughts caught up with my actions. What would she do at the rec center party? Play the games? They were all physical. I pictured her gobbling a greasy slice of pizza in the corner, watching everybody with those sad little eyes all by herself. She watched me curiously, nervously, waiting for what I meant to say with a rigid, defensive posture. “I… um… Have a good weekend,” I finally told her, forcing a grin.
Charlene’s distrustful look became a hesitant smile. The expression made her look cute, almost. It poked dimples into her cheeks, highlighting the face beneath those round cheeks. Even her small eyes looked prettier, twinkling in the sun. “You too,” she said.
I hesitated again, wanting to say something more to ease the sticky sensation of guilt gumming up in my throat. “Maybe,” I said, “maybe you and I could hang out sometime? We could study together.”
Charlene, no longer looking so poor, blinked in surprise, her smile brightening even further. “I would like that,” she said. And I thought that maybe I would, too. We exchanged numbers, and I gave her a final wave before running to the bus, worried I would miss it. I don’t know what she thought about that interaction, but I hoped—I desperately, selfishly hoped—that it made her happy because that was the last time I, and perhaps anybody aside from her murderer, would ever see Poor Charlene Gutsman.