The Unseen Realm

Why Heath Is Awesome

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:12:38 GMT

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Lightnin’ in a Bottle

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:07:42 GMT

For Milo

Ennis’s friendship with Jack Twist was a thing apart, something he kept hidden on a high shelf out of the reach of others, like a mason jar of moonshine in the dark cave of the root cellar. Something he slipped off to sip from on the sly. He never took it out and looked at it directly, only sidled up to it, stealing sidelong glances, jumpy as a pickpocket working a policeman’s ball. He couldn’t afford to examine it too closely. If he saw the true shape of his feelings, he would have to smother them completely, bury that part of him, as he should have done at the start. He should have never let it happen the first time, but after, there was no going back to how it was before. Like the wolfman in the monster movies, he was changed, instilled with a craving that could not be denied. And time spent in Jack’s company was the only thing that satisfied his terrible hunger. It wasn’t easy doing without that comfort, but it wouldn’t do to seek it out too often, and he was used to doing without. Jack had his family to look after, his women on the side, his sales route: a full life. Ennis reckoned the time between their trips passed by quick for Jack and he was glad. He kept his head down and trudged through the days until the next time they were together. Whatever he was doing, branding a calf, washing dishes, or dancing with some gal as drunk as him, it was just a way of marking time, scratches on the wall, until his real life started again. These times with Jack never lasted long enough, but Ennis scoffed at any talk of making it permanent. He used to catch fireflies when he was little and he knew what happened if you tried to keep them captive to light your darkness.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:43:57 GMT

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way: Part Fourteen

A serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

The sun rose like it always did, out of habit and never late, beaming into the bedroom, waking them at dawn every day because Jack could never remember to close the curtains at night. Jack liked the way the light flung a marigold colored welcome mat across the snow all winter and the grass for the rest of the year. Foolishness, Ennis called it, but not out loud. For going on twenty years, he had been glad enough to see the yellow eyes of the cabin windows as he returned from a trek to the high pastures. Jack and Ennis had tried their hand at various occupations, but in the end, they went with what they knew. Used Ennis’s seed money to buy some sheep and a super fine merino ram and built ‘em up a flock of high yield woolies. There were lean times, but they never had to consider eating the stock, never let the sun set on an argument, never forgot how lucky they were just to be together. Even dead broke, they were richer than most.

Near the end of Sixty-Nine, soon after the Beatles called it quits, Ennis got a package from a guy he roughnecked with that had married a sweet little Tlingit gal. Fellow said Ennis left in such a hurry he never collected what was owed him, and it had been a bitch of a job tracking him down but maybe what was in the box would square the debt. Jack felt the weave of the Chilkat blanket and said it was mighty nice, but could be better. By Nineteen Seventy-Five, Jack and Ennis were selling most their top grade wool to the Dakh-dei tribal co-op and reaping part of the big profits when Native American weaving came into vogue. Ennis never quite comprehended how a person could fork over the price of a new truck for something he used to cover the horses when it got cold, but he didn’t spurn the money. He saw now that money could be a mighty fine fence, keeping the varmints out and him and Jack safe inside. They kept to themselves, had few friends, and didn’t need many, just some folks like them who knew what it was to be an exile in a crowd, a refugee from the human race, showing one face to the world and another when they were alone. Ennis’s handiness with a gun, the homestead’s isolation and the presence of the dogs banished his ghosts as they had during that summer on Brokeback. In many ways, Jack and Ennis never came down from that mountain and spent the rest of their days recapturing the feelings that were first detonated there. They fell asleep every night in one another’s arms, and woke in the same bed to face a new day together.

On this morning, Ennis is feeling the twinges of his worsening arthritis as he grips the handle of the coffee pot and pours two cups. Jack comes yawning in, splinters of silver in his sleep-flattened hair, picking his drawers from his crack before he sits, blows on the inky liquid, and declares it slightly better than yesterday morning’s cat piss. Ennis reckons Jack won’t want a second cup then and makes as if to pour the coffee down the sink. Jack jumps up to stop him and the half-hearted tussle turns into a full-blooded bout on the kitchen table with all the passion and urgency and improvised lubrication of a couple of nineteen year old boys let loose for the first time.

It was always like that between them and neither the passing of time or the repetition of the act could dull its wild and vulgar splendor for it was more than lust. Although neither ever called it by name, they knew what it was that they felt and they never denied that they felt it in all their long years together. They never needed to say it aloud, to wear a ring, or put their names on a piece of official paper. There were many things they gave up, but for what they gained, they counted the cost as cheap at twice the price. When pneumonia took Jack at eighty-two, his last breath went into Ennis’s ear, and Ennis never repeated his last words to anyone. They were for him and no one else.

Ennis went home and saddled his favorite horse, loaded a pack mule with some supplies and the urn that held Jack’s ashes, and rode north. He rode in daylight and darkness and Jack kept him company in waking dreams until he reached the Chilkat village. The weaving co-op agent took the keys and the rubber-banded papers that the odd codger handed him and promised to give them to the tribe’s lawyer. Ennis got back in the saddle, took up the mule’s reins, and pointed his mount’s muzzle toward the heights. The agent was the last person to see the leather-skinned old man before he was enfolded in the green-black skirts of the evergreens. An owl hooted twice as it crossed the clearing and government worker went back into his office to be buried again in the thousand and one mundane details of his job, but there was a glimmer at the edge of his vision, as though he’d caught sight of something rare, precious and beautiful without recognizing it, and the image of the old cowboy riding away haunted him for no reason he could put his finger on.

Ennis rode as high as he could. When the way got too steep, he took the halters off the stock and waved his arms until they got the idea and ambled away. Ennis continued on foot and Jack returned to nag him when he flagged. Sitting down on the bare bones of the earth, he held Jack’s earthly remains in the crook of his arm and waited.

“Gonna get cold tonight for sure,” he said, as the sun set for the last time.

The end.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:35:20 GMT

Part Thirteen of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

Ennis’s boss took off his glove to shake good-bye, said Ennis was a hard worker, never got into fights over the woeful imbalance in the male to female ratio, said he was sorry to see Ennis go. Ennis appreciated that more than the man would ever know, but despite the remoteness and high pay, he couldn’t stay here now, couldn’t stay anywhere unless he could stay there with Jack. Not after last night.

Ennis remembered how he gave Jack a little shake, sayin, hey bud, even if we cain’t go home, we cain’t sleep here. Jack sat up in the bed a the truck and asked why not, with a grin to beat the devil. For no good reason, Ennis said, “Maybe ‘cause my name ain’t Randee,” and Jack answered quick and sharp, “Maybe so.”

“What? You wish I was a girl, Jack? That it?”

“Well, ain’t that what you’re wishin’? Wouldn’t all your problems go away if I had tits?”

That shut Ennis up for so long that Jack waited warily for a sucker punch, figured he’d finally pushed him too hard. When came, it was in the form of words. “You tell me one thing, Jack fuckin Twist. Why’n hell you have ta make such a point a tellin me ‘bout your gal friend, huh?”

Another silence, not too long, but plenty of time to die once or twice before Jack burst out with, “Is your ass that ignorant, Ennis? Then here it is: all my cards. I’m rollin over and hopin I ain’t makin the biggest mistake a my whole sorry life. I done it ‘cause I wanted you ta act jealous. To prove that you love me in spite a yourself.”

“Jack…” Ennis took a breath, reconsidered his words. “It ain’t okay.”

“What ain’t okay? Swear ta God, you’re goin a make me crazy, you mule-headed sonuvabitch. Cain’t you just gimme just one little sign?”

“It ain’t okay that you sleep with women, Jack,” Ennis’s voice cracked wide open, shook precariously. “Put a nail in my heart ever’ time you talk about it.”

Jack’s arms made a circle ‘round Ennis, buoyed him up. “I hated that you was goin a marry Alma, but I was too scared ta say nothin. Figgered if we kept pretendin we wasn’t queer, you wouldn’t get spooked and run off.”

Pain glazed Ennis’s gaze with a sheen of salt water. “Seen what can happen when folks take against some guy ‘cause he’s littler, or slower, or somethin’. Like him bein different makes it okay ta pick on ‘im. Once they start in…”

Jack nodded; this wasn’t news to him. “What’d you see, Ennis?”

“When I was little, I seen the castrated corpse a this old guy name a Earl used ta pick up pop bottles on the side a the road. Used ta hear my daddy yellin at ‘im out the window a the truck whenever he seen ‘im: queer, faggot, ought a get my gun and blow your pecker off. Reckon somebody finally did. My daddy, or one a his crowd.”

“Jesus, Ennis!” Jack saw clearly now how deep the chasm was that kept them apart, but he didn’t shy back from the edge. Maybe he would never be enough to fill this abyss, but he could build a bridge. “Notice you missin the end a your pinky. Reckon we’re both missin somethin’. Thought I was less a man than my daddy ‘cause my dick was cut and his wasn’t. Done a lot a dumbass things provin otherwise.”

Their words had not come easy and cut deep as any knife, straight to the beating heart, making them blood brothers, cast from the same stony womb, blessed and cursed in one breath. Their times together were a break in the battle to be what they were not. If they threw that away, they’d have the rest of their lives to regret it. And there it was. Ennis could still deny it, could tell Jack he wasn’t like him, that he was a real man, even if he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He still had a chance to be safe. Safe, but alone and always under siege.

“I reckon some folks might call us queer,” he said. “Or some other ugly name supposed ta make ‘em feel like they’re better’n us. Me, I ain’t got no name for it. Don’t need one long as it can be like this, just you’n me, always.”

“That’s all I ever wanted, cowboy.”

tbc

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:13:33 GMT

Part Twelve of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

Jack reckoned Ennis’s honky-tonk angel was nursing a grudge and maybe they ought a have their drink somewheres else. Ennis told him the hard facts: unless he had his own supply, Deadhorse General was the only waterin hole. Jack didn’t quit. “Buy us a bottle then and let’s have some laughs.” Ennis took out a wadded five, smoothed it on the bar before sliding it over. He took the square bottle of hooch by the neck and followed Jack into the night. They made it to the lightless alley on the corner before Ennis let the whiskey fall to the snow in favor of grabbing Jack. He felt Jack’s surprise in the sharp jump of muscles, and then Jack’s arms were around him, tight as the cinch on a sunfishing bronc, and he stood once again on the chilly heights with all the heat he’d ever need pressed close as a second skin. In the instant their mouths collided, neither doubted how the next while would go, and fulfilled the prophecy in the thick dark of the motor pool barn, panting pale plumes, steam rising from the minimum of flesh bared to allow intimacy, passion robbing the cold of its power. It was over too quick, both of them startled at the speed they’d gone from howdy to having smokes, bundled together in the bed of a half ton diesel, molasses in their veins, covering big questions with small talk.

Jack said when he left Lureen he rode the train as far as his money would take him then thumbed it for a stretch. Caught a ride with a live wire name a Randee, co-ed from A & M, off to see the world before startin her last year as an Aggie. Said Randee made him welcome in every way known to her from the time she rolled down the window and told him to jump in. Ennis wanted to know what kind a name for a gal was Randee and Jack looked away as he stubbed out his smoke, sayin it was most likely short for somethin, and who cared anyway, he was here now and damned if it wasn’t as good as he remembered. Ennis wanted to know what Jack fuckin Twist considered good and there followed a tussle that had them goin at it again, goin off with Jack’s hand around both their peckers, Ennis tasting blood when Jack’s teeth sank into his tongue, spouting a load that cooled as soon as it left his body, Jack right with him, gasping a muffled profanity. The peace that Ennis had missed more than the sex enfolded him with Jack’s embrace and he knew without hope of reprieve that he was one of those guys. His father, his brother, Joe Aguirre, that harlot in the bar, hell, even strangers on the street, they all knew, and now he did too.

To be continued.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:10:46 GMT

Part Eleven of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film

Ennis rode into Deadhorse one Friday night, crammed into the cab of a Cat with three other guys in their cleanest dirty shirts, choking on aftershave fumes, tipping the bottle that went ‘round, taking in the bragging talk of pussy bagged and conquests yet to come, passing no remarks for he had nothing to contribute. His silence was noted, and he put up with the hooting speculation and the offers to stand him the fee at the cathouse until they lost interest. He tumbled out with the rest of them at the general store, mushing through the slush to the lights out the back, noise of music and voices raised above it growing louder as they got nearer like a wave rushing to shore.

Ennis found a beer and a place in a corner and folded in on himself to watch the fellas shoot pool. A buck-toothed b-girl joined them, smiling big and laughing loud, leaning her shelfy chest on the table, drinking from everybody’s cup, and generally making herself available. Roy pointed her in Ennis’s direction, letting on that the boy needed to be taken in hand, if she knew what he meant, and she surely did. When Ennis jumped to his feet with burning cheeks, the floozy slid from his lap to the floor, losing her grip and her good humor on the way down. Back up on her high heels, listing to the left, a blue streak spewing from her red mouth, she wanted to know if Ennis even liked girls. He edged away and his retreat alerted the predators in the room. A couple of roughnecks joined in, their grins nothing more than a baring of teeth, as they turned on the odd duck. Ennis’s co-workers made a token show of standing up for him, but things were turning ugly when Jack walked in.

“Whoa now!” Jack said. “What’s goin’ on in here? I heard a man could git a drink ‘round back, but I don’t want no trouble.”

“No trouble,” the bartender said. “Boys’re just lettin off some steam.”

Jack rared back, took a long look and chuckled. “Ennis? Ennis del Mar? Is that you, boy? What in hell you doin way up here in the cold?”

“This man a friend a yours?”

“Sure enough. Me’n him worked together for his fiancée’s daddy back in Wyomin.” The word fiancée worked a weather change on the mob and when Jack produced a photo from his wallet of him and Ennis with the Beers in front of the filling station, the smell of ozone dissipated in the wake of a lightning strike narrowly averted. “Come on, Ennis,” Jack said. “Just saved your neck. Ain’t you goin a buy me a drink or somethin?”

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:43:57 GMT

Part Ten of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated PG13

Ennis hooked up with a crew from Atlantic Richfield working the Prudhoe Bay area on the forty-ninth state’s north slope, nosing around for more black gold. It was always cold, the seasons stuck in one long winter, a barren stretch with no promise of spring that suited Ennis’s outlook to a T. Work was hard, especially on the hands, and Ennis lost the last joint of his left pinkie when a winch chain pinched it off neat as you please taking his glove with it. He formed no friendships, but a rough camaraderie accreted between men that depended on one another for everything from a tourniquet to a spare smoke in the remote core site camps.

For most of the roughnecks, Friday and Saturday nights were spent, along with most of their pay, at the general store in Deadhorse, official census population five, except on the weekends when it swelled like a ravine in a flash flood. The scientists on the exploratory team were dead certain they were sitting on big bubble and the expectation of riches was a golden aura that shone even upon the manual laborers that hauled the machinery around, set it up and tended it. Money flowed freely and if oil company workers got a little rambunctious while they were in town, they could expect no worse fate from local authorities than a ride back to base when they’d sobered up. It was wide open and roaring, and that suited Ennis too.

He drank a bit, but he didn’t gamble, told himself he didn’t like the look a the whores, and managed to put together a respectable bank roll, nothing that’d choke a pony, but for the first time in his life, he wasn’t worried where his next dollar was coming from. He’d settled into a rhythm, worn a rut between his bunk, the mess hall and the drill, kept his head down and kept his thoughts to himself. Most mornings, he rose in the grainy light of false dawn in the clothes he’d worn the day before, and the day before that. First up, he put on coffee for the barracks, stamped into his boots, soles warmed on the wood stove, and stuck his face outside. If the snot didn’t freeze on his upper lip, and sometimes even if it did, he’d take his cup and sip it while the sun came up over the ice field, letting his mind slowly fill with an image from his memories of Jack, warming him from the inside and reminding him of why he was here. Maybe this was far enough away.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:25:33 GMT

Part Nine of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated PG13

Jack swallowed his pride like a shot of battery acid and kept it down long enough to take L. D.’s money. He needed it. Last bull of his rodeo career launched him high, but not quite into orbit and didn’t take it kindly when he landed under its nose. Left a crater Jack couldn’t climb out of without a helping hand, hospital bills being what they were, and it was a new year before he could stand on his own to kiss Lureen under the mistletoe, but he said at least he wasn’t in no danger a bein caught in the Draft no more. Lureen, tired of playing nursemaid, and liking the look of Jack’s doctor, called him un-American. The handwriting was on the wall, the ceiling and the door of the bedroom they sometimes shared, praying to God that L.D. didn’t come home and catch them going at it. By mid-January, Jack reckoned she’d be glad to be shut of him, was only keeping him around to elevate her daddy’s blood pressure. When the card came, it was just the right time; he knew he’d lain around Childress long enough, his welcome worn so thin he could see the holes in it.

‘Sorry I did’nt say good by,’ the postcard read in letters any fourth grader would be proud of. Jack eyed the postmark from Kenai, Alaska, swore he could feel a fresh, cold wind, thought that for a man who showed signs a growin roots whenever he settled Ennis had tumbled a long way. But not any farther than Jack was willing to travel. A few bars of a song heard through the floorboards of his parents’ house rose like steam through a crack in the earth, ‘way up north, north to Alaska’, breaking the freeze of indecision, setting a marching beat his boot heels couldn’t ignore. He left a note for Lureen wishing her the best, sold the fancy tack she gave him for Christmas, and bought a ticket for the west coast. He didn’t know what he’d find out there, but he sure knew what he was looking for.

To be continued…

What is a glaenconer?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:30:47 GMT

My username explained (I am not well-versed yet in the posting of images):

THE GLANCONER

In Ireland, he is known as the Glanconer, or Love Talker. His amorous cousins around the world include England's deadly Reynardine, the fox daemons of China and Japan, the lusty elfin knight of Scottish balladry.

The Glanconer's eyes are black as sloes and his words are sweeter than honey. He walks the woods by twilight, prowling for women to charm and kiss. Beware. Dealing with the Love Talker involves a risk-- an elemental risk. It might be an exhilarating experience treasured for the rest of your life--or you might pine away when the faery's gone and no other man's touch can equal his. The Glanconer, like sweet-talking human lover boys, takes you for a walk on the wild side of Faery. It could be the making of you...or lead to pain and depair.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:36:46 GMT

Part Eight of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated: PG13

There were no flies on Lureen Newsome, and she had never heard of the word no. Her daddy let it ride, sly cuss, figuring the new would wear off Jack Twist soon enough and his baby girl would pick out a stud with better breeding to sire his grandkids. Too canny to talk her cowboy down, L.D. played it broad, called Jack ‘Rodeo’ like naming a pet, from the end of the dinner table offered him a job out of the arena lights, a left-handed favor to put out Jack’s flash. Lureen barreled right over any cast doubts, but Jack saw how it would go, her always holding the purse strings and him under her thumb. Slicking down his hair and giving way to the old banty rooster would never get him promoted from second-class, and outside of a breath-stealing taste for riding Jack to a standstill, Lureen paid more attention to her Daddy’s business than she did to him. He was the belt buckle she’d won, but it appeared he needed a sight more polish. Like all his pipe dreams, this one would come to nothing but smoke.

Ennis saw it differently, saw Jack getting up and out of the risky life, having steady money, making a place for himself and lining it soft. He hated it like toothache, but didn’t hold it against Jack, knew he couldn’t stand in the way, couldn’t take away Jack’s chance at a sweet life for what? So Jack could get busted up some more? And then wouldn’t they be a pair? Broke on the outside, broke on the inside, broke any way you looked at it. Wasn’t no way to be. Jack could have better, should have better, and he wasn’t going to get it so long as Ennis del Mar was poking around with him. They kept up the way they were going and sure as shit somebody was going to notice because it was the God’s honest truth they couldn’t be decent ‘round one another and there were some folks figured they had an iron cure for that kind of monkey business. So, he waited until Jack went out, thought about a shower, but couldn’t make himself wash off the sweet stink of their recent hi-jinks, just stuffed a few items, small but valued, into a pillow case and caught a ride with some rounders headed north.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:17:48 GMT

Part Seven of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated PG13 profanity

Jack set his hat on the chair, hair standing out every which way, guzzled the last of his beer, crushed the can and collected two points on his way to the bed. Ennis eyed him sourly, said he was mighty perky for somebody been out all night. Jack’s spit dried up, the barometric pressure dropping, presaging wild weather, making his bones itch with a restless need to gone before the firestorm hit, but being Jack, he faced into the teeth of it, hands balled on his hips to stop the shaking.

“So what if I been out all night? Where’s the problem?”

“I say it was a problem?” Ennis stood, not the kind to be caught on his pockets if it came to a fight. “Lighten up, Jack.”

“I’m sick and fuckin’ tired a this shit, Ennis! Thought we had us an agreement, but I cain’t hardly look at a gal now without you raisin’ some kind a hell. I ain’t you. I need more than the few fucks you throw me when the mood strikes. You got no fuckin’ idea, but God help me, I cain’t leave you.”

What Jack couldn’t put into words was a need so formless that he couldn’t see it clear enough to give it a name, but it had less to do with fucking than with simple acceptance. He wanted to bracket their sporadic and incandescent unions with something gentler that burned less brightly, but with a steadier glow. Ennis wanted none of it outside the sequestered sanctuary of sex, and, not one to settle for half a loaf, Jack sought it elsewhere in the soft arms of sweethearts of the rodeo. No harm; no foul.

Ennis muttered something to the ashtray. Lureen Newsome was no floozy. He’d heard. Gal had a rich daddy; buy her whatever she wanted. Bartender winked and said what she wanted was Jack Twist, cut him out a the herd, bold as brass, no mistakin’ her intentions. “She any good?” Ennis asked, testing the waters.

Jack got defensive. Not a good sign. “She really likes me and she says she’s gonna have serious money once her old man’s gone. Listen, Ennis, it’ll be tough for a while, but if we can stick out, we’ll be on the gravy train some day with biscuit wheels. Or try this… You can bet Lureen’s old man is gonna hate the sight a me. Prob’ly gimme a stake just ta git rid a me.”

“Whoa now. You gonna switch from ridin’ bulls to headin’ and heelin’, Jack?”

“Don’t shoot me down yet, Ennis. Hear me out. We can still be like this even if me and her was ta git hitched like she wants. Wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

Ennis didn’t mention that he’d left Alma for Jack, that Jack appeared to have more than a few hours acquaintance of Lureen, or that this plan sounded shifty as a grifter’s con. Jack still had her smell on him. “Only gonna say this one time. What that gal don’t know could git you killed.”

Jack’s face crumpled, his caged heart beating bloody wings, taking the words as proof that Ennis loved him, despite the cold doubts that blew through the chinks. One or the other of them moved to close the gap and they stood soul to soul for a fleeting eternity, one perfect communion before they went up in flames.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:10:19 GMT

Part Six of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

For two years, they worked the circuit, Jack riding bulls and more, Ennis odd-jobbin’ it, both of them working hard, drinking hard, loving harder, not saving a dime. They reached a rough accord on dippin’ their wicks: the occasional female was to be winked at, but neither of them being queer, there was no provision made for other guys. Ennis proved to have a green streak that was never mentioned, nor was it noted that his bar brawls ignited when he reckoned some cowboy’s eyes had lingered too long on Jack. On what was meant to be their last night in Childress, Texas, Ennis, blind drunk and feelin’ no pain, beat the stuffing out of a rodeo clown and Jack had to pull him off before he did time for homicide. The next day, Ennis woke with a world-class hangover, knuckles split and swollen, blood on the sheets, low tide smell of sex, no recollection of the fight and no Jack, cleaned himself up and went looking. Found a bartender that remembered and heard the news that Jack had gone back out and got lucky. Ennis spent the last dollar in his pocket on a longneck and returned to the motel to lick his wounds.

That afternoon, Jack sauntered into the small, hot room carting a case of Lone Star on his hip. “Better git to drinkin’, cowboy,” he said. “Them’s cold now, but they won’t stay that way for long.” Ennis swinging his legs over the side of the bed, blew smoke out the side of his mouth along with a few words, didn’t think they had any beer money. Jack pulled the ring tab on a brew, said he helped some guys load some equipment, there were a few cowboys heading up to Calgary, heard there was plenty money to be had riding stock up that way. Ennis, rolling a sweating can across his forehead, asked about dinner. Jack rolled his hips, thrust his crotch at Ennis. “You’re lookin’ at it.”

Ennis glanced at the open door and Jack moved to close it. “Gonna get awful damn hot.”

“Already hotter’n a Mexican whore on a wood burnin’ stove in July and about to get hotter.” Jack was right about that, but it was one of those times when he’d rather have been wrong. It got hotter, sure enough, but not in any good way.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:59:17 GMT

Part five of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

Jack pointed the pickup south, heard no discouraging word from Ennis, and kept on going ‘til dark while the silence solidified like a cab-full of wet cement. Orange and green neon of a package store painted a garish path across wet pavement to a motel on the other side, and Ennis said, this’ll do. In a blink, they were behind closed doors, passing a bottle of Dickel Brothers and testing the load limits of the sway-backed bed. Two, maybe three, blinks and they were too spent to move out of the mess they’d made, sheened in sweat, panting like hounds on a hot day, and Jack reached for his smokes asking Ennis if he’d knocked that bug out a his ass. Ennis took the cigarette from Jack, answered slow, paying out words like a skein of yarn, said it sure was a shame what happened to JFK, Kennedy had it all, the whole ball a wax, looks, smarts, women, money, power, and none of it was any good to him against a bullet out a the blue. If somebody like the President could be struck down like that, what did it matter what Ennis del Mar did with his life?

“Matters to me, friend,” Jack said real quick. “Come on, Ennis. If none of it matters, what’s to stop you ‘n’ me ranchin’ up together?”

“Money might stop us.”

Jack smoked hard on it, eyes roaming, snagged by a glint of light, focusing on his belt buckle. “There’s always the state sport a Wyomin’. Could rodeo ‘til we scrape up a stake.”

“How you figure that? You got a think, Jack. Neither a us got a horse. Hell, we ain’t even got the entry fee if we want a keep eatin’ for a while yet.”

Jack gentled Ennis down some, lips to his ear, told him they didn’t need no pony to ride bulls, and if Ennis didn’t cotton to that, he could work with the stock, there was always work for somebody willin to muck out stalls, they could live cheap, bunk together, save up. If Ennis didn’t share Jack’s sunny outlook, he didn’t let on. Rodeo was as good a place to be as any, he reckoned, and Jack knew his way around the circuit, wouldn’t be like they was goin to Siberia, and the notion of puttin more distance between him and Alma appealed to him. “Got a tell you,” he said. “Alma seen us.”

Jack didn’t ask what she saw, just said it was time to fish or cut bait ‘cause the rodeo season was windin down, and after that prospects were limited. Ennis said, sure enough, and with a road laid out for him, took the governor off his throttle, blazed new trails into Jack and into uncharted territory less tangible. Which is how they come to end up in Childress, Texas.

To be continued.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:03:49 GMT

Part four of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated: PG13

Alma got Ennis off alone first chance she got, pulling him into the storeroom for a meeting of the minds. Told him she’d seen what she’d seen and couldn’t never unsee it and he mumbled that she was crazy, but his voice lacked conviction and wasn’t long before he caved, turned his back and tried to walk away from it. “Where ya goin’, Ennis?” Alma wanted to know. “Nowhere,” he answered with more truth than he knew, wondering where his little brown bird had found the gumption to say such things. “What now?” she asked, and for once an answer welled up in him like a gusher and he told her what now. “I cain’t marry you, Alma.” She nodded once, set her jaw and wondered out loud what people might think about him gettin cold feet and him bein such good friends with Jack Twist and all. The sound of Jack’s name in her mouth did something to Ennis, a hot dark bubble burst in his brain, and he grabbed her wrist, yanking her close, speaking through clenched teeth. “You don’t know nothin’ ‘bout us, you hear, and if you say anythin’, I’ll make you sorry your mama met your daddy, you hear?” He flung her arm away, hating the way she cringed from him, the hollow look of fear in her eyes, hating himself, but knowing no other way to silence her.

Jack felt a jolt of galvanizing electricity as Ennis came toward him out of the cave of the garage, the clocking of boot heels loud on concrete, Ennis’s features clenched tight as a fist, warning Jack that the thunderbolt was about to fall directly on his head. “We gotta go, friend,” was all Ennis said, but it was enough for Jack. Amid the tears shed by Mrs. Beers and the mister’s uncomprehending wishes for good luck, Jack’s old pick-up pulled away from the station with all his and Ennis’s belongings slung higgeldy-piggeldy in the bed. In the rearview, Mr. and Mrs. Beers looked small and unsure like kids at a fairground that lost sight of their folks. They didn’t understand and Ennis offered little for them to go on. Alma, crying her eyes out face down on her bed, offered even less. It was none of their business, and, baffled and hurt, they went back to the store that didn’t run itself, full of questions that might never be answered, and the called-off wedding receded into history as the days and weeks went by until it was just another of the little mysteries they lived with like how bumblebees stay in the air, but it left the vague and recurring ache of an old injury in damp weather. The formless pain was an unheeded reminder, but they never saw Ennis del Mar, or Jack Twist, again.

tbc

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:44:51 GMT

Part three of a tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
I would rate this installment above an R

By Friday, Alma’s rope was all paid out. November the twenty-second and Ennis still hadn’t stopped by the doc’s for a check-up. No check-up meant no life insurance, and he’d promised he’d take care of it. Her daddy sold policies on the side, swore by monthly premiums, and was not about to let his son-in-law walk around without coverage. By hook or by crook, she said, Alma was going to get her future husband down to the doctor’s office before the weekend or never hear the end of it.

She waited ‘til noon to spring it, didn’t find him eating a sandwich with Jack in the garage, and kept going under full sail right across the scabby back lot to the Bubble. Raised her fist to knock and jumped a foot when something hit the other side of the door with a bang. Ice in her stomach, she called out for Ennis, heard a scuffle near the back, opened the door a crack, and froze for a shutter click, seeing it all in stark flash light. Jack on his knees, Ennis’s fingers wound tight in his hair, spit gleaming on the ruddy rod that poked from the frayed fly, and Ennis’s rapt face, that of a man she’d never met, open and yearning, full of excitement and expectation, happy. She eased the door closed, made it back to the store without ever feeling ground, never once looking back, not caring if they saw her. Day wasn’t half over, but she thought her life might be.

Mr. Beers hollered at her from the makeshift office to get her mama and the boys, hollered again when she was slow to answer. Sinking into the dull comfort of obedience, Alma shouted up the stairs to Mama, sleepwalked back outside as Ennis and Jack disembarked the Airstream like a couple of dumbass tourists rarin to go, delivered her message eyes averted, not wanting to see the shine on them. The family crowded into the cramped room following Mr. Beers' pointing finger to the small snowy screen of the television that helped him stay in touch with the terra incognita beyond the Wyoming border. Jack and Ennis leaned against the bare sheetrock, shoulders close together, looking mighty relaxed against the phone numbers scribbled there in haste. Perched on the battered desk, Alma felt the heat of them at her back, dug her nails into her palms, feeling like the world’s biggest fool. Jack Twist? Jack Nasty more like. At least she knew why Ennis left her alone, why go to the cow when you’re gettin milk at home?

The deep drone of the TV man fragmented into words saying that the President had been shot in Dallas while riding in a car, a motorcade Mr. Cronkite called it, and JFK wasn’t expected to make it. The seconds were motes of dust in a sunbeam as the Vice-President’s basset hound face stared mournfully into a camera, right hand raised, the waxen widow in his shadow, inky splatters on her chic suit, face as closed as a cameo locket. Alma knew how Mrs. Kennedy felt, picked up by a twister and miraculously set down in the same place, but a place forever and irrevocably changed by a fate as fickle and uncaring as the weather.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:26:30 GMT

Part two of a serialized tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.
Rated: PG13

Jack Twist shook hands with Alma’s ailing daddy and was drawn in to a new life like a man dragged into a whirlpool. By dinnertime, Riverton’s newest pump jockey had the keys to the cash register and all the doors and had filled his first two tanks. Ennis went directly to the garage to tinker and it was easy to see how smooth it could go with Missus Beers and Alma in the store, the mister in front of the ledger and adding machine, nursing his gout.

And so it went as Fall fell. Kids went back to school, and grownups went on about their business while the rest of the natural world got ready to sleep through the cold. Shadows grew long legs and an orange October rolled around with a bright jack o’ lantern grin. Trade was good and Mr. Beers reckoned it was his home team as he called them that accounted for the increase, said maybe he ought a just stay out their way if this was how things run without him. Showing his gratitude, he moved the boys out of Laura’s room and into a trailer parked behind the station up side of some dispirited cottonwoods choking on road dust. They call it a Bubble, Mr. Beers informed them, built in ‘58, costing at that time the stratospheric sum of two thousand dollars, but the one they were lookin at acquired in trade for an engine block Ennis rebuilt. She was sixteen feet of living space with a gas/electric refrigerator, a toilet, a thirty-six inch bed and privacy. It occurred to Jack and Ennis at about the same moment that this meant an end to the sneaking around, the long looping drives to nowhere, buying fresh fish to fill the bucket on the way home. It was an end to the pervasive fear of being caught when the dreaded moment came that they could no longer control the thing that possessed them sometimes. That the moment would come, Ennis did not doubt, but when he saw the Airstream his balls still tightened in a joyous little spasm.

They made the move in record time, requiring one trip only to shift all their worldly belongings. Alma wished Ennis could stay in the house and Jack would move into the trailer by himself, but her mama’s last nerve was starting to fray from the stress of having the boys in the house so soon after Laura’s trouble. Mama knew Alma was a good girl, but men got riled up, as she put it; wasn’t their fault, of course, just the way God made ‘em, except for Daddy, but good girls didn’t put themselves in situations where somethin like ‘that’ could happen. Alma had kept her legs crossed, but she was getting married in December and she couldn’t wait for ‘that’ to happen. Lately, she’d been thinking that it wouldn’t hurt anybody to get a coming attraction like they did at the movies. Ennis respected her, never pushed too hard when she flagged him down at second base, but she thought she might like it if he did.

November waned to the thin rind and the new routine established in the expanded Beers household held good as Winter wedged its way into the year. Deer season was over and as far as Missus Beers was concerned, wedding season had begun. Ennis got corralled into all manner of decisions that he had no opinion on, and his lack of enthusiasm was likely to turn Alma’s waterworks on without warning. Didn’t matter to him if the flowers were pink, or yellow, or every color in the rainbow. This was her show and it ought to be just how she dreamed it. Wasn’t right to fool her this way, carrying on with Jack every time they were out of her sight, but he couldn’t stop. Had to be some way to make it up to her for doing her wrong, even though he never intended it to be this way. Her love was a lighthouse that ceased to shine for him through no fault of her own. He had been to a far shore and could no longer see the way home.

Sometimes It Goes the Other Way

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:48:30 GMT

A tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film

Jack Twist, still shy of twenty years and fewer miles down the road from Signal to Lightnin’ Flat, slammed on brakes, pounding the wheel, cussing a blue streak across the bleached out day. He did a one-eighty and before too long came up on a tractor-trailer. Her stacks belched and she barged back onto the blacktop like the curtain going up at show time. Doubled up on the side of the road: Ennis del Mar, dry heaving like a calving heifer.

“What the fuck are you lookin at?” Ennis choked out, tear-blind.

“Your shirt got in my roll by accident. Just bringin it back.”

Ennis had nothing to say to that. Let Jack talk him into a ride and away they went. No talking at first, not until Jack stopped to call his folks, stomped back to the truck and stared holes through the windshield until Ennis asked what the hell was eatin him. Jack said he figured he’d burnt his last bridge with the old man and Ennis said maybe he ought to try something different for a while. Ennis had a job waiting and reckoned there was plenty of work for two, if Jack could give up the glamorous rodeo life. Jack punched Ennis, not too hard, and there were a few lively minutes in the cab when Ennis paid him back, wrestling around the tall gearshift until the gimpy latch on Ennis’s door gave and dumped him into the empty rest stop parking lot. Jack laughed like a hyena, realized Ennis hadn’t moved and was out of the truck like a shot, asking if his friend was all right, reaching down a hand. The possum came back to life, pulled Jack down to share his fate, rolling over gravel to the shade of a tree, entering heaven one inch at a time. Back on earth, they moseyed to the truck, the slick turning to glue in the crotch of their pants, already starting to itch as they got back on the road.

Ennis’s bride-to-be lived with her folks on top of the family business. Beers’ Filling Station and Superette squatted at the crossroads just north of Riverton, one blinking yellow light dancing with the hot wind above the shimmering two-lane blacktop. The dusty blackberry mountains marched away along the horizon, their backs to the dismal monotony of the plains. They loomed over Alma’s girlhood, always at the edge of her vision like the threat of an approaching storm. Jack could see what Ennis liked about her when he first laid eyes on her, small and sweet-faced, smiling at Ennis like he hung the moon. Alma was a good girl, apple of her daddy’s eye, mama’s little lady, never any trouble to anybody. Not like her younger sister, Laura, shipped off to stay with her grandma until the baby was born and given up. But Jack knew none of this as his truck farted to a stop. He only knew he and Ennis didn’t have to split up yet, and he’d deal with the rest.

Bring Back My Blue-Eyed Boy to Me

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:59:52 GMT

I've become very fond of the music of Johnny Cash and in looking for information on him, I found the Carter Family. The following lyrics are to a bluegrass song by A. P. Carter. I hope some day to hear it performed.

'Tis true the rainbow has no end
It's hard to find a faithful friend
And when you find one just and true
Change not the old one for the new

Bring back my blue-eyed boy to me
Bring back my blue-eyed boy to me
Bring back my blue-eyed boy to me
That I may ever happy be

Must I go bound and him go free
Must I love the boy that don't love me
Or must I act the childish part
And love that boy that broke my heart

Last night my lover promised me
To take me across the deep blue sea
And nows he's gone and left me alone
An orphaned girl without a home

Oh dig my grave both wide and deep
Place a marble at my head and feet
And on my breast a snow-white dove
To show to the world I died for love

Pins and Needles

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:30:28 GMT

Pins and Needles

A short tribute to Brokeback Mountain, the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

Buck up, girl. Put one foot in front of the other. Your entire body’s numb like your jaw after a trip ta the dentist, but ya cain’t let the kids see ya like this. They’ll want a know what’s wrong with mama. You’ll have ta make somethin’ up and lyin’s a sin. So’s cheatin’. Don’t want a believe it. Don’t want a believe what ya saw. Ennis and his friend. Goin’ at it like a sailor and the girlfriend he ain’t seen since forever. They’re comin’ up the stairs. Do somethin’. Don’t let ‘em find ya standin’ here like a heifer chewin’ her cud. Don’t let on ya saw. Saw ‘em swappin’ spit like a couple a hot pants teenagers. Don’t let on that your world just cracked open and ya saw what was underneath. Like the time ya turned over that dead cat and saw them maggots all wet and wrigglin’. There’s your purse. Pick it up. Dig for somethin’, anythin’; just don’t let ‘em see your hands shake. Ennis is talkin’. Answer ‘im. Say howdy to his friend. Ennis is sayin’ they’re goin’ out. There’s a dollar in your fist. Ask him to bring you smokes. Don’t let ‘im stay out all night with that man. Do somethin’. Do somethin’! Too late. They’re gone. Make some coffee. Keep busy. Try not to think about it. He’ll come home.

But maybe ya ought a wait up just the same.

Between Me and the Sun

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 18:47:21 GMT

Liar

A short tribute to Brokeback Mountain the book and the Oscar-worthy film.

I ain’t queer. Don’t know why I done what I done. Was drunk and half-asleep. He put my hand on his pecker. He wanted it. Told me he ain’t queer neither, but he sure ‘nough wanted it. Let be. Good supper tonight. Like the way he fries up the spuds all crispy ‘round the edges. He bitches that they’re burnt, cusses the skillet, but I like ‘em like that. Need to git up off this log and git up to the sheep, but the fire sure feels good and I prob’ly ought a let my dinner settle some. Maybe I’ll roll a smoke for the ride up. I ain’t stayin’ down here again, that’s for sure. Ain’t even gonna look at that tent. Sure is warm in there though. Not like in the pup tent way up above the trees. Lot warmer down here. Best to stop thinkin’ like that, and git on up. Don’t know why I’m draggin’ my heels. Damn. Must be mighty warm in that tent. He’s takin’ his shirt off. Them sheep’ll be all right for a few hours. I’ll just get some shut-eye where it’s warm and then go up. It don’t mean nuthin’. I ain’t queer.

Death in Venice

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:56:15 GMT

Beautiful Bjorn Andressen as Tadzio, the object of desire in "A Death in Venice".

Change Partners

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:28:03 GMT

Change Partners: A short tribute to Brokeback Mountain the book and Oscar-worthy film

He sure is a nervy cuss, not the kind a fellah I expected to find in Childress, Texas. I kicked up some sand when LaShawn told me we were goin’ to get out and meet some a the folks ‘round here. I ain’t much for socializin’. One a the reasons I took to a career with livestock. Cattle and horses don’t expect much in the way a conversation. Now here I am stuck tryin’ to have one with this local hotshot, him all decked out in black like some kind a movie gunslinger. And that big ol’ mustache don’t set right on his face, like a kid playin’ grown-up. No love lost between him and that fancy wife a his, but maybe that’s just Lureen’s way ‘cause she got snippy with LaShawn, too, unless I got it all wrong. I ain’t sayin’ I know women, but sure seemed like Queen Lureen was puttin’ LaShawn down some. Course, they’re off powderin’ each other’s noses now, so what a I know? I know if I don’t find a special friend ‘round here soon, I’m goin’ a have to switch to my left hand, or the right one’s goin’ a fall off with all the jerkin’ off I’m doin’. Wouldn’t mind cozyin’ up to this Twist fellah. He smiles like a salesman, but there’s somethin’ about him that seems kind a lonely. Maybe the same kind a lonely as me. Maybe the slick clothes and the perfect teeth mean somethin’ besides lookin’ good for customers. Maybe he’s sellin’ somethin’ besides farm machinery. He really is a fine-lookin’ man under that soup-strainer and duded up suit. Sure do like the way his lips wrap around that cigarette. When Roy Taylor hired me, he said the use a his lake cabin come with the foreman job. Now there’s somethin’ we can talk about and LaShawn won’t fuss at me for bein’ a bump on a log when she comes out. I’ll ask him if he wants to go fishin’.

Between Me and the Sun

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:13:55 GMT

His Point of View

Whut in the hell is that piece a shit pickup doin’ parked in my lot? I don’t believe my fuckin’ eyes! Jack Twist, king a the fuckups. I cain’t believe the government sent that pissant back here after the mess he made a things last year. Lazy little mama’s boy. You’d think he was a nut-cut calf the way he bitched and moaned. And I got myself a real good idea about Jackie Twist and how he swings. Boy’s a little too proud a that shiny ass belt buckle, always drawin’ attention ta his crotch. Oh yeah. I got a good idea about Jack Twist. In the right situation, a boy like Twist’d be on his knees gobblin’ your pecker before ya could say Jack Robinson. Now, it ain’t unheard of for men on the range ta get horny enough ta give each other a helpin’ hand, but that’s different. Some guys do it ‘cause they got no choice, but Twist… that pissant would swallah all ya give him ta swallah and beg for more. Turns my stomach. As if that ain’t enough, look at that sad sack leanin’ up against my trailer like a bum waitin’ for a fuckin’ handout. Well, he ain’t goin’ a find no charity here. That shit starts at home. Don’t know why the God damned government in its infinite wisdom made me take two men this year. Cain’t make no profit like that. Had to double the fuckin’ supply order and get the pup tent out a the piece a shit shed that don’t even keep rain off the rats. Fuckin’ stray cat had a litter on the damn thing. Soon as I smelled it I knew I was goin’ a make Twist the high camp herder. That raggedy-ass stringbean can sleep soft in the lower camp with a nice cozy fire. He looks about as dense as a bag a bricks and prob’ly ain’t got two nickels ta rub together. Them ranch stiffs git their pay on Friday, got nuthin’ left for the collection plate on Sunday mornin’. Ya can bet the farm he ain’t got no watch. Have ta loan ‘im one and git it back at the end a the season. Shit. Just whut I need. One more fuckin’ gray hair. Cain’t believe I’m sendin’ these two up there with a firearm. One of em’s liable ta shoot the other right through the heart, but the ky-ote problem ain’t goin’ a go away all by itself, now is it? No, it ain’t. Not on your fuckin’ life. Ya got a put ‘em down. Only good ky-ote is a dead ky-ote. Cain’t afford the losses I had last year. I’m goin’ a be keepin’ my eye on Twist this summer. Bet your fuckin’ ass.

Between Me and the Sun

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:56:42 GMT

Whiskey Dream

I cain’t believe this’s really happenin’. Got a be a dream. All I wanted was ta feel his hand on my pecker just once while I wrang it out under the blanket. Hopin’ so hard he wouldn’t wake up. Knowin’ the risk I took. Thought he’d whup me for sure when he jumped up all growly, but he just kind a squinted at me, all sleepy-like, and dumbass me tried ta kiss ‘im. He didn’t want none a that and that’s fer sure. Slung me down ta the ground. I’d bet real money he ain’t never done this before, but shit, it ain’t hard ta figger out. I just cain’t believe he’s really yankin’ my Lee Riders and my drawers down like he means business. Most I hoped for was a few sweaty strokes in the dark and actin’ like it never happened in the mornin’, but damned if he ain’t pokin’ at me, tryin’ ta git his pecker in with nuthin’ but spit for grease. Fuck! Sweet Jesus! Feels like a Brahma bull done busted down my gate. And he ain’t payin’ no mind, hangin’ on ta the tail a my shirt like reins, ridin’ hard for pure pleasure of it, and Lord don’t I know how good it feels ta shove your hard meat in ta somethin’ so tight. If he’d just reach under me and touch me, I know I’d go off like a fuckin’ cannon. Balls’re so tight they ache. Still cain’t believe it’s happenin’. Down on my face, I can reach my dick and his feels so good slidin’ in ta me. Shit! I think he just came. One more, Ennis. Just one more poke, and I’ll sing hallelujah. Oh, God yes! “Gun’s goin’ off!”

Penis-Whipped

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 04:17:26 GMT

by Smoothe Harry

(This is an original poem by Harry. He's rather earthy, and hasn't the faintest glimmer of an idea how to construct a proper poem, but I think self-expression should be encouraged.)

Why are you so hard where I am softest?

Always going when I want to be coming?

The key to my kingdom swings between your legs.

A rod, and a staff that comforts me to my knees.

How can you be so bright, and so dark?

Never seeing how you blind me.

I am a newlywed virgin each time for you.

Bow-legged, ruined for all others, begging for more.

How can I stay with you and keep my pride?

Why do I even pretend to fight it?

The sheets have always been our flag of truce

No blame, no shame, I’ve played the same game.

Why can’t I just walk away from you?

How can I tell if it’s addiction or love?

I know I sleep easy when you sleep inside me

Your magic wand makes my wet dreams come true.