I Am a Rock
Scene Seven: Interior, Night/Interior Day
Rated NC17 for the series
Warning: Mention of m/m sexual situations.
Disclaimer: I have borrowed these characters from Annie Proulx that created them, and the fine actors that embodied them on screen.
A/N: As noted above, this is an A/U!AU. I’ve tried to remain true to the characters as I perceive them, but presenting them in modern incarnations necessitated some changes in speech patterns, etc. I hope you don’t find the differences too jarring.
Thank you, Jean, for everything.
::=-=:: ::=-=:: ::=-=::
Jack followed Lureen through the door of the bedroom their host had made available to his guest of honor. Serge was lying face down on the big bed, already naked, snorting a line from the night table with a rolled up bill. He looked up and smiled, the remnants of great beauty that clung to his bones creating a momentary illusion of attractiveness. Jack returned the smile, but it faded as his gazed traveled downward. The cigarette burns on Serge’s thin buttocks stood out in stark contrast to his nearly translucent skin like drops of old blood in the snow. Jack turned and walked back out.
“Where is the pretty boy going?” Serge asked behind him.
Lureen told him to wait and went after Jack. She caught up with her roommate before he reached the end of the hall and pulled backward on his shirttail. Jack stopped and spun around, his face as closed as a locket.
“Where the hell are you going?” Lureen hissed.
“Out of here. Somewhere clean.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t do it, Lu.”
“You told me you could.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“I told you how much this means to me. This guy can write my ticket. I can go straight to the head of the class if he likes me.”
“Then go make him like you. Just don’t drag me into it.”
“You said you would. Goddamn it, Jack. You can’t leave me high and dry.”
“Watch me,” Jack turned and Lureen caught at his sleeve.
“It’s not like we haven’t done this before.” Abandoning guilt, she tried to sway him with logic. “Remember that big guy dressed like a cowboy?”
“Charlton?” Jack said. “He has a name, Lu, and he was somebody we both knew. I don’t know that space monkey in there from Adam; do you?”
“I know he represents Gucci and he’s a major stepping stone in my career.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not anybody’s stepping-stone. I’m not doing it, Lu, and if you go ahead and do it, you’ll never be able to look at yourself the same way again. You’ll feel like a whore, and rightly so.”
Jack’s head rocked back as Lureen’s palm met his cheek with some force. “Damn, baby,” he said, grabbing her wrist as she raised her hand again. “You pack quite a punch for someone with a baby pink manicure. Whoa. Settle down now and listen. You get one hit for free because I like you.”
“And because I feed you and let you sleep in my bed. In fact, I gave you the clothes you’re standing in.”
“You want ‘em back?” Jack began popping buttons on the shirt.
“If you’re going to do a strip tease, at least come back in the room where Serge can see.”
“I don’t know you anymore. Where does all this ruthless ambition stuff come from?”
“Come on, Jack. You’ve seen my trophies. You know how competitive I am. I don’t think you have the right to act all shocked and outraged. And I don’t understand why you won’t just do this thing for me. It’s just sex, for Chrissake.”
“I’m going.” Jack shook off her hand. “I’ll have my shit out of your place by the time you get home.”
“What? Hold on a minute. One argument and you’re out?”
“Call it a moment of clarity, but I saw the future when you opened that bedroom door and I didn’t much like it. Keep your clothes, and your coke and your casual sex. It’s not what I want. It’s not what I need. And the fact that you’re willing to use me that way tells me you’re not really my friend.”
“And you say you don’t know me anymore? What the hell happened to Twisted Jack the inventor of so many interesting games? I like him. Bring him back.”
“That ain’t me no more. Goodbye, Lu.”
“Bullshit.”
Jack looked back over his shoulder and glanced down at his backside. “Say goodbye to this too. It’s the last you’ll see of me.”
“Jack, don’t you walk away from me.”
Jack didn’t reply. He kept walking, leaving yet another crime scene in the making. If he stayed, he knew it would get uglier. A whole lot uglier.
“Jack!” Lureen stomped one of her Jimmy Choo pumps.
Jack reached the living room area of the large apartment turned temporary dance club and headed for the front door. He heard Lureen call him one more time and then he was outside in the corridor. The thick carpet turned his heavy footsteps into mocking whispers as walked to the elevator. As the doors closed, so did his eyelids, and just for a few moments, he let himself bask in the memory of kissing Ennis del Mar in an elevator. Then the floor dropped and he was on his way down.
When he reached the street, he looked left and right, but waved off the cab that swooped to the curb in front of him. He crossed the street to the bus stop and stood in line. Maybe he had lost someone that he suspected would have been the great love of his life, but at least he could look at himself in the mirror.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
Ennis looked down at the beautiful paper in his hands. It was thick, yet translucent, with a pleasant array of textures under the fingertips. Pressed between multiple delicate layers of rice paper were tiny blue flowers, as blue as…
Ennis stopped that train of thought before it left the station. There was no point in tormenting himself with what could not be. He was a del Mar, and del Mars did not live in run-down apartment buildings, or have Bohemian friends, or make their living at something as whimsical as writing poetry. Del Mars toed the line, married within their class, and kept things running the way they always had. It was a sweet, sweet dream to imagine that he and Jack could have had more than a few nights together, but Ennis was wide awake now. He could see his future: a long gray tunnel with no light at the end, and he would plod its interminable length until he dropped of sheer disinterest in going any farther.
“Mr. del Mar?”
Ennis sighed and spun in his swivel chair. He’d requested that everyone in the design department call him by his first name, but he supposed it was hard for them to forget that, technically, he owned roughly a quarter of the company. Not until he was twenty-five would he receive his father’s full bequest, but it wasn’t as if he had to work for a living. The quarterly allowance he was paid was more than adequate to keep him in style, but he’d never been comfortable with taking the money. It was common knowledge that del Mar Senior had left everything to his eldest son. It was only through K.E.’s generosity, or perhaps his sense of guilt, that Deedee and Ennis were so well provided for, and so, when he’d approached Ennis about this job, Ennis hadn’t seen a way to refuse without feeling like an ingrate.
“What is it, Ling?”
“I just got a call from reception. Your sister’s trying to call you and thinks your cell phone might be turned off. And your desk phone.”
“My bad. I can’t seem to concentrate when I’m afraid the phone will ring and interrupt me. Ironic, huh?”
“If you say so. She’s going to try and call you again in a few minutes, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ling.” Ennis reached into a drawer and took out his cell phone.
“So… write anything good today?”
Ennis kept his eyes on the phone as he answered. “Some crap that will probably thrill the pants off the mall rats. You?”
“I found an interesting new way to fold, or maybe a very old way. The card will open into a flower shape.”
“What kind of flower?” Ennis asked, veering away from the thought of blue again.
“That’s the next step,” she smiled at the top of Ennis’s head.
He was trying to come up with something else to say when his phone trilled. Looking apologetically at Ling, he lifted it to his ear. She mimed walking away with her fingers and left for her side of the enormous workspace.
“Hello?” Ennis said.
“Hi En, it’s Dee.”
“I hear you were trying to reach me. Is everything okay?”
“Just peachy. I have four new pairs of shoes and half a dozen bags. I had to buy two more suitcases to bring everything back in. What would you like from Milan?”
“Some of those cookies, the ones like shortbread dipped in chocolate.”
“En, sweetie, you can get those delivered, but I’ll bring you some.”
“Is that why you called? To ask about souvenirs? ‘Cause it doesn’t sound like you.”
“Actually, this is so bizarre, but I was walking through a square, which I have christened the Piazza della Pigeoni, and I had this sudden, I don’t know, a flash or something. Anyway, I felt so sad that I burst into tears right there in broad daylight. Of course, I had a vintage Pucci scarf to dry my eyes with, but I’m telling you, En, the pain was so bad for a couple of seconds that I thought there was something wrong with my heart.”
“There’s something wrong with all our hearts, Dee. You know that.”
“I don’t want to talk about Mom and Dad,” she said quickly. “I want to talk about you. I had the strongest urge to call and ask you this. Are you happy, En?”
“I’m not sure it’s possible for me to be happy.”
“En, don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“We can’t just start spouting out the truth,” she said. “It would be chaos. Society as we know it would collapse.”
“I’m trying to think of a reason why that would be bad.”
“Oh stop it. You’re not James Dean, you know. Maybe you should get yourself a cause.”
“I have Alma.”
“Is it all right to be candid about Alma?”
“Be as brutally frank as you want.”
“I can't stand her, En. I can’t stand her pudding face. I can’t stand her prissy smugness. I can’t stand the way she speaks to you.”
“Me either, but I don’t see what choice I have. You’re going to know soon anyway, so I’ll just tell you. Alma’s pregnant.”
Dee’s harsh gasp came clearly over the connection. “That conniving little bitch! No wonder she’s been licking her whiskers. She’s already had the cream.”
“Don’t, Dee, please?”
“But En, you don’t have to marry the girl. Not in this day and age. We’ve come a long way, baby. Acknowledge the child, provide for it, but don’t subject it to a pair of loveless parents. That would be cruel.”
“It’s what she wants.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Lots of things aren’t right. I can’t fix ‘em all.”
“What are you going to do, En?” Dee’s voice was soft with sympathy.
“I’ll just have to stand it. Enjoy the rest of your trip, and if you want to do me a favor, find something for Alma as a wedding gift from me.”
“Don’t you want to pick it out?”
“I don’t have any idea what she’d like.”
“I’ll just get the most expensive thing I can find, then. That ought to please her.”
“No doubt. Goodbye, Dee.”
“Goodbye, En. Think about what I said, okay? You might have to live with some guilt, but you really don’t have to marry Alma if you don’t want to. I’ll stand behind you on that.”
“Thanks, Dee.” Ennis pushed the end button on his phone, turned it off and tossed it back in the drawer. It landed on a piece of folded paper with a crackling noise and Ennis reached in for it. He smoothed the wrinkled sheet of notebook paper on his desk and read the words he knew by heart. It was the best thing he’d ever written, raw and from the heart, expressing something he never thought he’d feel. It mocked him with the knowledge that he had it in him to be a true poet, and yet he had settled for this. He had held a Muse of fire in his arms and let the flame be snuffed out by cold necessity. Good and decent man? Bullshit. He was a poor excuse for one. “Worthless piece of shit,” he muttered.
“Did you say something?” Ling called out.
“Yeah.” Ennis folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. “I’m clocking out early.”
“Got an appointment?” Ling asked out of cordial curiosity, imagining some delightful wedding business like choosing luggage for their honeymoon, or gifts for the wedding party.
“I need a drink.”
Ling didn’t answer as Ennis shrugged into his jacket and left the room. The youngest scion of the del Mar clan was handsome, sexy and brooding, Ling’s favorite fantasy flavor, but she sensed that his pensiveness was not a coy act designed to lure sympathetic females in for the kill. There was a sadness in his dark eyes that didn’t belong to a twenty-year-old man and it warned her off. Something was deeply wrong with Ennis del Mar, and she didn’t think she was the one to fix it, if anyone could.
::::::::::::::::::::::
“Hi, Ma.” Jack kissed his mother’s soft, wrinkled cheek, old before her time, worn out with hard work and worry.
“Joncy!” Sarah Twist’s large faded eyes glowed when she looked at her handsome boy.
Jack controlled his wince, but he hated it when she called him Joncy. He was named John Charles after his father, and his mother had shortened his first name and middle initial to Joncy when he was a baby. He had been Joncy until he turned six and started school. That was when the old man had laid down the law. No son of his would be known by a faggoty, nickname like Joncy. Nowadays, when Sarah used that name it meant she was traveling in the past. It tore at Jack’s heart, but she was so much happier there.
“How’s it goin’, beautiful?” he asked softly. “I like that scarf in your hair a lot.”
“Do you really think it looks nice?” Sarah lifted a hand to pat at her permed hair. “Laqueeta came by yesterday and did my hair.”
Jack relaxed. His mother was having a lucid day, it seemed. “You want to go outside?” he asked. “Have a look at the garden?”
“Oh heavens no, honey. The old garden’s gone to rack and ruin. Was a neighborhood boy came in now and again to mow the grass and pull weeds, but I reckon he didn’t think much of the pay, ‘cause he ain’t been around in a while.”
Jake tamped down the burn of shame. His folks needed help around the place, but damned if Jack could make himself spend more than an hour here about once a month. “What about… Lateefa? She got any kids, or know anybody wants to work?”
“It’s Laqueeta, Jack, and she works for the agency that’s hired by Social Services. The same folks that do the meals on wheels. Be nice if they had a handyman service.”
“Let me take a look then, and see what I can do while I’m here.” It was the same thing Jack said every time he visited.
His mother made her customary reply. “You gonna see your Daddy?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll stop in after I get a couple of chores done.”
Jack worked until the sun started to go down. He put away the rusted tools, washed off his hands and let water from the hose run over his neck before putting his shirt back on. Picking up the paper sack he’d brought with him, he went back in the house, running his fingers through his wet hair. Without turning on a light, he walked the narrow back hall to his father’s room. Before he reached the door, he could hear the television through the walls: all CNN all the time. The old man was living proof that misery loved company.
Jack knocked and an irritable voice called out. Opening the door, Jack stepped into the bedroom cave and made himself look at the man that had sired him. John Twist Sr. stared back, as dispassionate as a reptile, before his glance returned to the flickering light of the screen. Without a word, Jack pulled a bottle of whiskey from the brown bag and tossed it at his father. The old man snatched it out of the air and tucked it between his hip and the arm of the battered recliner.
“Good to see ya, pop,” Jack said. “But I can’t stay and shoot the shit with ya.”
John Twist screwed the cap off the bottle and took a long swallow, his eyes never leaving the news report of more troops arriving in the Middle East. “Ought a be you,” he muttered.
“I’d really like to go overseas and die so some yuppie can have gas for their Escalade, and maybe, just maybe, you might respect me, but the Army don’t want boys like me, Dad.”
“Get out.”
“I love you, too, pop,” Jack said, closing the door behind him. He leaned his head against the wall for a few seconds, but the rejection didn’t sting half as bad this time. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders and went back to the kitchen. Eleura was there now, back from the market, and making vegetable soup.
“Hey, Jack,” she said in her singsong accent. “You stay for dinner.”
“I can’t,” Jack said. “I have to meet some people downtown. See about a job.”
“At night, mon? What kind of job you get at night?”
“A night job, Eleura. Thanks for watchin’ out for my ‘rents.”
“I appreciate havin’ a roof over my head. Ain’t easy for a woman alone in this city, man run off, got no skills.”
“You cook a mean barbecue. I can’t get enough a that sauce.”
“Maybe you sell it for me?” Eleura laughed. “Be the Jerk Sauce King, boy.”
Jack smiled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded stack of bills. “Here’s a couple hundred,” he said. “Wish it was more, but I’m tapped out. Had to find a new place to live last week.”
“Don’t you worry, Jack. The Lord provides, yes He does. Look at me. Last year me walkin’ the streets thinkin’ I only got one thing worth sellin’ and along you come with your true blue eyes and your white-white smile. At first I thinkin’, this boy be Babylon come t’ tempt me, but look here, now me livin’ in a nice house with nice people, doin’ honest work.”
“I’m glad it worked out for everybody,” Jack said. “I’ll bring more money before too long. Who’s this Laqueeta, by the way?”
Eleura glanced at Sarah, but the other woman was engrossed in looking out the window. “A good girl, nice girl. She in beauty school and practicin’ on old people.”
“Think she’d give Ma a weave?”
Eleura slapped at him with a dishtowel. “Sometimes I think you are a devil, Jack Twist. That gleam in your eye not so innocent. Kiss your mama now and say your goodbyes. I need to be feedin’ her and Mr. Grumpy before time for them meds.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jack went and knelt beside his mother’s chair, staring out into the garden gone to seed, wondering what she was seeing. “I gotta go, Ma.”
“I know, son. You’re a busy boy. Thanks for comin’ by. I know it means a lot to your father. Don’t stay away so long this time.”
“No, ma’am.” Jack rose and kissed the top of her head, remembering when she used to do that to him, the way she’d take a deep breath, as if he was the nicest smelling thing in the world. He hadn’t felt that loved again until…
Jack banished the memory of Ennis’s arms around him. No matter how complete Ennis had made him feel, the fact was the Jack would never know if anything Ennis had told him was true. And since Ennis hadn’t cared enough to find him and explain, Jack was going to try and forget it had ever happened. In an odd way, the betrayal had done Jack a great favor, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like he’d been flayed alive and dropped into the ocean.
Jack let the clamping ache pass through him, tightening his throat, turning his belly to ice, and making his head light. When the urge to cry and vomit at the same time eased off, he patted his mother’s shoulder and left his boyhood home as quickly as he could. He had to see a man about a job.
tbc