Looking Back.... JT.15
The waitress brings my food: a bloody T-bone and barely cooked eggs, with toast and hash browns. It’s not Waffle House, but it’s not bad and I try not to think of anything for a few minutes but eatin, stoppin the churnin in my stomach with something besides McDonalds. I think about our place back home and things I need to get done, but that’s a mistake because it leads me right back to Ennis.
It’s our place, but it’s mostly his place in all the ways that matter. He’s taken it from just a piece of land with an old farm house with a good view and turned it into a home for me and him and a bunch of other stuff too. He loves being out in the country with the horses and the other animals he’s gathered in over the years. We’ve got a couple of llamas, a mule and two pot-bellied pigs, plus the usual run of stray dogs and cats that show up when a sucker moves in. He’s planted a garden the last few years - not this year, of course - I guess it’s just now time to get started with it. I won’t - I always let him handle that, although I didn’t mind helping - chopping weeds and picking stuff once it was ready.
I can’t even imagine being there without him, but I can’t imagine not being there either. That’s my home - it’s where I thought maybe I’d live till I died - and I can’t see myself just selling up and moving, but staying out there alone… I don’t know.
It’s nothing like it used to be, when we knew things were temporary and we didn’t put roots down too deep into the places we lived. We liked the place in Idaho Springs, but it was easy enough to say goodbye to when we left Denver. I got traded eight years into my contract, ended up in Boston with the Patriots for the end of my career and that worked out real good for me and Ennis both. Boston was a real nice town.
We moved back to Georgia after I retired, since that was convenient to most of our family. We spent a coupla months looking at properties till we found just what we wanted, a place buried deep in the mountains so we had all the privacy we wanted, but not too far outta Atlanta, so I could catch a flight easy enough whenever I had to leave town. I spent about a year kickin back, then I was ready to get back to work doing something and the networks thought I’d make a pretty good announcer. That’s worked out real good - during football season, I call games on the weekend and do one of those talk shows during the week. During off season, I do what the fuck ever I want to. So far, that’s always meant doing stuff with Ennis, but now I got no idea what I’ll do with my time, and it’s scary as fuck.
*****
That trip to Montana started out rough. Ennis got to the gate late and he looked about as happy to see me as he woulda been a rash on his dick. We had a connection in Denver and he spent mosta the hour and a half we were there glaring out the window, barely even speaking to me. It sure didn’t do much for gettin my hopes up. We rented a four-wheel drive, stopped for groceries and beer and headed out, silence dark as a grave hanging between us. It wasn’t until later, sitting out on the back porch drinkin beer, that he finally started talkin to me. We didn’t talk about what happened back at the hotel, not at first. We started out easy, talking about my season comin up, then him tellin me about quitin his job - said he was sick to death of bein gone all the time, that he liked travellin but just for fun, or maybe on his own - like lookin for stuff to invest in or whatever - but he didn’t like living out of a suitcase so somebody else could get rich. I didn’t know that - I thought he volunteered for all those trips - and when I said so, he admitted that he had volunteered for a lot of ‘em, but just ‘cause he wanted to get outta my hair.
“What the fuck are you talkin about, outta my hair? How can you even say that? I never wanted you gone.”
“’Cause you always had shit to go to, Jack, and if I was there, then you had to ask me, but I knew that was gettin weird, me being around all the time, no girl. I was just trying to make things easier on you. You took Anna to some stuff, right?”
“Yeah, but I coulda took her anyway, Ennis. You’re my manager and my best friend. Nobody thought it was weird you comin to things with me.”
He blew that off with a sour laugh. “Yeah they did. They might not of said anything to you, but I saw the way some of ‘em looked at me, like I was just using you, a leach sucked onto your wallet. I fuckin hated that.”
I knew he was probably right. I’d had people ask me about him - lotsa times already up to that point - and I always just told ‘em he was my best friend from home and he took care of my business interests. Sometimes they bought it and sometimes they kept looking suspicious, like I was too dumb to know when I was being used. That was fine. I never cared if they thought I was stupid enough to get taken advantage. I just needed ‘em not to think I was gay.
I guess he couldn’t deal with people thinkin he was a user, though, and from his perspective, I could see why.
“Ennis, you’ve always had a job on top of managing all my shit. Anybody that thinks you’re using me is just jealous ‘cause they wish they were!”
“Maybe. But I don’t even have that now.”
“You could get another one.”
“I could.”
The way he said it got my attention. “You don’t have to, though. I think we’re set for a while, if you wanna do something else.”
He kept staring out at the mountains, drinking his beer and taking his time before he said anything. I let him alone, didn’t want to seem too eager ‘cause that might scare him off. After a bit, he said, “I been thinking - if I spent as much time on your money as I do on other people’s, I could probably do a lot more with it.”
“It’s your money too, Ennis. I’m getting real tired of having to say that.”
“Jack”
“Ennis. Does your mom and dad have her money and his money?”
“That’s different.”
“Uh-uh. It’s not. They’ve got rings is the only difference.”
“And kids and a wedding picture and a lot of other stuff that we’ll never have, Jack.”
“Yeah, I know, but that stuff don’t make them different on the inside. Ever since the beginning, you did everything for me, Ennis, shared everything. And yeah, I know I’ve fucked up, but I never wanted to be with anybody else and I still don’t, and I think if I was gonna want to, it woulda happened by now.”
“So how do you explain that dude with his hands down your pants, Jack?” He gave me an angry frown. “And how could you even take a chance like that anyway, man? I can’t fucking believe you did that. You’re lucky your whole career’s not in the toilet right now.”
I told him the guy’s name. “He’s got a lot to lose too.”
“Well good for you.” He was mad again. This was gonna suck for a while - there was no way I could undo it, and that was the only thing that would really help.
I moved my chair closer to his and tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible. “I’m not gonna keep saying I’m sorry, Ennis. I mean, you gotta know that by now.” When he didn’t say anything, I touched my finger to his chin, drew his face around so that we were looking at each other. “You do believe me, right?”
His eyes were flat and his jaw was bunched with tension. “Believing you and being ok with it are two different things, Jack. We said we wouldn’t cheat and you did.” He sighed and turned his head, looked back out at the sky turning purple behind the mountain peaks. “If you don’t wanna be faithful to me, fine, but if that’s the case, I don’t wanna be with you anymore. I don’t wanna get AIDS and die ‘cause you can’t keep your pants zipped.”
“It’s not that I don’t wanna be faithful to you, Ennis. That’s not it at all.”
“Drunk don’t count as an excuse. You already played that card.”
“Ennis, when was the last time we were together? I mean like really together, where we were having a good time doing something fun and we ended up in bed?”
“How the fuck should I know. I haven’t even seen you in months.”
“Yeah, I know that, but before, before that weekend when I went out to L.A. - when was the last time things were good between us?”
He rolled his empty beer bottle between his hands, distant-eyed and thinking. After a minute he said, “I dunno. Maybe last summer?”
I shrugged. “Last summer was ok. It wasn’t great, though. We were both gone a lot.”
“Yeah. You did those Bic commercials and I went to Dallas for that seminar.”
“Spring was good. We went up to Canada, that was cool.”
“Yeah, you only had to sign a hundred autographs instead of a thousand.”
“I know. I’m sorry it’s always that way, but that’s part of it, Ennis. I’m not gonna be mean to people.”
“I know, and I don’t want you to be. It’d just be nice…” He trailed off, didn’t finish.
“What’d be nice?”
Heavy sigh. “It’d be nice if we could go places and do shit and nobody knew who you were, you know, just be like normal people.”
He sounded really tired. “Is that a problem for you?”
“It’s a problem for us, Jack. Everywhere we go, people know who you are. If I touch you or say the wrong thing or look at you the wrong way, somebody’s gonna see. It’s too much. All the time now I’m scared I’m gonna fuck up and you’ll end up busted up or fired ‘cause of something I did.”
“Ennis, we’ve been together for almost fifteen years and I don’t think you’ve ever once even held my hand. You’re like the least lovey-dovey guy I’ve ever met. I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna just lose it in the mall one day and start making out with me in the middle of Christmas shopping or whatever.”
“Yeah, probably not, but just the fact that I’m there is enough to make people wonder.”
“Not really. Guys like me aren’t even s’posed to go out by themselves. Jerry Rice, Deion Sanders, they never even leave their houses without at least ten other people going with ‘em. I swear, I think their managers wipe their asses when they take a dump, just so they don’t fuck it up.” I grinned at his look assuring me that my ass-wiping days were not numbered. “Seriously, Ennis, nobody big goes anywhere on their own anymore. You could quit your job and go with me everywhere and nobody’d give it a thought.”
“I already quit my job, remember?”
“Well, don’t get another one for a while. You said you could stay busy doing stuff with our money… do it. And go places with me and talk to people about my projects and do all that shit managers are supposed to do.”
“Yeah, ok, maybe I’ll think about it.” He gave me another grim look. “But that doesn’t change what happened, Jack.”
“I know. And I probably can’t explain it to you in a way that won’t sound lame, ‘cause when I look back on it now, I can’t even understand it myself. But that night, it just seemed…” I took a breath, tried to figure out what to say that might make sense, but my brain was just a whir of noise and nothing. “I just felt real alone, Ennis, like you’d already left me or something. I mean, it was kinda like we were just operating outta the same house and the same bank account and that was it. There wasn’t anything else going on between us. And he liked me and he was interested in me and it was like cocaine. Up to then, maybe I didn’t even realize how bad things sucked but he made me see it, and when he wanted to go up to my room, it was like breathing again after being underwater for too long or something. Just the fact that he wanted me was so amazing that I couldn’t say no.”
Ennis wasn’t real impressed with my explanation. “Jack. You get fan mail all the time from people tellin how they want to lick your sweaty body from head to toe and give you blow jobs till you pass out and all kindsa kinky shit. Feeling unwanted isn’t a real believable excuse.”
That got under my skin, because whether he liked it or not, I did feel unwanted by the one person who was supposed to want me, the only person I was allowed to get pleasure from, and it sucked. “Gettin a love letter from some oversexed sixteen-year-old who wants to lick chocolate sauce off my nipples or some bored housewife whose husband can’t even see his dick for his beer gut isn’t actually real fulfilling, Ennis, I promise you. It’s not the same as having a smart, cool, good-looking man hang out with you all night, listenin to your stories and laughin at your jokes and lookin at you like you’re fuckin awesome.”
“I can’t feed your ego twenty-four hours a day, Jack.”
“You barely even noticed I was alive for the last year, Ennis,” I shouted, angry because I was starting to remember how bad I’d felt back in those days, when he was just a shadow person in my world. “The part of my ego you were supposed to be taking care of died of fucking starvation way before I met that guy.”
“So it’s my fault.”
God. “It’s not all your fault, but yeah, some of it actually is. I shouldn’ta done it, but we were already dead in the water and we shouldn’ta let it get that way.” He was still looking like I was babbling at him in Greek, so I cut straight to the chase so it’d be real simple to understand. “We shoulda either dealt with it or broke up a long time ago, Ennis. The fact that that guy got in my room proves that. But we didn’t and he did and now we’re here and we need to figure out what the fuck to do next.”
“I figured it out. I left.”
“Yeah, you did. So how come you’re here now?” I was tired of playing games. If we were just talking in circles, I wanted to know.
But insteada saying something to crush me, like, So we can figure out how to split up our stuff or So we can get our story straight for our families, he just kinda collapsed back in his chair, rubbin his hands over his face and groanin up at the ceiling. “Shit shit shit, I don’t know. You make me fucking crazy, Jack. It’s like you suck away all my will power or something.” He rubbed some more, then slapped his hands on his thighs and looked over at me, his head still tilted back. “What do you want?”
What I wanted and what was realistic weren’t even close to the same. I wanted things to be perfect, but that was never gonna happen. I’d settle for spendin our two weeks tryin to find a way we could be together and feel ok about ourselves and our lives. I didn’t want to break up, but I knew we had a long way to go before that was off the table.
“I wanna try to fix it, Ennis. I don’t wanna call it quits, but I don’t wanna go back to what we had either. That wasn’t workin for either of us.” I could see he was skeptical, his lips mashed flat and his jaw clenched tight. “What’ve we got to lose, Ennis? Aren’t we worth two weeks just to see if we can work it out?”
He didn’t answer for a minute or two, just sat there glaring out into the darkness. It was cool, even in July the evenings in Montana can get chilly, and I wanted to go get a sweatshirt, I wanted to eat dinner, I wanted another beer. And I needed to pee. But I made myself sit and wait and tried not to shiver while he decided our immediate fate. His answer caught me off guard. “What about condoms?”
“Huh?”
“What about condoms, Jack? We never used ‘em before. Do we need to now?”
“Jesus! No! I told you it was a one-time thing. I never did anything with any other guy ever, and I barely did anything with him!” I was frustrated with feeling so defensive, especially since all I’d really done was kiss the guy a few times. I probably touched his dick, but if I did, I couldn’t remember it.
He lurched out of his chair to loom over me. “You might not’ve noticed, Jack, but your credibility’s in the shitter right now, so do us both a favor and lose the fuckin attitude.” He spun away and headed for the door. “I’m sicka talking about this. Let’s fix something to eat and watch a movie or something, try to hold off killin each other till at least midnight.”
“Works for me,” I said and followed him into the house, estimatin my chances at anything good comin of this at somewhere between zip and a snowball’s chance in hell.
read more here: http://bbmbottomboy.livejournal.com/50104.html