"The Long and Weary Road" - movie canon oneshot ficlet
Brokeback movie canon oneshot ficlet (ca. 850 words), Jack's POV, timeline ca. 1980
Rating G
Warning: Angst - probably the angstiest I've written.
Disclaimer: The characters of Brokeback Mountain belong to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no disrespect and I make no profit, I merely find joy in thinking and writing of Jack and Ennis.
The long and weary road
Driving back the long way from Wyoming to Childress, Jack’s spirits always were at their very lowest of low. He’d once used borrowed Bobby-speak to name those fucking long, weary miles the Road of Sad and Sorry to himself. The name had never fit as well as now. He was returning from some days with his folks, following right on the heels of another gutwrenching goodbye from Ennis. No chance of seeing the man again for many months, no sign that Ennis would ever budge from his no way except my out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere way.
Jack found next to no hope in his heart anymore that things would ever be different.
Fool that he was, he’d once or twice mentioned Ennis to his folks, giving his dad ample opportunity to needle him where it hurt the most, where his wounds from having to leave Ennis were still fresh and bleeding.
This time dad had been paying Jack back for the insult of offering to lend them some money, or even to give it to them. The place was falling apart, they could hardly scrape the most meager of livings off it anymore, and Jack wanted to see some improvements for the sake of his mom. But of course, his dad disdainfully pretended that he’d not even heard Jack’s words, could not ever recognize that his loser son had made good enough to offer his parents some money. And instead he fired at Jack’s heart with the truest of aims still, asking whether this Ennis del Mar fellow was finally coming, turning Jack’s secret fears against his son with scathing scornful words, shrugging Ennis off as a silly good-for-nothing dream of Jack’s, another promise he would never be able to fulfill, another trial and sad disappointment for his parents to swallow.
Jack tasted the bile rising in his throat even as his heart sank with that old weary feeling of never good enough, never right enough, never any approval to be had, never. The old fucking bastard. He always managed to make Jack feel like shit, even after all these years.
And Ennis…. his time with Ennis made him feel like a failure too.
He’d been so sure that in the end he’d make Ennis see reason. Give him time, give him space, give him all the love and understanding that Jack had to give, and he’d make Ennis come ‘round at last. But now…. it was never enough, nothing that Jack had it in him to give would seemingly do it. All his patience and efforts had proven inadequate. His hopes and expectations had dwindled to uncertainly flickering specks on the horizon.
How come he was willing to take this from Ennis, year after year, longing and waiting, then trekking into the mountains, cold and uncomfortable, hiding from everyone like they were doing something nasty and shameful….
Jack felt utterly miserable, his heart mangled and aching from once more having Ennis’s caring and closeness doled out in few and far-between portions, followed by ample and rich helpings of his dad’s disdain.
He decided to drive to Childress the usual way, making the detour to Juarez that had become something of a habit. He needed the relief of a few moments of total oblivion. He needed the purely physical closeness of another person, another man, one that held no power over Jack’s heart, neither for good nor for bad, and who could not bruise it or stomp on it with words, deeds, or looks. Someone who couldn’t care less if Jack even had a heart, just as long as he wasn’t also a cheater planning to not pay his way.
He needed to pull back from all this overflowing pain and misery of love and contempt and to dull himself back down, needed to blank it all out and just let his body take over. Drowning it all in physical sensations - and some whiskey on the side, maybe a joint - that was the only way he could ever manage to go back home and move about, the vestige of a living, breathing person.
Of course there was Randall - but Randall didn’t offer oblivion. On the contrary, he represented another complication that Jack increasingly regretted. The man had started wanting more, looked for emotions and commitment where Jack had none to give, none at all.
Sighing wearily he checked the road signs, though he long since knew them by heart.
He needed to completely numb his mind. He needed to silence his heart. He needed to quench the cry in his soul. He craved a complete stranger who couldn’t and wouldn’t even want to touch his heart, mind or soul - only his body. And even that, only for a fee. His pitiful body that kept on ticking and moving and responding as if he were still alive.
Once a completely uncaring stranger had helped him rewind himself firmly back to zero, he could somehow go home, somehow keep going. Keep going.... until that next fishing trip.
Jack’s grimace of a grin as he crossed the border to Mexico could have scared off a whole pack of coyotes, would surely have frightened both his dad and Ennis.
But they were neither of them there to see it.