Part 3: The Two Exiles
Chapter 12
Author's Note: This and the next two chapters represent a major transition in Ennis' life. While most of the events seem ordinary, they're the steps leading up to his making a life-altering decision. Part 3 will also occasionally give readers a glimpse of Jack's point of view.
September 1984
It didn’t take long, after his return to Riverton, for Ennis to get caught up temporarily in more mundane concerns.
The first night back he left most of the camping gear in the back of the truck, only bringing in his battered daypack and the rolled-up quilt. He pulled out the photograph of Jack in its plastic sleeve and looked at it for a long time, one finger lightly touching first one imaged feature then the next: eyes first, the smiling mouth, slightly rumpled hair, the small hollow at the base of the neck.
Other images flitted by: Jack’s face across the campfire years ago on Brokeback, listening to him tell about the scattering of his family, Friend, that’s more words than you’ve spoken in two weeks. Four years later, stopping for breakfast on their way to the mountains, across a table at a truck stop, and eight years after that, in the kitchen of Don Vroe’s cabin, an older Jack, smiling less often now all dissolving into the featureless ashes that the wind had carried away toward one of Brokeback’s twin summits, except for what was now in Jenny’s decorated coffee can. But most of all, Jack as he’d just seen him on their wedding night, looking up at him with his dark hair turned ebony in the diffuse bluish light; seeming to have shed several years as if he’d taken off an old coat. Ennis had an odd sense of all these worlds existing side by side, like separate but almost identical rooms in the same motel.
He replaced the top sheet on the bed with Jack’s quilt, keeping an old blanket folded nearby to put over it on short notice if Junior or Jenny stopped by. Feeling it next to his skin every night as he dozed off would seem both a light embrace and a nod of encouragement to the still-tentative shoots putting out their first leaves. He hadn’t sorted out everything Jack had said during their reunion, but felt that he had shouldered a solemn obligation although presently without a clue as to what to do next.
The phone rang, David, Ennis thought; and was a little surprised to hear Jenny’s voice, telling him that Junior wanted everyone to come by for dinner Friday night. "I’m goin’ to visit Luanne this weekend like we talked about, Daddy. Figured you wouldn’t get off work again that soon, so Mama and Junior are gonna drive me down Saturday morning, and I’m comin’ back Tuesday on the Greyhound."
"That’s fine, darlin’." He could neither regret the trip to Lighting Flat nor ignore the little splinter of pain at once more not being there for her. "I’ll be there Friday, an’ help you move your stuff later." While he knew it would serve no purpose to tell either of them, Alma was not the only one who would have felt more at ease with Jenny moving to Casper or Cheyenne.
It was more, he knew, than just a parent’s usual worry about a newly grown child leaving home. His love for both his daughters had always been a safe haven, requiring no subterfuge and inspiring neither fear nor conflict nor shame. It was the only important thing that he and Alma had truly shared in their marriage and he did not have to pretend any feelings for his daughters that he didn’t sincerely have. In the four months that Junior had her own household, no longer part of Alma’s and Monroe’s, he’d spent more time in her and Jenny’s company than in the last few years, and had become attached to this new, tentative family life without even noticing. The ground had somehow leveled out, but now it was shifting again.
Later that night the phone rang a second time, an unusual occurrence for Ennis’ trailer home, and this time, as he’d expected, with David at the other end: "how was your trip north?" "Huh, okay. Got cold but I camped out a few nights." The slight flare of excitement, a certain pleasurable tenseness that he felt on hearing David’s voice was not an unpleasant surprise. Something was forming akin to the sensation he’d felt in talking to Jack from the beginning, of being at home in his own skin.
"It was a friend’s mama," he added unexpectedly. "His dad died and she’s movin’ away, had some things to give me. But now I got my youngest girl ta think of, just 18 and she’s movin’ down ta Denver, Curt’s sister needs a new roommate."
"And you’re worried about her." It was a statement, not a question.
"Jenny ain’t never lived anyplace outside of Riverton before, hasn’t lived on her own anyplace. I taught her how ta ride a horse and I can tell her how to keep from gettin snakebit if she’s out in the woods, but this - I wanna see what kinda place she’s livin in." Ennis listened to his own voice with some surprise. He hadn’t realized until that moment how unsettling the idea was of either of his daughters being so far away and vulnerable to dangers he had no way of preparing her for."You mean what the neighborhood’s like?"
"Yeah… thought I’d drive around at least."
David was immediately full of advice. "If you’re gonna do that, be sure you get there on a Friday, and drive around the neighborhood after dark. Lots of neighborhoods in cities look okay in the daytime but change at night. And the next day, Saturday, you find the biggest supermarket in the neighborhood and go spend an hour or so there, early in the afternoon would be good. You won’t see all her neighbors but you’ll see a good sample of em. Just those two things can tell you a lot."
Ennis thought for a moment. "Yeah. That shouldn’t be hard ta do."
"As for keepin’ her safe - well, there’s no guarantee if you give somebody advice they’ll take it. Especially if they’re 18 and hot to get out an’ see the world. But you can at least warn her if you see anything, and you’ll know what to warn her about if you look over the neighborhood. Streets that aren’t lit up good at night, places you see rough-lookin people hanging out, that kinda thing."
"Yeah - yeah, that’d help, thanks." He had never thought much about what his daughters did when they were out of his sight, hadn’t wanted to. Though it had been a relief in one sense, it had also meant that he had become a visitor in their lives, just like Jack had he thought ironically, and in the new life Jenny was so eager to get to, he wouldn’t even see her regularly. But at least he could now focus his concern on something he could actually do for her. David’s advice suddenly made it seem that someone else was involved, even at such a distance, and it was a mysteriously heady feeling.
On Friday afternoon, Ennis was surprised to find the family in the driveway of Junior’s and Curt’s tiny house, gathered around a small blue car. "Daddy!" Jenny yanked the truck’s door open and he thought for a moment she was going to drag him out. "Mama and Monroe got me a car, my own car! Come see!" Alma and Monroe were standing by the side of the driveway, Alma watching him with her usual cautious expression and Monroe smiling at him a little nervously. "I hope you don’t mind, Ennis," he said. "Jenny’s been wanting to live in the city and we figured if she doesn’t move to Denver it’ll be somewhere else, she’s going to need a car of her own." "S’okay with me," Ennis answered shortly. He didn’t begrudge Jenny the gift, but knowing that Monroe, not even a blood relative, could give Jenny so many things he could not was a painful reminder and hardly pleasant.
The car was a 1977 Plymouth Arrow; a "survival jalopy," as Curt called it. "But a pretty good one," he reassured Ennis as the two leaned over the car’s opened hood. "Decemt shape for a 7-year-old used car. Does need new hoses, she shouldn’t be drivin it as far as Denver till that’s done but the Arrows, they’re good cars. People who have em don’t sell em too often. Only thing is they aren’t much good on ice, she might want to get a lift with Luanne a lotta days in the winter. But Jenny’ll need a car if she’s gonna be living on her own."
"Daddy, you’re still planning to help me move, aren’t you?" Jenny sounded genuinely worried. "I can’t hardly fit everything in this car." "I was plannin on it," he answered. "Wanna see where you’re gonna live."
Curt paid a visit to an auto parts store early Saturday morning, and he and Ennis were already at work on the survival jalopy when Alma, Junior and Jenny started out for Denver, Jenny putting more baggage into the back seat of the car than Ennis would have thought she’d need in a month and Junior with a camera and the sketch book she’d bought recently. "I’ll take some shots of the room you’re gonna have, help you decorate it," she’d told Jenny at the family dinner last night, and Alma had nodded. "Your wife’s got a talent none of us even knew about before she started fixing up this place," she’d remarked to Curt. "Jenny will have the prettiest room in the apartment." It was the first positive remark she’d made about Jenny’s plans.
Ennis watched them drive out of sight, but Curt was still fiddling with the new clamp he was putting on the battery, replacing a loose connection he’d discovered the day before. "That should hold it," he said with satisfaction. "These things always go bad on ya at the worst times, when the weather’s bad or when you’re in a hurry to get someplace." "Appreciate this, Curt," Ennis turned his attention back to the car. "You’re good at fixin’ machinery, spot problems before they start."
Curt grunted and tossed the keys to Ennis. "Start it up, wilya? Let’s do it a coupla times, make sure that connection’s good." Ennis started the little car twice, with the engine jumping to life immediately both times, and Curt nodded. "Wish that damn foreman of mine’d hear you say that," he grumbled, wiping his hands on a shop cloth before closing the car’s hood. "Just last week, forklift was leakin oil like mad, about 3 quarts a day. I figured it was a front seal, but the boss won’t listen, insists that it needs a filter. So he has me jack up the forklift, change the oil and the filter and just let it go on leaking 3 quarts and then he says, it probably is a front seal. And even then - I don’t get no credit; it’s just ‘how soon can you get that done? Last thing we need right now is a goddam forklift out of commission!’ "
Ennis leaned against the car door and lit a cigarette, knowing that neither Junior nor Jenny was there to fuss at him about stopping smoking. "Well, maybe you oughta look around Riverton for another job. Or Casper, maybe."
"Yeah, I thought about that. I know a guy at work, his old man owns a business that sells used equipment, fix ‘em up with other old pieces they part out. Can’t say I wanna be talkin’ to Zack much, though. The way I seen look at some of the other guys now an’ then, keep thinkin’ he might be queer." It was as casual as a remark about the weather and Ennis managed not to react visibly but felt his neck muscles tighten slightly. He might as well a been talkin about Jack. But "can’t do any harm in askin him though," was all he said, making sure not to look at Curt directly. "Just see if he’ll check with his old man, it’s not like you hafta go out drinkin with him." Curt thought about that for a moment. "Yeah. Guess I could do that." Ennis started to collect the scattered tools, anxious now to finish the project and get home.
Index to previous chapters:
Chapter 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html
Chapter 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/523.html
Chapter 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1066.html
Chapter 4: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1485.html
Chapter 5: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1704.html
Chapter 6: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2038.html
Chapter 7: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2358.html
Chapter 8: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2635.html
Chapter 9: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2947.html
Chapter 10: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3130.html
Chapter 11: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3356.html