The Lie Behind the Postcard - The White Room
Bobby is driving to the nearest hospital, but he can’t drive as fast as he wants since it is raining. It is not just a rain but a tempest. They already lost about 20 minutes moving that damn branch from the road. He did his best and finally managed to stop Ennis’ blood. But there is something else that is killing Bobby, and it is his inability to understand why his father was sure Ennis was dead. And what is going on now? He was still in shock because less than an hour ago his father went to say goodbye to the love of his life, but instead got it back.
“Bobby, turn left, it says Hospital 10 miles!” his father yelled. Bobby felt his father nervousness - he was happy, scared and angry. Bobby turn left and tried to drive faster, but lightings and thunders retained him from doing that.
“Fuck, Bobby, drive faste’! Ennis can die if ya’ keep drivin’ like this!” his father cried. He was holding Ennis, and his own shirt was wet with Ennis’s blood. Jack was feeling how Ennis’ breath was decreasing little by little. The fear of loosing Ennis again brought tears to his eyes; he silently refused to let the death take his love away and was prepared to fight for it.
“Ennis, please, hold on! We’ll be there soon!” he whispered in Ennis’ ear, but there was no response. Not only he was unconscious, he was getting cold, extremely cold, his lips turned magenta and his pulse was disappearing; Jack took his coat off and wrapped Ennis body in it, but there was no result.
“Dad, we’re almost there! I can see the hospital sign from here,” Bobby told his father, he was sure he could make it, but when he heard his father, it was too late.
“Bobby, he is cold! What should I do?” Jack cried, trying to make pauses to talk. “Try to check his pulse. Hold his hand and with yer first two fingers press his forearm where his veins are, use yer thumb to apply pressure on the back of the forehand!” Bobby said, trying to use as few medical terms as he could.
“Bobby, I feel nothing! I feel nothing! He has no pulse, he is dead!” Jack screamed and a horrible moan came from his lungs. He clutched Ennis’ body, his shoulders shaking violently, tears running like rivers down his face, his eyes closed. Panic.
“Fuck, Jesus! Why ya’re doing this to me? Ya’ brin’ him back and ya’ take him away from me! It isn’t fair!” Jack cried. He didn’t realize how and when they arrived to the hospital. Bobby went straight to the emergency room.
“I’ve a man hurt here! He suffered a severe trauma on the front part of his head, he hit it against the windshield” Bobby yelled to the nurses who immediately called the paramedics who followed Bobby with a stretcher for Ennis.
“Ennis, you son of a bitch! You just decided to die now?” cried Jack as he kept pressing Ennis towards his body when Bobby and the paramedics arrived to the car to assist Ennis.
“Here he is, my dad is helping him out,” Bobby said “I tried to stop the bleeding but I hadn’t my tools with me,” he added.
“Ok then, let us handle this! Sir, please let us take the man to the hospital!” a paramedic lady told Jack.
“No, he ain’t goin’ anywhere; I don’t wanna loose him again, no!” Jack cried, he was not thinking or acting clearly, he just wanted to have Ennis’ body next to him, like on those old days on Brokeback Mountain. He found himself in a fierce battle with the paramedics to let Ennis go.
“No, let me be with him!” he cried, throwing punches and trying to seize Ennis, he fought hard, he was not going to let them have him or Ennis, but finally Bobby came from the back and forced him to release Ennis. “Bobby, please don’t do this to me!” he cried to his son while he was following Ennis to the Emergency room.
“Name of the patient?” the doctor asked. “ Ennis Del Mar, age 47. He suffered a contusion on the front part of his head. People who brought him said he had being unconscious for 1 hour” the nurses answered.
Jack and Bobby were following them until they reached the Emergency room. Jack tried to enter but he was stopped. “Sorry, authorized personal only,” the security told him. “No! I’ll need to be with him! He means a lot to me! I l...” he was going to say ‘I love him’, but he felt a needle entering his body. It was Bobby who was injecting him a tranquilizer that doctor gave him to calm his father’s hysteria. Jack babbled something about Ennis for about 2 minutes before falling asleep in his son’s arms.
The next two hours were extremely difficult. They could not stop the bleeding and were having problems with finding blood for him since he was B+. Their blood’s bank ran out of that type of blood. The doctors were trying to their best to help him, but without transfusion it was going to be dangerous since he lost a lot of blood. One of the doctors approached Bobby who was with his sleeping father.
“Good night, Sir, I’m Dr. Frederick Nassi. I heard that you and your dad where the ones who brought Mr. Del Mar here,” the Dr. said. “Yes, it is true, Mr. Del Mar is my father’s lo... old friend. He got scared when he saw my father on the graveyard… Well, it is a long story,” Bobby answered. At this point he was exhausted and confused; even he could not understand what was going on. “The thing is, Mr. Twist, he lost a lot of blood and we need a transfusion. He is B, and we ran out of it. Without transfusion he might not survive,” Dr. Nassi added.
Bobby nodded. He looked down and rubbed his cheek. It was really hard for him to think what to do since his father was involved in this situation. And none of them were B, so he was trying to find out what to do. “There must be a way we can get his blood type,” he answered.
“Well, to be honest, it is difficult to find this type blood here and our last supplies ran out like I told you before. Maybe there is someone in his family who has his blood type,” Dr. Nassi said.
“Uh... His family? I don’t know their numbers!” Bobby said. “That is an excellent idea, and I don’t have any fucking information about that man!” he thought at the same time.
“Well, we have his wallet and there is an Alma Del Mar’s number there. She could be either his wife or his sister or his daughter,” Dr. Nassi replied.
“It’s excellent!” Bobby replied. “I’m going to tell the nurses in charge to call her,” Dr. Nassi said as he was leaving to the nurse station.
Bobby sighed, relieved. For just one second he thought he was heading into a dead end, he kept thinking about how his father would have felt in case Ennis had died.“Jesus, this is so confusing! My dad’s lover is alive and my dad will die if something happens to him!” he thought. He went back to the seat and wrapped his father in his coat.
“Dad, I don’t know what is going on, but I will find it out!” he said and then he thought “Wait a minute! If they are going to call a family member maybe I will be able to clear this situation!” for just one minute smile was drawn on his face. He gave his sleeping father a hug.
“Hello, is Ms. Alma Del Mar there?” a female voice said over the phone.
“Yes, she’s speaking right now. Who are you?” Alma Jr. asked.
“Well, my name is Chantelle Birons, I am a nurse at the Memorial Hospital Sweetwater County,” the nurse continued.
“I see, ma’am, but I still don’t understand why ya’re calling me,” Junior said, she felt like something was wrong with her father.
“Do you know Mr. Ennis Del Mar?” the nurse said, her tone of voice completely changed, she was serious at the beginning but now it was cold.
“Oh Lord, please, don’t tell me something happened to my father,” she thought while she tried to calm herself down, but it was too late. She was trembling. “Yes... He is my father…” she said, her eyes were full of tears and fear.
“Ms. Del Mar, your father had an accident on the road...” the nurse said. Then she heard a horrible scream on the other end of the line. It was Junior, screaming and crying.
“Please, Ms. Del Mar, calm down! Your dad is ok, he was found in time!” the nurse said. She repeated those comments for at least five minutes before Alma was able to pay attention to her.
“F..fo..found in time? But… but...what happened? Is he ok? Please tell me!” Junior yelled.
“Mrs. Del Mar, your father is ok! He stable, but we need to know if anyone of your family have B+ blood type. He needs a transfusion as soon as possible!” the nurse said, she was trying to make Ennis situation sound not that critical, so Alma wouldn’t get more nervous.
“I have that type,” she said, desperately trying to find some paper and a pen. “Give me the address, I’ll be there right now!” she added.
“Mrs. Del Mar, do you think you can get here soon?” the nurse asked.
“You don’t care about that, give me the damn address!” Junior yelled.
“Please calm down, the address is 1200 College Dr, Rock Springs. How long do you think it will take you to...? Hello? Hello?” The nurse looked at the phone and then heard the phone tone. “I think she hang up the phone,” she told to her coworker.
Alma looked at the phone book and wrote there some numbers and directions and left a note to Kurt telling him where she was going and went to her car. She drove to the Riverton Regional Air Port, she bought a ticket, and she was going to the Rock Springs Airport. She tried to calm down, but a lot of images crossed her mind. She had no idea why her dad had returned to Wyoming or why he hadn’t called her. She was picturing horrible things about how it happened; she went to the bathroom to wash her face because she was shaking and crying and people were looking at her.
“Damn you, Dad! How come you never tell anybody what you’re up to do?” she said to herself. When she went out, she bought some coffee. She’d waited for 30 minutes before taking the airplane. “Please be ok, daddy! Please be ok! Please!” she was whispering while she was looking out of the airplane’s window.
Jack kept reliving all his moments with Ennis since they met in Aguirre’s trailer up to their first sex on Brokeback, then to their fight when they were leaving Brokeback, then to their reunion after 4 years of separation, to their ‘fishing trips’ and their last encounter. The last vision was Ennis, covered in blood, lying dead on his arms. He woke up in tears in his son arms who just comforted him. “Don’t worry, they said he would be ok,” Bobby said, but he knew he was lying. No one with such loss of blood could be ok without a proper transfusion.
Bobby was exhausted. This entire situation was killing him. Seeing his father’s reaction was really hard for him. Now he knew how deeply his dad loved that man. “What I don’t get is how could Ennis be alive? From what I know, my dad believed him dead,” he said when he went to the cafeteria to buy some coffee. He returned with the coffee. Then something his dad told him long ago crossed his mind.
He remembered that his father told him they had a fight during their last trip in 1982. He had been waiting for Ennis’ usual postcard but it had never arrived, when in one month no post card was received, he started spending all his time in the post office. One day it stopped.
Normally he was the one who picked up the newspaper in the office, but this time when he arrived, Lureen was already there. Her eyes full of tears, she rushed towards him and hugged him.
“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…” she said, but he didn’t understand why on earth she was acting that way.
“Whoa! Lureen, why you’re sorry?” he said, looking at her, because most of time she was cold with him. It was not that she didn’t love him, it was her way of being.
“I read it in the newspaper this morning, it is horrible, and a terrible way of dying. I know that you knew him very well,” his wife said.
“What’ya talkin’ about? Who is dead?” he said, now worried, he wanted to know who died.
“Your hunting friend, your fishing friend, that Ennis Del Mar,” she said and handed him the newspaper.
“What? You gotta’ be kidding” he said. What he saw nearly killed him.
“Ennis Del Mar, a 39 years old cowboy, was killed by a horse. He was thrown from it, and then the horse kicked him in face, killing him instantly.….”
“It can’t be what I am thinking! Or it can? I don’t think my mom could be capable of doing that!” he said, looking at his father, who was still sleeping.
“Okay! If my mom was not involved in this, then who did it?” he said, but in his heart he was sure that his mother had to do something with it. He heard his mother talking about Ennis.
“Jack, please, he is dead! You won’t have him back!”
“He still can’t forget that Ennis! He mentions him everyday!”
“As a wife, I’ll do everything to keep my family!”
“Jesus, please, let me be wrong!” he cried, hiding his face in his hands.
Alma Jr. arrived at the Rock Springs Airport, and as soon as she arrived she ran to the next cab and said “1200 College Dr, please!”
“Sure, ma’am,” said the driver and in three minutes they were there.
She entered the hospital and run to the reception so fast that probably none of the persons there saw her.
“ Ennis Del Mar! He is here, I’m his daughter, they said they need blood!” she told the nurse who just looked at her, rolled her eyes and started looking through the notes!”
“Don’t have anyone with that name!” the nurse answered.
“Please, don’t bullshit me, a nurse called Chantelle Birons called me and told me my dad is here and they need B+ blood! He is in the emergency room!” she yelled. The nurse stepped back and went to the carpet and started reading.
“Oh, yes, he arrived about four hours ago! Please follow me... you said you are type B, right?” the nurse told Alma and asked her to follow her. They went to take her blood for her father.
“How is he?” Junior asked the nurse who looked at her and smiled as she cleaned her arm and inserted the needle.
“He’s ok, but with your blood he’ll be better,” she said. “When we finish with this, you’ll go and see him!” she added.
When they finished, Junior and the nurse went to Ennis’ room and the nurse with the help of the doctor did the transfusion. When it was done, the doctor went to talk with her.
“Ms. Del Mar? I’m Doctor Nassi, I am the doctor in charge here, your father is stable now. You should thank those men, who brought your father!” he said smiling, and that smile comforted her, knowing that her father was fine was a relief for her. The doctor left the place while the nurse was cleaning Ennis.
“You can come in,” the nurse said and Alma entered slowly and saw her dad lying on the bed, his face paler than usual, his eyes closed and his lips pink. He looked peaceful, just like when he used to sleep on her house and she watched him. She went next him and caressed his hair. “Daddy, you know ya’ almost killed me? What will I do if you die?” she said to him in a low voice.
“Well, you can stay with your father for a while,” the nursed smiled at her and turned to leave the room.
“Miss, can you tell me who brought him? Are they still here? I want to thank them,” she said.
“They are in the waiting room, I can show you, who they are!” the nurse smiled.
“Please,” Alma said and followed the nurse who escorted her to the waiting room. She saw two men, one sleeping and the other with his face hidden in his hands like he was concentrated on something. The nurse went to them and said something, and the man that was awake looked at Alma. When she looked at him, she was shocked of who she saw. “Ya’ gotta be kiddin’”
Bobby was deep in thought trying to find an explanation of what happened there and who were the ones that caused this dilemma. Then he felt someone put hand on his shoulder. It was the nurse, who looked at him and smiled.
“Sir? The lady there is Mr. Del Mar’s daughter, and she wants to thank you,” the nurse said, pointing at Junior. He looked at her and saw that she was either scared or shocked. He walked towards her, smiling. He admired the beauty of that lady - she was in her late twenties, had her father’s eyes and dirty blond hair.
“Evening, ma’am, I am Bobby...” he was saying his name when a hand slapped his face.
“I know who ya’re! Ya’ are Jack Twist’s son and that’s yer daddy! Ya evidently take after him: the same face and the same stone heart! Faking himself dead! Ya’ don’t know the pain he caused my daddy all this years!” she said without thinking and was going to slap him again when Bobby grasped her hand.
“Wait a minute! My dad didn’t fake his dead or anything; it was yours who faked it so well that it even appeared in the newspapers! Thanks to that my father was almost killed by some men on the road! Ya’ don’t know how it felt, seeing your dad in comma for months!” Bobby yelled, while holding her hand and looking at her fiercely. They stared in each others eyes, trying to say something, but no words needed.
“My dad couldn’t have done anything like that! He loved your dad so much, and still loves him; he couldn’t have ever done that!” Alma Jr. told Bobby, breathing fast.
“My dad neither! You don’t know all the pain my dad had been in since your dad supposedly died!” Bobbie replied.
“My dad also suffered a lot!” Junior answered.
Then suddenly everything became clear. The missing piece of the puzzle was finally in place. Now Alma Junior knew what happened. “The call, the letter! My mother’s heart attack after I mentioned Lureen Twist! They did all of this!” She thought. It was too much. She collapsed on her knees, Bobby catching her before she hit the floor.
“Are you ok? Please answer me!” Bobby said as he held her. Alma Junior was pale and her sight was unfocused, she was shaking her head. “ Alma?” he repeated, but she was silent. He noticed she started crying and he pulled her closer.
“I know who did this! How could she do that to them? Why? Lord knows you had no right to do so, Alma…” she said, looking at sleeping Jack.
“What ya’re talkin’ about? Who did what?” Bobby asked.
“Why I was too blind to see the truth? The devil was in front of me all the time! She fooled us, they fooled all of us!” she said, looking in Bobby’s eyes.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand…” Bobby said
“Our mothers did this! Our mothers…” she cried. Bobby felt the pain in her voice. Deep in his heart he already knew she was right, but was trying to fake that it was not true.
“I went to the same conclusion! This was their plan and it worked well for all these years, how it failed now?” Bobby said looking at Alma.
“I found the letter yer mother sent to my mom and I confronted her!” Alma Jr. said. She barely managed to suppress her boiling anger; she wanted to kill her mother.
“What?” Bobby said, trying to gather all the information he was receiving. “Let’s start from the beginning”.
“I guess I should start...” Alma Jr. said. She told him everything she knew about her dad’s relationship with Jack. “Two months ago he left Riverton and now he works in Texas…”
“Wait, ya’ just said your daddy works in Texas?” Bobby interrupted her. “Yes, he works there for a man called Randall Malone,” she said and continued talking. When she finished her story, she saw Bobby’s reaction was the same she got when she understood everything a few minutes ago. He took a deep breath and said: “Seems like it was the perfect plan until you started messing around… Well, my dad told me that ...” and he told her his part of the story.
“Now what we are gonna do?” Bobby asked. “We have a fuckin’ situation here! They have to know who kept them apart!” he added.
“Yes, but how are we gonna tell them?” Alma Junior said. When she lifted her eyes from the floor, she saw Jack Twist behind Bobby.
Ennis woke in a white room. He felt dazzled because of anesthesia they used on him and tried to look around, but he was seeing just blur. His forehead hurt, and when Ennis tried to lift his arm, he saw a lot of tubes over his hand and a tube in his nose. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how he got there. “It was a bad dream. I must have imagined everything, the graveyard and Jack,” he thought. He assured himself that everything was just a dream, especially Jack. He saw the nurse coming to check him and noticed her expression when he woke up again, but he was too tired, so he closed his eyes and fell asleep again.
He heard a voice talking to him. “Mr. Del Mar? If you can hear me, please blink twice!” he opened his eyes and blinked. “Your body still is under the effects of the anesthesia, once it passed you’ll be able to talk,” the voice said and he saw a finger moving across his face. “Please follow the finger”. He obeyed. When his sight was completely clear, he saw his daughter Alma Jr. and Kurt, they both were next to his bed, smiling at him.
“Your family is here, it was the Lord’s will that you were found on time. Fortunately, your daughter Alma has your blood type, otherwise you wouldn’t be here!” the voice said again. He moved his face and saw the doctor talking to a young brunette. “Must be the man that saved me” he thought.
Ennis tried to open his mouth and say thanks, but no sound came from it. “Please, Mr. Del Mar, don’t talk, wait until the anesthesia passes completely,” the doctor said.
“ Alma, where are the persons who found Ennis?” Kurt asked.
“They left. I thanked them and they said they needed to go. And I need ya’ to pickup Dad’s truck!” Alma said, but Ennis was not convinced she was telling the truth.
“That’s ok! Ennis, ya’ know ya’re really lucky,” Kurt laughed and squeezed Ennis’ hand.
“Well, let the patient rest, he needs a lot of sleep” the nurse said.
Ennis closed his eyes. Pretty soon he fell asleep. He was dreaming about Jack entering the room, telling him how much he loved him and that now he knew the truth and was not going to let him go. Then Jack gave him a kiss and took a necklace with two rings from his neck. Jack kept one of the rings to himself, put the necklace with the other one on Ennis and kissed him softly. When he woke up then next day, he felt the dream was so real that he even had the feeling of the kiss on his lips. The nurse entered his room and start cleaning his wounds.
“Th... thanks,” he managed to say, though it was still very difficult for him.
“Oh, you are talking! That is good. How are you?” the nurse smiled.
“I gesh’ alive,” Ennis answered. The nurse couldn’t suppress her laughter, she kept cleaning him until she looked at his neck.
“What a beautiful necklace!” she said.
“Necklace?” asked Ennis, surprised. The nurse seized a mirror and showed him there was a necklace with one ring on it on his neck.