Revisit Annie Proulx’s iconic short story “Brokeback Mountain,” from 1997, which was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film.
you was,” said Ennis. “Four years. I about give up on you. I figured you was sore about that punch.”On the back of a soiled orange chair he saw the shine of a buckle. “Bull ridin?”
Ennis pulled Jack’s hand to his mouth, took a hit from the cigarette, exhaled. “Sure as hell seem in one piece to me. You know, I was sittin up here all that time tryin to figure out if I was—? I know I ain’t. I mean, here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doin it with women, yeah, but Jesus H., ain’t nothin like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you.
“I come up under my brother K.E., three years older’n me, slugged me silly every day. Dad got tired a me come bawlin in the house and when I was about six he set me down and says, Ennis, you got a problem and you got a fix it or it’s goin a be with you until you’re ninety and K.E.’s ninety-three. Well, I says, he’s bigger’n me. Dad says, You got a take him unawares, don’t say nothin to him, make him feel some pain, get out fast and keep doin it until he takes the message.
The hollow ringing began again in the next room, and as if he were answering it Ennis picked up the phone on the bedside table, dialled his own number. She’d overstepped his line. He seized her wrist and twisted; tears sprang and rolled, a dish clattered.“I’m goin a yell for Bill.” Down in Texas Jack’s father-in-law died and Lureen, who inherited the farm-equipment business, showed a skill for management and hard deals. Jack found himself with a vague managerial title, travelling to stock and agricultural machinery shows. He had some money now and found ways to spend it on his buying trips. A little Texas accent flavored his sentences, “cow” twisted into “kyow” and “wife” coming out as “waf.
The tea-colored river ran fast with snowmelt, a scarf of bubbles at every high rock, pools and setbacks streaming. The ochre-branched willows swayed stiffly, pollened catkins like yellow thumbprints. The horses drank and Jack dismounted, scooped icy water up in his hand, crystalline drops falling from his fingers, his mouth and chin glistening with wet.
The horses nickered in the darkness beyond the fire’s circle of light. Ennis put his arm around Jack, pulled him close, said he saw his girls about once a month, Alma, Jr., a shy seventeen-year-old with his beanpole length, Francine a little live wire.
“You know, friend, this is a goddam bitch of a unsatisfactory situation. You used a come away easy. It’s like seein the Pope now.” “I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain’t foolin. What I don’t know,” said Ennis, “all them things I don’t know could get you killed if I should come to know them.”say it just one time. Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life. You wouldn’t do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everything built on that. It’s all we got, boy, fuckin all, so I hope you know that if you don’t never know the rest.
They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire.
Ennis sat at the kitchen table with Jack’s father. Jack’s mother, stout and careful in her movements as though recovering from an operation, said, “Want some coffee, don’t you? Piece a cherry cake?”The old man sat silent, his hands folded on the plastic tablecloth, staring at Ennis with an angry, knowing expression. Ennis recognized in him a not uncommon type with the hard need to be the stud duck in the pond. He couldn’t see much of Jack in either one of them, took a breath.
So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said you bet he’d like to see Jack’s room, recalled one of Jack’s stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son, who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing, and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down.
In the end the stud duck refused to let Jack’s ashes go. “Tell you what, we got a family plot and he’s goin in it.” Jack’s mother stood at the table coring apples with a sharp, serrated instrument. “You come again,” she said.
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