The structure of this story is a bit unusual. The Ennis/Jack pairing is there but it takes a long time for them to get together. Many of the important people in Ennis' life - a radio DJ, his college roommate, his girlfriend, a Sri Lankan refugee - are versions of Jack who one by one lead him to the "real" Jack Twist. There are also some tertiary Jacks who make brief appearances in Ennis' life.

The story spans the entire decade of the 80s and each chapter is divided into two parts, both from Ennis' POV: Part A, with third-person narration, begins in May 1987. Part B, with first-person narration by Ennis from the present, begins in the late 70s. At chapter 45, the events in the first chapter of the A part begin to be covered by the B part.

This story has been in progress since 2009 on LiveJournal. Over there, nearly all the chapters have photos, video clips and links at the end. Because of the way I'm writing this, there are discrepancies here and there in the LJ version that became more obvious once the two timelines begin to overlap, which finally began to happen in August 2012. I am tweaking the earlier A chapters now as I go so will be posting a few at a time here. You might want to visit the LJ version to see the illustrations at the end of each chapter. Go to .com

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It wasn't until the tsunami at the end of 2004 that I began to have dreams about Kaj, 15 years after I last saw him. In the first one, we were both racing for shore, terrified, hands linked, our legs churning frantically through the water, him running faster and pulling me. Then we were shoved down and dragged apart. I woke up gasping and crying out, wrapped in Jack's arms. In other dreams, Kaj and I were struggling to keep our heads above the water as we were pushed along with cars and boats and furniture washed out of houses. Jack finally forbade me to read the newspaper or watch the news until the story had moved off the front pages.

For over ten years, Kaj had simply been my amazing coming out tale, and Jack's how-we-met story, one that we told at dinner parties. I'd moved on so completely that I could barely summon up my feelings from that time. But those dreams made me seek out the tea leaf reader again, who told me Kaj was walking on a white sand beach. And for a few years, Jack and I both found comfort in that.

But in the spring of 2009, when the Tamil Tigers were crushed, the dreams started again. One morning Jack brought out the photo of Kaj and me – that infamous photo. I knew he meant it was time to finish what I had started. So I framed it, and set it on the dresser next to the one Jay took of Jack and me, standing on the steps of Cambridge City Hall. Then I dug out the notebook, thinking I'd take up where I'd left off. But when I tried to write, I realized I had to go back to the beginning.

Chapter 1A

Late May 1987

Ennis Del Mar was about five minutes into his phone conversation with his mother when his upper lip began to itch. He was slumped down onto the enormous gold and purple couch that the previous tenant had left behind when he and Jay moved in to the apartment. The extra long beige phone cord was stretched clear across the living room, the cradle lying on the kitchen floor. Ennis had set it down on the linoleum, walked over and dropped onto the sagging cushions as soon as he'd heard his mother's cheery "Hi honey!" Might as well get comfortable.

It wasn't exactly an itch he felt; more like an irritating tingle that soon spread to his cheeks and neck. He knew the feeling would disappear as soon has he hung up, which should have been an incentive to cut short the call. But he could never do that.

This conversation would very likely feature a preview of the annual Fourth of July family reunion and he'd been dreading it. Once he'd made the mistake of asking why the whole family had to get together twice a year. Wasn't Christmas enough? The silence on the line that followed had stretched out for an eternity and in the end he had filled it with stammered apologies and promises. This time he had a solid excuse not to leave New England but he was braced for an argument.

"Hi Ma. Everybody okay?"

"Well, your dad's hip is a little sore. I can tell by the way he walks. But he doesn't complain, of course, he's just grateful to be alive.

"Let's see, KE's been teaching Tryon to drive the old tractor. You know the one we bought in Texas in 1967? The one you learned on. Oh I wish I had a picture of that! You should see your nephew up there looking so proud!

"But Ennis, the big news is Kathy's expecting twins! A boy and a girl, due in December. Isn't that amazing? Three sets in the family! Christmas will be so exciting this year! Maybe you can bring Jay."

As if. One trip to Kansas had been enough for her. "Well, I'll ask her in a few months," he said.

"I'm so pleased about these little ones because it means that when you and Jay get married and start a family there won't be such a big gap between your oldest and his or her youngest cousins."

Here we go again. It was no good reminding his mother that they were only 25 – KE and Kathy were in kindergarten when she was his age. How to explain to her that, in Boston, nobody with a college degree had a kid before they were at least 28. And Jay said she didn't want any at all. He didn't ever say it to Jay, and didn't admit it to his mother, but he did want to be a father someday. Just not now. And the thought of having children with anyone but Jay filled him with a feeling of unease. He didn't like to dwell on that, however. He was counting on her changing her mind. Right now though, he just wanted to change the subject.

"Kathy still working at the hospital?"

As he listened to her describe his sister's work and home life, he gazed out of the side pane of the bow front window that provided a view down the street. The maples were just leafing out, fresh and green. After the heartbreak of cold, rainy April the arrival of May was always a relief. They would enjoy about three weeks of spring before summer hit. Squinting to see past the screen of spider plant leaves, he made out a figure advancing down the block. Jay must have done the Harvard Square-Porter Square-Alewife-Fresh Pond circuit if she was coming from that direction.

"...and then she'll take the last three months off. But all the kids are so looking forward to seeing their city uncle again. We're going to go to Beaver Dunes State Park in Oklahoma this year. The Bakers went there last year and said all the kids had a ball..."

He heard the landlady's Pekinese squealing and whining one floor below, then Jay climbing the stairs and finally the key turning in the lock. When she saw Ennis was on the phone, she smiled and closed the door gently. As she walked past him, heading for the bathroom, she reached out and ruffled his hair; he grabbed the hem of her black t-shirt and drew her toward him. Jay turned to face him, lifting a foot over the cord to straddle it, standing between his knees, then raised her hand to the crown of his head and combed her fingers through the wild tangle of dark blond hair. She was wearing her signature colors, the ones he'd nicknamed her Blue Jay for – black shirt, blue spandex leggings, black hair, blue eyes. He put his free hand on her muscular thigh and kneaded it. She hadn't disgraced herself with her time in the Boston Marathon in April but wanted to do much better in 1988 so she was getting serious about training.

"Uh, Ma," he broke in, "it looks like I won't be able to make it out there this summer. In my first year I only get a week's vacation and I used that at Christmas."

Silence. But he let it hang there this time.

"Oh, Ennis."

He could almost hear her mind scanning through possible solutions to this problem and made a guess at the one she would suggest. But he was ready for it.

"Couldn't you... take the week off without pay?"

His mother had no idea how much he made or what he paid in rent.

"No Ma, because it's also the busiest time of the month and nobody can fill in for me. But don't worry, I'll be there for Christmas."

He heard her make a little sound in her throat that meant, I'm going to cry when I hang up.

Jay was watching his face, her lips slowly curling up to reveal her little overbite. Suddenly she grasped the phone cord and pulled it tight against her crotch. Then she slid it back and forth, letting the coil slither languorously against the lycra, and made a porn star face, mouthing oooh baaaybeee. Ennis feigned shock and poked a finger into her flat, sweaty belly. She grinned and pinched his nose, then stepped away and headed for the bathroom.

When Ennis finally put down the receiver it was with a sense of exhilaration; he relished the prospect of a summer uninterrupted by a trek deep into the heartland. He felt a fleeting regret that he wouldn't see his nieces and nephews, but he'd be there for Christmas.

The bathroom door was ajar so that the cross breeze would suck the hot, moist air out of the open window. He went in and stood at the sink, rubbed a circle on the steamed up glass of the medicine cabinet and studied his head in the mirror. He wouldn't have to let his hair grow out on the sides and back or cut the top, now that he wasn't going home in July. He hoped this style would never die; it suited his permanent bed hair perfectly. He fished the razor comb out of the medicine cabinet and thinned the sides.

"I'm going to let my hair grow out," Jay said, watching him through a gap in the shower curtain as she scrubbed her arms with the loofah. She had the same cut but it looked different because her curls were tighter. The first time he saw it, he'd almost told her it made her look like a poodle, but for once he'd caught himself. Instead, he told her she looked French, which pleased her.

"Why?" He was afraid she'd say, because I look like a dyke.

"I think I'll get better assignments if I look more mainstream."

"Oh. Like Michael Jackson?"

"Ha ha. I'll just go back to the style I had when we met."

A curly mop, then. He could live with that.

"Hey, that reminds me," he said. "Joe called earlier. He's coming up from Washington tomorrow so you'll have to move your junk off the office couch."

"Why now? I thought summer recess didn't start for at least another month."

"Dunno. He was kind of mysterious about it. Said Barney's gonna give an interview tomorrow that'll be in the Globe on Monday and there might be some fallout from it. He's supposed to come up and see how the district reacts. He'll be here at least a week. You mind?"

"Why should I mind? After all, Joe brought us together," she smiled, suds streaming down her face.

While Jay got dressed, he turned off the oven and took out the Cheesie Beans casserole, the only recipe from Jay's copy of the Moosewood Cookbook that he had mastered. God, at least she wasn't macrobiotic, like the crowd at the Kushi Institute across the hall at work.

"So how'd it go with the peace, love and understanding crowd this morning?" he asked while they were eating.

"What's so funny 'bout that?" she deadpanned. Jay had grown up in Philadelphia, both parents from old Quaker families. She'd stopped going to meeting for worship when she was twelve but during a bout of homesickness in her freshman year at BU she'd gravitated to a small Quaker group on Beacon Hill. After they'd met, Ennis had gone with her to meeting a few times, so he could tell his mother that yes, he attended church. He didn't mention that Society of Friends on the East Coast had no ministers and that you wouldn't even know you were in a church, the room was so plain.

Jay pushed her empty bowl away. "Well actually, there's this project on the national level to create a giant quilt made of panels representing people who've died of AIDS. We're going to make one for Elliot."

"That would be nice."

She snapped her head up and glared at him, her eyes flashing. "There's nothing nice about it, Ennis!"

"Sorry, didn't mean that. It's... it's a good thing—"

"It's a good thing we're doing it because his family would never bother. I'm sure they just want to forget him."

"I sure won't," Ennis mumbled into his bowl. But she had already risen abruptly and taken her own to the sink. She was still for a moment, then turned around and looked at him thoughtfully.

"You know how I told you about people from meeting visiting political asylum seekers in the INS detention center, trying to help them?"

He remembered Jay had made one visit with the group. When the detainees learned she worked for a newspaper it got their hopes up too much, she'd told him, so she dropped out.

"I was thinking, what if you went along and wrote something about it? Maybe try again to get some freelance work in your spare time. I could mention it to one of the Herald editors."

"What kind of help do they give them?" he asked, attempting to at least sound interested.

"Nothing major, really. Make sure they have a lawyer, bring them stamps, toiletries... Just listen to their stories so they don't feel forgotten."

His spoon clinked as he chased a last bean around the bottom of his bowl. Resisting her suggestions of subjects to write about had become second nature to him and he felt a bit guilty about that. "Well, I'll think about it."

In bed that night, as Jay straddled him, riding up and down, he massaged her thighs and firm ass and watched her face, waiting for the right moment to move his thumbs into position. Then he closed his eyes, listening to her pant. Just before his final, hard thrust upwards he remembered her hand gripping the phone cord and pumping up and down, inches from his face.

Chapter 1B

I remember exactly when I believed I finally knew what made me different from everyone else around me. Until I was seven years old the nature of my difference was a mystery to me. It was my second grade teacher who put her finger on it, literally. Miss Johnson was teaching us geography and had pulled down the map of the United States, the one that all classrooms back then had rolled up like a window shade above the blackboard. She tapped her pink fingernail on the dented rectangle that was Kansas and said, "Here we are." Then she explained that we lived in the very middle of the country — the "center of the heartland" she called it, proudly.

I wasn't listening because I'd just had a revelation: I was born in the wrong place. As my teacher's nail scritched against the vinyl, it was as though I could feel that mass of land pressing in around me. I knew our last name meant "of the sea" and somehow had always assumed that the sea was quite nearby, in Kansas terms. An hour away at most. But now I saw that I had no hope of seeing either ocean.

It was a relief to believe my feeling of "otherness" was due to an accident of birth. I was meant to be living on the edge of the land, not marooned in this flat place. When I got home I asked my mother if we could move to Florida, which I'd noticed was the state with the most coastline. She just laughed and said I could visit her there after she divorced my father. She was joking, but the way things were going in our family I couldn't be sure about that.

Even before the accident I couldn't find my place in the family. I didn't hate the same things the rest of them did. My father hated hippies, even though he'd never actually met one. When I was six I saw some on TV and was fascinated by the men's long hair. Afterwards, I pranced around with a dish towel draped over my head, making a peace sign with my fingers, which enraged my dad. He snatched the towel away and snarled "No hippie faggots in this house!" Now, of course, he denies ever having used the f-word with me. But a man like me always remembers the first time he heard it, even if I didn't know what it meant then. There are words whose meaning you come to understand over time without looking them up. But it was many years before I realized that this word had anything at all to do with me.

Right after that incident was when he started pushing me to ambush my older brother and sock him hard, instead of defending me himself when KE beat me. But all the dirty punches did was give my brother a concrete reason to hate me. So instead of hitting, he mocked me for reading when I didn't have to and called me names. But I discovered I could best him in that arena, even though I was five years younger, by flustering him with insults he didn't understand.

My mother hated sinners. "Hate the sin and not the sinner" was not her style. I think a lot of sins she personally couldn't be bothered about, but the fact that her Lord Jesus was offended by them was what infuriated her when she saw or heard about people committing them. How I wished I had someone to stick up for me the way she did for Him! Most evenings she was out meeting with the fire and brimstone crowd, as we called them. Back then, if you joined a group or club, you had to meet the other members face to face, a notion that Junior and Jenny find downright quaint.

You'd never have guessed my sister was my brother's twin, because she was kind where he was mean. Kathy was sweet, not a hater; her refuge from my parents' ranting and my brother's meanness was school. As a social sanctuary that is, rather than an academic one. That's where she led her real life.

My family farmed 20 acres of corn and sorghum in the western part of the state, about 70 miles from the Colorado border. We had two hired hands, and my siblings and I helped of course. But KE hated farm work and fought with my father constantly. He planned to escape to the army as soon as he turned eighteen. Kathy tuned everybody out and placed her hopes on marriage to get her away from the farm. My father had given up on me early on, it seems, because as long as I finished my chores he paid little attention to me. And I learned from my brother's experience that it was better to be ignored. But my father resented having to hire two men instead of just one.

Once I understood that I was living in the wrong place with no possibility of change for a long time, I tried to make the best of it. I pretended we already lived on the sea, that our house was an island. The tractor I learned to drive was a boat in which I explored the ocean surrounding us. The school bus was a yellow canoe taking us to another island. When the corn was high I "swam" through it, parting the scratchy green leaves with my wrists until I reached the center of the sea where I settled on the bottom with a book, my face and arms tingling. I favored stories about people stranded and surviving on their own: Island of the Blue Dolphins, My Side of the Mountain, then later Robinson Crusoe and On Walden Pond. It was Defoe I was reading the day of the accident.