The Missing Vignette 1977
(Between Ennis' Divorce and Jack Meeting Randall Malone)
The Boy took a shine to the suited and booted cowboy off to one side of the bar. He'd been nursing that glass of Jack Daniels, his second, for half an hour. Truth was he had noted the Boy's attentions, what with working his way down his end right casual like, eyes returning again and again, not to the glass in hand, but the face slightly drawn. Seemed he might just polish that glass clean in two.
Twenty-one, if he was a day, looking all out of place in his red vest and snap-on bow tie. Sandy-blond, though nothing like tall. Turning round to the register, all on show, blue-ribbon, county fair-style. Sweet. He took another sip, fumbled for the right words.
The Boy had come down from the high, empty plains out west three years ago to the University. He'd traded big skies and loneliness for the bright lights of this not-so-big city that is Oklahoma, the City. The Sears and Roebuck Cowboy was a bit old for him, mid-thirties he reckoned; but he recognised true-to-type. And yes, he'd been punched more than once, but he'd been screwed too. Might be again.
"Alright?" the Boy smiled.
"Oh, yeaah, I'm alright now" raised his glass, his blue eyes, framed by tight brown sideburns and wavy hair, sparkled just a bit as if remembering a private joke. "Convention over and done with, just in no hurry to go home just yet."
"Where's home?"
"Amarillo way." Jack's eyes looking away, lying won't easy.
"Well I'm sure you'll find lots to do round here," he paused, "Tourist things." This Boy was sweeter an cherry pie, cheeks pinking up.
"I'm Jack" he holds out a hand.
"Greg."
"Well, Greg, I was thinking, maybe you and me…" his voice trailed off. "Maybe you and me could do some explor…"
The Boy steps up tight against the bar, trying to contain the very air between them. His birthday and Christmas had come at once.
"When you get off?" Jack grins nervously, a winner at the finish line.
"Eight"
"I'm just up the street at the Ramada, number 18" got up, paid and asked "Be there?"
The Boy nodded and smiled again.
The Boy lay there, open, like a blank piece of paper. The only landmark the Eiffel Tower rising between them. Jack knew, no time for talking, he'd come here for a reason. He'd either led or been led here, and he wasn't going til he got what he came for. Pleading eyes looking up, teetering on the edge, then light filling the darkness. Stifled sounds, the T.V. blaring next door with eager hands searching. Jack got louder. The Boy's body sang beneath him.
A tremor and the flag unfurls, the Boy fixes him with china blue eyes, pools of water welling up that, to Jack, were either a deep, unfathomed lake or windows onto something long ago.
On your mark, get set, go! Legs up, waiting. Jack's eyes on the prize. Stepping up to the plate, then once, twice, three times missing the target. The old, dead horse out for the count. No waking the dead.
"Damn, son of a bitch!" Jack's feet hit the stingy carpet, "ain't goin a do" he whispers.
"That's alright, no need to worry…" the Boy's voice trying hard to hide his disappointment. He touches the bowed shoulders and lays his chin by his ear. "C'mere"
He wants the Boy to go, to be anywhere but here at this moment. But there's something in the Boy's voice that echoes deep within himself. They're both travellers lost in a storm somewhere along the way. Safety in numbers.
Jack falls into the waiting arms as he is dragged down to the mattress. He doesn't want to see the face. Instead he lays his head between bronze points and closes his eyes, the ancient rhythm beating beneath him. The smell is all wrong, but the warmth is real. An endless, droning wind fills his ears; the mountain rears up before him, fills his sight. A shiver runs down his spine. The Boy pulls the blanket over him and draws him closer. Gentle rain falls on the dusted plain. Sleep. Tossing and turning. Overboard. Clinging to flotsam for dear life.
First light Jack awakes. "Ennis?" No. Slides into shirt and pants without a sound. He kisses the forehead that rests above a contented smile, much like he does little Bobby back home. Slips away, closing the door without a sound.
The Boy wakes in the noise and bright of the new day. A vast, empty plain of white stretches out before him, interrupted only by "Ramada" printed in bold letters along one edge. He reaches for the pillow and sinks into the cotton sea. The tears hesitate, then roll down his cheeks as he cries not only for himself, but for the lonesome cowboy and what he knew could never have been.