"Ennis. Hey. Ennis."
He woke up, or dreamed he woke up, to see Jack sitting on the wooden chair in the far corner of the room, which made him angry because it wasn't fair for his mind to pull this kind of trick on him when he was already felt as godawful as he did. "You ain't real," he said, glaring at the fever-dream Jack sitting in the patch of moonlight, his feet in their scuffed-up boots stretched out in front of him. "Now go away and let me sleep."
"You think I ain't real?"
"I know you ain't real, 'cause since I got sick day before yesterday I already dreamed about Alma movin' to Mexico and taking the rest of the family with her and Cassie Cartwright showin' up at my door in a short red dress and beggin' me to marry her. I ain't seen Cassie in over thirty years and Alma, well, she ain't the one who was keen on goin' to Mexico. Now get the hell out of my room."
"Got somethin' to tell ya, friend." Jack leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and staring Ennis in the eye.
"Yeah? Well, I got somethin' to tell you, Jack fuckin' dream Twist, and that's that you can get – "
"Damn it, Ennis, shut up!" There was a determined look in his eye, the kind he'd had all those years back their last day together when they'd had that fight. "Look, I come here to tell you somethin' important, and the least you can do is shut the hell up and listen to me for one goddamn minute. I ain't got time to hear you bitch about whether you think I'm real or a dream or a goddamn hallucination, and neither do you. You got about four, five days to live."
They stared at each other, Ennis breathing quickly and deeply as though something heavy was sitting on his chest. He could feel a light sheen of sweat on his back, could feel a throbbing in his head like the fast throbbing of his heart under his ribs. "And then what? Then you come back to kill me?"
"I ain't never threatened to kill nobody."
"You sayin' I did?"
"'All them things I don't know could get you killed if I should come to know them,' Ennis, that's what you said to me."
There was no arguing with that, and so Ennis didn't try: "Jack, you know I'd kill for you ten times sooner than I'd kill you."
"That's real sweet of you, friend."
"Yeah, well, goin' off to Mexico and doin' what we did with a bunch of whores was real sweet of you. That catch up with you?"
"Don't know what you mean."
"You're dead, ain't you? You have to come from Hell to see me, Jack? Or did ol' Water-Walking Jesus do his forgivin' and let you past the pearly gates?"
"You know what? I don't know," said Jack. "And you want to know why I don't know? Because I ain't gone nowhere, Ennis, I ain't gone nowhere except to do what I did for years 'fore I died, sit and wait for you to come away with me. I ain't in Heaven, I ain't in Hell, I ain't nowhere, except waiting on you, but you want to know the difference this time, Ennis? This time, ain't nothin' up to you. Whether you like it or not, death's catchin' up to you real fast, and then we're goin' to face what we gotta face together whether you like it or not. You got less than five days, and if you don't believe me, well, then you can sit around till the time comes and see if you believe me as your body's turnin' cold."
When he woke up it was morning, with the sounds of someone pouring cereal in the kitchen and a light that seemed too bright for human eyes glaring through the window. He sat up, looked around the room, saw that the wooden chair was still right by his bed where Junior'd left it, nowhere near the far corner.
Someone knocked on the door. "Grandpa? You awake?"
"Luke? That you?"
"Yeah, it's me. Mama says to ask you do you want anything for breakfast."
"Tell her I wouldn't mind whatever kind of cold cereal she's got 'round the kitchen."
He heard the footsteps clomp away, imagined Luke with his gangly height and big feet that promised at least another few inches. Everyone kept telling the boy he ought to go out for basketball, Kurt included, but Luke was beyond not interested. He had a ton of little Lego bricks in his room, had used them to build a small city that took up most of the floor space. It had everything from a bridge to a stadium to an apartment house to something that looked like a medieval castle, and it was an account of it that Junior wouldn't put his clean folded clothes on his bed anymore and left them just outside the door.
She came in a few minutes later with a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice balanced on a cookie sheet. "You slept right through dinner and everything. You wake up at all during the night?"
"I don't think so," Ennis said, grabbing for the orange juice and draining half of it in one gulp. The spit was thick and dry in his mouth.
He got up, stumbled off to the bathroom, came back and tossed down the rest of the orange juice. "Could I have some more of this, please? And some of them pills too."
"Lizzie just drank the rest of the orange juice in the refrigerator."
"All right, I'll take water, then. Do you 'member where I put my cigarettes?"
"You have the flu, you had a temperature of one hundred and one yesterday afternoon, and you want your cigarettes?"
"I figure it's better to just be sick than t'be sick and nearly goin' out of my mind."
"Daddy, you know you're not allowed to smoke in the house."
"So I'll go on the porch."
"You think that's a good idea?"
"I can still walk, Junior. Should probably take a shower as well." He could feel the dried sweat on his back.