Turn Around

Ennis was walking down the road, bag slung over his shoulder. It was a nice day out, cool, sunny, wind blowing as always. Inside Ennis' mind and heart it was not quite so nice.

Fire raged inside him. Angry pointy things played along his nerves. He could barely see ahead of him and wasn't actually sure if he was walking straight. He didn't even know if he was walking in the right direction anymore.

Jack had just driven away and all he could say to him was, "Well, guess I'll see ya around." Guess I'll see ya around. Like he lives down the street and you'll hook up at the bar one night. Like there was nothing much between the two of you but a couple of months of doing a job. Like he didn't mean the world to you. Like he wasn't the other half of your soul that you hadn't even known you were missing.

Guess I'll see ya around.

There was a part of Ennis that was screaming at himself to turn around…"turn around and run after that truck!" no matter how far down the road it might have gone. "Don't walk in the other direction, you stupid shit, chase him down. No one has ever meant this much to you in your life and he's driving away!"

But there was a part of him that didn't believe that. A part that had grown up with hatred rampant around him, disinterest in him as a human being. A part that knew that there was nothing in life but hard work, loneliness, and then death. A part that didn't believe he deserved to love or be loved.

This part was strong and entrenched and was in control of his feet…feet which he was sure belonged to someone else because they weren't responding to his pleas to stop, turn and reverse their directon…head back toward Jack.

Jack…the only bright light to ever shine in his life. And not just shine but shine in his direction. That smile, those eyes, his tenderness, the ways he showed Ennis that he cared…all turned toward him. Jack had done just that…and more.

But Ennis kept walking, his life disintegrating around him with each step he took. He didn't know how to stop. He didn't know how to turn. He didn't know how to accept that someone…cared?...desired?...wanted him? He couldn't say love because that was just something that had never really occurred in his life…how could someone understand what one had never experienced. It was an unknown thing for him.

All he knew was that the farther he walked and the farther in the opposite direction Jack drove, the more he felt that in his life, he would never make a decision that could be any worse than the one he was making right at this moment.

He felt like his heart would pound right out of his chest, that all those organs that had their place inside his body wanted to climb out his throat and lay themselves on the ground in front of him. It was getting harder for him to walk.

He took a hard right turn near a small, darkened entryway to an abandoned building. His stomach was cramping, the nausea building rapidly. Another part of his training as a man would not, of course, allow him to be sick in the middle of the street where just anyone could see him.

He was heaving even before he got to the seclusion and safety of the darkness…but this was not heaving because of bad food or sickness, this was heaving because his body was trying to tell him that his one chance at happiness had just driven away…and he had done nothing to stop him. That the one person in the world he had begun to have true feelings for was, now, gone. That in his life he would never find another like him.

This was what his body was trying to tell him.

And he finally realized what this gut-wrenching pain was…loss. Absolute loss of something that was so precious that it provoked physical pain. He felt as if his guts were tied to the fender of Jack's car and the farther he drove, the greater the pain…and the more hollow he became. He had begun to understand some of what was happening and with that understanding, the tears began to flow. With the tears, came the anger. With the anger, came a need to strike at something. Only the wall was handy.

Lost in his grief, he didn't see a stranger watching him. When he did… "What the fuck you looking at!" Because a man shouldn't be seen crying. Because one man shouldn't witness another man break down over the loss of his love…even if this other man didn't know that.

As the stranger moved on, Ennis began to collapse with the full impact of his loss seeping into every pore of his body. He understood now what he had done and what the impact for him would be. He would never see Jack again. He hadn't realized how much Jack had come to mean to him, but he did now. He saw his only chance at happiness diminish with each second.

He had no way of knowing that his life before Brokeback had been empty, desolate, without love or beauty. It was what it had always been. Then came Jack.

Jack had shown him a new life that he could compare to his life before. Jack had stepped into his empty life and brought laughter, happiness, sunshine.

But now he could see that same cold, empty, desolate life looming over him like a dark cloud, a thunderstorm that was fixin' to engulf him and extinguish all the brightness and warmth that Jack had exposed him to.

Depression was not a sufficient word for what was happening to him.

His body had contracted in on itself, trying to escape the future he saw coalescing around him. He had lost the strength to fight it by now and was working to do what he learned before to do so well…stuff all his feelings down deep inside, present a closed face to the world, and simply exist. He hadn't been able to stop the tears just yet.

He felt more than saw a shadow fall across him from the sunlit world outside of his hiding place. He had already told this asshole to get lost and was working up what strength he had to tell him again.

He spun and started to rise, hoping that this guy would launch into him so he could have something more substantial than a wall to pound on and give him an outlet for his rage and pain.

"I said, GET THE FUCK AWAY FR….."

Before he could finish, and through his tears, he could see that the man watching him wasn't the same guy as before.

Oultined by the brightness of the world outside, Ennis saw tight jeans, a rodeo belt buckle, a denim shirt and black hat. The face was in shadow, but he didn't need to see that to know who this was.

Ennis could only stare. He had started the process of shutting himself down so he wouldn't feel the excruciating pain of the loss of Jack. There was not a part of him that held a hope of seeing Jack again.

But there he stood.

Ennis went weak and fell to his knees.

"Jack…"

Jack stepped forward and went to his knees also grabbing Ennis and holding him so he didn't fall any further.

"Jack…" was all Ennis could get out.

"I'm here, Ennis. I'm here."

Ennis gasped for air like someone who had sunk below the waves and then been suddenly pulled to safety. His tears flowed freely now…he was beyond caring what happened outside of this small area of space and time. He held onto Jack as one would hold onto a log in a storm-tossed ocean…his only hope of staying above the desolate vision of his future that he had experienced so recently.

"Ennis. It's okay, Ennis. It's okay. It's alright. I couldn't leave Ennis. I tried but I couldn't leave." Jack was now unable to hold back his tears. He had felt much the same way Ennis had but knew better than Ennis why he was feeling what he did. He knew that Ennis would be unable to turn around. Jack knew that he would never be able to live his life without Ennis. He knew that if he didn't turn his truck around and find him both of them would regret this moment until they died.

"Jack…I didn't know what to do." Ennis sobbed. "I can't…I can't…Jack, don't leave. Please, Jack. Don't go. I couldn't go on, Jack. Please."

"I ain't goin' nowhere, cowboy. Not now, not ever. It'll all be okay. I'm not leaving, Ennis. I'm right here."

Jack was 78 when he died suddenly one morning in early summer. He had never left Ennis, staying by his side until the end.

Ennis made sure he was laid to rest properly.

The maid who cooked and cleaned for them found Ennis the next day. He had died quietly during the night. He was holding one of Jack's shirts.

Without Jack he hadn't been able to go on.