Jack at 15
October 19, 1959
Jack lay on his side on his bed, head propped on one hand as he leafed through a Silver Screen magazine with the other. The lamp on the wall above him cast a glare on the slick paper and he had to tilt the page at times to read the captions. A girl had left it behind in class and he'd slipped it into his notebook on the way out of the room. The blond actor on the cover had caught his eye. He scanned the star's biography but after the second paragraph he returned to the start and read it to the end. The western he would be starring in was coming out in a few months, and Jack wondered if it would play in Sheridan. Wondered, if it did, how he would ever get there.
He continued turning the shiny pages, pausing at a photo of Elizabeth Taylor looking sad, her eyes staring unfocused into the distance, in a scene from her new film. Her eyebrows were thick and dark, like his, her hair glossy black. He stroked the paper with his thumb, passing over her full, red lips. He rubbed the paper harder, enjoying the squeak it made. Nothing here was smooth and sleek like this. He carried on stroking the paper with his thumb, thinking about the movie theater in Sheridan and the problem of getting there. He noticed the lamplight had dimmed and, looking down at his hand, realized the magazine was gone and he was cold.
April 4, 1983
His thumb was stroking some strange, slippery fabric. Looking up, he could tell he was enclosed in a shelter with curving sides; reaching out, he ran his finger along it and was surprised at how thin, taut and smooth the material was. A tent? The flickering glow of a fire filtered through.
He became aware of male voices a short distance away. When one of them said, "Gonna snow tonight fer sure" he sat up and shivered. Groping around, he closed his hand on a blanket and slowly pulled it around him, careful to make no sound. Then he peered through a gap where the entrance must be. A man was sitting hunched inside his thick jacket in a low, folding chair about twenty feet away, his face in profile illuminated by a wood fire at his feet. Beyond him was another man but Jack could see only his legs stretched toward the flames. The man close to him took a drag on a handrolled cigarette and asked the other something about finding someone to marry, then passed it to him. Jack sat up straight in shock, cold charge running through him to see himself so old, so tired. He studied the mustache, thought it looked pretty good.
Jack paid no attention to the man's mumbled answer until he said "What about you n'Lureen?"
His future old self raised a whiskey bottle to his lips and said "Lureen's good at makin the hard deals in the machinery business, but far's our marriage goes we could do it over the phone."
Do it over the phone. He lay back down, pondering. Doing it. Over the phone. How would that work?
He imagined picking up the receiver, hard, smooth and curved under his palm. Warm where another hand had held it. He brought his hand near to his ear, fingers curved as if gripping the phone, let his right hand drift down between his legs, where he was growing hard. Men's voices murmured low nearby; he imagined whispers and moans coming through the earpiece, felt the mouthpiece hard and warm against his lips. He squeezed the phone tighter, clenching and flexing his hand, caressing the smooth Bakelite with his thumb, stroking himself, increasing the tempo. Closed his eyes, let his tongue come out and touch the mouthpiece, the little holes rasping against the tip as he licked. Miss you so much. Panting, heart thudding, thrashing and thrusting urgently into his hand... shit yes! Can hardly stand it... Phone ringing, ringing for him...
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He came like a freight train, shooting out between his fingers, heart hammering in his chest, gasping for breath. Startled by the sound of sizzling above him, he opened his eyes and saw he was back on his bed, t-shirt and boxers underneath him, magazine's slick paper pressing into his back. The wall above his pillow was a mess, pearls of warm spunk bubbling on the hot bulb of his lamp.
His mother's voice, on the phone with his aunt, drifted up from the kitchen. He reached for a corner of his mama's quilt and flipped it over, wiping his hand on the cotton backing. When he sat up the magazine stuck to his sweaty skin for a few seconds before peeling off and dropping back onto the mattress. He stared at the page with the photo of the dark-haired, blue-eyed actress. Wondered about his future wife and her hard deals. Ripped out the page, pulled a tack from the wall and pinned her photo over his bed. Then he flipped back several pages to find the article about the blond actor and carefully pulled it away from the binding. He read it again, stared at the photo, then folded it once, taking care not to let the crease run through the man's face. Slipped off the bed and went to hide it with his other treasures.