Jack at 36
November 7, 1980
Dark clouds were boiling up in the southern sky ahead of him so Jack turned on the radio to find a weather report. The news on every station was about the newly-elected president but Jack barely listened. LD had been furious to learn he would be away in Wyoming on Election Day. Jack had pointed out that his one vote in Texas wouldn't make a damn bit of difference, considering how far ahead Reagan was in the polls in the state. Not sure how he would've voted even if he'd been around. Well, now the country was stuck with Reagan with his cowboy act and salesman smile. Like his own. As if he himself wasn't putting on an act fifty weeks a year.
This trip to see Ennis had been worse than bad, it had been weird. It had started out the usual way, Ennis opening the door of Jack's truck as soon as he pulled up, grabbing Jack's arm and hauling him out of the cab. Then they'd shared reunion duties efficiently, Ennis taking charge of the kiss, both hands gripping Jack's' head to hold their devouring mouths together while Jack deftly unbuckled both their belts at once. Within a minute they were crying out, coming in each other's hands.
From then on their passion had been out of synch, neither ever ready to be tender when the other wanted it. When Jack had proposed, yet again, an alternate route to the rut Ennis was carving for them, Ennis snapped at him, as usual. They had argued about stupid things, and ridden joylessly. Yesterday, while taking a last tour of the mountain, the horses had shied at a sound like soldiers fighting with wooden swords so they'd left them tied to a fir and crept to the edge of the woods. In a clearing of high dry grass two stag elk were in combat, great racks clashing. Equal in size, neither could manage to push the other back and they were exhausted, gasping out white steam in the chill air. Ennis pressed up so close behind Jack that he could feel his exhales on his neck. The massive beasts stood leaning into each other for a minute and Jack realized their antlers were hooked together. When Ennis stepped away to stand beside Jack one elk caught the movement and panicked, rearing away. There was a mighty crack as two points broke off and, freed, the stags fled in opposite directions.
Last night they'd fucked furiously, clutching, raking and biting, but Jack's fury was real. He knew Ennis had been aroused by the stag fight, yet couldn't he see all the ways in which they were alike?
A name burst out of the radio, flaring into his dark thoughts. "... died of a heart attack in Juarez, Mexico this morning with his wife at his bedside. McQueen was fifty years old." Jack didn't hear the rest. He let the truck coast to the shoulder, cut the engine and pressed his forehead to the steering wheel. Fat drops of rain began smacking the windshield and he could feel the truck rock as 18-wheelers roared past.
A page torn from a movie magazine, folded carefully and hidden in a slot in his closet: "I had to learn to look out for myself when I was a kid. I had no one to talk to. I was all alone. It taught me to be self-reliant." A poster outside the movie theater in Childress, riveting him to the sidewalk, pregnant wife tugging at his arm: until that moment he had believed he was actually succeeding in making it work with Lureen the way it was supposed to. Juarez. He couldn't bear the thought that he had died in that town, of all places.
Y así pasan los días
Y yo, desesperando
Y tú, tú contestando
Quizás, quizás, quizás
The plaintive Spanish song filled his ears. "NO!" he shouted, gripping the steering wheel. He couldn't go back there, he would witness nothing good. He jerked his head up. The music was pouring out of the radio and he was in his truck, where he'd stopped it.
Rain drummed down in a deluge, hiding everything beyond his truck behind a curtain of water, drowning out his sobs.
The words of the Spanish song:
I am always asking you
When, how and where
You always tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
The days pass this way
And I am despairing
And you, you always answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
You are wasting time
Thinking, thinking
That which you want most
Until when? Until when?