October, 1969.

Tucking his white-and-blue checked shirt into his Levis, Ennis squeezed past six year-old Alma Jnr. in the cramped hallway and headed for the front door. Opening it, he stepped out onto the landing, giving a cursory and anxious glance out towards the road. Jack was supposed to be arriving at his Riverton place any time soon, and Ennis -- contained though his anticipation was -- couldn’t wait to see him. He’d been restlessly prowling around the small place, smoking cigarette after cigarette, rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans and checking his fishing gear more times that he needed to, just to try and keep himself occupied.

He’d noticed the unimpressed, sullen looks Alma had been giving him from the kitchen, but he chose to ignore it. There was no way he was going to miss this fishing trip; he didn’t care how much Alma resented it. It had been over a year and a half since he’d seen Jack. Alma could wait, as far as he was concerned.

Staring at the road, he couldn’t see any sign of Jack, and Ennis felt his heart sink with impatience. A tug to the back of his shirt turned his attention away from the road, however, and he turned to see Alma Jnr. looking up at him almost sadly.

“You goin’ a be gone for long, daddy?” she asked.

Reaching down, he scooped Alma Jnr. up into his arms and hoisted her against his hip, grunting, “Uuggghh, you be turnin’ into a heavy girl.” Heading back inside, he added, “I ain’t gonna be gone that long, little darlin’.” He cupped her chin in his broad hand and angled her cheek towards him before pressing a kiss to it. “Ain’t gonna be more ‘an a week.”

Just as he said that, he caught sight of Alma peering at him derisively from the kitchen, cradling toddler Francine in her arms. He merely dismissively turned his attention away from her, giving another kiss to Alma Jnr’s cheek as he moved towards the tattered sofa.

“You be a good girl for your mama, you hear me?” he added gruffly, setting her down heavily onto the creaky seat.

( Read more... )


Ennis Del Mar | Brokeback Mountain | 1,972 words

Current Mood: excited

[OOC: This is set just after Ennis and Jack's first reunion.]


Ghost of the past

Ennis believes in ghosts.

Not restless ghosts of the dead, lost souls of those long gone, or the spirits of the undead. He doesn’t believe in shit like that. As far as Ennis is concerned, if there be such things as those kind of ghosts, then how come he ain’t never seen them?

No, he doesn’t believe in those sorts of ghosts. He believes in the sort of ghosts that people make for themselves; the mistakes they go making in their lives, the choices they regret and the lies they gone and told. He believes in them because he has his own ghosts from the past that haunt him. They haunt him every single damn day.

It’s the summer of 1967. It’s been four years since he seen Jack Twist and two hours since he watched Jack drive off back home to Childress, Texas. Back to his wife and kid, back to his seemingly normal kind of life, back to everything that Ennis ain’t a part of. Awakening the ghost of the past that never really lay dormant. This ghost comes in the form of Jack, because Jack is the only thing in his past that matters to Ennis; the only thing he knows he never should’ve let go.

He sits in the cramped, musty living room of his home, bathed in sweat from the sultry summer heat, staring down at where Jack’s truck had been parked when they arrived back from their fishing trip they spontaneously went on, and there’s a pain in Ennis’ gut; a deep, aching pain, like he’s going to be sick. The same kind of pain he had the last time he and Jack parted ways, just after their job up yonder Brokeback ended. It took him more than a damn year to work out what that pain meant and part of him wishes he never gone and worked it out, because this time around, seeing Jack go, just makes this pain eat into him deeper.

( The ghost of the past, of what they had up in Brokeback, has always haunted him. Not knowing where the hell Jack was in all them four years made this damn ghost seem like nothing more than memories he could no more hold onto than if he were to reach out and try to grab a fistful of thin air in his hand. )


Ennis Del Mar | Brokeback Mountain | 1,810 words

Current Mood: sad

There's an old cemetary 'bout a quarter mile down from where I live. Run down old place, looks as dead as the people that're buried in the plots, no less. Like a skeleton, with the way them tombstones're all crooked an' fallin' apart. Whoever's s'posed to watch over the place ain't done a very good job. Some people ain't got no respect for the dead.

Anyways, I go walkin' down that way sometimes. Got no reason to; ain't got nobody that I know buried there. But sometimes when the summer heat gets too damn much to cope with in the trailer where I live, or when I ain't got nothin' to do, I walk on down there, have a look-see at the folks that've passed on. Some a them datin' right back to the 1800s. An' occasionally there's a new plot with fresh dirt dug up. Not very often - most people go to the main town to bury the dead, not to some cemetary that no one knows exists. I feel so old an' forgotten, I can sometimes picture them tombstones with m'own name inscribed on 'em - 'Ennis Del Mar: least he can't go on screwin' his life up no more', it'd read.

But I look at them tombstones with names I don't recognise inscripted on them, an' I sometimes think 'bout the impact them people mighta had on the people they left behind; their family or friends, enemies, even. Ev'rybody leaves some kinda impact, doesn't matter how big or small. But at least the people they left behind have a thing they can hold onto, a place they know their loved one is buried in. A place to rest their bones, I dunno.

I ain't got no grave that I can go to. Nothin' that I can look at that has the name Jack Twist inscribed on it. No closure. Nothin'. Just Brokeback Mountain and a shirt that don't even hold his scent in it no more. Just a faded memory. An' sometimes those memories feel so faded I sometimes find myself wonderin' if Jack was ever real. It's like the impact he left is so big it's created this black kinda hole that just sucks ev'rything into it.

I just hope that wherever Jack is, that he's waitin' for me.


Ennis Del Mar | Brokeback Mountain | 383 words

Current Mood: sad