"The Power of Ten" - Canon!AU fic, chapter 4
Fic content and rating:
”The Power of Ten” is a Canon!AU fic, rated PG for language. No warnings.
Brief synopsis:
Jack tells Ennis that he “had to ask about ten different people in Riverton where you was livin’.” Who were those ten people, exactly, and could their meeting with Jack possibly have impacted them - and given them power to impact Ennis in their turn - so that fate eventually would hold a different outcome for Jack and Ennis?
This fic looks at that possibility and Ennis’s related trials and tribulations in a sometime slightly tongue-in-cheek way.
Disclaimer: Jack, Ennis and Brokeback Mountain belong to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no disrespect and make no profit.
A/N: Thank you for useful input to this chapter, soulan
Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/25485.html
Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/26635.html
Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/27131.html
The Power of Ten: Chapter 4
The waitress
What a horrible day.
Ennis was so exhausted, he could hardly stand.
The voices of everyone he’d met today kept echoing in his mind, clamoring for attention, reminding him of happy, cheerful, handsome Jack - the Jack he himself had rejected and sent packing.
He realized he needed a drink, and badly.
He didn’t have more at home, had cleaned it all out to the very last drop yesterday. His usual haunt, the Black and Blue Eagle Bar, was just a couple a blocks over. One good shot a whiskey, or two, or possibly three, would help cure this persistent noise in his head and dull the damnable ache in his heart.
Did he risk meeting even more people who’d be buttonholing him to yodel Jack Twist’s praises? He pondered that for a second, but decided to take the chance.
He needed that drink more than anything in the world. Didn’t think there were more people around all a Riverton that knew him, anyway. Far as he could figure out he’d already met the lot.
Decision made, he drove straight there.
Never had any man more desperately longed for the calming lull of liquor.
The dim interior of the Eagle Bar revealed a couple of listless patrons sitting around nursing their beer bottles, but no-one he knew enough to talk to, thank the Lord. He hardly paid the man behind the bar a single glance, nor the waitress when he walked right by her, though he’d probably seen her before. He wasn’t in the habit of noticing strange women, anyway. Certainly not when he was in the very serious business of drinking to drown Jack-related doubts and regrets.
The bartender put the whiskey in front of him, deep amber calling to his very soul. Salvation and oblivion in liquid form. Ennis collapsed at the nearest table and lifted the glass.
The waitress had moved closer. Now she tapped his arm and leaned forward towards him.
“You’re Ennis del Mar, now ain’t you?” she asked.
He bit back a groan of desperation.
“Uh-huh”, he said, looking at her for the first time.
Nice-looking gal, long hair in big waves, short skirt, a bright tube top doing its very best to not conceal a right fine pair a boobs. Her face carefully painted, but she hadn’t overdone the make-up. Seemed she had spent time making sure she looked her very best.
“Friend a yours was in here the other day, askin' for directions to your place,” she continued.
Ennis found he was getting used to this line by now, he didn’t even wince when he heard it.
“A very good-lookin' guy. Downright gorgeous, if you know what I mean. Don’t get many a his kind in here. Kind of guy a woman could fall for, and hard.”
She sat down uninvited, leaned her head on her hand, and stared into the distance right past Ennis.
“Ring on his finger. Married, of course…. They always are. They’re always taken. There’s always a past. Hope that wife a his takes care a him good, or she’s gonna lose him, and fast.”
She nodded to herself and sighed.
“Oh my, he’s got to have them linin' up outside the door and all the way down the street! Stands to reason he left just as soon as he appeared.”
She laughed, a brittle little sound, shook her head to send her shiny hair bouncing on her shoulders.
“Guys like that never hang around. All you get is one good look, enough to get you interested in learnin’ more, makin’ you want to move closer, and wooosh! Gone in a flash. Story a my life.”
Ennis practically gnashed his teeth. His temper flared and he glared at her ominously.
“Nope, he’s the story a my life, lady. He’s mine! No-one’s gonna be linin’ up here - except me. Back off!” he thought to himself angrily.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, intent, looking surprised. Questions were blooming in her eyes now, but she didn’t immediately speak up. Was she waiting for something?
He felt a surge of pure panic. Had he by any chance spoken his thoughts aloud? Oh Christ, he had said it out loud! Hadn’t he? Maybe he’d only mumbled? Shit, he wasn’t sure. He was so tired. Jesus.
He needed to get out a there fast, faster than the fire and brimstone crowd would see guys like him and Jack land in hell, if they’d known about them. And they would get to know, if she’d heard him, and if she cared enough to pass it on.
He threw back his whiskey in a huge frantic gulp that made him cough and sputter, blazing its fiery way down to his guts. Gave him tears in his eyes. Damn.
He slammed the glass and the money down next to each other on the table, a big tip for her, more’n he could afford, and got up to leave. His head was spinning. Everything looked slightly blurred.
The woman didn’t flinch though. The bar saw a rowdy clientele at the best of days. She kept looking at him, expression turning wistful, and chased her previous comment with a plaintive question.
“Don’t suppose he’ll be stayin’ around, don’t suppose he’ll be back?”
“Nope. He’s not comin’ back. Gone for good,” Ennis muttered morosely.
“And I hafta be goin’ to. Was nice talkin’ to you.”
The lie of the century right there. Perhaps she was easily fooled. He could only hope.
Pulling his hat firmly back down over his eyes he slammed out the door in such a hurry that he nearly barreled right through it, wood and glass and all.
He got to the truck and threw himself in, realizing that his eyes were still blurry. The effect of that whiskey cough was damnably difficult to shake. He drew a heavy arm across his face, raking fresh moisture out of his eyes, and leaned back tiredly in his seat.
That one shot a whiskey had come at too high a price.
The liquor store manager
Back when Ennis moved out St. Stephens way, right before the round-up, he’d thought it just as well not to go telling every Tom, Dick and Harry his business and his whereabouts. Folks didn’t need to know, had no call sticking their noses into his affairs. Keeping his new place private had made him feel safe, feel protected and invisible. But shit - if everyone had known where he lived, Jack would a found out easily, wouldn’t have needed to rush around town, showing himself off, impressing everyone, letting them know how much he was wanting to get a hold of Ennis.
Ennis moaned. Goddamn it. He couldn’t have known Jack would be so fucking stupid, but even so…. Now he regretted his own dumb-ass secrecy.
The prospect of getting home to that lonely secret and sorry place wasn’t appealing. It was downright frightening.
He still needed something strong to fortify himself first.
If he couldn’t stay at the bar to bolster his defenses against sorrows and regrets, he figured the liquor store for his next destination. If he got a move on he could just about manage to get there before closing time.
Jack had probably been there too, he thought bleakly. It seemed he hadn’t left a stone in Riverton unturned in his quest for Ennis del Mar.
But no matter. Ennis was getting used to Jack being mentioned around town.
He needed a bottle, or two or three. He could take one more tale a Jack free with his purchase. One more person singing Jack’s praises would make no big difference now.
With jaws clenched and eyes burning he got the truck in gear and got going. Action was required here.
He pulled up outside the store, tires squealing.
“Gimme two - no, make that tree bottles of Old Rose,” he told Mr. Tallis behind the counter without preamble.
“Figure I’ll stock me up some a those.”
Now who was he fooling? Jason Tallis probably had heard such lines every day of his long liquor-selling life. The store manager didn’t comment though. Keeping on good terms with customers and pretending to believe their self-delusional tall tales and white lies kept him in business, after all.
He had the bottles down in no time, put them in a paper bag, pushed it over the counter.
“Here ya go, del Mar. Your regular fuel, ain’t it? That’ll be….”
Looking at the figures punched into the registry, Ennis nearly heaved a sigh. He shouldn’t be spending money on this. Especially when he somehow thought he remembered that he’d maybe promised the girls to buy a bike next time they visited.
Even so, he paid without the slightest hesitation.
“Guess you got used to a better brand over the weekend, now didn’t ya?” Tallis nodded at him knowingly as he accepted the cash.
“Hunh?”
“The guy who was in here buyin’ a bottle a Chivas Regal, didn’t he share it with you after all? Wasn’t he the fishin’ buddy you’ve been sharin’ all a those bottles a Old Rose with? I figured as much when he asked for directions to your place.”
“Yeah. Well, yeah, that was him. Didn’t come up here to fish. Was just passin’ through.”
“A real connoisseur, if I may say so.”
“Hunh?”
Ennis felt like he was drowing in unwanted details and strange words. All about Jack, always Jack. Hell, all he wanted was to get blindingly drunk like any honest working man. He sure was being punished for planning to go off the straight and narrow, though…
“Guy knew his way around the good and rare brands, is what I’m sayin'. Told me he’d brought along a bottle from Texas but wanted something better. We had ourselves a little discussion, he listened to my recommendation too. Gift for a close friend, so he said - for you, was what I gathered.”
“Uhm....”
God damn it all to Brokeback and back. Ennis felt so miserable and frustrated, so angry and desperate, so outraged and sorry, he couldn’t decide which. But misery won.
Jack had bought a quality bottle for him, for them.
He’d looked so happy, had been planning and dreaming all those many miles and long hours on the road from Childress. Probably planning on them sharing his whiskey, getting them good and ready for going a damn fine and satisfying round in bed. Yeah, sure he’d been thinking on that. Wasn't he moving in for a kiss right there outside, if Ennis hadn’t stopped him?
Right in front of the girls!
But Jack had looked so full a joy, so intensely happy. Like he’d won the big state lottery, and Ennis was the first prize.
And he’d had that expensive bottle ready and waiting in the truck.
Shit.
Ennis wondered what Jack had done with it. He felt the cold dread of anxiety seeping through to the marrow of his bones and gripping his heart.
What if Jack had opened it while driving back home, exhausted and dejected as he was? What if he’d got himself good and drunk, just the same as Ennis had? What if he’d been too drunk to drive properly, maybe he’d gone right off the road somewhere?
What if he was lying dead in a ditch, and it was Ennis’s fault, all his fault, for sending Jack away in such despair?
Dead in a ditch. That very worst of endings, the ending he’d always feared for Jack - always. He’d told himself it would never happen as long as he continued to hold Jack at a safe distance, as long as they only met a few brief times a year out in the middle a nowhere. No sweet life for them, no way. It was too dangerous.
Had all his efforts been in vain, was fate right now thumbing its nose mockingly at him from a lonely roadside trench somewhere?
Ennis groaned.
Tallis stared at him, looking slightly surprised and worried. He wasn’t used to Ennis looking like death warmed over while mumbling and moaning to himself.
“Don’t let me keep you, del Mar. Your friend ain’t none a my business. Sorry I brought it up.”
Walking back to the truck, Ennis held on to his bag a bottles like a drowning man grips the unexpected rescue rope in a hurricane. Now he was going home, home, home, to somehow soothe - no, submerge - his frantic fears and vivid worries.
A horrible hollow feeling had been growing in him all day. It had been getting more noticeable with every new person reminding him of all that Jack was, all that he could be for Ennis. All that Jack’d wanted for the both a them together.
All that Ennis was too afraid to accept.
Jack filled a big part of Ennis’s world. He left an equally yawning void when he wasn’t there. Normally, Ennis managed to balance blindfolded on the edge, unwilling to acknowledge the steep precipice in front of him. Now he had stumbled and fallen, was hanging on with frantic fingernails over that frightening drop.
The whiskey could dull his guilt and fears for a while, but in the long run the truth would out. Without Jack in his life, it would all be useless. That emptiness could never be filled, no matter how much liquor he poured into it.
His tired mind struggled with such unwelcome and painful thoughts and insights. But a whole life’s experience in keeping his true self at bay and his emotions under wraps hadn’t been completely undone yet. Somehow he pushed the inner turmoil back just enough to manage his vestige of an everyday life and the minimum of mundane tasks required to get him back home.
That had to be how come he realized that something in the truck beside his hollow self was bordering on empty.
The gas gauge arrow on his beat-up dashboard hovered ominously right next to the “E”. If he wanted to get himself home at last, he’d have to tank up first.
The gas station attendant
Ennis groaned in despair. The way things had been going, this probably meant he’d have to deal with at least one more nosy and talkative person. Looking on the bright side though, he wouldn’t have to get out of the car.
He took a sharp turn right and pulled up at the Riverton Amoco, his usual stop for gas since he moved from the old apartment.
There were no other cars at the pumps. The attendant sauntered over, taking his time. Ennis had every opportunity to study his approach in the rear view mirror.
Gary was the regular attendant. Ennis knew a bit about him, knew he’d had to quit High School three years ago for some reason and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He always made Ennis feel vaguely uncomfortable, though he would be damned if he knew why. Gary was reasonably smart, got the job done and seemed a steady worker.
He was nice enough looking, too. Always kept his sleeves rolled up to put his muscled arms on display, and usually had the top of his overalls open to show a little bit a chest as well. Ennis figured Gary wanted to impress the girls. He was the right age for it, and he sure had the looks, with that bright smile a his and the wavy, dark hair.
Nevertheless there always was a faint whiff of challenge and menace around Gary. Ennis couldn’t rightly put his finger on what caused it, since the young man never did or said anything stupid or offensive. He figured that if Gary ever actually did get out of line, he’d be able to teach him a lesson and put him in his place without much difficulty.
He’d left it at that, but his unease remained.
That way a walking. The arms covered in motor oil and lube stains. The open and direct stare. Yeah, Ennis didn’t like it.
This time wasn’t any different - if anything, that hint a something was stronger than before. Ennis wasn’t in no mood to think about it though. Christ, he had enough problems on his mind already to last him many a long lifetime!
He ducked his head, his eyes skittering quickly from the mirror to lock onto a small clump of tumbleweed lodged near one a the gas pumps. Interesting sort of tumbleweed. He stared at it intently, blocking out all other thoughts, worries, impressions and views.
Gary leaned down to the open window with that knowing half-smile a his, a thin dark streak accenting his right cheek where he’d just dried off the sweat with his hand.
He waited till Ennis had to turn towards him.
“So, Mr. del Mar, what do you want from me today?” he said evenly. He looked Ennis straight in the eye, and his enigmatic and mischievous smile increased another fraction.
Ennis squirmed. He felt more uncomfortable than ever. He didn’t feel up to dealing with one more inquisitive person invading his private space today, and that was a fact.
Why couldn’t they all just pretend he was invisible?
“Fill it up regular,” he mumbled out the window, and ducked his head back away from the light of day. What would he ever have done without the invention of the hat brim?
Gary stood still for a moment, as if waiting for something more. Then “sure enough”, he replied every bit as evenly as before, and turned to the pump.
Unlike most times, he continued talking while gassing up the truck.
Raising his voice enough so that Ennis couldn’t pretend not to hear him over the hum of the pump, he confirmed what Ennis had suspected: Jack had been here, too.
“Say, Mr. del Mar, a friend a yours was in here the other day, askin’ for directions to your place. Told me he’d already asked a whole heap a other folks, but none a them knew to tell him. You’re real good at keepin’ secrets, ain’t you?”
Gary paused a moment, hands steady on the pump, eyes steady on Ennis, and continued with more than a little laughter in his voice:
“Good thing I know ‘xactly where you’re stayin’ now. I’ve made a point a keepin’ track a that, just in case. Could tell him just where he needed to go.”
Surprised and alarmed, Ennis forgot to keep his eyes private, and met Gary’s stare in the mirror. The laughter was there, and the challenge, and something else, a realization that suddenly at long last hit Ennis like a hammer to the forehead.
Shit. How come he’d never realized this before? And how come he had to realize it today, of all horrible days?
Gary was…. Gary was …… could he actually be like him and Jack? Or worse, could he even be one a those - one a those queers? If he was, he evidently was much less cautious than he ought to be.
Ennis winced.
Christ. Could it be true? Was Gary…. coming on to him? Or was he just imagining things? This development seemed impossible, far too strange to be real. Fuck it, his mind had to be playing another weird trick on him, and not for the first time today. Was he losing it at last?
Nervously he peeked in the mirror again.
Gary was finishing up with the pump, but he still met Ennis’s eyes right on.
He grinned.
And then he winked.
Tbc......