Chapter 36 Part 1
Source: Fanfiction based on Brokeback Mountain, slightly more influenced by the film than the short story.
Rating: mostly NC 17, a metaphysical subplot.
Summary: Faced with several unattractive choices, Ennis chooses self-imposed exile and discovers that exile can sometimes lead you to the people you belong to.
Disclaimer: Ennis, Jack, all the other characters appearing in Brokeback Mountain and its storyline are the creations and property of Annie Proulx, and of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana who authored the screenplay. I am deriving no income from this work.
Author’s Notes: I have made no effort to imitate Annie Proulx's style; her style is her own. "Dialect" passages are not intended to be dialect as such, but standard American colloquial pronunciation. Some Southern idioms are also used. This is a very first fiction attempt and as such is more than a little autobiographical.
Synopsis: Ennis accompanies David to the Independence Day beach party; after some unexpected excitement they return to the beach house and make a decision.
Suggested Music: Froggie Went a Courtin (Bruce Springsteen version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SEQyn7-FU
David had called the night before and asked him to get to the house a little early. “Everybody brings something to these shindigs,'” he explained; “and I said I'd bring the ice for the afternoon.”
“Just ice?” Ennis asked, as they pulled away from a supermarket with bags of ice piled into coolers in the back seat. “We aren't bringin' food or somethin'?” “There'll be plenty of that,” David answered. “They give this party every year, and the deal is everybody pitches in a few bucks for meat and drinks and then brings something extra. That means a lotta food, and I figured ice was easier. And they can never have too much of it.”
Ennis didn't mind a little delay getting there. The longer he'd thought about Maggie's visit, the more his mind had darted and cast about in all directions, straying over rocks and through underbrush like the countless errant calves of his ranch hand days. It had, for this brief time, overshadowed any nervousness about the beach party.
Since their nineteenth summer, Jack had occupied a veiled compartment at the center of Ennis life: feared, all too often denied and even more often visited with reluctance but nevertheless essential to him. After his last postcard had come back stamped “deceased”, the two shirts had taken up residence there, before Jack himself had returned at Alma Junior's wedding. Jack's mystifying visits and their long night together on the mountain were now at the heart of that hidden space which not even Jack's mother, who'd seemed to sense and understand everything else, knew about. Learning that Maggie had seen Jack, and hearing her describe him with an accuracy that left no doubt, was not unlike discovering a curtain thought to be drawn for privacy flung wide open.
Not that no breach had happened before: Alma flinging her accusation about 'Jack Nasty'; David quietly adding a new hook to a closet door for the shirts he'd known Ennis would bring with him, and now Maggie, who had her own hidden room with its own secrets. Her report of the odd creature she'd seen was probably some rarely-seen animal that lived at the far end of Park Point, and only the vague unease he'd felt throughout her visit made him remember his promise to stay out of the water.
And now, for the second time in a week, here was David behind the wheel of the car. This time he was wearing what looked to Ennis like slightly oversized blue boxer shorts with a matching unbuttoned summer shirt; the breeze from the open window whipping his dark hair over his forehead and sweeping it back again. David and this second chance with David were far more important to him than any of Maggie's mysteries in any event; and by the time David's car headed back across the Aerial Bridge, he'd put her visit out of his mind.
As they drove three miles down Park Point's narrow central road, Ennis looked at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. The houses on both sides varied in size from dwellings hardly bigger than cabins to two- or three-story houses. Those on the Lake side had much more space in back than those facing the harbor but all the lots were narrow; and many of those whose owners had added onto them had expanded either up to additional stories or back toward the Lake. On both sides of the road the homes shared the narrow sand spit with a fire department station, a community center, two churches and a few gift shops. On the Lake side the narrow ribbon of beach, all six miles of it public, formed a sunswept border zone between the city-dense neighborhood and the expanse of water so vast its borders could be seen only from space.
They turned into the driveway of a house that looked at first glance like an aged cabin smartened up with white siding and green shutters at the windows. At second glance, the siding and shutters were continued in a two-story dwelling built directly behind and connected to it. After pulling into a space at the end of a jumble of vehicles in the yard, David turned to face Ennis, looking surprisingly solemn for the occasion.
“It'll be okay.”
“Hunh?”
“I know. We're two men going to a party together, so let's get it aired out before we go anywhere. A lotta people here in Duluth know I'm gay. I don't know everybody here but the people givin' this party, they know because I told 'em when it came up awhile back. I wish I didn't have to, but that's how I've worked it.”
Ennis had deliberately not given much thought as to how David would introduce him. While he'd vowed to put if you can't fix it you just have ta stand it” to good use, he wasn't sure he wanted any previews of what he'd have to stand. “What d'you mean, work it?”
“I grew up in Georgia, and bein' gay there isn't any less risky than Wyoming. That's why gay neighborhoods sprung up so fast, people can call 'em Gay Ghettos if they want but it can take the pressure off just bein' in a place where nobody thinks you're different. When I came out to my family I was done with pretending, but in places like Georgia and Wyoming you get reminded all the time it's not always a good idea to just tell people. So how I worked it out was that I tell people whenever it happens I need to - say, someone asks me why I'm not married, or tries to fix me up with somebody. Or when I get to know somebody well enough. That's not how I want it, and maybe it'll be different sometime, but in the meantime, you've gotta live with people on their terms.”
“Yeah, so how's that gonna work this afternoon?”
“Same way it has all along. If your daughter and my second cousin have kids they'll be blood relatives of both of us and that makes us what people call shirttail relatives. You're a distant cousin by marriage, you've done ranch work all your life but the ranch where you were workin' got sold earlier this year and I offered you a job at the store. Now you're helpin' manage a horse farm and teaching riding classes. All of that's true. Though I'll tell ya right now I'm not gonna lie to anybody unless it's somebody who corners us in a dark alley. And people seem to like you, in this neck of the woods you fit right in. Sound like a plan?”
Ennis digested that a moment. “So.... we're makin' it up as we go?”
“Something like that. Remember what my uncle told me, about men like us?”
“Yeah. That we've got ta be tough.”
David nodded. “And smart. It'll be okay.”
They struggled past the house, with towels slung over their shoulders and balancing the two folding lawn chairs David had brought with the bags of ice dripping shoelace-sized streams of water down their arms. The gathering scattered about the beach had spread well beyond the house on either side, but Ennis followed David to a canopy tent set up near a small barbecue pit. At the moment at least half the guests were there, including their hosts.
Dennis and Edna McClure had moved to Park Point around the same time as David and Maggie, but had established themselves in the community quickly. They'd married in St. Paul just out of high school and just after Dennis' father had made him manager of the family's lumber mill business. The work was not to his liking, but that and the birth of the McClures' first daughter a year later had kept him out of the wars in both Europe and the Pacific. After the war, Dennis had seen opportunities in his country's renewed love affair with the automobile and had gambled his and his family's future by taking a lower-paying job at a car dealer. The gamble was widely disapproved of by both family and friends but, as often happens, this was quickly forgotten when the gamble proved successful: Dennis, a bred-in-the-bone extrovert like his wife, was a born salesman and had known it. Within a few years, he had become sales manager at a major dealership.
By the mid-1970s, not long after the youngest of their four children had left home, rising interest rates and plummeting demand convinced Dennis to take an early and well-financed retirement. He and Edna had often heard stories about people living in scenic mountains or near beaches being plagued by an endless stream of visiting relatives, and knew this was just what they wanted. They focused their search on the Lake's north shore, finally finding and fixing up a small and neglected house on the beach side of Park Point and adding the two-story wing at the back. From May to September the house hosted various combinations of their adult children and a growing number of grandchildren, Edna keeping the cheerful chaos under control via strict rules about sharing chores, pitching in on groceries and tracking as little of the beach and Lake through the house as possible. The laundry room at the back of the house was always cluttered with shoe and beach gear, and the clothesline right outside the back door was lined with bathing suits and towels from late spring to shortly after Labor Day.
The McClures' Fourth of July beach party was their major event of the summer. In addition to whichever family members were in residence, they invited various personal friends and business acquaintances, sidestepping neighbors' complaints about the party spilling over onto other residents' beach areas by the simple but effective method of inviting them. About 20 people were on the beach but its size, smaller than usual due to the Lake's high levels that year, made the gathering look much bigger than it was.
As it turned out, Ennis and David were not as late as they thought. Other guests had just arrived bearing covered dishes, baskets and coolers. Several small borrowed grills sat waiting next to the pit, charcoal chimneys just beginning to send up thin curlicues of smoke; and tables for the picnic buffet had been set up under the canopy. Edna and Dennis looked oddly like brother and sister, both them a little stout with sun-flushed faces and windblown hair. Dennis had a salesman's bluff, slightly exaggerated amiability; and Edna addressed everyone in a managerial tone that was affectionate enough to make people think more of a favorite aunt than a boss.
“Dave! over here with the ice, you got here just at the right time. And you must be Ennis, Dave told me all about you....” Sounding slightly like an auctioneer, Edna rattled off introductions to nearby relatives and neighbors: “I think you know Dave Kendrick, and this is Ennis del Mar, he just moved here from Wyoming.” “Good ta meetcha,” he managed, knowing he wouldn't remember a single name.
“I hope you don't mind helping out,” she said when she ran out of people. Everyone's getting here at once.” Ennis and David spent the next half hour putting ice, beer and soft drinks into the two plastic tubs, stacking the extra bags of ice in styrofoam coolers and arranging them in a corner, carrying other covered dishes and bowls into the kitchen and returning with paper plates, cuts and utensils.” “Sorry about that,” David said in a low voice, but Ennis only shrugged. “I don't mind.” It was a relief to have errands to run.
Long-accustomed to being on guard around people he didn't know, he listened to the talk swirling around him. People exchanged news about the neighborhood's Community Club and discussed Grandma's Marathon run, Park Point's art fair and the annual summer rummage sale. David described a cuckoo clock Maggie had bought at the sale, leading a neighbor to ask Ennis if he'd attended. He shook his head and added, sensing that more of a response was called for, “I've gotta new job, so I've had ta work most days.”
“So where's Maggie this year?” a neighbor asked David as they were finishing up. “Is everything okay?”
David laughed. “She had bigger fish to fry back in Madelia,” he told her. “She's got a new guy and it must be serious. Taking him home for the weekend to meet the family.”
She looked distressed, and slightly embarrassed. “Oh. So you 'n Maggie aren't. . . .”
“Maggie and me will always be friends,” David answered, without missing a beat. “We both own the house, you know, we go way back.” The woman appeared to glance around the tent, her eyes pausing a moment on Ennis before gliding quickly away' and Ennis thought he saw a look exchanged between David and Edna. The familiar queasy, stomach-tightening feeling returned and he felt an unwelcome heat in his face, but it subsided as David fielded friendly questions about Sam and the moment passed.
The exchange attracted the attention of another neighbor, a man about Ennis' age. “Think I saw you down at the beach a few times, you were talkin' to old Mr. Bailey once. You heard he died - a few weeks ago?”
“No, he - I met him just a few times.” The news was unsettling, and made him realize that he'd been half-consciously looking for Mr. Bailey when they'd arrived. “He was quite an interesting guy,” the neighbor continued. “Didn't get out much the last few years, he retired from the Navy a long time ago. Worked on lakers for years after that. My mom'd known him since she was a kid, she figured he never did get used to livin' on land most of the time.” A memory of Maggie sitting nervously across the table from him the day before intruded; but the surrounding chatter made the recollection dissolve quickly, and he was unable to figure out why he'd thought of her.
“So where are the Gibsons?” Edna asked one of the men. “They'll be along,” was the answer. “They got in late last night and it was a long drive. . . . here they are - Ron, Denise! Over here!”
There was another flurry of introductions. Ron and Denise Gibson were about 40, Ron with still-visible muscles just starting to soften around the edges and hair so close-cropped its color was difficult to determine. His wife was a plump, nervous-looking woman whose build contrasted with a free-swinging athletic walk. They and their son and daughter were overburdened not with the usual beach gear but with poles, a rolled-up net, ropes, clips, a ball and nylon tape. “Beach volleyball! Edna said they'd have something new this year, ” said one of the guests. This led to an animated discussion about where to set up and getting teams together, while the two children looked on in barely patient silence.
Only one of them could actually be called a child, although both were in uncomfortable stages between one stage of life and another. Jason, barely 18, had blonde-almost-brown hair with streaks and patches here and there showing its original ash-blonde color and his body and long legs still had a coltish look; but his jawline and features had solidified into a young man's face despite the fading sprinkles of freckles across his cheekbones. David seemed to have lost his volubility when introduced to him, answering politely and then quickly looking away.
Jason's 12-year-old sister Casey, bringing up the rear of the group, was almost as tall as he was, but her body was still flat-hipped and featureless. She was slender but hadn't yet lost the last of childhood's fat, which temporarily make her oval face look round and minimized the prominent cheekbones, long neck and wideset almond-shaped eyes. In later years Casey's face and body would be seen on magazine covers and photographers would would swear that the camera 'loved' her; but for now, she was an awkward girl a few years away from adolescence whose wide, full-lipped mouth and habit of slouching in an effort to appear less tall made her look as if she were in a perpetual sulk. Ennis felt a small, splintering jab of sympathy, being familiar with the feeling of everyone looking at him and not liking what they saw.
Finally they set out across the sand, Ennis' ears ringing. He recalled Andrea's remarks about how taciturn people in northern Minnesota were, and concluded that this was one part of Duluth she didn't visit very often.
At the far end of the McClures' part of the beach, a neighbor's houseguest had parked an elderly van at the end of the driveway. A small group of partygoers had gathered around a young bearded man, the only person there in jeans, who was sitting at the open doors at the back of the van playing a guitar and singing. He was a good player and had a voice not hard to listen to, and apparently had long been a fan of folk music, playing some songs that a few of the group sang along with plus a few that were somewhat older.
“Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride, a-huh.
Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride, a-huh.
Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride,
Sword and pistol by his side, a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.
Well he rode down to Miss Mouse's door, a-huh.
Rode down to Miss Mouse's door, a-huh.
He took Miss Mousie on his knee
Said 'Miss Mousie will you marry me?' a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.
Not without my Uncle Rat's consent, a-huh.
Not without my Uncle Rat's consent, a-huh.
Without my Uncle Rat's consent
I wouldn't marry the President, a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.”
The song skipped on through several nonsense verses, but Ennis was barely listening. They'd forgotten the folding chairs and left them next to the canopy tent and he and David were sitting on a railroad tie that marked the driveway's end, David's left hand had brushed against Ennis' right one. The railroad tie at one end and their legs and feet at the other formed a half-enclosed space between them and for Ennis during those minutes, everything in the world and every moment of his life to date narrowed down to their two hands, not quite touching but close together enough that a space barely the width of a piece of paper separated them. He thought that he could feel a current running between the hairs on the backs of both their hands.
“Old people's music”, he faintly heard one of the few teenagers in the group saying. She was immediately shushed by the adults around her; but the young bearded man didn't take offense. “Here's something new,” he said, putting his guitar down and rummaging through the piled-up possessions at the back of the van. “A CD player!” several voices exclaimed at once said as the group clustered around a square box with SONY printed at the top. Its owner pulled up the top as if he were opening a metal cigar box and slipped in a silvery disk that looked somewhat like the small records that played one song on each side. “You can take it anywhere and there's no needle to skip or get stuck. Does take a lot of C batteries.” The group listened to a song more familiar to most of them as they stared, fascinated, at a turntable with no needle.
Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
The new toy played through several songs, everyone declaring that they intended to buy one of the new players and some adding, with Midwestern practicality, “as soon as the bugs get worked out”. Absorbed as most of the group was in the new player, they were startled when a new voice behind them said “hey, guys! Anybody wanna play volleyball?”
Index to chapters:
Chapter 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html
Chapter 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/523.html
Chapter 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1066.html
Chapter 4: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1485.html
Chapter 5: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1704.html
Chapter 6: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2038.html
Chapter 7: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2358.html
Chapter 8: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2635.html
Chapter 9: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2947.html
Chapter 10: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3130.html
Chapter 11: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3356.html
Chapter 12: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3655.html
Chapter 13: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3934.html
Chapter 14: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4154.html
Chapter 15: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4591.html
Chapter 16: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4685.html
Chapter 17: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5094.html
Chapter 18: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5140.html
Chapter 19: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5546.html
Chapter 20: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6249.html
Chapter 21: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6434.html
Chapter 22: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6843.html
Chapter 23: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7306.html
Chapter 24: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7646.html
Chapter 25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7723.html
Summary, Chapters 1-25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8106.html
Chapter 26 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8417.html
Chapter 26 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8634.html
Chapter 27: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8869.html
Chapter 28 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9090.html
Chapter 28, Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9371.html
Chapter 28 Part 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9498.html
Chapter 29: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9953.html
Chapter 30: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10733.html
Chapter 31 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10870.html
Chapter 31 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11153.html
Chapter 32: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11480.html
Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11931.html
Notes/Index, Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12217.html
Chapter 34: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12435.html
Index post: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12557.html
Chapter 35: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13226.html
Rating: mostly NC 17, a metaphysical subplot.
Summary: Faced with several unattractive choices, Ennis chooses self-imposed exile and discovers that exile can sometimes lead you to the people you belong to.
Disclaimer: Ennis, Jack, all the other characters appearing in Brokeback Mountain and its storyline are the creations and property of Annie Proulx, and of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana who authored the screenplay. I am deriving no income from this work.
Author’s Notes: I have made no effort to imitate Annie Proulx's style; her style is her own. "Dialect" passages are not intended to be dialect as such, but standard American colloquial pronunciation. Some Southern idioms are also used. This is a very first fiction attempt and as such is more than a little autobiographical.
Synopsis: Ennis accompanies David to the Independence Day beach party; after some unexpected excitement they return to the beach house and make a decision.
Suggested Music: Froggie Went a Courtin (Bruce Springsteen version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SEQyn7-FU
David had called the night before and asked him to get to the house a little early. “Everybody brings something to these shindigs,'” he explained; “and I said I'd bring the ice for the afternoon.”
“Just ice?” Ennis asked, as they pulled away from a supermarket with bags of ice piled into coolers in the back seat. “We aren't bringin' food or somethin'?” “There'll be plenty of that,” David answered. “They give this party every year, and the deal is everybody pitches in a few bucks for meat and drinks and then brings something extra. That means a lotta food, and I figured ice was easier. And they can never have too much of it.”
Ennis didn't mind a little delay getting there. The longer he'd thought about Maggie's visit, the more his mind had darted and cast about in all directions, straying over rocks and through underbrush like the countless errant calves of his ranch hand days. It had, for this brief time, overshadowed any nervousness about the beach party.
Since their nineteenth summer, Jack had occupied a veiled compartment at the center of Ennis life: feared, all too often denied and even more often visited with reluctance but nevertheless essential to him. After his last postcard had come back stamped “deceased”, the two shirts had taken up residence there, before Jack himself had returned at Alma Junior's wedding. Jack's mystifying visits and their long night together on the mountain were now at the heart of that hidden space which not even Jack's mother, who'd seemed to sense and understand everything else, knew about. Learning that Maggie had seen Jack, and hearing her describe him with an accuracy that left no doubt, was not unlike discovering a curtain thought to be drawn for privacy flung wide open.
Not that no breach had happened before: Alma flinging her accusation about 'Jack Nasty'; David quietly adding a new hook to a closet door for the shirts he'd known Ennis would bring with him, and now Maggie, who had her own hidden room with its own secrets. Her report of the odd creature she'd seen was probably some rarely-seen animal that lived at the far end of Park Point, and only the vague unease he'd felt throughout her visit made him remember his promise to stay out of the water.
And now, for the second time in a week, here was David behind the wheel of the car. This time he was wearing what looked to Ennis like slightly oversized blue boxer shorts with a matching unbuttoned summer shirt; the breeze from the open window whipping his dark hair over his forehead and sweeping it back again. David and this second chance with David were far more important to him than any of Maggie's mysteries in any event; and by the time David's car headed back across the Aerial Bridge, he'd put her visit out of his mind.
As they drove three miles down Park Point's narrow central road, Ennis looked at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. The houses on both sides varied in size from dwellings hardly bigger than cabins to two- or three-story houses. Those on the Lake side had much more space in back than those facing the harbor but all the lots were narrow; and many of those whose owners had added onto them had expanded either up to additional stories or back toward the Lake. On both sides of the road the homes shared the narrow sand spit with a fire department station, a community center, two churches and a few gift shops. On the Lake side the narrow ribbon of beach, all six miles of it public, formed a sunswept border zone between the city-dense neighborhood and the expanse of water so vast its borders could be seen only from space.
They turned into the driveway of a house that looked at first glance like an aged cabin smartened up with white siding and green shutters at the windows. At second glance, the siding and shutters were continued in a two-story dwelling built directly behind and connected to it. After pulling into a space at the end of a jumble of vehicles in the yard, David turned to face Ennis, looking surprisingly solemn for the occasion.
“It'll be okay.”
“Hunh?”
“I know. We're two men going to a party together, so let's get it aired out before we go anywhere. A lotta people here in Duluth know I'm gay. I don't know everybody here but the people givin' this party, they know because I told 'em when it came up awhile back. I wish I didn't have to, but that's how I've worked it.”
Ennis had deliberately not given much thought as to how David would introduce him. While he'd vowed to put if you can't fix it you just have ta stand it” to good use, he wasn't sure he wanted any previews of what he'd have to stand. “What d'you mean, work it?”
“I grew up in Georgia, and bein' gay there isn't any less risky than Wyoming. That's why gay neighborhoods sprung up so fast, people can call 'em Gay Ghettos if they want but it can take the pressure off just bein' in a place where nobody thinks you're different. When I came out to my family I was done with pretending, but in places like Georgia and Wyoming you get reminded all the time it's not always a good idea to just tell people. So how I worked it out was that I tell people whenever it happens I need to - say, someone asks me why I'm not married, or tries to fix me up with somebody. Or when I get to know somebody well enough. That's not how I want it, and maybe it'll be different sometime, but in the meantime, you've gotta live with people on their terms.”
“Yeah, so how's that gonna work this afternoon?”
“Same way it has all along. If your daughter and my second cousin have kids they'll be blood relatives of both of us and that makes us what people call shirttail relatives. You're a distant cousin by marriage, you've done ranch work all your life but the ranch where you were workin' got sold earlier this year and I offered you a job at the store. Now you're helpin' manage a horse farm and teaching riding classes. All of that's true. Though I'll tell ya right now I'm not gonna lie to anybody unless it's somebody who corners us in a dark alley. And people seem to like you, in this neck of the woods you fit right in. Sound like a plan?”
Ennis digested that a moment. “So.... we're makin' it up as we go?”
“Something like that. Remember what my uncle told me, about men like us?”
“Yeah. That we've got ta be tough.”
David nodded. “And smart. It'll be okay.”
They struggled past the house, with towels slung over their shoulders and balancing the two folding lawn chairs David had brought with the bags of ice dripping shoelace-sized streams of water down their arms. The gathering scattered about the beach had spread well beyond the house on either side, but Ennis followed David to a canopy tent set up near a small barbecue pit. At the moment at least half the guests were there, including their hosts.
Dennis and Edna McClure had moved to Park Point around the same time as David and Maggie, but had established themselves in the community quickly. They'd married in St. Paul just out of high school and just after Dennis' father had made him manager of the family's lumber mill business. The work was not to his liking, but that and the birth of the McClures' first daughter a year later had kept him out of the wars in both Europe and the Pacific. After the war, Dennis had seen opportunities in his country's renewed love affair with the automobile and had gambled his and his family's future by taking a lower-paying job at a car dealer. The gamble was widely disapproved of by both family and friends but, as often happens, this was quickly forgotten when the gamble proved successful: Dennis, a bred-in-the-bone extrovert like his wife, was a born salesman and had known it. Within a few years, he had become sales manager at a major dealership.
By the mid-1970s, not long after the youngest of their four children had left home, rising interest rates and plummeting demand convinced Dennis to take an early and well-financed retirement. He and Edna had often heard stories about people living in scenic mountains or near beaches being plagued by an endless stream of visiting relatives, and knew this was just what they wanted. They focused their search on the Lake's north shore, finally finding and fixing up a small and neglected house on the beach side of Park Point and adding the two-story wing at the back. From May to September the house hosted various combinations of their adult children and a growing number of grandchildren, Edna keeping the cheerful chaos under control via strict rules about sharing chores, pitching in on groceries and tracking as little of the beach and Lake through the house as possible. The laundry room at the back of the house was always cluttered with shoe and beach gear, and the clothesline right outside the back door was lined with bathing suits and towels from late spring to shortly after Labor Day.
The McClures' Fourth of July beach party was their major event of the summer. In addition to whichever family members were in residence, they invited various personal friends and business acquaintances, sidestepping neighbors' complaints about the party spilling over onto other residents' beach areas by the simple but effective method of inviting them. About 20 people were on the beach but its size, smaller than usual due to the Lake's high levels that year, made the gathering look much bigger than it was.
As it turned out, Ennis and David were not as late as they thought. Other guests had just arrived bearing covered dishes, baskets and coolers. Several small borrowed grills sat waiting next to the pit, charcoal chimneys just beginning to send up thin curlicues of smoke; and tables for the picnic buffet had been set up under the canopy. Edna and Dennis looked oddly like brother and sister, both them a little stout with sun-flushed faces and windblown hair. Dennis had a salesman's bluff, slightly exaggerated amiability; and Edna addressed everyone in a managerial tone that was affectionate enough to make people think more of a favorite aunt than a boss.
“Dave! over here with the ice, you got here just at the right time. And you must be Ennis, Dave told me all about you....” Sounding slightly like an auctioneer, Edna rattled off introductions to nearby relatives and neighbors: “I think you know Dave Kendrick, and this is Ennis del Mar, he just moved here from Wyoming.” “Good ta meetcha,” he managed, knowing he wouldn't remember a single name.
“I hope you don't mind helping out,” she said when she ran out of people. Everyone's getting here at once.” Ennis and David spent the next half hour putting ice, beer and soft drinks into the two plastic tubs, stacking the extra bags of ice in styrofoam coolers and arranging them in a corner, carrying other covered dishes and bowls into the kitchen and returning with paper plates, cuts and utensils.” “Sorry about that,” David said in a low voice, but Ennis only shrugged. “I don't mind.” It was a relief to have errands to run.
Long-accustomed to being on guard around people he didn't know, he listened to the talk swirling around him. People exchanged news about the neighborhood's Community Club and discussed Grandma's Marathon run, Park Point's art fair and the annual summer rummage sale. David described a cuckoo clock Maggie had bought at the sale, leading a neighbor to ask Ennis if he'd attended. He shook his head and added, sensing that more of a response was called for, “I've gotta new job, so I've had ta work most days.”
“So where's Maggie this year?” a neighbor asked David as they were finishing up. “Is everything okay?”
David laughed. “She had bigger fish to fry back in Madelia,” he told her. “She's got a new guy and it must be serious. Taking him home for the weekend to meet the family.”
She looked distressed, and slightly embarrassed. “Oh. So you 'n Maggie aren't. . . .”
“Maggie and me will always be friends,” David answered, without missing a beat. “We both own the house, you know, we go way back.” The woman appeared to glance around the tent, her eyes pausing a moment on Ennis before gliding quickly away' and Ennis thought he saw a look exchanged between David and Edna. The familiar queasy, stomach-tightening feeling returned and he felt an unwelcome heat in his face, but it subsided as David fielded friendly questions about Sam and the moment passed.
The exchange attracted the attention of another neighbor, a man about Ennis' age. “Think I saw you down at the beach a few times, you were talkin' to old Mr. Bailey once. You heard he died - a few weeks ago?”
“No, he - I met him just a few times.” The news was unsettling, and made him realize that he'd been half-consciously looking for Mr. Bailey when they'd arrived. “He was quite an interesting guy,” the neighbor continued. “Didn't get out much the last few years, he retired from the Navy a long time ago. Worked on lakers for years after that. My mom'd known him since she was a kid, she figured he never did get used to livin' on land most of the time.” A memory of Maggie sitting nervously across the table from him the day before intruded; but the surrounding chatter made the recollection dissolve quickly, and he was unable to figure out why he'd thought of her.
“So where are the Gibsons?” Edna asked one of the men. “They'll be along,” was the answer. “They got in late last night and it was a long drive. . . . here they are - Ron, Denise! Over here!”
There was another flurry of introductions. Ron and Denise Gibson were about 40, Ron with still-visible muscles just starting to soften around the edges and hair so close-cropped its color was difficult to determine. His wife was a plump, nervous-looking woman whose build contrasted with a free-swinging athletic walk. They and their son and daughter were overburdened not with the usual beach gear but with poles, a rolled-up net, ropes, clips, a ball and nylon tape. “Beach volleyball! Edna said they'd have something new this year, ” said one of the guests. This led to an animated discussion about where to set up and getting teams together, while the two children looked on in barely patient silence.
Only one of them could actually be called a child, although both were in uncomfortable stages between one stage of life and another. Jason, barely 18, had blonde-almost-brown hair with streaks and patches here and there showing its original ash-blonde color and his body and long legs still had a coltish look; but his jawline and features had solidified into a young man's face despite the fading sprinkles of freckles across his cheekbones. David seemed to have lost his volubility when introduced to him, answering politely and then quickly looking away.
Jason's 12-year-old sister Casey, bringing up the rear of the group, was almost as tall as he was, but her body was still flat-hipped and featureless. She was slender but hadn't yet lost the last of childhood's fat, which temporarily make her oval face look round and minimized the prominent cheekbones, long neck and wideset almond-shaped eyes. In later years Casey's face and body would be seen on magazine covers and photographers would would swear that the camera 'loved' her; but for now, she was an awkward girl a few years away from adolescence whose wide, full-lipped mouth and habit of slouching in an effort to appear less tall made her look as if she were in a perpetual sulk. Ennis felt a small, splintering jab of sympathy, being familiar with the feeling of everyone looking at him and not liking what they saw.
Finally they set out across the sand, Ennis' ears ringing. He recalled Andrea's remarks about how taciturn people in northern Minnesota were, and concluded that this was one part of Duluth she didn't visit very often.
At the far end of the McClures' part of the beach, a neighbor's houseguest had parked an elderly van at the end of the driveway. A small group of partygoers had gathered around a young bearded man, the only person there in jeans, who was sitting at the open doors at the back of the van playing a guitar and singing. He was a good player and had a voice not hard to listen to, and apparently had long been a fan of folk music, playing some songs that a few of the group sang along with plus a few that were somewhat older.
“Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride, a-huh.
Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride, a-huh.
Froggie went a-courtin and he did ride,
Sword and pistol by his side, a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.
Well he rode down to Miss Mouse's door, a-huh.
Rode down to Miss Mouse's door, a-huh.
He took Miss Mousie on his knee
Said 'Miss Mousie will you marry me?' a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.
Not without my Uncle Rat's consent, a-huh.
Not without my Uncle Rat's consent, a-huh.
Without my Uncle Rat's consent
I wouldn't marry the President, a-huh, a-huh, a-huh.”
The song skipped on through several nonsense verses, but Ennis was barely listening. They'd forgotten the folding chairs and left them next to the canopy tent and he and David were sitting on a railroad tie that marked the driveway's end, David's left hand had brushed against Ennis' right one. The railroad tie at one end and their legs and feet at the other formed a half-enclosed space between them and for Ennis during those minutes, everything in the world and every moment of his life to date narrowed down to their two hands, not quite touching but close together enough that a space barely the width of a piece of paper separated them. He thought that he could feel a current running between the hairs on the backs of both their hands.
“Old people's music”, he faintly heard one of the few teenagers in the group saying. She was immediately shushed by the adults around her; but the young bearded man didn't take offense. “Here's something new,” he said, putting his guitar down and rummaging through the piled-up possessions at the back of the van. “A CD player!” several voices exclaimed at once said as the group clustered around a square box with SONY printed at the top. Its owner pulled up the top as if he were opening a metal cigar box and slipped in a silvery disk that looked somewhat like the small records that played one song on each side. “You can take it anywhere and there's no needle to skip or get stuck. Does take a lot of C batteries.” The group listened to a song more familiar to most of them as they stared, fascinated, at a turntable with no needle.
Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
The new toy played through several songs, everyone declaring that they intended to buy one of the new players and some adding, with Midwestern practicality, “as soon as the bugs get worked out”. Absorbed as most of the group was in the new player, they were startled when a new voice behind them said “hey, guys! Anybody wanna play volleyball?”
Index to chapters:
Chapter 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html
Chapter 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/523.html
Chapter 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1066.html
Chapter 4: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1485.html
Chapter 5: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1704.html
Chapter 6: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2038.html
Chapter 7: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2358.html
Chapter 8: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2635.html
Chapter 9: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2947.html
Chapter 10: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3130.html
Chapter 11: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3356.html
Chapter 12: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3655.html
Chapter 13: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3934.html
Chapter 14: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4154.html
Chapter 15: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4591.html
Chapter 16: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4685.html
Chapter 17: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5094.html
Chapter 18: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5140.html
Chapter 19: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5546.html
Chapter 20: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6249.html
Chapter 21: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6434.html
Chapter 22: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6843.html
Chapter 23: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7306.html
Chapter 24: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7646.html
Chapter 25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7723.html
Summary, Chapters 1-25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8106.html
Chapter 26 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8417.html
Chapter 26 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8634.html
Chapter 27: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8869.html
Chapter 28 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9090.html
Chapter 28, Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9371.html
Chapter 28 Part 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9498.html
Chapter 29: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9953.html
Chapter 30: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10733.html
Chapter 31 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10870.html
Chapter 31 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11153.html
Chapter 32: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11480.html
Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11931.html
Notes/Index, Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12217.html
Chapter 34: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12435.html
Index post: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12557.html
Chapter 35: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13226.html