Gift of Exile, Part 3
Chapter 15
Late winter, 1985
By the end of February, Ennis began to wonder if he’d soon be looking for another job after all. Carl Scrope had been in the hospital off and on for several months, and the ranch’s bookkeeper Carolyn, who he usually saw only once every few months if that, was in the foreman’s office more and more often. Men he had not seen before, with both automobiles and shoes that marked them as city men, were seen coming and going and he was unexpectedly called on to help with inventories of the Coffeepot’s equipment and supplies.
"You’ve been here awhile, Ennis, so you’ve got a right ta know far as I’m concerned," Carolyn told him. "Carl’s health don’t look any better and he’s lookin for a buyer, might have one lined up, group of investors." They might just re-sell it, she’d heard but what looked more likely was that they’d sell off the stock and hold the land to develop later. "And you can bet it won’t be a workin ranch," she warned. "This close to a medium-size town like Riverton, they’ll prob’ly carve it up for houses sooner or later, soon’s they think they can get a good price for them."
It wasn’t much of a surprise. So many ranches had closed down the last five years or so, and he’d heard about the "ranchette" developments, though the reach of suburban blight hadn’t extended to Wyoming just yet. In earlier years, it would have been only one of a string of ranch jobs that Ennis had quit, moving on to the same work on another ranch when he needed extended time away to be with Jack. But he knew that ranch foremen would now see a man who was no longer young, often older than themselves in fact; a holdover from a fading era that some prospective employers and foremen didn’t even remember.
He said nothing to Alma Junior, although he knew she might be hearing rumors. But David was another matter. He’d been apprehensive when David had started calling him regularly - months ago now - only that elusive but persistent feeling of familiarity and acceptance to keep him answering the phone in the evenings. But it hadn’t taken long for those qualms to subside enough for him to fetch a beer from the refrigerator when the phone rang, pull up the chair to the phone and put his feet up on an old milk crate as they talked. David’s references to Nathan had been confined to a few neutral reminiscences such as a favorite food or two and Nathan’s half-developed talent for drawing. On those occasions, half-consciously hearing the slight edge in David’s voice, Ennis had always glanced at the closet door and wondered if David had kept some outward sign of inward passion and loss, that shrine you got. Their separate but silently shared remembrances, whose boundaries they both respected, had knotted and toughened the connection that both had sensed at their first meeting.
But their conversations had typically centered around commonplace matters, although David could visualize the other man’s physical surroundings and Ennis could not. Like all people living in cold climates they were both endlessly preoccupied with weather, so that topic didn’t comprise the bits of tape holding weak spots in a conversation together, as it would have been for people living in more temperate regions.
"Might be outta my job soon," Ennis told David a few weeks later. "There’s talk goin around, and I heard it from the bookkeeper, the owner might be sellin and to investors. So the ranch might not be a ranch much longer."
"You gonna be lookin for another job right away? Or wait till spring?"
"I’m waitin ta see what happens at the Coffeepot. It ain’t gonna be easy, lots a ranches closin down the last few years" And it’s a young man’s work taunted him silently, as he catalogued the aches and stiffness that were getting to be a daily thing especially in cold weather.
"Well, if it turns out you’re outta work, how about comin’ here?"
"Wher…Duluth?" If David had suggested he take up a new career as an astronaut or a cabaret dancer, it wouldn’t have been much more surprising.
"Sure, why not? I can give you a part-time job at the store if you come in the spring, I usually need a few extra people during the summer. And you can stay here ‘s long as you want, there’s plenty of room, I’ve got the whole upstairs of the house."
Apparently having anticipated Ennis’ stunned silence, David went on:
"Okay Ennis, all these months we’ve been talkin, there’s things I haven’t asked you about but I’m sure you know by now me and Nathan weren’t just friends. So we need ta get something clear. You come out here for awhile, nothin’s gonna happen we don’t both wanna happen. I’m not invitin anybody to be a houseguest and then expect something from em up front. You can have your own room here if you don’t mind a sofa bed, and if you find a place of your own or a job that suits you better, no problem. There’s no reason you even hafta pick up and move here, just come an stay a couple of months. Maybe just gettin away for awhile will help."
Ennis was gripping the phone in an effort to defy the old familiar inner voice screaming at him to hang up NOW. "I ah, dunno…."
"Well at least think about it, spring ‘d be easier anyway so there’s no rush. Just give me a call back if you decide, okay?" He didn’t mention that in all these months he had always been the one to call.
"Yeah," Ennis heard himself saying. "I’ll think about it."
After hanging up he sat for awhile with elbows on knees, chin resting in his palms and his hands half-covering his face, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. Some faggot thinkin he’s gonna get you alone, the same inner scold said scornfully, but the wild yes impulse he’d had on hearing David’s suggestion was pushing it back with surprising insistence.
On an afternoon in late February, he watched Curt’s and Junior’s car pull up at the trailer, and knew when he saw her face that she had big news. Curt had found a new job down in Texas, "in Amarillo, he’ll be seein to repairs, keeping parts in stock, stuff like that. The company leases trucks and big trailers, not quite as good pay but decent. Maybe now we can think of startin a family!"
Seeing the expression that crossed his face, she thought she understood. "Daddy, I’ve thought about it, both Jenny and me bein gone, and I’ve been hearin things aren’t goin so well at the ranch. Will you think about moving too? You could stay with us till you find a job and a place to live."
Texas. Amarillo, just a hundred miles or so from Childress. The thought of living there was unimaginable: looking at the face of every man he saw on the street, in stores, wherever he found work; always wondering if he was looking into the face of one of Jack’s killers. For a second he could see the faces and hear the bestial laughter of his nightmares and something familiar started to take form before he slammed the lid down on it hard.
He would go mad, within a year or possibly a lot less.
No good reason he could think of to give her, so he put her off. "I’ve lived here since your Mama and I got married," he told her. "Never expected to move. Just let me think about it some." This time, he’d done all the thinking about it he could stand to.
There wasn’t much to move, as Junior and Curt hadn’t lived in their rented four-room house even a year. But he helped her pack and label box after box and willingly ran errands, relieved enough to put some distance between him and the occasional questions about his own plans. He even ate dinner at Alma’s and Monroe's house the night before Junior left; twice in three months, that’s a record. Alma was more sanguine about Junior, now a married woman who was talking of starting a family, moving out of Riverton and her two young boys were enough to occupy her attention. Junior asked again about his plans and Ennis gave one of his noncommittal grunts in reply, but could feel Alma’s eyes on him.
Curt had taken the Greyhound to Amarillo to rent a car and look for an apartment, so Junior was alone when she stopped by the trailer on her way out of town. "Call me when you decide what ta do, Daddy," she urged, hugging him. "I hate ta think of you here all alone." "I’ll be okay, you’ve got enough ta do without worryin about me," he told her. "Just don’t let your Mama and me worry - don’t forget ta call her when you stop for the night. And tomorrow night too and call when you get there."
He watched the overloaded car disappear down the road, thinking bitterly that Jack had been wrong about passing time here on Earth being like rooms in a shotgun house. It was more like a swift and cruel river current that had angled his boat into a still pool along the shore while he watched his two younger companions’ boats vanish around the next bend.
Carolyn’s suspicions proved to be right in early April. Ennis found himself out of a job, with a check for a month’s pay and a promise of recommendations from the now former Coffeepot. Neither he nor the other ranch hands, all of whom adjourned to the Black and Blue Eagle, were surprised. Ennis sat at the bar next to Ken Heiman, who was killing time on his usual schedule, and listened to them cite the reasons: stock being sold off out of season, inventories of equipment all winter, no apparent plans to bring on the usual seasonal workers.
"I expect some of ‘em already know, word gets around," Roy remarked. "Zack heard, I know, an’ Dean got him a job already at a place down near Tie Siding."
"And Javier wouldn’t be back anyway," Ken said. "His sister works with Carol at the coffee shop you know, said his family don’t want nothin ta do with him anymore, seems he got AIDS. You know - what they’re callin the Queer Cancer."
"You mean "Faggot Fever," one of the pool players snickered. Out of the corner of his eye, Ennis saw Vickie frown at them but he was the only one who noticed.
Ken upended his beer to get the last swallow and put it back on the counter. "I don’t go ta church much," Ken said, "but Carol takes the kids every Sunday, or Wednesday if she misses that. According to her, our preacher says all that AIDS stuff is God tryin ta get the queers’ attention, something about how he won’t protect ‘em ‘cause they ain’t natural…. Say, you hear about that new drug they got out now, the new vaccine?" He paused until he saw he had everyone’s attention. "Medical name for it’s ‘trinoacytol.’ "
There was a pause, as his listeners each repeated the word in his head, and then a collective shout of derisive laughter. Pleased with the brief attention and implied applause, Ken grinned and signaled to Roy for another beer.
Ennis had been resolutely staring down at the bar counter, jaw tightly set, thinking of how casually the man he’d worked with the last three seasons had been tossed away, like a dish of moldy food in the back of a refrigerator. He’d passed enough time watching television to have heard of the new "gay disease" and the glee that many people seemed to feel over it. The reports disturbed him but not as much as they might have a few years before. He’d already had his worst fear realized, and others seemed somehow redundant.
Now his muscles pulled his body upright as he swiveled around and glared at Ken. "Goddam, Ken that ain’t funny. You’re talkin about somebody dyin."
Ken looked startled. "Queers, ya mean," the pool player said. "You never had no sense a humor, Ennis."
Ennis felt increasingly cornered. "That don’t matter-"
Ken had recovered a little, glanced around at his audience. "Well Ennis, you an Javier both went on a lotta those trips transportin stock last summer - maybe you know him a bit better’n the rest of us? That it?"
Before Ken had even finshed, Ennis was off the bar stool and had grabbed him by the collar, fist clenched and arm pulled back.
"Ennis!"
He looked around to see Vicky standing in the office door, and lowered his arm. She’d had a hard time of it, he knew, even before her husband had died. Russ had loved a game of pool or a football bet but wasn’t very good at either, often didn’t show up at the bar on football days when he’d been drinking; and now she was running the place by herself. The last thing she needed was two ranch hands in a fistfight, with possible damage and the cops showing up. Ennis pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, dropped it on the bar without a word and walked out, forcing himself not to look at anyone around him.
The air was cold and still, but Ennis felt overheated. On Sundays when he’d awakened early and couldn’t get back to sleep, he’d seen the television preachers who spoke in gloating tones about their God’s judgment, one of them even glowing with satisfaction when he predicted "divine extermination" and his congregation burst into applause. Something of still sporadic but steadily growing strength was crowding into the space long-occupied by his lifelong and still-persistent fear: a simmering anger at a god who would have condemned Jack but smiled on his killers. Could a been talkin about Jack, he’d thought earlier on listening to Curt’s casual remark; but in the second before his fist would have shot forward he imagined he had seen not Ken’s face but that of the man who’d swung the first tire iron.
He’d parked behind the bar where there were a few extra parking spaces. The unreleased anger took shape in the form of a thousand tiny springs in his muscles, winding tighter and tighter; and the nearest of the four battered trash cans outside the back door didn’t have a chance. Ennis’ right foot swung forward, every spring releasing at once, and the metal can slammed violently, spinning briefly before it fell over and an odorous collection of beer bottles, paper trash and detritus from the grill spilled out. The sound of the impact was gratifying, although the sudden dart of pain in his foot was not.
Ennis leaned over to right the can and scoop up the spilled trash before he heard the back door of the bar open, and did not need to look up to know that Vickie was standing in the doorway. "Sorry Vickie," he mumbled, "I’ll get ya another one."
"Don’t bother, Ennis." He straightened up and saw the apprehension in her face again, but this time it was more concern than fear. "Ain’t the first time somebody’s booted them cans, generally had more ‘n’ the beer or two you just had, though." It was only dusk when Ennis got back to the trailer, and he leaned on the door for a few minutes after closing it behind him.
He had tried to avoid the untidy and capricious world of humanity as much as possible ever since he was 9 years old. Since Junior’s wedding it had started to creep, little by little, over the borders he’d set long ago but his comfort level with it was still low; and now the smug meanness had come too close, putting a face on the forces that had cut Jack down so abruptly, and the trailer once again felt like a refuge. The trailer had always been drafty but the wind seemed to have found some new ways in and shivering, he pulled Jack’s quilt off the bed and sat on it wrapping it around him.
He could see what was before him in the following years, as clearly as if they were playing out on the dark television screen.
Finding another ranch job, and then another when that ranch folded; body and mind slowly hardening and stiffening. Spending more and more time in the Black and Blue or some other bar like it depending on what ranch he worked on next, sitting like Ken on a bar stool for hour after hour or perhaps in a corner like a few older ranch hands he’d seen, watching the pool players with a particular bitterness whenever he saw one who reminded him of Jack. More alcohol when he got back to this trailer or another ramshackle shelter like it, staring mindlessly at the television and hoping to dream about Jack when he finally fell asleep. Looking at the calendar where he’d marked the dates of Junior’s and Jenny’s last card or phone call and wondering when he’d be able to mark it again. Surely David wouldn’t keep calling him forever….
Opening the closet door, he ran his left hand slowly down Jack’s shirt underneath his own.
What’re you waiting for?
He knew where the nagging thought came from but he felt frozen, right hand gripping the edge of the closet door.
Ennis, pick up the phone.
The recently tense muscles were now trembling and he felt queasy: not the cold, squirming nausea that he’d last felt that afternoon in Lightning Flat; more like the feeling that he was about to dive off a very high cliff with no knowledge of how deep the water below was.
Ennis, stop thinkin about it. Go ahead ‘n’ be scared, nothin wrong with that, just DO IT.
Both his mind and stomach became still. He closed the closet door, picked up the phone, and the edge of the cliff was suddenly behind him.