Brokeback in Exile (Chapter 1)

Every once in awhile, a masterwork of creative art comes along that has a far-reaching effect beyond appreciation or entertainment.  For many of us, it was the gay tragic romance Brokeback Mountain. The film version of Annie Proulx's short story not only attracted a loyal following; it had a very real impact on the lives of its fans, especially gays but straights as well.  Some of these stories can be found in the book Beyond Brokeback, produced by members of the Dave Cullen Ultimate Brokeback Forum.

For some of us, expressing what the story and film meant has taken the form of fanfiction.  My own effort, Gift of Exile, has been in one-and-off progress since 2006.

The following is an excerpt; the entire chapter can be found at the link.


 

All that anyone at the ranch apparently noticed was that he’d taken no time off in the last year, volunteered for extra work more often, worked extended hours whenever he could.  And while Alma, Jr. had called, and stopped by occasionally, she was too consumed with planning her wedding to much notice his loss of weight or the traces of his regular restless nights.  But ever since Alma Junior's visit he’d increasingly felt like Jack was right at his elbow; like he’d be able to catch a glimpse of him if he just turned his head fast enough.  He didn’t believe in ghosts, never would, he told himself.  The erotic dreams he regularly had about Jack, the only sex life he’d had or wanted in the last year, sometimes ended with waking up to sticky sheets but never with Jack in the bed beside him.  No; it was just one of the drafts in the trailer that would brush against his hair in a way that reminded him of the way Jack used to nuzzle it.  Or the harder wind hitting the trailer at night, sounding like the moaning noises Jack used to make during their lovemaking that still made him hard just to think about.

But there were also the dreams that he didn’t look forward to: the soul-crushing, slow-motion nightmares of watching Jack being mercilessly clubbed to death.  Listening to the screams and muted crunching of broken bones, even smelling the blood, and finding that his feet seemed to be set in concrete blocks.  And his very throat frozen, unable even to yell at the evil men who would later play with their children, lie with their wives, sit serenely in church on Sunday.  With no one in the trailer to wake him up, the dream always had to run its course until he woke sobbing in grief and torment.  But in the past few months, he knew he could feel something brush across his face and the top of his head just before full wakefulness released him from the nightmare.

He wasn’t going to think of that today, he told himself as he shut the trailer door and walked toward his battered truck.  One appearance at a wedding wasn’t going to make up for the distance he’d kept between himself and his daughters when they were growing up, but Alma Junior had wanted him to walk her down the aisle, despite all that, not the stepfather who had been there every day since she was 12 years old.  She wasn’t going to regret that.

Chapter 1 at http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html