chapter 83
By the time he had finished ironing his shirts, folded his socks (one of which he put under the pillow where he had been sleeping), he put in a load of Ellery’s clothes, including one of his uniforms. As he picked up the clothes, he held them to his face, the slight spice of body odor, the lingering sweetness of his cigars, the scent of his body stirring him, and he remembered picking Jack’s shirt out of his closet in Lightning flat, holding it up to his nose, breathing it in, trying to catch a whiff of the man who no longer was... the scent, gone. He had a wild desire, then, sorted through the shirts, selecting one with just enough of the odor of him, scented with the sweet taste of the cigar, and folded it, putting it in his gunnysack with his own clean, folded clothes. He sat down, suddenly, leaning against the radiant heat of the dryer, putting his head down on the top of the sack.
“Jack... why did ya have ta die? It coulda ... been good, like this. I woulda.... changed....” he stopped speaking, then, putting his hands over his face. Would he have? Without the shock of that loss, without the months of solitude, sitting and staring at those shirts hanging on his wall, followed by the crushing unemployment and inactivity, the last winter blowing savagely through the drafty cracks in the trailer before the last hopeless season at the ranch... would he have changed?
He sat, suddenly inert, tears of grief falling once again, echoing that grief he felt at the moment of orgasm the night before... the pain of separation from the one he loved... the man he loved.... how many separations... more time saying goodbye than ever saying hello, more desperate, last minute partings than joyful reacquaintances... one more than he really needed. He sobbed, his guts twisted into a semblance of that feeling of hopeless loss, and could not tell if it was Jack he grieved, or this day’s departure. Maybe it was the same thing, after having refused to acknowledge all of those partings, refused to acknowledge that first love and loss, each parting from Ellery seemed like a death.