Author Topic: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!  (Read 1178232 times)

Offline belbbmfan

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1150 on: April 23, 2007, 01:02:37 pm »
(I hope it was as beautiful out by you as it was here today, here's my 'drabble'...)

Home Again


Ennis went back inside and sat on the bed.  He picked up the old picture again.  He sat there, like that, for a long time, with the picture in his hands until the sun began making its way down again.   

Then there was another loud knock on the door.


I'm really enjoying the Tom and Ennis story. Tom is a reassuring presence in Ennis's life, and he gives Ennis the space he obviously needs to deal with all the mysterious things he discovers. I like your writing Marl!  :)
'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline Lumière

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1151 on: April 23, 2007, 01:30:39 pm »
*gasp*  :o

More please Milli! lovely drabble, thank you.

Cheers for the comments Fabienne (and Marie!)  ;)
I think I may have one more after that one .. :)

Cheers!
~M


Offline jpwagoneer1964

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1152 on: April 23, 2007, 01:45:50 pm »
July 1988

"Ah be damned....It's still there....." Ennis said looking out the window as he came to a stop at the old trailer in Signal. "See them steps by the door?....Ah wuz leanin' right there against that trailer next ta them steps when Ah first seen yer dad."

Ennis and Bobby are on the way to the Brokeback traihead in Bobby's pickup, Ennis driving with his new horse trailer hitched on with the two horses from the ranch. Between them on the bench seat a box of Ritz crackers, becoming ragged from Bobby and Ennis swatting each others hands out of the way for a turn.

"Yep...wuz leanin'  next ta those very steps...yer dad came barrlin' round that corner in that ol' pickup of his...buckin' 'n snortin'...Get it ta a stop right over there...." Bobby starts laughing. "....then gets out acting a tough...cursin' at the truck...kicks it!..." Bobby is near hysterics. "...then leans back....tryin' ta look a slick....like he could take a bull down 'n each arm.... Didn't know then whether we's both doin' up ta the sheep or if he's competition fer the job...wasn't sure then if Ah wanted ta be goin' up with 'm if we's goin together.... Course both you 'n Ah know....your daddy gentle as a lamb...."

Ennis remained there in the middle of the deserted main street in Signal transfixed on those steps. "Ennis....you okay?..."

"Oh...yeah son...fine...." Ennis then make a clumsy stab at the nonexistent clutch pedal at the same time attempting to put the auto trans quadrant  into three  on the tree low, in the process hitting the power window button with he left knee startling himself as the window rises. Bobby starts to giggle. "Damn! ...sure am glad muh new pickup ain't gonna be havin' all these fool contraptions on it!"
Ennis gently pushes the accelerator to move forward. "Don't seen natural.... just pushing ta go... gotta be able ta harness the power...control it."

"Lookie there! ...your daddy..he took me ta that bar over there after we's wuz hired up...that mornin' ....treated me ta beers... I hardly had no money....said it wuz on him... me pratically a total stranger.... Guess it 'bout time Ah returned the favor... Bobby...we'll stop, Ah buy ya a beer....okay? Need ta check on them horses anyways...."

Walking inside Ennis stares at the walls, everything nearly as it was more than a quarter century ago, himself taken back to that one day in 1963 stepping in this very room with tall dark haired cowboy, father of the young man with him now.

Seated at the bar with their beers, Ennis still looking around the room, bull horns, rope coils, pictures bringing back to that day. "Ennis...you 'n dad....you never came back....here....or Brokeback?"

"No....never did son....can't really say fer sure Ah know why.....just never even brought up goin' back...we wuz close....at Pine Creek where we went a lot, ya ca see Brokeback...but never again on the mountain itself.... Never went through Signal again neither.... always went the backside."

"You okay Ennis? ...." Bobby looking closely at Ennis.

Ennis look back. "Yep son....Am good.....real good."

 
« Last Edit: April 23, 2007, 04:41:38 pm by jpwagoneer1964 »
Thank you Heath and Jake for showing us Ennis and Jack,  teaching us how much they loved one another.

Offline belbbmfan

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1153 on: April 23, 2007, 02:55:58 pm »
July 1988

"You okay Ennis? ...." Bobby looking closely at Ennis.

Ennis look back. "Yep son....Am good.....real good."

 


oww, Mark, I'm going to need a hanky for the next chapters! It's so good Ennis and Bobby have each other to go through what will certainly be a emotional journey for both of them.

thank you
 :)
'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1154 on: April 23, 2007, 04:16:53 pm »


   I am loving this story Mark...it is great...thank you

                                                 janice



     Beautiful mind

Offline mariez

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1155 on: April 23, 2007, 04:49:35 pm »
July 1988

"Ah be damned....It's still there....." Ennis said looking out the window as he came to a stop at the old trailer in Signal. "See them steps by the door?....Ah wuz leanin' right there against that trailer next ta them steps when Ah first seen yer dad."  .  .  .

Mark, I'm with Fabienne, this is so emotional . . . in a good way.  And you know what always gets to me?  That paper bag.   :'(

Thanks,
Marie
The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis         ~~~~~~~~~Thurgood Marshall

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.    ~~~~~~~~~ Mark Twain

Offline cwby30

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Re: Ennis and Bobby
« Reply #1156 on: April 23, 2007, 05:44:59 pm »
Afternoon, jp.

Another insightful chapter in your story.  Nice how Ennis can look back at the beginning with love, and have Bobby there to share it with, and showBobby more of how much Jack and Ennis felt for each other. It gives Bobby a sense of time and place with his Dad, seeing things Jack never shared much with him, putting a picture with a story.  Hope this isn't the only time that Ennis and Bobby have time together at the Twist Ranch; they're each filling a void in the other's life, and it would be good if they can continue to share time. 

Thanks again for this one, and for your other stories.  Any timetable for the next chapter of the anniversary story?

Offline Cameron

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1157 on: April 23, 2007, 06:27:31 pm »
Questions

(August 1985)
There was another knock on the door. Ennis went to the door slowly this time.  But when he opened it, once again no one was there.  He looked all around.  No one was to be seen except for Tom, sitting on the steps of his trailer, smoking a cigarette.  Ennis walked over.  “Did ya see anyone around?”

“No, why?”

“Someone keeps knocking on my door, but no one’s there.”

Tom looked up at him with narrowed eyes.  “Haven’t seen anybody, been right here.”

Ennis sat down.  Tom put his hand on Ennis’s arm.  “How did ya get this?” he asked.  Ennis looked at his arm.  There was a huge black and blue bruise right on his forearm.

“I have no idea, I just don’t know.”

“Didn’t you feel anythin’?  With such a bad bruise?  Now I really am worried about ya.”  Tom placed his hand right on the ugly bruise.  “Hey, did you eat anything at all?  Maybe ya just need some food.”

Ennis just shook his head.  Tom went inside and came back out with a box of Ritz crackers and a plastic bowl of onion dip.  Ennis took a few and realized it was a long time since he ate, but he wasn’t hungry at all.  “Why did ya go all the way out there?” he asked.

“Wanted you to meet my friend, that was his son.” Tom replied.

“Why, why did ya want me to meet him?”  Ennis asked with real fatigue in his voice.

But Tom didn’t answer that.  “Are you goin’ to tell me about that picture?” he asked instead.  Ennis looked at the ground and dug the dirt with his feet. 

“I know, probably somethin’ about your friend.  Ya know, you ought to talk about him, sometimes, ya know?”

“Why?” Ennis said, “ya never talk about your friend.”  Ennis threw a sideways glance at Tom.  “Besides ya never told me how you knew it in the first place, ya don’t tell me anythin'” Ennis said with a strange unfamiliar tone in his voice, as he continued to furiously dig at the ground with his feet.

Tom stared at him.  Ennis rubbed at the bruise on his arm where it suddenly started to hurt.  They sat there in silence.  Ennis started to get up, he wanted to walk away, but he sat back down.  The silence pushed him back.  The silence was deafening.  The silence blocked out all the other sounds, the crickets, the far away owls in the trees and the passing trucks in the distance.  It blocked out the wind that was rushing between them.

But suddenly the silence was broken, by the wild rustling and the swaying of the lilac bush just beyond them.  “What the hell was that?” Tom yelled.




Offline Lumière

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1158 on: April 23, 2007, 07:26:50 pm »
Greetings.

More on Jr and her Dad later..
Here is one that I always wanted to write, for his sake as much as mine..  ;)



Only You..

The old man sat alone at the quiet kitchen table.  The light from the candles he had lit bathed the little kitchen in warm, yellow light.  He looked at the vacant chair across from him and pushed his plate of food to the side.

He walked up the stairs to the bedroom they had shared for more than thirty years.  Every where he looked, memories jumped out at him.  He fell on his knees at the right side of the bed and clung to the pillow lying there.  He buried his face into it and sobbed.

The next morning, a handful of people gathered around the grave and paid their last respects.  He stood there for a long time, staring at the mound of dirt – here laid his beloved, the one true love of his life.  How hard they’d worked to get where they were, how much they’d suffered to find a little peace, how much they’d given up for a little chance at happiness in this life.  Tears ran down the wrinkled cheeks.  Some day the lilacs he had planted at the foot and head of this grave would blossom from the little heap of dirt into a fragrant bushes of wild beauty – just like their love had done.

The old man closed his eyes; images of the black and blue corpse flooded his mind.  He let out a sob and hunkered down.  He placed a hand on the heap of dirt;
“They may get me next, I don’t care, as long as they lay me down right here next to you.. My dear Earl, I’ll always love ya … only you.” 



                                             
« Last Edit: April 23, 2007, 11:50:56 pm by Lucise »


Offline jpwagoneer1964

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Re: The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!
« Reply #1159 on: April 23, 2007, 10:04:39 pm »
Thanks for all you comment everyone, very much appreciated. Cwby30, I will likely finish this one first before I get back to 'SHIRTS...'.

May take a break tomorrow, busy business day.


Mark
Thank you Heath and Jake for showing us Ennis and Jack,  teaching us how much they loved one another.