The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!

[mariez]

Monday, September 3, 2007
Lazy L Ranch
Quanah, TX
......
“I mean corny queer, not queer queer. .....

  Aww, Ennis, I love you!

Jack smiled at Ennis, then let go of his husband’s wrist. “Give me a second to wake up. I’ll come with you.”

Sniff.  Aww, Jack, I love you, too. 

Ain't nothin like the Lazy L boys.   

    It was decided.  They would go to Brokeback.  Wylie drove first,  he knew the way out of Lightning Flat like a man escaping prison.  Ennis rode shotgun, Mrs. P. sat behind next to the cooler of sandwiches and drinks Mattie Twist had packed.  Labor Day and the end of summer had long passed.  Kids in school, weather turning cold, campers, if any, would be sparse.
    Mrs. P. proved herself a real worker, driving the backroads as well as the paved.  Ennis took the wheel when they neared Signal; as if retracing a haunted pilgrimage, Jack’s ashes always by his side.

Masterful, as always, Clyde.  You may have had some time off, but you're not out of practice.  That last line is a killer.

Thanks,
Marie

[mariez]

Are we all rested up and rarin' to go?     How about these for today:

• too much
• too little
• too late

Marie

[mariez]

Potent Combinations

Ennis felt simultaneously guilty and angry– the very worst combination. 

Dammitall.  How could he have known Francie would have another spell while he was away?  And worse yet, Junior was the one who'd given him the gory details: Francie gasping for breath, Mama's frantic phone calls, the middle-of-the-night trip in the strange car to see the doctor.

Alma still hadn't spoken and her silence rang more loudly in his ears than even the harshest accusations. Anything he did now was too little, too late. He sat heavily, shoulders slumped in defeat, thinking that it had all become too much to bear, when he heard Francie call for him.  He dashed into her room and saw her smiling face and outstretched arms, and as he gathered her up in a gentle hug, he felt her reassuring breath against his neck.  "Daddy."

Ennis felt simultaneously loved and needed– the very best combination. 
 
~~~~~~~
150 Words

[Cameron]

The Glare of the Sun

(October 1988)
Cassie shielded her eyes as she came out of the store.  It was a blindingly bright sunny afternoon.  The sun was huge and low, everything seemed to glow.  It almost was too much brightness.  Cassie walked to her car and looked down the empty sidewalk.  Not a person was out on the street, eerie for such a warm fall Saturday.  She opened the door to her car and began to get in, but then she heard a door close and people talking.  She couldn’t see them, she was blinded by the glare of the sun.

“You better drive, think I had too much beer.”

Cassie froze, but she felt her heart jump inside her.  She took a deep breath, and then another one, but it was too little and too late.  She felt her hands begin to shake like a leaf blown by a fierce wind.  It was a long, long time.  She wasn’t in town very often anymore.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”  .

Cassie stared, she could now see them walking towards her.  Her keys fell to the ground, but she wasn’t able to bend down to pick them up.  Suddenly, he stopped and stared right back at her.  “Hey…” she tried to say, but she couldn’t. 

“Hey” he said.  He turned to the man with the thick grey hair beside him, then he looked at her again.

“Hi” Cassie finally managed to say.

 

[MaineWriter]

Lazy L Farm
Quanah, TX
Date unknown

“I’m really really tired Jack.”

“Yeah, me too, En.”

“I feel like I done way too little today though…”

“Days like that happen. Go to bed, get plenty a sleep, you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Yeah but it ain’t too late…it’s only,” Ennis looked at his watch. “Eight o’clock.”

Jack shrugged. “You can go ta bed at eight. Don’t matter ta me.”

“Really?”

Jack nodded. “I might get ideas for too much stuff ta keep ya awake…after ya rested up a bit.”

Ennis looked at him with a smile. “See ya upstairs, cowboy.”

“Will do,” answered Jack, with a knowing wink.

(100 words)

[cwby30]

I always thought he wanted a lot, but really it wasn't too much, and what I gave him was always too little, still he always came back for what I could give him, and now it's too late to give him what I should have given all along. So, I'll give him as much as I can for the rest of my life.   

"Jack, I swear..."

[Clyde-B]

     Ennis feared he’d forgotten too much, remembered too little.  Thin fingers of afternoon shadow crept across the forest floor, wrapped around the rocks and lodgepole pines before he found the access road that led to that fateful campsite where it all began.  Pavement faded to gravel, to twin ruts in a grassy dirt path.  The sky turned rose amber, shadowy silver clouds floated like silent inclusions above the grey green. 
    They parked near a small glade, Wylie jumped  out, headed toward the cargo box to unpack the tents.  Ennis stopped him.
   “That can wait.  Come on, it’s almost too late.” 


    100 words

[MaineWriter]

Hi all,

• chicken soup
• pleasantly surprised
• charcoal gray

L

[MaineWriter]

Lazy L Farm
Quanah, TX
October 23, 1976

Ennis pushed his soup spoon in among the noodles, then lifted it to his mouth and took a sip. He nodded. “Tastes good Jack.”

“Ya think so?”

“Yeah…just like the chicken soup in the can.”

“No, it’s better…” He pointed to his bowl. “Look, the little bits a chicken are bigger.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“And I used a different kind a noodle.” Ennis nodded again. “And I put carrots in! Campbell’s ain’t got carrots!”

Ennis looked at his bowl then back at Jack. “How long did this take ya ta make Jack?”

“’Bout a day.”

“I can see why my momma was excited when they invented the stuff in the can.”

(111 words)

[Lumière]

Howdy folks.  Got a dabble today ..


In Working Condition

Jack sneezed again and wrinkled his forehead in pain.  His head was throbbing and his temperature was running higher than he cared to admit.  He took a wobbly spoonful of the warm chicken soup from the bowl sitting in his lap.  It tasted awful.  Ma’s chicken soup was always the best.  Not today apparently.  He lay back into the pillows.

Exactly sixty-nine days had passed since he’d left Brokeback ... and Ennis del Mar.  He hadn’t been prepared for the way he'd felt the first couple of weeks after the summer.  He was excited and sad and lovesick and hopeful all at once.  Ennis had turned him into a bumbling idiot, he often thought to himself.  He closed his eyes and soon found himself revisiting the images he kept diligently tucked away in his mind: Like the first time Ennis had wrapped his arms around him and kissed him full on the lips; like the time Ennis had gotten so drunk from the whiskey that he’d fallen on his ass right into a pile of horse puckey ; and the number of times they were on their knees on the bare earth under the summer sun, making love like wild horses – no restraint, hard and fast…

Jack was startled a few moments later when his Ma knocked on the door and entered the little room with more goodies and beverages on a tray.  He scrambled to cover the bulge that had developed in his shorts from his interrupted reverie. I might feel like shit but at least that one part of me is still working just fine; he smiled to himself…

(~270 words)