Brokeback Fever

You know that movie about those two gay cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist? Darned embarrassing at my age, but I’ve got me a bad case of Brokeback Mountain fever. Joined the Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Forum a while back. May look for a Brokeback Mountain support group before long, too.

Fact is, that’s me and my first Jack up there on Brokeback around 1963 and I already knew every word, every move, every touch and every whisker. Painful to watch the first time. A kick in the gut. I just sat down and bawled about it. Coming home after 40 years away. Hard thing to do.

It seems to affect most of my people that way.

I was late seeing Brokeback. Gave up on theaters long time ago, so waited for Wal-Mart. Was rewarded by the DVD checkout gal’s little smirk: “Are you sure you’re at least 17?” Lots older than that, ma’am; earned every wrinkle and every spot.

Maybe she didn’t mean anything by it, but that sure did take me back to when you had to be real careful about what you bought and where you got it ’cause you didn’t want anybody to guess you might be queer --- even though they always did and let you know it.

Here’s my clumsy Brokeback summary: Ennis and Jack, both 19 and dumb like all us country boys were then, get jobs together herding sheep on an allotment up on Brokeback somewhere in Wyoming during 1963, fall in love, love a lot, then come off the mountain that autumn, part, get married and have kids.

We were all supposed to get married and have kids back in those days. Remember? Find a good woman, boy, and you’ll get over it. Lots of good women out there with big holes in their hearts because of that. Ennis and Jack didn’t get over it either.

Jack was the starry-eyed one, ready to give love a chance. Ennis was the practical one: “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it,” he says. And so they stood it for 20 years, Ennis in Wyoming and Jack in Texas, getting together a couple of times a year, fishing up on Brokeback. You damn well know those fishing lines never got wet.

Then Jack dies, and Ennis, long divorced, has daughters he adores but an otherwise empty heart. Closing scene in a banged up old trailer. Ennis walks to a closet where two bloodied-up shirts saved by Jack from that first Brokeback summer nestle one inside the other, hanging beside a cheap postcard view of the mountain. “I swear, Jack,” he says. Fade out.

Seems like simple stuff. But Annie Proulx’s short story is a wonder. She’s straight, you know, and how she got it so right I don’t know. Maybe it really is that universal love story they talk about. Film’s a wonder, too. Beautifully made by Ang Lee, it moseys along like most cowboys I’ve known, but under everything there’s something and behind what you see the first time is something else. Dead-on acting, even if Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are straight boys not used to simulating gay sex and kissing men. You’d never know it. Dead-on to the way it was back then, too. I swear.

Thing is, it’s so good the line between fiction and fact isn’t there. That’s the power. I’m not qualified to talk about how straight people see it, but every gay male I’ve run into and a good share of lesbians, too, see themselves in it, or reflected. My people have never had anything this good before.

Like I said, that’s me up there. Not nearly so good-looking, damn it. But my Jack was and he grew up Wyoming cowpoke and dirt poor, too. I grew up farm boy. Brokeback mountain wasn’t ours, so we didn’t go up it. We went down Ten Sleep instead. A big piece of my heart’s still somewhere in that red canyon, not far off the road over the Big Horns from Buffalo to Worland.

After Vietnam, my Jack came back to Wyoming and tried wrangling dudes for a while. Couldn’t take it, did that Jack thing and moved to Denver. Good life there, but AIDS came along and got him. No fix for that then, so he did it the cowboy way with a clean shot through the head, just like he’d done it for an old horse with a broken leg up in the high country years before. We left him scattered in the mountains, too.

After Vietnam, I did the Ennis thing: Came back to Iowa. Still here. Still alive. Transfixed by places, hooked on people. A couple of other Jacks after that, an Ennis or two, some damnfoolishness in between.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten love, given love and have no more regrets than anybody else I know, gay or straight. But man it was hard to go back to the beginning and watch it all again. So I started talking about it, mostly with people like me, mostly riding the online range. Thousands of us out there doing that.

Here’s some of the stuff I heard. No way scientific but a fair account I think.

A lot of us, especially the younger ones, start blaming Jack and Ennis for the troubles those two had back then. Why they should have just rode off into the sunset, found that little ranch and settled down together. In a way this blame game’s good, because it means things have gotten better and lots of us are doing just that nowadays. But I’m here to tell you it was real hard to do back then, especially in the country. If you wanted to stay alive. Can’t forget that, boys and girls.

A lot of us see our own screwed up relationships and missed opportunities in Jack and Ennis. Some of us beat ourselves up pretty bad. Shouldn’t do that. Others start making resolutions and promises to themselves not to let it happen again. Good. Just remember to carry through when that DVD wears out.

A lot of us blame you straight folks and we’re still mad. But you know, you did do your best to make us miserable when we were kids and you knew we were vulnerable. You called us names, beat us up, kicked us out, fired us when we got older, spit on our relationships, killed us if you felt like it and then, when we got AIDS, said for a long time that we deserved it. That’s why a hell of chunk of my generation’s dead. That takes a lot of getting over, cowpokes.

A lot of the folks I’ve talked to identify as Christian. Now isn’t that funny? The church as a whole is not our friend. There’s the United Church of Christ and those Unitarian Universalists, bless ‘em, plus a few specifically gay outfits. Yea, there are some friendly people behind some church doors. But the majority just figures they’re in charge of that old express bus to glory and maybe they’ll let us sit in back or maybe they won’t let us on at all.

Thing is I guess, Jesus isn‘t like that. Jack and Ennis watched out for those sheep, and He’s out there on old Brokeback with us now. Found a lot of us long time ago and He’s looking for the rest. He made us like this, you know, and never gives up calling. Just stands there with wide open arms hollering something like, “Jack Twist, I swear.” Doesn’t pull a Bible and fire point-blank. Just grabs ahold and hangs on tight. Real easy to talk to. So many of us call ourselves Christians because of that and figure what goes on between Him and us is nobody’s business but ours.

That‘s where epiphany comes in, that big word that just means sometimes all of a sudden, probably when you’re not even looking, grace knocks you flat, floods in and you know you’re home.

Lots of gay men, especially us older ones, gave up on happy endings long time ago. So a lot of guys who look at that last scene in Brokeback and see Ennis standing there at that closet, about 40 now, looking at those two old shirts and that postcard, figure that’s all there is, the end.

But neither the short story nor the movie specifies that; they leave it to us to write the rest of the story --- just like life does.

“I swear, Jack,” Ennis says, and that hard old conflicted heart of his cracks wide open and begins to fill. At least that‘s the way I see it.

My first Jack rode off into the sunset long ago, and there goes Ennis now --- another good man beside him I’ll damn well bet.

Kind of hope I don’t get over Brokeback fever. But what ever happens buckaroos, gay and straight, I hope grace finds you and that you find your Jack or Ennis, too. That’s all there is, you know.

And that’s about as straight as this queer old wrangler can tell it. Cowboy up!