Ennis stopped by the post office to pick up the mail, as had become his habit since renewing his friendship with Jack Twist in 1967. The last eight years had flowed by like one of the snowmelt streams they liked to camp beside: swift running, cold and fraught with stony obstacles for the most part, but the times when he and Jack could be together were calm, clear pools that let him catch his breath and stop paddling so hard to keep his head above water. Jack wasn't dependent on Ennis for a God damned thing and never asked him to make a single promise. All Jack needed from Ennis was… Ennis stopped this line of thinking before his crotch could get involved. Just thinking about Jack Twist could make him hard as rocket science in half a second and he didn't want to be sporting wood when he walked past the gossips that sat out front.

Pretending not to see Mrs. Dewitt from the laundry waving at him, Ennis got into his beat up truck and pulled away from the curb. He parked behind the apartment, but didn't get out right away. Instead, he tossed the circulars and bargain hunter ads on the passenger seat and held the single envelope up in front of his face. He could no longer deny that his eyesight was going, but he wasn't ready to be called Four-Eyes just yet, and he could make out Jack's large, simple lettering with no trouble. Seeing the Texas return address filled Ennis with disparate urges: he wanted to savor the anticipation of what was inside, and he wanted to rip the envelope open as quickly as possible. It was the same way he felt each time they got into it again.

Ennis carefully opened the flap, curious about the hard square shape inside. He pulled out a piece of Newsome Farm Equipment notepaper and read the short message. "Hope you are fine. Everybody here is good. Bobby got me one a them instant cameras for my birthday. I think he's the one really wanted it, but I took a couple a pictures before I give it to him to play with. See you in June. Jack." A small line forming between his brows, Ennis drew out the flat square wrapped in another piece of notepaper. The object slid out, bounced on the edge of the bench seat and landed on the floor on the passenger side. Ennis blinked at the image, and it was a few moments before his brain processed the evidence of his eyes.

With a smoking curse, Ennis dove for the photograph, snatching it up, stuffing it in his shirt, looking furtively around for witnesses. He was alone, no one walking by, no laundry employees taking a cigarette break, and he remembered that Alma had taken the girls to the library for Story Hour. His galloping heart slowed down as he picked up the mail with numb fingers and carried it upstairs without feeling the ground under his feet. Putting the sale papers on the kitchen table, he walked straight back to the bathroom. He locked the door and turned on the light in that order. Setting Jack's envelope down on the toilet tank lid, he pulled the picture from his shirt.

Ennis felt the rush of heat through his veins filling him with sweet warmth cell by cell. Jack smiled up at him, not one of his bright white grins of irrepressible humor, but a soft smile that tucked in the tender corners of his mouth and drew his upper lip into winged curves like a bird in a child's drawing of the crayon blue sky. Dreaming eyes gazed out at Ennis from under half-closed lids, in an expression Ennis knew well. His balls tightened as the memory of the last time he'd seen that smile rinsed through him. "Crazy sumbitch," he muttered, putting the photograph down and unbuckling his belt.

Jack just looked back at him with that drowsy expression of fulfillment and Ennis let his gaze focus on the rest of picture. Pulling his hard length through the fly of his threadbare boxers, Ennis stared at the image that had almost put him in shock in the truck. Jack was bare-ass naked, standing in front of a lady's vanity mirror, holding the camera in one hand and his dick in the other. There was a glistening patch of wetness on the glass that had just started to run down the slick surface. In another minute, the Jack in the photo would have started to relax like a big cat on a sunny windowsill, but at the moment he'd taken the picture, he was still vibrating with release.

Ennis was humming a little himself, when he noticed the caption in blue ballpoint on the white border at the bottom of the snapshot, "Bighorn Mountains, ice coffee," and he was back in that small tent on the night the temperature dropped so low, so fast that everything froze, except for them. They had their own way of keeping warm and set some kind of record, he imagined, for the number of times they'd done it during that storm. Flashes of that night strobed through Ennis's mind like heat lightning: Jack bucking beneath him, Jack riding him like a piece of stock, Jack, fearless and joyful, shutting out the world for Ennis, the way the weather shut out the world for Jack. As they lay sated in one another's arms, limp with exhaustion, Jack had murmured that he wished this never had to end. Ennis pretended he was asleep; they had settled that question on the first night they got back together in Sixty-Seven. Two men living together? Hell no.

However, Ennis could not forgo his doses of Jack. Despite the fear of being mistaken for a homosexual, Ennis could not stop meeting Jack out in the middle of nowhere, telling himself each time that it wasn't going to happen the same way, he was just going camping with his friend, and once in a while, he actually made 'til sundown before jumping Jack's bones, but it usually happened within the first hour. And Jack never said no, never said, hey, dumbass, I'm tryin' t' set up the tent, or, no, not right now, I'm too tired. Jack always opened his arms, his legs, his heart, and embraced Ennis as though he never meant to let him go. Ennis could never say it aloud, but Jack's physical need for him was one of the few things that made him feel like he was a real man after all. He knew how crazy that was and lately it had started to gnaw at him. The fire that had been ignited on Brokeback Mountain in Sixty-three had not died out, as he had hoped, but flared back to life, just as hot and bright, each time he saw Jack. It wasn't right, and still, he answered the post cards, the letters and the rare phone calls.

Look at him now. Locked in his bathroom with his hand on his dick. Mad as hell at Jack for sending him that photograph and salivating with lust as he used it to relieve the ache of being without Jack. This was crazy, out of control, irrational. He wasn't queer. He wasn't.

Ennis doubled over as he crested, his orgasm hitting him hard, sending a stream of viscous fluid flying to splatter against the toilet tank. The hard muscles of his abdomen rippled as the wave of pleasure spread outward, engulfing him, as he let himself sink into the memory the way his cock sank into Jack's velvet heat, and God he couldn't wait until the next time.

"Ennis?" Alma called out. "You here?"

Ennis straightened up and grabbed a handful of toilet paper. "In the bathroom."

"I really gotta go; there was a line at the liberry," Alma said as she turned the doorknob. "Ennis? Is this door locked?"

"Must be stuck," Ennis said as he tossed the tissue in the bowl and hit the lever. Snatching up the photograph, he slipped it behind the medicine cabinet as he fastened his jeans and flipped the door lock open. Turning the knob, he pulled the door and Alma almost fell into the small bathroom.

"Keep an eye on the girls for a minute," she said, as she reached for the box of sanitary napkins under the sink.

Ennis averted his gaze on his way out. "Sure enough," he said. "You girls eat somethin'?"

"We had punch and cookies at story hour," Alma Junior said.

"Hey Alma," Ennis hollered. "I'm gonna take the girls out to Whataburger, get 'em a burger and a cone, all right?"

"Thanks, Ennis," Alma answered.

Just short of an hour later, Ennis carried both girls into the house and put them to bed. Rubbing his eyes, he shut off the kitchen light and shuffled into the bedroom. Alma lay with her back to him, and didn't turn as he shed his clothes, relieved himself and sat down on the side of the bed. "Jenny's pinkeye looks a lot better," he said with a yawn.

"Good," Alma said curtly.

Ennis put a hand on her shoulder. "You all right?"

Alma sat up, throwing his hand off. "Am I all right? I ain't sure how t' answer that, Ennis. After you and the girls left, I started gathering up a load so I could do laundry in the mornin'. I was goin' through the hamper when somethin' fell out from behind the medicine cabinet. I picked it up and I couldn't believe my eyes." Ennis couldn't look at her. Every angular line of his long frame was tense with apprehension as she went on. "I reckon ya know whut I saw. A pitcher of a nekkid man. Go on. Tell me you don't know nuthin' 'bout it. Tell me the people before us left it here. Tell me it ain't your fishin' buddy, Jack Twist."

"I don't know whut you're talkin' 'bout."

"Don't take me for such a fool. You can barely stand t' touch me these days. I been doin' a lot a thinkin', and tonight I made up my mind. I want a divorce, Ennis."

"No, ya just hold on a minute, Alma. Divorce? You'd quit me and take the girls?"

"I don't think you'd even notice, no more' n ya pay attention to us. Ya don't want me, Ennis. Ya want… somethin' else."

"Alma, ya don't know nuthin'," Ennis said, as she rose to face him.

"I know enough. All them times ya went fishin'? You wasn't fishin', Ennis."

"Alma," his voice dropped to an ominous register.

"I seen ya. That first time Jack Twist come callin'. The two a ya suckin' face like… Don't ya come near me, Ennis Del Mar." Alma took a step back. "Ya ain't never laid a hand on me, or the girls, so don't start now. I've made up my mind to leave ya. Ya don't love me. I think maybe ya did, or thought ya did, at one time, but it ain't there anymore. Ya care more about runnin' off with Jack Twist than bein' with your fam'ly and that ain't right."

Ennis's lips tightened as she moved past him. "Where ya goin'?"

"I'll stay in the girls' room tonight. Ennis? Do ya really… ya know, do it with Jack?" Her round face reflected her disgust at the very notion.

"I ain't no queer."

"I know whut I saw, Ennis," she said. "Ya couldn't keep your hands off 'im. And now you got this nasty pitcher of 'im. If ya ain't queer, whut are ya?" The scowl on his face sent her down the short hall to the girls' room. She'd never seen him so worked up about something. For a few moments, she'd been afraid he might strike her. Alma had always known that her husband preferred Jack Twist's company to hers, but she'd been able to ignore what she'd felt in her bones. Ennis loved his friend in a way that offended her to her core. All the years of their marriage, except maybe the first few, she had been a second-best substitute for Jack Twist's backside. There was nothing wrong with her; it was Ennis. He was sick.

:: : :: : :: : :: : ::

Ennis's heart sank as the big, new truck slid to a stop and he recognized the driver. Jack jumped out, looking bright as the pickup's glossy paint job and hurried over. Ennis gave his friend a perfunctory, socially acceptable man-hug, very aware of the curious gazes of his daughters waiting in his truck, and the bewildered hurt in Jack's eyes when he pushed him away. "Whut're ya doin' here?" Ennis asked.

"I got your card 'bout the divorce," Jack said. "I figgered…" The light faded in Jack's eyes like a lightning bug in a jar. He knew that peculiarly childlike look on Ennis's face. The way the man's gaze slid away from his told him all he needed to know. Ennis hadn't split with his wife to be with Jack; Alma had left Ennis, most likely because she was fed up with only getting half of him. Jack wondered if he could be that strong. "Reckon I figgered wrong."

"I'm sorry, Jack, but I got my girls here. Alma's givin' me a real hard time over custody. She thinks she knows somethin' 'bout us and says she'll tell that judge if I give 'er any trouble. I cain't take the chance."

"She ain't got no proof."

"Not until ya sent that pitcher a you wrangin' it out. Whut the hell were ya thinkin', Jack?"

"I was thinkin' how much I missed ya, and that maybe you were missin' me, too. I thought that pitcher would cheer ya up some."

"It cheered Alma right in to court."

"How'd she git hold of it anyway?"

"That don't matter. It was a dumbass thing t' do."

"You're right. I'm a dumbass. Only a dumbass would put up with you, Ennis Del Mar. I got just enough pride left to walk away."

"That's right; go on. Ya ruined me a long time ago up on Brokeback. Nuthin' gone right since then, and it's all because a you. Ya did somethin' to me and now I cain't…"

"Daddy?" Alma Jr. called. "Are we goin' soon?" Ennis turned toward her and when he looked back, Jack was halfway to his truck. He almost called after his oldest and only friend, but what would he say? There was nothing he could give Jack. He had to live for his girls now. Jack backed out of the yard and bounced up onto the two-lane blacktop. He drove away, shifting as fast as he could, not once glancing at the rear view mirror. Straight to Texas, and straight on to Mexico, he dried his eyes and hardened his heart, and went in search of what he needed, even if it wasn't what he wanted.

Read chapter 2 of 60 of I'll Be Seeing You by Bailey