Marathon Cowboys (18 page)

clean, and then I’d be able to get to work again.

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Sarah Black

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I picked up the phone, called The Original. Jesse

answered the phone, and my chest got so tight I nearly

couldn’t speak. “Jesse, let me speak to your granddad.”

“Mary, please….”

I didn’t answer. He waited a moment, then handed the

phone over. “Lorenzo? You okay, son?”

“Yes, sir, I’m fine.”

“Why don’t you come on back home? Jesse has

something he wants to say to you.”

“No. What I’d like to do is this, if it’s okay with you.” I

was pleased that my voice sounded strong, determined. “I’m

going down into Big Bend. I’m going camping for a while. You

think Jesse will be done with his paintings in two months?

So I can come back and we can finish what we started with

the comic?”

“Yes. I’ll make sure he’s done. You have everything you

need?”

“I’ll get it. I have my mail forwarded to your house. Can

we just leave it for now? If there is some sort of emergency,

I’ll be in Big Bend. The rangers will know where I am.”

“You come home whenever you’re ready, Lorenzo.”

“I don’t want to see him.” I heard him suck in his

breath, like I’d punched him. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

“I understand.” His voice was gruff. “You call me, check

in, okay? So I know you’re alive.”

“Yes, sir.”

I bought a camper, a little sixteen-foot Bambi Airstream,

just big enough for one. It took almost half of the money I’d

saved. I filled up the pickup with supplies, hooked up the

camper, and drove back down the length of Texas. I cut

across to Terlingua, so I could go into Big Bend without

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passing through Marathon, and drove as far as I could go in

the park, down to the Rio Grande campground. It was cool

and green next to the river, and I found a site back away

from everyone, under a broad, shady tree.

I spent the days hiking, the afternoons stretched out in

a hammock, asleep, and the nights staring at the ceiling,

loving Jesse in my memory. It seemed like my mind wouldn’t

let him go, wouldn’t let me push him away until I had

remembered every minute in his company, every time he’d

let me taste him, the way he nuzzled under my arms, or the

way his shoulders felt when I slung my arm around him and

pulled him close. And I had to see his face a million times,

his face handing me a condom, saying,
please, zo-zo,

reaching for the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head,

sliding his hand down into the waistband of his boxers. A

million times, and I thought the memories were going to

burn right through my chest, leaving gaping, smoking black

scars on my skin. But when I finally woke up, gasping like I

had a rock sitting on my chest, I’d touch my skin, find

nothing had changed.

I remembered driving back from Lajitas with my new

boots, thinking I was going to win him, and we were going to

live and love happily together for our entire lives, and make

beautiful art, and there was just no option for failure. Well,

things didn’t always work out, did they? I kept telling myself

that, and it felt like something in my head was tied up,

gagged, ready to get loose and run, screaming, all the way

back to Marathon, fast as I could go, throw myself in Jesse’s

arms and beg him never to leave me. I’d tell him he could do

anything to me and I’d still love him, he could do anything….

And that’s when I’d put my shoes on and go out for a run,

and I’d run until I was as empty as I had ever been. But then

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I had to lie back down at night, stare at the ceiling and

remember Jesse’s face, and it started all over again.

I had been down at the campground a couple of weeks,

and I’d had a bad night. I took a long run, and when I came

back, Jesse was there, sitting on the back end of his

granddad’s truck. There was a bag of groceries on the picnic

table, and a stack of mail. I walked over to the camper,

pulled a towel out, and ran it over my face and neck. “What

are you doing here?”

At least he didn’t say he’d come to bring me food and

mail. “I need to talk to you.”

I sat down at the picnic table, pulled some strawberries

and bananas out of the bag. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He was looking at my feet, like he

wasn’t sure how to start. “Mary, I need to try to explain what

happened. It’s got me all tangled up. I can’t sleep, trying to

think how things got out of hand. I don’t know how to fix

this.”

“Are you talking about you and me? Or your painting?”

“The painting, both. I don’t know. You and me, that had

nothing to do with the painting. Don’t listen to what Sammy

said. He was just being a fuckhead. I wasn’t sleeping with

you to talk you into being my model.”

“Well, I’m happy to hear that. But I never thought you

were.”

He looked up, met my eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping. His

eyes were haunted, and his face looked thin and miserable.

“So, you feel like you need to explain something to me? I

don’t think so.” I stood up, dismissing him. “I let you take

photographs of me. I wasn’t thinking, but if I had been I

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would have known what you were going to do with them. It’s

fine, Jesse. It’s done. Don’t worry about it.”

He didn’t move, and his face looked worse now,

something dark and frantic in his blue eyes. “Please, please

let me explain.” His voice was a whisper, and my eyes filled

with tears before I could stop them.

“Do me a favor, okay? Just go off and have a happy life,

and enjoy your success. I think that
Death of a Grievous

Angel
is brilliant. Painful and brilliant. Don’t think about me.

Don’t let the way I feel about this bother you, okay? It’s not

your fault I thought there was more going on between us.

There’s nothing to salvage here, Jesse, between you and me.

But I’m glad your painting is a success.”

“They gave me two hundred thousand dollars for it.” I

suspected, bitterly, that he was going to spend all of it trying

to save his junkie cousin. “I’d give every penny back, if I

could just find a way to explain to you…. I was just trying to

paint my cowboy angels, Mary. That was all. And then you

got too real, you got into my head, I smelled you and tasted

you and it changed, I was painting you, the real you, and I

got madder and madder, and next thing I knew, I was

painting those twenty-dollar bills on that cross.”

I sat down again. “Jesse, I get that. I understand what

happened.”

“Then why did you leave? Why are you still so mad?”

“Because when you figured out what was going on with

your painting, you didn’t tell me. You knew what that

painting was turning into. You knew exactly how good it

was. And you carefully weighed what was more important,

and decided not to tell me. You didn’t want me to try and

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stop you. You taped paper over it every night, Jesse, so I

wouldn’t accidently see it.”

“Okay, yes. I did. Yes, yes, and yes. I did everything you

said. Are you going to forgive me?”

I stood up again. “Nothing to forgive.”

“Bullshit!” He lost his cool then, got up and hammered

me in the chest with his fists. “You’re gonna make me suffer

and suffer for the rest of my fucking life? What happened to
I

love you?
And
I love you again?
Oh, right, you didn’t really

know me, did you? You were just in love with some
symbol
of

me. And when you got to know the real me, when you got

down to the bones, you got in your truck and ran away from

me as fast as you possibly could. Who did you think I was?”

I grabbed his fists, held him off. “Stop it. You sound like

an idiot. You never had to live with the consequences of your

choices, before now?”

He jerked free, then put his arms around me. I didn’t

move. “How can I have turned your beautiful heart to stone?

Tell me that. Because I can’t bear to think I’ve hurt you this

much.”

“You used my uniform, Jesse,
my uniform
. It’s like a

little piece of my soul. You never served. You don’t

understand what it means to be a Marine. You stole that

from me and used it to make a point in a piece of art.” I let

him hold me, and just for one moment, I put my arms

around him, held him so tightly I squeezed a little grunt out

of him. His neck was salty and damp in the heat, and I

touched his skin with my mouth. “Please leave me alone. I

can’t stand this.”

And his arms fell away. He stared up at me, those

stormy blue eyes full of tears. He wiped a tear off my face

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with his thumb. Then he got back in his granddad’s pickup

truck and drove away.

A week later I pulled my camper up to the Chisos

Mountain Basin and found some new trails to run. I almost

thought I was getting worse, the longing for Jesse so strong

in my chest, I started waking up in the night, my heart

racing and the breath wheezing out of my throat. This had

happened just after I’d been hurt in Iraq, too, and the

counselor had said,
panic attacks, nothing to worry about,

they’ll go away.
I was doing everything I could think of not to

turn into some head case, but Jesse was still pounding

through my veins like an infection in my blood, and I

thought more than once how easy it would be to just go to

sleep and not wake up. That would be peaceful, quiet, and

the pain would be gone. There were lots of ways to kill a

man, lots of ways for a man to die. When I’d spent too much

time dwelling on that and scared myself, I went down to the

camp store and called The Original.

“Sir. I’m just calling to check in. Is everything okay there

in Marathon?”

“No, son. No, it’s not. Jesse’s gone. He tore up his

canvases, left them all in a pile for the trashman. Then he

kissed me good-bye and got a ride out of here, and I haven’t

heard from him since.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“Three days. He got word about this magazine cover,

and he was happy. Then he put his head down on the table

and cried, said you’d never forgive him now.”

“What….”

“The painting. It’s gonna be on the cover of
Time

Magazine. They’re doing some article about if the country is

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letting down the vets coming home, and somebody saw the

painting up in New York.”

“Jesus! The paint is hardly dry on that thing!”

“You’ve been gone more than a month, Lorenzo. Come

on back now, okay?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m

scaring myself,” I admitted. “I’m not right. I can’t sleep….”

“Son… please. I would take it as a personal favor if you

would find your way back here. I miss having you around.

I’m afraid for Jesse. I know it’s not your problem, or your

fault, but I’ve never seen him like this. Maybe it’s time for

both of you to just settle down a bit and….”

“Okay.” I could hear the worry in his voice, and I hated

to think some of that was my fault. “I’ll come in the morning.

If Jesse calls, you can tell him I’m coming back, and I’m….”

“Thank you, Lorenzo. I don’t know what he’ll do, if you

can’t find it in your heart to forgive him.”

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Chapter Twelve

I WENT back to The Original’s house, and we tried to get

back to work. After a week of drawing crap, we both gave it

up. Jesse’s absence felt like a gaping wound. I ran too long

every morning, and the old man started sleeping late, and

evenings, we sat together on the porch, and it was all we

could do not to cry. I thought about giving it up, going back

into the USMC. At least there I knew the rules. At least there

I was too busy to stare out into the desert, watch my dreams

blow down the street like tumbleweeds.

The old man got an envelope in the mail when I’d been

back two weeks, and inside was a drawing and a letter. The