How Brokeback affected me

[MarkC]

*******************************8th post**********************************
My dear BBM friends,

I've been away for a couple of weeks, and could hardly wait to get back to catch up on the posts.

The effects of Brokeback Mountain have consumed me completely.  The memories of Billy and me, in prison in the mid-1950s, prompted me to tell my story on this wonderful board. These past weeks have been spent traveling, trying to find Billy.  He was only twenty.  Today, seventy-two, if he's alive at all.

Memory fails us so easily.  When I try to visualize his handsome facial features, I find they've faded somewhat in my mind, like an old photograph.  I have no photos of Billy.  His parents visited him once and took pictures of us together, but I never saw copies of them.

Tomorrow I go to Georgia to the town where Billy grew up.  I called the librarian at the high school and was assured that they have the yearbooks for the years when he attended.  Those pictures would have been taken only a couple of years before we met.  They'll help restore my memory, and perhaps soon, I'll see him face to face.

Yesterday I was searching through my collection of old photos, and found only one of me.  I thought you all might like to see how young we were.  This was at Apalachee Correctional in 1955 when I was nineteen, wearing the standard blue denims and white tees.  Billy and I had been together for nearly a year.

Mejack / Paul
1955

 
 
*****************************9th post*******************************
There's no one in my life that I can talk to, and I'm hurting so bad. I can hardly bring myself to post this publicly, but I have to say it to someone, and I'm so thankful you guys are here.

BBM brought back all those memories that had been put away for so many years;memories that had begun to fade with time. Then suddenly I could think of nothing else and everything was vivid in my mind again.

My search for Billy has ended.  This afternoon I received confirmation that he passed away several years ago.  I just can't hardly stand it.  There's so much I wanted to say to him.  I feel so utterly alone now.  I've never had to grieve before. 

For several weeks I've had the feeling that he might be gone because my search wouldn't turn up anything, nothing.  Last week I drove 650 miles round trip to his high school in Georgia, just trying to find his picture in an old yearbook.  When I got there I found the yearbooks for those years were missing.

Who would have guessed that the school librarian would be the key.  When I told her Billy's name, she said she thought he might be the grandfather of one of the students at the school. She offered to bring in the student, but I told her I didn't think it would be proper for me to question a student.  She said she would find out and call me.  The call came this morning. 

The child said her grandmother (Billy's wife Ruth) lives in Atlanta, and there was a phone number.  I called Ruth a little while ago.  She was very cordial, remembered me from years ago, and invited me to come visit.  At first I declined, but she insisted, so I go to Atlanta next week.

Meanwhile the tears won't stop.  My wife noticed this afternoon but I just shrugged it off.  She knows nothing of Billy.  How do you explain to your wife that you're going out of town to meet another woman who was the wife of the man you've loved for fifty years? 

And then there's Ruth.  Is she going to see it in my face?  OMG, this is probably a big mistake, but if I don't make the trip, I'll never know what I must know.

Paul Mejack
*****************************10th post********************************
I admire your courage! What a brave thing you will do! May the gods be with you in your pursuit of wholeness. This is far from a mistake. It is a step to recovering Billy for yourself and healing the hiddenness. Thanks for letting us be a part of that journey. Who knows how this experience will be used in your life, but I for one am looking forward to finding out.
Thanks, Alma. 

When I started searching for Billy after 50 years, I just wanted to know if he was alive, if he was happy, if life had treated him well.  Nothing more.  I'll find my answers now.
Paul
**********************************11th post*******************************

My search for Billy has ended.  This afternoon I received confirmation that he passed away several years ago.  I just can't hardly stand it.  There's so much I wanted to say to him.  I feel so utterly alone now.  I've never had to grieve before.

Billy's wife Ruth lives in Atlanta, and there was a phone number.  I called Ruth a little while ago.  She was very cordial, remembered me from years ago, and invited me to come visit.  At first I declined, but she insisted, so I go to Atlanta next week.

How do you explain to your wife that you're going out of town to meet another woman who was the wife of the man you've loved for fifty years?

And then there's Ruth.  Is she going to see it in my face?  OMG, this is probably a big mistake, but if I don't make the trip, I'll never know what I must know.

Finally, I have been able to lay Billy to rest in my heart. 

Last Friday I  flew to Atlanta to visit with Ruth.  We had met before, 48 years earlier.  Our conversation began with family.  He and Ruth had a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren.  We spoke of my family.  Then Billy's death 13 years ago, of pancreatic cancer. He was 58 when he passed away. 

I could feel those damn tears, welling in my eyes.  I had to say something, explain somehow.  "Ruth, I've got to tell you about Billy and me."   "No, Paul" she said, "I already know about you and Billy." She began: 

"The first time we met, you flew from New York to Atlanta, then drove on to Griffin, and you didn't even know Billy's address.  I thought that was odd.  Why would you go to such expense to look for Billy, and just stay one afternoon?

"A year later you called.  Billy had been returned to prison.  I planned to visit him and asked if you would like to go with me.  To my surprise, you did.  Another expensive trip for only a couple of hours with Billy.  We had visited before, but this time there was a tear in Billy's eye.  I knew it wasn't for me.  We sat across the table and talked, but he couldn't keep his eyes off of you.

"Years later, back home, I asked him about you.  He leaned back in his recliner and said you were just a good friend.  But then he got misty-eyed again.  Said it was his allergies.

"When Billy was in hospice, we knew there were only days remaining.  We spoke of many things.  Then I just threw caution to the wind and said 'Billy, do you want me to get in touch with Paul?'  At first he was startled, but he realized that I knew.  He answered, 'No, I wouldn't even know where to find him.'

"A couple of days later I went into the room.  There was an envelope in his hand as he slept.  When he awakened I asked him what it was.  He said, 'If Paul ever comes, would you give him this?'  I told him I would.  Billy died three days later."

Ruth reached in her purse and laid the envelope on the coffee table.  It had been in the safe deposit box until yesterday.  As I picked it up, I could feel Billy's fingertips in mine.  My hand trembled.  And the tears came again.  "Maybe you should take it with you and read it later," she said.

As we were saying our goodbyes, Ruth said "Paul, tell me something.  How often did you and Billy see each other?"  I replied, "The last time I saw Billy was that day when you and I visited him."  Now it was her time for tears.  She said, "But I always thought . . . " her voice trailed away.  We parted as friends.

Back in the hotel room, it was so hard to bring myself to open the letter.  It was my only link, my final contact, with him.  After this, there would be nothing, ever again.  Finally, it's open.  It wasn't a letter at all.  Just a little slip of paper, with a few lines that I will treasure forever . . .

          Paul,
          The sweetest days of my life were spent with you.
          Go find some grassy place again
          And lay you down and close your eyes.
          I'll meet you there.
          Billy

[JoeNorthWest]

Dear Paul...

I look at that photo of you and my spirit just melts...such a young lad...with his whole life a head of him....that beautiful smile...so innocient...full of promise.  Perhpas I am reading ot much into it, but then again maybe not.  You seemed like a happy guy...guess that's why you tood the name "Jack"..it seems to fit the personality I see in the old photograph....

I have nothing to ad to what has already been said...I do encourage you to write a memoir.  Others need to hear it.  I did.

God's continued pece and blessings to you, your family and your beloved Billy....Joe

[Willhoite]

Juliacat (and everyone) I had some thoughts after reading your post and I had a long response all prepared.  I could echo a lot of your sentiments. 

Through all of the analyzing of this movie, I keep coming back to the realization that there are no answers to any of our questions.  We desperately try and find them, but they aren't there. It truly is the journey, not the destination.  It's the questions, not the answers.

I heard Heath Ledger say he hoped people left the movie with more questions than answers.  He got his wish.

When I read Brokeback Mountain in print first, I saw that Annie Proulx brought up a lot of questions for which she did not answer.

And, then when I saw the movie, I saw that Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana and Ang Lee not only brought up some of those unanswered questions with questions unanswered about the question.

Since all 4 of the people I mentioned are self-proclaimed heterosexuals, I do understand that only those of us who have actually gone through what Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist experienced and found our own answers can give answers to many of those questions in our own terms.

I am a man who is exclusively homosexual in his sexual orientation; but, I cannot answer questions very well which are related to those women who are exclusively homosexual in their sexual orientation.

But, I can sometimes give answers to questions about homosexual men who married women for various reasons. While I never got heterosexually married, I was hoping to do that until just a few years before I left the closet.

My late partner/husband had been married for 13 years; but, he married a woman whom he loved as friend. He was not exactly in love with her and his sex life with her was not enjoyable. He told me about how that affected his sex life with men after he left the closet. He got married because where he grew up, it was just expected of a guy to do that when he became an adult.

[Poohbunn]

I'm so touched after reading the last group of posts.  I wish more people would open their hearts and watch the movie.  I had a discussion with someone today who didn't see the movie.  He also thought that gays asking for the right to marry or adopt are asking for special rights, and there wasn't' much I could say to convince him.  Obviously, he hadn't seen the movie.  My opinion of him went right into the toilet with his words.

This movie sure was needed. I just wish we could get people like him to see it too.
-- Pooh

[Basqueboy]

Paul:

I've read again your touching story with Billy and the heartbreaking ending (beginning?) of it. And I've been moved to tears many times and in a way that reminds me of my first days after BBM.

This very afternoon I was telling a friend that I thought I had overcome the post-BBM effect: I didn't cry as often as before, I could cope with other music than BBM's, I even had stopped reading every post in this thread, skipping many of them... And then, there you come... and all the tears along with you, the pain, the sorrow, the grief...

Anyway, thank you for your braveness in telling everything you did: it means a lot of healing for everyone in this forum. I hope you the best, you deserve it.

Basqueboy

[Ironwood]

I too have been deeply effected by Paul and Billy's story...today at the office, I found myself crying more than I had at BBM....I got up, closed my office door and sat wiping tears hoping no-one would knock and that the phone would not ring...I lucked out.

I discovered some time ago, if you go to a posters stat page and click on their screen name on any of their posts.... and scroll to the bottom, there is a link that takes you to a page where you can review all their posts in reverse order.  Mejack has two pages...go to page two, scroll to its bottom and that is the beginning of the story. I've printed it out and would like to read it to my partner but I know I could never get threw it. 

I think Paul has said that he is now at peace with Billy's memory. 

Big hugs for all the sharing guys...what a special bunch of people.

[Sebastian]

more poetry -- seems appropriate with all the connecting going on around here....

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
 
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
 
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
 
~ Marge Piercy ~

[panorama]

I've been away for a few weeks, but just came back to the BBM website. Thought I had quit it, but I guess not!
Just read the whole story from Paul/Mejack. Wow...so many emotions. I'm glad you found Billy and brought his memory to rest. It was very courageous and a very sweet, sad story. I do hope you find your grassy place. Personally, I always believe the people we love stay with us forever...in this life and the next.

[tacitus]

 Paul,
          The sweetest days of my life were spent with you.
          Go find some grassy place again
          And lay you down and close your eyes.
          I'll meet you there.
          Billy

the end of paul's story wrecked me. it reminded me of my brokeback story. nothing as tragic as paul's. but it was an impossible love, separated by vast space and different cultures many years ago. my great love was a swedish man. we were both in our 20s and fell completely in love on midsummer's night when the sun never sets in sweden. believe me, it's something unforgettable to be wrapped in the arms of the man you love with the sun still shining at midnight, casting its light into the gleaming waves dancing on a lake. we spent a passionate summer idyll walking in forests and making love in meadows. it was like a dream. until we had to separate. he had to return to his studies. i had to go on for a year in vienna. the separation was unbearable. i was frantic with doubt and insecurity. too frantic. and our love ended. three days before i saw brokeback mountain for the first time, i was rummaging through my study when i knocked a box from a top shelf of a book case. it fell to the floor and spilled open. there was a cache of letters from per-erik. i opened the top one and found a beautiful letter from him in which he tried to calm my doubts and sustain our love. inside, too, was the rough draft of a letter i sent filled with a passionate declaration, the kind of sentiments i have never been able to utter to another man. ever. i was shocked to read my words because i had forgotten that once i could love with such intensity. the realization sent a knife thrust through my empty heart. i was in agony. three days later, i saw brokeback and have not regained my composure or my equilibrium in the months since. billy's note to paul reminded me of the close of per-erik's letter. he wrote, ' autumn has come finally. the leaves have started turning into the most beautiful colors, the woods look so lovely and warm and welcoming. imagine how beautiful death can be. it is really triumphant, enormous, a promise or a reflection of life in its most brilliant spell. i shall try to take a walk with you here today in the afternoon. i shall show you the slope by the lake which is unbelievable just now. are you coming? let's imagine!' i returned to the states the following year. my heart still in shattered pieces. i remember walking through the woods in new england when the fall colors were at their peak. it was a dreary, damp day i shall never forget. suddenly and piercingly, i realized i would never again find the love i shared with per-erik. i haven't. i think i locked away my heart that day. it still beats. but for me alone. . . but i do have the memory, don't i?   

[Sebastian]

do you get the feeling reading these posts sometimes that all the [heart] locks are being blown off their hinges???

[Brokeback_1]

I think it's time and more then time to write how Brokeback affected me.

Before seeing the film I had become increasingly dead inside, a deadness which just seemed to grow no matter what I did to counteract it. Living in the world's most fascinating city, for the last 3 years i hadn't bothered to cross the river at all, except for Holiday shopping. Say 2-3 times, before and especially after Christmas. That was that. In calender 2005 I made exactly ONE trip to Manhattan.

I hadn't been to the movies for years, was increasingly isolated, increasingly cynical. Injured last summer I was the typical guy with too much time on his hands. And I used that time to rot.

I'd wanted to see BBM from the moment I heard about it. A little voice in my head told me that it was important. Yet i didn't want to go alone...and there was nobody that I wanted to see the film with. Why? I don't really know, it seemed like the sort of movie you should see with someone you cared about, not by yourself and not with people who might laugh.

I did a bizarre thing....told my mother that my doctor had given me 2 tickets and would she care to go? And she was delighted to go. We asked a friend of the family to go as well---so I ended up seeing BBm with two women in their 70's who had known each other, and me all their lives and also sung in the choir together ! LOL. And it turned out to be the very best group for me to watch it with....

From the moment the film started, it grabbed the three of us. By the time it was over, my jaw was open. I didn't know what i'd just seen, but it had clobbered me. I looked around and most of the women were either crying or looking sad, while ALL the men had a shocked and dazed expression on their faces.

After returning home, I found myself increasingly shook up. Increasingly shocked. More stunned with every passing minute. My life had been on that screen. Emotionally, I was both characters and UNDERSTOOD THEIR EVERY CADENCE.

This film shocked the everloving shit out of me in every way possible. To make a long story very short, I found the Forum, started posting, started listening, started living again. This place was the start of it. The responses You all gave me made me feel like I belonged in here. And I do.
 
To date i have seen BBM 15 times. Each time I learn something new about the film and about ME. Each time, I understand something else which is important, and each time I grow a bit more. Fifteen times is a LOT of times for any movie---I have never done anything like this before, ever...yet it feels natural.

So, what has changed? What has been done? What am I doing to make my life something worth living?

The second time I saw BBM, I made a decision to get in contact with the guy who had been my one and only. I felt that the worse which could happen was that nothing came of it and at least i would KNOW. Did I want a sexual relationship? No, can't say that I did. What I needed was the emotional closeness with this specific person. So I took the risk and  was called back within 15 minutes, when I had figured that it might take a week....or might never happen. We hadn't set eyes on each other for 4 years. This relationship was so important; I had never had another guy, never had sex with anyone else afterwards, never even wanted to. Was it obsessive? No. My feeling was that nothing else would ever come close to that love and i wasn't going to settle for a glass of vinegar after  wine. This was a male-once-in-a-lifetime sort of love.

The risk was worth it, the feeling was mutual; we met last Monday the 27th and the bond came out full blown on both sides. We are both older and wiser.

 Sex? No. He's married now. {And when you read below you will see that I'm doing something with that myself. All because of BBM.} I can live with no sex between us and so can he. We both have too much self-respect to destroy something else which is good when there is no need to do so. No desire to do so. It's fine this way. What we both needed and need is to know that the love is there. That the love is real. That no matter what, our love is here to stay.Sure, the physical intimacy was spectacular...but the love is more important. part of me can allready hear the PC crew having fits about that and know what? Go ahead. Our life, not yours.

The second thing I did, one week after seeing BBM--actually, these decisions were arrived at simultaneously in my head-- was to have a sitdown with the woman I should have married years ago. Untold years ago. We had been after each other since we were 19 years old. That's THIRTY YEARS. Through thick and thin we had loved each other. The only bad patches were caused by 'secrets'; when we kept secrets, it did NOT go well--she's aware that I'm bi, and also aware that I'm not a cheater...she has no worries on that score. We had cared for each other all through her marriage to a genuine shithead, and all through the years when I was hammered every night. I had fallen in love with her one afternoon when she burst into tears in the cafeteria, and never allowed anything to grow out of FEAR. I was afraid I wouldn't measure up. Later, her bank account kept putting me off: I was too, well, poor to damage my pride by being with someone so wealthy. I didn't want nameless people whispering that I'd married her for her  trust fund....So 30 years went by, years which might have been and never were.

I saw BBM on Feb 8; she flew in on Feb 17; on Feb 19, at my brother's surprise birthday party a good friend of mine---a man , by the way, who was a ground zero rescue worker for 6 months and never recovered from it---got drunk and spent half the evening telling her and me that he had been hearing her name for 15 years and we should cut the crap and tie the knot. By the end of the night I told my sister in law that I had to get him the hell home before he proposed FOR me. Every woman who heard that squealed " YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED???" and I said yeah, that I was moving west and we would get married this summer. And that she didn't know yet so be quiet. In the car, we got my friend into the back seat, i turned to her and said "Look, are we gonna do this or not??" <don't worry, i will formalise this very romantically in June!>

So we are doing it. This summer. I'm leaving NY and moving to the Rockies. A compromise on both our parts. I do not give a damned about her money and she doesn't give a damned about my lack of it. Neither does her family. Or mine.

For her part, last night she said she's writing a Thank You letter to Ang Lee LOL, because she knows BBM is what made me finally move my arse!

So you have three people who were made ecstatically happy by the results of what Ang Lee and Annie Proulx' s " works of art" set in motion on my personal level.

Those are the three biggies...my 2 relationships and the move....but what else?

I started writing again. Some is good, some isn't good. But one thing I wrote got me emailed praise from some people at a major newspaper who saw it...so I guess that when i put my mind to it, I'm good at it and will get better with practice.

I rode a horse again...you have no idea how much I love that and how I denied myself that unique pleasure for dumb reasons...When i get out of NY I may very well spend half my life in a saddle. lol

I'm reading new books---my collection hadn't been added to for years. I read every day again.

I'm using the internet for something else besides dirty pictures rofl. I spend hours a day in the Forum. I'm involved with a project on here, a really exciting one!

I haven't felt this good, this clean and directed, in many years...so a big thank you to BBM and everyone in Dave's Forum. My life will never be the same...Nice, isn't it?

AND THE PEOPLE AROUND ME ASK ME WHAT HAPPENED, WHY AM I ALIVE AGAIN. That's almost best of all.

[gblady]

brokeback_1
    ........grinning from ear to ear during...... and now still, after reading your story.....
Thank you so much for sharing.....truly inspiring!
Cheryl

[cwbyx2]

OK
I said that I wasn't gonna do this but there's really no choice. I have been a lurker for quite some time now and I have to say that I'm grateful that you guys are there because for a while before I stumbled on this group, I really thought i was nuts.
I'm a 39 y/o gay man who was intrigued by the idea of this story but frankly didn't hold much hope that it would be very good. My partner of 10 yrs and I are city boys and met through the gay rodeo association (IGRA) and enjoy the people we have met through that organization over the years. This background leads me into the cowboy fantasy part of the story which is kinda what I expected from this movie.
   Boy was I wrong.
We saw it the first weekend it opened in the Detroit area and I was pretty well floored. I was actually numb for a day after the impact of what I saw really hit me and I remember kinda breaking down on the way home from work the next day. Still when I replay scenes in my mind the hair on my arm stands up like the tail on a startled cat.
   Course I had to get a hold of the book / screenplay and am just sorry that I hadn't had the opportunity to read it when it first came out (so to speak.)
   I don't obsess about movies nor do I swoon over movie actors but this story really hit some kind of nerve with me. I had to see it a second time in the theater (which i never do!) and got the same reaction I did after the first time.
   I had planned to see it again when I received a bootlegged awards promo copy from a friend in the UK in early February.
   Look out you guys. I can't remember who posted "Ang Lee can come clean my fuckin house" but that's where we're at about now. Not to worry, BTW, as soon as an official copy is available, I'll be first in line at the checkout!
   What is almost as amazing is the fact that all of you are as floored by this film and story. It is fascinating to me to read your posts and exchanges and realize that you are all as obsessed as I am. I love the fact that there are disagreements but I see no lingering resentments as everyone seems to realize that we are all affected and the why or how seems less important. Part of the power for me is the ambiguity in the story and the way we all project our wishes, hopes and fears on these two fictititous men that have become more real than some of the people in our own lives.
   Again, thanks to all of the women and men here for sharing your thoughts with those of us less glib and though I do not plan to post (unless there is a discussion I simply can't resist!) rest assured that I will be riveted to your thoughts on these discussion boards.
   Thanks again, half of cwbyx2!

[Viking]

I thought you all might like to see how young we were. This was at Apalachee Correctional in 1955 when I was nineteen, wearing the standard blue denims and white tees. Billy and I had been together for nearly a year.

Mejack / Paul -- 1955

          Paul,
          The sweetest days of my life were spent with you.
          Go find some grassy place again
          And lay you down and close your eyes.
          I'll meet you there.
          Billy

What a beautiful happy boy you are in this picture.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Paul. In our hearts you and Billy will always be together. 

[Brokeback_1]

no--thank YOU cobyx2!!!