Topic: Ennis's first lie about Jack to Alma.

[chowhound]

It's a small point, but I've always been curious about why Ennis felt it necessary to lie to Alma when she first asks him about Jack.

Alma is the first person to read Jack's postcard about coming through on the 24th as Ennis is out at work. When he returns, Alma naturally asks who this Jack is and whether he's somebody Ennis has "cowboy'ed" with in the past. To this Ennis replies:

                   Jack rodeos, mostly
                        (pause)
                    We was fishing buddies...

Why doesn't Ennis tell Alma the truth - that he and Jack were herding sheep together some years ago before he and Alma got married? Is it because he wants to seal off that summer from any further questions from Alma thus making it a very special time for just the two of them? Or is Ennis thinking very quickly and already creating a plausible alibi for why the two of them might go off on these trips together? Or is it something entirely different?

[jackster]

Hey CH do hope your doin' well - 

I think this has been brought up before, but I sure couldn't say where or when so what the heck . . .

I've always thought Ennis did a remarkably fast think here, coming up with the "fishin' buddies" line. Where'd that come from? Maybe he had other real fishin' buddies, so this was just a plausible add-on to an existing line of friends and buddy events. But we never see anybody actually fishin' (either in '63 or later), so it does seem to be a remarkable bit of creativity on Ennis' part.

But more to your point, why the story to begin with? I'd tend to agree with most of your hypothesis, that Ennis didn't want to go down the slippery slope of the summer of '63 "up on Brokeback" with Alma. There was so much to say about it, and he obviously hadn't said a word to her about it in four years (that says quite a bit about their relationship right there to me anyway).

Moving to the SS for a moment, after Alma spies their passionate embrace "pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other's toes" and Annie conveys his conundrum - "What could he say?" - What indeed, (Ennis was never good with words). So much had happened that summer that had transformed at least a part (even if a hidden part) of Ennis's soul, it would seem that maybe he found it impossible to summarize who Jack was in that instant (or anytime later). Maybe he'd never really figured it out for himself, who, or what, was Jack Twist to Ennis? So how could he describe him now without getting all twisted around in other lies and missteps? So as he'd been taught with his brother K.E. "Don't say nothin' and get it over with quick".

So, as we see, not only does he quickly make up this line, but he then quickly exits the room. End of conversation, huh?

Another small point, but one that I feel is important, "first lie" - it seems we rarely, if ever, see Ennis actually lie. The "fishin' buddy" may only be a small part of the truth, but it is plausible that they actually were fishin' buddies, havin' fished up on the mountain - if only once to improve the "food situation". I think Ennis felt a strong connection with the 'cowboy code', of which one element is to never lie. Were there actual untruths that he told Alma? Partial truths no doubt.

[kitty]

Well, in a way, they were fishing...for trouser trouts

[rimasworld]

You know it's funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. I wondered why Ennis couldn't tell Alma that Jack was a guy he worked with the summer before they married and that he & Jack became buddies. What would have been so strange about that? Maybe Ennis just really didn't want to talk about Jack to Alma, kind of just keep him to his self and not share that part of him with her. Obviously they didn't talk much about their lives or you'd think Alma would have questioned Ennis about his job that summer. I guess Ennis didn't talk much to anybody except Jack (like when he admitted to Jack "that's more words than I've spoke in a year." Kind of tells it all.

[Tikhon]

I'm new to ennisjack.com so please forgive me if this has been discussed already elsewhere.  I wonder why it took Alma so long to confront Ennis about the "fishing buddy" story?  Why did she wait until after the divorce, when she had remarried, and on Thanksgiving Day to call Ennis on his lie?

[jackster]

Welcome Tikhon, hope you enjoy your stay here.

Good question, all I can offer is my view a reason - My guess is Alma didn't feel any more comfortable discussing the entire issue than Ennis did. Of course this is the nut of the whole story in a way, peoples feelings and emotions concerning homosexuality. Given the time and the place it sure wasn't anything "decent" people discussed and I'd guess that even extended to married couples, especially when one of them was Ennis. She knew enough about him by that point (even in '67 when she saw him kissin' Jack) to know how he could react when his masculinity was questioned, look whut happened on Thanksgiving even after they were long divorced and she had remarried. He very nearly punched her out at that late date.

One might ask the question why did she question him about it even then? Curiosity? Some have conjectured that it was Ennis's "twice burned" remark that PO'd Alma and pushed her to throw the "fishin' buddies" lie back at him. Just so he knew that she knew. Otherwise there wasn't a whole to be gained by her remark, can't imagine she expected Ennis to say, "Oh yeah, Jack an' me are real special to each other . . . "
 

[chowhound]

Welcome Tikhon, hope you enjoy your stay here.

Good question, all I can offer is my view a reason - My guess is Alma didn't feel any more comfortable discussing the entire issue than Ennis did. Of course this is the nut of the whole story in a way, peoples feelings and emotions concerning homosexuality. Given the time and the place it sure wasn't anything "decent" people discussed and I'd guess that even extended to married couples, especially when one of them was Ennis. She knew enough about him by that point (even in '67 when she saw him kissin' Jack) to know how he could react when his masculinity was questioned, look whut happened on Thanksgiving even after they were long divorced and she had remarried. He very nearly punched her out at that late date.

One might ask the question why did she question him about it even then? Curiosity? Some have conjectured that it was Ennis's "twice burned" remark that PO'd Alma and pushed her to throw the "fishin' buddies" lie back at him. Just so he knew that she knew. Otherwise there wasn't a whole to be gained by her remark, can't imagine she expected Ennis to say, "Oh yeah, Jack an' me are real special to each other . . . "
 

Hi Tiknon,

Let me join Jackster in welcoming you to the board.

As well, in addition to Jackster's excellent observations, let me add one or two of my own.

It is true she observed the passionate kissing of her husband and Jack but given her youth and background, it looks as though she had problems with fully understanding it though she must have had suspicions of what it meant. To prove or disprove those festering suspicions is the reason I think she went through with the fairly elaborate subterfuge of tying that note to his fishing line. It was the fact that the fishing line had never been used even though Ennis, on his return, had claimed that they had caught "a bunch of browns"  that finally confirmed her suspicions about her husband.

It's impossible to tell when the note was concealed in the tackle box but I like to think it's the scene where Ennis is leaving to join Jack and almost forgets to take the box with him. Alma notices this and very pointedly tells him not to forget his tackle box. If I'm right, then this scene takes place in 1972. The certain knowledge that she now has of her husband's extra marital affair may well have turned her thoughts towards divorce. This takes place three years later in 1975 and, by the look of it, she is married to Monroe not long after that.

However, if Alma is contemplating divorce during this period, I don't think she would want to go through with it unless she had something else lined up to provide her and the children with the necessary support as she would no longer have Ennis's income and even if she got some child support would nevertheless be a single mother with  two growing children to look after. Fortunately, Monroe provided an answer to all these problems.

None of this, of course, explains why she brings up Ennis's affair with Jack  once she is remarried, comfortably settled in a new house and indeed pregnant with her third child. All I can suggest is that it's a combination of things. She may still have feelings for Ennis  and so still be hurt by his affair with "Jack Nasty". She may be irked by the two children's admiration of their father at the dinner, Alma Jr. in particular. And, as Jackster has pointed out, now she is safely remarried she may just want to let him know that she was on to his  secret a long while ago.  

[IVY]

Sounds great!I agree with you.

[yuddy]

                   Jack rodeos, mostly
                        (pause)
                    We was fishing buddies...

Why doesn't Ennis tell Alma the truth - that he and Jack were herding sheep together some years ago before he and Alma got married? Is it because he wants to seal off that summer from any further questions from Alma thus making it a very special time for just the two of them? Or is Ennis thinking very quickly and already creating a plausible alibi for why the two of them might go off on these trips together? Or is it something entirely different?

I think it was meant to create an alibi for future get-together with Jack but, I don't believe it was a quick thinking on his part. In fact, I'd like to think that Ennis had already by then thought about if Jack ever came back to his life, how he was going to "never let him out of his sight" ever again. As we can tell from SS, Ennis was thinking about Jack a lot over those 4 years (well, at least a hundred times in 4 years, just do the math, that's 25 times a year and at least once every two weeks). To me, this also explains why he could come up with the "once-in-a-while-way-out-of-nowhere" counter offer right after Jack's "sweet life" proposal. Poor Jack, he had no chance convincing Ennis otherwise because Ennis had it all figure out in his head, and he is someone who will follow through his plan.

[stephan]

Alma is the first person to read Jack's postcard about coming through on the 24th as Ennis is out at work. When he returns, Alma naturally asks who this Jack is and whether he's somebody Ennis has "cowboy'ed" with in the past. To this Ennis replies:

                   Jack rodeos, mostly
                        (pause)
                    We was fishing buddies...

Why doesn't Ennis tell Alma the truth - that he and Jack were herding sheep together some years ago before he and Alma got married?

Good question, chowhound.
At the time the postcard arrives, I don't think Ennis is quickly imagining how he and Jack are going to be seeing each other on and off. It didn't surprise me either that Ennis lied about Jack. At this point, not only the love affair with Jack, but everything - the friendship, the sheep, the mountain itself - was his and Jack's secret. I think he just wanted to keep all that for himself. Ennis didn't just hide it from Alma, he hid it from the whole world.