The Vintage Joshifer Series: End of Love—Chapter 19
End of Love by hutchhitched
A kazillion years ago, I started posting this story. I never intended for it to drag on this long in between updates, but life happens and so does writer’s block. I know there’s little readership in the Joshifer fandom anymore, but I needed to finish it. If you’re still around to read it, thank you. If you want to dive in, I’d appreciate it. You definitely don’t have to be a Joshifer fan to read it since Josh and Jen’s characters are historical actors and not versions of their modern selves.
Historical events in this chapter include the following:
Richard Nixon won the presidential election of 1968. He triumphed over Vice President Humphrey and third party candidate George Wallace, who famously defended segregation at the University of Alabama earlier in the decade. Nixon won by appealing to the Silent Majority, those who believed the radicalism of the 1960s had gone too far. During his presidency he worked to build a national Republican Party after it all but disappeared during the Great Depression during the 1930s. Nixon called this the Southern Strategy (downplaying civil rights by rejecting the GOP’s original stance of the anti-slavery party in 1860, when Lincoln won the election).
After winning the election, Nixon did stop further troop deployments to Vietnam and reduced the numbers already there. Instead, he instituted a bombing campaign of the Vietnam and neighboring Laos and Cambodia. This was called Vietnamization.
Chicago, Illinois, November 1968
“Hutch, what’s good?”
“Andre, my man. It’s been too long.” Josh clapped his friend on the back and welcomed him into headquarters. Volunteers buzzed around them, and Josh reminded himself that spending time with a good friend in from out of town for a day was just as important as working to support the Democratic candidate for president—even though Josh was almost positive his party was going to lose the election.
Nothing had been the same since Bobby died. The Kennedy magic was gone. Instead of the former Attorney General being the nominee, the current VP who was tainted by LBJ’s Americanization strategy in Vietnam would likely lose to Nixon. If that happened, and it almost certainly would, he knew the positive changes in civil rights and economic equality would disappear with when the GOP took power. It was beyond comprehension, but election day loomed in two days. Two days until the world fell apart.
“Let’s grab lunch,” Andre suggested. When Josh hesitated, he offered, “My treat.”
Reluctantly, Josh agreed, and they headed down the street to a local diner he and his friends had frequented during the campaign season. He settled into the booth and stared across the table at his friend. It had been too long. Since that night with the two girls. Before he admitted how much he cared about Jennifer. When he hadn’t sold out.
“Fucking Nixon,” his friend swore, and Josh grinned. Leave it to Andre to put everything in the bluntest format possible.
“What the fuck is ‘the silent majority’ anyway?” Josh asked with a roll of his eyes. “Too fucking scared to speak up for what’s right? Racist a majority of the time?”
Josh was sick to death of Nixon’s campaign strategy—catering to what he termed the “Silent Majority,” a group the Republican candidate insisted comprised the bulk of American society and were sick of the protests in the country. Nixon argued conservatives who were okay with the status quo were the majority in the nation and only radicals demanded change from the government in treatment of women and minorities. It wasn’t true, but a lot of people bought it. Josh just assumed that meant most people were god damned stupid.
No matter how hard he and other activists worked to right wrongs and get real democracy to win out against conservative assholes, they were met with GOP rhetoric that villainized the very people he’d marched with, who’d sat next to him in jail, who burned their draft cards along with him in unheard protests against American presence in Vietnam.
Of course, the New Left had grown more radical, pushed for more change and faster, dropped out, doped up, and raged against Johnson’s administration. The problem was he and the other activists had worked and fought and hoped for real change, and the administration and rest of the nation was dragging its collective feet. Josh’s question was why hadn’t more people sought to right the wrongs he and so many of this friends saw as glaring inequalities that only weakened the state of the nation rather than strengthening it. It was time. It was past time, and he was getting really antsy.
“So, how have you been? Really?” Andre asked. “The last time I saw you, you were hightailing it out of bed with two women in New Haven and coming here to get your girl. Seems like different priorities.”
Josh shook his head and tried to work his mind around his friend’s words. He’d been feeling unsettled for a long while, but the conflict between him and Jennifer had been growing since the protests in August and her trip to Atlantic City to cover the pageant. He’d considered leaving while she was gone, but he couldn’t quite make himself slink away like a coward. He still had work to do in Chicago, and he loved his…whatever she was to him. They’d been living together for months, but he hated labels. She hadn’t pushed, and he’d been grateful for her willingness to let it go.
But this election would change everything. He knew it, and he also knew he was biding his time.
“I don’t know, man. It’s such a bad scene right now. Since Bobby and King and ’Nam and everything, this country’s a bomb.”
“But you’re a good cat, Josh. You’re making things better.”
Josh laughed and smiled ruefully. “Am I? It seems to me I’m getting laid a lot by a doll who works for the man instead of the people.”
“Do you love her?”
“I…” Josh paused and swallowed hard. He did. That wasn’t in question but admitting it was another thing completely. “She’s fab. She is.”
“But?”
“I should be doing more,” he admitted. “I don’t know what, but I keep feeling like I should bug out and work somewhere else. Or dropout all together. Go live with the beautiful people and leave everything behind. Get high and blitzed and commune with nature.”
Andre took a bite of his burger and shrugged. “Sounds like heaven to me, man, but I don’t think you’d be happy that way. You’re going steady, right?”
“I’m not sure—”
“Hutch. Man. You’ve been shacked up with her for months. You’re not sleeping with anyone else. Tune in. You’re together, and you’ve been head over heels for her since college. Wake up,” Andre said, exasperated.
Josh sat silently for several minutes as he processed the information. No one had forced him to face what was happening until now, and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. Jen left him the night of his graduation. Maybe he’d never really forgiven her for that. Perhaps that’s why escaping was always in the back of his mind, to punish her for hurting him so much. Or, it was also possible that he really wasn’t comfortable in such a position. He’d always been restless, always been someone who pushed the boundaries, and falling in love with Jennifer, who came from privilege and affluence, didn’t seem like it fit. None of this was fair to her, but that didn’t change how he felt.
“Maybe I am,” he admitted, “but I’m not sure it’s enough.”
“Then be up front with her once you figure it out. You both deserve that.”
“After the election,” Josh breathed. “After Tuesday.”
“By then we’ll know if the world’s ending or not.”
“Right on.”
****
The world ended. Josh sat on the couch in Jen’s apartment as the sun set and the room darkened around him. He’d chosen to watch by himself, unsure how he’d feel when Nixon and Spiro Agnew were declared winners and all the gains over the past eight years would be overturned in a matter of time. Jen was at work, covering local reaction to the election results, and he’d intentionally not watched with his activist friends. Hippies were either remarkably anti-political or flying high, and he needed to be lucid and engaged for this.
Election results rolled in one after another, and none of it was good for the Democrats. Texas went blue, but the West went red. Big time. George Wallace stole the South for the Dixiecrats, who couldn’t reconcile themselves to JFK or LBJ’s Democratic party of Civil Rights but weren’t on board with the GOP either. A hundred years prior, Republicans were the party of Lincoln and “freed” the slaves.
“People are fucking stupid,” Josh spat into the emptiness. “Racist fucks. God bless Texas for sticking it out.”
One by one the states reported, and his hope for the future of his country sunk lower with each call for Nixon. At least there was hope for a pullout in Vietnam. That was big, but would that be enough to make up for what would happen domestically? If Johnson had been able to focus on his Great Society instead of getting caught up in Southeast Asia, things could have been so different.
“Fuck the Cold War. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
When Nixon got 270 votes, Josh lit up a joint and took a long, hard drag. He stared at the TV, the electoral map, the celebration in California at Nixon’s headquarters, the concession speech by Humphrey. His muscles relaxed, his mind wandered, and he turned off the part of him that cared. He started drinking next, and he was blitzed by the time Jen returned. She looked at him, her face a mask of concern mixed with a hint of fear, and he knew she dreaded what he already knew he’d have to do soon. He couldn’t stay. He just couldn’t. He already couldn’t breathe, and the election wasn’t even official yet.
Jennifer curled up on his lap, and he let her undress him. He couldn’t move. His limbs weighed a million pounds apiece, and he couldn’t feel anything except despair. She kissed him, and he responded, but he didn’t feel anything.
“Josh?”
He heard his name, but she was a million miles away from him. Her voice was barely audible, and her face swam in his vision. He wanted to leave, to getaway, to run. He must have vocalized his desperation because Jen raised her hand so he could see her palm. Four sugar cubes lay there, and he breathed a prayer of thanks as he put one on his tongue.
Josh had tripped before, but none of the other acid he’d taken had given him quite the same effect. The apartment bent and sparkled as the drug spread through his system. Jen’s eyes shone beams of sunlight, and he swore rainbows spilled out of her mouth and ears. He tried to swallow them, his mouth against hers, his fingers wrapped in liquid gold that flowed from her temples and past her shoulders. He was warm and flying and soaring above the earth, and he felt nothing except his skin against hers.
Every nerve ending was on fire, and her fingers against his chest created bright purple sparks that exploded into golden stars. She straddled him and rocked against him, and he idly wondered why. His lap was warm and damp. His mouth swallowed the diamonds on her chest, hard and cutting against his tongue. Jen’s head fell back, and he realized the diamonds were tits. He bit down hard on her nipple, and she screamed. It sounded like a folk song, a call for peace and justice.
She grew louder, and he sang with her. Her name fell from his lips, a litany of what was right with the world and everything that was dreadfully wrong. He needed her, and he had to escape. Tears streamed down his face and they glistened from her eyelashes. He palmed her ass and counted the contractions as she milked his cock. They were fucking, he realized. It felt like he was flying, but instead, he was shoving her onto the floor, bending her in half, and rutting against her.
The floor underneath him shook and exploded into fiery heat. A vice gripped his cock. A melody of praise. Flashing lights. Unicorns flew by his head. His dad walked toward him, out of his wheelchair. His grandfather waved hi, even though he’d died several years ago. Josh wondered if he was going crazy, but he didn’t really care.
Josh sat up, and Jen lay in a heap on the floor. His right hand jacked his dick mindlessly. It was wet and sticky, just like the puddle beneath his girlfriend. That’s what she was, he admitted. It was easier in his altered state, easier to accept the truth that they were together. She was radiant, skin glowing, as she watched his hand get faster and faster.
When she spoke, it was in a foreign language. Urdu, maybe, or ancient Greek. Whatever it was made complete sense to him.
“Jerk it, baby.”
She reached over and took his cock from him, and he realized he was the one talking, not her.
“I don’t know Urdu,” he slurred.
“I do,” she said before swallowing him.
Her cheeks hallowed out, and he fucked her mouth hard. He was crying, and she joined him as he thrust down her throat.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, although he was still inside her. He should have asked if he was hurting her because he hadn’t stopped. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to go.
He had to. He had to. He had to. He had to.
His body split in two. Part of him drifted up to the ceiling and danced there on happy feet. The other sank into the floor in a puddle of melted wax. Streaks of cream-colored icing decorated Jen’s face, and he leaned over to lick her cheek clean. It wasn’t sweet enough. Needed more sugar.
They had two more cubes. One on his tongue. One on hers. They stumbled to the bedroom. He flew around the room, his wings flapping, circling and swooping and riding the currents. He landed on the bed. The lights went out. She was on top. She was on his face. He was in her mouth. Waterfalls. Waves. Giggles and jokes and mapping body parts with tongues and fingers and marking each other with bands of dried moisture.
Hours and minutes and seconds and days and decades and centuries passed. No time passed at all, and then a curtain pulled behind his eyes, and he slept.
****
The next morning dawned with a throbbing headache, aching limbs, and a broken heart. He opened his eyes, and he instantly regretted losing control so badly the night before. Their bed was destroyed. The sheets were filthy, striped with evidence of multiple orgasms. The room stunk like sex and piss. His mouth tasted as if something had died inside, and he wanted to murder someone when he saw Jen curled into herself.
Josh hadn’t been in control of himself last night, and he was scared to death he’d hurt her. She didn’t warrant that. She deserved better than him. She should be lavished with only the best. He’d always been less than he wanted for her.
He vowed to do better.
****
On Inauguration Day, he wasn’t doing better. January 20 came and went, and Josh had spiraled into a mess. High every day, he’d fallen into a cycle of depression and spent more days on his friend’s couches than doing anything even remotely productive. He was twenty-five and hated what he’d become. He had a brief moment of clarity on New Year’s Eve when he was convinced 1969 would be a good year, but then Nixon took office.
The new president catered to racist southerners and turned a blind eye to FBI stings targeting the Black Panthers. Riots broke out, more men came home in body bags, and women raged. Jen stayed busy at work, while he tuned out. He avoided his family and Jackson’s. He barely talked to Jen. He was a mess, and he knew it.
A few weeks after the inauguration, Nixon announced a reduction of American troops in Vietnam, and his younger brother called him from Stanford where he was enrolled in his first year of grad school.
“The son of a bitch did it,” his brother said when Josh answered the phone.
Josh blinked rapidly and attempted to ground himself. He was high, as usual, and he found he needed to concentrate inordinately hard to understand what the words his brother spoke meant.
“Did what?” he garbled and slid down the wall to sit on the kitchen floor.
“Nixon. He’s pulling us out of ’Nam. We’re safe.”
“Safe?” he asked. “Safe from what?”
“What’s wrong with you, man? Are you tripping?”
“Not today,” Josh sighed and grinned dopily at the wall. “Maybe tomorrow. Definitely was yesterday.”
Connor grunted in frustration and snarled into the phone, “Have you been paying attention to what’s happening? We’re not going to Vietnam. No more new troops. A pullback of boots on the ground. They’re calling it Vietnamization.”
“Yay, America…” Josh drawled and waved his finger in the air in celebration.
“Come to Cali, man. I’ll help you get straight.”
“Why bother?” Josh asked. “It’s all going to hell anyway.”
“Just come,” his brother insisted. “I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you’re not the big brother I know. You wanted to save the world, not wallow.”
“We lost. As soon as Bobby died, it was over.”
“If you’re not here in four days, I’m coming to get you,” Connor threatened. “Mom and Dad don’t need to know about this, but I’ll tell them if I have to.”
“Don’t tell them,” Josh entreated. “Dad can’t take the stress. I’ll be there.”
“Four days.”
Josh replaced the receiver and looked around the apartment. There were so many good things about his relationship with Jennifer. He’d loved her for a very long time, but he wasn’t where he needed to be—physically or mentally. He wasn’t an undergrad anymore, and he wasn’t doing anything to help the world. He was dragging her down, and the last thing he wanted to do was make life worse for her. Whether or not he liked it, Nixon was the president for the foreseeable future. Josh needed a change of scenery, and his kid brother was a genius. If anyone could help him get back on track, it was Connor.
With a breaking heart, he entered the bedroom, grabbed a rucksack and started packing. He shoved his clothes into the bag but was careful to leave some of his things that Jen loved to wear when they were alone in their apartment. He grabbed a few books—his dog-eared copies of The Catcher in the Rye, Howl, and On the Road—and his toothbrush. He shuffled through a stack of papers and found his draft card, which he shoved in his front pocket. Once he got to Palo Alto, he and Connor could burn them together in celebration. When he had everything he needed, he grabbed a pencil and a notepad and wrote Jen a note.
Dear Jen,
I know you’ve been expecting this for a while, but I didn’t mean to leave while you were at work. I know I have to, though, or I won’t be able to walk away. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you at Berkeley, but I was too stubborn and terrified to admit it. You’ve always had the same fire as me, even if it’s been directed somewhere else than mine. I’ve lost myself. I’ve got to find the spark again. You deserve that. You’ve always been better than me. You shouldn’t settle for someone broken. Right now, I am. When I’m fixed, I’ll let you know. I love you. Don’t ever doubt that. You’ve been the best part of me for a very long time. I’m so sorry.
Always, Josh
He was crying by the time he finished writing. He’d put this off for so long because he wasn’t strong enough to leave, but Connor’s phone call had woken something in him he hadn’t been able to find for ages. He’d call her in a few months—once he had himself together again. He wouldn’t leave her without any word, the way she had with him. He wondered for a second if he was punishing her because of what she’d done, but leaving her was much more of a penalty for him than it was for her.
He swiped at the note he wrote her, and the tear that had fallen smeared his name. He was already fading in this place. All that was left was to walk out the door.
Just as he turned to go, he noticed a picture of her peeking out from the corner of her desk. Her long hair was down and falling over her shoulders in blonde waves. She wore a white, high-collared lace dress that made her look like an angel. He tucked the image in his wallet and grabbed his bag before slipping through the door and locking it.
He was to the bus station within ten minutes and halfway across the state before she found the note. He was almost to California before she stopped crying.