Major Conflict (16 page)

But would it ever be? Would it ever be possible? I liked Paul even more now that I was getting to know him better. He was a very good-looking man, beautiful, in fact, one of those people you wonder about, about how someone that beautiful gets to move through the world. But he was also smart and funny and modest and easy to talk to, and it just felt so damn good to be around him. On one level I was absolutely certain that what had just happened was a kind of date, that I'd just walked away from a four-hour flirtation. On another level, that notion certainly collapsed in light of the tremendous risk and all my other doubts. And it was this dilemma that nearly drove me crazy with Paul.

Driving home to my apartment in Cleeberg, I tried to imagine a perfect world where I could express myself however I liked without fear of losing my job and destroying my professional reputation and being humiliated in the process. A world in which I could say, “Paul, I like you. I'm attracted to you,” and he'd be able to say, “Thanks, I like you too, Jeff,” or “Thanks, Jeff, I'm flattered, but I see you more as a good friend,” the world in which my straight peers lived. Later on, I would realize that that world did, in fact, exist, with some limitations. It was the civilian gay world in which Greg lived, the world that I was unable to find credible for a very long time. If either one of us could have spoken the truth that night in Kyalami's like Greg had spoken to me on that first night we went out drinking way back in 1985—the ease with which he came forward and said so simply and so forthrightly,
I like you so much, Je f. I'm really attracted to you
—it would have made things so easy, so simple, we would've avoided so much unnecessary pain. But Paul and I had given up that freedom; we'd given up access to the burgeoning gay civilian world to be soldiers and now found ourselves trapped in a kind of lunacy in which all desire had to fit neatly into a prescribed formula, a formula that excluded us lock, stock, and barrel.

And why couldn't I find the gay civilian world that Greg inhabited credible? To put it simply, I'd been taught that it could never be credible, that it was deviant (yes,
deviant
was the word that still ran through my head at that time), that it stood in direct opposition to and was mutually exclusive of the set of values I'd inherited from my aging, old-world grandparents, and from the aging and increasingly out-of-touch and sexually conflicted Catholic Church. In addition, I could never be a “real man” and give in to these impulses. It was all pretty typical stuff, though stuff with tremendous power, stuff that, once ingrained, is still, even in this relatively liberal age, very hard to undo.

Because of all this I was blind to the increasing visibility of the civilian gay culture, and as a result I failed to find gay role models or any kind of guidelines that could have helped me along. It might as well have been 1950 (and in the military it often
felt
like 1950) as far as gay culture was concerned. The gay movement could have screamed at me through a dozen megaphones, and I still would've been deaf to the idea of freedom they were offering.

Still, despite my stubborn belief that the military and the church had it right on the issue of homosexuality, I could not deny the positive feelings that Paul brought up in me—I couldn't deny the positive nature of love itself.

Over the next week I tried to keep my mind off Paul by throwing myself back into work as the preparations for our unit's departure became a little more hectic. The workload was increasing daily, and the vehicle departure date was fast approaching. Our equipment would be shipped down to the theater in the Gulf, and we would link up with it at a later date. The holidays made the whole thing seem only more dramatic. The closer we got to Christmas, the harder it seemed to become for the families with whom I'd occasionally have dinner. Many of the wives were already emotionally brittle, and now they had the added pressure of dealing with all the trappings of the holiday and putting on the good face of Christmas cheer. I often felt awkward because it seemed obvious to me that the wives would have preferred spending every available second with their husbands alone, rather than entertaining bachelor lieutenants like myself. But they knew that officers like me had no real family in Germany, so they opened their homes and hearts to us all the same.

About a week after my night with Paul I got back to my apartment and found a plate of food from my landlady, Marlies, on my doorstep. She was a sweet lady who often left cookies and other things for me whenever she could. Like the wives who had me over for dinner, Marlies apparently felt some sort of obligation to take care of me, and I appreciated it mightily. As I started to take off my boots I listened to the one message I had on my answering machine. It was from Paul.

“Hey, bud,” he started in that light, bouncy voice he always used, as if nothing could upset him, “I was hoping to talk with you before I left, but since you're not around I'll have to leave a message and maybe try again a little later, too.” He paused, cleared his throat. “We're leaving tonight from Rhein-Main, and it looks like it's going to be a nightmare. The plane schedule is all fucked up again; it's like the Keystone Kops are running the base, I swear, but that doesn't matter. I wanted you to know that—ever since I met you—I just knew we would—ahhhh—that we would always be friends. We're going to war now, and I don't want to—get too mushy, but I—just wanted you to know that I would miss you and all—so—stay safe, bud, stay safe, Jeff, and maybe, hopefully, we'll see each other over there. If not, we'll definitely have to get together when it's all over. Okay then, so—bye for now.”

I lay there on the bed, one boot on, one boot off, playing the message over again, three or four times, staring at the ceiling. Yes, I thought, we were going off to war, and yes, the only thing we were sure of was that we'd do our duty as we'd been trained to do.

But none of that mattered too much in light of the message. All I could hear was his voice. This was the last piece of evidence I needed. Add this to every conversation we'd ever had, all the signals he'd sent, the lingering glances after some double entendre, the times I'd caught him secretly staring at me, the heat that so often seemed to rise off his body when we were together (his body was one that seemed to have been specifically designed for sex, as if his beauty was his evolutionary trump card)—take all this into account, and you could arrive at only one conclusion: Paul liked me, was attracted to me. And I was thrilled. The girlfriend was just a front, I thought, and suddenly the sheer ardor with which he'd pursued our friendship became crystal clear to me; it was so telling, it was all the evidence one needed, really.

Still, damn it, still, I thought, pulling myself up and finally taking off my other boot and throwing it against the wall, how can I be sure? I played the message over one more time and found myself hearing the voice of a friend, not the voice of a lover, and everything was up in the air again. This wasn't fair! I quickly changed my clothes and went to the fridge to grab a beer. Here we were, I thought, on the eve of war, facing the great abyss of uncertainty that comes with every war, in which the possibility of death, of mutilation, of unspeakable horror, is very real, and we are denying ourselves the comfort of shared affection, the knowledge that the other waits for us, no matter where we are, and is thinking of us, hoping for us, praying for us. Damn it, if there could be something between Paul and me I wanted to know, I wanted to be able to have hope for the future, to know that there might be something wonderful to live for after the war. And this knowledge would be a refuge when the going got tough, a private place of comfort. I wanted to be able to pull out a picture of someone I loved, or to send him a letter—to be connected to another individual in a way that might make the war, and my whole life, more meaningful and valuable. What is it that we defend in war, after all, but the tranquillity of our domesticity? We fight for the right to live in peace and to love. We fight war to defend love.

Yes, there was my grandmother back in Jackson Heights, hoping for me, praying for me, sending me letters; she was a great comfort, but it was the potentially intimate connection with Paul that would have given me even greater comfort. I wanted to be able to share my whole being with another person, and I was pretty sure that's what Paul wanted as well. I thought of all those soldiers' wives who had been so generous to me, taking me in and feeding me, and how thoroughly they took for granted their right to love and hope and pray for the safe return of their soldier husbands. My God, so often I felt as if I were standing behind a piece of glass, watching other people who were in every way just like me go about their lives, and all I could do was look, never touch. How long could I live like this without going completely insane?

Listening to Paul's voice on the machine again, I suddenly felt a powerful urge to throw all caution to the wind, making a promise to myself that the next time I saw him I would just do it, I would just come out and say it,
What is going on between us, Paul? What is this?
But why wait? I could simply pick up the phone right now and call him and ask him, I thought, and the fact that I couldn't bring myself to do it made me realize just how cowardly the promise to myself really was. What if something happened to him? How would I live with myself knowing that I'd failed to take the risk and that he'd died in the war not realizing that he was loved by me? The truth was, it was probably too late to call him now, anyway, since he'd likely already boarded a plane and was now on his way to the kingdom where our fate would be determined in the coming months. I wanted to cry but couldn't; I was too angry. In that moment, everything that I ever loved about the army and about being a soldier seemed to be just one big, tremendous, stupendous lie. What was the point? What would all the glory and all the medals mean if I had no one with whom to share them? Nothing. Nothing at all. For so long I thought we were special, soldiers, and that I was particularly unique, being an officer in the greatest army in the history of the world, but I was quickly learning that I was just like everybody else; I needed to love and to be loved, and there was just no getting around it, no matter how much idealistic furor I used to try to cover it up. For the first time in my life I realized that it was entirely beyond my control. And that something that I couldn't control, like, say, my height, or the color of my eyes, could be used against me, could be justification enough to end my career in a heartbeat, rendering meaningless all the years of hard work and good intentions I'd put into it, was just plain wrong, un-American, even.

“Fuck the army!” I shouted at the walls of my empty apartment. “Fuck America!” I shouted again. For making me feel as if my life didn't matter, for making me feel as if my life was worthless. The words rang out in the silence, and it felt so good, but then it stung; it felt as if someone had just thrown a glass of cold water in my face. I felt guilty. I knew right away that I didn't mean it. But truly, I thought to myself, sitting down now on the edge of my bed, pressing the button to play Paul's message one more time, could I really live like this for the rest of my professional life, say, another eighteen years? Was that even remotely possible? “Hey, bud,” his voice again . . . and I knew right then that the answer to my question was no; then I lay back and enjoyed the sound of Paul's voice one last time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Daddy, I'll Be Good

The following afternoon we were told that our date of departure would be December 24, Christmas Eve, which meant, of course, that no one would be spending the holidays with family. Those final days before the war were a blur as we completed training and hurriedly closed down the post. There were several other units in front of us in the queue, and we got regular briefings on their progress through the system. We noticed it was rare for a unit to get off at the appointed time. They'd arrive at the airport for the scheduled flight, but then the plane would get diverted or the flight would be canceled for maintenance, so they'd end up having to wait for a day or two. Based on this, we were prepared for a nightmare at the airport.

On the twenty-fourth I went down to board one of the buses that would be taking us to Rhein-Main. The farewell scene was like a funeral, all pretense of dignity and restraint thrown to the wind, as wives and children wailed and soldiers did their best to appear strong, though many broke down and cried along with their families. Little girls clung to their father's legs, wives clung desperately to their husbands' necks, holding on for dear life, pouring a lifetime of emotion into those final hugs and kisses. Watching the more emotional couples—the younger, childless soldiers and their women, mostly—it looked to me as if they were actually trying to merge, as if by holding on to each other long enough and hard enough they'd become inseparable, one would disappear into the other, and they'd both go off to war, or they'd both remain in Germany. It was a sobering scene, a hard reminder, just in case anyone still needed one, that what we were about to embark on was serious business indeed. The children were the hardest to look at, because they seemed not quite to understand what was going on. All they knew was that their world had been turned upside down and that Daddy was leaving. I was holding together pretty well myself until I looked over and saw a little boy grasping a soldier's knee, his small head turned up toward his tall soldier of a father, his face streaked with tears; he said, “Daddy, don't go. I promise I'll never be bad again if you stay.”

I burst into tears, watching the young father gently lift his son up into his arms and reassure him that it wasn't his fault and that he would be back as soon as he could. No, I thought angrily, it isn't your fault, little boy, the person at fault is a shithead dictator from the Middle East who's about to get his due.

One of the officer's wives who had had me over for dinner several times saw my tears and came over to hug me and tell me she'd be thinking of me; then the other wives came over and did the same, hugging and kissing me on the cheek and telling me they'd write and send care packages. Those big-hearted women were really my heroes that day. I wasn't expecting such an outpouring, and it came as a relief since it allowed me to believe that I wasn't quite so alone. The bachelor officers, myself included, were a part of the family, too, and we'd be taken care of.

The bus pulled away and I watched through the window as the wives and children waved good-bye to their men, uncertain when, or whether, they would ever see the men again; I couldn't help thinking of Paul and the possibility that we, too, might never be reunited. All the hurt began to well up in me again, and I felt as though I might be consumed by it. The only thing that brought me back was the thought that everybody around me was experiencing a terrible loss as well, and, in that moment, I made the conscious decision just to let it go. My relationship, or lack thereof, with Paul would be dealt with after the war was over. For now, I had an obligation to be fully engaged as a soldier and a leader, and I had to be focused on the task at hand. It was now about killing the enemy, winning at all costs, and bringing my troops back in one piece. As I looked around at the glum faces on the bus, I knew this war would bind us to one another in a way that families and civilians could never truly understand. For now, these brave men were my family, and I knew that I'd give my life for any one of them.

True to form, we spent the next two days at the airport terminal camping out waiting for our plane. The gloom had dissipated somewhat once we'd gotten away from the post. There were a few officers' meetings, and we kept busy playing cards—endless rounds of spades, mostly—and a lot of guys just napped while the air force people rushed around us, grappling with the constantly changing situation.

Around six P.M. on the second day our plane was finally ready. Unfortunately it was a C-41, not one of the many civilian planes that the government had commandeered to make up for SAC's (Strategic Air Command) shortfall, and it was cramped and uncomfortable. The engines were very loud, and the constant odor of plane fuel made us all cranky and groggy. We spent the trip in silence, pretty much, since it was hard to hear over the roar of the engines, plus I believe everyone welcomed the chance to be alone with his thoughts before any real action began. A lot of guys just slept, something soldiers often do when away from the garrison since they can never be quite sure when the next opportunity for sleep might present itself.

Six hours later, we landed at an airfield somewhere in Saudi Arabia. Our descent had been quite bumpy, so when the plane finally came to a halt there was a slight groan of relief and then everyone began to move around and stretch stiff arms and legs. The load masters lowered the back ramp of the plane, and we began to file out in an orderly manner. At the base of the ramp there was an air force sergeant speaking to us through a bullhorn. He seemed to be repeating something that he had said many times before, and this repetitive, singsong quality was comforting, though parts of his message weren't comforting at all.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia! On behalf of the Air Command, I hope you had a wonderful flight and will fly with us again.” There was a kind of grumbling laughter among the troops at his lame attempt at a joke. “Place all duffel bags on the pallets that are available to the left of the ramp; they will link up with you when you arrive at your inprocessing center. Once you have accomplished this, you will be taken to the buses that will get you to where your unit will stay. The threatcon is alpha, and there have been drive-by shootings over the last several weeks. Stay alert and report anything that is unusual. Thanks, and have a nice night.”

We were all pretty beat after the frustrating days spent at Rhein-Main trying to get out of Germany and then the long, uncomfortable flight. Everyone was eager just to get to a cot and a pillow and then collapse. It was a beautiful night: clear, warm, the stars shining bright above us. The NCOs began the process of getting everyone in order and accounting for all the weapons. This becomes a major obsession for the chain of command on any deployment. The last thing you want is for one of your troops to leave a weapon somewhere, because everything stops until it's found.

We boarded the ancient white school buses they had waiting for us there. I tried to get comfortable, thinking I'd sleep a little, but as we pulled out it was immediately clear that that wasn't going to be possible. The bus seemed to lack shocks of any kind, and the seats had no springs. So I simply sat and stared out the window into the foreign darkness, lost in my fatigue, feeling a little bit lonely, and longing for the comfort of my apartment in Cleeberg, all the war whoop having been drained out of me by the long flight.

The world outside my window seemed forbidding and joyless. The lights of the old school bus revealed a terribly bleak landscape made up of nothing but a series of plain concrete buildings, one after another, with no decoration or style whatsoever. “Bare necessities” was the expression that went through my head as I squinted into the dark, expecting, for some reason, to see rabid attack dogs rushing out from behind every new building we passed. I'd thought, considering all the oil money, that we'd come across towns and villages that evoked the mythical richness of
The Arabian Nights
—fanciful minarets and colorful, lavishly intricate, inlaid tile work with bits of the Koran artfully represented. As flashy as the Arabs were abroad, I thought the kingdom would be replete with the magnificence that only unlimited money can make possible. Instead, we'd been dropped into what looked like the most despairing of slums. We were, in fact, on our way to what was called Cement City, home of a cement plant near Dhahran that was providing space for American operations here.

When we arrived inside the actual compound, a kind of tent city built on sand and cement dust, a sense of relief overtook me upon seeing the familiar sight of U.S. troops manning a heavily guarded post. After a few perfunctory checks, we were waived through and taken to our bivouac area, where we got off the ancient buses and were allowed to go directly to our tents, pick a cot, and crash, letting our weary minds and bodies finally give in to the merciful oblivion of a well-earned sleep.

In the morning, daylight revealed just how bleak the place really was. Long, straight rows of olive-drab tents covered in sand and cement dust and bleaching fast under the merciless Saudi sun served as the interim home for a few thousand soldiers waiting to be linked up with their equipment. A virtual hive of nonstop activity, Cement City was the last piece of civilization one saw before moving to the deep desert staging areas. Our stay lasted several weeks, the days bleeding one into the other with little distinction. It was hard duty that often left us bored and frustrated. We had no idea when our equipment would arrive, so we worked on individual skills and did our best to keep from going stir-crazy, practically an impossible task considering the environment—nothing but sand and cement dust, a scraggly palm tree here and there, the occasional camel ambling by in search of food. In an effort to brighten things up and bring some Christmas cheer to the drab tent city, a group of guys had constructed a Christmas tree out of empty water bottles filled with sand and stacked up in the shape of a tree and covered with green canvas, garlanded with toilet paper and decorated sparsely with the tops of water bottles. When the first vehicles from our battalion began to arrive, it actually felt a little like Christmas morning as we rushed out in anticipation, thrilled finally to have something important to take care of.

A few days after the equipment began to arrive, while a bunch of us were in the dining facility for dinner, I got quite a surprise. We always tried to arrive early for meals in order to avoid the huge lines that would form later on. The place had just opened, so we waltzed right in, got our food, and sat down. The food was the same tasteless crap we had been eating and would be eating for the foreseeable future, but mealtimes were about camaraderie, not cuisine. I was halfway through my chicken cacciatore when I looked over at the sign-in desk and saw, much to my astonishment, Paul standing there with several officers from his unit. My whole world just lit up. All the olive drab vanished in that instant, and Cement City suddenly seemed like the most beautiful place on earth. I tried not to look too excited, although inside I was fairly bursting, while I quickly wolfed down the rest of my meal in order to break free from my friends. Finished, I pushed my tray away and stood up.

“Hey, where the hell are you going?” Duncan said to me in his heavy Brooklyn accent, looking at me quizzically. “Whaddya gotta date or somethin'?”

“Nah, he's just lookin' for a place ta jerk off, right dick beater,” said Dave, the crooked scar on his face twisting into a smirk.

“Yeah whatever, assholes, I got business to take care of. I'll see you guys later.” The irony of Dave's remark was that, from the first moment I'd met Paul that night in Kyalami's, merely being in his presence, merely seeing him from across the room, was enough to get me excited. There were times when I didn't even see him, I just sensed him (maybe his scent preceded him), before he emerged from a room, say, where I was waiting for him, and I'd get so hard it was nearly painful. My desire for Paul was a certainty that astounded me at times. And there were times when it was the
only
thing I was certain about.

“Seriously, where are you going?” Roger asked.

“See that lieutenant over there?” I said, thinking fast. “I know him. He's in one of the support battalions, and I want to see if I can get stuff from him.” By stuff I meant anything, really. It is a longstanding tradition in the army that you have to be able to scrounge supplies and equipment outside the normal channels, and for that you need contacts.

My legs suddenly felt a little rubbery as I walked over to the table where he and his friends had sat down. My heart was racing, and I had to keep myself from breaking into a run to get over there sooner. Remain calm, I told myself, anything else will look weird. I adjusted my pants casually, worried that the tent city starting to rise in my crotch area would be apparent to everyone in the dining hall. Paul was covered in a thick layer of dust and had a rag tied around his neck, something we all did to keep the sand out of our faces. He'd probably been out driving around. I came up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little, and, before I could say anything, he'd turned around and stood up to greet me. I worried that he was going to hug me the way he always did, though in a way I hoped for it, too, despite how strange it might have looked, but he knew the score and so opted for an exuberant handshake instead, while clasping my shoulder with his other hand as tightly as possible, as if the clasp contained all the emotion he wasn't allowed to express: the secret, miniature hug of a lover.

“Hey, buddy, howya been?” he said, beaming, still holding on to my hand and shoulder. “Did ya get my call? I tried to hook up with you before I left, but it got overwhelming. Come on, sit down a minute . . . oh yeah, let me introduce you.”

After the introductions were out of the way, I sat down in the space they made for me at the table. For the next few minutes Paul and I disappeared into the bubble of our own private world. He did most of the talking, filling me in on just about everything that had happened to him since we'd last seen each other. I was happy simply to listen to him talk. Truth was, I was hardly paying attention to the actual words coming out of his mouth, I was so thrilled just to be in his presence again, to look at his face again. I smiled and nodded occasionally, feeling so complete in the moment—I didn't need to speak. I felt such relief! All the stress and strain of the last several weeks melted away in an instant, and I worried that the moment would end too soon, before I'd had time to savor it properly, before I'd had time to get the image of his face and body fixed in my memory so firmly that it would last a very long time, a lifetime, if need be.