Major Conflict (22 page)

They were talking about me, after all, and, I realized, though I didn't want to admit it to myself, I was hurt. It hurt me to hear them talking that way, all that mean spirit, all that bile, all that blanket rage aimed at something perceived to be weaker yet predatory at the same time. It was the strangest thing, so hard to comprehend fully. But more than anything it was just personally hurtful. I was hurt because I had been welcomed into their homes; I'd eaten dinner with their families. I was a trusted friend and colleague, and now it appeared that all of that would change if they learned the truth. But why should it? Wasn't the friend they'd come to know really me? I thought it was. And I would have done anything for those guys. I would have stood by them. In combat I had been ready to lay down my life for the men I was serving with. Would these guys do the same for me if they knew I was gay? See, Andy, I wanted to say, I didn't fall out of the tree! I didn't complain about breaking a nail! I'm
not
that kind of gay guy! I'm a man just like you! I imagined taking the three of them out for beers and coming out to them.

“Andy, Fred, Major Crist, thanks for coming and cheers.” I'd start, raising my bottle of beer. “I've asked you here today to let you know something. I like men. Now, save your protestations, you shall not sway me from my preordained path. There's nothing you can say.” And they'd be supportive. “No big deal, McGowan,” Crist would say, “you're not one of those obvious ones, so it doesn't matter. Live and let live, that's what I say.”

Who was I kidding? Andy and Fred would be shocked, that's for certain, and Major Crist would be, too, no doubt. They'd never see me in the same way again. Right before their eyes I would instantly transform into something else, something unfamiliar and strange, something they feared and hated. All the good I'd done for the unit, for the army, and for them personally as friends, would be immediately wiped away by this one revelation.

And I'd thought the war in the Gulf was a major conflict! The question was, still, How could I do what I loved and still be the person I am? I wondered then if I'd actually been a kind of traitor up until this point, collaborating to survive, so anxious to fulfill my dream of being a soldier that I'd been willing to work with people who'd actually hate me if they discovered who I truly was. “Go along and get along” was a powerful expression, and it had begun to represent for me a certain cringing mediocrity from which only the small-minded derive comfort. It is the box
inside
which every bureaucrat, every company man, and, as it turns out, every soldier ends up being forced to think. I had begun to feel like a small-minded, hypocritical bureaucrat with his head stuck firmly and deeply in the sand. “It's like a disease,” Greg had warned, of hypocrisy, back in 1985. “It's like a cancer,” he'd said. “It's insidious, it's going to eat you up until you're empty.” I could feel it eating me up now. And what if there was a point of no return, a point at which my long years of denial would render me incapable of ever actively engaging that part of myself? Would I die a soldier, perhaps a hero, but still unloved and alone?

I reminded myself that we all have to make sacrifices, that we all have our unique cross to bear, and that I, as one man, was certainly not going to change an unjust military policy, let alone the world. What I didn't realize at the time is that change often occurs when individuals
do
take a stand. Through a simple, straightforward act, a complete nobody can make the world sit up and take notice. And even if that one person doesn't succeed, whatever he does accomplish will almost certainly make the effort easier for the next person who tries.

The conversation with Andy and Fred and Crist pushed along a process within me that had already been well under way for quite some time, and would subsequently speed up as the issue grew more pressing once the new policy was in place. My thinking was changing dramatically. That I was experiencing regret at having failed to stand up for myself adequately was evidence enough that I was growing in a wholly unexpected direction.

There was a time when I would have given barely a second thought to the conversation. Like I said, a part of me had learned to think of the “faggot” in those discussions as referring to someone other than me; the “faggot” was the stereotypical gay guy you still saw all too frequently on television and in the movies. I had never associated that guy with myself.

But now, the consciousness-raising that had started with Greg was moving forward, seemingly on its own. I'd never expected to feel so differently, but here I was. It happened so gradually, like the way the flow of water in a river shapes a stone, that I didn't notice the changes until the major moment of stumbling upon those guys discussing Clinton's policy and hearing their antigay feelings expressed so baldly. I no longer feared being sidelined or failing in my career because it just hadn't happened; I'd advanced and succeeded. I'd done well. Maybe it was time, I thought, to start taking care of myself, to start tending to my own personal needs as rigorously as I'd worked at being a good soldier.

But I wasn't yet prepared for the big leap. My identity was so wrapped up in being a soldier that I couldn't find room there for my sexuality. I still was failing to understand that a person is more than his work, that a person's identity goes far past what he does for a living, what his title is, how people address him. Change would come, but not yet. The next day I would get up and go to work, and I would interact with everyone as I always had. I would go along and get along, not making a fuss, swallowing my pride, not making waves, just so that I could continue being a soldier, so that I could continue fulfilling the dream of that little boy from Jackson Heights, Queens. That I had fulfilled that dream I had no doubt now. No one could take that from me. But I wasn't a boy any longer. I was a man, and life was complicated.

And so “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was instituted, and I watched along with everyone else as courageous soldiers and sailors and air-men came forward to proclaim who they were on all the talk shows, only to be summarily cashiered—rejected, dishonorably discharged. It reminded me of what happened to the resistance fighters as the Germans pulled back across Eastern Europe. Thinking that a new day had dawned, they emerged only to be ruthlessly annihilated. For some reason, everyone thought the new policy would usher in a new era of freedom and openness. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

It was true that, after a considerable struggle, a compromise of sorts had been struck. It sounded somewhat promising on paper. Theoretically, it guaranteed that a soldier's private life was now off limits to a degree never seen before. But the policy was virtually meaningless in the face of the entrenched antigay culture within the military itself. Laws and rules don't change people, only people change people.

Couple this with the new realities of the post–cold war era, and you have a recipe for the discharge of massive numbers of gay people. Instead of making the military
safer
for gay service members, the new policy actually made it worse. Things were changing in major ways.

The contrast with the 1980s could not have been greater. Instead of being like a football player on steroids, to whom every wish was granted, we were now asked to slim down and make do with far less. People were dropping like flies as we were forced to shrink to a ten-division force—from just under a million to a little more than half a million. The dreaded mentality of the zero-defects army began to creep back into military culture. Being gay was decidedly a defect, no matter what the new president said. One could stick to the letter of the new gay policy, but totally disregard the spirit, and gay men and women were thrown out in record numbers as a result.

Andy and Fred and I often had lunch together. The day after our conversation with Major Crist, we went to one of the local Korean restaurants. You could get a great, cheap (five or six bucks) meal at these places. We'd usually order the
bulgogi
and kimchee, and that day was no exception. Just when our food was being served Andy started in again on the gay issue.

“I was reading in the newspaper that the policy is going to be called ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' ” he said. “What the fuck is that? I mean, we gotta know. How the hell is this gonna work? What if you see someone, like, going into a fag bar or something? Maybe we should just set up snipers to deal with it.”

I decided I wanted to be a little more aggressive in dealing with this today, so that maybe when I went home I'd still feel as if I had some self-respect.

“Hey, Andy, the Gestapo called and wants your résumé. The CQ has the number. Looks like the concentration camp should be open soon and it will be busy,” I said with a smile on my face.

“Listen, McGowan, I am not a Nazi. Just because I hate fags and want to see them dead doesn't make me a fucking Nazi. I happen to be a moral guy. I wouldn't just kill people because of their religion. We're talking about
faggots
here. Faggots are sick, pure and simple. It's like child molesters. They're total perverts and child molesters, and there's no way in fucking hell they could cut it in the Eighty-second or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“Okay, help me out here,” I said. “You tell me one religion or philosophy, whatever, that says hating people is good or that killing them is okay.” I had little chance of reaching this idiot, but I was entirely in the moment now and not thinking about being cautious.

“Islam,” he said simply.

“You moron, Islam doesn't advocate that. Religion is strictly about peace and love.”

“It's also about morals and standards, right and wrong.” He was getting excited again, and had turned red. “Faggots are wrong, end of story.” He said it flatly and with the same conviction as he might say that the world is round or that two plus two equals four.

“What they
do
is wrong,” Fred said. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”

“What are you, the fuckin' chaplain? Eat your fuckin' kimchee, Jones,” Andy said.

“You know, you're just killin' me here, Andy. Fred's right, by the way, but let's get back to the basics. One, we are all human beings. Two, you can't go around advocating killing people or hating them just because they're different. Blacks are different, and you don't wanna kill
them,
do you? You don't have to like other people, Andy, but you do have to refrain from killing them or hurting them. They have the right to exist and pursue happiness just like the rest of us. Nobody is saying that you have to hang around anybody you don't want to, but they do have a right to be there.”

“No, no, McGowan, that is where you're wrong. They do
not
have that right. Most Americans think that what faggots do is immoral and disgusting, and you know what, the majority rules, dude. If you got the votes, you can restrict what those immoral fuckers do.”

“Oh, Christ, I don't know why I'm even talking to you,” I said.

“Actually, Andy,” Fred said, “I think it's kind of one of the things about America that the government is supposed to protect the majority from, like hurting the minority, right, Jeff? I mean it's not like I'm saying homos have rights or anything, but that's the way it is, I think.”

“He's right, Andy. What you're saying is actually un-American. Your vision is a zero-sum game.”

“No,” Andy said, “that shit's for, like, the Irish and the blacks. It's not for fags. You're wrong.”

“Christ almighty, Andy, you don't know how fucking stupid you sound when you talk like that.”

“If you call me stupid one more time, McGowan, I'm going to pop you,” Andy said, smiling a little. “Don't get so excited.”

“Look, Andy, I just can't stand narrow-minded crap like that, okay? You don't fucking hate people, it's as simple as that. Didn't you go to Sunday school? It's like the major thing that Jesus was saying. And especially if you're educated,
and you are, Andy
, you should be more open-minded. That's how you learn and grow, by trying to see the world through other people's eyes.”

“That's a New Yorker for ya,” Fred said suddenly, trying to lighten things up. “Always trying to make us southerners feel like yokels, with yo ha'falutin' intellects.”

“Ah, fuck it. Let's just eat,” I said with a disgust, only slightly tempered by Fred's stab at lightheartedness. But still, I felt good at having said something. I knew Andy was an idiot, but at the same time I knew that a lot of guys felt exactly the same way. The fact that I wouldn't let him get away with that kind of talk anymore was a small step, but a significant one, nonetheless. I was finally beginning to face the fact that I wasn't going to change and that I'd have to learn to live at peace with myself. I'd always believed that being a man meant being tough and responsible and steady. I was learning that it also meant having the integrity to accept who I was. I was moving toward a scary place now, because I didn't know what to expect. But I was excited about the prospect of perhaps finally becoming not just a soldier, but a soldier who was also a man.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Heartbreak and Liberation

The old site, where the PX (post exchange) opened temporarily while the new facility was under construction, was conveniently located at the end of Ardennes Street, where all the units of the Eighty-second and Special Forces are located. After the PX moved, the military clothing store moved in along with a nice food court and a few other shops. What drew me there on a frequent basis was a coffee stand that made these really sweet coffees with whipped cream and caramel on top, sort of like the caramel macchiato at Starbucks. I would go alone or with a group, two or three times a week, if business took me that way.

One day in the early spring of 1995, I was enjoying a coffee after picking up a new set of uniforms for All-American Week, the annual celebration of the Eighty-second Airborne. It's a weeklong smorgasbord of competitions, parades, and plenty of parties. The week begins with the entire division lining up for a four-mile run. It's a pretty impressive sight. The division Artillery places cannons along the route and fires a salute as each brigade commander runs by with his flag. All the bigwigs turn out, from the corps commander on down. One of the highlights of the run when I was there was this one WWII paratrooper in his late seventies. They'd put him in a Hummer and drive him past the formation while he'd wave to all the troops and we'd applaud and cheer back at him. He had a lot of energy and would yell at the formations, especially when he saw a good-looking female soldier. “Hey good lookin', what's cookin'?” he'd shout, or “You're breakin' my heart!” Sometimes he'd jokingly ask for their phone numbers. It was hilarious, and nobody minded because he really was such a sweet old man.

After the run, the division would go to All-American field, which is near the original WWII barracks, and practice marching for the review at the end of the week. This final big parade usually included a guest speaker of some prominence. Of course it would be incredibly hot all week long, and we'd sweat like pigs the whole time. When we weren't practicing for the end-of-the-week parade, we'd take part in athletic competitions, which included everything from softball to my favorite, pushball. Pushball is simple enough, kind of a combination of soccer and football, two teams fight to move a large inflated ball down the field and through the opposing team's goalposts. Other than that, there aren't many rules, at least there weren't in the version of the game we played, so it got pretty rough, so rough that a few times limbs were actually broken. We all loved it.

I stood at one of the tables near the coffee concession, drinking my caramel-flavored coffee. All-American Week falls at the end of May every year, so it was getting hot. I found myself sweating as I sipped the hot concoction, wondering if maybe I should have had an iced coffee instead. I watched as soldiers and their families passed by, loaded up with bags, browsing the various kiosks that seemed to change as often as the seasons. In a way it was a pretty depressing sight. Cheap and tacky. There was a shop loaded with souvenirs and other crap no one really needs, and lots of T-shirts with Airborne-related slogans printed on them: KILL 'EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT and ON THE 8TH DAY, GOD MADE THE AIRBORNE. There was a trophy shop where just about every unit on post bought plaques for departing officers and NCOs, a shop that sold African masks and kente cloth clothing, and a few no-name hot dog and burger stands thrown into the mix. It was, like so many other aspects of military life, a place that catered to a very narrow set of tastes.

Finishing up my coffee, I remembered that I had an afternoon meeting at headquarters and that the air conditioner there wasn't working. I need a break, I thought to myself. I was making my way to the exit when I noticed a tall, blond soldier in front of me who looked familiar, even though he had his back to me. The shape of his head, the back of his neck, the way he held his body, it all looked strikingly familiar. Suddenly it dawned on me. Could it be? God, I hoped it was. My footsteps quickened a bit to catch up with him. He stopped to look in the window of the trophy shop to his right and I got a clear view of his profile. It was Paul.

A thousand thoughts exploded in my mind all at once, and I felt as if I were going to burst. I wasn't sure what to do as I approached. Should I shake his hand, hug him? Would he remember me? After all, we hadn't spoken since that one brief episode in Cement City right before the war.

Reaching him, I managed to quiet the trumpets in my head and keep myself from tackling him. I was even able to muster up the presence of mind to decide on a more jocular approach by positioning myself behind him and giving him a good shot in his right arm. He was completely taken by surprise, and I almost knocked him over. But as he turned and saw that it was me standing there, grinning ear to ear, his eyes lit up, and he threw his arms up in the air and moved toward me. I took a short step forward, and we gave each other a heart-felt embrace that we ended almost instantly, as if we had collided and bumped off each other, so self-conscious were we both, I think, of the true import of the embrace. I think we both knew that had we held the hug any longer we would've ended up with our tongues in each other's mouth.

“Jeffrey, Jeffrey, I can't believe it. My God, what is goin' on, brother? How ya been, big guy?”

“Not too shabby, what about you? Where the hell've you been, buddy!”

The words were mere conduits through which our excitement flowed. I had no idea what I was saying. It felt as if a huge burden had just been lifted off my shoulders and at any moment my feet would lift off the ground in defiance of gravity. I kept smacking him on the shoulder, just so that a part of my body could make contact with a part of his.

“Uh, well,” Paul said, “I left Cement City pretty quickly because of my orders. What about you? Where're you at? Are you in the division?” Then he did what everybody does at Fort Bragg. He swayed lightly to check out the patch on my left shoulder and then gave my uniform a once-over to see the badges I had. Simple Airborne wings are not enough. To have credibility, you must have a star or a star with a wreath around it, signifying either senior or master parachutist status. Sometimes when somebody achieved master parachutist, they'd say he got an “afro on his wings.”

“First of the Three hundred nineteenth,” I said. “What about you?”

“I'm at COSCOM [Corps Support Command], in the G-3 shop. Writing orders and doing slides, you know the drill, same as every other post command captain.”

“Cool. So . . . maybe we . . . could go out to dinner or something and catch up on old times.” My heart was racing as I waited for his response. I was pretty sure that he would say yes, but I wanted him to say it with the kind of enthusiasm that matched my own, that wouldn't leave me guessing.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, actually looking a little confused, far surpassing my enthusiasm requirement. “What are you doing tonight? Let's go to Bennigan's or the Outback,” he said.

“Tonight,” I said, thinking I was gushing, though I'm pretty sure I wasn't. I was worried, however, that my face would split open from smiling so big. I'd never experienced this kind of joy at seeing another person. There was something spectacular about this feeling. All of the yearning would be fulfilled, and the thrill of it far outweighed any fear I still had about being discovered. “Yes, tonight.”

“Let me give you my number,” he said.

Just before I was about to take the slip of paper from his hand, he pulled it back a little and looked into my eyes and said very simply and quietly, “Wait, promise me, Jeff, that you'll never lose it, okay?”

“No, I won't. I promise,” I said.

“So, whaddya say, Bennigan's then, at seven?”

“I'm there, Paul.”

“Okay, see you then.” And he walked off.

Heading back to my car, I was floating on air; I was defying gravity. It didn't seem real. The whole thing felt almost scripted. I just couldn't believe that he was back in my life again. Suddenly, I was in a different world. The tacky shops, the drab T-shirt stands, the whole dull mediocrity that so often infects army life had been transformed into something endlessly fascinating and meaningful. How love supplies meaning! It's truly amazing.

That day was an agony of waiting. I went through the motions of my day, playing in my mind this scenario, then that one, confident here, then unsure there, bursting with hope, then crushed with uncertainty. It was, I think, in some respects, a kind of adolescent experience of love and desire, but it made sense in a way since I'd been denied the experience during my real, chronological adolescence. Like other gay men who come out later in life, I had some catching up to do.

Once again Paul had me entirely in his thrall. His presence made me feel helpless and vulnerable; it had the power to break through all of my delusions and defenses. I was no longer in control when he was around, and what a relief that was, to relinquish some control, to relax into a kind of easy abandon! Seeing him could literally silence me, and I'd become incapable of resistance. He was, in every sense of the word, irresistible. Physically, emotionally, mentally, I wanted all of him. He made me reckless and hopeful for the first time in my life. Indeed, that proverbial light switch had once again been flipped on, but this time it felt more like a whole wall of switches, an entire bank of them capable of lighting a skyscraper, or even a whole city.

I was at Bennigan's a half hour early because I couldn't stand sitting in my apartment any longer. I was nervous and figured I would have a Guinness or two to loosen up and take the edge off. As I sat at the bar, watching a basketball game on the television behind the bar, the door opened and in walked Paul. I was surprised to see him so early, and when he saw me he looked a little sheepish. The moment felt terribly awkward, as if we'd caught each other doing something wrong.

“Great minds think alike, I guess,” he said. “We're both early!” He pulled up a bar stool and sat down next to me.

“Yeah, wanna drink or something? I don't think there's a table yet.”

“Great, uh,” he said, as the bartender stepped in front of him, “a Rolling Rock, please.”

We chatted mostly about work, filling each other in on the different assignments we'd had. By all accounts it seemed as if he'd been successful by getting an early command. We felt a little bit exposed, I think, sitting up at the bar like that, in plain view, so we were both kind of stiff, more like coworkers than anything else. We were relieved when they finally seated us in a booth. It felt more private, plus the beers had loosened us up a little.

“So how come you never called me and told me where you were?” I asked quietly.

“Well, when I got back from the desert, it was hectic because I had orders that were put on hold so I could deploy. I got back and literally had to outprocess almost immediately.”

“Yeah, but you could have sent a letter or a card or smoke signals,” I said, laughing a little. “It's like you just dropped off the face of the earth, Paul, like you died or something. I didn't know what happened. I was worried.” Was this too obvious? I wondered. But I hardly cared anymore.

“That's nice, Jeff, but . . .” He smiled, though he looked a little nervous, too. “Well . . . I came back to the States and went to the Advanced Course and got caught up in my life here. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't think of all of my friends and you in Germany, but you know I just don't call anybody, really.”

The way he said “all of my friends and you” was a classic example of how he often spoke in phrases that required careful interpretation. Did he mean he thought of me differently from everyone else, or was he signaling that he thought my question was weird and he wanted me to back off? I played the phrase over in my head, trying to remember the tone of his voice when he'd said “and you.” Had there been a hint of sarcasm in the phrase, or had it sounded like almost everything else he said, light and simple? I decided it had been the latter because his face had remained so open and he seemed so obviously happy to see me. I couldn't remember his ever being sarcastic about anything. I pushed all the doubts from my mind and simply tried to savor being with him again. He'd not changed at all, except his body seemed a little more toned, the result of his newfound passion: sprint distance triathlons.

“Come to think of it, though,” he said, “I have to admit, out of everybody, I really wanted to call you the most. I mean . . . I just had the best times hanging around with you.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said. There it was. No doubt about it. I thought I'd burst.

“So I promise, now that I have your info, I won't disappear again.”

Both convinced, now, that we were back on the same page, we felt at ease to simply enjoy each other's company again. We ordered the Bennigan's margaritas and a couple burgers. We talked about the war, of course, but also about our childhoods again and our favorite foods and our favorites movies and where we'd like to live eventually. We talked about politics and Frankfurt, about the sex shop in the airport, about the bars in the Kstrasse, about New York and Washington State. We talked about everything. Well, nearly everything. The huge pink elephant of our desire for each other was about the only thing not discussed, but we both knew that it was there, and even that knowledge was a kind of progress. The restaurant all around us disappeared as we flew off once again in our own private bubble. Before I knew it, I looked at my watch and it was a few minutes past midnight.

“Dude, I gotta hop. PT is a four-mile run,” I said.

“You can drive okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I'll be fine.”

But I wasn't sure about that. I'd had a few more than Paul, and I was feeling no pain, as they say.

“You know, I don't mind driving you back to your place,” Paul said.