9

I woke from a dream where K__ and W___ are caught up in sexual tensions with me. There’s no sex, but it always seems like its hovering over everything.
At one point K__ and I are arguing because I’m asleep and he’s made a move and kissed me, and I allow it, but then don’t.
Then he says he was just curious. Not of homoeroticism, just of me. In the dream I don’t get dressed, so that the scenes are like those French films where the characters play out a lot of the scenes nude. That’s the thing about being in your twenties, it doesn’t feel different being unclothed or clothed, like it doesn’t matter.
Then the dream starts again this time with W__, and a similar thing happened. If I hadn’t woken up I’m sure the dream would’ve tried to make the same point again.
I woke up hard, but it wasn’t real enough and after a few seconds went away. It was like the dream was trying to insist the seamlessness between friendship and sexuality, human connection and sex.
There’s no switching of gears between ‘platonic’ and ‘not platonic’ they’re the same gear. .. I’ve heard women tell of how they had huge crushes on their fathers when they were little, how they loved being around him. I used to cringe when I would hear that.
The House went too far, true, but there was always going to be an underlying element of sexuality in that House and that was natural, same as I’ve gone too far, keeping close tabs on which situation or dynamic is ‘platonic’ or ‘not platonic,’ so as to then avoid all the ‘not platonic’ and in the end wondering why I lack all human connection.

__________

　
W__ and I stepped out of the chow hall after lunch, and ran into Forest__. The three of us had come from the same artillery unit, had joined the military around the same time, and we stood there and talked because Forest had asked if we were all returning to artillery.
This is what high school must be like .. This normalcy, knowing a lot of people, being likable, and having a few close friends but not too close, because you have a lot of friends.
Lately I’ve noticed W___ and House hanging out with me together. We even ate dinner chow together, the three of us. They even talked about weed -- usually a sore subject since W__ is a young cop. Were they suddenly getting along because of me?
We all walked back to House’s and W___‘s tent, where we fell into a conversation with some sergeants. I noticed W__ will watch me as I’m talking to someone else. I can see him doing it through my peripheral, him studying my face, my manner. He goes so long I have to look at him to make him look away.
Afterwards, W__ and I found ourselves in the empty tent full of cots, still talking.
Now that he was a cop, he wanted me to explain my criminality, he wanted to understand why during my Wild years I lived such a Dexter-ish life, always at night, sleeping during the day, never identifying myself with society, committing crimes at my leisure. All my jobs were under the table, all my contacts were true friends only and few else. I didn’t even like giving people my real name.
I tried to explain what it was like to be a mule most of my life, and sitting in the unemployment office later as an adult, with a new chance, a new way of living, a revolutionary way, realized by me but articulated by Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison and White Tiger and Kesey.
I felt uncomfortable by his line of questioning, I felt interrogated but also like I was some novelty that W__ only talked to for his own intellectual stimulation -- a dynamic I had been wary of from K___.
As I explained things to him, he seemed to not be grasping what it was like, so I had to reiterate my own story, something I hated to do, because it requires me to add an element of drama to the story, instead of just truth.
In order to remain Real, there has been a new requirement to be careful to understate my story, to say it matter of factly, so as to not give it any power over my life. My life was the same as everyone else’s : boyhood, adolescence, adulthood, mine simply was Difficult, there were many challenges and obstacles.
We ended up talking all night. It was five in the morning when I left him to go get ready for duty.
_My throat’s hoarse; it‘s not used to me talking so much._ I said to him, rubbing my vocal cords. _Maybe if you had been around the last two years I wouldn’t have so much to tell you._
_Yeah, yeah, yeah,_ he retorted.

__________

　
The next night, W__ and I walked to dinner chow, with House in tow, through the dark FOB. I had to take a p-ss, and stopped by one of a row of porta jons while the two of them waited. From inside I heard an altercation between W__ and what sounded like Gadly. Gadly was the FOB dou-che bag, a huge liar with no military bearing.
_Where’s your weapon and cover?_ W__ asked him as he stepped out of a porta jon.
_Man, don’t f-ck with me right now,_ Gadly said, brushing past W__ in the dark.
As I stepped out of my own porta jon, and rubbed hand sanitizer over my hands, W___ stopped Gadly, as he walked into the light emanating from the open door of the MWR. _Hey, I’m talking to you,_ he said.
_Man, who are you to even be talking to me at all?!_ Gadly yelled back.
_I’m a f-cking Sergeant and you’ll address me properly from parade rest!_
_Like f-ck I will, I don’t give a f-ck._
_Yeah, I know you don’t give a f-ck, that’s why you’ve been demoted four times this deployment._
W__ left it at that, came back to where me and House were standing in the dark, and we went on to chow.
In the chow hall line, W__ wasn’t talking, and looked upset. W__ has a temper, and prides himself on having control of it, so I was surprised.
W___ had just been promoted to sergeant, so I had been watching him closely, seeing how he handled things.
He told me that he had gotten frustrated with Gadly, especially because Gadly had started laughing during the altercation. His next move was to see Gadly’s first sergeant, who just happened to sit at the table behind us. After chow me and House left W__ with the first sergeant and waited outside in the dark. W__ came out and said he was to see the first sergeant at 2100.
I went back to my room and repacked my gear, trying to see how little I could get away with carrying back to the states on my back. Ever since the unit replacing us had arrived, there hadn’t been much to do but pack and repack. A few hours later I heard SGT F__ calling my name, _Chuck!_ he said, _You have a visitor._
It was W___, who had never come to where I lived before.
_Hey, man,_ he said with a grin as he entered my new cubicle of a room, _Just wanted to stop by, out of boredom, really._
But really he had just come back from his meeting with the first sergeant and wanted to tell me about it. As he was talking I kept thinking: he sought me out, he sought me out, we’re friends, even if Holly never lets me see him again, all these moments between us were true.

__________