House, 1

P__ got up in the FOB church tent and announced he was gay, or at least that was what people were saying.
Turns out he actually got caught with a guy, and everyone knew it, and the preacher referenced the fact that some in the audience were dealing with homosexuality, which basically outed P___ anyway.
Later it came out that actually a third person was involved, who was of higher rank, who turned out to be my Sergeant, who I’ve always found creepy, who then made a pass at Gadly, who then got violent, and ended up arrested for real.

__________

　
I woke from a dream where I came home from deployment and everything was wrong. I stopped by work and the insides of the building were all different, all the employees different.
Also I was selling this old red convertible, which I had never seen before, really liked, and wondered why I was selling it.
Also I couldn’t remember what my house looked like, I end up driving around and finding what I thought was my house but turned out not to be, because it was dilapidated.
Somewhere in there, I get promoted so that I was the same rank as W__ and Forest. I woke up figuring I must have lot on my mind.

__________

　
When I think of a woman, or see one naked, I get these butterflies in my stomach that scream sex, but I don’t get an instant erection, like I think other guys do.
It used to bother me, but with all that’s happened, who knows.

__________


House knows he’s good looking. It’s not just me that suspects he is, everyone else finds him good looking, too.
I know my sexuality is the Real kind, which means I’ll never define it, which means I wake from an occasional homoerotic dream and don‘t mind it.
I also know that sexuality is broad and insistent. That’s why guys in an all-male setting will find themselves attracted to guys for awhile, then when they enter a coed setting find themselves attracted to girls. That’s just how sex works, always insisting its existence, making the world go round, making every moment as Real and valuable as the next.
I have no idea why House started tagging me. I used to suspect it was the prospect of getting work when we got home, but really it was the prospect of the House, and of me, which he clarified.
He told me that he came from Abuse, and was still stuck at his Mom’s and he needed a place to stay for awhile. My house looked like something out of Thomas Kincaid.
He comes from abuse. Maybe that’s why he stays in my shadow.
The only way for me to turn out to be whoever it is he’s hoping I am is to remain Real, to remain Him, the boy right there, intact, the Value always felt, down to my fingertips. It’s very Difficult, feels forced.
Been watching Faces of Death, a series that collects raw footage of violent deaths. It’s not profound to me, it just reminds me of the things I’ve already known, but can put into one sentence now instead of so many paragraphs.
Life is a gift, and its moments are intended to be enjoyed, experienced, but are not intended to be given meaning. I was a boy, I was an adolescent, and I did become a man, I just wouldn’t accept those moments, because I couldn’t be honest about them.
K__ and I had the most in common, down to music, movies, philosophy, education, etc. It was uncanny, even the obscure music: folk, old blues, we even had that in common. I really hope I didn’t ruin it with K__. But maybe his absence isn’t my fault, same as it wasn’t my fault with W___.
I wonder if House can somehow pick up on the seamless sexuality and is using his good looks to manipulate me, to get his way.
I know that I’m always on my way to a woman, I’m aware that everything I do feels that way. I feel like at some point I have to reckon with some vague Woman.
I tell myself to treat myself well -- feel as true as House and W__ and K___.
House tells me how he wishes he could gain weight. I notice how little he is, but then wish I had his face.
I know I’m meaty and that my abs were a bit too famous for my taste earlier in the deployment, but I just might trade both to have his face.

__________

　
According to House, he needs me so he can grow up. I need him so I can stay cool, stay Him. This is the friendship, and the story I’m entering. I could’ve said no.
House explains himself by describing the Punk scene, and Skins scene, by having me listen to music by Star F_cking Hipsters and the Pixies.
I’m wary of labels like Punk and Skin, I’m more like K__, walking in and out of different scenes but always staying myself, fitting in, but not being owned. Or at least that’s who I hope I am.
_It’s that baby face,_ House said, yet again being allowed more than what was easily believed. _You see how I got away with that?_
The beginning of friendships are always like this -- I get intimidated, reactive, I forget I have my own. Every thing is dependent on my being Him. It is the beginning of friendships where that is most difficult, because I so badly want to fit in, I feel the need to conform, to settle.
It takes about a year, House said, to find out his girlfriends are crazy. All my best relationships last about a year before they find out there’s something wrong with me.
He asked me about my sex life. I kept the wholeness of my sexuality to myself, but described both sexes anyway. To me the perfect woman is Toni Morrison’s Sweet, (from the novel Song of Solomon) and the perfect man is Him.
Sheer femininity and sheer masculinity, sheer Value, and absolutely nothing more. You attract to you who you are, I told him. I didn’t explain that if I’m not careful to be nothing more than sheer Value, I’ll attract the usual American woman, like the kind K___, House, and W___ have: insecure, narcissistic, needy.
I wonder if this unusual closeness with House is me going down the same path as always. Another Him who’s going to teach me that all along I was the Him. Maybe it’s a different path. I’ve never known anyone from that much abuse who’s functional. Maybe when he gets his vehicle, everything will change. It’s his first real vehicle, so even he doesn’t know how it will be.
Over a period of days House described his family setup, he described his close friends, the structure of his civilian life. Finally he said he didn’t want to go back to his old scene: a bunch of junkies.
So House was too good looking for his own good. That’s why he can’t grow up. He doesn’t know how to fight on his own. I can’t imagine having been liked.
I don’t tell him my story. I tell bits, but never come close to the real story. I don’t know why.

__________