Don't Ask, Don't Tell

by M. T. Pope

  “You ready to have some fun?” He reached over and squeezed my thigh, breaking me out of my trance. We had pulled up to the cabin. I looked out at the lake that was about a hundred feet away and thought about running and jumping off of the end of the long pier and letting myself drown, but the vision of my two boys brought me back to reality. I had live and fight my way out.

  “Yes, sir.” I reached for the door, opened it, and walked around to the back to pull out our fishing gear from the bed of the truck. Even though we did do some fishing, they were mainly for show for our wives.

  After sitting on the boat for a few hours and just looking out into the water, I decided to see if I could get some information from the sergeant about his past and how he came to be who he was right now.

  “Sir, can I ask you, how did you come to be gay?”

  He looked at me for a few seconds and then burst into hearty laughter. I just sat there and looked on, waiting for him to answer me.

  Chapter 6

  Henry

  The Stairs

  “You want to know how I became gay?” I asked him after I had finished laughing my head off. This little bastard had a nerve to want to know my business. “Son, I don’t think you are ready for that type of conversation. And I’m not gay. I’m just experimenting with the same sex.”

  “Try me,” he countered.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I laughed, but was serious on the inside. “My life growing up wasn’t a fairytale and it will definitely give you nightmares if you’re not stable in the head. But you’ve been taking my dick in the ass, so you just might be able to handle this.

  “I was about eight years old when my first ‘experience’ happened. I had a very good day playing in the hot fields of Monroe, Tennessee. I was a big, strapping young lad like you see before you, just younger. I had dreams of being an airplane pilot or an astronaut like any other normal kid. But that shit was ripped from me the night my mother came into my room and ripped the thin blanket that covered me on my twin-like cot off of me and onto the floor. We didn’t have much, but we made do as the older folks used to say. My mother was heavily intoxicated and she reeked of anger. My father must have stayed out again this night like he did so many other times.

  “‘Get yo’ buffoon ass up. Didn’t I tell you to clean them steps before you went to bed?’

  “‘Y ... yes, ma’am.’ I nodded as I sat on the side of the bed still half asleep.

  “‘Well, that shit ain’t done.’ She staggered a little as she pointed out of my door and toward the steps. ‘You ... you just like you lazy-ass fatha. Good-for-nothin’ bastard.’ Spit managed to fly from her mouth and land on my cheek. I dared not move or try to wipe it off. The last time I did that I woke up the next morning on the front porch by the dog licking my face.

  “‘What are you still sittin’ there fo’? Get yo’ ass and do it now.’ From my recollection, I did do the steps before I went to bed, but I was not going to say anything. I just went on ahead and did as I was told.

  “Go on with yo’ big, lazy ass,” She pushed me out the door as I passed by her. I tripped and went face first into the door post and hit my head.

  “‘Uhhh,’ I moaned in pain as I felt my lip that was split and slightly bleeding.

  “‘Get blood on my flo’ and you will be cleaning that up too.” She grabbed me by my arm and helped me out the door.

  Kyle shook his head as he listened to me talk. I continued so he could get the full effect of my story.

  “I hurried up my pace a little, walked down the steps, and grabbed the wooden bucket that was in the corner. I marched toward the kitchen to fill it with water and grab the scrub brush for the steps. I grabbed some Ajax from under the cabinet and hurried toward the steps. The less time it took to clean the steps the less she had to see me. The more she saw me and less of my father the more she would take her frustration with him out on me. I looked like him so I must be like him: her words, not mine. We only had, like, ten steps so it wouldn’t take me long to get it done.”

  “I started at the top and worked my way down. She sat in a chair at the bottom and watched me do every step. I made sure I got every nook and cranny. When I got to the last step, I picked the bucket up, getting ready to empty it out off of the front porch like I usually did.

  “‘Where do you think you going?’ she hissed as I made my way toward the door.

  “‘To empty it out, Momma.’ I had on the most pitiful look I could muster up.

  “‘Get yo’ ass in that kitchen and scrub that floor, and I mean on your hands and knees.’

  “I must have huffed or something, because before I knew it, Momma was on top of me breathing like a fiery dragon. ‘Boy, you sassing me?’

  “‘N ... no, ma’am, I’m not. I was just breathing.’ I managed to get out.

  “‘Get in there.’ She pointed with the liquor bottle still in her hand.

  “I was in the kitchen in seconds and on my knees, scrubbing.

  “‘Look at you, shaking your ass like a li’l sissy. Yeah, you just like yo’ soft-ass daddy. You probably want somebody to fuck you too, like your sissy father.’”

  I paused in telling my story to give Kyle some pertinent information. “Now this was in, like, the mid-seventies, and I didn’t know what the hell my mother was saying. I didn’t know that ‘sissy’ meant men who liked men. All I knew was that I didn’t like being called that in school because none of the other boys like to be called it, and most boys would fight at the mention of it. I just continued to scrub the floor so I could go back to bed.”

  “Back to the story,” I continued.

  “‘You like boys?’ she asked me as I continued to scrub.

  “‘Yes,’ I answered, because I didn’t know that there were two kinds of likes.

  “‘I knew that shit. I knew it,’ she hollered. We had a farmhouse so no one could hear her holler at me.

  “‘Get the hell up. I’ma break you in before you can start fucking all them boys in school. You won’t be having them people calling me, looking at me funny. When I get finished with you, you won’t like boys no mo’.’

  “I did as I was told and stood in the middle of the floor.

  “‘Bend over that muthafuckin’ table.’ She pointed. ‘Yo’ ass is gonna learn not to fuck with me, Ronald.

  “Ronald was my father’s name.” I looked at Kyle and then continued my story.

  “‘Momma, my name is Henry,’ I said as she left the room and came back into the room with the plunger.

  “‘I know yo’ fucking name. I said Henry,’ she hissed.

  “I didn’t even try to correct her, because I knew that she was drunk and not listening. She walked over to me and yanked down my Fruit of the Loom underwear.

  “‘I’ma teach you,’ were the last words I heard before she forced the wooden part up my rectum. The scream that I let out was unheard of. It was so loud that I was hoarse the next day. That was the first of many nights that my mother would violate me. Each time my father wouldn’t come home I got the same treatment. Pretty soon I was taking it like I was supposed to. I would whimper so she would stop, but she would continue to do it. One day my father just didn’t come home and my mother just gave up. She found my father’s revolver in a closet and took her life. I guess she just couldn’t take the fact that she lost her husband to another man. I later found that out from one of my cousins, who had overheard my aunts talking about it one day. I was passed around from family member to family member until I was old enough to enlist in the army, and that I did.

  “Oh and when I was with my older cousins, they heard about my father and thought the same thing my mother did. They continued in the footsteps of my mother, only they didn’t use a plunger, they used the real thing. When I got into the army the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in full effect, it just didn’t have a name until 1993, and it has been in my life as a standing motto at work and home from then on.”

  All Kyle could do was shake hi
s head and look out into the water.

  I didn’t tell him the story to make him feel sorry for me; it was quite the opposite. I wanted him to fear what I could do to him, because of what was done to me so long ago. It was like prey becoming the predator and I was good at it, too. I had nothing to lose by tormenting him anyway. He just didn’t know what he married into. Poor sap. I almost felt sorry for him. We went back to shore and into the cabin to do what we always came to do: fuck.

  Chapter 7

  Kyle

  At Ease

  “Everybody get your stinking, rotting ass up and at attention,” Sergeant Harris barked, startling everybody awake. It was, like, four in the morning and I was sleeping really well. The story about his childhood was two weeks old in my memory but it still resonated freshly in my mind as I got to my feet and stood at attention. He came from a long line of sick bastards.

  He walked down the line as each of us men stood waiting for his next fiery instruction. I needed some really solid evidence to get his ass off of my back, figuratively and literally. He was a thorn in my side. People on the base knew that he was my father-in-law and thought that he was treating me differently because I was family. And I don’t mean in a good way; he made me do shit that was extremely petty.

  “You maggots make me sick.” He breathed heavily into the face of a guy two guys down from me. We were all used to it, but none of them had the close encounters that I had had with him. I was sure of it. “Get all of your shit in order and line up your sorry asses outside in ten minutes.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, because usually five minutes was the limit. He must be in a good mood or maybe just in a better mood. You just couldn’t tell with his sadistic ass.

  Within the time limit, we were all outside, standing at attention, but I was the last one to show up.

  “What’s wrong with you, you can’t tell time?” he barked in my face.

  “Yes, I can, sir,” I spoke back with authority.

  “Are you talking back, soldier?” He was really close to my face.

  “No, sir, just answering your question, sir.” I knew that he was horny and this was his way of getting me in his office. I could have kicked myself for going back and brushing my teeth real quick.

  “I think you are trying to make a fool of me, officer.” He paced away from me a few steps, and with his back to me he then said, “I don’t like to be made a fool of, officer.”

  In my head, I was calling him all kinds of bitches and muthafuckas but none of them crossed the seal of my mouth. He was trying to make this bigger than it really was. I didn’t want to push him too far. Like I said before, he would do something that would show that he wasn’t giving special favors since I was his daughter’s husband. Most of the other officers knew that I was his son-in-law and he was dead serious when he said he didn’t like to be made a fool of.

  “Do I need to make an example of an officer who makes a fool of me?” he said as he walked down the line and back toward me. No one answered. It was fear of punishment that made most of the men fear him. He was infamous for making you serve the whole base in your underwear with “maggot” written on your chest for all to see, or the ever popular punishment of singing “I’m Every Woman” while washing trucks out in the open for all to see. I had seen it done and I didn’t want any part of any of it.

  “Do I?” He was back in my face again.

  “No, sir!” I spoke up.

  “I think I do,” he countered. “So, officer, meet me in my office for your punishment at the end of the day.”

  “Yes, sir!” I wanted to spit in his face.

  “Any of you other maggots want to make a fool of me?” he barked as he went back down the line.

  “No, sir!” the other officers chimed in at the same time.

  “Well, get your sorry ass out of my face and over to the mess hall for chow. Get out of my face.”

  We all did as we were instructed to do.

  “Damn, Kyle, the sergeant really be digging in yo’ ass.” One of the few men I spoke to on base joshed as we both sat down at one of the tables to eat out meals. “You must not be fucking his daughter good enough.”

  A few of the guys nearby laughed as well. I smiled slightly, because I didn’t want to let on that I wasn’t really feeling like discussing the issue with people who had no idea what was really going on.

  “I don’t know what his problem is.” I turned serious. “I do know that I don’t know how much I can take. This is getting to be a problem.”

  “Nah, man. That nigga needs to get some pussy. That’s his problem.” The guy I was sitting with spoke up. “He’s so mean his dick even scared to get hard.”

  Again, everyone burst into laughter. I played it off like I loved the joke. They didn’t know that his statement was far from the truth. His dick had no problem getting hard.

  “Shit, maybe he wants you to suck his dick.” The comment came from one of the guys behind me. I didn’t know who said it but it made me spit out the water that I just put in my mouth.

  “Y’all some crazy mofos for that one,” said my buddy, Clifton, in front of me.

  “Sure the hell is,” I seconded his statement.

  “Dude, don’t worry about it, just keep your head up. I’m sure he will ease up.” A guy who was sitting at a table near us spoke up. “All that huffing and puffing is for show. Soon as a newbie comes along, you’ll be out of his radar. Believe me, I know.”

  “I hope so.” I shrugged.

  That evening I met him in his office and, sure enough, we did what he loved to do: fuck.

  Two weeks later at home ...

  “Baby, how well do you know your father?” We were laid up in bed, looking at some reality show she liked. I wasn’t really interested in the show; my mind was too focused on the secrets that I was holding. I didn’t know if I could talk to my wife about this and have her believe me. She loved him like he was one of her legs or something.

  “What do you mean?” She looked at me curiously. She was such a vision of beauty. I really didn’t want to bust her bubble about the perfect father she thought she had.

  “Well ...” I paused to think about how I was going to ask her this question. “I think he’s not the man you all see and know.”

  “Kyle, you are treading on very serious territory now. What are you talking about?” She grabbed the remote, muted the television, and sat up to look at me while I was still laid on my pillow-top bed with my hands tucked behind my head.

  “I mean I think your father has some really serious mental issues.” I chickened out with the “gay” question. She wasn’t ready for the truth. I seriously thought that my wife would choose him over me if an altercation between him and me came about.

  “Mental issues?” She looked at me and shook her head like I had some as well. “Kyle, my father is very grounded in his thinking. I think you need to back off this topic before you cross a line you don’t want to. As a matter of fact, you already did. What the fuck is wrong with you?” She was now standing, looking at me like she didn’t want to know me. I had never seen this side of her before. I was a little taken aback.

  “Baby, you don’t see the way your father treats me on the base; he is a lunatic. I mean I am all for being tough, but he is sadistic and nasty to me and a few others.”

  “Kyle, you’re in the army. I think you need to man up and take whatever is being thrown at you. You know ... Serve your country and be all that you can be. Real men don’t whine about stuff; they get over it and keep it moving.”

  “Real men?” I hopped up off the bed like my butt was on fire. I was in defense mode. “What are you trying to say?” I almost called her a bitch, but she was my wife and I didn’t want to disrespect her. I know she wasn’t questioning my manhood. Was she?

  “I’m sorry, baby, wrong choice of words. I meant to say ... Never mind that. Daddy can be a little hard, but just ignore him and get the job done.” She walked over to me and faced me. She pouted her lips and then wrap
ped her hands around my neck. “Don’t pay Daddy any mind. I’ll talk to my mother and see if she can talk to him.”

  “I don’t know about that. I don’t want you discussing our business with your mom. It’s my problem, I’ll handle it.” I knew she would do it anyway though.

  “Okay, baby, whatever you say.” She kissed me on the lips and before long we were making out on the bed.

  Chapter 8

  Christine

  Schooling

  “Hey, baby,” I said as I entered my daughter’s townhouse. It was the spitting image of mine. She had everything in place and it was neat and tidy. Good home training and foundation were things that I prided in teaching my daughter. Keeping her home happy meant keeping her man happy. So when she called me to tell me that Kyle was upset about how my husband was treating him, I decided that it was time for me to make a house call and get things in order.

  “Hey, Ma.” She smiled, but I knew that she had a lot on her mind from the worry lines on her forehead.

  I walked into the living room to see my two grandchildren sitting on the sofa: one in a car seat and the other on the sofa.

  “How are Nana’s babies?” I gushed with pride as I sat down in between the two on her Tiffany sectional. When my daughter said she was pregnant the first time I thought that I was going to burst I was so happy. I had my doubts about Kyle’s fidelity and lifestyle commitment, but he came through and most of the doubt left as soon as my first grandchild arrived. When she said she was pregnant again I put any and all small reservations that were left out with the next day’s trash.