My Queer War

Indian summer was a little late that year, bringing lambent afternoons, miniature whirlwinds of withering leaves, misty sunsets, wild evenings. To one side of the campus lay a strip of lawn secluded behind rhododendron hedges where I liked to linger in the amethyst twilight, a select hideaway for meetings with myself. Then one evening an awareness that I was not alone stole across the grass: a figure in uniform, someone I knew by way of hello only, a PFC from down the hall named Jerry Weinbaum, not in any of our study groups, a guy who laughed a lot, tall, not bad-looking. He said, ‘Hi there. Be dark in a few minutes. Mind if I walk along?’

‘Course not. How you doing?’

‘I make out. You?’

‘Oh, sure. Everything’s OK.’

‘Find Boston friendly then, do you?’

‘I do, yes. Nice people. Make you feel right at home.’

‘Already found yourself a friend then?’

‘One of my room-mates, yes. Comes from Boston. His mother invited me to lunch last Sunday, played the harp; it was beautiful.’

‘Say, that must have been all right. Nice lady, huh? Don’t hang out with the boys, though, do the bars, drinking, you know, hail-fellow-well-met thing?’

‘Not really. I’m not too keen on the USO type, tell the truth.’

‘No kidding. Who is? That’s not what I meant. I meant making out with guys you really get along with, you know, guys like us.’

I hesitated, not knowing where such desultory talk could go – besides, it was getting dark – not giving a damn, pointless to chat with someone with whom I had nothing in common.

He said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’

‘Not at all. Shoot.’

‘Are you gay?’

‘Funny thing,’ I said. ‘That lady I mentioned, she said I was a gay blade. She meant somebody without a care in the world, I guess.’

‘Come on’ – he cut in brusquely – ‘that’s not what I’m talking about. I spotted you from the beginning. Takes one to know one. So fess up. I’m not the police. Wouldn’t come on to you if I wasn’t gay myself. Relax.’

He put his hand on my shoulder while I was numbed by surprise and moved his fingertips gently to the nape of my neck, tickling my hair till I shivered and my legs were like danger in deep water.

‘You like to make love to boys, don’t you?’ he said, and when in the trembling silence I didn’t say no, he added, ‘Do you mind if I kiss you?’ and when I didn’t say no, he did.