“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. But, I had to work that night so Doug went alone. He was so scared. He didn’t want to go without me, and I had to convince him that it would be all right because the wife would be there. ‘Just focus on her,’ I told him. Then Doug says to me, ‘What if the husband tries to suck my dick again?’
“With hands on my hips I yelled, ‘Bitch, you better do it for Africa!’”
Charlene roared with laughter. Her knee hit the bottom of the little café table and practically knocked two cups of hot coffee to the floor.
“I was chanting that shit like a mantra, ‘Af-ree-ka. Af-ree-ka.’ I was trying to convince my husband to lose his dignity for twenty fucking minutes so we could go on a vacation to the motherland.” I made random clicking noises and stood up to throw an imaginary spear.
“Holy shit! Did you go?”
“Do you see a bone in a bitch’s nose and a tan on my face? Hell no, we didn’t go! They fucking tricked him! When he got to the house the wife left, claiming she forgot she had an appointment.”
“Oh my God, so he was left alone with the burly guy?”
“Yes, and, of course, he got noodle dick and couldn’t do it. The poor baby, he said he tried to let the guy suck him off for Africa, but he couldn’t do it. I mean, he is straight, but he gave it the good old college try, God bless his heart.” I giggled as I reminisced.
“I can’t even imagine what was going through his mind.”
“I know, right? I don’t blame him. The guy was hairy and kind of fat. I wouldn’t want to have a first time gay experience with a dude like that. He told me it was like having a hairy gorilla on his noodle dick.” Both of us roared in laughter before getting up to take a piss break.
Charlene intensively listened to every word that came out of my mouth in the corner of that gas station. We were there for hours. She laughed at every detail I sensationalized while we continued to fill our cups with more caffeine. As the stories continued, she became more amazed with my life.
“You crushed the man’s balls with your stripper shoe? I can’t believe he gave you forty bucks for that.” The lights above the gas pumps automatically turned on as the sun began to set. The customers came and went. The day cashier clocked out as a new one rang up the next customer.
“She left you at the bar and took the pizza! How the hell did she drive drunk on a motorcycle and carry the god dammed box?” A fresh pot of coffee brewed at the drink station while a man outside smoked a pipe just beyond the window where Charlene sat.
“…home invasions and prostituting yourself, man, you sure do have some stories.” A mother pushed her stroller into the ladies room while two other women sat at a table behind me to eat a donut. Neither woman should have indulged.
“How did you get the tranny’s purse out of the bar without anyone noticing? Wait, was that the same place Zelda threw her pussy at you?” A group of kids, who were too young to smoke, lit cigarettes near their car. An older customer walked over to yell at them for smoking near the pumps. Then he walked to the register to yell at the clerk for not paying attention. The cashier was apologetic and, when the gentleman left, she wrote and posted a sign that reminded patrons to not smoke near the pumps. Then she busied herself with cleaning the drink station for the fifth time.
“You should write a book.”
“Huh? Oh yeah, Doug tells me that shit all the time.” I looked away from the cashier spraying cleaner on the counter to my coffee, which Charlene refilled.
“No, really, have you ever thought about it? You have some crazy stories, girl.”
“I joke about writing one all the time, but, come on, who wants to read about the shit I’ve done?” I ripped open two sugar packets and dumped the contents into my cup.
“I’d buy it. You know we’ve been here for almost six hours? I have been dying laughing this whole time…I’d buy your book. You should write it. Make sure you write how the shampoo bottle flew across that bathroom!” Charlene could barely contain herself; she giggled through her words before she finished the sentence. I laughed when recalling our shared memory.
“Well, it gets worse. I got fucked-up shit that I haven’t even told you yet. Complicated shit that I couldn’t imagine writing about…did I tell you I boned Jill?” I interrupted myself.
“No, you did not. What happened?” Charlene snapped.
“If I put this fucking story in the book, I’ll have a chaplain’s assistant putting a bounty on my head.” I stirred creamer into my cup.
Charlene sipped her coffee and tightened her face when she realized there wasn’t enough sugar in it. “She is uptight. Frigid in the bedroom, that’s what Kathrin told me.” She opened another packet of sugar, dumped it in and retested it to verify it.
“She was right, stiff as a board. Had her legs straight as an arrow, but that isn’t all. Put it this way, lizard-tongue kisses, of which I couldn’t get the onion taste out of my mouth for three days, and an Amazon deep jungle bush that queefed during the entire sexual experience!”
Charlene threw her head back, half in shock, half in laughter. “Oh, are you shitting me?”
“That’s what the fuck I said! The whole…time! How can you not feel that? My hair was puffing away from my face every fifteen seconds.”
“Oh, Jesus. Well, Jill and Kathrin aren’t serious, but I won’t say anything…as long as you put it in the book.” Her face lit up as she smiled from ear to ear. “Come on, Emma, do it for Africa!” Both of us roared as patrons of the donut shop turned to see what the commotion was about.
Embarrassed, we finally removed our crumpled mound of sugar packets from the table and called it a night. As Charlene drove me back to the barracks, my mind raced over the profound idea that I could potentially help others by telling my fucked-up life stories.
Figuring out my sexual identity was not an easy journey, and surely through the laughter of my adventures, someone could relate and benefit. It’s not easy being gay.
Someone once told me that, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it must be a fucking duck. This was my holy shit moment. It gave me the confirmation I needed to come out of the closet for the third time.
CHAPTER 13
Strangely empowered with both confidence and clarity, I called each family member to tell them that I was a lesbian. I paced alone outside of the barracks at Fort Gordon, Georgia, as the phone rang. “I wanted you to hear it from the horse’s mouth, Dad,” I said as I lit a cigarette and paced the sidewalk surrounding the barracks.
“You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know, Emma. You are more worried about it than I am,” he professed calmly.
My mother was a little less accepting. “Are you sure? It’s not right, Emma. It’s a sin,” she said, and cried.
My grandparents on both sides were in their late seventies at the time and took it surprisingly well. The reason this was surprising was that my mother’s gene pool is rich with active evangelists or ministers of the word of God. In fact, my maternal grandfather was a retired Pentecostal preacher when I made that coming out phone call and my aunt, an active minister.
My grandfather, whom I deeply respect on many levels, reminded me, “You know the Bible and what it says. I am not the judge, the Father is. I still love you.”
When I was finished coming out to everyone, I called my sister. After I’d told her their general reactions, she asked, “Did you tell Doug yet?”