Calliope
01-01-2007, 01:25 PM
Discovering I was transgendered in the U.S. Navy wasn't exactly a walk in the park.
Oh, boot camp wasn't so bad. In the 70's, most of it was ritualized clothes-folding and bed-making - basic training for suburban housewives, really. Like Jan Morris observed in her memoirs, barracks socialism was agreeable enough. There was an almost utopian camaraderie in our shared suffering. (I recall some burly bunkmates literally picking me up off the ground so I could finish the final laps of a decisively qualifying track run.)
Once I ended up a 'Bosun's mate' on board an oil rigger (stationed off Subic Bay, Philippines), however, things got pretty hairy for me.
I just didn't get the hang of it. I didn't drink to excess, contract prostitutes or get a tattoo - which was considered odd, and suspect. I wasn't much of a manual laborer. I repeatedly asked the ship's captain to discharge me from the Navy - I told him I was a sensitive artist - a request met with total derision. (I often sobbed myself to sleep, wishing If I were a woman, they'd have to let me leave the Navy. From this point on, for the rest of my life, my sexual fantasies always placed me as female.)
I was threatened almost daily. Ashtrays bounced off my head. Once, my bunkmates raped me below deck. At least, that's what I'd call being stripped and (literally) tarred & feathered by twenty of my bunkmates. (It took days' worth of showering to get that vile material off my body.) I was frequently assaulted - once, I was choked so hard by some gorilla (in the mess hall, in front of a hundred men) I passed out, green. My attempts to 'press charges' were met by the derision of the Captain himself.
"Be a man."
My only port of solace in this storm of slowly intensifying abuse was another seaman (rookie), Robert Miller. He was outwardly rough and gruff - a hard-working, muscled black man who followed the rules and kept to himself. Brillo hair and a chuckle as deep as the ocean. Black belt in karate. Urban orphan. Nobody ****ed with Miller. As I knew him, he was a brooding artist and poet. He often drew the most technically proficient, yet flattering, pictures of me. We spent hundreds of hours talking long into the oblivious night.
A key event for us was the Equatorial Initiation. All rookies crossing the South Pacific Equator for the first time were expected to drop their pants and crawl across the ship's deck - while all the veterans took turns smacking their bottoms with a wooden paddle. Big fun, and a rare day off, I was informed. I refused. "Nobody's touching me again." Loudspeakers commanded me to participate. When I started to receive outrageous threats from high-ranking officers, Miller joined my rebellion.
We sat defiant and motionless in the mess hall until the guards dragged us off. The punishment was confiscation of 6-months pay - and a non-stop 12-hour watch. Talk about muscle and mental exhaustion! Plus lots of hollering from leather-faced old ****s with shiny scrabbled eggs on their shoulders. It was as if my country (tis of thee) itself called me a worthless piece of shit.
It was only the day after Miller confided to me he had enlisted in the Navy years earlier - that is, he was an Equatorial Veteran entitled to do, not receive, the spanking. I was stunned by the sacrifice.
Things chilled out for me when I was assigned 3-months mess duty. Serving food and washing dishes was much more agreeable to my sensibilities than sanding machinery and hoisting lines. Nevertheless, I planned my escape. This was accelerated by the most worrisome threat I received - an officer telling me I "could just fall overboard into the Pacific one dark night - and nobody would know, or care." He didn't look like he was joking.
When the ship ported in San Francisco for a 2-week stay, one night around 3am, I packed and split.
Miller went with me to the Greyhound bus station. He bade me a manly farewell and the best of wishes. He assured me, when (he was inevitably) questioned, he would throw them off my trail; there was no doubt he'd ever crack. Then I got on the bus, waved goodbye - and fled across the country. Startling enough, when I arrived in St. Louis five days later, I received a message at the terminal. Miller was on the next line - to join me.
As it turned out, it didn't work out for Miller. He joined me, almost penniless, at the suburban home of my step-brother's mother. Originating from SF, he was stymied by the geographical expanses of the Midwest. Plus, the only black man in that particular county, he noticed the cops in their squad cars checking him out. Too paralyzed to look for work, Miller sighed - and returned to the Navy, with his certain hard knocks awaiting.
Why did he run after me so impulsively? For that matter, why did he risk his sailor's cred by befriending, and often protecting, me? (I'm brought back to Morris' Conundrum - where he met several men who seemed to intuit that, despite all appearances, he was a woman.) Was Miller unspeakably gay? Did he respond to me as a female? Or was he simply a helluva pal? (I have certainly never inspired such friendship from anyone else in my life.)
I last talked to Miller - a short, somewhat strained, phone call - in 1980. The brass couldn't get anything out of him, he chuckled - except 'he left the country.' He asked what I was up to and I regaled him with exploits from my inner-city bohemian life; his approval, and relief, was almost parental. Shortly after, I wrote and recorded a stoned songpoem (for my ridiculous noise-rock band The Cheep Effects) called "Thank You Seaman Miller." It should have been better.
Indeed, I am ever so truly sorry I wasn't emotionally equipped at the time to let Robert Miller know how much I loved him.
Happy New Years, wherever you may be; I remember you, Robert - with all that is good in my heart.
Oh, boot camp wasn't so bad. In the 70's, most of it was ritualized clothes-folding and bed-making - basic training for suburban housewives, really. Like Jan Morris observed in her memoirs, barracks socialism was agreeable enough. There was an almost utopian camaraderie in our shared suffering. (I recall some burly bunkmates literally picking me up off the ground so I could finish the final laps of a decisively qualifying track run.)
Once I ended up a 'Bosun's mate' on board an oil rigger (stationed off Subic Bay, Philippines), however, things got pretty hairy for me.
I just didn't get the hang of it. I didn't drink to excess, contract prostitutes or get a tattoo - which was considered odd, and suspect. I wasn't much of a manual laborer. I repeatedly asked the ship's captain to discharge me from the Navy - I told him I was a sensitive artist - a request met with total derision. (I often sobbed myself to sleep, wishing If I were a woman, they'd have to let me leave the Navy. From this point on, for the rest of my life, my sexual fantasies always placed me as female.)
I was threatened almost daily. Ashtrays bounced off my head. Once, my bunkmates raped me below deck. At least, that's what I'd call being stripped and (literally) tarred & feathered by twenty of my bunkmates. (It took days' worth of showering to get that vile material off my body.) I was frequently assaulted - once, I was choked so hard by some gorilla (in the mess hall, in front of a hundred men) I passed out, green. My attempts to 'press charges' were met by the derision of the Captain himself.
"Be a man."
My only port of solace in this storm of slowly intensifying abuse was another seaman (rookie), Robert Miller. He was outwardly rough and gruff - a hard-working, muscled black man who followed the rules and kept to himself. Brillo hair and a chuckle as deep as the ocean. Black belt in karate. Urban orphan. Nobody ****ed with Miller. As I knew him, he was a brooding artist and poet. He often drew the most technically proficient, yet flattering, pictures of me. We spent hundreds of hours talking long into the oblivious night.
A key event for us was the Equatorial Initiation. All rookies crossing the South Pacific Equator for the first time were expected to drop their pants and crawl across the ship's deck - while all the veterans took turns smacking their bottoms with a wooden paddle. Big fun, and a rare day off, I was informed. I refused. "Nobody's touching me again." Loudspeakers commanded me to participate. When I started to receive outrageous threats from high-ranking officers, Miller joined my rebellion.
We sat defiant and motionless in the mess hall until the guards dragged us off. The punishment was confiscation of 6-months pay - and a non-stop 12-hour watch. Talk about muscle and mental exhaustion! Plus lots of hollering from leather-faced old ****s with shiny scrabbled eggs on their shoulders. It was as if my country (tis of thee) itself called me a worthless piece of shit.
It was only the day after Miller confided to me he had enlisted in the Navy years earlier - that is, he was an Equatorial Veteran entitled to do, not receive, the spanking. I was stunned by the sacrifice.
Things chilled out for me when I was assigned 3-months mess duty. Serving food and washing dishes was much more agreeable to my sensibilities than sanding machinery and hoisting lines. Nevertheless, I planned my escape. This was accelerated by the most worrisome threat I received - an officer telling me I "could just fall overboard into the Pacific one dark night - and nobody would know, or care." He didn't look like he was joking.
When the ship ported in San Francisco for a 2-week stay, one night around 3am, I packed and split.
Miller went with me to the Greyhound bus station. He bade me a manly farewell and the best of wishes. He assured me, when (he was inevitably) questioned, he would throw them off my trail; there was no doubt he'd ever crack. Then I got on the bus, waved goodbye - and fled across the country. Startling enough, when I arrived in St. Louis five days later, I received a message at the terminal. Miller was on the next line - to join me.
As it turned out, it didn't work out for Miller. He joined me, almost penniless, at the suburban home of my step-brother's mother. Originating from SF, he was stymied by the geographical expanses of the Midwest. Plus, the only black man in that particular county, he noticed the cops in their squad cars checking him out. Too paralyzed to look for work, Miller sighed - and returned to the Navy, with his certain hard knocks awaiting.
Why did he run after me so impulsively? For that matter, why did he risk his sailor's cred by befriending, and often protecting, me? (I'm brought back to Morris' Conundrum - where he met several men who seemed to intuit that, despite all appearances, he was a woman.) Was Miller unspeakably gay? Did he respond to me as a female? Or was he simply a helluva pal? (I have certainly never inspired such friendship from anyone else in my life.)
I last talked to Miller - a short, somewhat strained, phone call - in 1980. The brass couldn't get anything out of him, he chuckled - except 'he left the country.' He asked what I was up to and I regaled him with exploits from my inner-city bohemian life; his approval, and relief, was almost parental. Shortly after, I wrote and recorded a stoned songpoem (for my ridiculous noise-rock band The Cheep Effects) called "Thank You Seaman Miller." It should have been better.
Indeed, I am ever so truly sorry I wasn't emotionally equipped at the time to let Robert Miller know how much I loved him.
Happy New Years, wherever you may be; I remember you, Robert - with all that is good in my heart.