The Water Closet

I was marching along with my new platoon when our drill sergeant, Sergeant Montoya yelled, “I don’t know but I’ve been told….”, I was already thinking that if I ever heard that cadence call another time, I would scream like a little girl!

In the last few days I  had to endure things that I had never experienced before. Our living accommodations were World War II vintage barracks which had an open living area on both floors lined with rows of bunks. My bunk was about midway down on the far side of the building.


At one end of the barracks was two small rooms which turned out to be bedrooms for the drill sergeants when they spent the night with us. At the other end was a stairway that went upstairs to the second floor. Also the latrine was located on that end of the building.

Our platoon was on the ground level which at least made it easy to “fall out” into platoon formation. Some things took a little getting used too. Being naked in front of so many guys was a shock to my shy “sensitive” nature. It turned out that once I got past my own nakedness, seeing other guys my age walking around naked was a real treat.



But, the first time I went to the showers was a bit overwhelming to me. As I've said before, I grew up in a sheltered enviroment where nudity was not a common thing. At the end of the first day we were told that it was SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) to hit the showers. Sergeant Montoya said he wanted to see nothing but assholes and elbows. Well, that had its intended effect and everyone started to hurry around, at least until he left the room.



Of course I took my usual approach to this new environment that I found myself in. I had adopted it from the beginning, back at the induction center. Stay back and watch the others to see what they would do. Some of the guys stripped down and wrapped a towel around themseves and headed toward the latrine and the showers. I just kept my head down and peeked around, trying not to catch anyone’s attention. It was hard not to just stare at some of these guys stripping off their clothes. “Man…” I thought. I didn't know quite what to make of it.



I used as much control as I could muster as I slowly worked around my bunk and lockers, steeling myself for my “maiden’ voyage into this new world of open group nudity. I finally worked up sufficient courage, stripped off my clothes and quickly wrapped a towel around my waist just as I had seen the others do. I then headed off. Of course, I made darn sure to keep a good grip on my towel as I negotiated my way through the rows of bunks.



As I stepped into the latrine area, I looked around and saw a large well lit bathroom with a row of 12 toilets running down one side of the room and a row of 12 sinks running down the other. Over the sinks were a row of mirrors facing those starkly “out in open” toilets, similar to the photos below although our latrine was larger and cleaner.






There were naked guys everywhere. Some naked guys were sitting on the toilets talking to each other like it was a normal thing to be crapping next to your new friends while talking about sex with the girls back home. Those toilets were an experience in themselves. There were other naked guys bending over the sinks brushing their teeth and shaving. “Ooo…” I thought








The "Water Closet"




In the back of the room, just beyond the lovely toilets, I saw a cute, wet, naked blond guy stepping out of what looked like a hallway with his towel in his hand. “Oh,  the showers must beyond that hallway” I thought, as I ripped my eyes away from him.



As it turned out, the showers were in that hallway. It was like a long closet, about 16 feet deep. It was lined with stainless steel, with a row of shower heads and faucet handles projecting from the right-hand side. I discovered to my horror that there was barely (no pun intended) room enough for that many guys to get in and out without rubbing bodies with the other guys that were showering.

I was beginning to get really nervous. I felt like turning around and heading back to the safety of the bunks. At this point I couldn’t, that would break my rule of not drawing undue attention to myself.  I had no choice. Whether I was shy or not, I had come this far, I needed to shower so I might as well keep going. I stripped off my towel and stepped in.



Well, I can tell you, I’m a pretty small guy and I made myself as skinny as possible. I slid along the left hand side, dragging my bare butt along the wet wall and doing my best to avoid those jostling wet bodies. But the first thing that happened was that some guy stepped back to leave the shower and bumped into me with his wet hairy butt. “Hey Runt, watch where you are going! I've been called runt throughout my life and it wasn't one of my favorite nicknames and was usually by some big jock. I looked around at him and thought, "crap, your  not that much larger than me". But I said, “Oops, sorry….err… ah…sorry” as I struggled to avoid any further contact with his hairy wet body.



I found the first open shower head and started to soap up, trying the best I could not to appear embarrassed. But, I’m sure my red face was a complete giveaway. I looked around sheepishly, looking at the other guys and realized that no one was noticing me. They were all busy trying to look nonchalant themselves.



It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the only one struggling to get used to this new way of life. I’m sure it wasn’t new to some of them, but I could quickly see that I wasn’t alone in my embarrassment. I finished my shower and headed back to my bunk with a new sense of self confidence, thinking, “That wasn't so bad. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.”

It wasn’t long before I was over my case of nerves and was able to enjoy my trips to the shower, along with the view, discreetly of course.

After the Fall, a post script

After reading a post by my dear friend Tony entitled "Shame", I realized that the meaning behind the title of this blog, “Forever Silent”, originates from my feelings of shame. As old as I am and with all my life experience, I am unable to get past the shame of being gay. For myself, I feel that I have come to accept that I am gay but I am still too ashamed for it to be public knowledge. Also, the the shame and discomfort my wife feels about that part of my personality would most likely keep me in the closet for the foreseeable future.




Tony, in his post, spoke about standing, looking out at the river and having details come back to his remembrance about his past experiences, an epiphany of sorts. I had something similar to that happen to me recently.



In an earlier post entitled, "The Fall", I wrote of my special friend David, who had disappeared from my neighborhood and I did not know what had happened to him. As I originally wrote this story, I wrote it in the way that I remembered it. Recently, in another effort to explain, again, to my wife some of my feelings about that time in my life, something returned to my consciousness that I had "forgotten". As I struggled with my emotions, a memory came flooding back to me as to what had happened to him.



Through tears of shame, I explained to my wife how I felt responsible for David's disappearance from his home and later in life, his suicide. She asked me why I would feel responsible. At this point, a window opened up in my mind and the memory came back to me that had remained hidden for decades.



After his disapperance, I learned that David had gotten into a fight with his drunken abusive father. I was not completely sure what the fight was about but I felt at the time and I probably was right, it was about me. It is so amazing to me how we can crowd difficult memories and feelings to the hidden corners of our mind.





David was a tough little kid and when his father started verbally and physically pounding on him, this particular time, he fought back, knocking his father down. David ran away, leaving his father semi-conscious on the floor. Eventually, David would go to his grandmothers home and would never return to live with his parents. I didn’t learn about some parts of this story until some time after his disappearance.

As I look back on the sequence of events that year some things have become quite clear to me. I am quite sure David's father had learned of our physical relationship, of our "summer activities, most likely from his sister who had promised not to tell.

As in other times that David and I had gotten into some trouble together, David's dad most likely called my father to apply the blame where he thought it belonged. My father never said a word to me about it. He probably didn't have a clue how to handle something like having a "queer" son, but the course of our family changed  soon after.

After this incident, we received a call from a local Mormon man who was proselyting for his church by phone. My father answered the phone that night. When he hung up he came into the livingroom where the rest of the family was watching tv. He told us of the conversation he had with this Mormon man and that he had agreed to let the Mormon Missionaries come visit our home and talk to us about their church. We were all stunned at this turn of events. My father had never before shown in any interest in any organized religion. Something or somebody must have changed his thinking. Me?

We met with the missionaries regularly for several weeks and soon after we were all baptised into the "Church". For my part, I readily accepted the teachings of the Church and still to this day believe that it's teachings are true. The Church and its members have been a valuable asset in my life and I am sure that because of it, I am alive today. I am grateful to my father for opening our home to the young Mormon Elders who taught me about our loving Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. It was a time in my life when I needed the strength and support that this knowledge and all the other aspects of belonging to the Church provided me.

I must admit that I have struggled over the years with the knowledge that I was and am gay/bisexual because these feelings are in direct conflict with the moral standards of the Church.  But, the positive effects which the Church has brought to my life and the lives of my family, have more than outweighed whatever shame, fear and confusion that I have felt over the years. I do hope that someday I can reconcile those negative feelings which still cause me to be ...Forever Silent.