This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 50 (Sun., March 5)

Before we went up to our room, I'd cleared it with the desk clerk, explaining that two Army buddies were in town and had had too much to drink to drive back to Fort Dix. He'd checked our room card, while I was explaining things and confirmed that we had a military discount. He didn't seem terribly happy about it, but he did manage a smile as he flashed a peace sign, when we went to the elevator.

The elevator operator was a white-haired guy, possibly as old as my grandparents. His left uniform sleeve was safety-pinned to the shoulder pad. He eyed Ju-Long knowingly as we boarded.

Ju- long nodded. "Nam '66."

The elevator operator closed the door. "France '16."

After a pause, Ju-Long added while still facing front: "Fragmentation grenade."

Opening the door on the fifth floor with his able hand, the operator stated matter-of-factly: "Ditto."

Gerry took the key from me and opened the door. The room smelled of stale smoke; I opened the window to let in cold pollution and traffic noise. But watching Ju-Long light up a joint, I figured that all four of us smoked, so 'what the Fuck?'. I closed it.

"You don't smoke tobacco?" I asked Ju-Long out of curiosity, wondering if I would be smoking dope on a regular basis after Vietnam. Gordon offered a round of cigarettes.

"Not regularly," He laughed, stroking his stump, as he got comfortable, propping himself against the headboard of the bed; he held up the joint. "and this helps me manage the pain." I nodded that I understood.

"Suppose the elevator operator still has pain?" Gerry wondered more to himself than to anyone else.

"I doubt it." Ju-Long ventured, inhaling deeply. He paused for a few seconds, then exhaled. "He was wounded fifty years ago."

"Wonder why he's still working." I expressed total naivety, basically I had never had to deal with being old and disabled.

Ju-Long sputtered. "Cause he don't have shit to live on."

"How about Social Security?" My question got a roaring laugh from the three others.

"By the time Social Security started paying out in '37, he'd been missing his arm for twenty years, and already disabled; he'd never paid into the system." Ju-Long started massaging his thigh above the amputation, then Gordon took over. "Nope, the poor man'll have to work 'til he drops dead."

"My dad, has to--" Gerry's introduction caused Ju-Long and Gordon to raise their eyebrows, probably since I'd told them that Gerry's father had died of typhus. "--the cousin who adopted me still has to teach German privately, because the school system forced him to retire at 70, and the retirement he gets just barely pays the rent and utilities. His sister has to go cleaning houses for rich people."

"And you managed to get your BA at Columbia, wow." Was simply my statement of fact, but Gerry must have felt obliged to explain the financial side of it.

"Got a full scholarship." He straightened his back, rightfully proud. "And I tutored basic German for ten hours a week." Then to change the subject, he grinned at Gordon and Ju-Long. "How did you guys meet?"

"Oh, Christ," Gordon laughed and looked at his lover. "you tell the story, I'll get it wrong."

Ju-Long stroked Gordon's sandy hair; his head was now on a pillow between Ju-Long's legs. "On my first tour back in '63, a buddy of mine, who I had a mad crush on but who was straight as a string, got his girlfriend pregnant. Since they were living together in an apartment in Cholon, she was Hoa, uh, ethnic Chinese," Gerry and I nodded that we'd understood. "I used to go over to their place, mainly just to be close to him." He lit another joint.

"Anyway, when Russ bought the farm a month before I was due to come back to the world, his girlfriend went off the deep end. If he wasn't going to be around to pay for the kid, she was going to slit his throat and then go back to her family." His voice caught on emotion, so Gordon took over.

"This is when he looked me up at our community relations office." Gordon propped himself on his elbow and lit a cigarette. "He had Cam in his arms when he stormed into my office, yelling at my LN, uh, local national secretary in Vietnamese, so I thought he was local because he was wearing everyday Vietnamese clothing."

"You speak Vietnamese?" Gerry looked at Ju-Long and me. "Thought you were half Chinese."

"I am, but I went to the language school at Monterey, California." He toked on his joint.

Gordon laughed again. "So, I thought I had this mad LN on my hands and was about to draw my sidearm when he yells: 'Who do ya havta fuck to get some attention around here?'." Gordon took a toke off Ju-Long's joint. "And throughout all the commotion, this gorgeous little baby is as happy as can be, laughing away, gurgling."

I thought to myself: 'just like my Gerry' and squeezed his hand on my thigh. Ju-Long continued. "So, I tell him that the kid is mine and that my girlfriend is going ballistic because I'm rotating. and you know what this son-of-a-bitch says to me--"

"--if that's your kid, Miss Thing, I'm fuckin' Bette Davis." Gordon completed the sentence.

Ju-Long laughed. "Yeah, I didn't know that I was so obvious."

"Only when you get flustered, Lover." Gordon tickled him. "So, he comes clean, but I think that the story merits a try. Anyway, I get my secretary as a witness and we drive over to the apartment to get Madame's side of the story. The minute she sees us, she goes into a tirade of how she wants to kill the kid.

"And that was enough for my secretary to serve as a witness that the mother had abandoned her child. Luckily, there was no birth certificate." Gordon chuckled. "And Ju-Long informed the mother that if she would sign a statement releasing custody of Cam to him as the father, nobody would tell the police that she wanted to kill the kid."

"To make a long story short," Ju-Long concluded. "I registered Cam's birth at the embassy and got him put on my passport and we returned to the States, where I extended for another tour and we returned to Saigon, where Gordon was waiting for us." He leaned down and kissed him behind the ear.

"You took a baby back into a war zone?" Gerry was incensed. And I couldn't have agreed with him more.

"You don't understand." Gordon sat up on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. "Back then," He put out the match. "I make it sound like centuries ago. Until February of '65, military personnel took their dependents, uh, wives and kids with them. The Pentagon considered it safer than Berlin, Germany, which is over 200 kilometers behind the Iron Curtain and a lot safer than anywhere in France." I looked at Gerry; he shrugged.

"Anyway, when President Johnson ordered all DoD and DoS dependents out…" Gordon nudged him, and he saw our confused faces. "Uh, Department of Defense and Department of State, uh, all military and diplomatic dependents out of Vietnam, I took emergency leave and brought Cam to his 'grandparents' in Hawaii." He chuckled and shook his head. "Never take kids to their grandparents, if you ever want them back." Gordon and Ju-Long laughed and kissed.

"Didn't you say that your dad WAS a Navy pilot?" I wanted to set the record straight, since I'd obviously misunderstood him.

"Yeah, he's retired, and they live near Pearl Harbor."

***

We finally settled down a little after three, but the only thing we had to get up for was to check out at noon. I'd opened the window again to promote pollution exchange, but, at least, it was a different smell. Traffic, had all but stopped on Broadway. That was one of the things, I'd always wondered about: why Manhattan became a virtual ghost town, early Sunday mornings. But I closed the window, because the cold air made the cast-iron radiator knock.

I was lying on my right side facing the other bed, where Ju-Long and Gordon were sleeping, to judge by their breathing, when a greased finger slid into my happy hole, then there were two. I adjusted myself so he could easily enter me. Gerry's cock found my prostate, even at this odd angle. There was nothing hurried and nothing urgently forceful, it was a mellow fuck. We were taking our time and enjoying every second. Although we knew there was going to be a two-week abstinence before basic finished, we also knew that we had a week's leave coming before we reported for advanced individual training.

Gerry's pumping was picking up speed a little, and I began to feel the tingling in my abdomen. My toes were curling and his breathing was rapid and throaty. My muscles, all my muscles tensed, almost to the point of cramping, when the surge, originating somewhere between the root of my ball sack and my hole, erupted, making time stand still.

A deep sigh with a slight groan, accompanied by shudders, rose from behind me, and from the other bed. Even though we hadn't had sex with Gordon and Ju-Long, the fact that we came at the same time, made my feeling of having bonded with them complete. And even though, my tummy was a gooey mess, Gerry pulled me close and we fell into a deep, satisfying sleep.

***

I looked at my Wesclox alarm on the nightstand, that I'd purchased at the flea market back in Paris, and it told me that it was just past ten, when the knock came from the door a second time. Of course, all four of us were awake.

I got out of bed and let Moffett in. He was about to say something to me, when he called on his deity of choice. "My God, Drill Sergeant!"

"We know he's cute, Alvin," I just couldn't resist it. "but I wouldn't call him god."

"Oh, I would." laughed Ju-Long. "And you will, too, when he's got Smokey's hat on tomorrow."

Moffett made a beeline to the window. "It smells horrible in here." Moffett reminded us in a strongly righteous tone. And of all redundant questions, "What on Earth have you guys been up to?" almost got him a round of applause.

But the question of how we would deal with Gordon's returning to a figure of authority, the second we rolled through Fort Dix' main gate, hung in the air like the odor of stale cum. With no one else volunteering, I took the initiative. "Don't worry, Big Dragon, I think we all realize that Gordon becomes Drill Sergeant Healy, the minute we return to barracks." I coughed and closed the window. "And I, for one, will be willing and able to drop and give him fifty, at first request." They laughed.

"Why did you call him, Big Dragon?" Moffett wanted to know.

"Because that's his name, Alvin." I explained, while getting my towel ready to go shower.

"You Indian?" The conjecture left everyone but Moffett stunned.

"Moffett is from upstate, close to the Mohawk reservation." I explained to Ju-Long, then to Moffett. "No, he's Hawaiian."

"And what's he doing in bed with Drill Sergeant?" Obviously 'unintrusive' was not in Moffett's vocabulary.

This time, my Gerry got the jump on us all. "They're combat buddies from Nam. We had too much to drink, so they spent the night."

"And besides, Gordon helps me get around." He sat up, sliding his still visibly scarred, reddened stump from beneath the sheet. Moffett's eyes rolled back in his head, and he was out cold. Luckily, I was standing off to one side and was able to catch him, before he hit the floor.