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.

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Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

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

Chapter 32 (Friday, Jan. 13)

Not only had Friday the 13th always been my lucky day, it was the day that I extended for a total of four years to be a member of the Army Security Agency. That was the first lucky stroke in Marv's grand plan of things.

Then they took me to take my specialized tests. Since I had scored a 50 on the Army Language Aptitude test when I'd gone for my physical, I was scheduled for a battery of different specific language tests, today. Now, I had no idea whether the score of 50 was good or not. I just took the test, and the guy who graded it flipped when he'd finished. His commander was impressed, but I never found out for sure how well I'd done.

Since these tests did not involve my having to speak, I signed up for Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Albanian and Finnish. The last two would be the proof of the pudding that the Army suffers from incompetence and laziness.

Haruki had taken the Spanish and Japanese language tests. The tests were divided into two parts with one multiple-choice answer sheet. The first part was reading comprehension and the second part was audio comprehension. And he had been given the tests, one right after the other. To his surprise, the answers he had filled in on the multiple-choice answer sheets were identical. I chose Albanian and Finnish, hoping that neither would ever be of any tactical significance to the United States.

I took the exams, each of which took about an hour, not including the grading thereof. The first three I'd taken were the control tests. I was certain to get a near perfect score in Cantonese and French, and since I didn't have to speak, it would be pretty close in Mandarin. So I used the French test as my guide. It's the one I requested first and had the answer sheet on top of the others and marked the multiple choice hard enough that it left a mark on the page below.

Not to make it all too obvious, I 'missed' varying numbers of questions on the Albanian and Finnish tests, as not to establish a traceable pattern. And I, of course, had to 'miss' two or three on the Cantonese and Mandarin tests, again, as not to give myself away. But on the French test, I got a perfect score. My ego just wouldn't let me miss one.

A very excited Captain came up to my cubbyhole in the language lab. "Private Loughery, you have passed the French, Cantonese and Mandarin tests with 'Functionally native proficiency' and the Albanian test with 'General professional proficiency' and the Finnish test with 'Limited working proficiency'. Where on earth did you learn--" he broke off his sentence when he looked at me for the first time, instead of just seeing my Anglo-Saxon name. "--oh, yes, well, of course."

"Do I still qualify for 'Functionally native proficiency', or do you have to take off points, now?" I was tired, hungry, and irritable, having had to listen to exactly the same questions in five languages over the same amount of hours.

The guy looked hurt, and, naturally, I immediately felt like a shit. "No, no." Then it clicked to what I was referring; his face hardened. "It's easier for me now to understand why you did so well on two different Chinese tests, than it would have been, were you as white as your name implies." He turned and left.

There I was. He'd left me alone. I didn't know whether I could go or not. So, I went to look for someone in authority, since making independent decisions was certainly frowned upon in this new life. All of a sudden, I felt rejected, lonesome, and didn't know what to do. "Hello? Is anybody there?" I yelled. But it was like praying, I got absolutely no response.

Walking down another long hallway, I heard someone talking on the phone, since I could only hear one side of the conversation. I knocked and opened the door. There sat the Captain. "Just a minute." He covered the receiver. "Is there anything wrong?"

"Yeah, I'd like to know if I can go. And if I can, I'd like to know how the Hell I get back to the Reception Center, Sir." Sarcasm was showing just a little.

"Why this insubordination, Private?" He assumed to have the upper hand.

"Because I have been cooped up in this building for going on six hours, now. I have missed lunch and dinner. I feel faint, and one could possibly assume that a JAG officer may consider this type of treatment torture, Sir."

His tone didn't get any friendlier, but he did recognize that I could have connections to the JAG Corps and was maybe not just a star linguist. He showed me on a map behind his desk how I could get back to the Reception Center and ordered me to leave, before resuming his telephone conversation.

It was after dark with a cold wind and the weakly lighted streets of Fort Dix made my spirits take a nose dive. I was debarking on a tour of feeling sorry for myself, and had been on the road for maybe twenty minutes in the cold and increasing fog, when a car honked at me. I only thought that it wanted me to get out of the way. When it pulled up, the driver rolled down the window. "Need a lift, Soldier?" And, at first, I didn't recognize First Sergeant.

***

I gladly got in on the front passenger's seat. I was already in, when I first saw Sean and Gerry on the back seat. Top grinned broadly. "That sorry-assed Captain called me and told me that he'd sent you home on foot and ordered me to get you transportation, ASAP."

"Thanks for coming, Top." I was truly grateful. "And you know what? People like that Captain are precisely the reason I'll always stay an enlisted man." Gerry patted me on the shoulder.

"Well, after he told me what you scored on the tests, he also said that Army Intelligence is likely to offer you a direct commission." Top was signaling to turn in a direction away from the Reception Center.

"The way I'm feeling about the officers' corps right now, I'd rather clean latrines with my fucking toothbrush for two years than be one of them." I was successfully venting my frustration. "Besides, after taking those tests, I have decided that Army and Intelligence are two mutually exclusive terms."

Top pulled into the parking lot of a place that was rocking. Through the haze, it appeared to be a recently built, single storey building where people were enjoying themselves. "This, Private Loughery, is the NCO club." First Sergeant explained.

"And we gotta get you fed." was Sean's input from the back.

"Besides," came Gerry's voice out of the dark, bordering on laughter. "you still have to tell us where the Fuck you learned Albanian."

***

We were sitting in a corner of the dining room, as not to attract undue attention. Top and Sean, both non-commissioned officers, were in plain view; Gerry and I were tucked into the corner, who were obviously trainees, due to our buzz-cut heads. I had just finished my chef salad and was on my second beer. Sean and Gerry were also drinking beer, but First Sergeant was drinking something soft, which set off the first warning.

Haruki had told me not to consider the Drill Sergeant my buddy, and in this case I was replacing Drill with First. He possibly went by the barracks to collect Sean and Gerry to enlist their help in getting information out of me, of course, unwittingly on their parts. The second alarm went off when he mentioned the fact that el CID had contacted him about my lie-detector results. His remark: "Don't worry Ben, your secrets are safe with me." really set the bells ringing.

Gerry was now on his third beer and totally unaware of his possible role in this little set-up of getting an information verification for the First Sergeant. "What secrets, Ben. Does he mean like how" he stopped abruptly when my combat boot made contact with his shin.

"Oh, sorry, Gerry was that your leg." I looked under the table as I excused myself and made it sound sincere. "I'm still not used to these clumsy boots."

First Sergeant frowned that I hadn't let Gerry finish his sentence, so he tried his own approach. "Come on, Ben, say something in Albanian."

This is where I had to laugh. He thought he had me. But I'd just spent over half an hour listening to some woman with a shrill voice speaking Albanian. I smiled suavely. "Ju lutem më tregoni se ku janë tualetet?" This question appeared twice in the reading selection as well as twice in the audio section. I would probably never be able to erase from my mind how to ask for directions to the toilet in Albanian. But again, this had been the level of the other language tests, as well.

"And what does that mean?" Sean wanted to know.

First Sergeant smirked. "He asked where the toilet is."

Both Sean and Gerry glared at him. I just nodded knowingly. Now, the probable options were that he learned how to ask this question in twenty languages from a tour book of useful phrases, or more likely, he'd heard the near cognate, tualetet, and had guessed. After all, he did play Scrabble and had a knack for picking up words like the verb, 'to besmut'.

Of course, the option that I really didn't want to think about was that he had been ordered to investigate why an American Chinese spoke Albanian, given that the communist government of Albania and Red China were now best of friends. Had to admit, though, I hadn't thought about that aspect when I'd chosen Finnish and Albanian as the least strategically important languages, as seen from an American perspective. But, then again, my paranoia was giving Army Intelligence far too much credit for being what it claimed.

Top signaled for the check. He ignored the unasked question of why he understood Albanian. He just looked at his watch. "We'll have to be getting you guys back to the barracks."

***

Cuddled up to me on the mattress on the floor and smoking, Sean was trying to make sense of what I was up to. "So, if you don't speak Albanian and Finnish, why did you take the tests."

"Maybe, I really don't know, myself." I exhaled, blowing smoke rings. "Maybe, it's part of an ego trip, or something." I shrugged and smirked when I suddenly knew what it was. "I just wanted to prove that people and their knowledge can't be standardized."

He giggled. "What if they want to retest you?"

"Ah," I sat up and got to my field jacket. "I made a copy of the right answers." The piece of paper had pencil markings, indicating that it was, indeed, the key to a multiple-choice test."

"How did you get to be so smart?" He kissed my naked shoulder, as I replaced the key into my field jacket's pocket.

I tossed the rest of the cigarette into the butt can. "I'm not all that smart." The kiss I gave him was a prelude of more. "But Haruki and I did go to the original Hippie school in Greenwich Village. They taught us to think critically and to always be a skeptic."

***

My consciousness was drifting in and out of that pre-sleep stage that I loved so much. Sean's finger was playing with my hole and he was putting something sticky inside me. "What's that on your finger?" Actually, I was too drowsy to care, but I did feel faintly interested.

"Honey." His soft purring indicated that he was in the mood.

"Where'd you get honey?" I thought that maybe it was left over from breakfast.

"At the hospital." He kissed my right earlobe and brushed it with his teeth. "So, I can get my blood sugar back up if I feel faint."

"And you think it's going to be a good lubricant?" I chuckled at the thought.

He stuck his finger, covered in goodness, into my mouth. I sucked, as he spoke. "If it's not, I can always lick it off." And as he said that, he placed the head of his throbbing cock at my hole and it went in with surprising ease. My body heat seemed to be making it become less viscous, thus easier for Sean to fuck in and out. And he now had three honey-coated fingers in my mouth; I was approaching a sugar high.

The sensuous fuck had made me ravenous for Sean. Although he'd finally filled me, he could tell that I needed more. As he had me on my back and was spreading my legs, his face revealed his contemplation of how far he was willing to go. Then, decidedly, he lowered his mouth onto my hole and sucked his own honey-sweetened juices out.

When he resolved to go for me, his mouth had only been on my dick for seconds before I filled it. Fortunately, he was willing to share.