Homefront Radio: The Sarge Opts Out (Masculinity Redefined) Part 4

Homefront Radio: The Sarge Opts Out (Masculinity Redefined) Part 4:

Final part, following on from the first three, (and I suggest you catch up first to get the full weight of where this is going, because it’s not all rampant ‘mo sex and does have a point).

“Simon - Good to meet you,” I say, showing absolutely no visible sign of the turmoil taking place inside me.

She smiles. I smile. We're just a pair of smiling fools.

I think about what a friend might say in a situation like this. “Sorry to bother you. It’s cool, I’ll catch up with him at work”.

She waves goodbye and I walk back past the rows of identical houses to the street, convinced that no matter what sadness and horror is taking place within all those walls that they’re small in comparison to what I’m now feeling.

Of course he was married.

I mean, he’s a bloody attractive guy. A girl’s going to want to land that. What did I expect?

Part of me thinks that it serves myself right for turning up unannounced, but I think deep down I was suspicious of something, even with his work schedule.

I don’t entertain thoughts of “He loves me and he’ll leave her for me”. He has a baby on the way, and I couldn’t respect him if he would abandon his family. And I start to realise that it’s obviously over, but there’s still this tiny voice inside saying “Things could somehow work out”.

Maybe they’d already split up and she was just visiting to pack her remaining belongings.

Maybe the child wasn’t even his.

The next evening he calls, voice cold. “You’d better come over”. From his tone I can tell it’s not going to be good, but figure it has to be done rather than dragging things out any longer. I ready myself – it’s going to hurt, but the pain will be brief. I can handle it.

He lets me into the lounge room and motions the couch, then sits on a chair on the opposite side of the room facing me. All pretense of intimacy is gone. This might as well be a job interview – or more realistically a job termination.

“So,” I say, “you’re married”.

“I’m married”. There’s no guilt in his voice. It’s just a statement, like ‘The sky is blue’.

“Does she know you’re gay?”

“I never said I was gay”. I notice he leaves off the ubiquitous ‘mate’ - this is all business.

“Could have fooled me,” I say with a snort. I’m starting to get angry, and I hope he takes this as a dig at his masculinity, (which, while not under serious question, might make him worry that his façade is slipping).

“I like women, but now and then I enjoy what I can get with a man”.

I’m confused because the intimacy seemed more about sex. “Then what’s with the ‘I’ll never hurt you baby’ stuff?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you”. Silence.

“Does she know?”

“I won’t discuss her with you”. I wonder how I ever thought his eyes were so warm and beautiful. The blueness is not the sky after all - it’s just that deep ice you see in a glacier that hasn’t moved more than an inch in a thousand years. He very rarely meets my eyes directly, he keeps looking past me, like i don't really exist.

This angers me, mainly for her sake. He’s putting her at risk by having unprotected sex and she deserves the right to know that, at least. My stomach is sinking, all Swedish Milkmaids churning butter.

He’s still not speaking. I try and find something to say, “This changes our relationship”.

“Yeah, it does.” He says this a little too quickly, like he’s rehearsed this following line in his head beforehand and has been looking for the earliest opportunity to use it. “I’m opting out of that”.

Opting out? It sounds like he’s buying a car, and it’s my goddamn heart he’s talking about. And though I’d readied myself for this, and I promised myself to be strong, I feel a tear trickling slowly down my cheek, when I hadn’t even noticed I was crying, and after everything we’ve been through, I’m embarrassed and ashamed that he’s going to think I’m just a faggot after all.

He continues. “This is the end of it.” Then he stands up and walks towards the door. “You’d better go”.

I look at him in amazement. Embarrassment be damned, if he’s going to treat me like that then why I should I make it easy for him and spare him any discomfort of having to see the damage he’s done? So I hold his gaze, and simply cry. Let him see my pain.

Nothing is said, just a silent room and a ticking clock, and my tears come quietly.

After I minute, I stand up and walk towards the door, thinking I should just storm out, but stop by him and just have to ask “What *were* we?”

He’s looking away from me again, the coward. Army training be damned, he’s unable to be a man and look me in the eye. “Damn great sex, but that’s all it was.” Cold voice again, no hint of fond memory. Just a statement. I don’t take it as a compliment. I was putting all my love and emotions for him into the act and somehow it seemed to have passed him completely by.

I think about something devastating to say, something that’s going to stay with him and haunt him for years, something he’ll look back on and think “why did I ever let that guy go?”

All I can come out with is “You’re no kind of man at all”, whatever that means, and walk out of his life.

He shuts the door behind me, and I look back at the obvious metaphor for the emotional barrier that’s now between us. It feels like I stare at the door for an eternity, but in reality it’s probably only a few heartbeats. Then I stagger across the driveway and throw up what feels like my soul onto the flower garden.

Eventually I stand up, wipe my mouth and look back at his place. There’s a movement of curtains in the upstairs window. I figure he was watching me, not out of concern, but probably more worried I was going to throw a rock through his window.

I start the long walk back to my car, knowing I’ll never be happy again.

But like all periods of grief, time passes and I deal with things. Once you’ve been broken down as low as you can go it gives you the change to rebuild yourself stronger. Though at the time each devastating moment in your life feels like it destroys you, it’s always a positive opportunity. The foundations you lay down next time can bear much more weight without collapsing.

I still think of him, but I realistically know there’s nowhere for our relationship to go. If my happiness comes at the destruction of a family unit then I will bear the burden of being miserable.

It’s now fourteen months since I first met him – the tail end of Summer, with just the hint of Autumn starting to blow through the afternoons. I’m bushwalking again, keeping active, not even thinking of Sarge, just enjoying the warm air and the steady flow of the river next to me, when I come around the corner and the thought jumps into my head that I’m about to walk past where I first met him. I’m remembering the moment vividly, exactly how he looked in those first few seconds that I saw him. I’m so lost in thought that I don’t realise he actually is sitting there sunbaking until I’m almost on top of him.

I’m struck with fear and realise my best course of action is not to say anything, and to just keep walking past.

“Hey,” I say.

He raises his head, sees me, looks away without a word.

I’m such an idiot.

I’m struck at how quickly life can change, and all the familiarity and intimacy we shared in all our moments has now completely ceased to exist. Although we’d said a lot, there’s nothing more that can be said because we’re now right back to where we began: just two complete strangers by the riverbank.

I keep walking.

About a minute down the path a big muscled bodybuilder type walks past me in a pair of speedos, towel slung over his enormous shoulders and continues along the path towards where the Sarge is. I can see what’s about to happen play out in my head, the exact same process of events, a never-ending cycle. My new-and-improved replacement in whatever game the Sarge is playing.

I keep walking.

For all intents and purposes that’s the end of the relationship, for it was the last time I ever saw him, but there’s a very strange postscript to this story.

About two years later I heard they were trying to start up a gay social group here in town and so went along to the ‘Welcome BBQ’. The people are nice enough, but I never really fit in at those sort of Dos, because I haven’t grown up in the gay world and always feel at odds with it, so I am standing with a drink in hand, watching the more animated guests telling stories to each other, when I suddenly realise there’s someone standing next to me.

He’s a big solid guy, about six inches taller and a lot more muscular. Good looking enough. He says “how are you going?” in a voice that makes me think of that old adage: “Looks like Tarzan, Talks like Jane”.

I nod back a hello.

He speaks again. “You don’t know me but I know you”.

I look at him more closely. His face doesn’t ring a bell. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“No, you wouldn’t know me.”

He’s being coy, and I hate that kind of game playing, so bluntly say “What it is mate?”

He leans in close and says “I’m [Sarge]’s boyfriend”.

I’m shocked, though there’s no emotional connection to his words, (by this stage I’m long over the guy). It’s more an intellectual curiousity than an emotional one.

“Guess he finally came out of the closet,” I offer.

“No, he’s still deep in it.”

I snort. “Bloody married men”.

“Hey, watch it” he says, “I’m married”. He shows me his ring finger. So he is. Silly me for assuming if you refer to someone as your boyfriend it would mean you didn’t have a wife.

I glance around the BBQ, with some obvious discomfort.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “He’s not here. We’ve broken up at the moment. He was cheating on me”.

I’m thinking that he was already cheating on his wife with this guy, so what does he expect, but out of politeness say: “Sorry to hear that, but I’m sure you can do better”.

“Oh, he’ll come back. He always does. Can’t stay away. We’ve been together over ten years now”.

Now *that* really surprises me, and was obviously showing on my face, because he notices and nods.

“Yeah, he was cheating on me with you. It took me a while to realise. He was always fucking other women behind my back, which didn’t bother me, but when I knew he was fucking another man I got really angry”.

I’m torn between various conflicting thoughts. He was married. He had a boyfriend. He was cheating on his wife and boyfriend with other women and another man. How did he find the time?

I vocalize my surprise. “I knew he had a healthy sex drive, but bloody hell!”

“He always comes back to me,” he repeats, like he expects some kind of Skippy Badge, (or Medal for you non-aussie readers), for this fact.

“Does his wife know?”

“She knows. She doesn’t like it, but she tolerates it. Every so often she makes him promise to stop seeing me, and he does for a little while, but he still comes back”.

I look around at the rest of the guests, eating their food and sipping their wine, and think to myself that ‘surely their relationships are a lot less complicated’. I can’t look at them, and turn towards the fence.

I realise I'd better say something than just shrugging. “Sounds like way more trouble than it’s worth to me”.

“You know how hot he is,” the guy says, and I can see in his eyes that he’s thinking the same stupid thoughts that I had thought, that his existence and masculinity is somehow validated by being with the Sarge.

“He was a hot guy,” I say in agreement, “but he was also a prick.”

“You still want him, don’t you?” the other guy says, like he didn’t hear what I just said.

“He was hot, but he was a fuckwit.” I wish I knew someone else here that I could make my excuses to go and talk to. “The Fuckwit card trumps the Hotness one”.

He’s looking to me for further explanation. I go on. “Look, there are a lot of really handsome men out there. Some who can even genuinely love you back and are really nice guys. Why bother with someone who’s not going to give you their all? It sounds like you should just move on mate.”

He doesn’t seem to get what I’m saying. He’s obviously got an agenda, judging by the way he leans in really close and whispers “I told him to break it off with you. I told him he’d never see me again if he didn’t”.

Back at the time, that would have been enough to make me hate him, but realistically I realise he had more of a claim to the Sarge than I ever did.

He continues. “I wasn’t really mad at him. When I saw how hot you were I understood.”

I internally roll my eyes. Yeah, I’m real hot. He threw me away damn quick enough.

Then I suddenly realise something doesn’t make sense. “Wait, when did you see me?”

“[Sarge] and I had just finished fucking, and then you knocked on the door.”

My eyes widen. I remember how long it took him to answer.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I asked who you were, knowing something had been up for a while and he confessed. I told him to go down and very clearly break it off with you”.

I can’t believe this is happening. “He said he was heading out”.

“No, I was upstairs listening.”

I suddenly remember his lounge room, and how the roof of the back half rise up above the stairway.

He’s touching my shoulder, really close now. “I watched the entire thing. I couldn’t believe how you really worked him over. Our sex had never been that intense. After you left I threw him over the couch and did the exact same thing. I was very angry with him but really turned on as well”.

This can’t be happening. It’s Way-Too-Candid Camera.

Wait a second.

Suddenly the pieces fall into place, like the end of one of those terrible Agatha Christie novels where everyone just stands around in the Accusing Parlour while the old biddy explains exactly what happened, rather than just kicking her down the stairs before she gets there.

“That final night…” I start to say, reliving the moment. “He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I thought he was too cowardly to look at me… He was looking at you, wasn’t he?”

He nods. “I was standing at the kitchen entrance, making sure he went through with it. Then after you left I watched you throwing up in the garden from the bedroom upstairs. I felt so sorry for you, you seemed like a really nice guy”.

It’s another lesson in perspective, like the Unfortunately Stain story, showing just how wrong our personal interpretation of events can be. How little we know even when we’re sure we know.

I'm processing this when he comes out with something I didn't want to hear.

“You know what would be really good?” he says. “If we fucked. Imagine what [Sarge] would think and how pissed off he’d be.”

What the? Where did *that* come from?

I assume he’s joking, so I just say, “Yeah, two guys he’s dumped. I’m sure he could care less”.

Then, in a garden full of strangers, he grabs my crotch and rubs firmly and deliberately, saying “I want you to *Bleep* my *Bleep”. Exactly what the Sarge said to me in the main street.

I look him directly in the eyes, so he can make no mistake about what I’m saying, with no small error. My voice is pure testosterone, deliberate, and unfortunately louder than I meant it to be.

“Take your fucking hands off my dick, you moronic cunt”.

I even surprise myself at how butch I am for those few seconds.

Someone in the background makes a ‘whoooooo!’ sound and there’s a laugh of “rough trade”. I’m very aware that all eyes are suddenly upon us.

His hand lets go like a shot and he takes a step back. So much for the muscles. Damn show pony.

I lower my voice again and blurt it out. “It would prove nothing, because he never had feelings for me, and I don’t have any feelings for him anymore either. Even if I did it would accomplish fuck all. Leave the stupid game playing to the teenage girls, who at least have an excuse for their immaturity.”

So much for him thinking I’m a nice guy. Do I care? Honestly, no.

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps standing there with a stupid slack-jawed expression. Obviously this wasn’t how he thought things would play out. I toss the liquid from my drink into the garden, and leave the party, knowing that I now probably have a ‘reputation’ and won’t be invited back. I also think I can live with that.

----------------

I’ve noticed in the gay scene in the cities, the general attitude amongst gay guys is that guys with wives are just gay guys in denial, using their wives as ‘cover’ so questions aren’t asked. My experience, (or sexperience), with the Sarge, and unfortunately many, many other closeted guys, (keep in mind this is the *least* complicated relationship I had in that regard), has shown me that it is simply a stereotype. It’s too *easy*.

This is where Brokeback Mountain loses me and why I think the story isn’t particularly opening people’s eyes to just how complicated sexuality is, because it plays into the easiest stereotype of closeted guys. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen like that a lot of the time, but there’s a whole world of more complex possibilities out there.

What happens when the guys aren’t using their wives just as cover but genuinely love them? What about the men who enjoy sex with women and men equally and take both freely? What about the guys who aren’t tortured over their sexuality, and simply see sex with men as a ‘bit of fun with no deeper repercussions’. How do you react when one of these guys asks you to share his wife with him? How do you explain the huge number of men, (there’s no shame in admitting I had a very healthy appetite there for a while), I’ve met that I’ve had sex with who don’t identify themselves as gay, because it never even remotely occurs to them that what they're doing *is* gay, because they're not one of 'those pooftas you see mincing down Oxford Street during Mardi Gras'.

BBM is the simplest stereotype of how someone might imagine a married closeted guy being. (And notice it’s defined in terms of ‘love’ and not sex). The movie’s only the tip of the iceberg, not a grand statement. Unfortunately, we live in a Black and White World, where things are defined in clear cut lines of one or the other. Nothing is ever that easy.

Real life is much more complicated that you could ever imagine.