chrissteele

Homosexuality or The Case of the Lost innocence
A True Story by Christopher Steele

I had just gotten back from my ill-fated run away from home trip to Detroit, Michigan
that I told you about in"Tired Old Poet Blues"

I was in the town of Redkey, not far from my foster parents home in Muncie, Indiana

I was working in the tomato canning factory there
I had just enough money to rent a room for a couple weeks with no money to buy food
or a change of clothes - the clothes on my back were all I had since my other clothes
had been stolen with my suitcase and all the poems I had written up to that time from a
Detroit YMCA while I was in jail for no reason there, in that city.

I starved and wore the same tomato pasty clothes until I was due for my first paycheck
at the end of those two weeks
I worked hard, 20 hrs. a day
Because I had nothing better to do, needed the money and was trying to prove to the figurative
ghost of my foster father - up the highway a little ways
That I was after all a hard worker - and self - disciplined
My foster father had preached hard work and self - discipline to my brother and I since we
had become a part of his home at my age of about 7 and my brother's age 5
He always used to say "Hard work never killed anybody."

Anyway, when I finlly got paid
I moved to Muncie and rented an apartment in a complex there
I worked at whatever job I could to survive
I remember spending one horrific, freezing night loading beef into freezer trucks
It was hard: damn hard; and damn freezing work

I had just started drinking alcohol fairly recently
And my policy was never to pay for alcohol if you can get somebody else to pay for it

One night I was drinking with this older man in his apartment

A man who everybody told me was a homosexual
I was so sexually naive that I had just acquired a FAINTidea of what a homosexual was
I had thought a homosexual was just someone who was oversexed
When I found out(or gained some idea of) what a homosexual was,

I was frightened! to death
And I didn't know why

In those days, everyone was a homophobe
Even the homosexuals
They hated themselves for being homosexuals
Homosexuality was a Crime! almost everywhere
And homosexuality was considered, if not worse than, less dignified than murder
And NOBODY came out of the closet

So, this particular night, I was drinking with this guy
And I got to the point where I was about to pass out and wanted to go home,
next door
But he talked me into staying there and sleeping in his bed

He waited that night until I beame half-conscious,half awake
And he reached in and masturbated me

I told him, the next morning, that I didn't see what the big deal was:
I could masturbate myself
But he said doing someone else was different
Anyway people found out about it
And now, I was a pariah, an outcast, not physically
People still associated with me -
But I was considerd a
HOMOSEXUAL!!!

But I didn't hate or despise myself - NOT YET
Let's fast forward a few chapters here

To the little town of Leesville, Louisiana
Where the army's Fort Polk was located
I had just been discharged from the army for not comforming to it or really trying to

I was a dyed-in-the- wool individualist in those days and the army, especially if
you're an enlisted man and not an officer is about conforming and losing your
personal identity
There is and never was an army of one

I had just joined the army because I needed a job
But don't get me wrong
I have a lot of admiration for our service men and women
They're doing a job that someone has to do
And this was during the early stages of the Vietnam war
And if they had sent me to Vietnam, I would have gone

I just got kicked out first
Actually, I was almost court-martialed for getting into a fight with a supply Sergeant
for walking on the grass
I never understood, and still don't, why you can't walk on the grass at army bases
and other public places - or even private homes sometimes
I thought grass was for walking on and dipping your toes in

Fast forward some more
To the town of Shreveport, Lousiana
Where I had just gotten off the bus
(on the way there by the way, I had bought a bottle of whiskey in Leesville and
carried it with me on the bus because the legal drinking age in Louisiana was18
and I was 19 at the time. And I got the highest high from that particular bottle of whiskey that I have
ever received from anything since except for performing my poetry for a live audience)

I was wandering the streets when a man pulled up in a car and spoke to me and offered
me a place to stay for the night.
I was so stupid I thought, why not. (It's a wonder I wasn't murdered by someone when
I was young).
Anyway, he got me into his apartment
Then in his bed and he talked and coaxed me to the point
Where he was performing fellatio on me

He finished and when he was through, he no longer had any use for me

Then, in the morning
I started my hitchhike to L.A.
I would have gone farther, but there was an ocean in the way
And I didn't have plane fare
I just wanted to keep moving, keep traveling - to someplace where I, myself, didn't exist
I was in a state of shock all the way out there
I croosed the painted desert without seeing it - one bit
Was I a homosexual now because that guy gave me pleasure that I couldn't give myself?

And I hadn't had sex with a woman yet

And when I did have sex with a woman -
The first night it was 12hrs. straight
And I had an erection the whole time -
I couldn't have an orgasm inside her

My psyhologist ,later, told me that my homosexual experiences were normal for young people
It didn't mean I was a homosexual
And that the reason I couldn't get an orgasm with the woman
Was that I was afraid of gettig totally close to someone and then being rejected
Lke my mother leaving me when I was 6 years old
He said it made me feel, subconsciously, that I wasn't man enough to keep my mother

But he didn't answer
Why could I orgasm with a man
But not this woman

But the truth is: just recently when I thought I mght have a chance to have sex with a girl -
like Courtney - or someone else -
Just in case I got the V.A. (The Veterans Administration) to prescribe me Viagra -

I experimented with it on myself for masturbation
And I got an erection and it lasted a long time
But I was unable to orgasm

I masturbate to orgasm infrequently
And when I do orgasm - beause of my psychiatric medication
I don't ejaculate or emit semen

Am I even all that sexual anymore?
There are other things more important to me than sex these days
LOVE is more importatant to me
It's why I do these scribblings

But who am I kidding?
I want sex with a woman
Even now as I'm a feeble - truly feeble - 61 yr. old man

But it can't be casual
If I experience it and it's good
And it's the right person and it's Love - not just sex
I'll want her to stay with me -- Forever

But does forever exist?
Everything gets taken away from us
Even our lives - eventually,

Eventually and Inevitably -
We Lose
We Lose everything

But in between --
There has to be Love - and
I don't mean sex
I need Love or I'll die

I'll die inside before out
And it'll be a very painful death ...

Please, someone, Love me
Love me ...

Note: I just wrote this last night. It took me 6 hrs.
to write. And 5 hrs. to type -- and that's just on SG,
not on the page. I hope you like it.

Copyright Christopher Steele Brower