A Man in Uniform
The dark blue, button-down shirt tucked neatly into his belted navy pants was merely the backdrop to the many patches sewn across his pressed sleeve. Robbie, my first love in the second grade, sported that yellow handkerchief better than any Cub Scout I’d ever seen. He would only ever be out-shined by my own son many years later.
If I’m being honest, that was when my affection for men in uniforms began. But as with all puppy love, Robbie the Cub Scout would diminish in my heart, only to be replaced by Brett, the Boy Scout, in 5th grade.
By high school it was, Trevor, the leader of the marching band in his red polyester jacket lined with gold tassels and a white, feathery plume shooting out the red and white shacko atop his head. The design on his jacket formed a V that pointed down to his pleated white pants. It was enough to drive a hormonal teenage girl insane.
And don’t forget the superhero cape. In my opinion, all uniforms should have a superhero cape. After all, some men in uniform are akin to real-life superheros, at least in my mind.
Over the years, I’ve had many uniform-clad lovers. There was Peter, the policeman; Frank, the fireman; Sam, the sailor; Mark, the Marine, and I can’t ever forget Bickram, the handsome Buckingham Palace guard I had a fling with while on holiday. (That’s how they say vacation in England -- holiday.)
The list could go on. Over the years, I’ve broken many a uniformed man’s heart. But there would be one uniformed man that would completely, through no fault of his own, annihilate mine.
When I met him, he was sitting on a bench outside the courthouse, disheveled, reeking of body odor and dried urine, mumbling to himself. He held a sign, “Veteran, will work for food.” I brought him home, let him shower, fed him, and offered him the guest bed. He disappeared by morning.
I met him again one day as I slowed to a stop at the off-ramp of 417 and Aloma Boulevard. He was standing on the corner in the August sun, his lips parched, his wrinkled skin burning, holding a sign with the single word, “Hungry.” I rolled down my window and handed him a twenty and my bottled water. It was all I had on me. He took it, said the obligatory God Bless, and moved on to the next car. He did not recognize me.
He got thrown out of homeless shelters because he couldn’t control his impulse to lash out at the ghosts who haunted his dreams. He spent the 4th of July in jail, picked up for disturbing the peace. He had only wanted the mortars to stop.
His uniform was once new, pressed, barely worn. But just like the unworldly young man beneath, that uniform would be soiled and ripped apart beyond repair in the rice paddy fields and jungles of a foreign country. It would later be spat on by ungrateful citizens of the very country from which the young man had been drafted and forced to give up a life that could have been. Baby killer they had called him as they threw red paint on his underutilized dress uniform, worn only for his bittersweet homecoming.
He’d had to leave many brothers behind but he had made it home alive, or at least this screwed-up version of alive. But he would never truly find home again. Home was gone. He was not welcome.
By the time I found him many years later, he didn’t know who I was. I had been an unknown consequence of high school love before he’d shipped out, and by the time he’d made it back, Mom had married my dad, at least the man I would grow up knowing as my dad.
I did my best to get him help. I wasn’t concerned that the VA’s version of help would eventually drive him further into himself. My intentions were selfish. I wanted him to know me. I wanted him to remember my mom. I wanted him to acknowledge the love he had shared with her that had resulted in my birth.
He couldn’t.
I tried to give him a safe place to come home to.
He wouldn’t stay.
It took me years to come to terms with the fact that the young man who had fathered me no longer existed. That boy had died many years ago with his comrades in that faraway, crimson jungle.
Mom had given me a picture of him in his Army dress greens taken days before he had deployed. I put it in a box and shoved it in the back of my closet. I had to finally let go of the superhero image I had been fervently grasping. Only a shell of that pictured man remained.
Last week, he was struck by a hit-and-run driver as he walked along Colonial Drive. He bled out on the side of the road, anonymous and alone.
Today, tears stream down my cheeks as I lay a single yellow rose at the foot of his headstone and I say goodbye once again, my heart breaking over the love of the one uniformed man I had wanted and needed the most that I would never, ever have.
I was wrong. In my heart, he will always be a true, real-life hero. His sacrifice was far more than even he could comprehend.
By GRClarke
Baby Girl
Panic grips my heart and squeezes
What has she done, where has she gone
Please, oh, lord, let this be her own doing
Not some maniac, not Satan’s spawn
Terror grips my mind and squeezes
I see her running frantic in the night
Being raped, being beat, being cut by a knife
Lying hurt in a ditch, fighting for her life
And I’m not there
Please, God, let her be all right
Worry grips my soul and squeezes
My world has suddenly redefined
Can’t stop the horror reel as it runs through my mind
Can’t stop the images, the madness entwined
The second hand moves but an inch
It’s going to be a very long night
Challenge: Make profanity beautiful
** ADULT CONTENT and LANGUAGE **
In a dark alley the celestial lights guide our way.
He prods me vigorously up against a weathered brick wall.
He doesn’t use my name, instead whispers hoarsely against my ear,
“Bitch,” my pet name, a sobriquet he uses for all women of my calling, my position, my career.
He wants to lay with me, to fuck me, he growls over and over.
I smile as I ponder what extra service he might be willing to compensate.
To the ambient melody of distant sirens and midnight traffic, I slide my hand down and dance with his desire, toying his shaft, his balls. I whisper feigned interest in his needs, his urges, his lust as I caress his protruding cock.
Slowly and methodically, like a cougar patiently stalking her prey, I slide down and bring my swollen lips within inches. His eyes deepen in desire briefly before he flips me around to face the wall, bends me over and yanks my hair.
“Cunt,” his use of the moniker betrays his mounting desire.
He’s almost over the edge and unfortunately much too soon.
I sigh. There will be no surplus tonight.
Within minutes he enthusiastically cums and promptly pulls away. He hastily zips his navy pin-striped slacks and wastes no time vacating our dismal den of iniquity. He has legitimate and proper pussy waiting at home.
“Fucking dick”, my lips merely outline the words as he saunters away,
leaving me to freshen myself in the unsanitary alleyway. I could have really used the extra 50 bucks.
Mr. Alien
Sit right down here, Mr. Alien, sir.
You must be drained from the very long ride
I must press upon you how little time we have
To enlighten you. You see, you’re on the wrong side
From light years away, you wander the stars
And do the bidding the mother ship declares
But down here on our earth, things work a little different
And to decide our fate, you must see things very clear
You see, here you are free to choose for yourself
What you want, what you seek, what you do
You’re not bound by the whims of a tyrannical lord
Well, at least in this country and a couple other few
As humans we fight for and will always cherish
our choices, our liberty, our free will
Even though some of our kind try to throw them away
There are many more who long for them still
So I ask you, consider why it is that you’re here
Why our earth is the planet you desire
We’ve still much to do, many more chains to set free
For on tyranny, we will never cease fire
If its pure water, or metal, or general resources you seek
I’m afraid you’ve come here a little too late
Perhaps you should have visited a couple years ago
At least a thousand or so, I would contemplate
And there’s no need on this earth for your mind-reading skills
Although impressive they truly might be
You see we’ve already got our own resident psychics
In dilapidated houses, on the phone, and sometimes TV
The biggest impediment I think you are surely to find
To your plans to conquer this planet
As humans, we don’t even know how not to fight back
Something you’d have known had you bothered to scan it
So you can bring on your lasers and your infrared beams
And whatever weapons you might have in reserve
Just remember that today we gave you this choice
Respect our independence or get what you deserve
For we have a long history of atrocities and bondage
We’ve lived through thousands of years of this shit
From our lowest of peasants to our richest pioneers
Believe me, we know how to outlast and outwit
By GR Clarke