Hold Tight (6 page)

“What are we hoping to find?” asked Erich.

“First off, real homosexuals who are trustworthy. I thought we could start with the homosexuals who said, ‘Yes, I’m a homosexual.’”

“What if they don’t exist, sir?”

“They exist. The Navy tries to screen them out, but I’d assumed a
few
would’ve slipped in.”

Erich went out and called the next sailor. It was another man still in his blues, who’d been in the brig until last week and missed the seasonal issue of whites. But he wasn’t from the house in Brooklyn. His papers said his name was Henry Fayette and he was charged with resisting arrest during the raid on the Bosch house. Erich looked at him, watching for signs of depravity, but the man only looked like a big, blond, dumb peasant. When he stepped into their office, he stood there for a moment and looked around, before he eased his back and shoulders into “Attention” and saluted Commander Mason.

“Seaman Fayette, sir.” His Southern accent reduced his name to one syllable, a cross between “fat” and “fate.”

Mason told him to sit down, make himself comfortable. Erich returned to his observation post between the window and filing cabinet.

“Henry,” began the commander. “May I call you Henry?”

“Whatever you want, sir. Although my friends call me Hank.” He sat there stiffly, forearms resting on the tops of his thighs, big hands hanging between his knees. He glanced at Erich, the blinds, the bookcase to his right, needing to see where he was before he could give his full attention to the officer in front of him. Most men noticed only the officer.

“Then Hank it’ll be. No need to be formal here. And everything you say is strictly confidential, Hank. Do you have any idea why you’re here?”

“Something to do with that house I was at? And my slugging the Shore Patrol. People keep asking me about that house, but I’ve told what little I know. I was only there that once.” He glanced at Erich again.

Erich tried to make himself look stony and unresponsive.

“I’ll tell you about it, too, sir, if that’s what you want. But I really wish everyone would finish with me, so I could get back to my ship. I feel funny sitting out the war like this.”

The man seemed unaware that he’d done anything wrong, but Erich was skeptical about such ignorance. American enlisted men could be as cunning as servants, disguising their cunning as obstinate stupidity.

Mason began to ask his questions. His confidence was unshakable; he didn’t seem to notice that this was another one from whom he’d get nothing. Fayette kept mulishly coming back to his desire to return to his ship and shipmates, until Mason said he’d see what he could do for him, just to get on with the questioning. He offered Fayette a cigarette.

“Thank you, sir. Don’t mind if I do.”

Mason lit it for him with his gold lighter. “How do you like girls, Hank?”

Fayette drew on the cigarette and exhaled. “They’re okay. I suppose I’ll marry one someday.”

“Then you’re not a homosexual?”

Fayette looked at the slim cigarette in his thick fingers. Then he glanced back at Erich, curiously, almost amused, one enlisted man sharing with another his distrust of an officer. The glance annoyed Erich, as though it suggested a conspiracy more personal than rank.

Mason, too, glanced at Erich, but only to share his new interest in this man: he was the first not to deny immediately that he was a homosexual. “You do understand the word, don’t you, Hank?”

Fayette sighed impatiently. “Yeah, well, lots of people have been asking me that lately.”

“We can forget about them. This is something completely different. Nothing you say goes outside this room, Hank. I promise you. It won’t be used against you. In fact, the sooner we learn all there is to know about such a unique fellow as yourself, the sooner we can get you back with your shipmates, Hank.”

“Yeah? Really?”

“Yes. So, Hank. You’ve had sexual relations with men?”

“Yeah.” As if it were a matter of no importance and he was expecting more dangerous questions.

Mason sat up, slowly, so as not to betray his excitement. He picked at Fayette’s sheaf of papers. “Uh, you’ve had sexual relations with
more
than one man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you enjoy it?”

Fayette looked blank for a moment, then broke into a grin, a big, imbecilic grin. “If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it. Sir.”

The answer shocked Erich. And the grin. Maybe the man really was as ignorant as he seemed.

Mason was smiling now, to keep Fayette talking. “You talk about it, Hank, as though you think there’s nothing wrong or strange about it.”

“Well,
I
find nothing wrong with it. But I know other people do.”

“That doesn’t bother you? That other people think it’s wrong?”

“No. Some people think it’s wrong to drink liquor, but that doesn’t stop others from drinking it.”

Erich decided the boy must be feebleminded, an idiot. Nobody with normal intelligence could be this innocent. And the commander had lied to the poor creature and was leading him on. It seemed unfair.

“Hank? Have you ever wanted to dress up in women’s clothes?”

“No, sir. Can’t say that I have.”

“Hmmm. And your family? What do they say about this?”

“I never had a reason to talk to them about it. Not something I had to talk about with anybody, until this stuff.”

“Your officers never said anything?”

“No. Why should they? I never wanted to do anything with
them
.” He laughed, glanced at Erich, then stopped laughing.

Erich tried to relax, tried to hide what he was feeling. He was only a fly on the wall here. He should not let his presence affect what was happening.

“But you did things with your fellow enlisted men?”

“No, sir. Or nobody on my ship.”

“Ah. Then with them you felt you had to keep your desires to yourself?”

“No. Not really. They knew what I liked, my friends anyway. They just thought it was funny. I never did anything with them, so why should they care? I did it at boot camp a few times and can’t tell you what a mess that made. Some guys got upset, a couple got jealous, one guy got into a fight with me because I wouldn’t promise myself to him and nobody else. That taught me to keep my hands to myself, until I was off by my lonesome.”

“Your shipmates only found it funny? Nobody ever taunted you or picked on you because of your desires?”

“No, sir. They like me and I like them. They make jokes about it, but we all find each other funny. I mean, in my section we have me, a dago, a Jew-boy, and a mick. Also, I’m bigger than they are. They know I could flatten them, so they take me as I am.”

The boy was definitely feebleminded. Erich cringed when he heard homosexualism put on the same level as being Italian or Jewish. More shocking was that the Navy had accepted such an obvious imbecile, regardless of his sexual misconduct. It wouldn’t matter to an imbecile whether he had sex with a woman, a man or an animal.

Mason asked more questions about Fayette’s sex life. It was as though he too had recognized the man was a mental defective and unqualified for this project, but was mining him for pathological data. Fayette had his first sexual experience at fourteen, with a farmhand, outside Beaumont, Texas. Since then he’d had sex with truck drivers, hobos, a Bible salesman, assorted roughnecks, a school teacher and most of the people at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. He reported his sexual history without shame or pride, only surprise that an officer wanted to hear about it. He hesitated when Mason asked for technical details—Erich began to think of excuses for leaving the room—but went ahead and gave them, saying in effect that he was willing to do anything the other guy wanted; it was of no matter to him.

“Uh, Commander.” Erich tapped his watch. “Sixteen hundred. You have four more people to see today, sir.” If Mason wanted to study this case, he could do it on his own time, without Erich having to be present.

“What? Oh, yes. I was forgetting. This has been fascinating, Hank. ‘More worlds than are dreamt of in your…’ But, there is the matter at hand.” Mason cleared his throat and sat up straight. “You want to get back to your shipmates, Hank. I presume you feel a great duty to them, and to your country.”

“Yes, sir. I enlisted to serve my country, not to sit locked up in New York City.”

“What if I told you that you could serve your country, and your friends at sea, by staying in New York a little longer and doing what you like to do?”

“Pardon?”

What was Mason doing? Erich had mentioned the time so they could finish with this poor soul and see the others. Surely he didn’t intend to use
this
man.

But that was what Mason intended. First, he told Fayette not to mention this to anyone, that many lives depended on his keeping this a secret. Then he told him that the Navy wanted him to live for a couple of months in a homosexual brothel. He gave him the more practical version of why: the search for two possible Nazi spies. “Only for two, maybe three months. Until we catch these two men. Afterwards, we’ll get you back on your ship. Are you willing to do that for us?”

A normal man would respond to the proposal with shocked disbelief or outright laughter, but Fayette only sat there, thinking it over. “I don’t know, sir. It’s like nothing I ever expected. Me serving my country by having my jollies? And I’ve never done it as a whore, not regularly. That might feel funny.” He looked down at the floor and dug at one ear with a finger while he thought it over.

“I shouldn’t need to tell you that by working for us you’ll also be working for your shipmates, Hank. We believe one of these spies is the mastermind of a spy network providing U-boats with information that’s enabled them to wreak havoc on our convoys. We nab him and we save lives, possibly your friends’ lives.”

Erich had grown accustomed to lying, but it seemed criminal to lie like this to an idiot.

“No. I can see that,” said Fayette. “I want to help, only…a whorehouse? Kind of like that place where I was arrested?”

Mason glanced at Erich, realizing that Fayette already knew the Bosch house. Maybe that would change the commander’s mind.

But Mason said, “Kind of. Only that was more a house of assignation, wasn’t it? This one should be more organized, and you’ll be living there. Be just like living in a barracks, I imagine. I think we can arrange that you’re paid a bonus while you’re there. Not combat pay, of course, but something commensurable.”

Fayette didn’t notice he was being bribed. “That’s no mind,” he mumbled, frowning at something happening inside his head.

“And we’ll transfer you back to your ship as soon as possible. Otherwise, there’s no telling what the navy might do with you. There’s been talk of making an example of the people picked up in the sex crime raids.”

Fayette didn’t recognize he was being blackmailed. “I’m sorry I’m so slow in getting used to this. If you just order me to do it, I’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“Well, we can’t just order you, Hank. We have to have your permission.” The rear admiral’s office had at least insisted on that much. “But it’s not a decision that has to be reached today. All we need to know is that you’re interested. We might find someone better qualified and not even use you.”

“I’m interested. I’m definitely interested,” Fayette muttered. “I want to help you, only…No, I’ll get used to the idea.”

“Good,” said Mason, thanked him, said they’d be in touch with him and told Erich to show the man the door. Then Mason took on a look of boredom and began to write.

Fayette stood; Erich had forgotten how large the man was. But Fayette didn’t seem dangerous. He appeared unsteady, confused. Only at the door did he remember to salute. He looked at Erich before he stepped out to the hall; he had the ghostly blue eyes of an infant. It was unnerving, like finding a child’s eyes in the face of a dog. Erich quickly closed the door and turned around.

And Mason let himself go. “Hot dog!” he cried, slapping his desk with both hands. “We found one!”

“Yes, sir.” Erich went back to the filing cabinet, although there was nothing for him to do there. With his back to the commander, he said, “But isn’t the man an idiot? An imbecile or moron or whatever the medical term is? Feebleminded.”

“Yes, yes, he does show imbecilic tendencies. But I was looking at this.” He held up Fayette’s papers. “Semiliterate, but he scored high on oral tests. He has the moral awareness of a donkey, but that’s not important to us. An idiot savant. Thank God. I was beginning to think we were going to have to turn to the prisons.”

“Then he
is
mentally deficient?” Erich was shocked to hear he was right, as though he’d been hoping he had misunderstood the American sailor.

“He has to be. No other way someone could be so unaware of how sexually sick they are. But it’s a godsend. I realize now that this was exactly what we were looking for: a sick man who didn’t know he was sick.”

“But…a man like that has no business in the Navy. Shouldn’t he be in a mental hospital?”

“Which is exactly where I intend to send Hank. Once we’re done with him.”

I am only an enlisted man, thought Erich. I am a foreigner, I have no right to judge what is right or wrong here. But the dishonesty of this business, and his own helplessness, disturbed him. They were exploiting a child.

“That’s the way it is,” said Mason. “Nice, personable fellow like Hank, no telling who might hear about our escapade if we sent him back to his ship. No, we’ll send him to a good hospital, where he’ll be happy and they can treat his homosexuality. Psychosurgery, electroshock treatment: science has made incredible advances in helping people like Hank. And there, nobody will believe the stories he tells.”

Erich stood up straight. “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.” He almost clicked his heels, he was so intent on losing himself in rank, protocol, the larger purpose of the war. He owed nothing to that American stranger. His one loyalty was to the war.

A
NNA LOOKED UP AGAIN
and saw the person she never dreamed she could be: a beautiful woman with a mouth like a red diamond, penciled crescents for eyebrows, hair perfectly scrolled along the sides, a shiney dress, a plunging neckline and skin like cream. Behind that beautiful woman was the perfect setting: a night club with night-blue walls, white satin palm trees, tiny colored lights in the ceiling and seats upholstered in zebra stripes. The room in the mirror was full of elegant men and women who rubbed elbows here just as they did in the columns of the society pages. A velvety orchestra played in the dining room upstairs.