About two weeks later, as I was passing the guard-house, I was placed under arrest by another sergeant-of-the-guard, and conducted before the officer-of-the-day. This was the only time that I was genuinely placed under arrest on a military reservation. The sergeant informed the officer that I was a fairie and that I hung around the reservation and the guard-house. The officer asked me why I frequented the reservation, and I replied: “Because I like the soldiers, because I like to have them for my friends.” After an investigation lasting several minutes, when he found out that I had really been guilty of nothing improper, the officer ordered the sergeant to let me go, and in a very mild and gentlemanly way suggested, rather than forbade, that in the future I do not frequent the reservation. He received me indeed in a wonderfully kind manner, for which I shall be eternally grateful to him. Knowing that I was in hostile hands, I appealed to the officer to order the sergeant that no harm should be done me on the reservation.
But the sergeant—one of the few soldiers who detested me—was chagrined that the officer had upset his plan of having me locked up. After the officer had retired, the sergeant therefore started kicking me, and as I ran past the guard-house, three of the guard, influenced by the example of their sergeant, knocked me down three times. I immediately complained to the colonel. He also received me most kindly, notwithstanding that I explained at the outset that I was an invert, and he reprimanded the sergeant.
Sadism.
A week later I happened to meet “Murphy” on a much frequented street. On my refusal to accompany him to a low bar-room, he dragged me there in spite of continuous protest and struggling. Half a dozen civilians watched the struggle but did not interfere. Inside were several soldiers and civilians, some partially intoxicated and wrangling, and two filles de joie. Before the eyes of all, my captor immediately rifled my pockets, while exclaiming: “I am going to marry you! I am going to marry you! As soon as I get a good drunk on, I am yours!” We were together an hour in the bar-room. Soldiers come and go, some of them flirting with me vigorously before the eyes of all. The next day I wrote my captor:
O you adored giant artilleryman, Ever since the first time you hit me and drove me out of the gate, how I have adored you! But ever since you carried me out in your arms, I have been wild for you, as I have never been over any other fellow. You have abused me more than any other soldier, but, my cruel master, I adore you the most of any fellow in the world. Of all the men in the world, I would pick you out to be my husband and master. You, fierce artilleryman, are my ideal of manly beauty and charm. You are the ideal I have been looking for all my life. O how I worship you! I pass by the fellows who have always been kind to me, and seek for my husband that one who has been the most cruel. O won’t you take me to be your wife? Last night you promised to marry me before I ever spoke about marrying you. Won’t you keep your promise?... You are the roughest, fiercest, most daring, most cruel fellow I ever met. That is why I love you so. You are the greatest fighter and slugger I ever met. That is why I am pining to become your slave....
A Company Marshalled Before Me.
After my arrest, I did not dare go on the Ft. X reservation for several months. On one of my first subsequent visits—in daylight—I encountered the officer who had mildly prohibited the reservation to me. As soon as he spied me, he walked rapidly in the opposite direction as if fearing I would speak.
In the following year, I was assaulted on the street by three privates because I refused to take a walk with them off into the woods, since one of them had formerly rifled my pockets. I complained by letter to their captain, and he immediately invited me to call. But evidently he afterward spoke of the matter to other officers, and learned my character, for he withdrew his invitation in less than twenty-four hours. Nevertheless I called. I thought it advisable to state in advance something about the peculiar life I led, having no fear of arrest because I never voluntarily rendered myself liable. He frankly confessed that he could not courtmartial my assailants because I was an invert, but courteously ordered all his command to appear before me for identification since I was resolved to try prosecution in a police court just to see whether an invert of unexceptionable conduct on the public street, assaulted by ruffians without any reason, would be there accorded the rights of all other citizens.
1905—Farewell to Men of Forts X and Y.