Karma

Karma-what goes around, comes around. I’ve since discovered that’s not what the word actually means. According to Alan Watts: “Man is involved in Karma when he interferes with the world in such a way that he is compelled to go on interfering, when the solution of a problem creates still more problems to be solved, when the control of one thing creates the need to control several others. Karma is thus the fate of everyone who ‘tries to be God.’ He lays a trap for the world in which he himself is caught.” But, since most people think that it means the first definition, I’m going to use “Karma” as my title for this story. In any case, it’s a better title than “What Goes Around Comes Around.” which is what this story is all about.

I grew up in Texas sometime in the last century. Sometimes it seems like a hundred years ago-sometimes like yesterday. Although I went to high school in Fort Worth, the school was in Handley, which was at the eastern edge of the city. Handley had a small town flavor, and the school was small, comprising the seventh through twelfth grades. There were less than seventy in my graduating class, so we knew everyone who was within a couple of grades of us.

The boys in the school could be grouped in four different ways: jocks, hoods, geeks, and my group. Jocks, of course, played football, or, in some cases, were stars of the basketball team. They had the choice of girls. If you started on the football team, the girls found you attractive, even if you had no other attributes.

Hoods wore their hair greased back in “duck tails” and kept the top buttons of their shirts undone. Jocks hated the hoods and tended to rip off those undone buttons. Any girl going out with a hood would have been labeled-by most of us-a slut.

The geeks were generally ignored by everyone. They were the unattractive boys. As I remember, most of them seemed to have been in the band. Some of them excelled in academics, but we didn’t particularly dislike them. We never thought about them. They were just fixtures at the school. We saved our disdain for the hoods.

Then there was my group. We were fairly popular-were invited to parties. Most of the girls, if they had missed out on the jocks, or the few male cheerleaders, would go out with us, and we even ran around with some of the jocks-when they weren’t with their girls. Most of us were intelligent, even later completing college, but didn’t excel in high school. We were always too busy-in trouble, pulling pranks, talking back to the teachers-we called it standing up for ourselves-skipping school, having fun, to devote much time to school. Hell, I don’t remember ever doing homework during my entire four years at school. If I couldn’t get it done during the hour’s study hall I had each day, it didn’t get done. Still I graduated with a better than B average. We weren’t hoods, but were considered to be “wild.” We were all on intimate terms with the vice principal, who was responsible for disciplining male students. I remember the time he told me, “Don’t ever come to me for a recommendation-because you won’t get it.”

When I was a kid you could buy firecrackers, and I mean REAL firecrackers, cherry bombs and M80’s. The M80’s were the best. I think that we must have blown up half the rural mailboxes east of Handley with them. One would completely unwrap a mailbox, leaving only shreds of metal hanging on the pole. We also figured out a way to make a timed fuse by thickly wrapping string around a wooden kitchen match that was placed beside the fuse. It would smolder for ten to fifteen minutes before igniting the fuse. One day at lunch, just before classes started, we placed a cherry bomb in the boy’s restroom. It had a timed fuse. The explosion resounded through out the school. My friends and I were called to the vice principal’s office, but, since we had all been in class when the cherry bomb exploded, they could prove nothing.

We also made “Babo Bombs.” Babo was a household cleanser, similar to Comet. Slitting open the side of a container of Babo, we placed an M80 inside; then taped it up with the fuse sticking out the side. The result of the explosion was white cloud of Babo. We regularly drove around the black section of town throwing them out, watching people scatter-not acceptable behavior, but we were Texas boys-southern kids in the ‘50’s, with all the accompanying prejudices, prior to integration-to civil rights. Anyone not white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, and heterosexual, was considered to be fair game.

We even targeted a couple of teachers that we didn’t like, setting off Babo bombs and other fireworks on their front porches. One of them never came back after her first semester at our school, and the other lied, or was mistaken, about seeing my car at his house-it wasn’t running at the time-getting my main co-conspirator and me called into Mr. Harris’ office. Mr. Harris was the vice principal, who told us that, if we didn’t name everyone involved, we would be turned over to the police. I wasn’t going to tell them anything, but my friend was afraid of being turned over to the juvenile authorities; kids then had few rights, so we agreed to ask each of the others involved to volunteer to come to the office. We were given passes which admitted us to the different classes allowing us to talk to whomever we wished. Mr. Harris was shocked when we came back with fifteen boys, one of them even a cheerleader.

There was another group of boys-hell raisers, too-a year older than we were, maybe even worse than we-maybe, I say, because we always followed their lead, copying their stunts. After they torched an abandoned house, we, after watching it burn, attempted to burn one down ourselves, never knowing whether it burned or not. We were too chicken to go back to see. When they started rolling queers, we did, too.

I was always the patsy-the bait. I don’t know why I volunteered-for the excitement, the thrill, to discover that someone wanted me-sexually, even if he were a queer, or what-I don’t know, but, without exception, I was always the one who stood on the street corner. In many ways I guess that I was the implicit, if not acknowledged, leader.

At the time, even though I was seventeen, as wild as I was, although I never backed down from any teacher, or any other adult who confronted me, other than my parents-I was afraid of my father-my only sexual experience had been with my hand. My sexual experience with it-my right hand-was profound. Manyfingers-her five daughters-and my cock knew each other intimately. In fact, I later switched to using my left hand because my cock curved slightly to the left. I thought at the time that it because I had beat off so often with my right. I had my first blow job from one of the queers who had picked me up.

Normally the plan was for me to have the prospect take me to Lake Arlington, to park where my friends would be waiting; then to beat up and rob our intended victim. One night, however, one of them took me to his home instead. I let him undress me, then crawled in bed with him. He climbed on top of me, and rubbing his cock on mine, began dry humping me, asking me first if it would be all right for him to do it; then he sucked my cock. Other than beating off with other boys when I was younger, it was my first sexual experience with another person.

When we first started rolling queers, we didn’t do much to them; hit them a few times and took their money; but as often happens, it soon wasn’t enough. We started carrying rolls of quarters, which we held, wrapped in our fists, so we could inflict more damage; then one night someone-I don’t remember who-I hope it wasn’t me-said, “Let’s castrate him.” It seemed a good idea at the time. Of course we were a little drunk.

Although it was my knife, I couldn’t bring myself to actually cut the guy, but C.W. could. There was little that C.W. or C-Dub, as we called him, wouldn’t do. He used to give me a ride home from school each day. To repay him I would help him siphon gas from parked cars. There was one we hit frequently. It turned out to be an undercover cop car. One night they were waiting for us. We ran for C-Dub’ car, but his keys were in his gas cap lock. (He wasn’t foolish enough to leave it unlocked.) He got caught. I ran for the woods, then walked three miles to my house. But, I digress. I guess that I’m ashamed to tell what we did.

The guy was slightly built, somewhat feminine in appearance, matching our preconceived notions of how a queer should look. As Charles and Willie held him, C-Dub and I pulled down his pants. His pecker hung limply above two rather small nuts. His scream, more of a shriek than a scream, when C-Dub slit open his scrotum, almost unnerved us all, but, we’d already gone too far-we weren’t going to back out then, each, not wanting to seem chicken in front of the others. We were fascinated by the pale white orbs that were exposed in the headlights of the car. “God damn-so that’s what they look like,” someone said.

C-Dub seemed reluctant to stick his hand into the blood that was streaming from his groin, but did anyway, grabbing hold of both balls, then slicing through the cords with the knife. He immediately dropped the testicles onto the ground, shaking his hand to rid it of the blood and slime. He dropped my knife, too. I stared at it, lying next to the queer’s balls on the ground, but didn’t pick it up. There was no way I was going to touch it. It was covered with his blood.

If we’d thought the guy’s scream had been piercing before, it was nothing compared to what had erupted from his throat when C-Dub cut through the cords. When Charles and Willie released him, he slumped to the ground, lying, curled up on his side, with his hands to his mutilated crotch. We stared for a minute, looking at what we’d done, but, about that time, seeing the headlights of another car coming down the road, ran for our car, jumped in it, and sped away from the scene of our crime.

We weren’t caught by the police. In 1957, in Fort Worth, Texas, the police invested little energy solving crimes against homosexuals. As far as the police were concerned, they were scum, who deserved what they got. We knew that. That’s why we targeted them. Besides, hadn’t we heard in church on Sundays about how evil homosexuality was?

He was the last queer we rolled, though. I think we had all been frightened by what we had done, by what we might have done, if we’d continued. We might have killed the next one.

I continued to be “wild” in school, but managed to graduate the next May, then joined the Army. At eighteen I fucked my first girl, a whore in Juarez, Mexico. Hell, I thought I was in love-even brought her presents. She did take me home with her-for free-one night, and, strangely, I never went back to her again. Drunk, I even went down on one of the whores once, eating her pussy. I wonder how many cocks, I was sucking-by proxy. It was the first time I ever ate pussy, but, as inexperienced as I was, most of my firsts-with women-occurred in Juarez.

I also got my cock sucked by a guy for the second time. Queers-no one called them gays then-were always waiting for young soldiers coming from Juarez in the square downtown, where we caught the bus back to Fort Bliss. I was drunk on Corona as usual, and it was late. He wanted to suck my cock. I wanted a ride back to the base. That was my price. I let him suck my cock for a ride back to Fort Bliss. He pulled his car over, parking on a residential street, unbuttoned my Levi’s and sucked my cock as I sat in the passengers seat of his car, then gave me a ride back to the barracks. I didn’t know it then, but it was going to be the last time I ever had gay sex.

By the time I got out of the army, my parents had moved to Sunnyvale, California, so I joined them, living with them there. I worked for a while at Lockheed, where my father worked, but quit to attend Los Altos Community College, where I met Jackie. Jackie was the first girl, who I hadn’t paid, that I ever had sex with. She got pregnant, and we got married. We had two daughters, but after three years of marriage, I wasn’t happy. Sex with her was no longer exciting, and I kept thinking about those two times I’d had my cock sucked by a guy. I no longer lived in Texas, but in California, near San Francisco. Being gay wasn’t as bad as it had been in Texas-and I was curious. One night, after driving to San Francisco, I went to a gay bar on Broadway.

It stroked my ego-I’d always had feelings of inferiority about my being sexually attractive, to be approached by men in the bar. Even the bartender wanted me to go home with him after work, but, after I’d been there for a while, a boy-or young man-he was at least twenty-one, came in and sat down on the stool next to me. We started talking. He was a good looking kid; he turned me on. What I was feeling both frightened and excited me. When he asked me to go somewhere with him, I agreed.

We walked to his van, which was parked down a dark alley. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It was, after all, San Francisco. You parked wherever you could. When we walked up to the van, he unlocked the passenger door. At that moment, the side door opened; Three guys jumped out, grabbing me before I could react, and pulled me into the van. They started hitting me, saying, “You fucking queer. Give us your God damned money.”

I tried telling them that I wasn’t a queer-that I was married-that I even had kids, but they weren’t listening. After they had beaten me-My nose was broken, my lip split, and one of my front teeth cracked, and taken my money, one of them said, “We ought to castrate this fucking queer.”

They all thought that it was a great idea. I flashed back to my high school days-to the guy we’d castrated then. “No, I screamed. Don’t do it. Don’t castrate me,” but I knew my pleading wouldn’t do me any good. It hadn’t helped that other guy-the one back in Fort Worth. I wonder if my shrieks were as shrill as his had been. I know the pain was like nothing I’d ever felt. They sliced off my scrotum as well as my balls-but they weren’t finished. One of them said, “Hey, his cock looks out of place-all alone without any balls.” Pulling out his own knife, he cut it off as well.

I fainted, either from shock or the loss of blood, shortly after they dumped me in the alley and drove away. I guess someone coming for their car found me and called the police because I was taken to the hospital in time-although barely-to save my life.

The police caught the guys. My blood was all over their van. James Thompson, the one I’d met in to bar, claimed that I’d approached him-put a move on him-touched his cock, but it was a lie. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to approach someone in that manner, but it was in the papers. They were found guilty and went to prison. That was California. If it’d been Texas, they would have probably only received a slap on the wrist, but, besides losing my cock and my balls, the trial cost me as well. I lost my job-and my family. My wife left me. I don’t suppose I would have been much good to her without a cock-but, in any case, she wasn’t about to stay married to a queer.

My doctor suggested testosterone shots so that I could maintain my masculine appearance-and I tried them for a while, but found it frustrating to have sexual desires, but to have no sexual equipment-no cock- so I stopped taking them.

It’s been almost forty years since it happened. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like to be sexually aroused, so I no longer miss my balls. It’s inconvenient to have to squat to pee, but half the world-women-have the same affliction, so it’s one I can live with. I guess that I’ve found some peace, at least with myself, with my condition, with what happened to me, if not with what I did so many years ago. I’ve forgiven the ones that did it to me. I hope I’ve been forgiven as well.

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Note: All my stories are fiction. Sometimes, when I write in first person, some people mistake them for fact. I’ve had people write to tell me about similar things happening to them. First, I’d like to say that those people have honored me by believing my stories. I try to make them as real as possible, but I don’t want to cause anyone pain. If anyone wants me to write their story, either for publication on the archive, or for their own personal use, write me. I’d be glad to try.