One night Dennis and I went to town and really got wiped out. We came back to the post at about two or three o’clock in the morning and went into the latrine, a big, separate building out in front with showers and rows of toilets and rows and rows of sinks. There was nobody in there but us, so we started acting crazy. We were so uptight and frustrated we started knocking things down. We broke things. Then we took the toilet paper out of the supply room and threw it all over and we lit it; it really started to blaze. We didn’t know what to do then, so we ran out. We snuck out of the latrine and into our barracks.
Reveille rang in the morning. They’d blow a bugle. The sergeants screamed at you to get up. You threw your clothes on, ran out of the barracks, and lined up in the little parade ground. Each group of barracks had their own parade ground out in the middle. We ran out, me and Dennis, really hung over. We lined up and looked at the latrine. It was a mess. It hadn’t burned to the ground but it was burned bad. They had roll call. Then the lieutenant came. The captain came. They started wigging out to see who had done it, and everybody in our platoon looked around at me and Dennis. They said they’d better find out who did it or the whole company would be put on quarantine; there’d be no passes. They dismissed us, and then when we started to go back into the barracks our platoon surrounded us. They said, “Where were you guys last night? We know you did it. You’re the only guys that would do anything like that.”
We all went to the latrine and we all had to clean. Everybody kept ranking us, accusing us. Finally I flipped out. I remember saying, “I didn’t do it, but I wish I had! That’s what I think of you bastards!” They tore our clothes off and threw us in the shower. They gave us a “GI bath” with strong brown soap with lye in it and scrubbed us with big brushes made out of wood sticks. We were hollering and fighting, and finally I told ’em, “Yeah, I did it, you motherfuckers!” Then somebody came and stopped it, one of the officers. And so they put us on KP for a couple of weeks. From then on it was open warfare, me and Dennis against the rest of the platoon.
When I first got to Fort Sill I used to cry at night and think, “How can it be? How can I be here?” I couldn’t believe that this could be happening to me. I couldn’t believe that I might die with these people I hated.
Before you finish basic training you’re allowed a visit. The family chipped in, and Patti came to Lawton. I hadn’t seen her for three months. It’s hard for regular soldier’s wives to get rooms in towns like that; if you’re not an officer they think you’re scum. But Patti had such a nice way about her, she talked a lady into renting her a room in a house in town, and finally the night came for me to go to her.
We had had an especially hard day. I’d had to go over an obstacle course, climbing and running and doing all sorts of outrageous things. I took a shower and cleaned up. I was all excited. I got a bottle of something and went to town; I went to the place and the lady of the house came to the door, a nice southern lady with the accent and everything. I introduced myself and then Patti appeared at the top of the stairs. She had a silky, clinging dress on with all kinds of colors in it; it set off her white skin. She was wearing those high-heeled pumps that made her legs look so pretty, and her hair was just hanging down. Her eyes were glowing and glistening and she was smiling. And when she smiled she had little dimples that showed. Her face looked like a child’s.
I was so happy to see her. I couldn’t stand to have anything to do with the girls I’d see in town. One time I was drinking some beer in a bar, and this little chick that looked nice came up to me and said hello, and we talked, and for a moment it was pleasant, and then she called me “Joe.” I said, “What did you call me that for?” She said, “Well, that’s what we call you soldier boys.” I said, “I’m not a soldier boy!” I got so angry I wanted to strangle her. Joe! I’m not Joe! So seeing Patti I was seeing someone that was mine, somebody I meant something to, and it was wonderful.
We went into the room and had a couple of drinks. We talked and kissed and Patti told me how worried everybody was and how unbearable it was for her: she was so lonely. She cried. Then we got into bed and started making love. Up to this time, so that she wouldn’t get pregnant, I had pulled out. I assumed that that was what I would do this time, and when I felt I couldn’t keep from coming I told her, “I’m going to come!” But as soon as I said that she threw her legs up over my back and held me, and she threw her arms around me and grabbed me, and she had so much strength, and it had been so long since we’d made love, and I was so passionate, and I was fighting her to get out of her, and I couldn’t do it, and so I came. And I remember thinking how marvelous it felt and what a shame we couldn’t always do it that way. And I thought, maybe just this one time, maybe nothing will happen, maybe she won’t get pregnant. But I knew that she would. I knew as soon as it happened that she was going to get pregnant. She held me and told me that they had decided she had to have a baby. My folks had told her to force me to come in her in case anything should happen to me overseas—so there’d be something left of me. And she said that that was what she wanted.
I felt awful because I didn’t want to have children. I knew that I didn’t want to have any children. I had even gone through one of those operations because I didn’t want to have any children, ever; I didn’t want to share Patti with a child. I knew I wouldn’t make a good parent.
The doctor who performed the vasectomy had been a friend of Patti’s mother’s. He had tried to talk me out of it, but I told him, “Man, I want it done!” I got on the operating table, and I had no anaesthetic. They shaved me, put Mercurochrome all over me, and then he made an incision in my testicle. The pain was beyond description. He pulled out the cord with some prongs, and he took a needle filled with Novacain, and all the time I’m going through this the doctor’s got someone he’s showing how he does the operation. I can hear them talking. This person says, “Isn’t the pain bad?” And the doctor says, “Well, it’s just for a moment, and this is the best way, really, to nullify it. From then on, once you get the needle into the cord And so he stuck it in, and after a while it took effect, but while I was still pulsating from the pain he started interrogating me. I’m delerious, and he’s asking little questions. Finally he said, “When’s your birthday? How old will you be?” So he discovered that I wasn’t eighteen, and he couldn’t perform the operation. He sewed me back up without cutting the cord. I didn’t know. I waited to have the test that would tell whether I was sterile or not, and at last he told Patti, and she told me.
I waited until I was eighteen and went back to the same doctor to have him perform the same operation. He cut the cord this time, but he didn’t cut a piece out of it. He tucked it underneath a membrane, in case I changed my mind, so it could be repaired. The cord found itself back together. And later, when I gave a sample of my sperm to see if I was sterile, I wasn’t.
Twice was all the courage I could muster. I couldn’t go through that thing again. But you can see how I felt about having a child, and when I realized that Patti was going to get pregnant I was really angry. I was mad at my folks and at her. That was the only time I came in her, that one time, and she went back to Los Angeles, and she was pregnant.
When I finished basic training they shipped me to Camp Butner, North Carolina, and put me in the combat engineers. And while I was at Camp Butner I heard that Benny Carter’s band was going to be in Durham, and they were having their concert on a Saturday night when I’d be free.
I went into Durham and found the auditorium. I bought a ticket. I noticed the ticket said “loge.” I said, “What’s the loge?” The guy tells me, “That’s upstairs.” I said, “I used to be with this band: they’re old friends of mine and I’d like to be close to the stand, where I can say hello to them.” The guy says, “Well, you can’t do that. Whites aren’t allowed downstairs.” When Benny had told me I couldn’t go with the band down south I didn’t understand it. I had been all around Central Avenue for years as a kid. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about, and my eyes were still closed at this time. I