It was crisp mid-fall when I saw him for the first time. I had looked at him
and through him before, traded joint locks one night in a good-natured drunken way,
and even tried to cajole a sweater off of him (I was drunk then, too), but the first
time I really saw him was in a van on a chilly mid-fall night. Friday, the thirteenth
of November, to be exact.

I'm not sure why I hadn't noticed him before, since I certainly did that night.
Maybe it was because he introduced himself the first time by nick name, and I was
already entangled with a man who insisted on being referred to by a silly nick name.
Maybe it was because I was already entangled, even if it was extremely casual, and had
no redeeming social value. Whatever the reason, my casual attachment with the silly
nick name had stood me up that night, so my friend Jackie and I were on our way to the
movies with me in a decidedly single frame of mind.

The van drivers here on base won't take just two people anywhere, though. They
have seats to fill, profits to be made, sailors to separate from their cash, and the
driver of this particular van insisted in a strong Pakistani accent that Jackie and I
had to find at least three more passengers before he would "go Gurnee." We were
therefor overjoyed to see two men heading towards our van. They were both tall and
even the less attractive one was still cute, and hey, wait a minute, wasn't the one on
the left wearing an awfully familiar sweater? They slid into the van with us and I
re-introduced myself to the one in the familiar sweater, who offered his real name in
return this time. Jackie and I eyeballed the two of them, exchanged a significant
glance, and invited them along to dinner and the movie.

He insisted on buying dinner for Jackie and me, my first experience with the
genteel Southern chivalry I would later find sweet, amusing, or irritating depending on
my mood. That night it amused me as I studied him, pleased by his broad shoulders and
blue eyes, his quick sense of humor and casual way of moving. We sat close together in
the darkness of the movie theater, and I do think I giggled too much while holding his
hand. The solidity of him, his strength and confidence, were comforting and kept me
close beside him, leaning against his chest in the van on the way back to base.

None of us being quite willing to waste liberty time, we stayed a while at the
E club, gathered around a pool table. My job was to distract him from playing well,
since I was better at that than at shooting pool, theoretically enabling Jackie to win
handily. I don't remember if she did or not, but I do remember the feel of him under
my hands, the bony edges of his back buried beneath a solid layer of muscle, and the
smell of the soft skin at the nape of his neck. When we were finally forced to leave
by practical considerations of early morning duty musters he exchanged my thermal
sweatshirt for his sweater, the same one I'd tried to talk him out of once already in
front of this very E club. Jackie and I walked the two of them back to their BEQ in
the crisp dark air and paused around the corner from the door, out of easy sight of
quarterdeck watches and the BDO. I slid my arms around him one last time, an excuse
to lean against him, then looked up at his eyes, thought "What the hell," and kissed him.

Table of Contents
Part One: Angels and Principalities
Part Three: Me?