Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star. Rich Merritt
the whole time.”
“I see,” I said. I kind of did. Actually, I still didn’t have a clue what masturbating was, but I knew it was an expulsion offense. “Did you?”
“No, no, Richie, that’s just it! It was all a joke!”
“So…why aren’t you coming back to school? Why does Chuck have to move into the dorms? Why do I have a note to come see Mr. O’Leary as soon as I get back to campus?”
Frank looked at the ground and scratched the back of his head. He let out a nervous laugh. “Heh-heh, that’s the funny part. Well, well, crazy old Dan! He left the letter that Chuck wrote him lying around the house. And you know what a…what a…bitch Dan’s mom is!”
“No! No! He didn’t!” I couldn’t believe it! Dan was usually the smart one in the group. How could he have been so stupid as to let his mother read a letter from Chuck, a letter that joked about…about masturbating, whatever that meant.
“Do you think it’s a joke?” Mr. O’Leary’s question jolted me back from the memory of my conversation with Frank a day or two earlier.
“No! No, it’s not,” I said. I hadn’t been paying attention to Mr. O’Leary.
A shocked expression crossed his face. “You mean…do you think they were actually…”
“Oh! No NO NO!” I exclaimed. “It’s definitely a joke! I thought you meant…I thought you were asking if I thought it was a joking matter!”
Mr. O’Leary almost cracked a smile. He was actually one of my favorite people in the administration. We students suspected there was a real human underneath the cloak of righteousness these guys had to wear, something we doubted about the others.
I didn’t get into any trouble. What spared me was that in his letter, Chuck had told Dan that I was a stick-in-the-mud, a party pooper, and a goody-two-shoes who didn’t want to do anything to get in trouble.
“To your credit,” Mr. O’Leary said, “you were a ‘wet blanket’ on their party.”
The only thing I had done with them was see Rambo II. I felt worse than if I had gotten in trouble. Chuck didn’t think I was cool at all. He thought I was a prude. No matter what I did, I was never going to be a part of the group.
The week after my automobile trip to Maryland with Chuck and Frank, I returned to work at the Wilds. This summer I had been selected to run the concession stand on the ball field, a much more desirable position than washing dishes.
In my spare time, I played a piano solo before a chapel sermon. Dr. Bob Jones III was the guest speaker. When I finished and walked away from the stage, I heard him say my name and that I had been president of my senior class at Bob Jones Academy. He called me a “model Christian school student.” I got goose bumps and almost cried from the pride I felt in myself. Dr. Bob remembered my name! Not only that, now he thought I was a model Christian school student! He had told over five hundred people! This was the pinnacle of my days as a fundamentalist.
All my life people would ask me, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” But by this point they were serious about it. I would say, “Oh, Christian school teacher, or Christian band director.” Secretly I thought it might be fun to be a televangelist. Hell, I already had the hair for it! Yet, I really wouldn’t mean it. I would think about it and say to myself, I don’t want to do that. And then my uncle gave me this idea—apply to the United States Naval Academy. He even paid the exorbitant last-minute late fee for me to the SAT so I could score higher than I had before. Really there was nothing else for me at that point. For years, I harbored a secret desire to join the military. I wasn’t sure exactly why, but the thought of it excited me.
In retrospect, I feel certain that my budding gay feelings played a lot into my decision to go into the military. A friend of mine had recently joined the army. He went to take the physical and when he came back he gave me a full report on what had happened. About how they all had to strip naked and they all stood there buck naked—all fifty of them—and the doctor came around and felt their balls and stuck something up their butts and I’m saying to myself, Wow, that’s hot.
It started me thinking: When you’re in the military, you’re around a bunch of guys and you’re always doing things together. At this point what I wanted is what I never had. When I was younger I didn’t mind not being part of the soccer team or playing with the other boys. But as I got on up into my high school years, I longed for that. I wanted to be closer to other guys. I wanted the camaraderie. That’s when my Uncle suggested I go to the Naval Academy. Some people at Bob Jones understood that. Some people, like my parents, didn’t. They were dead set against it. But it was an honorable thing to do, it was a gentlemanly thing to do. I wanted to go to the Naval Academy because I loved my country, the country that allowed me and my family to worship God so freely. This would be my chance to pay America back. I also liked the prestige. But most of all, I was thinking, Wow, for once I’ll be a part of a group of men.
During my trip with Chuck and Frank, we had visited the Naval Academy so I could get an idea of what a military base looks like. It was awesome! More than ever, I wanted to be a part of it. Despite the fact that Chuck had almost gotten us all into a fight by calling a high-ranking officer an “asshole,” the visit convinced me I wanted to belong to the military.
I didn’t get into the Naval Academy, but that didn’t stop me. I could become a Marine officer by going to Officer Candidate School in the summer while I attended Bob Jones University.
In the meantime, to see if I really wanted to be a military officer, I came up with a brilliant plan. I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserves.
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