The Gay American Saloon Series / Club El Malaria
Forman, Ian
/ was watching the six o'clock news last night when the president came on. He said he was going to issue an order lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military. Then a lot of generals came on...
...N ow back to the main question: should there be gays—openly and officially accepted—in the military...
...Their next project was Club El Malaria...
...But the airfield was operating...
...The clientele returned...
...0 ne day the Japanese came—not, alas, to drink...
...So they took over...
...We were in a friendly village in a bamboo grove where the large trees were filled with orchid vines and surrounded by gardenia bushes...
...Tom and Jerry made it on merit—and furthermore, on courage...
...They overran our compound and we retreated...
...Tom laughed...
...For the next three months the 15th, 31st, and 33rd Japanese Divisions surrounded the beleaguered defense perimeter of the Imphal base...
...Jerry dragged nervously on a cigarette...
...To say they gave us something extra to fight for would be stretching things a bit...
...White sheets were found for tablecloths and, for dinner, a little white-jacketed local native man was hired to stand in the corner waving a large fan...
...Our unit was housed in a compound of large thatch-roofed mud huts, bought from the natives...
...Tom and Jerry were trapped together in a small bunker in front of the defense line about a quarter mile from our compound...
...Should the longstanding ban be lifted...
...Except for the war—which we commuted to the surrounding mountains to fight—it was a paradise...
...Anyway, our base camp was in a Shangri-La valley called Imphal, high in the mountains along the India border...
...Supplies got in and the wounded out...
...You're darned right," said Tom...
...A couple of Japanese dead were lying outside the bar...
...They had no political agenda...
...it was as if we had brought our girlfriends and wives to war with us...
...Another unit man, who before the war had done stage sets on Broadway, painted exotic murals on whitewashed walls and built the long bamboo bar behind which turbaned bartenders served...
...W e didn't think of them that way...
...The Japanese gave up the siege eventually and faded away over the mountains back into Burma...
...As a final detail, there were fresh gardenias and orchids in bright brass native bowls on the breakfast table every morning...
...Personally, I put the issue to the Tomand-Jerry test...
...Generals and privates alike, from all along the scattered front, ignored military rank to raise a toast to Tom and Jerry for their achievement...
...That became the name of the mud hut next-door—when it was transformed into the best bar east of Calcutta...
...A pair of them had come to our unit from combat in the Western Desert in North Africa, where they had won the French Croix de Guerre for pulling critically wounded tank crews out of burning vehicles...
...Let me tell you: all wars are about your life being in danger...
...No, thanks...
...Our turbaned Indian kitchen help waited on tables...
...That night the fighting continued...
...The war in the mountains was sporadic and they, bored during a period of inactivity, decided that our mess hall operation—food, menu, and atmosphere—could well be upgraded...
...It relieved the tension...
...Tom, a wealthy young man of independent means, made sure that scotch, gin, olives and clubsoda came in on the transport planes along with the food, ammunition, and field bandages...
...When we arrived, Tom and Jerry were already there...
...They have been since the beginning of time, and always will be...
...But the shot-up ambulances and give-no-quarter desperation on both sides put them in the middle of combat...
...Never touch 'em," said Jerry, with a feigned faggy flip of his wrist...
...Tom and Jerry knew that, ban or no ban, gays have to make it on their own...
...They were gentlemen and kept that part to themselves...
...They were ambulance drivers, not trained for infantry work...
...The mud walls of the big thatch-roofed hut were soon whitewashed in a civilized way...
...We were off in the mountains of Burma trying to find the Japanese, and they us, and there was sporadic combat when we met...
...For the big breakthrough, they devised twenty-five recipes for bully beef, our staple canned meat, and purchased native delicacies and vegetables...
...We saw the smoke rise up from the thatched roofs of Club El Malaria and the mess hall...
...Club El Malaria was now a citadel to be defended to the death...
...Then a lot of generals came on moaning and groaning about it...
...But they did make that oddball stretch of the war a bit more civilized...
...We were all mostly friends and shared a preoccupation with danger in the mountains...
...Care for a grenade...
...A vicious Japanese assault swept by their position, isolating it...
...Tracer bullets stitched the darkness . Tom stopped firing for a moment...
...No Military Code stamp of approval can help in the end...
...Two days later, we counterattacked and retook the ruins of Club El Malaria and the compound...
...Tom and Jerry, as we shall call them, had made our humble mess hall into the jungle equivalent of a quality New York (their hometown) restaurant...
...Oh, that war, you say—that was ancient, and isn't relevant anymore...
...No one knew how he did it or asked...
...Tom asked solicitously...
...One thing was sure...
...Medals would have been bestowed if possible...
...Club El Malaria was soon restored...
...Then I remembered my own experience with gays in the military, and I wondered...
...Jerry held a gardenia blossom to each of his nostrils to cut the smell of the bodies in the hot morning sun...
...So famous did Club El Malaria become that a late-evening jeep service had to be laid on to return besotted celebrants safely to their far-flung units...
...What about the gays...
...It was a pathetic sight...
...In the deadly business of the military, in peace or war, the only approval that counts is the respect and protection your comrades can give you...
...My first reaction, given all the gay propaganda we've been bombarded with in recent years, was that maybe the generals were right for once...
...Jerry looked at the torched roof of Club El Malaria and said, "We'll rebuild...
...Nothing like the feminine touch to add a little class to the operation...
Vol. 26 • June 1993 • No. 6
