By Tyr Symank
The Delta Force sergeant major stood. I knew this man to be a fighter. I also knew him to be a bit of a class clown. I wondered which was going to appear. We were in a room full of operators and donors; special operations guys with decades of experience and wealthy individuals ready to give back to support our community. The stories being told this morning were meant to inspire, to give these civilians a peek behind the curtain to a world very few people have access to. No media, social or otherwise was allowed here. If you were in this room, you were trusted. I was here because the company I worked for was invited, and I was the company’s representative. I was also here because of my 20 years in SOF. The previous men who had stood and given testimony had mostly told stories of valor, of loss, of sacrifice. I had these stories, but I was not a Tier One operator. I had worked with, by, around, but I never went to that selection. I’ve always been tenuous in receiving the label “operator” because my selections have been different. I knew I belonged in this room. I had a professional obligation to help raise money and support for these guys and their families. And for stories, yeah, years worth. I’ve been shot at, blown up, lost friends, lost families, all the usual ingredients in a traditional Irish drinking song, who among the warfighters in this room hadn’t? I was used to being the most interesting man in the room. Here, I was tall, looking up at giants.
I half-listened as the SGM spoke. The stoicism in the room broke for laughter. He was telling a comical tale of a tactical mishap involving him and the operator sitting next to him at our table. Permission granted. Let’s raise some money.
“Great story J, thank you for sharing and lightening the mood. As you heard, friends, not all stories have to be sad. Who else here has a story to share? Don’t make me call on you…” I looked at Jim and motioned for the mic still in his hand. He passed it to me as I stood. I needed to jump on this before my resolve faded. “Anyone? Oh, Tyr! Ok,”
I gave a brief obligatory introduction of who I was and why I was there, justifying it more to myself than the audience. I launched into a bit of a mundane preface to set the stage:
“Before I was Special Forces, I was stationed in Texas. Through a series of poor life choices, I was a single dad. I was struggling to put food on the table. I made exactly 20 dollars too much to qualify for WIC assistance. I sold plasma twice a week for cash. I received food from the Army Community Service food chest. I knew I was hurting when I pulled a labeless can from the cupboard with the black silhouette of a pig printed directly on the aluminum. The words on the can simply said, ‘PORK. Compliments of the people of the United States of America.’ It was a hunk of scrap meat preserved in a gelatinous glob. No wonder people hate us.
I played rugby for the post team. We were sponsored by a knock-off Hooters restaurant called Jester’s. I had a rotation of Jester’s servers that would watch my son for me when we had away games or I had a date night. My toddler son had a tiny shirt that appropriately said, ‘Chick Magnet’.
One evening, I showed up a little late to the team drinking meeting. The server-babysitter on duty handed me my son and asked where I had been. I pointed to the blood spot leaking through the gauze affixed to my arm, “Gotta make that money.”
At this point, I could tell I was losing the audience. A couple of side conversations had quietly started. Some were paying more attention to their continental scones than me.
“You know, there’s a dare to bare contest down the street at Oz on Thursday. You should do that. Probably more fun than bleeding.”
“What is that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. You take your clothes off. If you win, you get cash.”
“So I decided to take my clothes off for money.” Conversations stopped. Scones froze in mid-lift.
“I took second at the contest. I didn’t have a chance at first. That dude was wearing an elephant trunk banana hammock. I was wearing Hanes boxer briefs. Still, I had $70 cash and an immeasurable amount of confidence in my pocket. I bought one celebratory drink. I danced fully clothed with a pretty blonde. ‘So, where do you dance?’, she asked, teasing her hair behind her ear.
‘Right here. With you.’ Yeah, get ‘em killer.
‘No, I mean where do you dance?’ My face must have said something to the effect of ‘don’t think my lack of comprehension diminishes my desire to sleep with you.’ ‘Oh my god. You’re not a stripper?’
‘Uh, this is my first time.’ She stopped dancing and pulled a business card from her clutch.
‘Call this guy. His name is Eric. Tell him I sent you.’ I took the card and put it in my back pocket. I continued my attempt to take her home. That didn’t happen.
I called Eric the next day. He sounded tired. ‘So you’ve never done this before?’
‘I took second place at a dare to bare’, I replied. You know, like a pro. He replied with the sigh of a man who would rather do anything else than his current occupation.
‘Look, come down, check the place out, make sure this is something you really want to do.’
I drove down on a Thursday night after work. I checked the place out. I was asked to dance by a trio of blonde dental students from San Antonio. I had drinks on them. I went home with them. This far exceeded government pork and selling plasma. I was now a stripper.
I had a routine on work nights: leave the base, quick workout, shave everything, shower, drive to Austin, have one drink in the fancy gentlemen’s club side, change clothes, do my routine on the shitty women’s club side, sell lap dances, collect my cash, tip out, change clothes, and drive back to a female friend’s house where I’d curl up and convince myself I wasn’t just a piece of meat. It did not take long for the novelty of this side hustle to wear thin. One night, two of the dancers, both considerably larger than me, got in a fistfight at the bar. One had accused the other of stealing part of his routine. I don’t know what there was to steal. Most of the moves were relatively the same, just set to different music. You ripped your shirt off and thrust your hips. At some point, you might fall violently to the floor and do a sexy push-up. This wasn’t exactly art. The skinny DJ tried to get between them. He looked at me for help. I responded by setting my drink down and heading to my truck. I was dancing for diapers and daycare, not this ‘roid drama.
The 45 min drive back home was physically uncomfortable. I hadn’t changed before I left. I threw my jeans on over my T-back to have a drink and cash out and then the two meat heads started going at it like bull walruses fighting over a rock. I shifted ass my left, and then right, but found no relief. I had been told by a few women that the reason they wore thong underwear was for comfort. I grimaced and called bullshit. As soon as I was through my front door, I made a beeline for my bedroom. I kicked my boots into the corner. I unbuttoned my jeans and kicked till they were off and in the corner on top of my boots. I hooked my thumbs under the sides of my t-back and rolled them with great relief to my ankles. As I bent over, something landed between my feet. It looked like a small square of paper. Did the tag fall off my t-back? I reached down, picked it up, and held it up to the bedroom light. It was light green in color, folded, but so small it was unrecognizable. I unfolded the paper, slowly revealing the very disappointed face of George Washington. A woman, obviously adept at origami in her daylight activities, had spent considerable effort in folding this piece of currency into the smallest square physics would allow. At some point in the evening, she had trusted me with her creation, stowing it between my cheeks for safe keeping. I drove my truck for 45 minutes with this hard currency driving itself into the most sensitive areas of my body. I flattened the bill and placed it on the pile of worn bills in my dresser drawer. On Monday, I resumed the cycle of my routine. I took the cash to the bank teller for deposit. ‘Looks like a good weekend bartending!’ she remarked while counting, touching each bill with her well-manicured hands. She was pretty. I did not make eye contact. ‘Yep.’
There were no side conversations. Some hedge fund managers and a few operators stared at me with open mouths. Disbelief, envy, disgust. There was a lot to read in this room. Breakfast was certainly over. Who is going to follow that? Applause broke the tension accompanied with laughter. I’d like to remember it as an 80’s movie slow clap, but it was far more abrupt than that. The emcee closed, ‘…and with that…’
As the group stood from their tables, shaking their heads, laughing, and recounting the stories with each other, a frail elderly woman made eye contact with me and moved in my direction. I instantly felt like I had fucked up. This was supposed to be a men’s breakfast. The only woman in the room was the emcee, or so I had thought. This was the 80-something-year-old mother of one of the donors. Shit. I readied myself for what I figured to be two courses of action: 1. Thank you for your service. Being a single parent couldn’t have been easy or 2. You know, the Bible says…
She outstretched her hand and took mine. Thank you for your service it was…’I just want to tell you…’, a hard folded square of paper in her palm pressed to mine, ‘…you’ve still got it.”
Illustrations by Chris Hunt
