The Corpuscle

From: No Dr. Dobson, Homosexuality Is a Choice (Journal of the Family Research Institute):

Likewise, you can be someone if you declare yourself to be 'gay' -- everyone will talk about you. You will have an 'identity.' [...] It can be 'cool' to attract similar 'weirdoes' and 'twist society's tail.' Few of us need very many people to like us and stand by us, just a few friends or companions will often 'do the trick.' [...] Adding sex to the mix, as is true for homosexuality, can also attract a fair number of converts.

From: Frequently asked questions regarding the MinuteMan Project:

Under no circumstances are you to engage in argumentative or hostile confrontation with any illegal alien.  You back off, and let the [Border Patrol] properly conduct the interception and apprehension of the illegal aliens.

* * * * *

Gil Christcox, a large, bearish man, retired HVAC contractor from Omaha, raises his night-vision scope and peers through the windshield at the high and lonely, star-lit desert. It's cold in the pick-up's cab. The strong black coffee from Christcox's thermos bottle doesn't help.

The hand-held radio, on the seat between us, crackles alive.

"I got movement," a disembodied voice says.

Christcox picks up the radio. "I'm listening."

"The rise, off to the south. 'Bout half a click, maybe."

Christcox swings the scope to the left, searching the night.

"I got nothing. Talk to me."

"Looks like locker-room horseplay. Varsity swim team, maybe."

Christcox grunts. "Oh, yeah. Got 'em." He's silent for a moment, peering into the night. "Could be just playing some grab-ass. Keep an eye on them."

"Will do."

Christcox sets the radio back down on the seat, lowers the scope. His big paw of a hand wraps around the thermos.

"Warm up?"

He refills my styrofoam cup.

"The horseplay in itself ain't nothing. It's the locker-room angle you got to worry about." He slurps coffee, exhaling some of the heat. The dim starlight illuminates his breath. "And the Speedos." He shakes his head. "God-damned Speedos."

Somewhere out there in the darkness, there is a boundary, an invisible frontier winding through the parched earth and low-scrub of the high desert. This is the desolate and remote borderland between straights and homos. This is the place where untold numbers of "straightbacks" -- the derogatory term favored by Christcox and his men -- make their illicit crossings each year.

"If the government won't keep them out, then we will," Christcox murmurs. "Used to be, you could rely on the law making these crossings dangerous. God-damned tolerance."

The numbers prove Christcox's point. Statistics are hard to come by, but even the most conservative estimates suggest hundreds of thousands, maybe up to a million "straightbacks" choose to make the crossing into homosexuality every year. By almost all accounts, illegal sexual orientation immigration has reached near epidemic proportions.

"Year after year they keep coming. It's getting so you can't hardly transgress anymore. It's about time somebody did something about it. This is our territory. Let them stay home."

Thus the Minute 'Mos Project -- the brainchild of Christcox and a few of his friends, a volunteer organization of homosexuals determined to finally put a stop to the flood of straight boys choosing to be queer. Some call it a "vigilantism", but Christcox and his fellow Minute 'Mos call it citizen action.

"Once everybody starts taking it up the ass, where's the thrill in being a homo anymore?" Christcox mutters bitterly. "When sodomy is in-lawed, only in-laws will have ..." His voice trails off into the darkness.

"We need to return to the kind of homosexual oppression that made this country a great thing to thumb your nose at. These straightbacks... they think they can come over here and take it up the ass whenever they want. We work hard, pay our taxes. We're patriots. The government's got no call to stop harassing us this way."

The radio crackles alive.

"Gil! Gil! They're pantsing each other!"

Christcox slops his coffee onto the seat as he grabs after the radio.

"I'm on it!"

He peers through the night-scope.

"Damn. Some cute straight-boy butt, though." He lowers the scope, reaches for the keys in the ignition. He twists the key over and the engine roars to life. "It's when the Speedos come down. That's when you know."

We lunge forward into the night, bouncing down into a dry wash -- the pickup rocks violently -- the engine races as we claw our way up and out.

Later, Christcox watches in silence as the straight boys -- politely but firmly turned away at the border by Christcox and three of his fellow Minute 'Mos -- disappear back into the hetero side of night.

"They'll be back," Christcox mutters. "Just a matter of time before they try again. A game of strip-poker -- loser pays. A drinking game. Maybe a fraternity hazing. Somehow, somewhere, they'll try it homo. Most of them will make it."

The small band of homos turn and trudge back to their vehicles. Just another skirmish, just another temporary victory in an unending string of dangerous and desperate nights on the frontier.