Chapter 34 - Alice's Restaurant Revisited

Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant was a major hit on a campus full of guys who were only one deferment away from having to schlep halfway around the world to try and kill people they didn't even know while those people were trying to kill them. Even though the Vietnamese weed was reported to be killer stuff, nobody wanted to be a killer to get it. Well, maybe some of the ROTC guys did, but they didn't like me and I didn't like them.

So imagine my surprise when I got a letter in the mail from the Selective Service saying, in essence, YOU GRADUATED. YOUR NUMBER'S UP, KID!

My number was 31 because I was born on on June 24, 1950. That deferment was a necessity.

Wait a minute! I'm still in school, I have a deferment! Besides they don't draft women. But they didn't know I was a woman. Stealth transition, remember? I had never bothered to inform the Selective Service because I had that deferment. I can only guess that since it was
Connie and not Conrad attending grad school that the Selective Service got confused.

It wasn't like today where a gender-conflicted kid has a reasonably defined path to switching sides in the war of the sexes. I didn't know what was impossible, so I just did it. Back then the whole 'show your ID' craze wasn't so prevalent. I did go to court to legally change my name, the motor vehicle people accepted the note from the court and changed it on my driver's license with no problem, but that little 'M' was still on there somewhere. With my androgynous looks the awful picture on that license, taken before my new breasts were implanted, didn't really give anyone a clue.

Nobody asked to actually see your Social Security card back then, you just reeled off the numbers that you had memorized after giving it every time you applied for a job. Nobody checked. Nobody cared.

Those were the days!

I showed Julie the letter and she damn near died laughing."Can you imagine what they'd do when you went down for your physical?" she screamed.

Remember the scene from the Alice's Restaurant movie at the Induction Center, where they lined up all these boys and went down the line grabbing privates and demanding they 'turn you head and cough?' If you don't remember, the entire movie as available on You-Tube, I kid you not! Julie and I had only watched that movie a zillion times, we could even quote dialog from it.

"Now that would be a movie that somebody should make!" I laughed.

"You ought to do it! They'll never call on you again, fer sure!"

She shouldn't have oughta said that. I may have considered myself a woman - I had the breasts to prove it - but somewhere deep in my psyche was a macho jerk who couldn't resist a challenge.

"I just think I'll do that!" I replied.
 

So, on Friday morning October 20, 1972 I dressed carefully for my date with Uncle Sam, not knowing that on Sunday, October 8, 1972 Corporal Klinger made his fashion debut on national television. We didn't watch MASH with any regularity - too busy with accelerated coursework for the MBA.

Naturally I chose a red garter belt (six clips, may as well go whole hog) patterned black hose, four inch blue pumps with rhinestones, my sexiest, laciest bra-and-panty set in black along with a secure gaff to make things perfectly smooth, ankle length blue chiffon skirt with a slit to be sure the garters and hose were exposed, thin white shell to better show off the bra, naturally with a nice ruffle, unbuttoned to expose my cleavage. Silver earrings with little diamonds hanging off fine chains that tinkled as I moved my head, silver bracelet on the left wrist, silver lady's watch on the right, hair in a upswept bun and just enough makeup to set it all off.

I was stunning, if I do say so myself.

Julie and Sandra delivered me, fighting for a parking space that finally opened up. We entered the Federal Building and I presented my letter, fully expecting to be told to get the hell out of there in no uncertain terms.

It didn't quite work that way. The guy at the desk didn't even blink and said "Christ, another Klinger!

Say what?

"I think there's been a mistake," I replied.

"Yeah, and you've made it. It won't work, brother. In there," he pointed again." Strip to your shorts and wait for the doctor."

Turning to Julie and Sandra, who were looking like they had just walked into a home for the insane, I said "I didn't know the army kept blind men on duty, did you?"

"Look asshole," growled the sergeant, "You're the forth one this week thinks he can put on a dress like that fucker on the television and get out of serving his country. Well, it won't work! My orders are to tell you to go through that door and strip to your shorts no matter how how are dressed. You may look better than most, but you got a callup and by damn you're getting called up. Get your ass in there or I call the MPs and throw your ass in jail for evading service."

OK, if that's the way they want to play it, let's see what happens when I take off my bra. Any modesty I had was overcome by the bureaucratic idiot at the desk. So I went through the door and found myself with a dozen shirtless guys on benches waiting for the doctor. To say I caused a sensation would be vast understatement.

I started unbuttoning my blouse and the place went nuts. Shrugging out of the blouse there were no doubt that my tits were the real thing, as far as anyone in there could tell, that is. Reaching back I unsnapped my bra and let them loose. The room was completely silent.

"The sergeant out there didn't believe I got my letter by mistake. The army doesn't make mistakes, I'm told, so here I am. Any idea how long it takes to see the doctor. Maybe he can tell the difference between men and women."

From the tents in several pairs of shorts, they had no doubt. Stepping out of my skirt about caused a riot. Something about black underwear and all those garters just drives a man wild. I sat demurely on the wooden bench, thinking just how much fun it would be to film this scene for a remake of Alice's Restaurant.

I sat there for about ten minutes and not a blessed one of them had the nerve to say a thing. Eventually a man in the typical doctor's coat came in and stopped dead.

"What the hell is going on here?" he roared, looking directly at me.

"The sergeant out there seems to have a problem with his sight. I tried to explain that someone had made a mistake by sending me that letter, but he wasn't having any of it. Something about a guy in a dress on the television, I think. It just seemed easier to do what he said rather than argue. He threatened to put me in jail if I didn't."

"Thank god I'm a civilian. Please get dressed and we can straighten this out, madam."

"Thank you, it is a bit chilly in here."

Yeah, my nipples were sticking out quite nicely.

So I gave them a show by putting back on all I had taken off. It was hard not to burst out laughing. For that matter, most of them were noticeably hard by the time I was done. I had to wonder - that had never happened to me. I could get hard enough to make love to Julie, but it was always at the end of a long session of mutual stimulation. It worked, but not like you see in the porn movies.

"I've had this problem most of my life," I told the doctor. "Someone made a mistake and the bureaucrats hate to admit any mistakes. My driver's license still says I'm male despite the evidence. Do you suppose your sergeant worked for the DMV before he enlisted?"

Pretty cute, huh. I was proud of myself for that line. I dug my license out of my purse and showed him. Eventually someone higher up got called and I was told to go home. I can't tell you what the rank of the higher-up was because I never could figure out what all those whatchamacallits they like to pin on uniforms mean. The only way I knew it was a sergeant at the front desk was because his nameplate said 'Sgt Asshole.'

So, with a big grin on my face we left the Federal Building and headed home, while I related the experience in four part harmony with circles and arrows on the back of each phrase.

We didn't know it then, but by December the Draft would be no more. I don't know if I should be happy for a story that I can tell or annoyed that I had to flash my tits at those poor guys because of an obstinate asshole.