The Boy in Makeup

Chapter One

Like the men who made suicide is in my genes. The temptation was too great for my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father, having lured all three to the other side.

Theories abound as to why. No one knows for sure. I think it's because there was too much dissonance between who they really were and who they pretended to be. We all pretend, but some of us pretend way more than others. Sometimes, the pretending overwhelms, and it seems there's only one way out.

I loathe pretense. I try not to pretend. I'm afraid it will kill me.

Not pretending is hard, especially in the closed, small town of Paris, Illinois, my hometown. Unlike the real Paris, my Paris had fewer than 10,000 souls, almost none of them authentic, at least not publicly. I guess no one ever really knows what's going on behind closed doors. Publicly, everyone seemed to look and think alike. There were few outliers, and they fled to Chicago or Indianapolis as soon as they could. Those who remained were minor variations on the same general theme.

They went to the same church, the same diner, and the same store. They drove the same make and model of cars. They voted for the same Republican candidates. They gossiped about liberals. They loved their God and their guns. They hated gays. And every other different thing.

It was stifling. I wanted to sing while everyone else sat silent. I wanted to run while everyone else sat still.

I have always bucked strictures. For as long as I can remember, I have hated shoes. I was and am barefoot whenever I can be. When I was at St. Mary's, I'd remove my shoes to walk to school, put them back on when I got to school, and take them off again as soon as the final bell rang. I was the same at Paris High School.

I also hated haircuts. I was a toe headed little boy, and I wore my hair long. I got the first haircut I remember because my grandfather insisted I get a "boy's haircut" for school. From past my shoulders, my hair got clipped above my ears. I freaked and insisted I wanted my hair "cut back long again." I was too young to know it was impossible. When I was at home, I wore one of my mother's wigs. When I was at school, I wore a stocking cap until the nuns insisted I remove it. I was ashamed of my short hair. It was the same as everyone else's.

In our case, it was true that deaths came in threes. Just before I was born, my great-grandfather shot himself. When I was 7, my grandfather hanged himself. When I was 9, my father closed the garage door, ran a hose from the exhaust pipe of our Pontiac Catalina, turned the car to auto, and listened to "Don't it make my brown eyes blue" as he fell asleep and drifted away. I found him, moments too late. Crystal Gayle was still singing as I coughed and cried and rocked and cried.

My father's suicide left me and my mother alone. She had been a young bride, so she was a widow before she was thirty. As I look back, I am alarmed at how young she was.

My father's suicide also left us indebted. We moved into a shabby, one bedroom apartment on the edge of town. The complex was all elderly but us. The living room doubled as my bedroom.

My mother (Carol) had never worked. She had married the high school quarterback just after graduation and had almost immediately gotten pregnant with me. They had waited until they were married. They were married because they couldn't wait anymore.

My mother stayed home while my father worked the line. She had hated what being pregnant did to her body and vowed never to do it again.

My mother was, as they said then, a real looker. She had full, wavy auburn hair that she wore up, sometimes teased. She had long lashes that she coated with mascara. Her lashes framed large, oval and ethereal green eyes that were slightly higher on the outside than the inside, just like Barbara Eden's. She had a button nose just above full, red lips.

She was also built. Her breasts were large and round. Her hips were narrow. Her butt and thighs were full, but not big.

I loved everything about her. When I wore her wig, I imagined I was her. She should have been a movie star, not a widow.

She learned to do hair and makeup and started working at the beauty shop. Women around town went to her, hoping they'd wind up looking like her. Once she was finished remaking them, they ostracized her. The women who had been friends with her while she was married now kept her at bay and treated her as a threat.

I became her only friend and her faithful muse. She practiced her craft on me. Nightly, she styled her wig on my head, and applied makeup to my face, trying this or that new color combination, style, or technique.

I loved the way she transformed me. I loved the way her mascara felt on my eyes, and the way her lipstick felt on my lips. I loved feeling and looking beautiful.

When she was finished with me, she'd work herself over. Then, we'd dance in front of the mirror and pretend we were really in Paris, living a life of glamour and interest. We used pillow cases for scarves and called each other French names, Yvette for her, Delphine for me.

Obviously, our relationship was not a traditional one. When my father died, my mother and I became best friends. She treated me more as a confidant and a peer than as a child. I knew the coldness and two-facedness of her former friends wounded her. I also knew she lived in constant fear I'd be the fourth Akers to cash in my chips. The urge was strong. Sometimes, it overwhelmed me. I always wondered, in those moments, what I'd have done if the means had been at hand.

With my father's death, I had to leave St. Mary's grade school. We couldn't afford to tithe, and if you didn't tithe, you had to pay tuition. We couldn't afford that, either.

The move didn't bother me. The strict Catholic dress code meant my hair could not be below the collar on my shirt or the tragus of my ear. I also didn't care for the nuns or the smallness of St. Mary's. I felt they were judging me and my mother. They acted like she was a divorcee, not a widow. They acted like I was a bastard, not a child struggling with a parent's suicide. They buried their mercy under condescension and judgment.

It was also a church and a school filled with pretension. On Sunday, everyone dressed up and pretended to be pious. In between, they made a mockery of the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments, in equal measure.

During the week, we were taught acceptance and mercy. We showed each other none of it. We were cliquish and judgmental. When Chris Goellner's parents got divorced, we stopped playing with him. He was 10, and we cast him out. For nothing he had done. His parents divorced, so he was damned.

Paris's public middle school was not ready for me. I stopped cutting my hair. My mother and I did my makeup before I left every morning. It was not over the top (a little eyeliner and mascara, a little lip liner and color), but it was enough. It was the 80s, and males didn't wear makeup unless they were Boy George, Sid, or Robert Smith.

I was the only boy in makeup. I was the only boy with his long hair pulled back and rubber banded in a nub on the back of my head. I was the only boy not in corduroys, plaid shirts, and earth shoes. In my mind, I was the only boy not pretending.

I realize now how arrogant I was. We all pretend. I pretended my classmates didn't bother me. I pretended I didn't hear them, didn't see them, didn't mind them. I pretended I didn't need or want friends. I pretended.

Chapter Two

I could have tried harder to fit in. But, it was not my nature. I'd have had to pretend I was something I wasn't. And, pretending brought the tunnels.

I was also stubborn and willful. I wanted to be the lemming in the Far Side with the inner tube around my waist. I wanted to listen to the Cure, Depeche Mode, and the Smiths, not whatever Casey Kasem was peddling. I wanted to read Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, not V.C. Andrews. I wanted to be Holden Caulfield, not Holden on Days of our Lives.

I had two middle school friends. One was Lori, a large girl who was bawdy and bold and - after a lifetime of teasing for being big - strong as an ox. She didn't shrink when they came at her. She pushed back. Hard. I wished for her strength. I just didn't have it. I was strong enough to be different, but not strong enough not to get stung by the insults and invectives my differences occasioned.

My other friend was, of course, my mother. She encouraged my flights of fancy. She liked playing with me. But, she also feared what stifling me might do. She hawked me, especially when things seemed hard for me, or when the pressure to conform seemed too great.

Non-conformity exposed me in ways both small and large. As for the small, it was common for my books to be knocked out of my hands, my feet to be kicked out from under me, and for "faggot" to be coughed behind me or scribbled across my locker.

They were right, but they didn't know it. "Faggot" didn't just mean gay in our Paris. It was broader, and it included all things different. If you were straight and liked art, you were a faggot. If you were straight and eschewed sports, you were a faggot. If you were homosexual, as I certainly was, it definitely applied.

As for the large, I was tackled and kicked as I walked home more than once. I developed a sixth sense. I could feel people behind me. Not long after I started high school, I heard steps behind me. I prayed they were not what I knew they were. And, I never prayed. I went to church with my mother, but I was an atheist. Because I was rational.

I quickened my steps. Whoever was behind me quickened their steps.

I knew I had no chance. I turned around to confront whoever intended to confront me.

There were three of them, all in wool masks. They were Seniors (the year on their letter jackets ratted on them), and they were big.

"Hey, Faggot," one of them called out. "Nice makeup."

"Thank you, I work with what I've got," I offered back, weakly, but trying to be funny.

They spread out around me. I was not sure what was coming, but I knew I couldn't stop whatever it was. Before I could act, they did. I was on my back on the ground, a forearm to my throat.

"If you're going to use an eyebrow pencil," one of them insisted, "you may as well use an eyebrow pencil." With a cheap Bic razor, he took my right eyebrow and then my left. He cut my left brow as he did. It left a scar that I learned to love when my eyebrow returned.

I was disappointed they were not finished. I shook my head back and forth, only to have a foot placed on each side, holding me in a vice. The one who had shaved my eyebrows had a tiny pair scissors. He insisted I hold still. I didn't want to, but I couldn't move. I also didn't want those scissors in either of my eyes. I was helpless as he cut my eyelashes off. As he did, he hissed "what are you going to put mascara on now, you little faggot?" I wanted to respond "whatever I have left," but I decided discretion was in order. I said nothing. I choked back tears of rage.

When they were finished, they took off back toward school. I tried to reclaim my dignity, which was shattered and scattered around me. I surely missed some of it, ground into the grass.

When I got home, I stared in the mirror. I could not have imagined that eyebrows were so significant to a person's appearance. Without them, I looked like a freak.

As I stared, desperation replaced my rage. I felt like I was walking through a series of tunnels, each successive one more narrow than the one before. I closed my eyes and held the sink as I got stuck in the last tunnel, my arms pinned to my sides and my body a plug that sealed off the light. In that moment, it would have been so easy for me to stop pretending I was stronger than I was, to climb into the tub, to make quick cuts on my wrists and feet, and to slowly drift away.

The image of my mother finding me jarred me loose. I had found my father. I couldn't have her find me. I couldn't do that to her. I felt the walls recede and free me. I opened my eyes, let go of the sink, and ran a bath.

The persecution was hard on me. I cried myself to sleep many nights, wondering if I shouldn't just conform and spare myself the daily indignities I otherwise endured. I could not decoct which was worse, abuse or obeisance.

Every time I had to, I chose abuse. Obeisance, conformity, being one of many somehow seemed worse than abuse to me, intellectually. At least on my path, I could take some comfort in being authentic, not sublimating who I was to appease others.

It was harder on my mother than it was on me. She ached for me. And feared for me. She'd have really been afraid if knew about the tunnels or the other thoughts that plagued me.

That night, she insisted I report the boys. I assured her I could not, as they had worn masks.

It would also only make things worse. It was one thing to be different. It was another to be different and a narc. Rather than tattle, I chose an eyebrow pencil and fake eyelashes.

My teachers provided no refuge, in any event. The only exception was Michael Kamler, the 27 year old Physics teacher who had moved over from the Catholic High School. Fresh out of graduate school, he didn't earn much, so he and another new teacher - a female - moved in together, to economize. The Catholics objected to opposite sexes living together, even platonically. When Mr. Kamler and Ms. Ostein refused to relent, the Catholics fired them both. PHS snapped them up; before Mr. Kamler, the football coach taught Physics, a subject he could not spell, much less teach.

In my mind, Mr. Kamler was the inspiration for the Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me." He was a young teacher, and he was certainly the object of this school boy's fantasy. He had unkempt, curly brown hair. His glasses tried to hide bright blue eyes, but they failed. He had a permanent five o'clock shadow. He had thick, red lips, and bright white teeth. He had played soccer and coached the JV soccer team. His legs and butt showed it.

Mr. Kamler was almost certainly straight. But, he was also a rare bird in Paris, a liberal. He was in favor of affirmative action. And gay rights. And, horror of horrors, aid to the less fortunate.

The rest of the faculty teased him. I adored him. Whenever I could, I visited his classroom, just to have someone to talk to who did not think everyone else was right and anything different was wrong. He never encouraged me to conform. He urged me to be who I was. But, he also cautioned me that staying true to myself brought certain risks. Principles, he assured me, were not for the faint of heart.

When I showed up to school after the assault, the Administration looked past me. I was invisible to them. They cared not why my eyebrows and eyelashes were gone. They likely wish I was, too.

The students laughed and whispered behind my back, but no one asked me what had happened. Except Lori. She was horrified. She wanted us to attack each and every Senior boy, surreptitiously. Her motto was "To err is human, to avenge is divine. Fuck forgiveness."

There were 43 boys. Only 17 wore letterman jackets. We identified their cars. During the next assembly, we ducked out, grabbed the water balloons we had stored in a box behind the dumpster, and emptied two into 17 different gas tanks. We were indiscriminate and over-inclusive, but it was the era of Reagan, and he preached disproportionate response. We returned to the assembly Reaganites. And vandals. And exhilarated.

Chapter Three

Before my Sophomore year, I pierced both of my ears, inspired by George Michael of Wham. I didn't like his music, but I sure liked him. Lori went with me. She promised it wouldn't hurt. She lied. It killed.

On our first day back at PHS, I had gym with Coach Berkman, a close minded jarhead who took great pride in being a self-proclaimed "man's man," a reference I have never understood. It is intended to signify masculinity, but it always smacked of homosexuality to me. After all, my life's dream was to become a "man's man."

Coach Berkman had heard about my ear rings, and he was ready for me, coiled like a snake. As soon as class started, he called any boy with an ear ring to the front. I stayed in line, and he glared at me. "Akers, I can see your ear rings from here. Step forward."

"Coach, you called out anyone with an ear ring. I have two ear rings, not an ear ring. I'm where I'm supposed to be."

The class sniggered. Coach Berkman did not.

He strode directly toward me, glaring. He stood before me, enraged and greasy, like a piece of fried chicken, fresh out of the bucket.

"Akers, you're a sissy and a smart ass," he thundered, stepping in front of me, and putting his hands on my shoulders. As his knee hit me squarely in the groin, he announced that if I was willing to look like a girl, then I should talk like one, too. I crumpled to the floor and broke out in a cold sweat.

Today, Coach Berkman would have been hauled off in cuffs and certainly out of a job. Back then, no one even helped me up.

When I regained my composure, I struggled to my feet and headed out of the gym, embarrassed and shamed. Laughter slicked my departure. Coach Berkman didn't care. He had endeared himself to everyone but me.

I hid in the band room. My balls ached. I couldn't stop sweating. I was surprised when the door opened and I heard my name. "Eric, are you in here?"

I didn't respond. The voice belonged to Steve Lustig, one of the most popular kids in the school, much less our class. His family was the richest in Paris, "richer than the Roosevelt's" in my mother's words. He was well-bred, and it showed in how he treated others. He was the only person I knew who'd actually been to the real Paris.

"Eric, I know you're in here. I just wanted to let you know that was total bullshit."

"I'm over here," I said, revealing my hiding place behind the drums.

Steve walked over and sat down next to me. "Berkman's a tool," he offered.

"Yeah, well he crushed my tool," I tried to joke. Steve chuckled a little, but not a lot. My chuckle made my balls ache.

Neither of us said a word. Finally, Steve offered that my "an ear ring" play had been inspired.

"It got me a knee to the balls."

"No, it didn't. That was coming anyway."

"Probably."

Steve stood to go. I decided to pry.

"Lustig, what're you doing in here? Why'd you track me down?"

"I wanted to make sure you're okay. And, I wanted to tell you that I admire you. You're resilient. You get knocked down, but you just keep getting back up. I don't know that I could do that. But, I hope you keep it up."

"It'd be easier if people stopped knocking me down."

"I don't think you're one for easy."

"I guess I'm not."

"I'm glad. You make this a more interesting world."

"That's not my goal."

"That may be true. But, it's your effect."

Somehow, some way, Steve and I became secret friends after that. We studied together. We talked on the phone almost every day. We even hung out. But, we didn't talk at school. We didn't even acknowledge each other. It didn't bother me, but it should have. I shouldn't have settled for a friend that wanted to be a friend only if no one knew he was a friend.

For Thanksgiving, the Lustigs invited me and my mother to dinner. It was a welcome change from Swanson's turkey pot pies, which had become our Thanksgiving staple.

Halfway through dinner, Mrs. Lustig suggested we spend the night. As was occurring more frequently, my mother had drank too much, but they pretended that was not the reason for the invitation. We resisted, but my mother gave in when Mrs. Lustig opened another bottle of wine.

My mother took the guest room. Steve and I opened sleeping bags on the family room floor. We talked late into the night and into the morning. Steve asked me if I was gay, and I answered him honestly. He asked me how I knew, and I told him that I'd never been attracted to a girl. I was more interested in being a girl than in being with one.