really really really still in need-- new title in the works..grrr
10.15.01
Mirages in the Sand
You’re sitting at your desk, in your first apartment by yourself, staring into a mirror that flashes back versions of you from years past, present, possibly future. And you wait to see if the reflection will ever show you what you really want to see, if you really know what that is. You see a 22 year old girl that has finally gained some sort of independence her senior year in college, yet one that continues to crawl and sometimes jump though the hoops and rings of earth, wind, and fire that mommy and daddy put her through each and every semester, year, decade. Even if they are unknowing. When you look a little closer you see a girl that finally jumped through that last ring of fire without getting singed. You see a girl that braved the dangers and told her parents the truth, even though you knew they would never accept it. You see a girl that tried, and trying is more than half the battle. That was brave you think. That took balls. Coming out to parents that at one point in time didn’t even know the meaning of homosexuality . . . You smile at yourself, at your candor, at your courage, and envision your parents finally coming to terms with it. In your version it’s a mere 115 minute long movie, whereas in the non-mirrored life of reality, this version is not only still changing, its still playing out a year later.
~*..*~
It started when you made an announcement over dinner. It was a weekend homecoming you’d been looking forward to for weeks, even at 21 you still yearned for home sometimes, even if it was this difficult.
“I’ve something to tell you guys,” you casually say over meat and potatoes, sitting around the oval shaped dinner table you’ve known since childhood. The tension immediately mounted, the breath from the air was frozen in time and somehow, everyone around you knew that this something was more than any other something you’ve discussed before. You could tell from your mother’s eyes that she knew this just wasn’t about failing some art class or having to take another year for school. She stared down at you, her dark eyes, her disappointment already making its way through like always. And your dad just sat there, unknowing, untouched, unmarred. He doesn’t know a thing, you think, and yet he’s the one you need to. You need your father because your mother left you long ago. She escaped to somewhere behind those dark eyes and dark rimmed glasses—the land of disappointment you always think to yourself, and this wasn’t going to be a return visit.
After dinner, nothing is said. You keep thinking to yourself how you’re going to do this, how you’re going to break the news, how you’re going to keep from crying, and keep from breaking down, and keep her from getting to you. You don’t know. But you have to. But after dinner, its business as usual. Mom clears the table, little brother Leroy and daddy run to the living room to switch on the television and you’re left to choose sides yet again. You always choose the wrong side.
So you sit on the floor between TV and sofa, Indian style, patiently waiting, stewing, wondering if they’ll even bring it up, if they’ll even remember why dinner became silent half way through, if they want to face it, if you want to. Mom comes in, sandwiching Leroy and dad on the sofa—the three of them sit there like pod people you think. When you look at them you smile, you laugh, you think of what’s been done on that sofa and how it’s pretty ironic that all three of them sit upright, facing forward, stern looks crossing their faces. You smile. Your mom notices.
“You had something to say to us dear, would you like to tell us now?” Her voice annoys you, it grates at your ears like fingernails across a chalkboard, and you’re afraid the look on your face tells her that. But you say nothing, you just stare blankly at her. She, of course, stares blankly back.
“Leroy, go on and get out of here, your sister has something to tell us,” she orders Leroy from the room and her and your father nestle slightly closer on the daisy-patterned laughable sofa. You move to the recliner across the room, a mere five feet away, but a needed five feet. And now— you sit. Leno is on Late Nite TV, muted, and little brother Leroy begins to play Mission Impossible behind the sofa to listen in on a lack of conversation he’s been thrown out of at least ten times in the last hour. Yes, an hour of complete silence while Leno makes jokes that no one ever laughs at, mostly because he’s muted, an hour of complete silence while you still think about what you’re going to say, or not say, an hour of complete silence while they make up their own stories about what’s about to happen. Versions, its all about versions.
The lamps you’ve known since birth sit on dim on coffee tables you nicked your shins on when you were twelve. The hue of their lite surrounds you in a redness of gloom. You think, how appropriate. You still sit, elbows on knees now, arching forward to catch every glimpse and possible utterance, though absent, out of the mouths of the parents that sit opposite you on the laughable sofa—yes the sofa you lost your virginity on to Little Tommy next door years and years ago. Again, you smile, you laugh at the thought, the idea that you could think of such a thing at such a moment in your life. But, you’re serious now, you have to be. You’re coming out for goodness sakes. This is one, if not the, most important date in your life— next to the time when you graduate from college, get your degree, get an actual job after 5 years of flipping burgers after receiving that degree, next to marriage, next to—ok a lot of things, but this is one of those dates that you will remember forever. When you sit down with the lesbian circle from South Bend talking about when you first knew, or when you told your parents, etc etc, this will be the number one story to tell. The only one really, when you think about. This will be the one to remember—not the one about Little Tommy next door pulling your pants down so he could see what all the fuss was about. This one, not that. You know that. That’s why you focus so hard when you lean forward to take in your parents sitting opposite you on the sofa five feet away—peering into your mother’s deep dark eyes that used to seem so lite, that used to look blue until she caught you and little Tommy next door on the sofa. She’d come home early from work that nite and saw your feet up in the air while little Tommy next door’s face fell right between your thighs. You think to yourself about how the darkness between your legs somehow got relocated to your mother—funny, the one and only thing you’ve ever shared.
Dad on the other hand sits there with his big blue eyes staring blankly into the muted TV, not even imagining what had already gone on where he’s sitting on the daisy-patterned sofa, not even close to what was about to happen. He is as naïve as they come, you think. Innocent and fragile, and a slave to your mother. When you finally say what you’ve been planning to say for weeks, for hours this very nite, you know what his exact response will be. You’ve played out the whole thing in your head, and you are right now, as they sit five mere feet in front of you—eyes wide open, but you know, minds wide shut.
“Mom. . . Dad, I’m a lesbian,” you say as matter-of-factly as possible, in your mind. You’re only ever that brave, in your mind. You look them straight in the eyes and with a straight face. Yeah, straight, go figure the English language would choose such a word. And you know immediately he will respond with, ‘Honey, we’ve known that for years, we always knew you belonged on the stage,’ a grin will cover his face, thinking he’s done so well. Your dad was just like that— inexperienced when it came to the ways of the world that were any different from his. You think, he’s a pretty laughable fella when it comes down to it. A man chained to his wife without an opinion in that little round head of his. So you know, after its all said and done, at least on your part, as soon as she opens her mouth it’s all over from there. Dad’s gone with her, its bound to happen. Thus, the plan is to talk as fast as possible, to disallow her from even one syllable.
If only you could have separate time, you think. Dad time and Mom time. At least then you’d have one on your side. But that’s impossible because your mom has him on one of those harnesses you see middle-aged mothers attaching to their two year olds in the middle of the mall on Sunday afternoons. You could never get him alone, so what was the point in trying? There wasn’t any. And even if you did get him alone, would he bother listening? Or would he just sit there smiling, like now? You can’t really imagine, you can’t really predict, but you still know it’s futile. So you sit here instead, a bead of sweat gathering at the tip of your brow, waiting in anticipation for the reply you know you’re bound to get, waiting to be ready for that reply, waiting to open your mouth, waiting to finally see the one version of you that only you know is true.
You lean back a bit, the silence is killing you because you’ve been sitting in this recliner arched forward for what seems like hours, waiting to tell them, waiting to let them in, waiting to let yourself out. You bite the insides of your lip and your mom giver her June Cleaver look to make you stop. Those eyes. And you do, because—you always have. You wonder, will she give me that look when I say it, will she just cast her Carol Brady eyes over me and I’ll just sit back and change for her, like I always have, step back in and leave it all be? That hurts, to think you think that way—but you do, you’re only human—you are, after all, your mother’s daughter.
And then, due to the silence, your father reaches for the remote on the end table just inches from his grasp, to free himself from this unbearable silence, to unmute poor Leno in the midst of his stand-up intro, poking fun at the President or some other world event you could unfortunately care less about. As he reaches over, his eyes don’t leave yours, he was always one to pay attention, just not one to notice the details. Not one to really care all that much, or at least show it. He casually knocks over the grape Kool-Aid sitting ever so patiently on the embroidered coaster your mother’s sister, your Aunt Maude, made before she passed away nearly two years ago. As the grape substance splashes all over the crème-coloured carpet you used to play video games on while sitting Indian style waiting for your mom to cut the crusts off your pbj’s, you think about her—Aunt Maude.
~*..*~
She was years older than your mother, and yet, still seemed years younger in her old age. Two years ago, before her brief stint at St. Vincent’s, before a failed heart surgery, she and you and Leroy, along with little Tommy next door had played out front in the Indiana snow in the middle of March. You were nineteen then, and yes, you still played in the snow in the middle of March. You’d made snowmen with birch tree sticks as arms and Aunt Maude’s shawl to keep him warm. She got sick that nite. She was so cold, you remember, shivering in your bed because your mother had made you give it up. You would have though, even if she hadn’t pulled the Donna Reed eyes on you. You Loved Aunt Maude—she always seemed to understand.
She was the one that had calmed your mother down the nite she’d walked in on you and little Tommy next door on the sofa they now sit so comfortably on (they did, after all, have it re-upholstered). You were thirteen and Aunt Maude was still traveling around the world on her imaginary Peace Corps route—helping an Irishman here, an Australian there. She was good at heart, but she’d been traveling this imagined route since goodness knows when, and she’d yet to lay her eyes on the little one little sister Mava had given birth to thirteen years before. She sent you postcards though, and letters, and money, gifts from obscure villages in Africa and Asia. But you’d never met her face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. So on that nite when her younger sister called in an uproar, in a panic because she’d found her thirteen-year-old daughter in the midst of sweat, blood, and tears, with little Tommy next door, Maude calmed your mother down.
“Mava, she’s your daughter. Think about it. You were only 15 when you lost yours. What do you expect from your kin. At least she’s doing it in your own home. Think about it Mava. Think about it.” It was simple, and easy—for Maude at least. After your mother and Maude’s conversation your mom calmed down a bit—she hung up the long distance phone call to who knows where and said goodbye to her sister and looked down at you with those eyes that were new to you at that very moment, but are old hat now. But she settled, and she even let little Tommy next door come over once in a while for dinner after. (She also bought you a year’s supply of condoms you’ve yet to even break in—in fact, come to think of it, you haven’t even opened the box.)
And so, the nite she was sick, six whole years later, your first meeting, when you gave up your bed for her, there sat a woman in front of you who had defended you without even knowing you yet; a woman so helpless and so weak from traveling for years without the health she needed as her companion, a woman who played in the snow with a previously unknown niece and nephew like she knew them from the day of their birth, your birth. So here she sat, and here it was your turn to protect her.
But not quite. She was still on call, and some part of her knew that as she peeked out beneath the heavy quilts your grandmother had sewn for you before you were even born—huddled under them like a five-year-old hiding from cough medicine, her little head peeking out from beneath a busy patchwork that made life seem so simple in comparison. Her wild grey hair curled around the edges of your pillows, her wrinkled hands snuck from below, reaching for yours as you sat on the edge of the bed to keep her company, trying not to get too close, but nudging just close enough. Mom hadn’t pulled the June Cleaver eyes for that one—you did it all on your own. And as she peeked out from beneath this little piece of nostalgia in your childhood room, she noticed the “unique” arrangement of certain posters on your walls (the ones of Ani Difranco and Angelina Jolie scantily clad and Loving it), the titles of books that littered your shelves (like How to Make Love to a Woman, and Stepping Out: In a Rainbow of Colours) and the magazines that lay scattered on the hard-wood floor (Out and a Playboy hidden under a book of short stories by Jeanette Winterson). You knew yourself back then, two whole years ago, so you didn’t hide the pieces of you that you’re presently trying to come to terms with by telling your parents. Not to mention that your mother never entered your room after the incident with little Tommy next door, afraid of what she would find. And so, as Maude’s pale grey eyes scanned the room from beneath that quilt, and looked up to you with no look of shame, with no look of remorse, she gripped your hand a little harder and cracked her dry lips to smile a bit. She would still be there for you, even if you liked scantily clad women instead of bulging men, even if you chose the harder path to go by no matter what anyone else said about being true to yourself being the easiest way around. All in that smile, in that version of a smile that you remember, you know that—you know that she would.will always be here.there for you.
~*..*~
As the grape Kool-Aid splatters itself all over Maude’s embroidered coasters a tear runs down your face, and you catch it just in time—you think. You think Donna Reed didn’t notice because she was too busy worrying about the stains on the already twenty year old carpet. You think Mrs. Brady was too busy calling Alice in to clean up the mess to notice a seemingly insignificant tear sliding down your rounded cheek. But you’re wrong. She noticed— she always did, you just never noticed. Ironic huh. She looks up at you when she sees your hand jerk to rescue that little drop of salt water from being revealed and she smiles a little, knowing you were remembering . . . and then, a tiny tear releases itself from her dry eyes as well—and at that moment, your eyes almost meet—or at least, your hearts do. But you both look away so quickly, it’s hard for either of you to notice.
Your mother proceeds to kneel down on the floor to clean up the mess as your dad just sits there, a permanent smile seems to be embedded on his face. There he is, just staring down at Donna Reed’s ass swaying in front of him—cleaning up his mess. He knows nothing really, nothing at all, you think. He just sits and watches the world go by like its some TV show he grew up watching. And he married her because he could, because she would do this, because she would make his otherwise uneventful life more livable—give it the drama that TV can really no longer provide. And she would clean up his messes of course. You think, this is why I’m gay. This is why I chose to like women because men have no minds. But wait, what do women have, what does my mom have? You think too much you say to yourself, you know what you want, and you know what you have to say. She notices you again, two times in one nite, you’re on a roll. But more importantly, you notice her noticing you—just when you don’t want her to; while on all fours. She peers up at you, her head angling around her twisted body crouched there on hands and knees, and she gives you that Cleaver look again. And at long last, you roll your eyes and the drama ensues.
She mechanically turns around, still squatting on both knees, only this time in a begging position you pray you never ever ever have to imagine her doing in front of your father on nites when you and Leroy are out of the house. She opens wide her too crimson for comfort thin lips and just starts screeching.
“Young lady! You DO NOT roll your eyes at me at a time like this. I’m fragile you know. I’m an old lady and here you are watching ME clean up a mess that YOU caused because you won’t tell us what’s going on. And you have the NERVE to roll your eyes at me,” as she finishes her little lecture she begins to stand up, straightening her beige slacks and the apron she always wears, even though she cooks less than never. She didn’t even cook the meal you were eating earlier in the nite; she ordered the meat and potatoes from the Diner down the road only hours before. She looks up from the grape stains on her knees with those June Cleaver eyes to yours just staring at her, waiting for her to blow up as usual, and she bellows, “You did this to me you little. . . you little. . .” she stutters. You think, she can’t even finish her own sentences anymore, she can’t even think of something creative enough to hurt you anymore because she’s used all the words in her book of insults on you since birth, and now she’s finally run out. You look up at her, look straight into those dark eyes and see something you never saw before, and ignore it, and proceed to look right past her to your vainly smiling father, still seated in perfect posture on the laughable, daisy-covered sofa.
“Dad, I’m gay.” You breathe a sigh of relief as those words finally leave your mouth. You think, if I don’t talk to her, if I don’t address her, maybe her little book of proper manners will keep her from responding back. Don’t speak until spoken to, you think, and grin to yourself at your ingenious plot to leave your mother in the dark— in the space between your thighs where little Tommy next door’s head got lost, along with your mother’s trust in you, with your mother’s faith, with her belief in you in general—you think. And the smile doesn’t leave his face. He just sits there, without a response. You look down to measure him up, try to read his body language and see what he’s thinking by some obvious movement of his overweight body topped off by a bald head, but no.
His plaid button up shirt frames his upper torso, and you follow the buttons down his protruding beer belly to his hands that lie folded in his lap. Nothing. You look down to his tweed trousers and mismatched socks clinging to chicken legs. You smile and think of his innocence but are annoyed by his lack of opinion, or self—personality in general. He’s just a doll; an unfashionable doll that sits and smiles, lounging on the daisy-covered sofa reupholstered because you’ve had sex on it. What does that say?
She’s staring at you, you can feel it now—her dark piercing eyes judging you. You’re still intent on animating the lifeless doll sitting on the daisy-covered sofa and thus ignore her, but the Cleaver stare is grating into your forehead. You know she won’t say a word until you’ve looked at her, made contact—and so you remain, leaning back in the mauve recliner Leroy is now hiding behind, staring across a five feet span to your father’s folded hands that lie ever so neatly in his lap. Ever so congenial you think. You stare into the black hole that is formed between his lifeless, yet friendly palms and wonder what he’s hiding in that little alcove, thinking to yourself he’s hiding something behind that fake smile. But the tension is building between June Cleaver and yourself, between the darkness in your thighs and the darkness in your mother’s eyes. And you feel her stare digging into your skull—just taking the old pick ax and chopping away like there’s no tomorrow. You can feel it, just like you can feel Leroy nudging you from his hiding place behind the mauve recliner, hinting for you to say something, anything, to just break the silence so he can get the hell outta there without being noticed, or at least get a better show.
So, when she finally walks over to you, stands directly over you, you’ve no choice but to look up to her and away from the hopeless father that still sits there, hands folded in lap covering something; covering a something you think might be more important than your something at dinner, but you don’t know. And when you finally look up to her, you see something you’ve never seen before, or perhaps, something you’ve seen, but never noticed. Because you never took the time? Because she never gave you the time? Because she didn’t deserve the time? You don’t know, its all so sudden, its all this unplanned unexplained version of a thing you never really imagined playing out, or happening. You gaze into them, her eyes, and get lost in their darkness and what they mean because, you can’t figure it out. You can’t quite put your finger on it yet, and so, you roam around in the darkness that was formed by your very loss of virginity; the darkness you learned as the space between your thighs and forever more kept them closed to intruders; the darkness you now see in your mother’s eyes, your father’s ignorant hands.
Her eyes widen and deepen past the June Cleaver and Mrs. Brady cover she portrays, past the barrage of insults she manages to utter while still carrying on those personas, past the non-communication you’ve had since you can remember. And as you delve further into them you seem to drown out any words she could possibly be saying right now. You no longer care about the words that are coming from her mouth, but more importantly, are concerned with the darkness that lies somewhere between little Tommy next door’s hand and your thigh. At that moment, you realize it doesn’t matter anymore what the darkness is. In fact, its not even darkness anymore. You mistook it when it was only your mother closing her life to you, to everything that was you in a time when you needed her, when she walked in on you that afternoon, early from work. She’s cowered and covered and ran and hid all her life—and now, you won’t do the same.
You look straight into those dark eyes now, you glare right past their attempt to hide something important into the very heart, you think, of your mother, and you say to her, “Mom, its true.” That’s all you’ve needed to say all this time, and now. . . it’s her turn to switch the lites on. You’ve done what you can you think—and, so, in reaction to her irreaction, you turn around and leave. You bend down slightly to kiss little Leroy on the forehead as he still sits silent behind the mauve recliner, and take a glance back to give a hopeful smile to dolly dad lounging, still, on the daisy-patterned sofa, his hands still folded delicately in his lap. On your way out you snatch one of the embroidered coasters that lay on the end table opposite your father, the one that doesn’t have grape Kool-Aid spilled all over it, and you hold it next to your heart as you casually walk out the door. You walk down the front steps and into the car that sits parked calmly in front of your childhood home. You take a second look back—knowing you shouldn’t, but also knowing you have to. You measure it all up again; Aunt Maude, mom, dad, Leroy, even little Tommy next door, and you think— was it all worth it? And at last, you can say it was.
As you drive away you know its far from over, and in fact, know it will never be over. Mom will still deny and act as though the darkness is her excuse for everything, even the Cleaver eyes you’ve deciphered as a mere mirror to a life she’s simply afraid of—but you know better. You’ve learned that in the darkness, in that place between her hands and your thighs you’ve found yourself, and you’re ready to deal with the blackout.
~*..*~
Now you sit, a year later, a year after the fact wondering if your version is all that different, if your movie can’t be true, could be altered, should be changed. You sit in front of that mirror and watch your mom looking up at you while she kneeled on all fours before you, yet never really kneeling down to you—even to listen. Just to listen. You wonder if it makes you a horrible horrible person because you’ve not spoken to them since that day. You’ve not even tried. You wonder if it’s your place, you wonder if it matters. You see the face in the mirror and question if its going to someday turn into your mothers, if just because you acknowledged the so-called darkness, if that means it won’t come back to haunt you.
You think of Aunt Maude and how you thought of her more that day than anyone else, and your mother was only a pair of piercing eyes—that’s all she ever was. Dad—a simple doll. You wonder if Aunt Maude was watching, if she knew all this would happen and if she did, why didn’t she help, why didn’t she warn you, or your mother, or anyone. You wonder if her image is going to fade in your memory, if the version of her lying in your bed that cold wintry nite will somehow turn into something it never was because of all this. You wonder when you will blame her, because you know you will.
Leroy does call once in a while and occasionally when visiting Aunt Maude’s grave on certain good citizen holidays you see your mother’s eyes lurking in the shadows, behind the bushes and the trees, peeking from behind the corner of a mausoleum. You think to yourself that someday she’ll grow into it, grow into you— or at least hope. You think someday you’ll be able to picture more than just two hollowed out sockets in an otherwise unwieldy head when you think of your mother. You think she got scared and its only a matter of time before she realizes it was all like this in beginning and she just has to adjust—just like everyone else does when they get thrown into a dark room. Just like you had to when you found out, when you realized, when you came to terms—with life.
Mostly you wonder if it was all that important. When you look at yourself in the mirror you really don’t see a different person than when you were thirteen or when you were five, or when you were twenty-one for that matter. You’re still the same girl you think, you always have been. So you wonder, why did I go through all this if I’m really the same person? Did they even deserve to know? Did they deserve any of this, because, well, you wonder. And then you smile at yourself in the mirror, and the feeling in your heart and the knowing in your eyes that you were truthful, that you weren’t hiding, not like her, not like Miss June Cleaver, not like any of them. You fessed up, and it was all that important. It was. And that’s not just you trying to convince yourself either. It’s truth, and that’s what you’ve always worked toward. When your mother and your father decide to come out from hiding, you’ll be there waiting.
Until then, you sit in front of this mirror and unfortunately worry about the circles under your own eyes, afraid that they’re going to invade. You look into this mirror and wonder if life will ever be simple again, because even though its truth, doesn’t mean it’s easy. You just want life with only sunshine and happy daddy smiley faces, even if there’s really nothing behind them. Because, you know in your heart of hearts, that now, he’s no longer smiling, at least not inside. He’s got nothing to watch anymore, nothing to look past, to look straight through. He’s nothing.
And you, you will forever be sitting in front of this mirror taking it all in— holding that embroidered coaster in hand and reliving that Fateful day in your head over and over, different versions, different editions, parts edited out and edited in, bleeped out and airbrushed in after the fact, to make it all seem livable. It’s all about versions you think—and her version will forever be different from mine, because, that evening with little Tommy next door started it all, and when I opted for the X-rated version, she bought the G one, and we’ve gone so far from there.