Between Me and You

A week before Christmas ‘96, Mama confronted me about wearing her heels. I thought I put ‘em back neatly; I still don’t know how she found me out. All I knew was that it started with her calling me a pansy and it went on downhill from there. She threw one of them stilettos at me once she was through yellin. Gave me a bruise on my arm for four days.

At sixteen, all them names and taunts rolled off me. Usually.  Sissy and wussy turned into faggot and you got AIDS, don’t touch us. I developed a thick skin, you could call it. Learned to be sneaky, you know. In school and in the house, it was the only way to make it through it all. But I had a hard time hearing it come from Mama. 

After all that, Mama wasn’t fooling with me. Daddy chose her side, so I wasn’t fooling with him. All of this so close to Christmas Day. Mama always said nobody owed me nothin, and right around then I started to believe her. But Daddy always said that right when it’s at its worst, that’s when you know it’s got to get better. 

I had to make it right, and I knew what I was getting Mama. Her curling iron was on its last leg, and I knew she wasn’t gonna throw it out until it up and broke on her. With her luck, it would be when she was halfway through her head. I had Mama taken care of on Black Friday. Daddy was different; I never knew what he wanted and knowin him, he ain’t gonna say.

Back in the day, me and Mama tricked Daddy into coming with us to the mall to see what he liked. That year, he wasn’t stopping by nothin; he even walked right on past the hardware store. That was why when I figured out what to get him on my own, I couldn’t wait.

Mama liked the curling iron. She found it within herself to buy me something, albeit a little old gift. She gave me a coat and surprised me with a Razorback jersey. I knew to grin and be grateful. Most of my gifts came from Daddy. A couple of dress shirts. A cool RC helicopter. A Mariah Carey poster. I smiled. I was happy with that. 

My gift to Daddy was the best. I restored his old roller skates. One of the wheels popped off a while back, and he never fixed ‘em. I learned how to do it and replaced each one, plus a shine. I even got a real smile out of him. That was when I knew everything was alright.

After dinner and a couple hours of TV, Daddy passed by the couch and whispered something in my ear: I got something to show you, he said, now come here and don’t make a fuss. I got up and followed him. When he pushed open the door to my bedroom, I saw a little box on my bed. I knew he wrapped it himself; the paper said so. 

I lingered next to it, but he only gestured to go tear it open.  It was a small box, couldn’t have had much in it. Either way, this felt like our secret, and I hadn’t been excited to open anything in years now. 

“Go on, now,” Daddy said. 

I did as I was told. I opened the box that was stuffed with newspaper and found a small, black, matte bag. It had MAC printed across the front in big, white letters. 

I paused and looked up at him real slow. My heart was racing; excitement or nerves or both. “What’s this?” 

I opened the MAC bag and pulled out three lipsticks: Relentlessly Red, Rose Shimmer, and Dozen Carnations. 

I stared at them, trying to figure out if we were supposed to give these to Mama. They weren’t really her colors. I looked at Daddy, and he just kept on smiling. Were they mine? Real MAC lipsticks of my very own? I looked at him again and he nodded. 

For a second, I felt like I was flying. I crashed right into a wall when I figured he was messing with me. 

My room had Whitney, Prince, and Michael Jackson posters. A normal bookshelf with normal knick knacks. A deflated football in the corner by the CD shelf. I looked into my open closet, filled with blues, greys, greens, and blacks.  I had always tried to be subtle, to not make a spectacle out of myself like Mama always said. I didn’t understand.

“I got you what you like,” he said, and his grin widened like he was proud of himself.

“Because I’m gay.” I filled in the blank for him. I was stuck in the lull of what he hadn’t said. I sat on my bed and just looked at my feet.

“What’s the matter?” 

I kept on looking at my socks with the holes in them, trying to figure out why he would do that. With a gift like this, I wondered what Daddy really thought of me. I wondered what it meant to want them as badly as I did. I kept my mouth closed real tight; everything was tight. 

Daddy checked behind him, eased the door closed, and came a little closer to me. “I saw you looking at the mall. Now, might not be the right colors... I don’t know nothing about all that, but I… I  got them for you.” He stood with uncertainty, wringing his hands behind his back. “What? You don’t like them?” 

My eyes darted between him and the lipsticks sprawled out on my sheets. I relaxed my face a little. “You’re really giving these to me?”

“I could’ve sworn when you were pittling around in Macy’s, it was because of that makeup display…” Daddy rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I got it wrong.”

“I didn’t know you saw. And you’re not wrong.” I looked at him once, then back at the lipsticks. My lipsticks. “They’re really for me?”

Daddy nodded. “You do with them what you can handle. Just be careful.”  

I hadn’t hugged Daddy -- really hugged him -- since I was a boy. I threw my arms around him and almost knocked him back. He held me and rubbed the back of my head. I craved the contact; no one had been so close to me in years. 

He lingered in the doorway with his hand on the doorknob with that same smile. “Between me and you.” 

I just nodded.