At sixteen, I stand before the mirror in my room, door locked, practicing.
First, the wrists.
Hi, I say to the face in the mirror and wave, keeping close watch on the wrist through the motion.
Wrong. It’s a greeting, not a Broadway audition. And don’t let the hand hang limp like that. A man waves with a firm wrist like how he shakes another man’s hand. Firm wrists.
Another man’s hand. I look at my own and hear my father’s voice calling them soft, the disappointment in his tone a sinking ship. These, he says, are a man’s hands, holding his out for reference. Callouses frame the palms like constellations. I follow them one after the other, marveling. Will my hands ever look like that? One day, he promises, if you work hard enough.
Dad works in a coal mine. He goes days without seeing the sun. Most of the men in town work underground, the lines of their palms etched with coal dust. Dad doesn’t want me to follow his path to the mines, but he also doesn’t want me to be a sissy. He doesn’t want me to grow my hair long or to admire the little jars of lipstick at Walmart, lined up like candies.
Just, he says, fatigued after a long day. Just, like not being a sissy should come easily, naturally, like breathing or falling in love.
But it doesn’t. That’s why I practice.
Hi, and wave.
Wave like I’m waving at Kyle in the cafeteria. Do not wave like Nelson, who didn’t practice enough so his wrists betrayed him. Now the others treat him like a sickness nobody wants to catch. Kyle’s fists all bunched up when he talks about Nelson, then open and flailing as his temper rises. That sissy. That freak.
Don’t think about Nelson. It’s just you and Kyle in the cafeteria, and he’s waving you over. Kyle’s hands. Why do I think of them like wild horses when I have two of my own? His get so angry that I want to tame them, caress their rage, whisper—
No.
No, a man shouldn’t think those thoughts. Try it again. Firmer this time.
That’s better. Now the smile, not too happy. A man shouldn’t reveal so much happiness, it raises suspicion. If another man makes you smile too wide, then stuff that happiness like dirty laundry. Give it a good, cold rinse. Better yet, don’t smile, don’t wave. Just nod.
Yeah, like that.
Next the voice. Low, concise, cool with disinterest.
Hello. Too much.
Hi. Better.
What’s up? Close.
Sup? That’s it.
Chillin.
I’m just chillin.
Oh, you know, just chillin.
Oh, you know, I’m just thinking of your hand in my hand.
The face in the mirror falters. Behind the practiced face lies another, cruder face. It sneaks through like light beneath a door, all tender and sad. We recognize each other like horses returned to pasture.
Hello. It’s you. How are you still there, after all I’ve put you through? I’m trying to learn here, can’t you see? I want to be good. The boys at school, they’re excellent at, well, being boys. It’s like they go to the same class, everyone except me. Then they get angry when I get something wrong. I want to be invited, that’s all. You understand, right, that I can’t have you sneaking out like this? We have to try. We have to try—for them as much as for us. Think of their faces when we get it right. How proud they’ll be. Even Dad. Especially Dad.
The face in the mirror gives a single nod. I stand up straight, clear my throat.
Again, starting with the wrists.
Derek Maiolo received his MFA from Chatham University, where he was the 2021-2023 Margaret L. Whitford Fellow. A journalist and conservationist, his work appears or is forthcoming in High Country News, Witness Magazine, The Denver Post, The Indiana Review, and Split Lip Magazine, among others. He is currently working on a memoir about growing up gay in coal country.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/r.nial.bradshaw
