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.
