COUNTENANCE

Eastern Michigan University

I’ve been thinking about that look on your face. I spend too much time thinking about it, really. My eyes trace the lines and strain themselves in the reading. I always want to know what the shape of your lips means. I want to know what the curve of your brows says. I want to know. I’m afraid to know. Do you remember those pajamas you used to dress me in with all your favorite team mascots? I never watch sports. For a while, I hated sports. But I loved you, so your favorite teams were my favorite teams. I didn’t care who won. Joseph and I sat on that worn leather couch in the basement and watched SpongeBob one time. We had never seen an episode of that show before. You passed by us on your way to the office. You stopped, hand still on the doorknob. “What are you two watching?” I turned the volume down. You looked at the screen. “I hate SpongeBob. Why is that garbage on?” You went to work, and I turned the TV off. “Why’d you do that?” my little brother whined. “He hates SpongeBob.” I thought it was fairly obvious. We never saw an episode of SpongeBob after that. Our friends watched that show. We didn’t. You still hate SpongeBob.

You came home from work one day complaining to Mama about two customers. Two women came in to buy insurance. They were a couple. Your lips had morphed into a frown, and your eyes were pinpricks. Your brow cast shadows on your face. “What does gay mean?” I asked. You and Mama shared a look. You thought I was too young, but she urged you to go on and explain anyway. I was looking at your face--the taut lines, the weight they bore--and trying to understand. That night, we sat on my bed with a Holy Bible across our laps. You explained Genesis to me. You explained what God wanted. You explained to me what was natural and what was not. You explained to me, but I did not understand. I did not say I did not understand. You said you knew what God thought was right, and I knew that what you thought was right. You were always right. You loved sports. You hated SpongeBob. You did not like gay people. I did not like gay people. I did not understand, and I did not like gay people.

There was a girl in middle school, curly haired. We sat together sometimes at lunch. She brought books with her. So did I. We talked about books. I talked about the stories I was writing. She listened like no one else. She smiled like no one else. She called me creative and smart and talented. I thought she was creative and smart and talented. At home, I still thought about her. I played music, closed my eyes, and thought about dancing with her. I thought about her curls and her smile. I thought about how it would feel to have our hands on each other as we swayed to Tchaikovsky. She asked me, once, if I have ever liked girls. I told her no. She told me she had a crush on a girl. She left it there, and I would not pick it up. I thought about you. I thought about your eyes, pinpricks, and shadows.

In tenth grade, seeing you made my stomach hurt. Your casual comments made my hands shake. Sneers made me go still. I liked listening to Elton John. You called him a fag. I listened to his music even more. I would sing along to “I’m Still Standing,” feeling powerful for those three minutes. Still, I looked at your face. The night of the big fight—the night that I wrote the letter—I stayed up in bed, staring at the ceiling, worrying about what your face would look like. The letter was sitting on the kitchen counter. Should I go back and tear it up? I wanted to throw up. I didn’t believe I would get any sleep. I woke up to you and Mama standing over the bed. She held the letter in her hands. There were tears in her eyes. I looked at your face. I looked at the shape of your lips and the curve of your brow. My eyes strained themselves reading— there, the jaw is hard, but, here, the lines are soft. What did that mean? Your eyes might have been pinpricks, but I couldn’t meet them. My heartbeat sickened me. We went over that letter point by point. We told each other we loved each other. We loved each other. We loved each other. Maybe we were telling the truth. You agreed to let me see a therapist again. There were just two points we skipped over: I do not believe in Christianity. I like girls. Why did we skip over those? I think about it too much. I think about it because we never talk about it. Do you think I’m going to hell? Is it because it would hurt too much to say it aloud? You can tell me. Please, tell me. I’m still trying to read your face.

We played a family game of Life and I got the “get married” tile. I put another pink piece in the car. Nobody said anything. The shape of your lips did not make a smile, nor did they make a frown. Your brow was furrowed. I looked at your face and traced the lines with my eyes, divining a meaning that meant nothing and everything. Those lines are not my fate. I looked anyway. I love you, and I’m thinking about the look on your face.