PINK TIGHTS

by

Diane E. Dees

I saw my brother yesterday. He was wearing pink tights and a purple tutu with silver stars and ruffles, and he was holding hands, high in the air in a victory clasp, with a hunky blonde police officer. His lip was curled in that insolent slant that got him in trouble when we were young, and he stood with his left foot turned slightly inward, a habit he could never break.

I was watching a CNN news feature on gay pride in San Francisco, and a moment went by before I realized that I was holding my breath, my mouth open in a half-gasp. It was Danny all right, mugging for the cameras. He was drop-dead handsome, even in a tutu, with his clear marble-blue eyes and thick black hair.

I hadn't seen him for five or six years, not since he'd first moved to California. "You'll have to come out here and stay with me," he would say on the phone or in an occasional letter, but he would never issue a firm invitation or bring the subject up during a holiday.

Not that Danny and I were especially close. He was nine years old when I was born, and away at college when I really needed a big brother. Still, I loved him, and I was always so proud to tell people that the great-looking guy with the cheeky smile was my brother.

And now here he was, returned to me through the miracle of television and the luck of a slow news day. I called my mother and told her to put on CNN; I figured they would show the story five or six more times before the day was over.

"Look for the gay pride story," I told her, struggling to keep my voice from shaking. "In San Francisco. Danny's there. I saw him. I saw him, and he was beautiful, Mom. Just beautiful."

I heard my mother take in a long breath. "It wasn't Danny you saw, dear."

"It was Danny, Mom. He was wearing a tutu."

"Don't be absurd, Molly. Why would he be wearing a tutu?"

"Mom, Danny's gay. I mean, I thought he might be gay, but I never asked him about it. Are you telling me it never crossed your mind?"

"Molly, you're talking nonsense. I don't want..."

"I'm coming over. Now."

On the short drive to my mother's house, I thought about all of the things Danny had told me with his silence. He'd never mentioned a girlfriend, and when I asked, he said he was too busy to date. He avoided us at Christmas, and he had moved to San Francisco without having a job.

When I entered my mother's house, she was making tea and pouring it into thin china cups with lilacs and pink roses painted on them. Her eyes, a pale version of Danny's, seemed out of focus, as though she were looking at someone who was standing behind me.

"Why doesn't Danny talk to us about his life?" I asked her when we sat in the big wing chairs in the living room.

She stirred her tea meticulously, putting off the moment when she had to speak. Then she gave me another out-of-focus stare.

"Molly, your brother isn't like you. He keeps to himself. He was always that way. Reading, sorting out his coin collection, listening to his music."

"You make it sound like he didn't have any friends, and I know he did. I liked his friends."

"Of course he had friends, I just meant…he was more of a loner than you were. He didn't go with the crowd."

"Does Dad ever talk to Danny?"

"I wouldn't know what your father does. He doesn't talk to me. He didn't, even when we were still married."

I got up and put on CNN. The anchorwoman was droning on about judicial appointments, and the streaming headlines darted by like garishly costumed characters in a dollhouse melodrama. And then Danny was on the screen, resplendent in birthday candle colors, surrounded by marching bands, sign-holders and six-foot nuns.

My mother's body quivered, and her hand shook so that I thought her tea would spill onto the white moiré fabric. Her mouth opened, and her face had the expression of someone who has witnessed an incredible act of nature, and will never be able to describe it in any meaningful way.

"He's beautiful," was all I could say, because he was. There is sometimes a moment when you see someone who is directing all of his inner energy, his essence, toward some purpose. Within that moment, the person practically glows with the force of that energy. That was what I beheld when I saw my brother on the screen. Though he was an electronic image delivered to my mother's house through cable technology, he seemed more himself to me than in all the years I had known him.

My mother, in contrast, was fading away. Her shoulders slumped, and the glaze on her eyes was thicker, like frost on blue windows.

"How can you call that 'beautiful'?" she asked me in a very quiet voice. "He's making a fool of himself all over the world. I begged him not to. I begged him."

"You knew he was going to be on television?"

"Of course not. I begged him not to go to San Francisco. I knew this would happen. He had a chance for a normal life, and he went there instead."

"He talked to you about it?"

She lifted her cup to pursed lips, as though she were taking part in a sinister tea ceremony.

"He had a friend. You know, someone he was living with. He wanted to bring him here for Christmas. It was several years ago. Of course, I told him 'no.'"

"Why? Why did you do that?"

I heard the harshness of my own voice drowning out the anchorwoman, who stood against a backdrop of rubble in Afghanistan. I took a deep breath.

"Don't you want Danny to be happy?"

"Happy? In a tutu?"

My mother ran her fingers across the painted lilacs on her cup. Her frosted eyes were pale gates, shutting out thoughts and feelings to which I would never have access.

I left her with her tea and went home to make my reservations for San Francisco.

§ § §

Diane E. Dees is a psychotherapist and writer in south Louisiana. Her essays, political commentaries and short stories have appeared in a number of publications, and she has work forthcoming in The Louisiana Review and Palo Alto Review. Diane and her husband, Orvin, are the webmasters of princesscafe.com, the world's only virtual rock and roll restaurant. Diane's blog is at dedspace.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at deestob@aol.com. .

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