Phill Branch - If The Suit Fits

 

So, my senior year in high school, I am your average all-American teenage boy interested in average all-American teenage boy things, like having a cool car and taking a hot date to the prom and designing my date’s prom dress. [audience laughter] My senior year, I am 5’6”, 129 pounds. This might be surprising, but I could not catch and or dribble a ball of any sort. So, the fact that I had a date at all was a miracle. My girlfriend’s name was Dana, and she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. We were together most of senior year. As we got closer to senior prom, we began planning. When I say we began planning, what I really mean is that I began to sketch what we were going to wear to the prom. [audience laughter] 

 

Prom was a big deal in my family. My parents went to the prom together, and several of my aunts and uncles went to the prom together and all those pictures were up on the family wall. I knew it was my turn and nothing could go wrong. One day, I was at home watching music videos, and there is this artist named Christopher Williams, who was really popular at the time. He was this tall, gorgeous man with this great curly hair. It was this music video called Promises, Promises. He is wearing this white Nehru collar suit and he just looks so regal and strong. I look up at him with my 129-pound self and say, "I am going to look like that for prom." So, I begin sketching this suit.

 

Now, I am not going to completely rip off Christopher’s style, because you cannot steal another artist’s work. But I am going to design a suit that looks like his, but it has my flare. So, it is all white, but the sleeves have this satin material that has a paisley design to it, I use that same material for the trim that is going to go down the pant leg and to cover the buttons that are going to go all the way down from my neck down. You are judging. [audience laughter] Just something simple. [audience laughter] And for my date, I combed through all the hottest fashion publications of the time to decide what her look would be. I am in the Sears catalog and Spiegel, JCPenney’s. [audience laughter] 

 

I finally decide that she is going to wear this mermaid dress. It is going to have some of the material from my suit, because my suit was the base. [audience laughter] She would have this pink lace overlay at the top, and it would be great. So, I could not actually draw or sew. [audience laughter] So, I gave her these sketches and said, “Go find someone who can make this.” And then, I took my scribble to my seamstress/my friend’s mother, [audience laughter] and said, “Do you think you can make this?” And she said, “Sure, give me about a week or so and I can put it together once you give me all the fabric and the things you want.” And I said, “Great.” So, the plan was in motion.

 

So, I had no idea that asking my date to accept my design for her senior prom dress was going to be problematic. [audience laughter] And Dana was not into it at all. So, she broke up with me. [audience aww] 

 

Now, I was not necessarily in the closet at 16, because I was not conscious, per se, that I was gay. But apparently, I was so gay [audience laughter] that I was not aware that designing my date’s prom dress and a white suit with a pink shimmer that when it hit the light, was essentially my coming out quinceañera. [audience laughter] So, for that whole school year where Dana was my girlfriend, it felt great to just be one of the guys and to feel like I had the things that other guys had and I could have this future, and maybe I can get married and have this life. It was a really powerful feeling, because I had not had that feeling before.

 

When she left, it was equally powerful, because it affirmed all the feelings that were starting to brew up in me, that I was indeed broken and I was hurting. But I had about 50 yards of satin [audience laughter] and somebody had to wear it. [audience laughter] So, I just asked a freshman who I knew would go, and things just moved along. And the day before the prom, I go pick up my suit from my friend’s mother/seamstress, and I take it home and I put it on. And for the first time, I realized that you might need to be able to draw if you are going to design a suit. It did not quite work. All the colors and the materials, and then one sleeve was shorter than the other. [audience laughter] The pant legs were not even. The trim was crooked.

 

My mom is downstairs waiting for me to come down, so she can see this suit. So, I go downstairs in the suit. She does her best not to laugh in my face. [audience laughter] But after a few moments, she just runs off in her room and just lays down on the bed and cries real tears. [audience laughter] So, the suit did not work. But the next morning, I say, “Well, maybe if I get the curly hair, it will balance it out.” 

 

Now, at the time, I had what was called a Gumby cut. It was sort of like Bobby Brown-ish. It was up and to the side, and I was really proud of it. I rip out a picture of Christopher Williams from a teen magazine and I take it down to a salon in my neighborhood that I had never been in. Because I was not a lady. I take it inside and I say to the stylist, “Can you make me look like this?” 

 

Now, anyone with eyes that functioned [audience laughter] should have said, “Absolutely not.” [audience laughter] But she said, “Sure.” So, [chuckles] I sit down and she begins to work her magic. She puts the cream in, and she is doing all this stuff and I am just sitting there. At first, I am really excited, but then I start to feel like someone has poured acid on my head. [audience laughter] I am confused why everyone is still singing music to the radio and reading old Ebony magazines when I am clearly dying in this salon chair.

 

And just before I scream, the stylist runs over and rinses my scalp. It feels so good. She turns me around to the mirror. I don’t look like Christopher Williams. [audience laughter] I look like Sade. [audience laughter] My hair is bone straight and I am freaking out. And she goes, "Calm down. We are not done." I said, "Okay." She turns me back around, and she starts putting more things in my hair and trying to do something. And then, she turns me back to the mirror, and she was right. I did not look like Sade anymore. I looked like Salt-N-Pepa. [audience laughter] I had this curly bob and it was awful. I was about to cry. She tried a few more things, and nothing was working. And then, she looks at me and says, "This one is on the house." [audience laughter] 

 

Do you know how bad your hair has to be [audience laughter] for a stylist not to take your money? So, I just get up and I walk back down the street singing Push It. [audience laughter] I go to the barbershop where I should have been in the first place. He does a little something, makes me presentable enough, and I go home and put on my crooked suit. I take the freshman to the prom, and we have a good enough time. 

 

A few weeks later, the prom proofs come back. The pictures. My date looks great. Props to me. [audience laughter] And I look insane. [audience laughter] So, [chuckles] the pictures were not ordered, and they were not given out to family, like we normally would do for people at prom time. And worse, I did not make it to that wall. I had failed at being normal again. And it was disappointing. 

 

Years later, I am in college. It is my senior year, and I hear from Dana again. We had not talked since high school, really. We started to reconnect, and it felt good to hear her voice. I started to wonder if maybe we could still have something. But by this point, I knew I was gay, because there had been clues. [audience laughter] But I still invite her down to Virginia to visit with me and go to my senior ball in college. And she agrees.

 

So, she comes down and we get all dolled up in clothes that I did not design, [audience laughter] and we go to the ball and have an amazing time. And for a fleeting moment, I wonder, "Could this be my life?" But I am not 16 anymore, and I know that I do not love her in that way and I knew that I had to let her go and let that life go, or that idea go, and that was really rough. But on the upside, the pictures were amazing. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]

 

And I had the right hair and the right suit and the right date. And that picture made it up to the family wall with my parents and all my aunts and uncles. I am smiling in that picture. But the truth is, I am terrified in that moment, because it was the first time that I had told myself the truth. I was not certain what I was walking into after that night. I am scared to death. We often talk about coming out to other people, but the truth is, you have to come out to yourself first. 

 

So, after all this goes down, I realized that it was okay for me to be me. As it turns out, I ended up with all the things that I thought that I was not going to have when I became my true self. I have a wonderful husband, and a home and two amazing kids that I love. It is a beautiful life. [audience applause] 

 

But as it turns out, that picture of my life now has not made it to the family wall either. [audience aww] But that's okay, because I have my own walls now and I can hang any damn thing that I want.