Daddy, Do You Love Me?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award winning writer, educator and Hachette Book Group Fellow, De’Andre earned his MFA from Columbia College Chicago. He has penned his first book of short stories titled, Daddy, Do You Love Me? and a poetry collection titled, Slippin’ through Cracks in the Concrete and both books are being prepared for publication. He is the recipient of the 2023 Hurston/Wright College Award for Fiction and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) CM award, and he was nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize. DeAndre’s creative work can be found in The Galway Review, Fiction on the Web, The Broken Teacup, Short Story Break, Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose, Contextos Chicago and elsewhere. He is the current Fiction Editor at Unwoven Literary & Arts Magazine.
In his free time, De’Andre enjoys reading, traveling, exploring different cultures and binge-watching animal documentaries. He tells us, “I write because writing has always been a form of escape, a place that allows me to exist outside of barriers society places on me.” He writes for “Black, queer individuals seeking refuge in words. Also, people who are looking to better understand queerness as it exists, and not the idea of its existence.”
Daddy, Do You Love Me?
BY DE’ANDRE HOLMES
Copyright 2026. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The Wachovia Center trip was not, to my father’s dismay, the spark needed for me to pursue basketball as a sport. I was 12 now, tall and lanky, had poor coordination skills, B average student, and I couldn’t sing. For a long time, I thought I was the one boy in the world that was talentless. My father attempted to sign me up for other physically active hobbies like boxing, karate, football, but it wouldn’t be a week before I came home miserable and complaining to him about it. My stepmother encouraged the idea that I needed to hang around more boys because hanging with my grandma, aunts, and all female cousins was making me soft. She could have been right about that, or it could have just been in me all along, devoid of any influences my paternal family might have contributed. Either way, I still had not yet found that umph in anything. Until I entered 7th grade.
Middle school was a different type of abuse I was used to. I was called a faggot for the first time by a boy named Maverick. He was a scrawny, creamy colored boy with pencil thin arms and legs. His pants were always sagging, not because he was trying to show some type of status, but because they don’t have his size anywhere. Maverick was ruthless. He used me for my homework, teased me in front of his friends, he even punched me square in the face before, but claimed it was an accident. If I knew better, he did it to see if I would actually fight him back. I didn’t have the heart.
One day, in the music room, after being bullied by Maverick, I asked my teacher if he would teach me how to play the violin. Maverick was in ear shot of my ask and he stopped by the door. After I finished my conversation, I walked out of the room to find Maverick standing there with a look of interest. “Is he going to teach you?” he asked me. I didn’t know how to respond. This was the first time Maverick ever uttered a sentence to me that didn’t contain the words queer, freak, fag, retard, punk, pussy, dickhead, dumbass, crackhead, fruit cup, fruity pebbles, sissy, bitch ass, giraffe neck, sausage fingers, nappy head, or blacky. My words could not, would not, leave my mouth. I just stared for a bit, stammering over what to say, apparently agitating Maverick. “Nevermind, retardo,” he said and walked away. Thanks for the new name, I guess.
***
“Dad, I am really good at the violin,” I said to my father.
“Why the violin, though? You don’t like guitars, or drums, or maybe a trumpet?” he said, as if instruments had been attached a masculine or feminine property. He didn’t mind that I played an instrument, only that that instrument had to fall into the masculine category and the violin was not that.
“But I don’t like the guitar, or drums, or trumpet. I really like the violin and I am good at it, dad, watch!” I ran to my room—the same room he, my sister, and I shared—and returned with my violin and bow in hand. It had been six months since my music teacher started giving me free, private lessons. “See, look, daddy. Watch what I can do.” I propped concerto in B minor music sheet on the makeshift desk situated in my aunt’s room. “Give the boy a chance. See what he can do,” she said. The music sheet kept sliding off the table, frustrating me until my father picked it up. “I will hold it.” He held it directly in my face, and then I shifted his body and arms so that I could look down at it slightly. He was standing uncomfortably, but he held on to the sheet and didn’t move. I started playing. At first without vibrato. But halfway through, I started getting cocky and attempted vibrato for the first time. All the while, my aunt and dad stared entrancingly at me. My father stood perfectly still in his awkward position, watching as a few million strings attached to my bow created a sound unlike any he had heard before. The melodies floating around his one good ear. And when I stopped, he said, “You did good, boy. You did good.”
My first solo recital was a year later at the Clef Club: a local jazz spot in South Philadelphia. My rehearsals were not going as they normally would have. I had changed teachers because my music teacher was proficient in most instruments, but wasn’t advanced in any one. So, naturally, he ran out of things to teach me. He had recommended one of his close friends, also someone attached to the Clef Club, to help further my learning. He told her about my situation, about my family not having much but that I had a real talent for the violin. She requested I play something in front of her without any sheet music. So, I played whatever came to mind. At first, my nervousness slid through me like toxic blood in my veins, but the more I played, the more I felt uninhibited, freed from the thoughts of inadequacy, free like a freshly born lion cub, exploring the ins and outs of his territory, protected by his father. I was free. By the end, my tuition was waived, and I started her class the following week. Free.
I rose to the top of her class in a short time. Most of my peers were supportive except for her last star pupil. She was ridged because she had been told that she would have to share time in the recital for both of our solos. I didn’t mean to intrude in her spotlight like that, but I was still excited for my chance to show my father—and the world—my talents.
One day after my rehearsals, Maverick and I were assigned to rearrange the chairs in the music room for a presentation to all 8th graders. I thought that he was going to trip me up the steps or something, but instead he stayed silent as we walked the few flights of stairs toward the music room. He then asked me how the violin rehearsals were going. This time I wasn’t shocked, but instead, I decided that I was going to try and be tough and ignore him. I don’t know what possessed me to do that, maybe I secretly wanted him to be mean to me. Maybe I liked the idea of the attention he showed me, even though it was poisonous. He kind of chuckled. “You didn’t hear me? I said how’s your rehearsals going. I hear you have a recital coming up in a few weeks?”
“They are going alright,” I said while still climbing the steps. I was walking slightly in front of him, too nervous to be next to him now. But not because of fear he would harass me; I was afraid I would do something stupid that would confirm my puppy dog love for him. When we made it to the music room, he asked me why I let people bully me. He said that I was tall, taller than most of the boys we went to school with, and I could use that as intimidation. So, why didn’t I? He reached over me to grab a chair that was in front of me, and I felt his skin brush along mine. It felt soft and a little wet from sweat. It was the first sensual interaction I had ever had with a boy, whether it was intentional or not. “Can I ask you a question, Maverick?” I said, letting my guard down a bit. Maverick was now on the other side of the stage placing the chairs methodically by section.
“What’s up?” he said.
“Why did you ask me about my rehearsals? Do you want to play the violin?” He jerked and knocked over some of the chairs on accident. Although I couldn’t discern his face from the distance, I knew it must have been scrounged up by what he retorted to me next.
“No, I don’t want to play no gay ass violin. The fuck wrong with you.”
“Okay I was just asking, I didn’t mean to make you upset,” I said, hoping it would calm him down. For some reason, I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Although he snapped at me, he also unveiled a tenderness to him. Something buried in shame. A death, if you will, happened between the both of us. A familiarity I saw between Maverick and my father that caused me to lean in closer to the both of them.
“Can I ask you one more question, Maverick?” I muttered out.
“As long as it ain’t no gay shit, sure.”
“Will you come to my recital?” I said hoping he didn’t think what I said was too gay. He paused for a bit. He placed his hand in the shape of a gun under his chin as if in full, intrinsic thought. “I will think about it, creep,” he said with a slight grin on his face. I smiled to myself and kept putting the chairs in their rightful places. Maverick adjusted my placement as if mine failed the placement test. I didn’t mind it too much.
“Thanks for another new nickname,” I said under my breath.
I started really messing up right before my recital. My instructor thought it was just my nerves, but I didn’t feel nervous yet. I wasn’t accurate with my finger placements on the violin, and it was causing me to be slightly flat or sharp, but I could not tell the difference. It started to raise some concerns about my recital performance because recruiters from the prestigious CAPA (Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts) were going to be in attendance. I think she was more so worried about her reputation since she recommended me as a notable student to be accepted into the high school. My instructor talked to my father about the situation, and he scheduled me a visit with a doctor to check my hearing. In the end, they gave me a test that would measure my aptitude to distinguish between different tones. The doctors told my father that I had congenital amusia or that I was tone deaf. My case was not serious, as obvious intonations I could pinpoint, but subtle tone shifts were harder for me.
I went back and told my instructor, and I could tell she felt embarrassed. She slouched over as if she had been kicked in the stomach wildly by an unruly 13-year-old. “What am I going to do?” she said. I was filled with rage. She was worried about embarrassing herself in front of her colleagues after I just told her about the affliction I was diagnosed with. She made me regret reaching out to my music teacher in the first place. It was all instantaneous. If this is what it would be like to be a musician, then I did not want it.
The day of my recital had finally come. I waited nervously in the back of the stage. My hands were sweating profusely, my violin bow kept slipping out of my grasp. I wanted to pretend like I was sick. Maybe someone else could take my spot. There were plenty of vultures gawking at the opportunity to have a solo performance in front of the CAPA recruiters. Before I could turn around and play the part of sickly child needing bed rest, I heard someone call my name to tell me that I am up next. As if the sweat layering my palms were not enough of a sign to begin inducing CPR, my chest started to manifest a ball, tight and round, that traveled to the center of my throat. I tried to swallow it, but it would not relent. I felt someone grab my shoulder. And to my surprise, it’s my father.
“They let me come back before you went on stage to see you. You lookin’ sharp, boy,” my father said, probably unaware of the mini heart attack I was having. “Look, son, I know I haven’t been the most supportive of you playing the violin, but I think this is a great thing you are doing. Don’t let them doctors tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t know shit anyway.” He tried to console me. He tried, and yet again, try I did not.
“Thanks, Dad. I will see you out there?”
“For sure. I am in the fourth row towards your left,” he said.
“Hey, get ready to go on stage,” some announcer man said.
“You got this. Just do your best,” my father said. Then he made his way back to his seat and the curtains pulled back.
I was standing there erect with my violin hanging from my left hand and my bow hanging from my right. The lights were so bright, I could barely make out the crowd. However, I could see the CAPA recruiters front and center along with my instructor. I looked around a little more to see my dad, aunt, sister, and grandmother in the section to my right, which my father meant but got confused anyway. The pianist came out a little after me. I could hear his shoes clacking on the caramel-colored wooden floor. Here was the time for me to shine, to prove that I am not completely hopeless. The pianist started the intro to my maiden performance: Concerto in B Minor. The crowd was completely silent. My eyes now focused on the top of my violin. If I wasn’t ready yet, it would be too late. Violin under my chin, bow gripped perfectly, wrist bent back. I had perfect posture. As I began to play, something, like a shadow, entered the auditorium. Skinny and pencil like. His shadow followed to the back of the auditorium, slithering up the steps like a phantom of sorts, indistinguishable by the naked eye. But I knew. I knew who it was and that made me play even more vigorously.
The music flowed out of me like the Nile River: loud and ferocious. I could feel the magic swelling up from the inside and transferring into the strings of my bow. My violin strings were vibrating under my fingertips with every stroke. My hips shifted and shaped and then reshaped themselves as I busted through with a cataclysm of notes, sounds, booms, and bangs. The sweat dripping from my forehead and onto the violin contributed to the sounds that echoed through the stage. Sounds of desperation, asking or pleading for me to play more or to stop, the vibrato ringing through my ears as if telling me that death was the answer. As though, if I had stopped, death would be the answer. I concentrated, fixated, regurgitated, and remounted myself after every reverberated blessing that erupted from my passion and settled on the laps of the audience, cradling their face as if a spider were laying eggs in their mouths. I kept playing. Memories of my father and his rule against faggots and fools, memories of the various nicknames Maverick gave me, the teasing I faced from my peers, the unsaid judgement felt from my instructor, all manifested in this symphony. What have I done? Only that which has been done to me.
The story ended right where it began. The crowd gave me a standing ovation; my father was basically standing on the table to raise himself higher. The shadowy figure that aligned the back row clapped from the base of his seat. I took my bow and sauntered off the stage, relieved to know that I would never, ever, do this to myself again.