When I Die [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 6: Hair

                  

I stared at it, my hair. On my pillow. On my sheets.

I reached out my hand and touched it. Anger welled up inside me. All of it. All at once. All the anger that I'd had welling inside me since the day I sat in that tiny room with my mom and the doctor. I clinched my teeth and closed my eyes and opened them again and it was still there, still scattered, still on my bed. I don't remember exactly in what order things happened, but I know that I flung myself around my room in some sort of probably over-dramatic display. I was angry. I had no one to be angry at. I was angry at everything. I flung my arms at my desk, I knocked a lamp, books, records, pens and pencils, maps colored upon, I ripped posters from the walls. Columbia, Brown, UCLA, all the pamphlets scattered the floor. I yanked all the bedclothes from my bed in one fell swoop, all of my hair from the bed landing dispersed around my feet. I kept ripping.  I kept screaming. I kept tearing up. I kept destroying. I was killing it. I was poison. I was a death sentence. There's no hiding it. I imagined myself as a tiny little cancer cell, my body was my room. Hot tears covered my face, my eyes burned. I wished I could just drown in them, that would be a much more interesting way to die than the way I was actually going to die.

    Just at the point when I couldn't see anything anymore, when I began to scare myself, I turned around. There she was. Her eyes wide, mouth slightly open. I didn't know what to say.

Breathlessly, I managed, "Hattie..."

She looked me over for a moment. I was catching up on breathing. Surely, my outburst had taken up most of my energy for the week. We stared at each other for another few seconds before she closed her mouth and walked in, slowly. She looked around some more and then bent down near my closet, stepping around lamps and papers and disks that covered the floor. She rose back up with a paper in her hand. She walked over to me and handed it to me. "Here, just don't lose this one. It's special." I took it in my hands, a painting she did for me for my birthday last year. She smiled, just enough, her eyes big. I was stunned and horrified at the same time. I was very embarrassed and still angry. She then turned and went to walk out of the room. She touched my curls that laid on the mattress, tenderly. "Leo, I think you will look good with no hair," she said, walking out the door.

That evening, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror for an hour. I looked at my hair, studied it. I wanted to remember it. I wanted to remember how it felt. How it curled. How it grew. Where it landed on my neck and ears. I knew it was over. I wouldn't feel it again for a long, long time, if ever.

    I took the hair clippers in one hand and a brush in the other. I ran my hand through my hair for good measure, a large clump came out of the front in my hand. I scowled at myself. I hated myself. I hated this. I made a fist with the hair in my hand and slammed it on the counter. I couldn't help it anymore, all the feelings of defeat, of finality. I couldn't hold them back anymore. This was real. This was really happening. I banged my hand on the counter in frustration.

I sat in the bathroom floor, in my puking spot by the tub, except this time I was pulling hairs out of my head one by one. I kept picking until there was a small bald spot forming, which must have taken a couple hours at least. I couldn't bring myself to do it, to shave it all off. Would Yale even give me a fair interview? People at school would know now. I couldn't. I heard a knock at the door. I wiped my face on my arm. I felt like an eight-year-old, being told by my dad to "dry it up, son!".

I yelped out a weak, "yeah?" I didn't even look up when thedoor opened. "Dude, you look like shit." Reid said. I scoffed. It was a fair assessment. When I looked up, I noticed he was holding bags of snacks in his arms. "Reid, the basement is all yours. I'll be there in a bit" I said, wiping my nose again. He sat down his snacks on the clothes hamper. I looked back down at my hands, I was sitting in a small pile of hair now. I had a growing bald spot in the center of my head. Reid studied the situation for a minute, then I heard them start up. He took the clippers in one hand and pulled over a waste basket with the other. "You ready, man?" I looked at his face. I sighed a long sigh and nodded. Reid reached around to the back of my head. He pressed the clippers to my hair and off it went. I felt myself getting lighter and lighter. I felt the hair fall down on my shoulders and back. It itched a bit. He shaved and shaved, only occasionally pausing for a chip break. About thirty minutes later, the buzzing stopped.

He stepped back, smiled, and admired his work.

I bit my lip. "Go ahead and get it out of the way now."

He furrowed his brow. "What are you talking about?"

I rolled my eyes, "you can call me ugly now."

He laughed, shook his head, and stuck a chip in his mouth.

"You look great. Really, bald suits you. Which is good, you'll be pulling chicks left and right."

I smiled timidly. I knew he was trying. I raised myself up off the floor, staggered a bit because of my lightheadedness. I looked at myself in the mirror. I'd never seen the top of my head before. Even in baby pictures, I had a head full of curls. I almost didn't want to see my mom until it was back... I worried she might never stop crying.

I reached up and felt the top of my head. I was really in this now.