When I shave, there is already some nostalgia for the beard. There is some future and present regret for having removed it from my face. What once looked like a pubic mound with eyes and a mouth is now just a face again. A face in an army of faces, swimming in the same vagrant sea of simulated blandness.
When I drag the black and plastic-chrome electric shaver across the two inches of gnarly, twisted hair, I can hear the screams of a thousand people that I’ve never met saying, “Leave it, you look like a dickhead without it!”
But it’s fine. It’s fine because it’s off already.
I do this often. I grow out my beard and I shave it off. I like how it looks then I don’t like how it looks. And I, like a woman with an accidental pregnancy in a free country, have the right to get rid of it.
It might be a multiple personality disorder. It might be worse — some mild form of schizophrenia. There’s a high probability that my constant changing scares my family and friends and psychiatrist. They might look down on me and say, “How inconsistent you are.”
My riposte is, naturally, “We are always changing,” and, “Should I switch medications?”
It doesn’t matter now anyway; the beard is already gone. In its place, a wholly inappropriate mustache flanked by the half-brown skin of a Cuban boy.
Then, as I come to regret every time I shave, the fingers begin their ascent to the surface of my skin. All types of fingers. Thumbs poke out from my chin and neck. Index and ring fingers wiggle forth from underneath the fatty mound of each cheek. One long middle finger has just begun to break the skin in that small valley between my bottom lip and the apex of my chin.
My face, a forest of fingers in the breeze of muscular spasms. They writhe like worms looking for purchase in empty air above their home in ponds of mud. I am the reverse- gorgon. I grieve the sacrifice that I’ve made, but it was just getting too long. I walk the line between wanting to stay youthful and hoping to look strong — stronger than I am or may ever be. The beard is a symbol of manliness. And now, in it’s place, fingers. An absolute mess of fingers. Ingrown fingers poking out and trying to break the tough skin of my head like white-headed goiters.
I go to the donut shop to get my regular Saturday donuts. The fingers have never stopped me before.
The boy behind the counter bites his bottom lip. He doesn’t say a word to me as I pick out my treats for the day, beholding that wall of colorful donuts while my face moves as if pines in the wind.
“A red velvet, a maple bacon, cookies and cream.” I know he’s looking. How can he not? How can anyone avoid the face of fingers. It is like seeing a man who has glued a pile of asps to his head. It is impossible to feign disinterest at these mechanized, gyrating flesh serpents.
He just places the donuts in the box. The price flashes on the screen. He wants to say how much it is, but he can’t open his mouth without screaming. No one in the shop can bare it. All eyes on me.
My face-fingers stretch down, down, into my wallet, and pull out my debit card. They swipe the card, stretching toward the card reader with an orchestra of wretched popping and the sound of skin being pulled too taught.
“Thank you,” I say.
No answer, of course. But I know that he’s a good boy. And I know that, deep in his throat, is a “Have a nice day” that didn’t want to come into the light.