I grew my first chin beard in
tenth grade. Not the pinecone that it is today, a half-inch at most, but enough
to change the game. Less emasculating sarcasm from peers. More attention from
girls. Feeling closer to adulthood than childhood, seeing that manly little
outgrowth in the side-view mirror as I cruised along with a newly acquired
driver's license.
The hair and its effect have been
growing ever since.
On a three-week road trip from
Philly to L.A., my friends and I ended up along the same route as 50,000 hogs headed for
the 60th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in
South Dakota. Everywhere we went it was bikes, beer, and badasses. On the
outside, from the neck up at least, I blended in and earned us a little cred in
a subculture not known for its warmth (on the inside I'm too anxious to ride a
ten-speed through town). Some years later I was in the Uygur city of Kashgar,
where the Muslim men greeted my uncut bushiness with nods of approval, perhaps
thinking that I was with Allah (when in fact I'm "spiritual but not
religious," as my online dating profile would say). After that I took a
teaching job at an urban Maryland high school, in which being a goat-like
caricature of myself fast-tracked classroom rapport and greatly increased the
number of completed homework assignments.
Impressive, how a tuft of facial
pubes can alter so many outcomes. How differently might events have unfolded had
I shaved? Which triggered conversations and resulting relationships would never
have occurred? Which ones would have
in their place? Maybe I get carjacked or miss meeting the love of my life in the beardless version.
If nothing else, against my
baldheadedness, it keeps me from looking like a crazed volleyball.
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