Cindy Lou Johnson: “From Hair to Eternity”
From Hair to Eternity
For my 29th birthday, my best friend Katy gives me a reading with an “important” astrologer to help me navigate the scary thirties. I meet him in his ungentrified kitchen on the upper west side of Manhattan.
Mr. Astrology - Do you have any idea what your hair does to men?
Me - No.
Mr. Astrology - Your hair has a lot of power. It has a lot of power over men.
Me - (thinking) You mean, you? My hair has a lot of power over you?
Me - (speaking) Oh. I mean…What?
Mr. Astrology - You should be aware of that power – how you’re going to use it.
In Katy’s smaller ungentrified apartment, twenty blocks south.
Katy - He said that?
Me - (confused) Yes.
Katy - You do have the curliest hair of anyone on earth.
Me - (blushing, or would be blushing if I were born in the nineteenth century) Noooooo.
Katy - You do. Can I touch it?
Me - Sure.
Katy - (touching my hair) It’s so soft. It might be the softest, curliest hair of anyone on earth.
Me - (thinking) I love you Katy. You are the softest, sweetest person of anyone on earth.
Me - (speaking) There must be curlier hair out there somewhere.
Katy - Nope. Pretty sure not.
Me - (quietly beaming)
Katy - So what did Mr. Astrology say about your future?
Me - He said that I am on a ship, heading out to the high seas, and I should wave goodbye.
Katy - The high seas!?
Me – Yes.
Katy – That’s exciting. Where are you going?
Me - I don’t know. I can’t see what lies ahead.
Katy – Oooh. The unknown.
Me – Yes. The unknown. I’m heading out to the great unknown!
In my mother’s farmhouse in northern Virginia.
My mother - The high seas? He said you were heading to the high seas?
Me – He did.
My mother - (scrutinizing me) You might need a haircut.
Me - What? Why?
My mother - Your hair might look out of date - for your new life on the high seas.
Me - (thinking) I’m only twenty-nine. How can I look out of date?
On phone with Katy.
Katy – Of course your hair is not out of date. It’s timeless.
On a five-hour train ride back to New York.
Random Person (frowning from across the aisle) – Is that a…perm?
Me - Excuse me? No.
Random Person - It’s just I’ve never seen hair that curly that wasn’t permed.
Me - Well, now you have.
Random Person - Are you sure?
Me - Pretty sure.
Random Person - (squinting)
Me - (scurrying towards the café car)
At My True Love’s apartment in an undisclosed location.
My True Love - There is no hair like your hair. I find little curls around my toes, on my computer keys. Once I found one in my sock when I unrolled it.
Me - (thinking) Is he complaining?
My True Love - Here’s one right here. Look!
(He pulls one up with wonder from a page in the book he is reading.)
Me - (thinking) He’s not complaining. He loves me!
Thanksgiving at my mother’s.
My mother - I don’t think you realize what it looks like in the back. It’s sort of wild back there.
Me - Well, I can’t see behind me. That’s for sure.
My mother - I’ll get you a mirror.
Me - Let’s eat this turkey.
On phone with Katy.
Katy - It’s only wild because of the wind. What about a hat? You’d look very chic in a hat.
At a fancy millinery shop in Soho.
Me - (looking in the mirror) Um.
Man Selling Hats - It’s your hair that’s the problem.
Me - But I’m the customer. Aren’t I always right?
Man Selling Hats - The hat is designed. Your hair is – feral.
Me - (thinking) Did he say ferret?
Back at Katy’s.
Me - (cautiously) Do you think I look like a ferret?
Katy - Who said you looked like a ferret?
Me - Maybe nobody. But do I?
At my mother’s for her birthday.
My mother - Would you like to meet my hairdresser, Luigi? We can go see him together. Me - Um.
My mother - My treat. My birthday treat.
Post-Luigi.
Me - Holy fuck.
On a train back to New York.
Me - Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
In Katy’s tiny kitchen, probably a closet in the nineteenth century.
Katy - (offering me a consoling blueberry) Don’t worry. You’re fine. Your inner you is still beautiful.
Me - But what about my outer me?
(Katy pats me like I’m a little pet, possibly a ferret.)
In the undisclosed location.
My True Love - What happened?
Me - (he’d better watch out) What do you mean?
Me - (running down the hall)
My True Love - (through the bathroom door) It’s just hair. It’ll grow back. No one will even notice!
Me - (sobbing) Is this you right now – not noticing?
On West Broadway.
Me - (navigating a narrow sidewalk in a giant hat) I will not survive this. I will not survive losing the very thing that made me – me.
I survive. But Katy and my mother do not. They die within four days of each other. I can’t attend Katy’s funeral, because I am busy attending my mother’s. I can’t mourn Katy for almost a year, because I am busy mourning my mother.
Often I remember their hair.
Katy’s – light brown and wispy – delicate and feathery as fountain grass.
My mother’s – thick and golden - what you would have called tresses if you lived in the nineteenth century.
A few years later on the high seas.
Me - (trying to remember what Mr. Astrology told me)
Mr. Astrology - You’re on a ship. There are streamers tethering your ship to the dock. You love everyone on the dock and wave to them, and they wave back.
Me - They wave back.
Mr. Astrology - You keep waving even as your ship pulls away and the streamers break. You wave until the people you are waving to are just specks. You still wave even after the specks are gone.
Me - Even after the specks are gone.
Mr. Astrology - But finally, a moment comes when you realize your journey lies ahead. You have to turn around and face it.
Me - I have to… (slowly turning) …turn around and…
Me - (hair billowing madly as if trying to hold onto heaven) … face it.
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