A MAN in his twenties. Looking at us.
MAN … I hate my hair! Look at it. It’s on its way out; I mean, you can tell that, right? I’m losing my hair … in my 20s. Another couple years, it’ll be gone … that totally sucks. Doesn’t it? Yeah. Shit. That’s—(Beat.) And my mom told me that it would, she warned me about this, way back when I was a kid … she would look at my hairline after I got it trimmed, over at one of those cheap places that she used to take me to—SuperCuts or something crappy like that—and she’d study my scalp and the patterns fanning out from the top of my head—the “crown,” I think it’s called—she could look at those few things on a person and tell you stuff about yourself … or your future, at least. And so she said that to me … several times … that I was gonna go bald. Well, I mean … she never said that. Moms don’t say things like that, not to their kids … some moms probably do, bad moms, moms who are mean or angry about something in their own lives and so they lash out at people, their own kids even, just because they’re unhappy or sad or whatever. Moms like that might say that to their sons—“you’re going bald”—but not mine. She’d call it “fine.” Look at my hair and touch it with those lovely, thin hands of hers and say it was “fine.” “You have very fine hair.” When I was a really small kid, not even in school yet and she’d say that, I thought she meant that it was “nice.” Like how that word can be used to mean a good thing. “Fine jewelry” or that type of thing. I felt like I had this head full of beautiful fine hair, as if it was all spun gold or something … kids are so dumb, right? I guess I was, anyway, when it came to my mom … (Beat.) But later on I came to realize that all she meant was I was gonna lose it at some point in my life. My hair. (Beat.) I haven’t yet … I mean, seems to be hanging in there for now … have to help it out a little bit with a few products and, you know … a crazy sort of judicious arranging—combing it all forward and then to the side and then back … silly shit that you make up as you’re trying to have it all look like everything’s cool, everything’s fine—it’s such a crock, anyway, right? Hair. Why we place such a high value on it in society and that kind of thing. But we do, though, right? There’s no question that we do … our hair and our looks and, and, like … you know … money and youth, everything. All that. It’s just so dumb. (Beat.) Unless you have ’em all! And then it’s amazing! I’m kidding, but … sort of. No, if you have those things, or even a few of them … a lot of cash or some great-looking face, a body that everybody wants or that type of thing … then it’s all ok and you just go with it. Enjoy it while you can, I suppose. It’s natural. It’s a gift and so you take it and run with it and the rest of us are left in your wake to grumble and moan. That’s life. But for a guy like me—someone who grew up with a very normal set of parents and without a fancy house or upbringing and not amazing-looking or a sportsman, none of the kinds of advantages I was talking about earlier—or bemoaning, really—to have this very average face and body and job and all of that … to then have your hair start to go at this young age … that just, you know, it kinda stinks. It’s not fair. It makes me mad. (Beat.) And it’s not like I’m an old man, a grandfather or whatever, and then you expect it to happen … this is me dealing with it when I should be out on the beach and driving a sports car and all that shit … it’s a cliche but that’s the sort of thing I should be doing … and instead I’m always looking in store windows and messing with my part while I try to camouflage my … you know what I’m saying. That’s what I’m doing as a young man. Fixing my hair. Watching those damn Rogaine commercials and seriously thinking about finding a hat that I can wear on all occasions … one of those stupid hats like you see the hipster guys wear around—most of them being bald as well and just pretending that they love hats, that they absolutely would choose to wear this thing even if they weren’t hiding a huge fucking bald patch on the top of their head. “No, I’m not kidding, I seriously love fedoras.” I mean, come on! Please. Nobody does … not Bruce Willis, not you or me. Guys do it because they’re going bald and, worse, they think that girls won’t like it. That they’ll find them less masculine if they are losing their hair … especially when they’re younger. Like me. (Beat.) I mean, obviously there must be a few guys out there—a very small percentage of, just, like, total assholes who think they look “cool” in a hat and so they trot ’em out every so often, for a party or whatnot—but that’s a super small part of the real population, I think. It has to be—and if I see a guy in a hat, one of those with a brim on it that’s kind of flipped up, and a feather in the band or some kind of fun material around it—I’m about 85% certain that the guy’s a total dick. A real jerk. And I am so rarely not right about that fact that it’s not even worth noting the times I was wrong. So I can’t do that … can’t wear a hat with any serious authority … even though I’ve been feeling so desperate lately that I’ve had a moment or two where I’ve considered it. Tried a few on. It’s gotten that bad … (Beat.) No, seriously, I’m gonna have to do something one day soon, I really will. I’ll cut it short or grow it out—not like a loser ponytail guy, not like that, but a bit longer so I have some volume to play with … something. I dunno. I’ll have to. (Beat.) I think my last girlfriend left me because of it—she’d say no if you asked her, stopped her in the street and made her tell you why, but deep down I think it was that. My hair. She’d probably say it was my general … I’m not sure … some attitude thing I’ve got or that I have jumped around from job to job lately, which is true but not terrible and lots of people do that—it’s called “finding yourself,” thank you very much—and just a load of other crap that Katja would be willing to tell you if you asked her … she’s from Latvia, not that it matters but that’s why she has the exotic name and this kind of thing about her when you talk to her … this edge. This privileged sort of edge that isn’t based in reality since she comes from a farm in a country that Russia doesn’t even want any more … but that was Katja. She’d be happy to do that if you asked, list off my faults for you … but honestly I think she was turned off by my hair. Yep. (Beat.) So many guys today are going with the buzzed look, the totally close-cut thing or a completely shaved head and that’s fine, I can do it, but I think it’s a cop-out. Personally. I do. You know you’re doing it because the hair is going—I don’t care if you’re the guy in the movies … what’s his name … the one with the … Jason Statham? Is that it? Him or my next-door neighbor who does it every other day. Shaves it off. That’s a way of getting around the fact that your hair sucks and it’s gone and you think it looks shitty and so you do that. That’s what that is. (Beat.) Only person who is fine with it … and I mean totally A-OKAY with it … is my mom. She doesn’t care at all. Looks at me with nothing but love, however I look. I mean, she knows that it bugs me so she’s worried and she’ll cut out little articles or tell me about a paid program she saw on television, two in the morning … but she doesn’t care. At all. That woman loves me … and that feels so damn good. So great. (Beat.) I mean, fuck, if I could find somebody who loved me like that, some girl who looked at me like she does—fat, thin, ugly or from darkest Africa—I wouldn’t care at all. I’d be hers forever. Does it sound weird for me to say that? I mean … it’s okay to love your mom, right? And I am not saying sexually, no, Jesus, I mean the “idea” of her. Who she is and what she represents. The way she makes me as person feel … loved. That’s what I need in my life. A woman like that. (Beat.) I think that’s absolutely okay. It is. To say that and feel it. To want a lady who loves me like she does … looks at me like Mom does. I honestly don’t feel funny at all saying that to you. That I want that and am looking for that in my life. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not. I’m not. (Beat.) I’m seriously not …
He stops talking for a moment. Looks at us. Nods. Looks away.
THE END.