A Glimpse of Another Character

John was going bald and it didn’t bother him for one flippin’ second. In fact, he embraced the fact that he had been losing his hair at an alarming rate since he was sixteen. When he was eighteen he shaved his head clean. “Easy to take care of,” he chuckled, his bright, blue eyes glistening and his smile wide. He was a handsome man, one who oozed confidence. It just came natural.

If there was one thing John had learned as a child, it was that his self-esteem did not hinge on the absence of a head full of hair. He had learned that lesson in a most unusual way, however – from his now dead father who had instructed John in ways he could never have fathomed.

John had watched his father years before face the same fate, baldness, but his was not without resistance. His dad had grown the few strands that existed to enormous lengths and swept them across his naked pate in hopes no one would notice. In front of the cracked, bathroom mirror, the old man combed and primped, pressing the hair into place and spraying it for good measure. The result was a thin helmet of fine fluff, the lacquered mat conspicuously sparkling in the sun. In time he gave up, resorting to caps and hats to conceal what he could not accept. John’s father went to his grave distressed by his appearance, and for that, John was a bit sad.

Yet John was satisfied too. He had avoided the trap that had ensnared his father and he had done so by watching. The old man had not needed to say a thing . . .