I used to joke about going bald before it happened. I already was well aware of the scientifical fact that if your mother’s father was bald, chances are you would be, too. My grandfather lost his hair by his late 20s, so I figured it was only a matter of time for me (while also hoping my grandfather’s hair loss was hastened by three stressful years in the Pacific during World War II). In high school, I began to grow my hair out, thinking I should do so while I still could. And when I say out, I do mean out. My hair did not grow down no matter how long I left it uncut. It grew sideways, like a mushroom cloud.
Early in my freshman year of college, I visited my cousin Staten Island. He was still in high school, and we went out and did the normal kind of weekend things that I was too uptight/immobile to do when I was in high school. At the moment, it felt like practice for all the things I should be doing in college. Relaxing. Not thinking. Having fun.
The Sunday I was set to go back to NYU, my uncle found an old Polaroid camera. Use it up before I throw it out, he commanded, so we did, taking dumb pictures of each other doing goofy stuff. The photos never developed. Everything was cast a muddy greenish-gray.
I stuffed a few in my backpack to take back to my dorm. On the bus trip back, I pulled a book out to read and noticed it had weird goop on the back cover, whitish, like dried Elmer’s glue. I looked in my bag and saw the culprits were the Polaroids. The dying film stock was leaking. I took one of the photos out to see how bad the damage was inside my bag, but I forgot to keep inspecting when I got a closer look at the picture. Something about my hairline didn’t look quite right. My part seemed higher up, like someone had grabbed me by the back of the head yanked my scalp back as far as it would go. It took this weird, half-formed Polaroid to show that I was already starting to lose my hair.