City of Legends

Last night my son, Elric, was brought before me by his mother who pulled back his long, Hugh Grant-ish floppy hair to reveal an odd patch where it looks like someone shaved or cut very short about the front 1/2 to 3/4 inch at the hairline.  The fact his hair flops forward had hidden this slash-and-burn zone, which I estimate to have been so ravaged about a month ago.

"Did you cut your hair," his mother demanded.

"I don’t know," was his response.

Remember the Bill Cosby routine where his son got a reverse Mohawk and plead ignorance about when or how it happened?  Dead-on re-enactment.  I laughed it off.  Whether he had been futzing around with his new electric shaver and the lawnmower man took it over, or space aliens had decided to skip the anal probe owing to his flatulence, or whatever, I figured we’d never get a straight answer.

Reminded me of me when, in high school, I broke up my unibrow with a safety razor.  BIC, as I recall.  And the width of the razor was such that my eyebrows looked like I was prepping for a drag queen makeup contest.  My mom noticed them and asked if I had been shaving my eyebrows.  I mumbled something that passed for a denial and continued on my way.  They grew back, and I believe all pictures of me from that era have met an unpleasant, fiery death.

I have to admit I have more patience with and empathy for my sons than my ex-wife does.  She was never a teen-age boy, didn’t even have any brothers.  My sons, the twins, confound her. Their hormones take them places she never dreamt of in her maddest imagination.

And suddenly I find myself living in a Bill Cosby sketch re-enactment.