Hairballs Are My Love Language

Hairballs Are My Love Language

A Hairy Style

She is the hairiest girl in North America. This is why he sold all his belongings, hitched five rides on five different vehicles with wheels, and arrived at her doorstep with a speech so polished she couldn’t think of a way to say no. She cleared out the corner of her closet that usually housed her striped scarf collection—a perfectly sized nook for the curled-up body of a full-grown man and his loom. He sleeps there, during the few hours of night when she is stillest, but mostly he stands beside her, his fingers poised for collection. 

In the morning, she rolls out of bed like a tumbleweed. She crouches in front of her floor-length mirror. He crouches behind her. She sprays down all the hair on her body, then begins to lay it back into place. He opens the front pocket of his button-up coat, which he fills with the hairs that fall as she grooms herself. She uses a brush—the kind for horses—to perfect the aerodynamic look that she has been told “suits her figure well.” When she is done, he scrapes and bends the brush until a flat pancake of hair drops onto his lap. Excited, he adds it to his pocket. 

At the coffee shop, he sucks the foam rosetta off the top of her latte. She doesn’t like the texture. He loves the art. She swallows one strand of hair. It curls around her tonsil. Before she can cough it up, he reaches two elegant fingers down her throat, extracts it, shakes off the wetness, and adds it to his pocket. 

All day at work and on the bus and between being at work and being on the bus, she plays with her hair. She stretches and twirls the curls growing from her scalp. Scratches at the fuzz on her kneecaps. Twists the strands hanging from her armpit. All day at her work and on the bus and between her being at work and being on the bus, he catches and collects and then arranges the hairs in his pockets. Long hairs for the inseam, thick ones for the waistband, fine for the hem. 

In the evening, after she showers, he slips his fingers down the drain to dislodge a clump of hair left behind. He has a tool to reach where his fingers cannot, and he operates it deftly, maneuvering it down the pipe, then activating its pincers. The drain belches then swallows the water formerly trapped by the clump. He meticulously rinses the soap from every strand, before sorting them into the piles next to his loom. 

She brushes and blow-dries. He catches. She settles into bed. He collects the hairs that drift into the air as she tosses and turns. When her body finally gives into sleep, he retires to his nook, and takes inventory. Before he rests, he glances up at all the skirts hanging above him. A constellation of inspiration. 

They continue like this for months. 

Three weeks after he has left her and one day after Easter, she walks to CVS for discounted candy. As she is choosing between peanut butter bunnies and marshmallow eggs, she glances down and sees it. She smiles knowingly and repeats to herself the first words he ever spoke to her: “I am going to be the first man to wear a hair skirt on the cover of Vogue, and I need your help.”

Stem of Thorns

At fourteen, my body grew its disagreement from the inside out. When I had finally convinced myself it wouldn’t happen, a stem of thorns lurched from my belly, shivered when it felt the cool air settle around it, then curled its long arm down my leg and rooted there. My father shrieked and wailed and blamed himself and kicked me out of the house. It’s not because I don’t love you, it’s just that, well, you know, your younger siblings . . . he broke off and got real quiet. Then caved: Steve said it could be contagious. Steve was just a man. He was not an expert. 

On Facebook, I found three others, and we all moved into an apartment together. The apartment had big windows that made the whole place smell like warmth. I got a job as a figure model for an artist who sold her drawings to people who were fascinated by my unique look. She made lots of money. I made just enough to pay rent. With the help of my roommates, I learned how to prune myself and photosynthesize and ignore my father’s phone calls. By spring, all of my limbs were in bloom. 

On Sundays, when most of the world took the day off to pray or pretend to pray or watch their children play baseball, we gathered. In what we called The Garden, for obvious reasons, we picked and squished each other’s aphids and exchanged pollen and gossiped about our bosses. 

Most often, we were left alone in The Garden. We had one place, and they had all the others. 

But one week, as I was bending toward the sun, I heard footsteps, then silence, then the sound of air being sucked and compressed through a pair of nostrils. You smell so . . . floral. The torso of the woman behind me was hinged at a ninety-degree angle from the hips, her nose stationed at the entrance of one of my buds, inhibiting my epinasty.

She didn’t say hello. 

I turned to face her, and the wind blew her hair toward me. She smelled like wet denim. I just love the look of it, like, see, she ran her hand down her arm’s smooth skin-casing, We’re so much less interesting. I half nodded, half shook my head, unsure how to respond or otherwise react. She took it as a sign to keep talking. Oh, my mother would just hate you. She opened her fists toward me and then scrunched them back shut, like one would do to make a baby giggle. I let out an uncomfortable grunt-laugh. She’s always going on about your smell and how much of an intrusion it is. She claims it gives her headaches, says that’s the first step to . . . catching it. 

Certain her mother had never been close enough for a smell-induced headache, I made a face that said, That’s crazy, that must be really hard for you, which was the response she wanted. 

She plucked a flower from my arm and tucked it into her hair. 

The flower died by the time she got home, or fell on the way, but the story of her day of experimentation lasted her for years.