Fifty-Boy 2 Not In My Mirror

Fifty-Boy

2

Not In My Mirror

I could not imagine that a boy should turn fifty, but there I was in her Cheval mirror staring him in the face. I examined the hangdog eyes and the disappearing hair. I'd always hated that fucking hair, too auburn, too wavy, too bingo-the-clown weird. Ha-ha-hair looking me in the eye and laughing, waving goodbye. "You want me gone roll-on head? I hope you get a turtleneck to complete your costume."

I bought a pair of sunglasses and started a hat collection.

Molly, my wife, the tormentor of men, said, "Grow a little beard, it'll balance it out."

Yeah, if you look at me upside-down, another stupid suggestion. So naturally, I grew one, but it itched. So I shaved it off. Then she wouldn't kiss me, claimed she got used to kissing me with a beard. So I grew it back. Then she said she wondered what had become of the boy she married. Was he still under all that facial hair? Kind of daring me to shave it off again. But who wants to risk going kissless? Me and the beard were in a no-win situation.

Not only that, I'd gotten used to looking like that gay sewing proffessor on TV. I kind of got to like the beard... And I was learning a lot about gardening and plants watching that show. Who would've thought a gay guy knew so much about home decorationg and landscaping? Just goes to show.

Besides, whenever I did shave, I swear to Venus I looked like one of those hairless pudendums youy see long-legged women parading around on a leash. I'd immediately regret shaving and promise the beard I'd never do it again.

But I guess I cut him off one time too many, 'cause just like that, the beard betrayed me and started going gray. She called it the skunk look. You could always count on Molly for a comforting word. She apologized and said she didn't mean skunk, she meant grizzled.

Oh, okay, that's better. What guy doesn't look forward to being called Grizzled.

Easy for her, nobody believed the tormentor of men could be anywhere near my age. All the young guys she left drowning in her wake, at the gym, "I've been watching you, for months, baby, you look great..."

At work, married men whispering in the copier room, massaging her shoulders, "I'd risk it all for one time with you, sexy."

The Tormentor of Men

Even at Sears, the guy trying to sell us a digital camera couldn't

concentrate. Some women just have this pheromone-jones going

on... Trying to recover from her tight pink sweater and his statement about the number of nipples that fit in a pixel. I felt bad for the guy. They all swore she was only thirty-five, and she ate it up.

But to me, the guy who cleaned her bathroom, she says, "I'm kissing a grizzled face? I never thought I'd be kissing a grizzled face. It's too pokey. Don't kiss me there with that itchy thing."

And lately, it seemed like she was always trying to get rid of me, especially in the evening when she went online. She'd say, "Why don't you put on your trench-coat and go visit one of your secret contacts at the cafe-bookstore? Buy you and the beard a latte. And treat yourself to a new spy novel while you're down there."

Then she'd do the James Bond theme and say, "...Double O Asshole... The spy who loved me... Oh don't be mad. Give me a kiss... not there." Then she'd put me out the door.

Double O Asshole, nice, huh, the way she talked to me? Here I was, naked in her full-length mirror and all I could picture was a grizzled, pokey, gay sewing professor wearing a trench-coat, sunglasses, and a baseball-cap, nursing major insecurities about his taste in literature, his ability to kiss women in certain spots, and the security-gal at the bookstore saying, "Hey, you in the trench-coat, you wanna' keep your hands outta' your pockets?"

Ain't that great? And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, agent Double-O had to go and uncover a secret rendezvous his wife was hatching in a chat-room.

Confused isn't the word. Who'd ever heard of this stuff before? Was cyber-sex really sex? Was phone-sex cheating? What kind of questions were these? Is oral sex sex? This is a question? I'm afraid to ask who's asking.

Maybe it was just too subtle for me. It all sounded like the beginning of a bawdy joke with a punch-line so obtuse I just couldn't get it. I wished I'd never heard of the World Wide Web.

For the first time in my life I felt undesirable, humorless, sexless, and out of touch. Maybe I was reading too much espionage. Maybe I did need a little comic relief, but not this kind. It wasn't funny and it wasn't sexy, not in my mirror.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171