My Body in Nine Parts by Raymond Federman

 
MY HAIR

    I became conscious of my hair when I turned 13. Before that, it was my mother who took care of it, or else told me to comb my hair because it was always messy. I didn’t give a damn about my hair. It just bothered me, there, on top of my head.
    So it was my mother who cared for my hair. When I was a little boy she would wash it for me, comb it and part it to one side. The left side, I think. But I’m not sure anymore. I would have to look at an old childhood photo of me to determine which side my mother parted my hair. In any case, it was my mother who cared for my hair. She also searched in it for lice when I caught some from the other boys at school. She would snare them out with a special comb. A lice comb, with very short and tight teeth so the lice could be pulled out. Then she would crush them right on the comb with the nail of her thumb. We couldn’t afford to buy the expensive powder and cream you apply to your hair to kill lice. So my mother killed the lice herself. With her nails.
    Later, when my mother told me it was time to take care of my own hair because now I was a big boy, I would rarely bother to comb it myself.
    Except when my mother shouted at me, Comb your hair before going out. People are going to make fun of you with your hair all rumpled like that . I don’t know if those were the exact word she used. She would say that in French, of course, since we were in France when I had no interest in my hair. I suppose she said, Peigne tes cheveux ébourriffés, sinon les gens vont se moquer de toi . Or something like that.
    So before going out, I would put a lot of water on my hair, and I would plaster it down against my skull by smoothing it out with my hands, and without even looking in the mirror I tried to part the hair on one side. Sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right. It made no difference to me if my hair was parted on one side or the other. I had no sense of its relation with the rest of my face. My hair was something alien to me. But not my nose. I’ll tell you about my nose next time.
    Even worse, I had no idea what color my hair was. My school I.D. card said, brown hair. But whether my hair was brown, mauve, or yellow, it left me indifferent. As I told you already, my hair bothered me. It gave me the feeling that I was always wearing a hat. That’s how my hair felt on my head. Like a hat. And me I hate hats. I never wear a hat. The only time I did was when I was in the army. It was regulation. One of those ugly military kepis that never fits right on your head. Or a heavy helmet that’s always too tight, and mats down your hair.
    Before the age of 13, I didn’t know that hair can help to make you more handsome so that you can seduce the girls you desire. It’s when I became an orphan, at the age of 13, in fact, that I suddenly appreciated the hair on my head. This happened about the same time I was aggressed by puberty.
    Mother was no longer there to take care of my hair. At that time, the boys from rich bourgeois families that I saw in the streets of the fancy neighborhoods all wore their hair combed straight back without a part, high and fluffy on their heads, with a duck’s tail in the back.
    I didn’t know how to comb my hair like that, in the bourgeois style. In the Pompadour style. Me, I belonged to the proletarian class. Not because my father was a factory worker. A laborer. No, my father never worked. He was an artist. Un artiste-peintre . And like all artists, he was lazy. He was also a gambler, a womanizer, and a Communist. That’s what everybody said about him. So he was always broke. That’s why we were poor like proletarians. And that’s why we, the children, my two sisters and I, we kept saying to our mother, Maman j’ai faim . And Maman would tell us, with tears in her eyes, Tell that to your father .
    But that’s not what I wanted to tell. I wanted to tell you about my hair. And not about my