My Body in Nine Parts by Raymond Federman Page A

miserable childhood.
    The rich boys my age all wore their hair puffed up high on their heads. Not like mine, flattened on the skull with water.
    Their hair was loose and shiny. Fluffy, and floating freely. You see what I mean? The Zazou style. Or Elvis style.
    So when I understood the importance of hair in human relations, I started washing my hair every day. My crop as the boys my age always referred to their hair in those days. Well, in French they would say, mes tiffs . They would admire and discuss each other’s tiffs .
    From that time on I spent hours taking care of my crop of hair. I shampooed it. Which is not the same as washing your hair. One washes one’s hair with any kind of common soap, whereas one shampoos one’s hair with special soft and even perfumed soap so that the hair becomes softer and shinier. After the shampoo, I would towel dry my hair carefully so that no trace of water would remain in it. Then I would rub brilliantine into it to make it shine more, and I would comb it carefully all back on my head, without a part, making sure the duck’s tail was perfectly centered behind my head by holding a little mirror in my hand in front of my face, and looking into it I would see the back of my head in the big mirror above the sink. This way I could inspect my duck tail.
    Until the age of 13, I had never seen the back of my head. If people found the back of my head ugly, I didn’t care. But from the day I saw the back of my head in the mirror, I became very conscious of it. And even today, when I feel someone staring at the back of my head, especially a woman, I panic.
    That’s why, when I comb my hair today, even though my hair has changed density and color, I always inspect the back of my head carefully. And each time, it reminds me of how Roquentin in Jean-Paul Sartre’s La Nausée also panicked when he felt another human being staring at the back of his head.
    Well, me too, I feel strange when someone looks at the back of my head. It feels as if I am being judged, and accused of something that I am responsible for.
    The great discovery I made when I started to take care of my own hair, is that it was not really brown, as it was stated on my school I.D. card, but black. My hair was black when I took charge. It is no longer black now, but believe me, it was black, and not a wishy washy brown.
    It’s possible that the heavy brilliantine that I smeared all over it might have made it look more black, but that’s how I saw my hair. Black. Deep dark black. But not curly.
    OK, I’ll skip all the different modes of coiffures I had since the age of 13. I’ll just tell you how, when I turned 40, there was a radical but fashionable change in the way my hair was combed, and consequently, how to visualize it.
    It all happened when I turned 40, and I was going through a crisis. I don’t think it was the middle-aged crisis . I was still in full control of my body and of my mind. My crisis was professional. What I was in the process of writing kept canceling itself as I was writing it. That made me sad, melancholic, even angry and paranoid. I was in a constant depression.
    When my wife asked what was wrong, I would tell her, the noodles. Yes, I was writing a novel which had a lot to do with noodles. She would then laugh, and say, You’re starting to be a bore with your noodles. Stop making a face. Come, let’s go to the movies. That’ll relax you .
    But one day, when I was really deep into the depression, and I was even talking suicide, she said, You know it’s not your noodle novel that puts you in this mood, it’s your hair. Yes, your crop of hair is thinning. You’re losing your feathers Federman, and you won’t admit it. I know how much your hair means to you. Now it’s taking its revenge for having been neglected when you were a boy .
    She was right.
    If only I had known. I am sure all men lament the loss of their hair by the fact that