Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(160)

The Propecia worked by suppressing testosterone. One of the well-documented and widely experienced side effects is decreased libido. That’s a fact, not an opinion or defense. I wish I could have shared it with Julia. But I couldn’t, because I couldn’t let her know about the Propecia, because I couldn’t admit that I cared how I looked. Better to let her think she couldn’t make me hard.

I was taking a bath with Benjy a few months after the kids had started spending time at my house. We were talking about The Odyssey, a children’s version of which we had recently finished, and how painful it must have been for Odysseus to keep his identity secret after finally making it home, but why it was necessary.

“It’s not enough just to get home,” he said. “You have to be able to stay there.”

I said, “You’re so right, Benjy.” I always used his name when I was proud of him.

“You actually are kind of bald,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re kind of bald.”

“I am?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Have you been trying to protect my feelings all this time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where am I bald?”

“I don’t know.”

“Touch the parts that are bald.”

I bowed to him, but felt no touch.

“Benjy?” I asked, facing the water.

“You’re not bald.”

I lifted my head. “Then why’d you say it?”

“Because I wanted to make you feel good.”


HOW TO PLAY TRUE BALDNESS

We used to go to Great Wall Szechuan House every Christmas, the five of us. We held the kids up to the aquarium until our arms trembled, and ordered every hot appetizer that didn’t involve pork. The last such Christmas, my fortune was “You are not a ghost.” When we read them aloud, as was the ritual, I looked at “You are not a ghost” and said, “There is always a way.”

A dozen years later, I lost all my hair in the course of a month. Benjy showed up unexpectedly that Christmas Eve with enough Chinese food for a family of five.

“You got one of everything?” I asked, laughing out my love of the wonderfully ridiculous abundance.

“One of everything treyf,” he said.

“Are you worried that I’m lonely?”

“Are you worried that I’m worried?”

We ate on the sofa, plates on our laps, the coffee table covered with steaming white boxes. Before refilling, Benjy put his empty plate on the crowded table, took my head between his hands, and angled it down. If it had been any less unexpected, I would have found a way out. But once it was happening, I gave myself over: rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes.

“You don’t have enough hands, right?”

“I don’t need any.”

“Ah, Benjy.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “Full head of hair.”

“The doctor warned me, however many years ago, that this would happen: as soon as you stop taking the pill, you lose it all at once. I didn’t believe him. Or I thought I’d be the exception.”

“How does it feel?”

“Being able to slice bread with an erection?”

“I’m eating, Dad.”

“Being able to do push-ups with my hands behind my back?”

“Sorry I expressed interest,” he said, unable to pin the corners of his mouth.

“You know, I needed an egg once.”

“Did you?” he asked, playing along.

“Yeah. I was doing some baking—”

“You often bake.”

“All the time. I’m surprised I’m not baking as I tell this joke. Anyway, I was doing some baking, and found that I was one egg short. Isn’t that the worst?”

“There is literally nothing worse.”

“Right?” We were both starting to simmer in anticipation. “So rather than schlep to the store through the snow to buy eleven eggs I didn’t want, I thought I’d see if I could borrow one.”

“And that, right there, is why the 1998 National Jewish Book Award hangs in your office.”

“Yiddishe kop,” I said, tapping my forehead.

“I wish you were my real dad,” Benjy said, his eyes moistening with suppressed laughter.

“So I opened the window—” I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the punch line that was still forming as I approached it. “So I opened the window, wrote, directed, and starred in a five-second fantasy for which there aren’t enough Xs, and my tumescent glans rang the doorbell of the neighbor across the street.”

Almost convulsing with restraint, Benjy asked, “Did she have an egg?”

“He.”

“He!”

“And no, he didn’t.”

“What an *.”

“And I accidentally blinded him.”

“Injury to the insult.”

“No, wait. Wait. Do it again. Ask me if she had an egg.”

“I have a question.”

“Let me try to answer it.”

“Did she have an egg?”

“Your mom? She did.”

“Wonder of wonders!”