by Brian Rowe
I sighed and took one more sip of the magical vodka.
And then, the waitress started to sing.
With a flirtatious smirk on her face, she didn’t take her eyes off me for the entire thirty seconds she sang the song. I felt like John F. Kennedy, except that the girl serenading me wasn’t wearing a pretty white dress but instead had sweat in her hair and marinara stains on her collared shirt.
She set the cake on the table while singing the last line.
“Happy birthday to…”
She stopped. She leaned her forehead against mine and smiled big, revealing a mouthful of giant teeth.
“…YOU!”
She snapped her fingers. And a small flame appeared on top of the candle.
Everybody stared at the spectacle with awe.
“How did she…”
“It’s a miracle!”
“Oh whoa! Cool!”
Charisma shook her head. She wasn’t impressed. “Those are just trick candles. You can buy them at any party store in the city.”
“Whatever it was,” I said, looking up at the waitress with a big grin, “That was totally awesome!”
“I’m glad you think so, Cameron,” she said. “Enjoy your birthday.”
The waitress handed my girlfriend the receipt and walked away, disappearing into the back of the restaurant.
I blew out the candle and started cutting slices for everyone at the table.
Matt started consuming his first bite, clearly not taking the time to actually chew. “Is it really your birthday, Cam?”
“You bet it is!” I winked at Charisma. We decided to share a slice.
She slipped me the receipt. The meal hadn’t cost that much, after all.
And the cake had been marked free.
I gave Charisma a kiss so wet that drool started forming an extra layer of icing all over our chocolaty dessert.
---
Moments after Wesley dropped me off at home—I usually called him for a ride, sometimes even when I wasn’t drunk—I found myself crawling all the way to the front door. My head was pounding, and the nausea was starting to work its tragic wonders. I threw up in the bushes, twice, and then tried to open the front door. It was locked.
I managed to stand up and stumble toward the garage, like a blind man who had only lost his eyesight in the past ten minutes. I exhaled a happy sigh as the side door next to the garage opened with ease, and I made my way into the house.
It was pitch black inside. I turned the corner to see one light on, in the kitchen.
I grabbed the largest plastic cup I could find and poured it to the brim with tap water. I started drinking it as fast as I could, just chugging it. I drank so much over the course of the next minute that I immediately had to take a piss.
I started making my way out of the kitchen when I heard a voice behind me. “Cameron? Are you OK?”
I turned around. Kimber was munching on a Reece’s peanut butter cup at the kitchen table. My dad being a plastic surgeon, instilling in his children his strong belief in human perfection, he banned all sweets from the house. So my sister and I always had to smuggle them in with the hopes that we wouldn’t get caught. The thirteen-year-old, black-haired and blue-eyed, and a bit more on the chunky side to my father’s liking, always did have a hankering for peanut butter and chocolate.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just need to get some sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“I bet you are. Good job at your game tonight, by the way.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
I really had to pee. I thought the conversation was over, but then Kimber stood up from her chair. She cowered in the corner like she usually did when she had something important to get off her chest. “Hey, I don’t know if Mom told you, but I wanted to let you know that my first performance of the semester is coming up this Friday.”
My prostate felt like it was going to explode. Plus I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. “Performance? For what?”
“You know. For the violin? I’ve been practicing every day.”
“Oh, of course.” Duh.
“It would be great if you could come,” she said.
I nodded. “Oh… uhh… sure. Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Really?” She devoured the rest of her peanut butter cup and skipped over to me. “Thanks, Cam. You’re the best.”
She tried to give me a hug, but I backed away before she could touch me. She didn’t think anything of it. She just continued skipping on down the stairs toward her bedroom, happy as can be.
---
I turned out my bedroom light a little while later, after upchucking one more time and pissing longer than my previous record—two minutes and eleven seconds. I smashed my head against my red velvet pillow. It felt like Heaven.
I took one last look at the clock on my nightstand to see it was just a couple of minutes before midnight.
I felt like tonight’s victory marked the beginning of the end of a fantastic four years in high school. Prom and graduation were just weeks away. It was almost April, with summer on the horizon. I had so much to look forward to. I had my whole life ahead of me.
And while I hadn’t officially gotten my acceptance letter yet, all signs were pointing toward the positive: Yale would be just around the corner.
I fell asleep that night thinking about the architectural landmarks of New Haven, Connecticut.
3. Eighteen
My alarm went off at 7 A.M. I sat up and yawned.
The first thing I remembered was last night’s drinking. I held my breath, waiting with apprehension for the oncoming migraine. I started searching for aspirin in the drawer under my nightstand but didn’t see any.
I sat up in bed for another minute. I was shocked.
I felt fine.
It was practically a rule. Any night I drank more than a couple of beers, I woke up the following morning feeling like I’d been punched in the face by every living thing this side of the Pacific Ocean.
I took a shower, one longer than normal, grateful as ever that my head wasn’t pounding. After I washed my hair twice, just for the fun of it, I stepped out and stood in front of the mirror. It was so fogged up I couldn’t even see the outline of my body. I looked down to see that my muscles were toned and firm, which brought a smile to my face. Not even the gorging of pizza and chocolate the night before had given me a hint of flab.
I stretched out my arms and legs before brushing my teeth. By the time I started rubbing my face down with my grapefruit herbal cleanser, the one item in my bathroom cupboard that could be considered a product more suitable for women and gay men than a straight-as-an-arrow basketball player, I needed to be able to see myself in the mirror.
I grabbed my towel and wiped the mirror down, giving it the kind of meticulous scrub it hadn’t received in weeks. I placed the towel on its hanger and took a good look at myself.
I appeared tired, probably from all the partying from the night before. But otherwise I looked the same as usual.
Normal, even.
The lotion was near its last drip, which made it difficult to push what was left into my hand. I squeezed the last of it out to warrant a facial cleanse and threw the tube into the trashcan. I started massaging the jelly-like lotion all over my face.
I made expressions for a few minutes, waiting for the benefits to take effect. I wasn’t one to just rub the lotion off seconds after applying it. I wanted that natural exfoliant to remove all the toxins from my face. I wanted to look perfect.
Finally, after I could feel the lotion starting to dry—never the best sign—I leaned against the sink to start washing it off.
I was halfway through cleaning my face when I noticed it.
I stopped. My jaw dropped. Goosebumps rose on both of my arms.
I didn’t believe it at first, and I had to stare at my face a mere inch away from the mirror to confirm its existence.
But it was true. And I couldn’t have been happier.
Ladies and g
entlemen, Cameron Martin has facial hair.
---
“What are you so happy about?” Wesley asked as we walked from the parking lot to the crowded school. “You gonna gloat about your big win last night for the entire day?”
“Oh no, it’s not that. It’s just, you know…”
I waited for Wesley to finish my sentence, but with him holding his camera in one hand and tripod in the other, with a backpack over his shoulders that looked to weigh five hundred pounds, he appeared preoccupied.
“Come on, Wes,” I said. “Notice anything different about me?”
He finally moved away from his camera for more than two seconds and analyzed my face with an apathetic glaze. “Umm… haircut?”
“No.”
“Botox injections?”
“What?”
“Can you let me come film you next time your dad gives you botox? I think what your dad does is super gross, but it could be really cool for a documentary.”
All I had wanted to see was the joyful expression on my friend’s face as he discovered the little hairs growing out of my protruded chin. Instead Wesley had no qualms comparing me to Joan Rivers.
I was speechless for a moment. Finally, I said, “You really think I would do that? Go to my dad for plastic surgery?”
Wesley stared at me, not knowing if I was being serious.
“That’s pretty low, Wes. Even for you. I don’t care if the foreskin on my dick starts sagging below my ankles. I’m never going to my dad for anything. You know I don’t agree with what he does.”
“Yeah, well, call me in ten years, and we’ll see if you haven’t gone to your dad for a little, you know, nip and tuck.”
Wesley set up his tripod on the grass on the right side of campus. He powered up his camera and started filming students walking inside. I stood next to him, one eye open, looking through his viewfinder.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“My movie,” Wesley said, looking up from his camera. “Just getting some exterior shots of the school. All but two of the scenes takes place inside a classroom.”
He stared at me for a moment, even looking down at my chin. But then he went right back to his viewfinder, nudging me away so that he could get to work.
I pulled on the little hairs on my chin, hoping they hadn’t fallen off or disappeared.
But they were still there.
Whatever, I thought. I don’t care if Wes can’t see them. They only matter to one person, after all.
I needed to find Charisma.
Pronto.
---
Charisma stood confidently upright and tall at her locker, chatting with two younger girls who probably called themselves Charisma’s friends even though they were only interested in school-ruling popularity.
She didn’t notice me at first. “Hey,” I said, behind the two other girls, as if Charisma was a celebrity and I was a fan with a pad and paper trying to get an autograph.
“Oh,” she said with little enthusiasm. “Hey Cam.” The friends didn’t leave.
“How’s it going?”
“Good. I start shooting Wes’s movie today.”
The smile I tried forcing started to fade. “Oh.”
“Yeah, notice my hair?”
She revealed her ponytail. The bright blonde hair I knew and loved was gone. She had dyed her hair a weird dirty blonde that didn’t mesh with her eye color at all.
“Looks great, honey,” I lied.
“Wesley thought the character should have a harder edge. I agreed.”
“You sure are taking this thing seriously.”
Charisma started pulling some books out of her locker. The two girls stood next to her, both chewing gum, both resting their arms against the locker next to Charisma’s.
“Cam, Wesley is going to UCLA. You know, in Hollywood. This could be my big break. Somebody could see this film a few months down the road and want to meet me. I mean, I’m eighteen years old. I need to get this career going as soon as I graduate.”
I felt like I was losing her. I finally pushed my way past the two girls and wrapped my right arm around Charisma’s waist. The ‘friends’ didn’t stop me. In fact they started walking in the other direction as if our conversation had started to bore them.
“No, you’re right,” I said. “I’m excited for you.”
“Thank you.”
I smiled at her with my chin held high. “So. Now that I’ve seen your new hair color, do you notice anything different about me?”
She closed her locker and started walking toward her next class. I had to jog a few steps to keep up with her.
“Your eyes are a little bloodshot,” she said.
I pointed at my chin, walking proudly.
“What?” Charisma asked. “Your chin swollen or something?”
I pulled her in close and forced her lips to graze my chin.
“Oh!” she shouted. “Is that…”
“Yup. Facial hair, baby!”
“Wow,” she said in a dreary tone. She didn’t seem that excited. Her whole attitude at the moment seemed to be screaming at me to run the other way.
“So that settles it,” I said, ready to deliver the most important question of all. “You want to go to my place, or you want me to go to yours?”
Charisma furrowed her brow and started laughing. “You expect me to accept that as enough reason to have sex with you, Cameron?”
“You said I needed to grow facial hair.”
“Yes. Facial hair. Not a hair. Not a pathetic little patch of peach fuzz.”
I was so disappointed I couldn’t even look at her. “Come on, Charisma. I mean, what the hell do I have to do…”
“I’ll tell you,” she said, wrapping her arms around the back of my head. At this point I felt like she was just messing with me, and that in the end she had little to no interest in my man parts. “I promise you, right here and now, I will have sex with you. If you can grow a beard.”
“A beard?”
“Yes. I want it thick and groomed. I want something I can run my hands through. That, to me, will prove you’re a man, and that will get me to finally hand my sacred gift over to you.”
I just shook my head. “I can’t grow a beard, Charisma.”
“Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”
She started pulling her hands away from my face.
I felt defeated, like I needed to earn a billion and one tickets for a prize I could never win. “All right,” I said, trying to remain positive. “I’ll do my best.”
“You better.” She started walking down the hallway. “Wish me luck on the filming.”
“Good luck!” I shouted, flashing Charisma a smile more hateful than pleasing.
As I watched her succulent body meander down the hall toward the last classroom on the right, I came to a sad realization.
She’s never gonna let me sleep with her.
“Martin, don’t you have a class to get to?”
Startled, I smashed my right shoulder into the locker next to me.
Mrs. Gordon flashed me a smirk as she made her way toward the library. There was an attitude in her step, as if she wanted me to check out her ass.
I closed my eyes and didn’t open them until I knew that witch was around the corner and out of my sight.
4. Twenty-One
“Cameron!” my mom shouted. “Breakfast!”
I sauntered into the kitchen, barely awake, and smashed my butt onto one of the six chairs at our massive kitchen table. My sister sat across from me, finishing her honey nut cheerios and downing a large glass of orange juice.
“Here you go,” my mom said, sliding three blueberry pancakes from the pan to my plate with an over-sized spatula.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Wow, look at you!”
She took a step forward and placed her sweet smelling palm on my hairy chin.
“Cameron, is that what I think it is?”
I smiled. “Can you believe it?
It’s finally coming through.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” she said. “My son is finally becoming a man.”
I almost choked on my first bite of the pancakes. “Jesus, not you, too! Since when does becoming a man mean having hair on your face? I mean, shouldn’t it be about what’s on the inside?”
My mom rolled her eyes and walked back to the kitchen counter. “Your father and I were starting to get worried, Cam. We were thinking we were gonna have to take you to a doctor or something.”
“For not having facial hair? Are you serious?”
“Well, you’re almost eighteen. It was starting to freak us out. We thought you might’ve been actively plucking every hair or something. Or going to one of your father’s assistants for a secretive wax job.”
“A wax job?”
“When did your voice break?” my little sister asked, a trail of O.J. running down her pale, naturally hairless chin. “It was the summer after your freshman year, right? I’d have to say in every way you’re a late bloomer.”
“Nobody was asking you,” I said to Kimber, only half-joking.
I stood up from the table and grabbed my backpack. I scratched under my neck and noticed I had a few puffs of chest hair growing in, too.
“Radical,” I whispered.
Kimber laughed. “Did you just say radical?”
“Shut up.”
I started walking toward the garage, when my mom appeared in the hallway. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I turned and stared at her for a moment. “Umm… school. I go five days a week, remember?”
“But you didn’t finish your breakfast.”
I shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re not hungry?” She raced up to me and slammed her right hand against my forehead. I thought she might call my dad and rush me to the hospital before I’d get a chance to stop her. “Cam, are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom. What is it?”
“You always eat your pancakes. Always. Usually I have to stop you from a second helping.”
“I’m fine. I probably just had too much at dinner last night or something.”
“Do you have a stomachache?”