15/9/93

Gray Matter

Yom Kippur brings out the worst in some people.

    There was no telling what might happen on such an ominously beautiful morning. The last swirls of dawn mist were dissipating under the gauzy Thursday sun. Unseen birds twittered like a brunch klatsch of bridge ladies. My wife was hollering at the kids. Or me. Anyway, she was hollering.
    I got up, groaned, scratched my belly, and wobbled off on bleary legs to go flush the toilet.
    It was fate that I should pass the bedroom mirror. I don't know why, but as I walked past I took a look. Mirrors are always so interesting, aren't they?
    Maybe it wasn't fate. Maybe it's that Yom Kippur was approaching. You see, I'm a Jew. All you other Jews will understand the feeling. Self-examination. Introspection. Alright, so some people look deep into their souls, and I look at the mirror, but I feel just as guilt-ridden when the Big Day comes around.
    That's when I saw it. In anguished horror, I saw it, right there in that undeniable mirror, I saw it twisting tortuously like an arthritic accusation, an exclamatory question mark, a bold intruder smack between my proud pectorals. I saw it, and sagged, struck dumb.
    My first gray hair.
    My life flashed before my eyes, like a de Mille epic. Not in Technicolor, not even in black and white, but somewhere in between. Gray.
    I was the first person I ever saw in his death throes. Why me, Lord? Why not somebody old instead? What had I done to deserve this? Then I remembered what I had done: I had kids.
    My wife happened by, and saw the look of desolation on my reflection. "So, you finally noticed it."
    I was aghast, agape, agog. "You knew about this! Why didn't you tell me?"
    "I thought it might upset you."
    "Upset me?!" I was beside myself. "Why should it upset me?"
    She appeared amused. "Ya gonna pluck it?"
    Of course! The obvious solution. "Did you tell anybody about this?" I asked hoarsely. She shook her head. "Do the kids know about it?" No. Then that's it, I could pluck it, no one would ever know, and I could still live a long life.
    The wife smirked. "It'll hurt, you know. Plucked grays are the worst." I let go of the thing.
    I cast her a fiery glower. Through clenched teeth I accosted her: "How would you know?" Her mouth slammed shut. I zeroed in. "You mean ... you've been having gray hairs? I'm married to someone with gray hairs? But ... but we're young," I sobbed. "We're young. Oh, my God, my God!" She lifted my limp, lifeless carcass onto the bed.
    "Truth is," she said, trying to reassure me, "I've been plucking them for years, since before we were married." I made a mental note to call my lawyer.
    She stroked my head, lovingly I thought at first. "But honey," she said, "you have so much to be grateful for. Like for instance, you'll never go gray over here." She patted the top of my head. "You're going bald faster than you're going gray."
    I leaped out of bed and raced back to the mirror. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going bald."
    "You are."
    "Am not."
    "Are too."
    "Am not."
    At that moment, a short child walked in to appraise the ruckus. "Mommy and Daddy fighting again?" 
    "Daddy's upset."
    "Because of the gray hair?"
    I lunged for the little blighter but she squirmed away. "Daddy has a gray hair! Daddy has a gray hair!"
    "Enough!" I bellowed. She danced out the door, still chanting. From down the hall she called out: "And there's another one on your back, too."
    I was still two hours early for work, but I quickly got dressed, unwittingly buttoning my shirt right up to the sagging jowl I'd never noticed before. I rummaged around and found a huge, oversized kipa and put it on.
    "You found God all of a sudden? Or your bald spot?"
    I slammed the door behind me.

    I MADE a run for the bus. I ran as fast as I could. It waited, but got fed up waiting, and drove off. The next one was full, but I pushed my way in. A sweet little boy got up and offered me his seat. I went over and kneed him.
    I'm young, I reminded myself. Immortal. Why, only yesterday...
    But I couldn't recall a thing about yesterday, not that it really  mattered because in any case I lost my train of thought. It came back soon after when I noticed a couple of teenagers smooching on the back seat. Kids these days. They should be thinking about past sins, not creating new ones.
    A bus is a good place to sort out one's life. It has something to do with watching the world go by. Bus riders are more in touch with mortality, for we are naked in every stranger's reflection. Destiny, or destination, is predetermined.
   We hold no power over the driver, but he holds no awe over us. Just like with God. We advise, criticize, cajole, abash, not with disrespect, but without respect. God, too, knows it's nothing personal.  
    The man in his car can go left, or right. He can have the radio on or off. He can smoke, burp, smell bad; his is a private realm. Lulled by aloneness, he does not have to tolerate another man's shoulder at his, he does not have to stay in step with the milling mass. He can have sprouted his first gray hair, but he will not see himself unless he sees himself as a mirror for the rest of humanity.
    That explains why everybody on the bus was staring at my gray hair.
    That explains everything but one thing: Why me, Lord? I'm so young. I will be expecting some answers when I take this up with Him on Yom Kippur. If I should live so long.