Human Hair Wig
© Michael Buckley


1.
Alan waited for his daughter a half block down from her house.  It was fall outside, what passes for fall in Southern California; the beds of grass along the street cold from the inside, so he could feel a change without really feeling it at all.  She called his name and Alan turned and waved her down.
    “Why’d you park all the way down here?” she asked.  Reed had just turned fourteen.  Her face looked pinched all the time now, as if the world was made of bad smells. 
    “Just makes it easier,” he said, and opened the car door for her.  The aromas of cookies and hyacinth edged past them.  Car fresheners had the strangest scents these days.

2.
“O.K., darling,” Alan said.  He turned on the country station.  She loved these songs, the sad songs, just a guitar and a voice. 
    “Where are we going?” 
    Alan drove toward Balboa Park.
    “First we’ll go to the decommissioning ball.  Then we can go see some fireworks.”
    “A ball?  With dresses and stuff?”
    Alan tried to picture the sailors he’d known over the years in dresses, milling around in the hammered-out light.  He laughed.
    “What, dad?”
    “No dresses.  More like people from the ship.  Standing around talking.  You’ll probably think it’s boring.”
    “I probably will.”
    Why did I say that last part? Alan thought.
    “You might like it,” he said.
    Trying not to be obvious, Alan snuck a look at the stiff cascade of the wig Reed was wearing. 

3.
They had shut the Science and Technology Museum down for the de-com party.  The scuttlebutt was that the captain’s wife was part of a group of volunteers that ran the whole place, and it made Alan smile to see it: pink fliers with the words Anchors Aweigh on them, a huge banner hung in front of the museum, between the SR-71 and the other jet Alan didn’t know the name of. 
    “What’s the Pettibone?”  Reed asked.
    “Ship I spent the last four decades on.”
    Alan looked out of the corner of his eye at his daughter.
    “You know what a destroyer is?”
    “Yes, dad.”
    “Little ship that protects the big one.”
    “You told me that when I was eight.”
    “All those years ago?”
    Reed didn’t seem to hear him.  She passed through the shadows of the two jets and under the banner.

4.
Enlisted men and women crowded display floors with guided missiles and pedal gliders and shreds of Montgolfier’s first balloon.  All the way inside the museum was a sort of glass courtyard, airplanes and helicopters hung throughout it blocking the sun and shade into blade-like shapes over the ferns and flowers and dry fountains beneath. 
    “It’s cold,” Reed said.
    “F-4.  Look.”
    Alan pointed to one of the planes suspended overhead.  He felt the girl hesitate, touching the edge of her wig with her fingertips. 
    “Did you used to fly one?”
    “Gawd no.  I’m a petty officer.  I work for my money.  And they wouldn’t let me sit in one of those things if my ass was made of gold and I farted leather conditioner.”
    Reed looked at him, face pinched.
    “You wanna come in and meet some of the guys?”
     She held up her cell phone.
    “Let me make a call first.  I’ll be right in.”

5.
Alan found the bar in the zeppelin section of the museum, and Fager standing beside it.  They greeted each other and Alan got a drink and Fager stood there, chest out, hoping Alan would notice his new shirt.  It was from the U.S.S. Ticonderoga.  Alan had heard Fager was made chief of their fire control team.  He avoided the subject and after twenty minutes found himself in a conversation he hadn’t planned to have about his ex-wife:
    “I shouldn’t have married a girl so young,” he said.
    “What you gonna do?  You think your brain makes the decisions in your life, you’re stupider than you look.”
    The last conversation he’d had with his ex was about Reed’s wig.  It had to be human hair.  Up until that moment Alan hadn’t given thought to what wigs were made of.  That was months ago, when the Pettibone had just docked.  Alan was thinking about his retirement and figuring that the expensive human hair wig wasn’t the best option.  Weren’t there horse hair wigs?  You can land a man on the moon, you can make horsehair look good on a thirteen year old girl, he’d said.  His wife broke into tears and Alan paid for the human hair.     
“That her?” Fager pointed and Alan saw Reed next to a flight simulator with fat, shiny lightning bolts painted on the sides.  She was talking on her cell phone, chopping at the air with a hand, holding her hair against the side of her head with the other. 
    “That’s her.”
    “Pretty girl.”
    “Thanks.”
    “She look like her mother?”
    “Don’t know.  I’m not objective anymore.”
    “Sure as shit ain’t as ugly as you.”
    “Thanks.”
    “That all it is?  Stress?  That shit can make all your hair fall out?”
    “Guess it does.  Divorce, that’s what her doctor said.  The stress of it.”
    “Should have grown up where I did.  I prayed for my old man to find somewhere else to go.”
This is how men talk in ships, in insults.  
    “Fuck off, Fager,” he said, and walked away.

6.
There was another bar near the First Flights area.  Two members of Alan’s old fire crew were there, Monfort and Mantle, two pale men with prominent joints and eyes and Adam’s apples; they were inseparable. 
    “The Bone,” Mantle said.
    “The Bone,” Alan and Montfort echoed, and they drank.
    “Good to see you, Chief.  How’s retirement?” Mantle asked.  The man was covered in razor burn.
    “Good.  Don’t do shit.  My closet’s organized as hell.”
    “Did I see you brought that daughter you always talk about?”
    “Yeah.  She’s in the flight simulator.”
    Mantle ducked and faked a gut punch with his drink hand.
    “Got an aviator on your hands, Chief.  No gun monkey like us.”

7.
“I’m leaving the Navy,” Monfort said.
    “Doing what?”
    “Aw…”
     “His brother owns a porta-potty company.  Monfort’s gonna drive the honey wagon,” Mantle said.
    “The honey wagon?”
    “The truck that goes around and sucks up the blue shit-piss soup.  That’s our boy.  I’m staying in the Navy.  Fuck the outside world.”
    Alan looked away from Mantle as he mimicked the act of emptying a porta potty; it reminded him of a crude gesture for oral sex.  Over the two men’s heads was a mockup of the Wright Brothers’ glider, a dummy inside it, face angled to a false wind, plastic strands of hair sprayed back.
    “So what happens to the Bone now?” Mantle asked.
    Alan looked at him.
    “You know what happens to the Bone.  It’s de-commed.  They cut it apart.”
    Mantle and Monfort looked away.  And it struck Alan then: the USS Pettibone, Arleigh Burke class, slower than the new ships and puny compared to the chevrons of jets that resonate overhead during fleet ops like thunder upon thunder—but visible within the Bone’s movement through scabby seas was the ease and grace and speed of a woman, of a fine ship, of yourself in your best incarnation.  And now this ease and grace and speed would be dismantled, some melted down, some sold, some lost among other industrial waste. 

8.
Alan found Reed and gestured with his head toward the door and the shadow of the banner outside. 
    “You want to leave?” she said.
    “Don’t you?”
    She held up a program someone had given her.
    “It says the captain is going to speak soon.”
    “Probably not missing much.”
    They walked back toward the car.  It was dusk and the cooler weather was channeling into the hills’ depressions along the park and the buildings themselves looked overwhelmed with details: saints, devils, the vertical deckwork of heaven.  Alan’s mind caught on something.
    “You know, California used to be part of Mexico.  We were the illegals.  Just look at all of these buildings.”
    Reed laughed. 
    “Dad, seriously?  These buildings were built in like the 30’s.  It was a World Fair or something.”
    “Well.  In that case they look like shit.”
    Reed paused.  They passed an enclosed garden or aviary or useless sculpture, who knew what it was. 
    “I like them,” she said. 

9.
They drove to a restaurant at the edge of the greenbelt Balboa Park sat within.  Alan had expected the de-com party to take longer and had figured they’d go from there to University Park and walk a little and Reed would get cotton candy and he’d let his brain float above his body, tethered in the lights, a man with his daughter.  But they had a lot of time and she was hungry and dour and didn’t respond at all when he mentioned cotton candy. 
    The restaurant was a big Italian place and wouldn’t let him forget it, flags everywhere, empty wicker bottles of Chianti, pictures of popes.  Reed ordered a salad and Alan ordered a gin and tonic and a medium pizza.
    “So how’s your mom been?”
    “Good.”
    “She seeing anybody?”
    Reed gave him a terrible look.
    “You still playing soccer?”
    She wasn’t.  Reed had taken up photography and spent her time hunting down natural compositions; slices of prettiness, her teacher called them.  All her friends were photographers too. 
Alan listened and considered what was best—ask her about the wig or pretend like he couldn’t tell.  Wouldn’t that be a gift?  What stress, darling?  What divorce?
    After Alan’s second gin and tonic the food came.  About the same time a young man in a tight shirt stopped by their table and asked if they’d like a balloon animal.
    “A what?” Alan asked.
    “Balloon animal.  I can make anything.”
    Alan felt Reed’s face change, she liked the boy and wanted a balloon. 
    “Sure,” Alan said.  “Make me a lower intestine.”
    “Poof.  You’re a lower intestine.”
    Reed laughed and Alan blushed hard and wanted to punch the kid. 
    “I’ll take a flower,” Reed said. 
    The kid had an air pump that extended out of an apron he wore.  It looked like a bright green dick to Alan, probably because the kid used it by jerking his circled finger and thumb up and down.  He worked quickly and handed Reed a balloon flower with fat purple petals. 
    “Don’t know which one’s prettier,” he said.  Reed smiled like he hadn’t seen all day, the same quality of smile she used to get when she was seven or eight and Alan tickled her and asked her who loved her most in the world.
    They both looked at Alan at once.
    “What?” he said.
    “Dad.  He works for tips,” Reed hissed.
    “Keep working,” Alan said, and the boy drifted away. 
    Who makes balloon animals? Alan thought.  Who even teaches that shit?  Reed stared at her plate, angry, and Alan’s mind leapt to an image of Fager standing in front of an enormous picture of the Hindenburg, smiling like a bishop.

10.
Alan drove them both to an out-of-the-way sidestreet he’d scouted just for the July 4th fireworks; it overlooked Balboa Park and beyond that downtown San Diego and beyond that Coronado.
    The street wasn’t abandoned as he thought it would be.  Cars were parked fender-to-bumper and people lined the sidewalks.  Alan fought the urge to curse and parked along a strip of red curb. 
    “Dad, we’ll get a ticket,” Reed said.
“No one’s gonna give us a ticket.”
    They stood along the sidewalk as the fireworks started.  It was a great show and started out full blast, big silver webs, the concussions echoing in Alan’s liver.
    “Wow,” he said. 
    “I saw a firework show when mom took us to Wisconsin.  It was at a circus there, right by a lake.  These guys dressed up as clowns were shooting them off from the dock.  And then a whole bunch went off at once, right on the dock.  The clowns had to jump in the water.”
    Alan laughed.
    “Happy fourth, huh?” 
    A moment later, looking at the bright reflections in the balloon flower she still held, he asked her:
    “Got a boyfriend these days?”
    She scowled and shook her head.
    Something in the look reminded Alan: At fourteen you’re sure you speak a language no one has ever heard before.  Boyfriend, girlfriend?  No—there’s no word for the wholeness I feel around, say, this one young girl, her sandals, her swinging black hair.  And then you get older and you realize that there is a word for it, and more than that, it was your feelings that were wrong, not the world they were exploding into.  He lifted a few strands of hair off of her shoulder and rubbed them between his fingers.  Her eyes had a funny sort of fear.  Just before he pulled band-aids off, when Reed was a little girl and her mother and him were happy and she was getting ready for a cool bath on a summer night the same temperature as blood, that was the look, the fear. 
    “Do you have a girlfriend?” Reed asked.
    Alan laughed.  “No.”
    “Why not, dad?”
    “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
    He watched Reed watching the fireworks.  She was young; as the light swelled and receded on her face, Alan felt made of clay and ashes.

11.
After the show ended they got in the car to drive back to Alan’s hotel.  Reed seemed tired, or thoughtful, or distracted—she kept checking her cell phone, and Alan thought it would be rude to ask why.  As he pulled away from the curb the car lurched and there was a tremendous bang.  Alan screamed and threw on the parking brake.  The living white smoke of a firework was pouring out of the wheel well, and across the street, a bunch of kids scattered. 
    “Dad—it’s OK.  It’s just a firecracker,” Reed said.  He felt her hand on his shoulder; his heart jack-hammering, bright shapes in front of his eyes.

12.
Back at the hotel Reed stuck close to his side as they climbed the stairs, cupping his elbow in three fingers. 
    “It’s cold in here,” she said.  Alan had left the air conditioning on all day.
    “Sorry, honey.  I’ll turn it off.”
    Alan set the temperature in the mid 70’s and Reed walked straight through the room to the bathroom. 
    Wow, Alan thought, some Chief Gunner, almost wets his pants when a firecracker goes off under his tire.  And it wasn’t the sound that had scared him; Alan remembered loving the concussions in the cramped firing chamber as they dropped shells onto the shore.  The sound was a substance that mapped the interior of his bones.  He loved playing the role too.  During Vietnam the Pettibone had launched a spate of fire missions for the 1st Infantry, a group so chewed up by the war they’d re-named themselves the 1st Injury.  The soldiers put on a barbeque for the Pettibone gun crews at the end of the battle.  They all stood on the aft helo deck, the soldiers as scrawny and obtuse as cave demons, and Alan shouted What? to every question they asked.  They laughed at the gunner’s shot ears. 
    Sound was something Alan could bear, but sound in proximity to Reed, sounds being sudden, bright destructions, scared him to his guts. 
    He decided to scoop out some ice cream for them.  As a little girl she’d loved ice cream with things in it, marshmallows, crunchies, chocolate bits.  It was always more expensive so Alan, on leave, had bought a box of cereal and mixed it with chocolate ice cream.  It became Reed’s favorite.  He did this again, left it on the hotel counter, and walked to the bathroom.  His knuckles poised over the door, he heard Reed talking on her cell phone.
    “The petty-bone,” she hissed, and stifled laughter.  “I don’t know what it means.  And they call their ship the boner.  They did call it that.” 
    Alan lowered his hand.
    “O, some kids put a firecracker or something under the tire.  He practically shit his pants!  It’s terrible.  We’re driving around in a mini-van and staying in a hotel.  He’s like an old man.”
    Alan walked away from the bathroom door and washed out the bowl of ice cream.    

13.
The hotel room had a balcony—one of the few that did.  The night was warm and he watched a few boys play hide and seek in the decorative trees by the parking lot.  It looked like they were alone and Alan wondered if anyone knew where they were. 
    Maybe I don’t understand it, he thought.  Reed as a baby, her head so hot in his palm, like peach skin wrapped around a heart.  What would her head look like now?
    He imagined telling her that it was O.K. to mock him, to lie about him, to ridicule him if it made her feel better.     And he would take her to the shipyards tomorrow.  You could see the Pettibone’s last berth from the street and they would watch the torch arc crawl over the old ship.  As her insides were exposed Alan would tell Reed he could see his life escaping, threaded with the steam of the cutting torches, his life of duty—then they’d go to eat again at the Italian place, and he’d buy her balloons and watch the boy with the air pump tell jokes and he’d will the human hair wig to grow into her skin and stay. 



_____________________________________________________________________