The Toupee

The day my mom left for the fat farm, dad wore his new toupee. I now see that the two events were related, but back then i didn't see it that way. The way I saw it, fat farms and toupees didn't have much in common. They were totally separate things. But I was wrong.

The fat farm was located in Canada somewhere. My mom weighed 250 pounds and, according to the doctor, if she didn't lose the weight, her organs might start to fail. She didn't want to go, but she had no choice. She needed those organs.

One night, while I was lying in the lower bunk of our bunk beds, I asked Chris my older brother how long it would take to lose 100 pounds.

"A week," he said.

"Well, that's not too long."

I heard Chris snort above me. "You are do fucking dumb," he said. Then I heard him roll over and soon he was snoring.

The weeks before my mom left, I did everything I could to help her lose weight so she wouldn't have to leave. I hid a loaf of raisin bread in the trunk of the Chrysler. I flushed Oreos down the toilet and smashed Twinkies with a big wooden spoon and jammed them into the garbage disposal. I ate most of the ice cream and what I didn't eat, I left in a bowl behind the garage to melt.

One night when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show, I thought I could trick her into exercising, something she never did. I jumped up and started frantically doing the twist.

"Let's dance mom!" I yelled over the blaring music and screaming girls.

"What the hell?" dad said, peering over the top of his newspaper.

My mom looked at me with sad, tired eyes. " I can't exercise, honey. I'm obese."

"It's not exercising, it's dancing," I took her hands and tried to pull her up.

"Jesus, I thought you were having a seizure," dad said,

My mom gently pulled her hands away from mine. "I know what you're trying to do honey, but it's not going to help. I'm going to have to lose weight in Canada."

I kept doing the twist while the Beatles played, I Want to Hold Your Hand. "At the fat farm?"

She sadly nodded her head. "Yes, at the fat farm."

***

"Is the farm really a farm?" I asked Chris the night before she left. We were in our bunks and I could hear him turning the pages of the Playboy that he had stolen from the drugstore earlier in the day.

"Yeah," he said.

"They have cows and stuff?"

"Yeah. They get fat people there and they make them work on a real farm. They have to milk cows, run after chickens to kill them, pick corn, and plow fields and shit. They don't use tractors either. The head farmer like puts a harness on them and they have to drag the plough. They sleep in a barn. It's pretty rugged."

I was picturing my mother with a harness strapped to her trudging through a corn field, when I heard Chris laughing.

"Screw you!" I said.

***

When we took mom to O'Hare Airport the next day, dad made Chris and me go up to the counter and ask for a wheel chair for mom while they waited in the car. When the woman behind the counter asked if mom was handicapped, Chris said she had polio and was going blind. We got the wheel chair in like a minute.

After we watched the plane take off, we drove home and dad, who had been largely quiet all day, came to life and put on the new toupee. It was black, thick and wavy and I covered my eyes and kind of screamed when I saw it. He looked like a short Elvis Presley.

"Is that a wig?" I asked after I uncovered my eyes,

"A toupee." He was standing in front of the hallway mirror reverently patting the toupee down with both of his hands.

"Why are you wearing it?"

"Because I'm tired of being bald, that's why. And I'm opening a new store and I want to look good."

"Where did you get it?"

"A place downtown. A lot of celebrities go there. Cost three-hundred bucks but it's worth it. People don't trust bald men. They trust hair. You think JFK would be where he is today if he was bald? Not a chance."

"Do you wash it?"

Dad stopped patting his hair down and looked at me. "You know, I never thought to ask."

"Maybe you should take it to the dry cleaners."

Dad didn't respond. He was patting his hair down again and then I noticed he was humming.

***

Dad wore the toupee every time he went to Pete's Records, the new store. The original Pete's Records was in downtown Chicago but my Uncle Tyki ran that one, The new one was dad's responsibility and he wanted to look good like JFK. Every morning he'd stand in front of the mirror and place the toupee on his head like it was a crown. When he came home though, he would causally toss it on the dining room table like it was a hat." Damn thing is itchy," he said.

"Why do you think Dad got a wig?" I asked Chris while he was stepping up the ladder to get in bed. I had waited up for him to ask him this.

"He wants to bone women."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? He waited until mom went to the fat farm to try it out and see if he could bone women."

I was quiet.

"You know about sex right?"

"Yes." I had recently learned about it and along with fat farms and toupees, I was still processing things. "You mean he wants to have sex with someone?"

"Probably the blonde woman who owns the bakery next to the new record store. Delores. She's got huge boobs. I seen them talking together all friendly and giggly -like at the store when I went there the other day. Him and Blondie."

"What about mom? Shouldn't he just bone her?"

"They probably haven't had sex since you were born. I mean, would you bone mom?"

The question was disgusting. "That's gross. I wouldn't bone her even if she was skinny."

"Oh yeah? What if she looked like Joey Heatherton?"

"Who's he?"

"Jesus, go to bed."

***

The next day I went to the new store on 95th Street a few blocks from home. I hadn't been there since the Grand Opening when dad made me stand in front of the place passing out balloons which no one wanted. When I walked in I saw a blonde woman talking to dad over the counter. Dad's face was red and the toupee looked more Elvis like than ever.

I felt a rush of anger. He can't bone her! He can't! He can only bone mom! She was getting skinny.

"Dad! Our house is on fire!"

Dad jerked his head around to face me. "What?"

"Nothing." I walked to the little storage room in the back and picked up some scissors for some reason and walked out again. When I passed Blondie, she smiled at me. Her boobs were huge and they pointed at me like missiles.

***

That night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Blondie and dad. I finally got up and went downstairs for a glass of milk. While I was drinking it, I saw the toupee on the kitchen table, just lying there all innocent like. I finished my milk and put the glass down and picked up the toupee.

***

"Where the hell is it?"

"Maybe you left it at the new store," I said eating the last of my cinnamon pop tart.

"What? I brought it home. I always bring it home." Dad was rushing around the house, looking behind chairs and pillows and opening and slamming drawers.

"Was it windy? Maybe it blew off."

"Where's Chris?"

"He left."

"Do you think he took it?" Dad slammed another drawer shut.

"Maybe. He really likes it and said he wished he was bald."

"I'm going to kill him,"

"I'll ask him if I see him."

"I can't go into work bald. Everyone thinks I have hair!"

I was starting to feel sorry for him then remembered Blondie.

"Tell everyone you have a disease that makes you go bald."

"In one day?"

"A rare disease. Something from the Tropics."

Dad ran into the living room and got on his hands and knees to look under a couch.

"Maybe you threw it down the laundry chute by accident. It kind of looks like a wash cloth."

Dad stood up and rushed to the mud room where he rifled through a pile of hats. He put on my White Sox cap, and pulled it down very low, just over his eyes. He looked like a weirdo.

" No one can tell now," I said.

" I have to go. The new Beatles album is being delivered today and there'll be line." He ran out the door and I watched him roar off in the Chrysler with the loaf of raisin bread in the trunk. After he was gone, I ate another Pop Tart then opened the doors under the sink and pulled out the toupee. I then went upstairs and put it in a shoe box in the back of my closet where it stayed a long time.

**

After my mom came home she was skinny. She had lost a lot of weight and she kept losing more. She did jumping jacks like they were going out of style and ate lots of cottage cheese. A year later, after she finished her college degree, she divorced dad. Soon after, the new store closed and he was broke so he had to move in with my grandparents on the West Side. Chris said he was depressed, and I felt sorry for him. He slumped when he walked, and didn't say much. The last time I visited him, he hadn't bothered to tie his shoes.

On his birthday, I decided to cheer him up. I went over to my grandparents and we had steak and chocolate cake. My grandfather gave him dad an envelope that I knew had money in it, and my grandmother gave him a sweater that I knew he would never wear. Then I have him my present.

"What's this?" he asked when I handed it to him.

"Open it," I said.

Dad looked at it again.

"Go on, open it," I said.

"Dad finally began to open the shoe box.

"You're not going to believe what I found," I said.