FEAR OF A BALD PLANET

The night began with myself and my colleague, Richard, playing pool in Lucy’s Bar. We had spent about five dollars playing with ourselves and it didn’t look like it was getting any better. Our humor became more bitter, which made us laugh, but then our jokes ran out. Then our selection on the juke box ran out. Then silence set in.
Richard says, like he says every night.
--What about Ace?
I pause, like I do every night, before I give him my answer, like I’m going to say something different, like there’s ever anything else to do. I look around at the virtually empty bar, the Polish barmaid, her Polish brother and their Polish friend. There are three girls at the other end of the bar paying absolutely no attention to us. They laugh as a bald man at their table tells a hilarious story. Perhaps the bald man is in film. Richard waits for the answer he already knows.
--Yeah, I suppose.
--How much money have we left?
I pull some change out of his pocket. --I’ve a dollar seventy-five.
--I’ve about the same, so we’re not that bad.
Richard puts his stick on the stand and goes into the bathroom. I check my hair in a Budweiser mirror and put on my coat. As we head towards the door I put a lot of effort into looking like I don’t notice the girls with the bald men, in the hope that they may notice that I didn’t notice them. Behind me Richard is probably doing the same thing. The girls don’t have to put any effort into looking like they don’t notice us. They just don’t notice us.
--They were cute, says Richard.
--Yes, but their men are bald. They wouldn’t want guys like us. We have hair and we worry about it. We use hair products and look in the mirror too much. We’re too shallow Richard, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
We cross to the park and walk along Avenue A with the cold wind blowing in our faces. It is late October and the leaves and the garbage chase each other around the sidewalk. Our ETA in the halfway house where we live is eleven. It’s nine-thirty now, leaving an hour to get laid, with five dollars between us and no permanent addresses. An old wino passes, the wind pressing his baggy clothes against his bones and throwing his dirty blond hair about his face. We watch him, watching ourselves. At Seventh Street a group of people with pizzas in their hands block the sidewalk. Richard looks at me in indignation.
--I remember when the only bald people were called Yul Brenner.
--Well, there were others, but they were all called Tele Savalis.
--I hate everything, says Richard. I hate everything, just because its there.
--Me too, I even hate the things that aren’t there. I hate people that I haven’t even met yet, places that haven’t even opened up yet… Somewhere in the East Village a fashionable new bar is about to open up. I hate that place already.
--Me too, says Richard. That place is a fuckin’ dump.
--Somewhere a child is being born. I hate it.
--I’d kill it, says Richard, I’d just kill it immediately.
--Me too.
--It’d be better off that way--save it the miserable journey though life, just to end up dying anyway.
Ace bar is an improvement. There are more people, more females, and the atmosphere is livelier. We skip the bar and walk to the back, ignoring the two girls playing a game on one of the pool tables. Richard chats to me, watching the girls in the corner of his eye. When one of them hits in the eight-ball he stands.
--Wanna play partners.
The winning girl looks at her friend, the friend nods and I stand. Twenty minutes later we are on our second game, Richard chatting to one girl, me chatting to her friend. I work hard at skirting around my domestic circumstances, I live somewhere on the Lower East Side, she has found out, but the exact location confused her and I moved on to talk about something else. My job? Well I paint apartments, but I keep that brief as well in case she knows more about it than I do. Every now and then Richard passes by and helps me out. I throw him back an old line, setting him up for a punch-line. He throws the punch-line back like it was the first time he made the joke. Still, the girls seem to find us amusing and all in all the night is going pretty well.
Then three men arrive, two of them bald. They approach the table, first letting us see their suspicion, then greeting the girls. It is clear they are all good friends but the exact relationships aren’t clear yet.
Richard looks at me and immediately we identify with each others resentment. As he steps in to take his shot I notice one of the men digging in his pocket for quarters. Richard hits in the eight-ball and the two of us return to the top of the table as one of the bald men stoops and begins racking. In this position his head falls directly under the light, giving us an excellent opportunity to inspect his head. It is as we suspected--he has a normal hairline. He is deliberately bald. In other words he chooses to be bald. Perhaps he will choose to be bald all his life until such a time as when he has no choice. Then he will probably grow what little hair he has left and comb it over his bald patch. One day he will realize his mistakes.
He steps back from the light and looks at us through his over-sized thickly rimmed and very fashionable glasses that he bought in the vintage store around Ludlow Street and brought to Cohen’s Fashion Optical to have the lenses put in. His sense of self importance is enormous. His figure speaks to me. It says, I am bald and deep. I care about women’s issues and have a Macintosh computer.
I wonder what message we send out, but forget the thought as the rack cracks and the balls spread about the table.
Richard turns to me. --We have to win this.
The bald man surprises us with his pool playing ability. He runs four balls before he misses. He steps back and stands a few feet away, the base of the cue between his feet, the upper part held out at arms length like a long thin wooden penis. He is proud of his fashionable polyester shirt--also bought in the Ludlow Street district, genuine sixties and the only one like it in the city.
A surprisingly thick tension fills the air. In between shots Richard stands his ground with the girls, still managing to keep a lively looking conversation going. I stand on the opposite side of the table, observing. By now the balds have tuned into the situation. I notice that they are only focused on the pool table. They realize that they are not playing their own kind. They are playing long haired guys, losers with nothing in the world, the kind of guys who might be on welfare or living in a drug treatment program. They didn’t work hard all their lives to have their girlfriends sit around and give these kind of guys attention. They are out to show us that not only are they bald and lead interesting lives, but they can also beat us at pool. But there is a difference in the stakes. A bald could loose and walk out looking like he at least has a life, an apartment, a girlfriend and a job. Me and Richard, on the other hand, with our bad boy image, we have to win or we just look stupid.
I wake up as Richard hands me the stick. In front of me is a white-ball and an eight-ball and nothing else. I watch the eight-ball go in and stand up.
--Good game, one of the men says and shakes my hand, but behind his phony good sport face I can see he hates my guts.
Another game follows. This time the balds win.
--I’ll tell ye what, I say to them, We’ll play you the best of three for fifty dollars.
A silence follows, then the balds begin mumbling to each other under their breath. I can tell by Richard’s face that he is troubled by this move.
--What the fuck are you doing? We don’t even five dollars to bet these assholes.
--So what, we’re not going to loose, and even if we do, what are they gonna do, beat us up.
We stop talking as on of the bald men approaches.
--OK, he says, but I’ll be playing with that guy.
He points to another bald man, a large one, who must of slipped in while we weren’t looking. He looks across from one of the booths and nods, his face like a stone.
--OK, I tell them.
And the game starts. Richard runs the table from the break and we win. The next game starts. I’m expecting us to win quickly and easily but I miss an easy shot and the big bald steps up. He didn’t get a chance to shoot in the last game. He towers over the table, his hair free head giving him perfect visibility, very little confusion. He straddles the table, legs spread, one hand planted firmly in the middle, like a big pool playing tripod. He plays with a Zen like focus and makes every ball. The eight-ball remains but the only shot is a two rail bank shot. Richard looks at me with a deeply judgmental look.
--He’s not capable of making that shot, I say to him.
--He’s bald, says Richard, he’s capable of anything.
The bald man strokes smoothly, the eight bounces off two rails and goes in the pocket.
--You’re a fuckin’ asshole, says Richard. He walks to the table and puts in our last dollar.
--Great, he says and pulls the stick from my hand, now we can’t even go double or noting if we lose.
We look on as the bald tripod forms at the top of the table. Three balls go in off the break, but there’s no shot to follow up with.
Next, Richard sinks five stripes, leaving one and the eight-ball. The bald shoots but for the first time misses. My heart pumps as I approach the table. It pumps a mixture of hatred and fear, a fuel combination that I burn well on and I make the first three rail bank shot that I have ever made in my life.
I step up to look at the eight-ball. It stands right in front of the pocket, the white-ball at a slight angle, unmissable, unscratchable, the money is ours, and our pride.
But I notice something else. It’s almost like the felt is a little smoother, a little flatter.
--Doesn’t the felt look a little strange? I say to Richard.
--It does, now that you mention it, he says.
I look at the tall bald man. He seems to look a little taller, and balder, and his head looks a little longer and more dome like, like some high priest of baldness.
I ignore my overactive imagination and step up to make the shot. But as I rest my hand on the table I find the felt feels strange, like skin, like warm human skin. I focus my eyes on the eight-ball, but it doesn’t look right either, it’s not black enough, in fact it’s sort of pink looking.
I better pot this and get out of here, I say to myself, but just as I am about to hit the white-ball a pair of eyes open and the ball turns into a little bald man’s head. The head laughs, in an evil, villainous voice.
--Did you really think you could beat us, the ball says. Did you really think you could win against bald men. The table is now pink and smooth, with a slight pulse beating in the middle of it. I jump back and drop my stick.
The balds have grown, their heads now oblong, stretching up and back by about an extra foot or so. Their eyes are vicious and angry and their heads pulse with bitterness and rage.
We look around the bar. Escape is not possible. A layer of bald skin has formed on the walls, covering every exit. Ace bar has become an enormous bald womb. A womb of death, for myself and my colleague. We back away from the balds and pick up pool sticks to defend ourselves with but the balds only laugh at us:
--Fools. Do you really think you can harm us with your primitive weapons?
One of the balds looks at my pool stick with such hatred that it bursts into flames.
--The hate ray, says Richard, they can kill us with one glance of their eyes.
The largest of the bald men speaks, his voice deep, like a dying computer:
--Death is not the only way out: Join us in baldness and you may live. We are building a new and better world, a world in which there is no place for men with hair that come into work at seven minutes after nine every morning, a world in which even the homeless will dress fashionably and have an extensive knowledge literature and independent film.
--Never, says Richard.
--Then you will die by your own hair, as an example to all who are like you.
He stares at Richard’s pony tail and it comes alive. It climbs slowly up his back, over his shoulder and makes its way past his Adam’s apple. Richard grabs at the hair, but already it has found its way around his neck. He drops down struggling and grabbing, his face turning blue as the hair tightens its coils, then he stops moving and lies dead on the floor.
--You won’t get away with it, I tell the bald, the world won’t accept this level of baldness.
--Oh, but it will, says the bald. It is. All over the country men are cutting their hair shorter. In every state, in small farms and small cabins in the mountains men are waiting in baldness for the day when they will come out against their enemies… but that day you will never see, for now you must die.
--Fuck you, ye bald cunt, I tell him and spit in his face. He looks at me with a rage in his eyes and I know that at any moment the hate ray will shoot from them and burn me to a crisp.
Suddenly the front door and wall explodes into the bar. Pieces of skin and flesh and baldness fly through the air and I turn and see Chuck Norris behind me. His hair is long and he’s holding huge gun. He points it at the high priest of baldness. Norris’s eyes are strong and for the first time I see fear in the bald mens’ eyes. Norris’s men move up along side him.
--Bald motherfucker, says Norris.
He aims his gun at the high priest and blasts. The high priest’s head explodes and Norris keeps firing. Baldy skin, skull, brains, and blood rain down on me like I’m taking a shower in a bald man. Norris and his men keep on blasting. Bald men are running everywhere, droping, dying.
--Cease-fire, yells Norris
His men lower their weapons and wander in the white gunsmoke through the ripped up bodies of the bald men.
--They’re all dead sarge, says one of Norris’s men.
Norris nods, lowers his gun and walks over to me. I drop my pool stick and stare in disbelief.
--Thank God you got here when you did, I tell him. He was just about to kill me with hate.
--Our sensors picked up a sudden increase in baldness in the neighborhood. We were able to pinpoint it to Fifth Street. We got here as fast as we could.
--Well, thanks Chuck, I say to him.
--Don’t thank me. I’m just doing my job.
--OK, I reply.
He nods at me in an honorable manly way, throws his gun over his shoulder and walks towards the door, his men behind him.