Alec was bald and no one knew why.  Of all the second grader’s oddities, this was the most interesting.  All eight year olds have their kinks, their oddities, their strange habits that leave teachers and parents scratching their heads.  Some tikes are obsessed with manatees, others have their trading card games, and everyone has seen a lonely kid put dirty, sticky found objects in their mouths when no one is looking.  Just the other day I saw a kid packing playground mulch into all of his cargo pockets, his sweatshirt hood, even his tighty-whities.

The smooth scalp on Alec might have been peculiar, but Alec himself was not strange, or immature, or weird.  He had an intensity, an odd aura of maturity. It emanated from his hands – his always moving, always touching, stroking, absent minded zipper pulling, handrail grazing, eternally rubbing, fragile little hands.

More often than not the hands caressed the skinned dome of his head.  Most kids thought Alec shaved his head.  The most popular rumor was that Alec shaved his head to avoid attention from fat Amanda who was caught with a hair doll in kindergarten.  Fat Amanda only liked blond hair in her hair dolls and most would agree Alec would have blond hair.  Billy thought he overheard his mom telling a friend’s mom that Alec was too traumatized to have hair after watching his sister’s hair get caught in an escalator.  The truth is Billy mom is a former high school drama gossip princess whose maturity (and virginity) never made it out of her senior prom.  Alec doesn’t even have a sister.

For a while, his classmates thought that Alec was bald from an accident or chemo or some other adult stuff.  This rumor was disrupted after Fred delivered homework to Alec’s home after chicken pox swept through the school.  This revealed two truths to Fred and his friends.

1.    It was possible to get chicken pox on the top of your head.  Alexis had confirmed it was possible to get it in your arm pits and Josh’s brother had received firsthand evidence the genitals were also suspect.  Now the class knew that it could indeed spread to your head. This fact was nearly masked by the second:
2.    Fred’s view of the red constellations on Alec’s head was partially obstructed by stubble.  After a quick discussion with Josh and Billy, the second grade class came to the conclusion Alec shaved his head.  Their classmate was no hairless freak of nature, just the regular garden-variety quirk.

Alec tried to shave his head during the chicken pox epidemic.  As he filled the sink with water, he started at his reflection.  Curious, his hands rubbed the short hairs.  Fingers spread, they stroked from the nape of his neck to the dome of his head.  The sensation sent shudders through his tiny frame.

Today Alec felt like an African explorer.  That would explain the scattered itchy pox (mosquitoes) and the heat emanating from his hungry body (jungle fever).  With the shaving cream, he outlined a safari hat on the bathroom mirror.  He reached for the razor, but then remembered he forgot a khaki vest, little claw necklace, and gruff mustache and light chest hair.  Dashing.

After lathering his head, he made the first pass with his razor.  Just as his imagination started beating out a bongo drum rhythm, his dropped his razor after it bit him.  He looked into the sink.  Shaving cream clouds were peppered with specks of hair, flocks of tiny birds. Blood dripped into the bathroom sink skyscape.  Alec’s hand reached in and squeezed the puffs of cream.  No impostor clouds on this morning.

Chicken pox cannot be remedied by shaving them off, just like they can’t be remedied by scratching them off.  A few more drops of blood landed in the smooth lathered surface of the water.  Cautiously, they branched into webs and spirals, choking the white clouds.  Alec imagined that sunsets in Africa might look something like that.  Weeks later, Alec had the same thought when his dad slit his wrists over a bowl of milk and breakfast cereal.

Before Alec had a chance to wipe off the mirror, it fell from the wall.  For a second, Alec thought he was falling.