Chapter Eleven

The Awakening, Part Two — Nair Nipples

My best friend, Bruce, and I shared many intimacies, helping each other navigate the longevity of our marriages. Through the years we would spend one or more weekends a year tinkering at home, followed by evening cigars and plenty of drinks. The nights were filled with revelations about each other as the liquor pours progressed. One of my discoveries was learning that Bruce had started shaving his private parts, in his words, “so they were smooth, with no hair on my balls or penis.”

The thought of doing that to myself filled me with terror. Thinking aloud, I said, “First I’ve got to find the correct razor, or razors, then learn how to not cut my manliness.”

“No, no, no,” Bruce said. “Use a beard trimmer with a plastic guard—the razor is too dangerous!”

Each act of shaving became a new learning experience, and the terror never quite abated. I learned, however, that the rewards, which included a little more intimacy and the rediscovery of forgotten sex acts, were well worth the monthly dread of trimming my private parts.

Hope found this new grooming pleasing and reawakening. She once tried to get me to shave the hair off my back; that episode was a scene straight from a movie—never to be repeated. This plus the normal clipping of nose, eyebrows, and ear hair were all I had to do to please my wife. Then came John.…

Several months after Hope’s passing, my friend Scotty invited me to join him and his single friends on the beach. I hadn’t been to the beach as a single man in thirty-two years. I loaded up my backpack, filled my Nalgene water bottle, and packed my sunscreen, a slightly worn beach towel, Native American flute, and other necessities. I bought a brand-new beach chair since Hope and I hadn’t sat on the beach in more than seven years (sun and chemo didn’t mix). Wearing my favorite red, non-classic bathing suit, a newly purchased stylish T-shirt, and an Oceanside Ice Hockey cap, I was ready and looking cool. Oh, did I mention my black flip-flop sandals?

It was late spring, a picture-postcard Long Island beach day with a cloudless blue sky. The sun shone bright, the kind of sun we long for all winter. There was absolutely no humidity and the air was crisp and clean. The ocean was calm, but with just enough wave break to add harmonious sound, which welcomed easy bathing without fighting the waves. It was a perfect day for me to enter a new life and adventure.

Searching the beach, I found Scotty and his crew of single friends who were in their forties and fifties. Real Long Island Irish, German, Jewish, and Italian guys who sported neatly trimmed or slicked-back hair. They were all much taller than my five-foot-five-inch stature and were almost all in good shape. What struck me was that none had any body hair and everyone was already tanned so early in the season.

Scotty introduced me to his buddies like I was the newest member of the beach gang. They welcomed me warmly, and let me know that if I was interested, I could join in the nightly bar scene too. These guys looked like men on the prowl, and they wanted the fun women. I got situated with my chair and towel, and then took off my T-shirt. I was well on the way to losing all the caregiver-anxiety weight I’d gained over the past few years, but I still had a good five pounds to lose. I wasn’t by any means fat, but wasn’t buff like these single guys.

After my shirt came off, one guy, John, stared at me with a shocked, disapproving expression. It wasn’t my weight that startled him, but my “look”—the look of long ape-like hair on my body and underarms, and basically all of my hair everywhere. Like a companion I’d known for years, even though it was only ten minutes, John called me aside from the pack of unattached prowlers. He had advice to share. He wanted me to be gang-worthy.

“Hey, Den,” he said. “You need to groom that mess and look neat. You got to be at your best for the one who’ll count—you know, the one you really want.”

And then John kindly and sympathetically proceeded to instruct me on how a single man should groom himself to avoid turning off the ladies. After his detailed re-imaging, he advised me on how to remove my unwanted hair by waxing my body or using even quicker and cheaper ways, such as applying the hair remover Nair.

“Nair?” I said. “Like the TV commercials for women?”

John answered yes, but revealed that they made extra-strength Nair for removing tough, manlike hair. Intrigued, I actually thought it quite amusing to try. Remembering the past waxing experience of my hair, Nair seemed like an easy, no-fear substitute for unforgotten pain. The conversation concluded with the usual etiquette that ends a conversation when the teacher has nothing more to impart. I must have made a good impression because the guys invited me out to the local Friday night singles scene when beach day ended. I was part of the gang!

A typical guy who wants action and to be loved again, I went from the beach to the local drugstore to buy some Nair. This was the second time since Hope died that I entered a drugstore to buy items I hadn’t purchased in decades. Some weeks before, prior to a date, I had bought some condoms. (I don’t want to leave you hanging, so yes, I got to use them.) What an experience to buy condoms after twenty-odd years. Who knew there were dozens of different kinds: colors, scents, lubrication, ribbed, reservoir end, shaped and sized for big and small penises?

As I looked for condoms, my friend Chris called me on my cell to see how I was doing. He often checked in on me. I love that sweet-hearted man for his true, rare, unselfish caring. He was one of the few people who really helped me through the years with a very welcome “You all right?” phone call. Anyway, Chris had a crisp sense of humor. As I searched among the condoms, he said, “Why don’t you buy one of those types for the really huge penis. When you go to bed with a woman, take the package out with the lights on. Then turn off the lights and switch to a condom really meant for guys like us.” My male ego answered, “I really need the big one,” and laughed with him. Chris always knew how to make me feel good—even in such an awkward moment.

I found the Nair by myself, embarrassed to ask any of the employees where it was. There were several types of hair removers and brands with different applicators. As an “engineering project,” I read every label and reread several until, after about forty-five minutes, I selected three types with different applicators. One was a cream with a sponge applicator, another a cream with a scraper, and the third a spray for hard-to-reach areas in the back. I even bought a long-handled shower brush to help me in the tough-to-reach places. If I was going to do this I was going to do it right and get every bit of gorilla hair the first time around.

I also made a stop at the condom aisle. Maybe I’d get lucky tonight, and a new type of condom would be fun. For the record I went home that night dejected and depressed. I had entered the Long Island bar scene I’d so despised thirty-two years before. Hating my life, I cried myself to sleep. Boy, was I lucky to have found find my mate when I was twenty-one, escaping that horrific single life I so dreaded. Unfortunately, I was learning again that the single life, at least for me, was a crock of shit and lies created by magazines. It’s mostly a life of sadness and loneliness punctuated with taunting glimpses of fantasies becoming reality for a few hours, only to leave you drained of all emotion and energy.

I left the drugstore and went home curious to fashion a new Dennis. I stripped and went into the bathroom to start the new ritual. First, I gazed at my body in the mirror with an altered awareness. Wow, I thought, I do look like an ape. I planned meticulously, like an engineer, how I’d use the different types of applicators and products to remove the hair on my chest and back.

I unwrapped the heavy-duty hair remover, breaking the plastic with my teeth, and read the instructions about as carefully as someone rushing to get on with it. With bottle and sponge applicator in hand I entered the shower, squirted the paste-like white lotion on the sponge, and applied thick layers of the stuff to my chest.

Hey, this is easy, I thought.

I let the cream sit for the prescribed seconds and then used a curved plastic scraper to remove the hair. Clumps of it, in random Mondrian-like patterns, fell off my chest, leaving some areas as bare as a baby’s behind and others with more hair. My chest resembled a checkerboard—a checkerboard of a disappearing old me.

I decided to use the extra-strong cream first, and then do a second pass with another lotion. I also began to wonder how I was going to remove the hair from my back. After a few seconds’ deliberation, I embraced the long scrub brush and moved in front of the huge mirror over the sink. In contorted strokes, I placed the stuff over half my back, ever so aware of the product label, which warned not to keep the lotion on my body longer than the prescribed time. I had nightmare visions of toxic ooze and my skin coming off in sheets. I entered the shower again to brush away the cream.

Have you ever tried to just wash your back with one of those brushes? The effort is frustrating. Now try to imagine scrubbing to remove decades of hair. I gained some muscle that day in places I’d never had to work out before. Soon, most of my upper body hair was gone.

On to the finishing touches: I used the spray to remove the last lingering hairs on my torso and then decided to venture down to my privates. Despite the warning on the bottle not to spray the testicles, I said “What the hell. How bad can it be?” and applied some to my testicles. Oh, my God! Instantly, I felt like my balls were locked in a vise that was crushing them like a rubber ball being compressed into a marble. I grabbed the hand-held showerhead and rushed water over my scrotum for what seemed an eternity, until the frightful squeezing sensation abated. Woo, never again!

With that excruciating ordeal over, I applied the spray to areas that still had hair—like my nipples. Another major mistake that made me wince in agony. Both nipples pulsated and stung. I once again tried to extinguish my error with the shower spray until the pain subsided. Little did I know that the pain would last for weeks: My nipples became so sore that the slightest rubbing against a shirt felt like sandpaper. For days I tried different salves, creams, and other remedies to lessen the pain. At night, I slept with Band-Aids on my nipples. The next weekend, I was at the mercy of whatever activity I was doing. I had to either endure the pain or risk bleeding through my shirt.

The pain eventually subsided, but my hair grew back coarse and prickly. My curly ape-like hair, soft from years of growth, had become cactus needles! Once again I took to the shower and applied hair remover. This time it was a quick job because so little hair had to go. This became a ritual for an entire summer. I don’t think I ever wished beach days to be over so quickly. The Nair procedure was becoming tiresome, and worse, I began to wonder what lasting chemical effects there might be on my body and internal organs. After that experimental summer I decided that if a woman wanted me she would need to love me for me, ape-like hair and all. I was not going to repeat this, just as I had told Hope many years before that I’d never wax my back again. The pain was just too great.

I was still single, but was learning how to be single on my own terms—a difficult task for a man who’d shared every bit of his life for thirty-two years with one woman, a woman who’d laugh at his mistakes and guide him in his quests. Many a night I asked Hope for guidance, even thought she was no longer in worldly physical presence. Hope’s counsel came to me as I asked the Divine. The underlining message was to be myself and trust all that had occurred over the past decades.

Hope wasn’t with me any longer on this earth, but with her Divine guidance, my explorations and discoveries continued with abandon.