He Dived Into the Pool

He dived into the pool in his backyard in a suburb of Chicago in late July the year before I graduated from high school.  He was the brother-in-law of my school friend.  I watched his head come up out of the water and his skull shone through the scraggly, wet hairs.

I thought, “Ough, look at that bald head.”

Years and years and some more years later, I breaststroke across the condo pool in Phoenix diving in and coming out and diving back in and coming back out and not thinking about my hair until I walk up the stairs to the condo and look in the

bathroom mirror and think, “Ough, look at that bald head.”

And so it goes, hair today gone tomorrow.