The Secret Life of Herman, My Beard

To my great surprise, I only became a man in my 26th year of living, when I happened to grow a beard. Until this point, I had been but an undeveloped naïf unschooled in the ways of the world—essentially an adolescent.

Flung suddenly into the adult world, I was ignorant of the ramifications of this facial hair. In my naïve state, I thought it would be a disguise, like putting on a wig and sunglasses. Surely no one would recognize me. “Who is that bearded guy who looks kind of like Joe?” they would ask, at which point I would laugh and say, “Aha! It is me!” And we would all share a laugh about my remarkable disguise and then carry on with our lives. It would be a good trick at parties, and that’s all.

With that expectation in mind, I grew it during a week off of work. Near the end of the week, I was rather disappointed when I ran into a coworker who recognized me immediately without even the slightest hint of uncertainty. Was it me or just a brilliant disguise? Nope, it was just me.

And at first, this was enough—it was just me with a bit of fuzz on the face. There was some consternation amongst relatives (my mother, too passive aggressive to openly voice her dislike of the beard, simply kept asking me why I had grown it, while my father cautioned me that I would find it hot during summer), but the response was generally supportive. The beard was the missing link in my appearance, and I felt at ease with beard related activities, such as thoughtfully tugging the hairs on my chin while reading Dostoyevsky.

But my new facial hair produced unexpected results. The beard opened the door on a whole realm of masculinity previously barred to me. Many of my male colleagues at work began to engage me in beard discussions—fond reminisces of beards long since shaven but dearly missed, rueful confessions of their own inability to grow respectable facial hair, comparisons of grooming methods. Most often, these conversations occurred in the men’s room. Where once were awkward pauses as we passed each other leaving the bathroom, now there were relaxed exchanges on beard related topics (most common remark: “I bet that thing keeps you warm in winter”).

I bore this all with smiling patience, even as it struck me odd that such conversations almost always had to occur in the bathroom. Apparently, it was only in this inner sanctum of virility that we could broach such masculine topics, freed at last from the endless distractions of the women folk, who presumably would interrupt such manly talk with pickle jars that needed opening or shelves that needed leveling or whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing now that I was a man.

The initial awkwardness of discussing shaving techniques with men thirty years my senior gave way to a deeper, more unsettling anxiety. If they were having this conversation with me solely for the sake of my beard, then what did this say about my own worth? Were they talking to me…or to the beard?

Never before had a feature of my personal appearance defined me. Prior to my bearding, no one discussed my glasses with me, nor my hair, my chin, my cheeks. Friends did not come up to me and ask to feel my face, but they were eager to stroke the new beard. Naturally, I felt a bit jealous. I now realized that before the beard I had been essentially faceless and formless in the eyes of others. If I were to rob a liquor store now, the description on the six o’clock news would make prominent mention of a bearded man. The police sketch would likely show me in a hoodie with the single defining feature of the drawing being the dark beard scribbled in charcoal. But if I had robbed a liquor store in my clean-shaven state, I would have been effectively anonymous. “I can’t explain it,” the confused clerk would have told reporters. “Some clothes floated into the store and emptied the till and then disappeared.”

A colleague repeatedly insisted that every beard should have a name, and so I obliged him and half-jokingly declared that the beard’s name was Herman (my inspiration was the prodigious beard of Herman Melville). But the joke also underlined the sad truth of the matter, which was that my beard was becoming its own self—it was the popular one, while I was the quiet hanger-on, milling about in the background as everyone talked about it. At parties, people were excited to see the beard, and then as an afterthought greeted me. It wasn’t that I had grown a beard, but rather that the beard had seemingly grown me, like some gangly awkward tail it had to drag everywhere.

Had I become enslaved to my beard? Had it come to define me to such a point that I was nothing without it? This sounded like the premise of a ridiculous cheap horror film, or even worse, a wry existential French drama filled with ennui and loathing. But there was a ring of truth to it as well. If I were to shave off this beard, I would be perceived as somehow less of a man than I once was. To shave it would be akin to chopping off an arm (or some other appendage), and people would naturally shun me out of disgust for my self-mutilation. We were chained together, and there was no breaking the bond now, even if I wanted to.

People say never trust a man with a beard, but I say never trust a beard with a man. Who knows what nefarious plots are hatching somewhere at the base of those dark bristles? They resemble a forest at night, where vile schemes can be concocted under the cover of the canopy, where even the brightest moon cannot penetrate to the rotting leaves and dead skin far below. And more than any other reason, that is why I hold on to this beard, my Herman, despite all of these conflicted feelings I have towards it. For if it were not on my face, who knows what trouble it might get up to?