Say This Next Time They Comment On Your Beard

“When someone has a problem with your beard, remember that it’s not your problem.”

— Anonymous (not the hackers)

A fiction (sort of)

The first time was in high school, a factory of first times if ever there was one.

Grade ten gym class.

Third periods.

I owned when it was soccer day, but ate shit when it was basketball.

We’re going back to 1999, when DMX dominated the air waves, the weird went to raves, and Y2K scared half the West into stockpiling goods. 1999, the Year of Fight Club, Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and our last gasps of freedom before those two towers fell and changed it all.

Anyway, cue the close up on a sleepy Ontarian town of 100,000, where the blue collar folk pick fresh fruit from trees and the deadbeats smoke butts in car lots. Somewhere in the middle of that lied a high school with enough twisted tales of teenage depravity to fill a book.

The cliche hurler in question? Italian dude. We’ll call him Mario for the sake of privacy.

Mario was the kind of guy who’d play Scopa with the kids who had no clue how to play. He’d act like a newbie at first, then he’d fleece the squirts for their lunch money. This guy was out of a John Hughes flick, only Italian. Did I say that part already?

“Look, guys, Teen Wolf!” barked the dark-haired bastard in a locker room full of teenage boys, most in awe of the fact that one of their own could grow a beard like a 40-year-old Israeli, though a select few laughed along with our antagonist.

“Actually, you know what, guys? He’s a Sasquatch!”

Eminem hadn’t peaked yet, which meant I hadn’t yet learned the art of self-deprecation. When wielded with skill, mocking yourself first deflects a bufoon’s attack like nothing else.

So I took the ribbing. Brutal, right?

Because you love irony, here’s your fill for the day — Mario was the only other 14-year-old whose chest hair cloaked all skin on his actual chest.

And like myself, Mario was the only other pubescent son of bitch at ________ ______ High who shaved his face every other day. But I didn’t, and that was the difference.

See, for a guy who had a moustache by grade seven, grade ten stubble was nothing. It was scrimmage. And even though I was an insecure little mute back then, I still wanted to go pro. I’d spent enough nights admiring the flawless curvature and raw depth of Serpico’s beard.

That jet-black mane was the coolest thing I’d witness on a screen since Nintendo 64’s Goldeneye, and I wanted the same one, dammit. And since all I had to do was sit there and let my Mediterrenean (and possibly Arabic) genes do their thing, believe me, reader, I sat there.

I couldn’t explain why then, but I knew people would say something.

And if you, dear reader, are a bearded man, then you know that people still say things about my beard today. Only now, I kind of love it. Hey, I won’t lie.

If being a beard wearer has taught me anything in 38 years of living, it’s that besides being grand symbols of our virility as men, beards double as fine litmus tests for ignorance… both the innocent and the destructive kinds. Here, I’ll give you a true example of the former and the latter:

The Innocent Kind of Ignorance:

“Jesus Christ, how do you eat and kiss through that thing?” One of my ex’s friends once uttered this to me back in 2014, when I’d let my mane reach Marx-like levels. No, I’m not a communist.

Mallory (we’ll call her Mallory) knew not of the natural boon that was beard growing. When the mercury would plummet to minus 30 degrees in the dead of a Toronto February, Mallory couldn’t ensure facial warmth by just sitting there. So I’d let her ill-informed quip slide and simply replied with, “by opening my mouth, wise ass.” Mallory was cool. It was cool.

The Destructive Kind of Ignorance:

“Leo, oh my god, why you gotta always look like a terrorist!?”

If any of you reading this are Middle Eastern, no, I’ve never so much as snickered at such a remark.

———

That last one’s been slung my way more times than you’d care to count, and it’s come from all manner of people, both ignorant and educated. From a couple of the guys with whom I play soccer to close relatives to old ladies, equating me to a mass murdering, religious fanatic over my beard easily ranks as top of the beard comment list.

More irony: Even though my parents are European descendants, my mother always held the theory that I’m part Arab. “My father is from Andalucia, so, trust me, hijo, that makes you part Arab,” she always says to me. But I digress.

What doesn’t need explaining is the hairiness of Middle Eastern men, nor does the fact that calling any bearded man a terrorist is championing ignorance. What does need a moment’s pause is the destructive part — Most would write the terrorist thing off as “ball breaking", but neither you nor anyone else should ever tolerate it. And I don’t subscribe to all that woke stuff or anything. you know. That’s a whole other, much more insidious kind of mind drain. And maybe we’ll talk about it another time. Or maybe not. You never know who’s got their hand on the cancel switch.

The spreading of ignorance dwarfs the evil of wokeness, friends. If you kill ignorance, there’s no need for being woke in the first place.

And really, we ought to not spread stupidity during these times of unrest.

Plus what if I was Arab? Or what if an Afghani was close by when Unnamed Teammate called me the guy who orchestrated that thing that happened in Manhattan 20 years ago?

Call this what you will, but sometimes, a bad beard joke can evoke the darkest of thoughts, the types that thrive the more times they’re voiced, like a fire that’s past the point of getting snuffed.

So, what do you say the next time some stooge calls you Karl Marx?

Ready?

Nothing.

You don’t stoke a fire with more flames. Just get cold and freeze that shit.

Now go make Nietzsche proud.