How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions Excerpt
In honor of Black History Month, BWSA is recognizing a different book in Black Women’s Studies every day in February using #28DaysofBWS on Twitter. Some texts will also be featured on the BWSA blog with author interviews or book excerpts. Follow us on Twitter and check back daily for new reading recommendations!
Our first excerpt is from How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions by Dr. Stephanie Andrea Allen. In this daring collection of speculative fiction, Stephanie Andrea Allen attends to the lives of Black women, mostly lesbian or queer, all keenly aware of the forces seeking to consume them. How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions is an unapologetic, often humorous, foray into the quotidian magic that envelops Black women’s lives. The eleven stories in this collection are filled with characters who will entice and delight readers as they traverse the worlds around them. With a mix of fabulism, near future, and speculative fictions, Allen reminds us in exquisitely nuanced prose that the fantastical can be found amongst the ordinary.
Hirsute
The errant strand was just to the left of my eyebrow, about a half-inch down from my hairline proper. At first, I thought it was lint or something, and attempted to brush it off. Once I realized it was a strand of hair, I was annoyed, but decided to leave it alone. Every day though, it grew longer and longer, until finally, it was almost touching my eyebrows. I considered cutting it off, although that would leave a stubby strand sticking out of my face. The only way to get rid of it permanently was to pluck it out. I sighed the weary sigh of middle-aged women everywhere, grabbed a pair of tweezers, pulled out my make-up mirror, and got to work. Since turning fifty, more and more of these stubborn hairs had been sprouting all over my body: my head, my face and chin, even my pubes.
I was able to keep up with the chin hairs, a little work with the tweezer every other week did the trick. There was no point in worrying about the pubic hairs, I mean, nobody was going to see them but me. And even though everyone told me that they loved the silver strands that now peppered my temples, I hated them. It wasn’t just my temples either; to my horror, most of the back of my head was dappled with white hair. Sure, I’d had a little gray hair for years, I’d found my first one when I was twenty-one. My stylist at the time, Miss Ruby, had advised me to leave it alone.
“Why?” I asked as she gently lay my head back into the sink. I was home for the holidays and as usual, the first thing I did upon arrival was head to her shop for a wash and wrap.
“Well, you know Lorna, if you pluck that hair, ten more will grow back,” Ruby said.
“Hmmm,” I said, giving myself over to Ruby’s healing hands. She had the softest hands and nicely manicured nails, just right for a gentle cleansing. Lots of women loved the vigorous scrubbing they’d get at the beauty shop, but not me. I liked a more tender touch, and Miss Ruby’s was perfect.
Of course, I didn’t believe her old wives’ tale, but I didn’t pluck that one silver hair out of my head either. At the time, I thought it was pretty, and it was only years later when I noticed that I was growing a head full of them that I decided to do something about it. I’d always played with hair color, like that time when I was sixteen and used cherry Kool-Aid to dye my hair red. I thought it was cute, and all the girls at school had tried it. And guess what? It worked! I’d had reddish highlights for about a week, or until the next time I washed it.
There was also that time I decided I wanted a red streak, right in the front of my hair. Kind of like Bonnie Raitt’s streak of silver, which I thought was mad sexy. Once again, Miss Ruby had given me a bit of advice that I’d ignored.
“You know if you bleach your hair it’s going to fall out,” she’d said that day as she clipped my dead ends.
“Really?” I’d asked her to lighten my hair and she’d said no because I’d just gotten a relaxer. It was too soon, she’d said.
“Yes, the only way to get that color is to bleach it and then put the red color on top. Wait a couple of weeks and come back. It will take a couple of visits, but if we do it right, we can keep your hair from breaking off, and I can get it just like you want it,” Ruby had said.
“Hmmmm,” I’d replied, already thinking about how much lift I’d need to get at the Golden Beauty supply store down the street. Against Ruby’s advice, three days later I’d used peroxide and bleach to lighten a patch of hair and dyed it blood red. And just like she’d said, that patch of hair slowly but surely had started to shed. Two weeks later, I’d had to dye it all black so that the broken off patch of hair wouldn’t be so noticeable.
These days, I’m using professional grade color to cover up this gray hair. I’m happy with the results, although I just wish I didn’t have to do it at all. The last time I saw Miss Ruby, she’d told me that I’d regret it if I didn’t leave my hair alone.
“Stop fighting Mother Nature,” she’d said. “It’s a battle you can’t win.”
I know that I don’t have to cover my gray hair, but I want to. Just like I wanted to get this piece of silver hair off of my face. I tugged and tugged but it refused to budge. Finally, the long piece broke off, and just a tiny piece remained. I turned the mirror over to the magnified side to see better, angled my tweezers, and got hold of the hair as close to the skin as I could get. I used my left hand to hold my forehead taut, and finally, finally, I was able to yank out the last bit of hair.
“Good grief! That was like pulling teeth!” I said aloud. I washed and moisturized my face and got in bed. I had a full schedule of Zoom meetings the next day, and I wanted to get a good night’s sleep.
***
The next morning, I woke up before the alarm went off, did my stretches, took my blood pressure meds, and stood there thinking about whether or not I wanted to put on real clothes. I felt something brush across my face but figured it must be a piece of pet hair. You get used to random pieces of hair floating around when you live with a long-haired cat.
“Fluffy! Fluffy!” I called out, wondering where my ragdoll kitty was hiding this morning. She usually greeted me with a loud meow, a reminder that she needed fresh ice in her bowl.
I pulled out a nice shirt and pair of man pants, (men’s sweatpants have better pockets and legroom), to wear to work, and headed to the bathroom to shower. I turned on the light and like every morning, wiped my face with a warm rag before I inserted my contact lenses. I couldn’t see a thing without them, and so it was only after I’d put them in that I noticed the fine silver hairs that had sprouted from my forehead. They were long, probably three or four inches, and the brightest silver I had ever seen.
“What in tarnation?” I was horrified, but also curious. I rubbed at my face with the washcloth, thinking that maybe it was just a bunch of lint, or that Fluffy had been moonwalking on my face while I was sleeping. They didn’t come off. I pulled out my make-up mirror, got as close to it as I could without going cross-eyed, and tried to get a better look. I counted ten of them, long fine strands of silver hair, stark against my brown forehead. I was already running behind, so I didn’t have time to ponder where they came from. I quickly showered and dried off, and once back in the mirror, I realized that the hairs were so close to my hairline that I could just slap a little gel on them, brush them back and no one would be the wiser. They’d blend in with the rest of my hair. I’d figure out what to do with them after my meeting.
I finished getting dressed and decided to put on a little face since I’d be wearing an Afro puff. Satisfied with my look, I walked down the hall to my office to boot up my desktop while I made some coffee and toast for breakfast. Fluffy finally made her appearance by rubbing my leg and meowing for me to add food to her already half-full bowl.
“You’re such a greedy little kitty!” I murmured as I reached down to scratch her head. I pulled my hand away and noticed more of that fine hair on my hand. This time, it HAD to be Fluffy’s hair, I’d just had my hands all in her fur. I wiped my hand on my black man-pants leg, but to my surprise, nothing came off. Not one hair. I could feel the space between my boobs getting sweaty as my body started to flush with anxiety. Had I contracted some disease where hair grew all over my body? That was a thing, wasn’t it? I think I saw something about it on a documentary one time, a whole family of folks who were covered in thick dark hair. I think they were in a circus or something. I shivered at the thought. I looked at the clock and knew I needed to log in; my boss would be at this meeting and I’d been planning this presentation to the board for weeks. I’d just keep my hands away from the camera as much as I could and deal with this when I was finished.
I prepared my coffee and toast and took everything with me to my office. I scarfed down the toast and took a swig of my too hot coffee. I wiped the crumbs from my mouth with the back of my hand and felt something brush across my lips.
“Pthhhhh!” I tried to blow whatever it was away from my mouth as I logged into Zoom. Stupid hair.
“I really don’t have time for this,” I said aloud as I reached over for a napkin, worried that I’d have to reapply powder on my face.
“Hey, Lorna! I see Fluffy’s been sleeping with you again!” Josh, my boss, who’s always got jokes, let out a chuckle before turning to talk to Alicia, the president of the board. She was an amazing businesswoman, and her presence at today’s meeting just made me more nervous than I already was. They were actually in the office with a few of the other board members, while the rest of us worked from home.
“What?” I said, as I shuffled my notes and completed one more PowerPoint check. I wanted this to be perfect. I finally got everything just right, pulled out my hand mirror to reapply my lipstick (this stuff never stays on like they say it will), and let out a scream that sent Fluffy running from my office. Thankfully, my microphone was still muted. Because I had been busy messing around with my presentation, I hadn’t noticed that several more hairs had sprouted on my face. I quickly turned the camera off and examined my face. They hadn’t gotten that long yet, but I could almost see them growing on my cheeks. There was no way I was going back on camera like this, and I knew Josh must have already seen the hair. I had no idea if anyone else had seen it, and I wasn’t going to give them an opportunity to either.