Why I’m Keeping the Bush

Because I’m an adult, and adults have pubic hair.

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When the first few tufts of hair blossomed under my armpits, I was ecstatic. Those lovely little clumps of fuzz meant that I had shuffled one step closer to adulthood — one step closer to freedom from the tyranny of my parents’ curfew.

I stood in the shower for aeons longer than the time required for sanitation, admiring my newly matured crop of fur, inspecting how it felt brushed against my fingertips.

This delight in my own filament was, however, temporary. Soon thereafter followed the pubic hair, bringing with it only embarrassment at the swimming pool and the desire for an after-school job so that I could afford “boyshort” bottoms to cover my wiry, black, south-side jew-fro.

I’ve suffered a hate-hate relationship with my bush for the intervening three decades. Somewhere, early within that span of time, Mike took a photo of us together on a park bench. I was laying across his lap, my head an inch away from his penis, my knees propped up against the back of the seat.

“I saved that photo,” Mike explained, “because you can see your pubes.”

Of all the things my teenage crush might have jerked off to, an unkempt shrubbery was not the choice I expected.