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I’m going to grow my beard long. Thick and black, it will be very handsome. Amy will say that it makes me look too serious. I will reply that I am a serious man, that the beard will be a nice complement to my already well-established seriousness. Amy will laugh, or kick me softly in the shin, or tickle my earlobes with her index fingers. I will tell her that I’m glad she finds the prospect of my chin hidden beneath a mound of distinguished black curls amusing, but that I am not joking. Amy will suck her thick lower lip into her mouth and warn me that my mother is going to have a fit. Mother will have a fit. She’ll grow increasingly distressed as she observes the beard’s progress. During the stubby stage (I expect this to last between seven and ten days), she’ll refer to me as the bum. Once it grows a bit more dense, I’ll become the hooligan. By the time I have two good inches, my very own thicket on the tip of my face, I will no longer be welcome in her home. The inspiration for the beard came from Jesus Christ or, more precisely, from Mathis Grunwald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. The altarpiece is divided into four separate frames. The frame on the far right depicts the Resurrection of Christ. Against a starry sky, a brilliant orange circle, not unlike the planet Jupiter, emerges, outlined by vanishing shades of light blue. In front of the orange circle hovers Christ, His hands raised self-consciously in the air, as if to ensure us that no trickery was involved in His fantastic feat. Above Christ’s chin is a subtle but undeniable smirk. He is proud of His resurrection. Below His chin sits a blond beard so enticing in its fullness, so exasperating it its tranquility, that to see it and not attempt to emulate it is to concede an absurd existence. Though I have on more than one occasion imagined my own crucifixion, and even more often wondered what it must have been like to be the Christ Child, warm and snug in His mother’s...

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