Old Man (Life at Thirty)

Written By M E Lehrer

Loosely based on a true story.

Very loosely.

I noticed that first wrinkle on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, a small little crack in my otherwise perfect skin, just at the corner of my left eye. I know they say that men mature like fine wine, only getting better with age but I’m not ready to be a fine wine. I’m a young hip wine. The kind that all the cool kids drink. The kind of wine the stodgy old people haven’t even heard of yet. Being thirty doesn’t change any of that. Right?

Who the fuck am I kidding? I have a wrinkle.

I try to convince myself that maybe I slept badly. Maybe I plowed my face into the pillow the wrong way, and that this so called ‘wrinkle’ would smooth itself out by lunch-time.

It didn’t smooth itself out by lunch-time.

Worse, I find a matching wrinkle in the corner of my right eye. And a white hair. The fucker was taunting me. ‘You’re an old piece of shit,’ it would sing, if a single white hair could sing. They can’t, so I don’t pluck it out just yet.

I 9–1–1 an appointment at the salon to get my hair dyed, and see if there’s maybe something they can do about my pair of wrinkles (my wrinkli?). My regular stylist is out for the day, so I have to go with Philippe, who the girl at the counter swears up and down is every bit as talented as my guy. Doubt it. My guy is awesome. Philippe takes a look at my face and I see his brow muscles twitch. I imagine his brow would have full-out furrowed if he were a year or two older, but since he’s barely out of disposable pull-ups, he couldn’t furrow his brow if his spray-tan depended on it.

“Oh yeah. I see. You have a lot of wrinkles,” he says. “A lot.” He really didn’t need to repeat himself. It just made him seem, well, bitchy.

“I don’t think two counts as a lot” I say.

“And I don’t think twelve counts as two.” he replies. Smartass. He hands me a makeup mirror. The kind that blows up your face so you can see every pore and imperfection as if they were craters on the moon. Five or six wrinkles jumped out at me. How did I not see them before? “All those gray hairs I can take care of, no problem,” he says. I check out my perfect head of hair in the mirror. White hairs sprouting everywhere, like weeds. I’m not even twelve hours into my thirties. “The wrinkles…” he continues, “Well, I’m no miracle worker. I mean, I work miracles every day, but not actual ‘miracle’ miracles, you know?”

“What if there’s an extra hundred in it for you?” I ask.

“Call me Jesus,” he says. He goes to work. I pray that he can indeed perform miracles. I have a photo shoot this afternoon. Nothing big. Some Italian perfume ad. God help me if anyone notices the wrinkles. The agency thinks I just turned twenty-four. An age related wrinkle would end my career.

When Philippe is done, he spins me toward the mirror, and is there such a thing as a reverse miracle? There must be, because I look even older. I notice more wrinkles. Around my eyes, around my mouth, I even have the start of frown lines on my forehead. It’s almost as if I look my age. Maybe I’m reading into this too much.

“I did the best I could, but what are you thirty-two? Thirty-three?” He says.

What the fuck!? Thirty three!? I can’t look thirty-three. I can’t even look my age. It would end me.

“I’m twenty-four” I say, trying to sound confident, but I know my voice is wavering.

“No, you’re not.”

“Fine. I’m twenty-eight.”

“Save your lies for the girlies at the club. Under that terrible lighting, you might be able to pass for twenty-nine.” He says. “Maybe.”

“Today is my thirtieth birthday,” I say. A moment of honesty. He’s the first person I’ve admitted my real age to in, like, a decade.

“I believe that today is your third or fourth thirtieth birthday,” the little bitch-ass says. “Maybe even your fifth.” So now he thinks I’m thirty-five!? “Look, I can’t in good conscience take your hundred dollar tip,” he says. “So let’s just put that money towards your next makeup sesh? Kay?” He takes my hundred off the counter and pockets it. The dick.

I get to the shoot with barely a few minutes to spare. I’m rushed into the trailer, where the makeup girl is going to make me look beautiful. If she’s able to build on Philippe’s less than solid foundation. Fingers crossed. She’s maybe 18. Cute. Definitely my type. My friends bust my balls about always going after the young girls. I just figure I need to date people who are age appropriate, and if I’m supposed to be 24, 18 is very age appropriate.

“Rough night last night?” she asks.

“Not really,” I say.

“Cuz you look like shit”.

“Right, yeah. I’m, like, crazy hungover,” I lie.

“I knew it” she says with this ‘gotcha!’ smile. “Let me see what I can do.” Now, when you’re told that you look like shit, there’s two ways to respond. The first is to admit that there’s no good reason for your looking like shit, therefore acknowledging the fact that you look like shit. The other route is to say you’re hungover. Everyone looks like shit hungover. And you get to cling to the illusion that you are young and beautiful for one more day.

As she works on me, airbrushing away my flaws (with an actual airbrush, I like her technique) I can see her growing more and more frustrated. I sit there, pretending nothing is out of the ordinary. She walks off, and comes back with a woman who I’m assuming is her boss. Maybe 28. Too old for me, though she’s cute in a young cougar sort of way. They both stare at me, analyzing my face.

The young one whispers something to the older one. Why are they whispering? They never whisper. Never. The older one whispers something back. She dabs a cotton ball in some remover and rubs it across my forehead. They stare for a few more seconds. The young one whispers again.

“How old did you say you were?” the older one asks.

“Twenty-four” I say without hesitation. They whisper back and forth, then the older one walks out of the trailer.

“What was that about?” I ask.

“Nothing, really.” She says.

“Shouldn’t you continue with the makeup?”

“Of course,” she says. “In a minute.” The older woman returns with a guy in his early thirties. Shaved head, dark tan, designer skinny jeans so tight they’re practically man-jeggings. He must be the photographer. Now all three of them stare at my face. All three of them whisper back and forth. Then, the photographer excuses himself from the trailer.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Everything is fine,” the younger one says. I can finally breath again.

“We just don’t feel you’re a good fit for this shoot,” the older one adds, nonchalantly. “And there’s no way in hell you’re twenty-four.”

I’ve been fired from shoots before, but never like this. I bet it’s that damn Philippe. I bet he did a half-assed job. He will never get another cent of my business, even if my regular stylist gets hit by a bus and nobody else is available that afternoon. Not one cent.

As I walk back to my car, I catch a glimpse of this old guy, he looks late thirties, which in this town means he’s probably much older. But that’s not the pathetic part. This guy, this old man is dressed like he’s my age, like he’s 24. Hip clothes. Enough product in his hair to technically call his coif performance art. A t-shirt that’s just one size too tight. A man trying way too hard to look young. I pity him. He looks familiar. And then, I realize that there’s a reason this old guy looks so familiar.

I’m actually looking at myself in one of those two-way mirror windows. What the fuck!? I’m that guy in my forties? At least, I assume it’s me. I don’t really recognize myself. The wrinkles are thicker. The bags under my eyes darker. It’s like I aged ten years overnight. I know guys that are thirty-seven, thirty-eight, that look better than this. I’m probably just coming down with something. I vow to drink lots of fluids, get lots of rest, then meet some friends at some club, pick up some girls, drink some booze, and forget about this whole day from hell.

I drink a lot of fluids. Water first. Then a bottle of wine to mellow me out. Then some Irish whiskey. By the time I get to the club, I’m pretty loose. The doorman gives me a hard time, even though I’m here every Wednesday night. I slip him a fifty and finally get ushered in. I look around the club, taking stock of all the ‘talent’. So many pretty young things with daddy issues to get my mind off shit. I approach one. Smile. Like shooting fish in an ice-box.

“Gross. You’re like my dad’s age,” she says.

These things happen, I tell myself and I move on to someone new. A tiny young thing. Five-foot-two in six inch heels.

“Ewww,” she says. It’s a numbers game, I tell myself.

“You’re not serious, right? Is this, like, some kind of dare?” Another girl says.

“I’m not into necrophilia,” another says.

“My mom’s single. I think you guys might really get along,” another says.

I head over to the table where my friends have a bottle. I’ll admit, I’m not having the best day, but girls who’ve been drinking tend to be a lot less discerning. And around my friend’s table, there are a lot of girls drinking. As the night goes on, I can feel myself getting more attractive, more witty, more clever, more muscular, a better dancer, and when I finally strike out completely, it takes me by complete surprise. I climb into bed at five am, and pass out. I have nowhere to be tomorrow.

I wake up some ten hours later. It’s after three. I feel refreshed. I feel good. And then I see myself in the mirror. I look like I’m fifty. And not even ‘Hollywood fifty’ like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Actual regular person fifty. Or maybe I only look forty-five, if the lighting is just right, but what difference does that make? Doesn’t matter if you’re forty or fifty or seventy-five million, over thirty is over thirty. Wrinkles. Bags. I have patches of white around my temples, even though I made sure Philippe double dyed my hair yesterday. Crease lines. I hold up my hands. Old man hands. I see veins. I am definitely not aging like a fine wine. I’m aging like two-buck pharmacy vintage that’s been left out in the sun. I’m starting to think something is seriously wrong with me. Getting worried, I call my doctor.

Doctor Gupta looks at my face in deep concentration. “Well,” he says, “we can inject some Botox here, and here,” he points out my trouble areas, “and definitely in this whole area. You’re going to need a lot of Botox here.”

“Will that work?” I ask.

“Well,” he says. He says ‘well’ a lot. “If you want something more drastic, I can pull your skin back here. Cut some skin off here. You’ll look ten years younger.”

“Oh!” I say. Didn’t figure I’d go under the knife until at least my mid-thirties. I’m just not that guy. I’ll look swollen and horrible for a few weeks, and I really need to get that next modeling job ASAP. Can’t have gaps in the resume.

“By the time I’m done, you won’t look a day over forty”. He says. I think he was joking, but I can’t be sure.

“Let’s try the Botox,” I say. “I’ll save the lift for when I really want to look forty.” I’m just a little under the weather, I tell myself. Cutting chunks of my face off because I had a bad day is something desperate people do. I’m not desperate. I’m a hot young ‘24-year-old’ man. My headshot says so.

The doctor pulls out his needles and gets to work. He tells me that when he’s done, I will look beautiful once again.

When he’s done, I can barely move my face. “You look great,” Doctor Gupta says. He hands me a mirror. I look like a mannequin. The scary kind of mannequin that gave me nightmares as a child. Not quite human. Like someone stretched my face over a skull shaped piece of plaster. “Don’t you look great?” he repeats, as if repetition will make it true.

“I do look a little better” I tell myself. I head over to the salon, but my guy still isn’t there. Family tragedy or something, wasn’t really listening. The only stylist available is Philippe. Fucking Philippe. They tell me I can make an appointment for next week. I’m meeting with my agent tonight, so I can’t wait a week. Philippe plays with my hair as I sit at his station.

“Dye job?” He asks.

“Do a better job than yesterday”, I tell him, but he pretends not to remember me. Must be the Botox.

“I suggest we blend the gray, instead of removing it completely” he says. “It will look more natural.” I tell him that blending is not an option. If anything, he needs to go a shade darker. Philippe roll his eyes. I don’t need to take this shit from him.

“Go a shade darker,” I repeat.

“You’re the boss,” he says, dripping condescension. I swear to myself that I’ll never use this asshole again, unless I really, really, need to. When he’s done, I check myself out in the mirror. I look awful. One side of my face droops a little lower than the other. My hair has that unnatural shade of black where something just seems off. I look like a past his prime Ken doll. Philippe is dead to me. I tell him so. He bills me the full amount. Claims he never took any hundred dollars from me. I hope he gets hit by a bus.

I sit down with my agent only ten minutes late, which isn’t bad in this business.

“Are you on drugs?” my agent asks.

“Sure.” I say. “Isn’t everyone?”

“I mean the bad drugs.”

“Oh. Of course not.”

“You look like you’re on drugs,” he says. “You look old enough to be your dad.” He pops a spring roll in his mouth. “You look old enough to be my dad.”

“I’m really hungover” I say. It’s my go-to excuse.

“We’re dropping you as a client.” He says. He grabs the last fried shrimp dumpling as he walks off. He doesn’t even pick up the bill. Asshole.

Across the restaurant, this older woman, a cougar’s cougar, is looking at me funny. Much too old to be wearing a dress that short, with a neckline that plunging. Is she winking at me? Shit. I think she’s flirting. She smiles at me. I leave a stack of bills on the table and head home, pointing to an imaginary wedding band as I pass her.

Temporary setback, I tell myself. I’m a little dehydrated, so I look like I’m aging. That’s it. I buy a gallon of water. I buy every anti-aging cream I can find at the 24-hour drug-store. Promise to order more stuff online. I buy cleansers and exfoliants, scrubs and masks. There’s a whole industry dedicated to giving people the illusion of looking younger, and tonight, I’m pretty sure I’m keeping that whole industry afloat single handedly.

I get home, and try to chug the water. Got maybe half a gallon in when I started vomiting. I didn’t look any younger. The patches of gray on my temples seemed to be growing whiter. My cheekbones don’t seem nearly as chiseled as they used to. I slather on every cream I bought. It doesn’t do much, except make my skin feel oily and gross. I look sixty. Even more horrifying, I realize that I’m starting to look like my dad.

The next day, I show up at Doctor Gupta’s office. Ask him to do everything in his power to help me look like myself again.

“It’s going to hurt,” He says.

I tell him I can handle pain.

“It’s going to hurt your wallet,” He says.

I tell him I’ll go into debt if I have to. He tells me that many people make the choice to age gracefully. I tell him that I am not “many people”. I’ve never seen someone work so hard to talk himself out of business, but nothing he says could change my mind. I’m determined to fix myself. I’m not desperate, I tell myself. I just want what’s best for me, and wanting the best for yourself is not a bad thing. It’s not.

I tell him not to pull any punches, and he assures me that he won’t.

A few hours later, my face is swollen. Bruising. Stitches. Uncomfortable tightness. But now, when I look at myself in the mirror, I can sort of see the thirty-year-old passing as a twenty-four year old that I used to be. Sort of. Doctor Gupta says I should be back to my younger self in about two weeks. In the meantime, I’ll look like I hit on Mike Tyson’s girlfriend while he watched. Like a Caucasian and dried blood colored punching bag.

Life ends at thirty, they say. I’m just trying to buy myself a couple more years. There’s nothing wrong with that. Right?

I send out my ‘current’ headshots to new agents. They were taken six weeks ago. I get a couple requests for meet and greets, but when they lay eyes on my post face-lift recovery, for some reason they quickly show me the door. I try to explain that it was just a routine procedure. I try to explain that I’ll be back to my handsome beautiful self in no time flat. They don’t listen. Agents are morons.

I reach out to all my contacts, but word is spreading. People stop taking my calls. They stop responding to my emails. I’m less than a week into my thirties.

I decide to lay low until my scars heal. Give me some time to regroup and to devise a new plan of attack. It will also give me time to bond with my Netflix account. I watch all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in one shot, taking short naps between seasons. It’s pretty telling that the show ended well before Buffy turned thirty. Nobody wants to see old people fight vampires. Nobody wants to see old people fight anything. Nobody wants to see old people.

Two weeks later, I feel I’m ready to come out of hibernation. I feel it, but I definitely don’t look it. I look like I’m seventy years old. I swear I see an age spot on my neck. Something is seriously wrong.

Doctor Gupta looks me over with that straight face doctors seem to have when they have no clue what the fuck is wrong with you.

“The sutures appear to have healed.” He says. “I’d say the facelift was a success.”

I ask him if he’s out of his fucking mind. He assures me that no, he is not out of his fucking mind.

“My procedure was successful,” he says. “But you appear to be aging at an accelerated rate. Which seems to minimize the effect of the face-lift.”

“You think?” I say trying to sound as sarcastic as possible.

“Something is seriously wrong with you. I think you should see a doctor.”

“What the hell are you?”

“A non-cosmetic doctor,” he says. What he means is ‘a real doctor’. Haven’t been to a real doctor since my late teens. Back then, I was a specimen of human perfection. I didn’t need no doctors. Now, Doctor Gupta is writing a number for me to call. I’m no longer a perfect anything.

“How old did you say you are?” Doctor Vikarian asks me. He’s young. Like 26, 27, so he probably knows what he’s talking about. I’m about to answer ‘Twenty-Four’, my knee jerk response but I stop myself. “I turned thirty a few weeks ago.”

“Hrmmmm,” says Doctor Vikarian. He checks my throat again. He listens to my heartbeat. “It seems as though you’ve got the body of a man in his late seventies.”

“No shit, Doc.” Is this what I’m paying him like 600 dollars an hour to tell me?

Doctor Vikarian looks at the headshot that I brought in. Then back at my face. He cups my balls and asks me to cough. Back to the headshot. “And this is what you looked like a few weeks ago?”

I nod. We’ve been through all of this before. He keeps asking the same damn questions.

“Hrmmmmm,” he says. It seems like his entire vocabulary is comprised of grunts and throat clears. He listens to my heart. Again. “Hrmmmmm.”

“So what is it?”

“You’re getting old,” he says.

I don’t need a doctor to tell me that. I know what I’m getting. That’s why I’m here.

“And how old did you say you are?” He asks. I punch him in the face. Well, not really, but I have a very vivid imagination. In the real world, I do my best to remain civil. In my fantasy world, he’s on the floor, blood pouring from his broken nose and I smash his stupid little stool into his skull over and over.

“Thirty,” I say. “I just turned thirty.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” He says. “If you keep aging at this rate, I’m afraid you may not have much time left.”

“What do you mean?” I’m in denial of this whole thing. Sure. Thirty. I’m old. I get it, but he doesn’t have to be such a dick about it.

“I’d get my affairs in order.” He goes on to tell me how there’s nothing he can do, blah blah blah blah blah. His voice kinda fades away and all I hear is the air conditioner humming. There’s something clanking in the fan. And the doctor still prattles on about something or other. Clank, clank, clank.

I walk out of the office while the Doc’s in mid-sentence. I take my headshot with me.

I walk into the salon. Turns out my regular guy quit last week. They tell me that Philippe is available. Fuck. Fine. He sits me down, and asks me what I want. I tell him I want something hip. Cool.

“What does hip and cool mean to you?” He asks.

“The same thing it means to anybody.”

“It’s just, we usually don’t get people in here of your…” he searches for the right word “…oldness”. In my fantasy, I swing Doctor Vicarian’s blood drenched stool into Philippe’s head and keep swinging until there’s nothing left but a bloody stump.

“What’s your hippest, coolest style?” I ask. Before he can answer, I say “Give me that.” This isn’t happening to me, I tell myself. I’m gonna wake up one of these days and everything is going to be back to normal. Might as well be prepared with great hair.

After he’s worked his ‘magic’ (his words, definitely not mine), Philippe spins me to face the mirror. I don’t look hip. I don’t look cool. I notice another age spot.

Cut to me waiting in line at the club, wearing my designer best. I keep getting stares from people. They keep looking at me. As if I don’t belong. As if I should be somewhere else.

“I don’t think you belong here,” the doorman says.

“I come here every week,” I say.

The girl in line behind me whispers something about how I must be senile. Something about how I reminded her of her grandfather, about how he’d wander the streets in his adult diapers holding a single helium balloon on a string. About how he’s in a home now, but that he still sometimes wanders away, and they always find him holding a single helium balloon. About how nobody knows where the hell the balloon comes from.

I slip the doorman a fifty. He declines. No doorman declines money. That’s not how things work. I slip him a hundred. He tucks it into my shirt’s breast pocket.

“I can’t let you in here tonight,” he says. “Or any night.”

“Let me talk to Rico,” I say. Rico is the Wednesday night promoter. “Rico knows me.”

“Do you know where you live?” He asks in a condescending and babying tone. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not old!” I say. “I just had a bad couple of weeks!”

“Do you have any children or grandchildren we can call to pick you up?”

How can they not see?! I’m perfectly fine! I realize that I’m not getting in the club tonight, so I walk away, yelling some nonsense about how the bouncer will regret turning me away. How I was a friend of the manager and the promoter, and I’d make sure he’d get fired. The dumbass girl who was behind me in line mentions that people would often safety pin her grandfather’s address to his chest, just in case he forgot where he lived.

“I remember where I live,” I say, because I’m still in earshot. “Not everyone over thirty has completely lost their marbles”. Over thirty. Shit. The words sound so foreign. And dammit. ‘Lost their marbles’ is something only old people say. I drive home with my car’s top down, blasting Tupac, may he rest in peace. I sing along. At a stoplight, I pull up alongside a group of cute girls. Instinctively, I wink at them. They smile. Booya! I’ve still got it.

“Awww. That’s so cute,” they say, like they were staring at a newborn puppy wrapped in ribbons. They probably don’t even know who Tupac was. I flip them off as I drive away. “Ha! Did you see what that old guy did! That’s so cool!” One girl says. “You’re soooo cool!” Another repeats. “I wish you could be my grandfather!”

I park at home and plunk myself in front of the tv. It’s not even midnight. I’m asleep well before the syndicated ‘Friends’ rerun is over.

“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” I say. The barista stares at me. Hands me my Venti Latte.

‘Could very well be the last day of your life too’ he’s probably thinking to himself. But if he is thinking it, he has the common sense to not say it out loud. “Sure,” he says. I take a sip of my caffeine boost. A really old lady beside me smiles. Points to her extra large coffee.

“It’s better than any prune juice,” She says smiling brighter, revealing her urine-in-the-snow colored teeth. I’m not entirely sure what she’s talking about. I quickly walk away to find a toilet. Fucking coffee.

I meant what I said to the barista. Starting today. I’m going to prove to all those naysayers that I’m still young. Naysayers? Where the fuck did that word come from? I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. I make a mental note not to use it again.

First thing on my list, skydiving. It’s a group jump. A bunch of us going up in that plane. The instructor looks at me with that weird look on his face. Like he wants to say something, but has no clue how.

“I…uh…well…uh…” he says. I compliment him on his verbiage and sentence structure. “Let me…uh…talk to my…uh…I’ll be right back,” he says.

He returns with his boss. They consult in private. I’ve noticed that ever since I got this ‘skin condition’, people tend to consult in private a lot.

“We’re gonna need you to sign some extra liability release forms,” the guy says. “We’re not responsible if you die, or have a heart attack or, like, die.” I suddenly fear for my safety in the hands of guys who cannot complete coherent thoughts. I sign whatever papers they hand me. I don’t care. I’m not really old, so none of this stuff really applies. They try to upsell me on video footage. I decline. Unless they can use the CGI Hollywood technology to make me look younger. They tell me that they don’t have the ability to make me look younger, but they do have the ability to make me feel younger. I turn them down again. They tell me that they’ll take a video of me anyway. That I’ll be under no obligation to buy, of course, but that they want me to have the option to drop the extra two hundred dollars, if I should change my mind. I assure them I won’t. I ask to jump out of the plane solo, I don’t want one of these guys strapped to my back calling the shots. I want to be in control of my own destiny. They ask me if I have any skydiving experience. The truth is none, but I know that would not have gotten me a solo jump.

“I was a paratrooper,” I say. “Back in the war.”

“Which war?” One of them asks.

I run through all the wars in my head, trying to decide which would be most age appropriate. I realize that I have very little memory of history class.

“The great one,” I say. The skydiving instructors nod their heads in reverence. They probably have no clue which war was the great one either. They hand me more liability forms to sign. Three hours later, I’m on a small little prop-plane with five other people. A middle aged guy sits close to me. Smiles. People smile at me a lot these days.

“You know, I almost didn’t do this,” the middle-aged guy confides in me. “I thought I’d be the oldest one here.”

“You are the oldest one here,” I say, my brain still not quite grasping my current (and hopefully temporary — fingers crossed) ‘physical’ predicament.

Twenty minutes later, I’m in free-fall. The air rushing against my face. I feel alive. Like there’s nothing I can’t do. Like I’m twenty-four again. I pull the ripcord. A piercing pain rips through my arm. Did I pull something? I don’t have enough time to consider what I might have pulled before my parachute deploys.

Now, I’m just hanging there. Way up above the ground. In pain. I can see for miles in every direction. Anyone could have pulled their arm out that way, I tell myself. Even 24 year olds.

After I land, the instructor seems mildly surprised that I survived the jump. “I was totally sure your heart would explode,” he says right before trying, once again, to sell me on the video.

I tell him I’m not interested. That I haven’t used my DVD player in years. That I’m not even sure if it still works. That I stream everything these days. He let’s me know that if a DVD isn’t my thing, he can transfer the video to VHS cassette. I conclude that this guy is an idiot. He plays the video for me. A ninety-year-old man, looking weak and frail, jumping out of the plane. His loose chin skin flapping wildly as he falls. And then, as this old guy stabilizes, reaching terminal velocity, his face pulled back by wind resistance into a sort of make-shift face-lift, and for a single moment, I see a glimpse of that young man I remember. The young man I still am. Then the chin skin starts flapping again, and the illusion is broken. I pay the man 200 dollars for the DVD. He asks if I’m sure I don’t want it on VHS. I tell him I’m sure. He gives me a copy anyway. “On the house,” he says, but I’m pretty sure he billed my card anyway.

I drive home with my top down. Trying to recreate that feeling of the wind rushing through my thinning hair. The feeling isn’t quite the same as being in free-fall, so I press down on the pedal just a touch more. And then a touch more. And a touch more. Getting closer to that feeling of being alive. Flashing lights turn on behind me. A siren wails. Shit.

I pull over, and the cop walks over with air of superiority. Like he’s just so damn awesome, and I should lick his feet. And then he gets a good look at me.

“Hello, sir,” he says. Now he’s calling me sir? “License and registration?” I hand him my license. He looks at it, then at me. “Born in 86?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, repaying the ‘sir’ favor.

“1986?”

“Yup.”

“Please step out of the vehicle,” he says. He puts me in the back of the squad car. Gets on his police radio and says something about a possibly senile old man. About a possible stolen car. About putting out calls to nursing homes, to see if any ‘residents’ have wandered off.

While I’m there, I have my mug-shot taken. I’m not nearly as photogenic as I used to be. I was that guy that couldn’t take a bad picture. Now… I wouldn’t even know how to take a good one. The thing that stood out at me the most was how ridiculous I looked. Not that I looked like I was well into my nineties, but that I looked like I was well into my nineties and still dressing like a twenty-four year old. The designer jeans, the 300 dollar t-shirt, the Vini-vidi-vici tattoo on my left arm, they all looked ridiculous on an old man. Shit. I just called myself an old man. I’ve known that I was an old man…but I never really accepted it. I’m an old man. I can’t wear these stupid clothes anymore. And this hair… what the hell did that Philippe guy do to my hair?

It’s a couple hours before I’m able to clear my name. See, they fingerprinted me in the off chance that they could ID me, since I ‘clearly’ didn’t know who the hell I was. Just some senile old man. Lucky for me, I had a few run-ins with the cops back in my twenties, and they have my prints on file. My prints, one of the few things on my body that hasn’t changed. Once they see that I really am who I say I am, they let me go with a speeding ticket. Four hundred bucks.

I’m driving down the street, obeying the speed limit, cuz I can’t afford another ticket. Not without any new modeling money coming in. Some young punk asshole wearing the same douchey shirt that I have on honks his horn a couple of times.

“Get off the road, grandpa!” He yells with that “I can’t quite speak English that good” accent that douchey guys seem to all have. Then, he swerves around me, tries passing me in the oncoming traffic lane, and races through a light just as it turns red. I gun my engine and speed off after him. I T-bone his car as he rounds a turn, caving in his passenger side door. I back up my car, and then smash into him again.

At least that’s what I did in my head. In the real world, I sat there in my car, obeying the speed limit. It’s not that D-bag’s fault this is happening.

I walk into the salon, walk directly up to Philippe and I punch him in the jaw. For real. This is no fantasy.

“Owwwwww,” he says. “Did you see that! Some million year old guy just punched me.” I punch him again. “That kind of hurts.” I try to lift up his stupid stool. To swing it in his face, but a pair of hair-stylists hold me back.

“Why did you do this to me!?” I scream. “You know you’re responsible!” He decides not to press charges, because he couldn’t see himself “putting someone so damn old in prison.” They do tell me that I’m no longer welcome at the salon. Fine. I wouldn’t go back there if they paid me anyway!

I show up at Doctor Gupta’s office without an appointment. I burst into his office in the middle of a nose job consult. This teenage girl has a shnoz that would put Toucan Sam to shame. “You’re going to make me look young again!” I say, not giving the fine doctor any option in the matter.

“There’s nothing I can do” he says.

I get down on my knees. Pleading. “Please. Put me back to the way I was! I need you to make me young again! I’ll do anything. I’ll pay anything. I will sell you my soul!”

“I’m afraid there’s no going back,” he says as security escorts me out. “Sometimes, you just can’t turn back the clock.”

I visit half a dozen more cosmetic surgeons over the next few days, and they all tell me the exact same thing. They tell me that I’m old. They tell me that I need to learn to accept it. They tell me that this happens to everybody. They tell me that I should stop trying to be something I’m not. They tell me that I should grow up.

The last doctor holds up a mirror to my face. The man staring back at me looks ridiculous. Like a hundred years old, dressed like a twenty year old. I’m old. Like not able to pass for ‘twenty-four’ old. I don’t fit in here. I don’t belong with all these young ‘uns’. I may not have much time left. Will I live to see thirty-one? Thirty-three? Thirty-five? If I shook a Magic Eight Ball, the answer that would come up is ‘not fucking likely’. I realize that I may not live forever.

I walk through the park. All these old people who look decades younger than me sit on park benches. Feeding pigeons. Staring at trees. Killing time with their last few hours on this Earth. This is my future. And even these old people shoot me looks. Like I don’t belong. I walk past them. I walk the park. I walk the streets. Day. Night. I just walk.

Up ahead, I see a spinning pole. Like a big candy cane, or a strip club in the North pole. I had seen barber shops before, but never really thought about walking inside. Figure there’s a first time for everything.

“Do you guys take walk-ins” I ask. The seven older Italian men standing by empty barber chairs look at me like this is the stupidest question I could possibly ask.

“Sorry, we’re booked up solid for the next four months,” the oldest one says. “You can make appointments online.”

“Oh. Sorry,” I head for the door.

“Does it look like we make appointments? Get your ass in this chair.”

I tell the barber that I want a nice haircut. I tell him to make me look good. I ask him if he does textures and layering. He says no. I ask him if I can get my hair cut with razor blades, because I like the roughness.

“We got scissors,” he says.

I ask him about dyes and gels and — .

“We got scissors,” he says, cutting me off. Scissors it is. I sit down. The barber begins snipping away. The whole thing is over in ten minutes. And when he puts down those scissors, I look a lot less ridiculous than I had ten minutes ago. Age appropriate cut, some might say. I pull out my credit card.

“We don’t take credit,” he says. I’m instantly worried. I check my billfold.

“I’ve only got, like, forty-five on me,” I say, embarrassingly unfamiliar with the fees of a ‘barber’ vs those of a ‘stylist’. I’d never paid less than one-fifty plus tip. One hundred fifty.

“It’s twelve bucks,” he says.

I hand him a twenty. Tell him to keep the change. Figure I got myself a steal. He asks me to come again. I check myself out in the mirror. From the neck up, I look pretty decent. From the neck down, I look like Ed Hardy vomited all over your great grandfather. It’s a hard realization, that you dress too young for your age. I’ve been having a lot of hard realizations recently. I ask the barber where I can pick up some nice clothes. He points me in the direction of a department store.

The salesman looks me up and down.

“I think we might just be able to help you,” he says. Nine hundred dollars later, I’ve got some pants, some shirts, and an inexpensive suit. I’ve completed the transition. I am officially an old man.

As I check myself out in front of some three-way mirrors, I catch the senior citizen lady checking me out. She smiles. I ask her if she wants to grab a coffee. She agrees.

We talk. We laugh. She tells me several times how I don’t seem like all those old codgers she normally dates. She tells me several times how ‘young’ I seem. It feels good to hear it. “It’s getting late,” she says. I check my watch, it’s almost 7 pm. I walk her home. She invites me up for a nightcap. I’ve never been invited for a nightcap before. I thought that was just something people did in the movies.

I’m barely inside her apartment when she throws herself at me, ripping off my clothes, dragging me towards the bedroom. Over the next hour and a half, she blows my mind. Destroys all preconceived notions of what old people are capable of. I’m ashamed to admit it to myself, but this eighty-year-old woman is the best sex I’ve ever had. She knows things. She has skills. 18 year olds just try to recreate crap they see in porn. They try to give guys what they think they want. But this lady, she know exactly what I want (even if I didn’t yet) and gave it to me in spades. Experience clearly does count for something. As we’re cuddling, she tells me something that changes my entire outlook on life. “It’s not how old you are. It’s how old you feel. And you don’t feel old,” she says gripping me somewhere below the belt. “You’re a young soul, and if you’re careful, you can stay that way.”

The next morning, I step out of her apartment with a bounce in my step. I don’t care if I do look old, I don’t feel old. I no longer care that I’m not on the sexual radar of 18 year olds. I no longer care that I can’t book national ad campaigns for perfume. I no longer care that I’ll probably never be named People magazine’s “sexiest man alive” or never become a world famous action star. All those things that seemed so incredibly important just a few months ago now seem so stupid, so juvenile. Now, I have new goals. Find the girl of my dreams. Have a family. Become a dad. A grandfather. A great-grandfather. So what if tomorrow I start to look like a decaying corpse? That’s just life. It happens. I’m not going to let how I look affect how I feel.

I’m starting to realize that maybe life begins at thirty. Sure, maybe I’ll drop dead tomorrow. But maybe I have my best years ahead of me. Who knows?