My Dear You

THE FRESHENING

My cashier’s black hair was beautiful. Though not unlike mine, it was shinier and thicker, and hung glamorously down to her waist. It looked strong, too, like Superman’s in the Christopher Reeve movies. A strand of Superman’s hair could hold up a thousand-pound weight. As a child, I watched those movies over and over: they were my favorite. Superman’s hair, holding up the weight, looks as thick as a wire. A whole head of his hairs must have been heavy. But Superman’s neck was so strong, I figured, the weight of his head didn’t matter.

“Enjoy your last evening,” my cashier said, adding “last” to distinguish this day, the same blithe way somebody might add “Happy holidays” to an email in December. With one hand, she flipped her lustrous hair off her shoulder.

She seemed youthful and careless. I guessed she was Filipina. She probably took her hair for granted, the way people in their twenties usually took their assets as givens. Then again, kids knew more these days.

She handed me my purchases in one bulging bag. I took them from her. If I’d been bagging the items myself I would have given myself two double bags. But I thanked her, added, “You, too,” and when she didn’t look away from the next customer, I went on my way.

***

At home, I removed the can of Pringles and one of the bottles of wine. I gave a cursory glance out the window to check for any neighbors—none—and pulled down my pants to stick a menstrual pad onto my underwear. I thumbed open the Pringles’s plastic top, peeled off the foil, and got to work eating them.

When I was told by my mother’s lawyer that she had left the house to me, my first thought had been that I would upgrade her full-size bed to a queen. I’m not proud of this, to have entertained this thought first, of all the possible thoughts. My second thought was that I was the worst. My third thought was not a thought at all but an overwhelming sadness. When I began to cry and found myself unable to stop, the lawyer had handed me a crumpled napkin from his pocket.

In life, my mother had not been unlike other immigrant mothers: demanding and exacting, unable to say the phrase I love you. Instead she talked about her immense sacrifice, how much she and my father had suffered to bring me to America, the land of opportunity, where everything turned out to be far more fucked up than she imagined. She never said “fucked up”—she didn’t curse—but it was in the subtext. She’d tell me how impressive her salary had been back in Taiwan. Here, her looks and way of speaking had been held against her. In the first few years of living in America, she’d had to clean toilets and showers at a twenty-four-hour gym, where the muscled men would openly stare at her butt. She fumed in silence, but she didn’t know enough English to ask them to stop.

Eventually, she lost her accent, and her English came to sound like any other American’s. Yet sometimes, when she didn’t want to be spoken to, she pretended not to understand. This was what people expected of an older Asian woman, so she played along.

My mother had been excited about the Freshening—the Identity Protection Act, as it was officially known. The trial runs had been positive—or positive enough. Now America, my mother felt, could truly be the land of opportunity. It was finally happening. Then she’d died—unfortunate timing.

I’d meant to drink the wine with the Pringles, but I got around to opening the wine only after I had eaten all the chips. I turned on the television and poured myself a glass to the rim.

A middle-aged woman reporter was at a college frat house, where bros in white-and-blue backward hats were partying. All across the country, people were celebrating the eve of the Freshening. They intended to stay up all night.

“It’s, like, our Y2K,” one bro said into the reporter’s microphone. Behind him, three bros were shotgunning Natural Lights and surrounding bros were rooting them on. I tried to picture each of the bros as a distinct individual with his own hopes and dreams but, I’ll be honest, I struggled to. It was a failure of my own imagination.

“We’re witnessing history,” another bro said. “I mean, it’s pretty special.”

***

We were each given a two-hour window in which the agents might come, like people installing Comcast, and mine was nine to eleven a.m. We were instructed to take the day off, but I would have been home anyway. I didn’t work anymore. From my mother I had inherited enough to live on forever.

At ten exactly my doorbell rang.

I opened the door to two men in black suits. They were tall and unexpectedly handsome. Their dark beards were trimmed close to their faces. One clasped a clear plastic clipboard, and the veins on his hand bulged beautifully, as though he were lifting a barbell.

“I’m Sal,” said the clipboard man, reaching his free hand toward mine to shake it. “And this is Diego.”

Diego gave a polite nod and tight smile, then glanced at Sal, who offered the smallest of nods in return. At first, they had resembled twins, but now I noticed the differences between them: Diego was older, his face more creased. I felt his cool wedding band against my hand. Sal’s skin was paler and his hair darker; Diego looked more Latino.

They launched into explaining the procedure, pausing every so often to ask if I had any questions. I shook my head. I’d already heard much of what they said because their spiel echoed the broadcasts on television. The procedure would be quick. It would be painless, or as painless as a regular flu shot. I wondered how many households they’d visited before mine, how many identical introductions they’d already given.

“Any questions?” Diego asked.

“I’m on my period,” I blurted.

“That’s fine,” Sal said. “That has no bearing.”

Sal unclasped his briefcase with two satisfying clicks and retrieved a set of rubber gloves. He snapped them on—they were tight on him—and rummaged for his other implements. I closed my eyes. I’m not a shot person.

I felt a hand gently brush my hair aside, away from my ears and to one side of my neck, and my eyes fluttered open for a moment, startled by the pleasantness of this contact. It was why I liked getting a haircut, that impersonal/personal touch.

“Hold still,” Sal said, and I reflexively nodded. He waited for my head to finish moving. He looked at Diego with a long-suffering expression. And though I was turned away, I pictured Sal communicating back, with his look, Just two hours to go.

A cool alcohol swab ran over my skin, then a quick pinch, and that was all. By the time I opened my eyes, Sal was snapping his gloves off. With what seemed to me tenderness, he moved my hair back over my shoulder.

“You can go about your day as you usually would,” Diego said.

“You might feel some dizziness or nausea, but that’s completely normal,” Sal said. “If anything worse happens, call the number on this pamphlet.”

“It’s a hotline,” Diego added. They stood.

On the front of the pamphlet was a smiling white woman hugging a smiling white child. The pamphlet was smooth and thick—high-quality. I wondered how much it had cost the country to print pamphlets for every American. A lot. But maybe it was a better use of tax dollars than many other things tax dollars were used for.

Starting today, babies born in American hospitals would receive this injection. Regular doses of medication—for maintenance—would be put into our water supply. It would be in the tap, it would be in our bottled water. I’d heard there were critics who found the entire undertaking questionable—it was racial segregation all over again, separate but equal taken to the most extreme—but those critics grudgingly agreed to it, because what choice did we have? The violence had gotten so bad.

***

As soon as the men left I changed back into my pajama pants. I noticed, with displeasure, that the pants were tighter. I hated shopping. I made a mental note that I would have to do something about that. Because of my mother, I’d always seen gyms as terrible places. I’d never set foot in one.

Go about your day as you usually would, the men had said. My usual days involved trading stocks and cryptocurrency, watching animal videos, and checking the messages on the online-dating services I used. My algae energy stock had gone up. My Ravencoin had gone down. A cat sat calmly on a running goat. The same four men sent me their same four penises.

Around eight p.m., I realized I hadn’t eaten all day, so I decided I’d venture out for a bite. I headed to the Wendy’s drive-through and ordered my regular burger.

“One Baconator,” the employee repeated through the speaker. “Any fries with that?”

“No fries,” I said. “Just the Baconator. And a chocolate Frosty.”

“Baconator and a Frosty,” she said and gave me my total.

When I pulled up to the food window, the employee who had taken my order repeated the price, and I gave her exact change. She kept her head down; her hair was pulled back and she was wearing a Wendy’s visor. When she looked up to give me my burger, I noticed she was Asian. She handed me the Frosty, then passed me a straw. I put the cold cup, with its condensation beginning to bead on its sides, into my cupholder, where it balanced on some trash.

At a stoplight, I glanced down at my burger bag. Instead of the regular Wendy, with her pinkish skin, red hair, and red freckles, this Wendy’s skin had a yellowish hue. Wendy’s
hair was black and Wendy’s face was wiped clean of red freckles. Wendy, I realized, looked like me.

I pulled over at the Walmart and parked. I ate my burger quickly, then chased it with the Frosty and gave myself a brain freeze.

Inside the Walmart, I saw the cashiers were all Asian women, and all the customers were Asian women with Asian daughters in shopping carts, or Asian women maneuvering around in motorized wheelchairs. In the toy aisle, all the Barbies had black hair like mine. In the electronics section, on the TVs, all the pop singers were Asian women.

The Freshening had begun.