Leonard Earl and His Magic Toupee

Leonard Earl has worn a toupee the entire 27 years he’s been married to my mother. My friends and I always had a suspicion. Perplexed by the absence of a barber. Curious about his graying mustache, his aging face and yet the permanent jet-black sheen of his lacquered “do.” He never admitted it. Until the cancer.

The myth goes, as told by my mother to my sister to me, that while serving as a marine in Viet Nam, he somehow contracted a strange, obscure blood disorder of no specific name and the treatment for the mysterious illness caused his hair to fall out. And it never grew back. So, he bought a man-wig, attached it and never, not once, over three decades changed it. I mean never. It is 2009, his body and face have been withered and wrecked from the three-year battle with terminal cancer and, yet, he still rocks his super-suave 1971 Monty Hall “Let’s Make a Deal” toupee.

Go, Len. Leonard Earl. Leonard Earl Massena the Third, my stepdad.

The eternal toupee says everything that means anything about Leonard. He is the essence of a decade that birthed tacky-cool. Winged-hair, nut-hugging bellbottoms, stadium rock and custom paint kits on fast cars. He loves his cars, he loves his cool. He currently owns two Cadillacs, two custom GMC “touring” vans and one 1981 red Corvette with t-tops and black leather interior. But, he cannot drive. Driving on morphine might be considered cool. Driving with an oxygen tank and a colostomy bag, not so much.

Len has multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer that runs through the blood in your bones. The cancer is no longer treatable and, more so than ever, flaunting the affliction of its final ugly stages.

Cancer is a vicious and insatiable thief. Over time, the disease robs you of your favorite things. Steals your masculinity, shrinks your spine, siphons your breath, rusts your automobiles crumbles your bones and replaces “cool” with “it’s not important.” Everything that means something is different now. What is important is waking up. Not getting pneumonia. Smiling. At least once a day, even if you don’t feel like it. Because everyone that means something is watching you. Every second.

So we’ve all worked hard to cope…as a family…the best we know how…which isn’t always dignified. But, when faced with cancer, dignity isn’t always an option.

There is a candy store of pharmaceuticals sprawled across my parents’ kitchen counter. Pink. Blue. Yellow. Orange. In the 70’s this would have been very, very cool. I can tell you that the blue ones and the teeny white ones are the best. I always read the labels carefully so as to not accidently take the steroids or the stool softener. I like the candy. It has become a beloved part of my parent-visiting ritual: straight to the kitchen counter and swallow. My dad eats the pills because he has to. My mom eats the pills because he has to and she can’t deal. I eat them for recreational-coping and family bonding. I figure its best to all be dysfunctioning on the same level.

Watching my stepdad suffer has been one of the most challenging and heartbreaking experiences of my life. Self-medicating, denial, anger and alcohol have all been friend to my aching heart at one time or another. I know these methods of coping are unhealthy and counterproductive to the healing process. But, sometimes, it’s easier to checkout than to be present with the tragedy at hand.

Other times, however, I tackle the whole cancer debacle with a conjured strength that surprises me. I call upon resilience, fond memories and hope to barrel through another day of a war that I’m helpless to fight. I’m not the one with the disease, after all. I have to buck up. I have to be strong. I have to be cool.

I remember an afternoon in high school, before I had earned my own driver’s license, accompanying Len for a Sunday afternoon drive through East Dallas. Cruising around town in one of his custom cars was his favorite weekend activity. This particular afternoon, we were sporting “Gold Digger,” a hand-painted, custom Chevy truck complete with ground effects, shiny rims and pitch black tinted windows. As we sat at the stoplight at Buckner Boulevard, Len cranked up the stereo. He loves music. Every room in his house and every custom car is carefully equipped with “perfect sound.” I learned at a very young age to never, ever touch the equalizer.

An ambulance siren subtly invaded Gold Digger’s polished and private interior, becoming louder and louder as if it were coming up behind us. I twisted my neck left, and then right to spot the emergency vehicle. But there was no ambulance in sight. The swoon of the siren effortlessly seamed into the slow, haunting piano prelude of the classic rock song cranking from the speakers. “Take the Long Way Home,” by Supertramp. I had never heard that song. I had never heard the album. Breakfast in America. I was immediately entranced by the harrowing vocals, rich, tugging layers of progressive rock instrumentation, but mostly the story this song told.

This song is Len’s story, I thought. If a man were a song, he would be this one. These days, it seems truer than ever.

“When you look through the years and you see what you could have been, oh, what might have been, if you had more time. Take the long way home. Take the long way home.”

I never figured out where the siren came from that afternoon. I’ve decided that it is meant to be left a mystery. Leonard Earl is a mystery to me, always has been. So, it is no surprise that an invisible ambulance siren flawlessly crafted its way into the prelude of that beautiful song, transcending a seemingly idle moment into something of invaluable sentiment. There, in his custom truck. Sitting at the longest light in the entire world. Just my stepdad and me. And his coal black, perfectly combed hair. And Supertramp, my new favorite band.

Time redefined itself that afternoon. If only Len could compose those long, lingering moments of ease and escape now. But every flinch is excruciating, every breath a battle.

I spent last Thanksgiving in the Intensive Care Unit at Medical City Hospital in Dallas watching my sleeping stepfather struggle for breath. And cry. We all cried. We all often cry. Sirens from the adjacent emergency room crooned all night, my skin covered in goosebumps recalling over and over the invisible ambulance siren that I imagined he orchestrated into his speakers that treasured Sunday afternoon.

I wasn’t sure that Len would see 2009. But, he did. He’s still here.

When I go home to Dallas to visit, I try my best to help him still feel, not only like a man, but also a cool motherfucker. I help him dig through his old records and we talk about music, mostly classic rock. We both love Queen, Zeppelin and Bob Dylan. I show him again and again how to use his new iPhone, so not only was he cool back then, he’s cool now too.

I sometimes still catch myself staring in awe and wonder at his tenacious toupee. I have decided that it hoards super-secret magical powers. It must. For, it has stood the test of time, fashion, cancer and cool. And my heart finds comfort in the theory that as long as that wig of synthetic, sable, suave hair stays stuck to his head, he will always have time to take the long way home.

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Leonard Earl Massena III
June 4, 1946 ~ September 18,2010