Thursday evening, my roommate needs the house for something and I don't have much to do. I decide it's finally time to trim my much neglected hair and I'm on a budget.
Haircuts are always a little traumatic for me. I've never grown particularly attached to my fingernails or bowel movements, but for some reason I see my hair more as part of me than as something I excrete. Watching piles of it settle on the floor feels like witnessing my own slow dismemberment. Not to mention having a stranger flash a blade near my throat while my arms are pinned to my sides is unnerving. I never like to feel that vulnerable.
Maybe I should go to one of those kids' cuts places. I can sit on a rocket ship and clutch a stuffed animal while watching the Lion King. A gentle voiced stranger can praise my minor achievements and at the end they'll give me candy. That'd be nice, although I'd look ridiculous (more so) with some little boy bowl cut. So scratch that idea.
I usually go to one of those urban pseudo trendy places. A pretty girl who looks like she just escaped from an exploding dance club, her face marred by shrapnel, her party clothes torn, cuts my hair while being pleasant and unapproachably flirty. The shampooing is more of a scalp massage, suggestive and slightly arousing. I leave looking like a reject from an Iggy Pop video, but with my ego gently stroked and purring.
I suppose that's the real purpose of all services dedicated to vanity, not to make you attractive, a subjective concept at best, but to make you feel attractive. As in all things you get what you pay for and while I truly enjoy her conversation and company the lovely Tanah does not come cheap and I'm in one of those life cycles where I'm trying to be responsible.
I've seen this place on Colfax, Lloyd's barbershop. Looks like one of those old barbershops, with the twirling candy cane pole and everything. A sign in the window promises mens haircuts for twelve dollars, about twenty less than I usually pay. I was intrigued. My father took me to a barbershop as a child and I always get a warm, nostalgic feel from them.
Barbershops are mens places, of the old style. They hearken back to the days when, after dinner, the ladies would, "Leave the gentlemen to their cigars." Certain pretenses are dropped there. No one sucks in their gut, admitting nonaggressive emotion is more a cause for apology than the foulest flatulence, sports blare from TV screens and no one ever acknowledges they are mistaken, or expects anyone else to. Arguments and insults are frequent but never mean-spirited, and never settled. Just familiar battles being rewaged in a verbal Valhalla.
An older man will sit you down, and tell you about the old good days; when children were polite, everything cost less, and the women weren't lesbians. He speaks to men all day and has opinions on any matter that's likely to concern them. He seems kind of outdated and ignorant, but he projects paternal approval.
Young barbers have more of a fraternal style mocking you for letting your looks get out of control but promising help, with a confidence in their own abilities that suggest they can provide it. All of which they'll do for about 15 bucks.
Sweat deal. They make it up with cheap rent. These places tend to be in terrible run down areas of town. On the inside, Formica countertops and linoleum floors curl and peel. The walls are dirty, the only artwork is a girly calendar and a dusty old television mounted in the corner. The coffee table is an archive of ancient issues of popular mechanics and motor trend, their covers faded from thousands of sweaty hands.
I thought Lloyd's would be such a place. I overcame my nervousness, filled my lungs with cannabis and pulled a beanie atop my mane. I swathed my body in a voluminous hoodie. I summoned an aura of coldness and disdain. Thus armored I departed my domicile in a distant, pensive mood. The cold air and gray sky suited me, the relatively quiet late afternoon streets accepted me seamlessly I became one more anonymous city dweller. Atmosphere.
I entered the barbershop in my usual manner. Like a thief or a spy, opening the door smoothly so as not to disturb the bells, placing my feet carefully, distributing my weight evenly. It's not easy to sneak in combat boots but you can, and it's worth it to see the surprise on someone's face when a loud booted footstep lands just a few feet away, out of nowhere. Humans count on their other four senses in quadrants they can't directly observe. Human senses suck.
I slide behind a few people talking to the counter girl. They're not in line but I pretend to misinterpret the situation to give me time to appraise things. I am not impressed.
"Oh", I think, "Irony. Cute." This place is no barbershop. This place is the Hot Topic of salons. Artwork crowds fluorescently painted metallic walls. The sound system blares a massive corporate radio station that calls itself "indie". There are about a dozen people in a small room crammed with the machinery of beauty. Most of them aren't buying anything, just, "Hanging out."
I resolve to hate the place, I turn to leave. But I've been spotted! My millisecond of shock has cost me dearly; one of the four girls crammed behind the counter meets my hooded eyes and advances. Her hair is pure Einstein, bleached blond and highlighted in pink, springing upward as though to escape her head. A ridiculous amount of hairspray or high voltage electricity must have been employed to achieve the effect. The rest of her is exploding nightclub, except you got the idea she'd spent the evening drinking and snorting lines at the bar and never seen the dance floor. I have a rule about not getting haircuts from people with bad hair. I was about to break it.
"I can take you", she said, brightly but calculated to be so. "What's your name?"
I pause, a thousand lies and a couple carefully worded truths whirl through my head, but I'm still a little stoned and a lot withdrawn. I decide just to go through with it and allow one of my names to escape my lips. The name I give to people I expect not to see again. "Robert", I mutter.
She asks for my last name and gets it. She asks mm to remove my coat and hat and once more I accede. She guides me to a chair and wraps me in black plastic. She asks if I want a shampoo and I pause.
"Not really", I think, but I've been wearing a tight hat all day, my hair is matted and sweaty. Cutting it in this state would be unpleasant for her and achieve an undesired result for me. I tell her, "Yes", still speaking in brief terse bursts; still thinking dark thoughts.
The shampoo is that low grade green stuff made from tea. My sister used to buy it, I recognize the smell, and the washing is perfunctory and businesslike. She doesn't speak much. The water is luke warm, her fingers are stiff. An old stripper on a slow night who plies her trade without enthusiasm, not expecting much, and I'm a jaded customer expecting less.
We return to the chair and I sit like an ice sculpture. Still dripping, not speaking. I adjust my neck to give her easier access without being asked. She decides a course of action with little prompting, I get the idea my input is unnecessary and unwanted. I prepare responses to the usual questions. Where am I from, where do I live, where do I work. She asks none of them, only commenting briefly on the radio. She doesn't like 303.
Her touch is irreverent, not unkind, not violent, just unconcerned. I ignore the small jabs of pain, still a closed book revealing nothing. She finishes and offers me a mirror and a weak joke, "Wanna see the damage?"
I take the mirror and hate it, or at least its contents. This is not really unusual for me and may well have more to do with my present black mood than my hair so I thank her politely. Hoping to escape, I start to stand when she offers a complimentary message. I think a massage from this woman would be like being raped by an orangutan, but I can't think of a polite way to refuse, so I sink back into the chair.
The experience was not as bad as I'd worried. She didn't kneed my taut muscles with her stiff hands, but rather clothed her palm in a vibrating pad which she ran about my neck and shoulders. She rubbed me down like an uncaring horse owner, more a matter of necessity than desire. I took it like a stallion trembling with the urge to kick.
She finished, I paid and left a generous tip. I'll learn to be rude to people I dislike someday. I did leave a terse farewell and immediately put my hat back on. So there.
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