| "Listen and gentle be present." Monks of the Weston Priory The entire haircut takes fifteen minutes. For the first minute, I mumble directions. Over the ears, I just flick it back, no brush or comb, don't make it any grayer, ha ha. "Do you use a number 3 clipper?" asks the stylist. "I don't know," I say. I can never remember, even though I go to this chain haircut place all the time. They must think that's weird, like not knowing if you put cream in your coffee. "You work around here?" she asks. "Yep," I say, curt and whispery as Clint Eastwood, which is uncharacteristic because I'm pretty outgoing. In fact, I wish I could search Monster.com for a job entitled Conversationalist. When a colleague told me I reminded her of Dick Cavett, a prize no one else would ever claim, I gushed for an hour. But this time, I just say "yep." I'm in a quiet mood. And I notice that when haircut customers are in quiet moods, most stylists pick up on it and simply continue their work in the relaxing quiet, with the sharp, clean snip of fast scissors pleasing as wind turbines to T. Boone Pickens.. But this stylist, she doesn't mind subbing for Cavett. She says she was from this area (Akron, Ohio,) having grown up in nearby Canton, but spent the past two years in Nashville. Then she sighs. "You tired, on your feet all day?" I ask. "Yeah, but I'll be leaving in two hours," she says. "And I am GOING OUT TO-NIGHT!" she said in that black girl head swagger that wasn't too bad for a freckly redhead with obvious hillbilly lineage that's so popular around here after generations of West Virginians migrated to work in Akron's tire factories. "My friend wants me to go out with her to see a band. I'm not into the band, but I just want to go out. I just GOT to get out. Somewhere." Then, softly: "Anywhere." "My boyfriend, though, he don't want me to go out. He don't want to do anything ever. He just sits at home and plays video games." She gestures in the mirror, cut my sideburns here? I nod okay. "I mean, he's a roofer, so he works, but that's all. After tht, he's anti-social." She snips away intently, breathing through her nose. I feel her breath on my neck. "But I'm going out anyway. I need a night out." She isn't tired from standing up all day. This was a worn out life kind of tired. "Maybe my family can help out," she wonders aloud. She stops working for a second. "That why I moved up here from Nashville, to get some help. I got a little girl who's starting kindergarten and she's blind, and a 13-year-old boy who's hyperactive. So I think I deserve a night out." "Excuse me, did you say your little girl is blind?" I ask. "Yes. Well, she can detect light. But she's been blind since she was six months old. She was a premmie baby who got too much oxygen after she was born, causing detached retinas in her eyes." "How's she doing?" I ask quietly. She smiles so big it improves her posture. "Great. She was pecking out a song on the piano that she'd just heard on the radio. It was perfect. I asked everybody around if they'd been playing that Monkees song 'Daydream Believer' to her, but they hadn't. She was playing it by ear after hearing it just once on the Magic Oldies station. You want the back tapered or blocked?" She transitions so quickly I kind of panic. For real. Tapered. No, blocked. "Tapered," I say. "Unless you think blocked. Oh, just go with tapered." She starts tapering. "But my boy, he's hyperactive and he can't help out as much as I'd like. And my boyfriend." She stops again.. "He don't help out at all. Oh, he pays half the bills, but that's it." "That's just money," I say, taking her side. "I just wish he'd move back to Nashville," she says. "I wish he'd go back to his own family." I see her face in the mirror, her blue pupils become small dots looking far off into some other future. Then--like that--we're done. She brushs the hair off my neck. Removes the towel. Looks at me in the mirror with a knowing smile and a countenance of tiredness and satisfaction. |
| PAH! |
| The Only Thing I Didn't Get Was Her Name |
| by Mark Morelli |