02 October 2007 - 6:58 pm

Welcome to Sarah’s World of the Surreal!

Tonight’s Chapter is entitled “Sarah Gets a Haircut.”

So last night I went to go get my hair trimmed, the ends were nasty and split, and I have been having problems with it being all wispy and fly away and annoying the heck out of me, so perhaps it was time to get it cut. Or at least trimmed. It had been a couple years, as I recall, and it is the longest my hair has ever been, to the point that my hair keeps getting caught in my armpits when I least expect it, and there I am pulling, not figuring out what it might be caught on, only to find it is caught on me myself. So to end all that!

I call Super Cuts. How late are they open? Great. And I love that I don’t need to make an appointment, I just go and possibly wait, possibly don’t.

I arrive. Someone is just leaving, with a grin on their face. Happy customer? I walk in and a man is behind the counter, tattooed and older, skinny, face haggard and crevassed, like an aging rock star. He is doing some paperwork. He does not acknowledge my presence. I notice a sign in the window that says they are looking to hire a receptionist. I wonder how much the job pays. I wonder if this gentleman is not working out for them. I am wandering about, looking at products, not sure what to do, who I am waiting for. Finally the Keith Richards-looking man lifts his head with a curt nod. He doesn’t do anything further, so I walk directly up to him, and he whispers to me that he has had throat surgery and can’t talk. I had noticed something taped to the side of his neck, some black tube thing, and had wondered about it. But it is not in front, like a tracheotomy, but to the side. Perhaps the throat surgery was for the years of singing lead on some punk rock band, and he had lost his voice and gone into haircutting to make ends meet? I told him I wanted a shampoo and a trim.

He showed me over to the chair. I saw a notebook on the counter that indicated he might be new, official procedures sort of training manual, open to a page in the middle of the book. The hair lying on the floor was that of the happy customer who had just left. No receptionist, so no one to clean up, just the hairdressers to maintain order. Mr. Richards sat me down with a flourish, and brushed my hair out aggressively. It even hurt a little, but I really didn’t mind. He handed me a mirror, and indicated how high up he thought he should cut. I shrugged. “Whatever you think best. I know it needs to be trimmed, that’s all I need.” He leaned in close and whispered in my ear: “About six fingers’ width? It looks fine from here on up, but down here it looks like shit.” He paused. “I mean hell.” He paused again. “I mean not good.” Proof indeed he was new to this, that he had to think about how to phrase something to a customer. I wasn’t offended, merely amused, giving new evidence that this indeed was a cousin of Keith Richards with wounded vocal cords. He indicated again the chop line. I shrugged. He leaned in again, to say: “Well, you don’t look scared at the prospect, so let’s do it.” I’m never scared when I go to get my hair cut, but maybe that’s why it takes years for me to go, rather than the recommended every other month or six weeks or whatever it is supposed to be.

Again with the flourish, he gestured for me to follow him, into the back room for the shampooing. I put down my book, purse, hair tie and glasses, and managed to trip over the footrest of the chair in the process. He smiled. Yes, I’m a klutz. Off to the chamber of shampoo.

Somehow, it was just plain awkward. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to sit, or if he wanted to brush off the chair first. I sat. In leaning back into the sink bowl, somehow I didn’t push myself down far enough, and was straining my neck throughout it all. And then there was just something about this rocker dude washing my hair that made me slightly uncomfortable. I knew I was tense and gritting my teeth, but I did try and relax, as he pushed my shoulders down. I just wanted to get through the washing and back in the main room with the other customers and cutters. He came in close, pressing what I believed to be his thigh against my arm, and at one point he was massaging my temples. There was no reason for it, he had already washed and mostly rinsed my hair, and one has to admit letting someone else wash one’s hair is already a sensual experience, their fingers running through the strands like a lover would, and here was now a stranger massaging my temples. I was very aware of his physical presence and the random unbidden thought of what sort of kisser he was entered my brain, how he was as a lover, and exactly how far was his face from mine right then? It ended when one of the other hairdressers walked back for a towel. The fact that it ended then made me realize I wasn’t just imagining the awkwardness of it.

Back to the chair, and the cutting began. My wet hair covered my face, and I was thinking about my mother, as I had earlier in the evening, and how when she came to visit last Christmas time, she had wanted not to get a haircut, but a simple shampoo. That it was a luxury she allowed herself, and I remembered feeling so sad that she sought the physical ministrations of a stranger to touch her, that she paid for someone to touch her scalp, and she considered that a luxury. She has a husband for god’s sake, what did it say about my parents’ marriage? And I thought about my sad little life and how miserable I am right now, how the tears have been on the verge of coming to my eyes several times this last week, and it’s too early for PMS, what is my problem, and how awkward I am and yet I do nothing to make any of the things I dislike about my life better, except maybe these small little steps like getting my hair trimmed…. And I could feel a single tear spill over my lower right eyelid. And then another came out of the left eye. I looked down, and the front of my plastic protective sheet had runs of water down the front, from my hair, my tears, nothing too obvious, and I wondered if Mr. Richards noticed. And then I couldn’t really stop, really wanted a tissue to wipe my nose and instead just sniffed, my hands trapped beneath the plastic cover, and here I was, slowly crying while my hair was getting cut at the hands of a former rock star. What did Mr. Richards think of me now, this tense, uptight, unable to relax, crying woman no longer in the prime of her youth? Was that covered in his manual of situations he might need to handle? I thought not.

He was done. He pulled the mirror out, giving it to me and my still unaided eyes, showed me the result (which I couldn’t really see), I nodded in the affirmative, and he took the little neck cover and then the plastic cover off with a flourish, like a magician finishing off a trick. He stood aside as I gathered my things, and followed me to the front desk again, where someone who was not a hairdresser stood behind the counter, and he stood long enough to gather his new client’s instructions and overhear how much of a tip he was getting from me. As I was filling out my signature, authorizing the transaction, he leaned in to me to whisper in my ear, and I thought maybe he would say something that would give some meaning to this surreal experience, like telling me to meet him at the Roxy when his band played in a couple of months (after his throat healed), telling me to look for the band named… or that he was getting off his shift in an hour, come back and we could go for a drink across the street at the scary dive I had always wondered about…. He said “When you finish with the bottle of shampoo you are currently using, switch to a different kind of shampoo,” and off he swayed to his assigned spot, with another lucky customer following close behind.

Thus ended my surreal hair cut at the hands of a former rock star turned hair dresser. No further enlightenment was gained. I went out into the night and grabbed my dinner from next door and went home, to cry some more unfettered, and eat until the food was gone, waiting for my hair to dry.