Getting my hair cut

by Larkin

The razor hovered, plunged, hovered, plunged, and my neck was left exposed.

The scissors grabbed and pulled and grubby blonde hair fell off my shoulders and onto the white mottled floor.

We hadn’t spoken yet. I am never sure of the protocol. What do you want? You tell them. Then where do you start if they don’t start it? Maybe they get bored of talking, there is nothing to say they have to. So you sit and make serious faces at yourself in the mirror.

They start around the edges. They finish on top. Midway through don’t peak a look. You won’t like it.

A man comes in, he’s wearing a coat though it’s sunny. He looks to my man, starts a conversation started at some point before. Above the chops I try to listen. It’s about the football. I nod and smile, but the nodding puts my arteries at risk. I get a grimace. I decide to keep still. The man is sat with his paper and he doesn’t like that I am in his seat. He watches me through the sport headlines. And in the background a quiet radio plays some classical music.

The buzz of the razor starts up again. The edges are tidied. I watch the signs on the wall. 1930s cartoons, products from the 1950s, a mirror torn at the edges, a half naked man advertising a razor saying you have to be a real man to handle it. I look back to the mirror. I am not a real man.

A hairdrier starts up and blows away the dregs. A mirror shows me what the back of my head looks like. It’s abrupt. And the other men are shuffling in their streets, whispering conversations. A man emerges from a towel, an expression of surprise.

And I am unveiled. The black cloth lifts and the start of a smile begins as I stand.

And suddenly we are transformed. I’m up, smiling. You can’t stop us talking. Nice day, busy, great cut, see you next time. And you can’t stop those  teeth of his shining. I hand over the cash and he makes a show of counting the change and all the time we both grin manically, we both can’t help oursleves. He opens the door and the wind whips around the virgin skin of my ears and I stumble upon a clean cut version of my reflection in the window of a coffee shop and I look back to see the man with the paper sitting in my seat. And I watch his face turn down. And silence decends.