The Shave and The Haircut
by Rhan Wilson
I never liked getting my hair cut.
As a child of the 60’s living in Santa Cruz, California, I always wanted long hair, even when I was a little boy.
I remember one time when my father had to trick me into getting a haircut. We were on the sidewalk in front of the barbershop, but I stubbornly refused to go inside. Finally, he pointed to the spiraling red and white barber pole and told me that there was a switch on top I could push to turn it on and off. I let him pick me up so I could toss the switch and I was in the shop before I could do anything about it.
Now here I am today at Becker’s Barbershop in Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania – sitting back in the chrome and red vinyl chair and at total peace with the world. My thoughts take me back to when I lived in San Francisco years ago when I decided to shave off all of my hair.
My long hair wasn’t so long anymore, and what was left was thinning. I figured if I was going to say goodbye to long hair, I might as well make it a bit of an art project, so I called my sister who lived nearby in the Haight and who was, and continues to be, a stylist and makeup artist. I set up a video camera on a tripod, sat down in a revolving chair facing a mirror, and began to document the haircut.
Little by little, she cut, stopping along the way to turn on the camera and slowly spin me around while it recorded the 360 degree view. Each stop was a different style: spit curls, roman, mohawk, and so on until we got down to skin.
When we were done, I had shed more than my hair; I had also let go of the old me and allowed myself to become a different person, free from attachment to the way I used to look since my youth.
After that, haircuts could be done at most any barber shop, instead of the expensive stylist I used to go to. Still, the barber in the city wasn’t cheap, and I always felt like a number with only fifteen minutes to get in and get out at my appointed time. A noisy business on busy Market Street in the city, I didn’t go often enough to know the barber and he certainly didn’t know my name, or what I wanted done to my hair, what little I had left of it.
Here in this country barbershop I feel so completely relaxed and in sync. When I walked in, Steve the barber was just finishing a haircut. There is no need for an appointment here at Becker’s - you come in and wait your turn, like everyone else. In this quiet, little one-street town, everyone seems to know everyone, and if you don’t, like a newcomer such as me, it’s easy to strike up a conversation with whoever is waiting with you.
But this time I didn’t even have time to read from any of the magazines he keeps neatly stacked up on a low table in the waiting room, as today there was no one else waiting ahead of me.
“Hello Ronald,” he said, as he swept the hair from the floor into a neat little pile.
“Howdy,” I answered as I set my hat and keys on a nearby counter.
“What are we doing today?” he asked, knowing that I am not one to reply with “the usual”, though I am tending as of late to be falling into that routine.
“Well, I’ve been getting a crew cut with the top a little longer” I tell him, thinking how odd it feels for me to actually ask for a “crew cut” and smiling at how, with my thin hair longer at the top, I think I look a little like one of those baby orangutans I have seen pictures of.
“And I think I’ll get a shave, as well.” I say after brief consideration. Rarely do I opt to get a shave for a couple of reasons. One, it seems so much work to always be shaving every day, which is what one needs to do to retain a close shave; it might make sense if I had a “real” job, but being self-employed, I choose to go for that natural look. And two, because it takes some time to have done, and had there been a line behind me, I would have felt like I was holding things up.
But today, however, it feels that this is just me and this is my day at the barbers. I had planned this trip out east for some time and have been postponing getting this haircut so I could get it here instead of in California. I might as well treat myself to the “works.”
With my eyes closed I hear the trimmer as it is turned on and soon feel its vibration as it shears off weeks of excess growth. From the nape of my neck to the top of my head, the trimmer passes; its tiny criss-crossing blades lifting, then cutting each and every strand.
I hear the snip-snip of his scissors catching a stray follicle here and there, and then the slower and precise cuts as he neatens up my various facial orifi.
“Be absolutely still!” I say to myself, as I imagine that one small move could send those pointy shears right up my nose into my brain or all the way into my eardrum.
Moments later I hear the sound of a machine on the counter as it dispenses a handful of hot lather into Steve’s hand, which he then dabs around my ears, and up to the back edge of my hairline.
There is the back-and-forth slapping of the straight edge razor against the leather strap hanging from the chair, and I then feel the sharpened edge of the blade next to my ear, surgically shaving away any trace of unwanted hair. From across my shoulders and up to the back of my hairline, the blade moves effortlessly, leaving a clean and smooth path in its wake. With each pass, the blade is cleaned of its accumulated shaving cream and hair on a towel before returning.
I breathe carefully and remain particularly still, as I realize that a slip of this tool would cause far more damage than even the pointy scissors.
“How’s that?” he asks as he spins the chair towards the mirror.
“Perfect,” I reply as I notice not the time, but that the clock on the wall is backwards when looked at, yet reads correctly when viewed in a mirror.
As I sit up and stretch, I hear the sound of running water as he methodically washes his hands in the adjacent bathroom’s sink.
He returns and opens up a drawer and takes out an attachment for the chair which he then slides into the proper place for my head. The footrest I had used for the cut is flipped over and becomes a padded rest for my legs, and as he pulls a lever, the whole chair reclines and I am now in position for phase two: the shave.
“What a wonderful chair this is,” I think to myself and imagining how nice it would be to have one just like it to watch television in.
Again I hear the lather machine and again I feel the hot foam - this time on my neck and face. Then, just like I’ve seen on old television shows, a hot towel is pulled from a steamer, wrapped about my face and over my eyes, pressed into place and left to work its magic.
This feels incredible. As I relax in the warmth of this preparation, my thoughts drift to the old Three Stooges movies when the barber overheats the towel and tosses it on his client’s face. Distracted, the barber doesn’t hear the muffled screams of pain nor notice the writhing agony of his customer beneath the steaming cloth.
I suddenly begin to think of how vulnerable I am right now.
What if the barber decides to go nuts, right here on me?! He has a straight-edged razor, and I am here lying back with a hot towel over my face. He could “off” me like the gangsters in the old movies did to the dirty rats they wanted to get rid of.
I think back to what I may have told him about myself, my politics...let’s see – he knows my name now, even only after a few visits, and knows that I travel back and forth to PA from CA, that I go to Renaissance Fairs, play music, and have a rather odd sense of humor. Hopefully, nothing he should want to seek revenge for. I relax again.
I hear the sound of the strap again and soon feel the edge of the blade against my neck, scraping the week old stubble I keep most of the time.
Steve Becker is in no apparent hurry. He often stops his work to sip from the glass of water he keeps nearby, and glances through the window to admire the peaceful countryside. He has told me that he used to work a regular job in the city, but decided to quit it all and become a barber. He bought this house, set up shop in part of it, and rented out the rest.
Up and down my neck, across my cheek, over my lip; all the places I generally don’t let people run a razor blade over. I trust that I won’t have too many nicks and cuts the next day and that his mind won’t wander off somewhere and cause him to slip. It wouldn’t take much to make a nasty cut.
Usually by now there would be someone waiting in line after me, but I must have timed it just right today, as I have probably been here close to an hour, getting trimmed, powdered, shaved, and aftershaved.
I hear a splashing and soon feel the slap of aftershave on my freshly shaven face. I feel a slight but refreshing sting, followed by a soothing coolness.
“Smooth as a baby’s butt!” he says with satisfaction, nudging me out of my dreamlike state, and readjusts the chair to an upright position.
I think about the times I have spent good money on a massage, or on an evening’s hot tub rental, or in the “old days” when I would get my hair “styled” and spend forty bucks with tip. My shave and a haircut today was better than all of those put together.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask, still blissfully dazed.
“Let’s see...” he says, adding numbers in the air. “Haircut... shave... that’ll be sixteen dollars.”
“What a deal," I say, fishing out a twenty from my cluttered wallet.
“Keep the change.”
“Thanks, “ he says graciously.
“See you next time!” I say as I walk out the door, stepping off the porch, past his sign and over to the gravel parking area, almost skipping as I get into my truck. I feel the air on the back of my neck as if it were for the first time.
For an hour or so today, I stopped thinking about work. I didn’t care if I had any email, or if someone had left me a message on my answering machine. I focused on just myself and left all my other worries aside.
As I drive along the windy two-lane country road towards home, I am feeling refreshed and especially alive.
This man, me - who as a boy used to have to be tricked into getting a haircut- can’t wait for the next one.
 |
Steve Becker stands with his trusty red and chrome barber chair. |