The Haircut

           She tilted his head using her two fingers under his chin and studied his angular face. His black curly hair looked recently cut, and she guessed it must have been a month since he had his last haircut. She brushed it, then traded the brush for a pair of scissors and snipped them in the air, testing. She wanted this one to be his best cut ever.

           She talked to him as she cut. It helped to fill the silence in the room.

           “I think you were about three-years-old when your mother brought you to me for your very first haircut. Seems like such a long time ago. That is when I ran the little shop on the corner next to the drugstore. Remember? You probably don’t, being that you were so young.”

She bent over and paused to adjust the cape and wondered why she even needed the thing around his neck anyway. There was a hand-held vacuum nearby on an old stainless-steel table, and most times she just used it. Today, though, she wanted to go old-school with him, like she used to do before he moved away. She flicked a forefinger and a crease in the plastic cape magically disappeared. She resumed her cutting.

“You’re the seventh client I’ve had this week. I thought for sure I could hang it up, after all, I’m well past retirement,” she clucked. The overhead light buzzed and flickered. She shook her head, tapped her foot, and waited until it came back to life. She worked around his ears.

“Yeah, yeah, I didn’t forget. I know you hated white walls around those ears.” She laughed. Her blue-gray hair cut short reflected light with every movement she made. She reached down and stroked the dark whiskers of his long sideburns that melded into a five-day old growth of beard.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that too,” she said. She exchanged the scissors for a trimmer on the table beside her. Pushing the eyeglasses back on her thin nose, she examined the clippers. She turned them over in her old hands, with fingers swollen at the joints with arthritis. She closed one eye as if it would make her see better, then popped off the black plastic #two attachment, and tapped the head of the clippers on her hip to loosen any old hair stuck in the rows of teeth. She studied it again, and satisfied, she turned the cordless clippers on to work on making his face smooth.

“I’ll leave the sideburns. I know you like them.” She hummed some forgotten melody from her youth, and stopped at his chin, lifting the cutting edge away, to stand there trying to remember that song from long ago rolling around in her head. She could not. She disappointingly shook her head, working on his jawline with the clippers until all the facial hair was gone. She put the clippers on the table and stood back as if she were a painter rather than a retired beautician. She cocked her head, and her blue eyes squinted. A stray whisker caught her attention.

“No problem,” she said to him. “I’ll throw in a shave. We want you to look your best, right?” She turned away and picked up a black hose snaking its way to the small vacuum cleaner. At the end of a hose was a small attachment with tiny bristles, and she nodded at it with satisfaction. She turned the vacuum on and bent close to his face making sure that every cut whisker, and cut hair was sucked into the machine. She shut it off, and said, “See, that didn’t hurt a bit did it.” She hated quiet customers. She missed the good old days, and the banter, and gossip that came along with living in a small town. The only thing good about it was at least it supplemented her Social Security and lately, well business was brisk.

She picked up a can of shaving cream and sprayed a dollop in her hand. She rubbed it on his face with her left hand and put the can down on the table with her right.

She looked down at him and smiled a moment. Then she said, “What’s it been Mike, thirty, forty years since I gave you a good old-fashioned straight razor shave? It had to have been at least that long. It was the day you married Sharon and you waited right up to the last minute. Boy, you were lucky, let me tell you, I wasn’t even open that day, but made it a special trip to open up just for you.” She laughed, then went to work with the straight razor. She sang softly to him like it was a lullaby. She paused, checked, and rechecked. Satisfied, she put the razor near the can of shaving cream and picked up a small towel. She wiped his taut face clean.

She combed her fingers quickly through his hair, and admired how nice it looked without even the touch of a brush.

“There you go, Mike. All done.” She stepped back. The light hummed over her casting a white light as sterile as her surroundings. The door leading to the first floor of the funeral parlor opened with a squeak and drew her attention to a short, chubby man with a glistening bald head. His white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a black tie hanging loosely from around his neck dangled. His tired face wore a ruddiness on cheeks hanging heavy with years of quite never getting used to burying people.

“We have another one Mary, do you think you can stay for a little longer today,” his brown eyes magnified like some sad hound and they gazed upon hers. His look spelled exhaustion to her.

“Sure, Ben,” she replied.

“I really appreciate it. I know how busy I’ve been keeping you.”

“It’s not your fault, Ben. They just will not listen. Like Mike here,” She glanced at the body on the stainless prep table.

Ben closed his eyes and nodded his head.

Mary said, “All he had to do was stay home.”

“Maybe one day, they’ll listen,” Ben replied with a whispered sigh.

“Maybe, Mary said. The place smelled of disinfectant, all the bodies were sprayed down before the process, and Mary’s eyes watered. She looked at Ben as he turned to go upstairs to the viewing rooms.

“Ben?”

The tired man stopped and turned.

“I don’t do the makeup, remember?”

“Yes, Mary, I remember.”

The door closed, and his footsteps grew muffled and distant.

The light above her hummed. Tired, she sighed heavily.

?2020 Ronnie Ray Jenkins

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