I Am Curious (George)

I had a hair stylist named Tamara. She was a bit kooky, but she could sure cut hair. She left a couple of years ago for Indianapolis and I (along with Nancy) was left to find a replacement.

For a while, I started going to the Fantastic Sam's just down the block: close and cheap. But you do get what you pay for. While they do a great job with David's hair, they never quite cut my hair the way I wanted it. I imagine it has something to do with the distance between my own sensibilities and the current style of the day. A few years back, somewhere around 1989, while living in Portland, I remember sitting in the chair and realizing that even though the woman cutting my hair was trained and talented, something about her suggested that she might think Richard Marx had a nice style going. And that would be a problem.

After a few unsatisfactory cuts from the Fantastic Sam's (and a couple of really unpleasant experiences at the Master Cuts in the mall, where the women cutting my hair were downright hostile), Nancy suggested that I try a barber. There's a barber just down Wabash and so I walked in one day and asked for a cut.

I was somewhere between a David Lynch film and a David Cronenberg film in there. The guy cutting my hair seemed like he'd seen something long ago that shook him to the core. He had a way of speaking that suggested heavy meds, and the pictures on the wall looked like they came from a different family -- one that had stopped existing in about 1964. While I was there, two older men came in, sat down, and talked to each other and the barber about health issues -- my presence went unacknowledged outside of the snip of the scissors close to my ear. One of the men dragged an oxygen tank with him and had no socks on his feet -- which were threatening to burst the sides of his worn out sneakers. The other man didn't button his shirt, which allowed me to get a good long look at the scar that ran up his substantial and slightly discolored belly. He suffered from a throat ailment that made his voice a raspy whisper.

The cut was terrible and the company was creepy, so I paid and got out of there, vowing never to return. Fantastic Sam's was like Shangri-La by comparison.

And then Nancy went to see the woman who replaced Tamara. She returned looking lovely and raving about what a fun person Deborah was. Ever hopeful, I made an appointment. She was fun alright. Peppy as all get out. I don't think she really cared much about what I said I wanted. She just cut it the way she felt like cutting it, telling me how "hot" I was going to look. I am not now, nor have I ever been, hot. Frankly, it was all a bit much, and I left feeling ambivalent at best about my hair. "What's it going take to get a decent, simple haircut?" I thought.

I told Nancy I was just going to go in and say, "Give me the Curious George."

A few months later, as my hair started showing signs of becoming unruly again, our friend Tim suggested that I try a different barber. This guy's downtown and he cuts a lot of the ISU professors' hair. Tim's an upstanding fellow with a pretty good haircut, and so I walked by the shop a few days later to take a look. It was nice and clean from what I could tell, and the barber looked sane, so I made an appointment for Monday.

Monday arrived and I went downtown. The barber was waiting for me, and he wasted no time getting going. He never said, "So what are we doing today?" while running his fingers through my hair, the way Tamara would. He just said, "Trim it up." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.

He had lots of sports memorabilia on the walls, along with some posters of the Indianapolis Colts cheerleaders,
and I noticed a pile of Sports Illustrated on the table by the front window. So we talked sports. At one point, during a lull in the conversation, I looked to my right, toward the back of the shop and noticed a second table, this one by the farthest chair. It was covered with Playboy. "Huh," I thought. "Never seen that in Fantastic Sam's." No, in Fantastic Sam's and Tamara/Deborah's place you just get a mixture of hair style portfolios and upscale urban niche market magazines like Indianapolis or Popular Kitchen Designs. Not a lot for the non-metrosexual man.

But here was a man's world.

He wrapped a piece of tissue paper around my neck before placing the cape on me and snapping it in place. He used clippers primarily, and then brought out the scissors only for the fine work. He cut my hair short, so short it hurt in places. He used a straight razor on the back of my neck, and got rid of those hipster sideburns I've been sporting for 18 years now.

And then, when he seemed to be done, and had removed the cape form my shoulders and brushed the hair form the back of my neck, he did something I didn't expect. He pulled out what appeared to be a hand-held belt sander. He plugged it in, flipped the switch and proceeded to give me a vibrating back and shoulder massage. I watched in the mirror as he moved the machine around my back with striking ease and skill. I was impressed and confused at the same time. Is this standard? How long would this go on? Was I supposed to tell him when to stop? Would it be awkward of me to tell him to stop now? Would it be more awkward to just let him keep going?

It was a strange mixture of intimacy and mechanical efficiency. I glanced over at the stacks of Playboy and suddenly felt ill at ease. I was out of my element.

After several minutes, the massage came to an end. I thanked him for the cut, paid, and left. I told him I'd make another appointment. But I probably won't.

You know, I think I just miss Tamara.