My hair was getting too long last week and i decided it was time to do something about it. It was getting to the point where tiny tufts of hair would stick out from behind my ears. It didn't bother me much, but I was getting tired of being forced to take showers on account of my hair so I decided to just chop it all off. Normally I would undertake this somewhat trivial task myself. However, this haircut would be different on account of my mom getting upset that I always cut my own hair. I think that she thinks it is degrading or something, which totally baffles me. None the less, she gave me twenty bucks and told me to spend it on a haircut... like she was doing me a favor.
So I went down to Laurel Street and found one of those barber shops that has the candy-cane striped post out front. A bell hanging on the inside of the door clanged as I opened it and walked inside. There were three old men sitting there and I did a quick unsuccesful scan over them to figure out which one was the barber. They were a pretty funny lot. The first guy (who turned out to be the barber) was slouched in a junky and faded LazyBoy recliner. He was probably about 65 or 70 years old and had a New York accent. He was really tan and his hair was all greasy and slicked back, and he had on a gold watch. He sat me down and put one of those bibs around me and started doing whatever it is barbers do before they start cutting your hair. He didn't really add much to the conversation except ask me where i went to school and how old was I and point out that kids were getting so you couldn't tell their ages anymore and stuff like that. It was really the other two guys who were doing all the talking. Luckily I was seated facing them which gave me a lot of time to stare without it seeming rude, on account of the fact that I couldn't really move my head at all since the Brooklyn guy was busy cutting my hair. The first guy had on a Forty-Niners polo shirt and a brown net cap that said, World War II, Troop 5 2 7 6, Pacific Islands" or something like that.
The other guy was a bit more amusing. He had on yellow aviator glasses and a bright blue, one-peice aviator flight suit with some sort of airforce stripes on the shoulders. He had a pretty big gut which was practically busting through his one-peice aviator suit. But the kicker was that all the while he was stroking this bewildered miniture chiwawa dog he had clenched against his chest. I'm not kidding! He really liked to say things like, "You remember those GODDAMMED rations they used to give us..." and "You know I never got one of those GODDAMMED Eisenhower Uniforms?" He really liked to use the word "Goddammed." It was just the word that he stuck in when he couldn't remember the name of something, which was practically the case everytime he said anything.
I didn't really follow much what they were talking about on account of them having pretty thick midwest accents, although I could tell that it was always something about the War or military service, or about how So-and-So's coffee shop had finally closed which meant that they were going to have to find a new place to meet every morning, and stuff like that.
The walls were plastered with black and white pictures of skinny, white, boxers from the thirties, and pictures of the forty-niners from 1948. He also had a signed picture of Joe Montana that must have been some sort of a prized posession to him because it was all framed and hanging centered and stuff like that.
Anyways, I was pretty happy with the haircut. Which doesn't say much on account of me not being much interested in hair as long as i don't have too much of it. I promised that I would do well in school and other meaningless stuff that old people like to hear you say, and I strolled back onto Laurel street.