Putting on (H)airs

It’s been fifteen months since I broke it off with him. I still get flashbacks when I smell his hair gel. I remember the way my dark hair seemed even darker in his pale hands. He had become complacent; taking me for granted. He should have seen this break up coming, but I think it took him by surprise. My first instinct was to just stop calling him, after all, I really didn’t owe him an explanation. So I like to think I did the noble thing by sending him an e-mail, which was quick and to the point:

Sorry, I won’t be seeing you anymore, I found someone else to cut my hair.

Ending a ten –year relationship with your hairdresser is rough but I had not been happy for the last 2 or 3 years of our affiliation. My hair styles had become dated and he had lost the passion he once had for cutting my hair. And within the last year he had double booked me TWICE, seeing one client on the side while trying to cut my hair at the same time.

And so he became the latest in a long line of rocky relationships I have had with hairdressers that began with a harrowing experience in the early seventies.

By 1973, man had traveled to the moon six times, abortion had finally become legal in the US and the Sears Tower in Chicago had become the world’s tallest building. And as a sign of true progress, the small city I was living in finally opened its first unisex hair salon called Capricorn. I knew that my life at age thirteen would change forever if I could just get an appointment to get my hair cut there. It was only a new hairstyle that was keeping me from becoming someone that was handsome, athletic, and popular.

The neighborhood barbershop I usually went to, Flores Barbershhop, only had two types of haircuts: a boy’s haircut and a man’s haircut. A man’s haircut was $3.00 and a boy’s haircut was was half that price. I would hop into his chair, he would point and tap at $1.50 sign posted and then he would cut my hair. No other words were exchanged, he neither received nor asked for any other direction.

It took me three months but I finally saved $5.00, the outrageous price of a haircut at Capricorn, and called to make an appointment.

Capricorn was located on the 16^th floor of the new American Bank Building. The American Bank Building was recently completed in 1972, thirty-one stories high. Lubbock had the measly twenty-one story South Plains Building (left empty and barely standing from the 1971 tornado) we had the American Bank Building. Lubbock may have had Texas Tech University and Prairie Dog Town, but we had Cadillac Ranch and the American Bank Building, the tallest building from Dallas to Denver (the townsfolk would repeat ad nauseam). Out of our way Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, we were on our way to becoming a real, cosmopolitan city!

On the day of my hair appointment, my mother drove me to the landmark building and insisted on accompanying me inside. We walked through the glass and silver polished lobby of the bank building full of well dressed men and women, and made our way to the elevators. We got off on the 18^th floor and the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows was worth the $5.00. Capricorn was decorated like a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. There were stark, white walls and white furniture and I was afraid to touch anything for fear that I might smudge or get something dirty.

A woman resembling Goldie Hawn from Shampoo led me to her station and instead of stopping in the waiting area, my mom followed me over to her chair. I had an ill feeling in my stomach, about the size of a grape. The hair stylist explained what she was going to do. The haircut would be $5.00 and the shampoo would be $1.00.

“Why does he need a shampoo?” my mother questioned, “Are you saying that his hair isn’t clean?”

“No”, the stylist explained, “this is standard procedure.”

“He just washed his hair this morning, there’s no need to wash it again.”

The stylist explained that the hair had to be wet when cut and styled.

“Well why can’t you just wet his hair?”

“I’ll pay the dollar”, I chimed in.

“A dollar to shampoo your hair? That’s ridiculous.”

By now the other stylists and customers began to take notice of our little drama.

“I’m sorry ma’am but we have to shampoo this hair.”

“Fine, we will go back home, we will wash his hair, and I will make sure that we leave his hair wet, will that satisfy you?”

We left the styling salon and the knot in my stomach grew from a grape into a small orange. My mother said nothing on the way home and I was hoping that she would forget about the whole thing. I would try again later, on my own.

As soon as we arrived home, my mom instructed me to wash my hair. If the snooty, professional version of Goldie Hawn could not wear her down, what chance did I have? After I washed my hair, my mom was waiting with a blue towel with loud pink flowers.

Dry your hair and put this towel over your head,” she instructed. She had become deaf to any protests I made and the small orange turned into a grapefruit as I looked into her eyes and knew that she would not be satisfied until she had her final confrontation with the Capricorn cosmetologist.

We parked in front of the building and I pulled the blue towel with pink flowers over my head as we walked through the glass and silver bank lobby, full of well-dressed men and women and made our way to the elevator. I was merely a walking shell of person, I had gone to my “happy place” a place no one had kinky black hair, a place where everyone had blond hair that was neatly trimmed.

The grapefruit was now a watermelon and when we arrived on the 16th floor, my mom guided me through the salon. Mercifully the towel blocked my peripheral vision so I couldn't really see, but could feel, everone's eyes on me. We arrived at the stylist’s station and she pushed me down in her chair.

“There”, she said, “Now cut his hair!”

I learned my lesson from this event, which is: No creerse mucho! Which roughly translated means: "Don’t go around thinking you’re all that because you will deservedly fall on your ass", or "Don’t think you are better than who you are". More directly, "Don't go around thinking that you're White, 'cause you're not. People visiting the Texas Panhandle wonder why there is a proliferation of Wrangler Jeans, drab shirts and sad, ugly haircuts. Well it's because all Amarilloans believe in this same conservative, Latino, Catholic, Texas Panhandle philosophy: "Don’t go around putting on airs".

Anyway, I’d like to report that my hair cutting experiences have gotten better since then, but I

have had some pretty bad stylists. Like the time I went to this one hairdresser who kept excusing herself to do lines of coke in the restroom and was so high she gave me a flat top haircut before I could say anything. Another burned my scalp with chemicals so badly its amazing I have any hair left.

ButI found a guy to cut my hair that has recently arrived from Iran and I think he is going to work out. He isn’t fancy and only knows one type of hair style but he does a pretty good job with that one style. He doesn’t speak English very well, so I hop into his chair, he points and taps at a picture of a guy with short hair and asks do you want this cut? I say "yes" and he proceeds to cut, no other words are exchanged, he neither receives nor asks for any other direction.