Friday Morning Shearing
Ron is sitting in a chair reading the paper when I wander into his barber shop, tucked behind a thrift store that leaks the smell of old clothes into the carpeted hallway.
Ron sees my sheepdog mop and wants to make it clear he’ll have to charge me extra, because otherwise people like me who only submit to a shearing every six months would take advantage of him. He’s not new to this game.
Ron asks me to pull up a picture of what I’d like because he needs to be sure he gets the sides right, and so I comply and find a photo of one of the Hemsworths to appease him, try to make a dumb joke asking if he can also make my face look like that for my wife’s sake, the sort of line I figure a guy my age should say to a guy his age. Ron doesn’t seem to find this very funny.
Ron tells me I could get hair plugs to cover the bald spot at the top of my forehead, one I’ve sported since being scooped out of my mother’s abdomen. Ron asks me if I got it from hitting a piece of furniture, and I assure him no, I was born this way.
Ron asks if both my kids are the same sex, and when I tell him I have two boys, he says he figured, which makes me wonder what sort of vibe I’m giving off.
Ron sprays a conditioner on my hair that he says little girls use, which makes me wonder even more.
Ron wears an earpiece for his cell phone, and at one point I think he’s taken a call; instead, he’s asking me if I know someone named Carson who has three kids and lives somewhere near me. Ron wants to know where I live on 1st Street: the right or left side? Four houses down, five houses down?
Ron is a fisherman and a birder, and he tells me about driving over near Lone Rock the previous week and spying a swan amid the thawing ice.
Ron asks if I take any vitamins, and when I tell him no, he says I should at my age, which reminds me of the time a doctor advised me to start eating turkey sandwiches for breakfast to build more muscle mass.
Ron dusts off the bottom of my neck, tells me not to move on him, shaves an even line across the base of my scalp.
Ron tells me I owe him $27, by cash or check, which must include that surcharge. Maybe I’ll see him again in six months.
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