Wouldn’t Mom just love a mohawk?
YOU CAN TELL A LOT about a man by how much he pays for a haircut. Generally, the cheaper the haircut, the better the man. But there are exceptions.
“Let’s go,” I tell the baby.
“Where?” he says.
“To get a haircut,” I say.
“For you?”
“No, champ,” I say. “You.”
I refuse to coddle this new, ginger-haired baby. Let the others around here treat him like some 18-month-old rock star. I treat him like a 45-year-old guy I might’ve known in the service. We don’t make excuses to each other. We tell it like it is.
Yet we can also sit for hours and not say a single word. We are that comfortable with each other. Soul mates, born 45 years apart.
“I’ll drive,” I say.
“Cool,” he says.
“Let go of my pants,” I say.
“Fine,” he says, grabbing my sleeve instead.
The baby loves going with me for haircuts. We are on his third one now, each one more eventful than the last. The first one came around Christmas, when he sat in my lap and, frozen with fear, barely moved.
“Did you save me a lock of his hair?” my wife asked when we got home.
“No,” I said.
“Oh.... “
“If we’re lucky, he’ll grow more,” I said, trying to be positive about things.
Sure enough, he did. The second haircut, in fact, was even more memorable than the first. The baby howled like a coyote, whimpering in my ear and clutching the skin on my neck with his sticky toddler hands, the way you’d grab a handful of popcorn in a scary movie.
The experience left only minor scars. In a few years, doctors say, the nerve damage may well subside and I’ll be able to turn my head again.
Now, a couple of months later, we are back for more.
“You OK?” I ask as we pull in front of the hairstyling shop.
“Um.... “
“Don’t be a baby,” I tell him.
“OK,” he says bravely.
We are a sight in the barber chair, him on my lap, barber’s smock around the two of us. It is the sort of sloppy image Norman Rockwell might’ve painted after too many scotches. There’s me, all forehead and eyeglasses. Hair beginning to get a little brittle. Like the grass on those L.A. hillsides that face right into the brutal afternoon sun.
Then there’s this baby, a gooey drunk who never seems to sober up. Even in public places, he is given to sudden, spontaneous hugs and teary exclamations of friendship. Drool. Loss of bladder control. An attention span of three, maybe four seconds. When music plays, he just begins dancing. And everything is music. The rumble of a car engine, the barking of the neighbor’s dog.
“Just sit still,” I tell him as we settle into the barber chair.
“I am,” he insists.
Yeah, right. He’s like a monkey at a bar mitzvah. A woman approaches with scissors and the hopeful smile of someone who just wants to survive the next 15 minutes of her life. That’s all she asks of God. Fifteen safe, uneventful minutes. After that, she’ll go to church. Promise. Every Sunday, forever.
“Hi, boys,” she says. “How do you want his hair cut?”
Well, we were thinking about a mullet. Or maybe a flattop. A ducktail might be nice, or maybe that long shaggy look Travolta had in “Pulp Fiction.”
Then again, a good Trump comb-over might be kind of fun. Wouldn’t Mom love that? Or a buzz cut, maybe. Hey, how about the cut Daniel Day Lewis had in “The Last of the Mohicans”? You sure don’t see many babies with hair extensions.
“Just try not to lop off his ears,” I finally say.
The poor hairdresser laughs politely.
“OK, hold still,” she prays.
“Like this?” the baby says, then somersaults twice in my lap, a perfect 10.
“Oh, my,” gasps the hairdresser.
“That’s my boy,” I think proudly.
That hairdresser is gone now. A sweet and lovely woman, she has moved on to other things.
With the tip I gave -- roughly 20,000% -- she was finally able to open the beauty school she’d long dreamed of. And buy a yacht to bring her mother over from the Philippines. And buy the Philippines.
Looking back, it might not have been enough.
Chris Erskine can be reached at [email protected].
