Bad Haircut (9 page)

“Bob fucking Hope,” Dirk added.

“The King fucking Family.”

“Andy fucking Williams. ”

“Just once,” Ed said, “I'd like to turn on the TV and watch the Aerosmith Christmas special.”

“Or the Dead,” Sally suggested. “That would be cool.”

“Not all those shows suck,” I said. “Rudolph's pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I like Rudolph,” said Sally.

“Then you're both assholes,” Ed told us.
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
is a totally fucked-up story.”

“Gimme a break,” Sally said.

“I'm serious,” Ed said. “I've been thinking about it.” He took a swig from his rum bottle, then a swig from the Coke can in his other hand. “I'm serious. First Santa cuts Rudolph from the reindeer team ‘cause he's handicapped, he's got this electronic nose, right, and the next thing you know, everyone's down on Rudolph, his parents, his girlfriend, all the shithead reindeers. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “So what?”

“So Rudolph runs away and hooks up with the misfits, who are completely excellent, but he has to leave their island because of the Abominable Snowman, right? So after putting Rudolph through all this crap, Santa has the gall to go back to him and beg him to guide the sleigh, because it's foggy out, and all of a sudden the electronic nose is this big bonus item. Now Buddy, if you're Rudolph, what do you do?”

“You're a reindeer,” I said. “It's not like you have much choice.”

“See,” he said. “You're a chickenshit, just like Rudolph. But if it was up to me, I'd say, ‘Suck my moosecock, Santa, I wouldn't guide your sleigh tonight for a million bucks, you fat shit.’”

After a while, Dirk broke the silence. “I was
just thinking,” he said. “What if we changed our name to the Misfits?”

It was standing room only by the time Ed and I got to St. Elmo's. We had to squeeze in with the crowd of latecomers that had gathered in the rear of the church. At the altar, a choir of sixth-grade girls was singing “Silent Night.”

I was feeling a little shaky. On top of the rum and coke, we'd smoked a joint before Dirk and Sally dropped us off, and now my head felt like it had been inflated to twice its normal size. A lot of adults were staring at me, their attention apparently focused on the shopping bag full of clothes that I'd set on the floor between my feet. To make matters worse, Ed snickered every time the choir hit a bum note.

Out of nowhere the organist struck a chord and a man in a dark suit shoved me backwards. It took a moment for me to comprehend that the man was an usher, making room for the priests and altar boys now entering the church to the tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Our paperboy was at the head of the procession, carrying a tall silver crucifix. I winked at him, but his eyes remained wide and unblinking as he passed with slow, measured steps. I leaned forward to see if I could recognize anyone else. A priest swung a metal incense ball right in front of my nose. The smoke pouring out of it was heavy and
moist; one breath of it sickened me. A splash of holy water got me in the face just as Monsignor McGuire shuffled past with a ceramic baby Jesus cradled in his arms. The doll was ugly—bald, jowly, unhappy-looking—a miniature version of the monsignor.

Mass started, and it was fun for a while to watch the people sit, stand, speak, and cross themselves on cue. Every now and then, someone stood up for no reason, glanced around in alarm, then sat quickly back down. It was like a huge, easygoing game of Simon Says.

Ed poked me. “Is that your dad with Toupee Ray?”

My father was sitting on the right side of the aisle. He was wearing his good blue raincoat, and his hair was slicked back with Vitalis, curling a bit above the collar. There was no mistaking the hairline next to his.

“Ray should have a raccoon tail hanging from that thing,” Ed whispered.

Bill Floyd was everywhere these days. Not long ago I'd never seen him anywhere except church. He came with his mother. Mrs. Floyd was a blue-haired lady who wore a fur coat all year round, except in summer, when she wore a stole that came from the same animal. At the end of mass, while everyone else filed out, she remained on her knees. Her son sat beside her with his hands in his lap, looking calm and unhurried.

I had a clear view down the narrow center aisle straight to the altar, where a priest I'd never seen before was going on in what may have been a foreign language, and I remembered that there used to be a bowling alley in the basement of the church. My father had worked there as a pinboy for a penny a game back in the days before automated bowling, the days of Latin Mass. Years ago, the basement had been renovated into a separate church, with indoor-outdoor carpeting and soft overhead lighting. They had guitar masses down there.

I started to feel a little sick. Had someone turned up the heat? I wanted to take off my coat, but the procedure struck me as impossibly complex, what with the noise of the zipper and all the elaborate arm movements, so I decided to leave it on and concentrate on remaining upright.

Monsignor McGuire was giving a sermon about the Immaculate Conception. “And the Wonder of Wonders, the absolute joyful mystery of our Savior's birth is that God saw fit that Mary remained without stain. Our Holy Mother was without stain.”

Ed gave me an elbow. “What detergent did she use?” His voice was nearly as loud as the Mon-signor's.

Heads swiveled from all directions to look at us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hefty usher start toward us, and something about his
sideburns made me sure he was an undercover cop. The last thing I needed was to get busted in church. I grabbed my shopping bag and pushed through the crowd into the vestibule. Without stopping to bless myself, I opened the heavy wooden door and stepped outside.

The fresh air only made me feel worse. It was too early to go home, and I couldn't think of anyplace to hang out, so I had no choice but to try to walk off the nasty hum in my head. I wandered down Grand Avenue, past darkened shops and factories, staring at my sneakers so I wouldn't have to look at the endless series of identical Santa Claus faces smiling down at me from the overhead wires. At Icee Freez, beneath the neon vanilla cone that had been turned off for winter, I stopped to take a rest. Someone had been using the parking lot to sell real Christmas trees. There were still a few left, scrawny spruces lying flat on the asphalt, cut down for nothing. Hoping to clear my head, I bent down over one to inhale the scent of the needles. It was a mistake. I puked on the tree, then remained on all fours until the spasms passed.

As soon as I felt a little better I dragged my shopping bag over to another, slightly larger tree. It occurred to me that I'd have to change into my good clothes if I wanted to avoid a scene at home. I unzipped my coat and draped it over the tree, as though covering a corpse. Then I took off my shirt. I pictured myself as one of those bare-chested
drunks you see at football games, raising his beer cup to the TV camera while the fans around him shiver beneath layers of winter clothing.

It took me about six tries to get the tie right, and even then the skinny end was a little too long. I sat down on the tree trunk to put on my ridiculous shoes. They had three-inch plastic heels and were hopelessly out of style. Just last year, I had begged my parents to buy them for me.

When I walked through the front door, my mother was right where I knew she'd be—in the middle of the floor, wrapping a present. The Yule log was burning on TV.

“You're early,” she said.

“We had to stand in the back. I left at the beginning of Communion.”

“Oh.” She measured a length of red ribbon and snipped it with her scissors.

I took off my coat and hung it in the hall closet. The coat slid off the hanger just as I closed the door.

“I saw Daddy with Bill Floyd,” I said. “I guess he got a second wind.”

“Why didn't you wait for a ride?”

“I don't know. I guess I felt like walking.” My voice sounded as though a ventriloquist were standing behind me, pulling a string.

Her eyes narrowed. “You look funny. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Come here. Hold down this ribbon for me.”

“Just a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Come on. It'll only take a second.”

I approached cautiously and knelt down. I placed my index finger on the ribbon and stared at my fingernail for what seemed like a long time, trying not to breathe in her direction. She never tied the knot. When I looked up, her eyes were sparkling.

“How could you?” “What?”

“Don't,” she said. “Don't make it worse. Just get out of my sight.”

I woke up on top of my bed, feeling awful. My pants were off, but I was still wearing the shirt and tie I'd put on at Icee Freez. I forced myself to sit up. As soon as I loosened the tie, my head started pounding and I remembered why I was awake: I had to wrap the presents.

On my way to the bathroom for aspirin I stepped on something. I groped for the wall switch and saw, in the sudden nightmare brightness, that my mother had left scissors, tape, and wrapping paper outside my door.

The picture on front of the Pepperoni and Assorted Cheeses Gift Pack was almost enough to make me puke again, but somehow I managed to pull myself together. When I was finished I gathered
the gifts in my arms. They looked like they'd been wrapped by a six-year-old.

Downstairs, Bill Floyd was stretched out on the recliner, fast asleep. He was flat on his back with his hands behind his head. Every few seconds a blinking light illuminated the room. The light came from a large, five-pointed star on top of the tree, a star I'd never seen before.

I set my presents under the tree. When I stood up the star blinked and I got a good look at Bill Floyd. He was snoring softly, and I felt a strong urge to shake him by the arm and wake him up. I wanted to watch him sit up and glance around in confusion, his toupee comically askew on his head, trying to figure out where he was.

I poked him once, but he only mumbled a vague protest. His face was peaceful, and it was suddenly strange to think of him waking up, putting on his coat, and trudging home through the darkness. The star blinked again. It was strange to think of him opening the door and stepping inside the big empty house that was waiting for him.

You Start to Live

 

I
t was just my luck to get Coach Bielski for driver's ed. Even when I played football, he hadn't been that crazy about me. He didn't like my attitude, the way I'd shrug when he asked me why I'd thrown a bad pass or missed a tackle. And he didn't like the way my hair stuck out from the back of my helmet or sometimes curled out the earholes. He'd tug on it at practice and say, “Cut that fucking hair, Garfunkel, or I'll cut it for you. I just got a chainsaw for my birthday.” (He always called me Garfunkel, because of my hair and because he'd once seen me in the hallway, strumming someone's guitar. To Bielski, Simon and Garfunkel represented the outer limits of hippiedom.)

He was late for our first meeting. It was January and cold in the gym, but Bielski was dressed, as usual, in tight blue shorts and a gray T-shirt, the uniform that had made him a legend among Harding
High football fans. He wore it every year to the Thanksgiving Day game, even if there was snow on the ground or a temperature in the single digits. People loved to see him standing on the rock-hard field, breathing smoke, dressed like it was the middle of summer.

He stopped at the edge of the basketball court to watch some guys shooting hoops, then continued over to the bleachers, where I sat waiting for him in the second row, wearing my blue suede coat.

“Well, well,” he said. “Looks like Art Garfunkel wants to drive.”

“You start to live when you learn to drive,” I said, quoting from a late-night TV commercial.

Bielski shook his head. “Do yourself a favor, Garfunkel. Lay off the wacky weed. It's not doing wonders for your IQ.” He glanced at his clipboard. “Is Laura Daly here?”

I joined him in scanning the empty bleachers. “Doesn't look like it.”

“Thanks for the input, Garfunkel.”

He handed me the clipboard, then dove to the floor and started doing marine push-ups. He always did push-ups when there was time to kill, partly because he was a show-off, and partly because he was a genuine fanatic. He did a hundred without breaking rhythm—I counted the hand claps—and was breathing more or less normally when he stood up. I gave him back the clipboard.

“Do me a favor, Garfunkel. Go see if Daly's in the hallway.”

I didn't have to go far. Laura and her boyfriend were right outside the gym door, making a spectacle of themselves. Keith was backed up against a locker, cupping Laura's ass with both hands. She was on tiptoes, wearing the white nurse's dress that was mandatory for girls in the Beauty Culture program, licking his ear with an odd thoroughness, like a mother cat cleaning one of her kittens. I watched them for a while, then went back in the gym.

“She's right outside,” I said to Bielski.

“Did you tell her to get her butt in here?”

“Not really.”

Bielski tapped my head a few times, like he was knocking on a door. “You know what your problem is, Garfunkel? You're a spectator. You're happy to just stand around and watch. You don't take charge of a situation.”

He strode out to the hallway and blew three shrill blasts on his whistle. “Break it up,” he shouted. “Or take it to the Holiday Inn. No sex in the hall.”

Laura followed him inside. Her blond hair was messed, but she didn't seem the least bit embarrassed. I noticed a couple of greasy fingerprints on her dress when she sat down. Keith's hands must have been dirty from auto shop.

Bielski stuck his finger in her face. “Listen
up,” he said. “I don't care what you do on your own time, but this class is my time. When that bell rings, you're mine, understand?”

He started a speech about how seriously he took driver's ed, but was interrupted almost immediately when Tammi Phillips tapped him on the shoulder. Tammi was a cheerleader who spent a lot of time around the coaches’ office. She was small and had a cute upturned nose. Everything about her was girlish except her breasts, which were huge, way too big for her body.

“Coach,” she said. “Telephone.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

Without a word, Bielski turned and jogged across the gym to the coaches’ office. Tammi walked back in the same direction. The guys in gym class stopped playing basketball and exchanged glances as she passed.

Laura and I sat together without speaking. After about ten minutes she stood and stretched; her dress moved way up her thighs. She caught me staring, but only raised her eyebrows when she finished yawning.

“I'm going,” she said. “See you Thursday.”

I stayed put until the end of the period. Bielski never showed up.

I had a hard time learning to drive. Bielski said I thought too much, and he was probably right. I hadn't expected to have to think at all and was
startled by the complexity of driving, the need to calculate risks and make snap decisions while moving. I expected the car to make decisions for me, and when it didn't, I panicked.

“Change lanes,” Bielski said.

In the mirror, I saw a van bearing down in the left lane; my hands tightened on the wheel. Should I accelerate and cut in front of it? Or should I slow down and let it pass? I had to think fast, but my mind was blank, humming like a refrigerator. I followed my gut instinct and slammed on the brakes in the middle of St. George Avenue. The tires squealed; Bielski and I snapped forward and back in our seatbelts.

“Sorry,” I said.

His eyes were wide, frightened. Laura giggled in the back seat, and I spent the rest of the day running stop signs and missing turns. When we finally got back to school, Bielski took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

“Land ho,” he said.

Laura drove one-handed, like an old pro. She was such a natural that Bielski let her take us on the Parkway our third week out.

“Don't worry,” he told her. “It's a piece of cake. Just get in your lane and stay there.”

It was a sunny day, the first in weeks, and we were heading south. Traffic was light. Laura and Bielski were discussing a TV movie that I hadn't
seen. From what I could gather, it was about a woman who suffers from amnesia after a car accident and fails in love with her doctor. Laura liked the movie, but Bielski thought it was unrealistic.

“Come on,” he said. “If all you did was watch movies, you'd think amnesia was a common thing. It's ridiculous. When was the last time you met someone with amnesia?”

“I can't remember,” Laura said, and they both laughed.

While they talked, I gazed out the window at the other drivers. J saw a woman screaming over her shoulder at her kids, who were pounding each other in the back seat, and a guy in a business suit singing into an invisible microphone. I saw a nun eating a McDonald's hamburger in a station wagon. There was even a man who was reading a book. He was holding it up with one hand and moving his eyes rapidly from the page to the road.

One day in February, Bielski didn't show up for class. Laura and I sat in the bleachers for about twenty minutes, watching the guys in fourth-period gym play their usual lethargic game of basketball while the jayvee wrestling coach, Mr. Guido, looked on in disgust. I nudged Laura. “You wanna go smoke a joint?” Her face perked up. “You got one?” It was the early lunch period, so we didn't have to use any elaborate maneuvers to get outside.
We just walked through the cafeteria and out the door. We crossed Fillmore to Seventeenth Street, a dead end where students parked when the school lot was full. We sat on the curb in a narrow space between two cars. There was a leafless hedge at our backs, a rundown house across the street.

We had trouble lighting the joint. It was a windy day and the matches kept going out. I crouched in front of her to block the wind. She had the joint in her mouth with both hands cupped around one end. Our heads were close together, and she smiled at me as I struck the match.

Until driver's ed, we hadn't known each other at all. We came from different towns—Harding was a regional school—and took different classes. I was College Prep; she was Beauty Culture and Distributive Education, which was another term for work-study. She got out of school an hour early every day to work at Marcel's Beauty Chateau. Mostly she swept hair off the floor and stuffed it into plastic bags. She said Marcel sold it to a wig factory.

“I'm freezing,” she said. “It's a good thing I put these pants on.”

In the past couple of weeks she'd taken to wearing jeans under her white dress. At first I thought it looked strange, but I was beginning to get used to it. She wore the same pair of Levi's
every day. They had patches on the knees and “Laura + Keith 4 Ever” written in Magic Marker on both thighs.

“I'm cold, too.” I shifted position so our knees were touching.

“Keith wants me to marry him,” she said.

“Wow.”

“I know. It's pretty intense.”

“I can't imagine being married until I'm about thirty.”

“Really?” she said. “I can't imagine being thirty.”

“It's like driving,” I said. “Remember when you thought you'd never be old enough to drive?”

“I've been driving since I was twelve,” she said. “My dad taught me.”

We sat quietly and concentrated on passing the joint.

“So what do you think?” she said.

“About what?”

“About me and Keith.”

“I don't know. Do you love him?”

“Sometimes. We have really great sex.”

I dropped the roach and watched it smolder. Then I stepped on it and smeared it across the pavement. She touched my hand. “I hope I didn't embarrass you.”

I shook my head. Out of nowhere a tingling rush traveled up from my feet and branched out
through my body. I looked at Laura and started to laugh.

“You know what?” she said. “You need a haircut.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I didn't mean it like that. I just think you'd look really cute with short hair. Long hair's out.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't wanna look like a disco boy.”

“I could do it for you. We give free haircuts on Friday mornings. You could come tomorrow.”

“No way. I heard about those free haircuts. Didn't Phyllis Lavetti go bald from one of them?”

“That was a perm,” she said. “You'd just be getting a trim.” She put her hand on my knee. “You'd look really cute, Buddy. The girls wouldn't be able to resist you.”

“They'd find a way.”

The school bell rang, and I felt cheated. Laura put her arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the lips.

“Thanks for getting me stoned. It was fun.”

I helped her up and we started back to school. My body felt bouncy and light, like I was walking on the moon. The driver's ed car drove by just as we reached the corner of Fillmore.

“Oh shit,” Laura said. “We're busted.”

But Bielski drove right by. He pretended not to see us. Tammi Phillips was sitting in the front seat, but she ducked down as soon as we saw her.

* * *

 

I woke up the next morning and looked in the mirror. My hair was flat on one side, frizzy on the other. Laura was right: I needed a trim. It was a kind of defeat, admitting that to myself, a surrender of principle. I hadn't volunteered for a haircut since seventh grade.

I got a pass out of second-period study hall and went upstairs to the Beauty Culture room. I had never been inside and was surprised to see how closely it resembled a real beauty parlor. There was a row of four barber chairs facing a mirrored wall, a row of overhead hairdryers, even a waiting area up front, with women's magazines scattered on a table. There was a pungent chemical smell in the air.

At the far end of the room, a group of girls— most of them wearing jeans under white dresses— stood in a semicircle and watched their instructor, Mrs. Frankel, take bobby pins out of her mouth and jab them into the muddy hair of a middle-aged woman who appeared to be fast asleep in the chair. Closer to me, a lady crossing guard sat beneath a humming dryer, smoking a cigarette and paging through a magazine. I hesitated in the doorway, intimidated by the sight of so many females in one room.

Mrs. Frankel noticed me first. She was a hefty woman in a pale green smock, with a black beehive
hairdo and slashes of purple makeup on both cheeks.

“Come on in, honey,” she called out. “We won't bite.”

Laura rushed across the room. “I'm so glad you came. You're gonna get the works.”

She began by washing my hair. I leaned back in a reclining chair, my neck resting comfortably in a grooved sink. She sprayed my hair with jets of warm water, then massaged apple-smelling shampoo into my scalp. Her hip pressed firmly into my shoulder.

“Does this feel good?” she asked.

I closed my eyes and smiled at the ceiling. After the rinse, she rubbed my head with a towel and led me to a barber chair in the main room. Before she started cutting, she spun the chair around so it faced away from the mirror. Instead of looking at myself, I was staring at the crossing guard, who glanced up from her magazine to give me a friendly smile.

It was the slowest haircut I ever got. Laura would make a tentative snip with her scissors, then step back to consider her next move. After a while, she settled into a steady, thoughtful pace. I didn't mind. All I was conscious of was her physical presence. Her fingers on my jaw. Her breasts against my arm. I had an erection the whole time.

“Damn,” she said. “You have some weird cowlicks.”

I didn't start to worry until the second time she said, “Oops.” Twice after that she called some friends over for whispered conferences; once she crossed the room to talk to Mrs. Frankel. She was still cutting when the bell rang for third period.

A few minutes later she spun me around. I almost didn't recognize myself. My ears and nose looked immense, like I had borrowed them from one of my uncles, and my head seemed slightly off center—no matter how I held it, it seemed to tilt to the right. Laura stood behind me with her hands on my shoulders, trying gamely to smile.

“So,” she said. “What do you think?”

“It's short,” I said. There was a strange hollow feeling in my chest.

“Don't worry,” she said. “You'll look great when it grows in.”

When I walked into history class, the girls stared at me and the guys in the back of the room shrieked in mock horror. After class, I asked my friend Ed if I really looked that bad. He opened his locker and gave me his black winter cap, the kind burglars wear on television.